Chapter 4—Aquatic Tactics
(A/N: Well only one person reviewed so only one person gets bonus points…MysticFireBlood. As a result she got to request something to happen in this chapter and I was able to oblige and work it in. I also had to up the rating on this story due to the upped violence level and language. Anyways I hope everyone enjoys this next chapter)
(Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or it's characters. I sort of own the villains in this chapter but not really, they're based off of Cowboy Bebop characters.)
Asuma was starting to lose the breath he held while in the giant water prison inside this forest. To top it all off, three dangerous fish-based summonings were after him. The Red Tail was using its feelers to sniff him out literally and was soon rushing after him. Asuma decided to spring off the branch he was sitting on and rocket out of the water to catch his breath. As he jumped above the surface, the Swordfish jumped out of the water at the same time and slashed at him rapidly with its sword-like upper jaw. Asuma blocked its attacks with his trench knives, both he and the Swordfish moving like blurs. The jonin then delivered a swift kick to his opponent's underbelly and it countered with a tail slap before diving back into the water, sending Asuma flying as the Hammerhead leapt out of the water, all its teeth bared. Asuma's eyes widened and he drew a kunai as the shark tried to bite down on his hand, he used the kunai to force its mouth to stay open and moved away but his arm scraped against the Hammerhead's skin, its scales like miniature teeth of their own, which ripped at his arm, causing the ninja excruciating pain. He almost forgot to take a breath before falling into the water again. Asuma then found himself another branch on to rest before he had to surface again.
"Okay Asuma, think!" he mentally shouted to himself, "This isn't good, with me bleeding like this, it'll be easier for those predatory fish to sniff me out…" as he thought this, the Red Tail found him again and rammed him off of his hiding spot where the Swordfish was waiting. Asuma barely blocked the Swordfish's slash and this time the jonin put all of his strength in his parry to make sure the Swordfish didn't counterattack. He took a chance to look around and saw that the Hammerhead was thrashing around, trying to get the kunai out of its mouth, "Okay it's not a threat right now," Asuma thought as the Swordfish slapped him with its tail and moved away from Asuma to attack again. This time the Red Tail rammed him in the back towards the Swordfish's rapidly slashing upper jaw blade. Asuma took a few hits before grappling the large fish and wrapping his body around it.
"Heh that won't work," Red Dragon said watching the jonin struggle.
"He should just give up," Black Dog noted.
"Well he took care of your Hammerhead good enough," Romany pointed out.
"Don't worry he's gonna figure it out, he's smarter than the average shark you know."
The Swordfish was thrashing about with Asuma holding on for dear life. The Red Tail didn't dare get close to help because it was afraid of being injured in the process. Asuma dug his trench knives into the Swordfish's hide to make sure he wouldn't be dropped so easily. The Swordfish swam quickly towards one of the submerged trees and tried to slam the jonin against it. When he didn't let go, the Swordfish slammed him again and again, causing Asuma to have trouble holding his breath. Having no choice, the jonin released his trench knives from the Swordfish's skin just before it slammed against the tree again causing the big fish to knock itself hard on the back and momentarily dazing it. Asuma then sprung off of the tree and surfaced again, this time concentrating his chakra on his feet so he could stand and move on the surface and more importantly let him catch his breath. His arm was still bleeding and several drops of blood dripped into the water.
"Don't think staying up there will do you any good!" Romany shouted at Asuma. The jonin took a look at her and her two companions… "Wait…there's two things bothering me..." he thought as meanwhile, the Swordfish swam down and used his upper jaw to dislodge the kunai from the Hammerhead's mouth. The Red Tail swam up rapidly and leapt above the surface and tried to use its body weight to force Asuma back underwater, but the Jonin was able to dodge, "…Where is the fourth member of their group?" Just then he noticed small shadows near his own, but they weren't coming from below…they were coming from above "Oh crap!"
"Bombs away!" Pepplu shouted as she threw several senbon above Asuma, popping the ballons that were above him, dropping several bombs towards the jonin. Not seeing any other way out, Asuma released the chakra from his feet and deliberately dropped underwater while the bombs exploded. However the Swordfish and Hammerhead were coming at him from opposite sides. "Time to see if this works underwater! Flying Swallow!" His trench knives were enveloped in a blade of chakra, each about the length of a short sword. He spun around rapidly, slashing both of his opponents and raised his arms to above his head, making him seem like a propeller shooting through the water. He surfaced again, and charged his feet with chakra, then noted his true enemies that were safely out of the battle.
"Aww come on, he's got to tire out soon!" Romany shouted.
"Be patient. They're not done yet," Red Dragon said pointing at Romany's Red Tail which came at Asuma, its mouth wide open. The jonin tried to jump but the fish was faster and soon he was waist deep in fish mouth and being dragged back into the water.
"Damn fish!.." Asuma mentally shouted driving his trench knives into its sides, but the Red Tail was stubborn and not letting go, "I'm not going out like this, being dragged down into a small lake in the middle of a forest…that's it! There's more to this than I thought…I need to find it though…" Asuma thought and then calming down, looked around the bottom of the pool where it looked as if a figure was just outside but it was hard to get a good look at it due to the water's distorting effect, "I only have one shot at this!" in desperation, the jonin threw a kunai at where the figure should be, accounting for the image being refracted by water and soon he heard a small splash, "Now to hang on for the ride of my life!" It seemed whatever Asuma had hit caused this large pool of water, held only by chakra, to collapse.
"Whoa move!" Red Dragon said to his companions. They all leapt to the highest tree branch they could find as the water spilled out rapidly in all directions, flooding the immediate area. When the water was finished spreading out, it was only half a foot deep, definitely not deep enough for the fish summonings to breathe and they splashed around a bit before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
"Where the hell'd he go!" Red Dragon shouted.
"Right where Red Tail disappeared," Romany pointed at the jonin getting back to his feet, laughing lightly, "How the hell did you dispel my Water Arena Jutsu!" she demanded.
"I admit, fighting off those summonings distracted me enough to not think about it for a while," Asuma explained, "but your Water Arena Jutsu is just an enlarged and modified version of the Water Prison Jutsu. That kind of jutsu requires the user to have constant contact with the wall of water and then I remembered when you summoned your Red Tail…both of your hands were free at the time, so you must've snuck in a water clone while I wasn't looking to hold your Water Arena Jutsu intact while you summoned your Red Tail. So the simple solution to getting out of that mess was to dispel the Water Arena Jutsu by destroying the water clone," he said proudly, then got in a fighting stance his blades charged with a little chakra, "And now it's time to take care of you."
Romany's face turned red with Rage while Red Dragon laughed, "I have to admit, you really have earned your high bounty. You're the first to figure out our strategy, but look at you, you're too tired to take us all on. You used up most of your chakra fighting and staying on the surface of the water arena. Just surrender."
"Not going to happen…Flying Swallow!" Asuma's chakra blades extended again, "Got to finish this fast!" and he rushed at Red Dragon, but was blocked by Black Dog.
"Didn't forget about me!" he said, "Earth Style! Rock Fist Jutsu!" the evil ninja's arm was once again enveloped in an armor of rock and his "fist" was the size of a boulder which he slammed into Asuma, sending him flying a few feet and causing his Flying Swallow to dispel.
"Just stay out of this Romany! You used up about as much chakra as he did," Red Dragon advised, "Some good old fashioned taijutsu from me should be able to finish this!" As the Bounty Hunter Ninja ran towards Asuma, the jonin got up and prepared to defend himself but he noticed a green blur heading for his opponent.
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" a powerful kick was delivered to Red Dragon's head and he was sent hurling into the direction of a tree. The enemy ninja barely was able to move his body so it wouldn't hit the hard trunk.
"Guy?" Asuma asked wondering if his friend was really there. The taijutsu master looked back at Asuma and flashed him the Nice Guy Pose.
"Don't tell me you're letting guys like these beat you Asuma?! Where's your youthful spirit?"
"They're tougher than they look," Asuma said, getting back on his feet, "Or did you miss the past few minutes?"
"Nope we saw what was going on and were about to make our move but we thought you had it handled when you got rid of that water jutsu," Guy admitted.
"We?" Asuma asked, just as Black Dog rushed at them, his Rock Fist Jutsu still active, but a huge dragon-shaped torrent of water came from seemingly nowhere and knocked Black Dog away from the two jonin.
"That's right. We." Kakashi smiled under his mask, from one of the treetops, his Sharingan eye uncovered. He jumped down to join his friends, "So are these guys who I think they are?"
"They're the Bounty Hunter Ninja," Asuma said.
"Thought so," Kakashi replied.
"Who are they?" Guy asked.
"Scum who capture ninja from any village and offer them to the highest-bidding enemy village of that ninja," Asuma explained, "They're completely devoted to using their talents for greed."
"Where'd you learn that water jutsu?!" Romany demanded of Kakashi.
"Oh…you can thank Momochi Zabuza for that. He sort of…taught me," Kakashi smiled.
"Oh no, that eye…you're the Copy Ninja…Hatake Kakashi!" Romany replied.
"Thaaaaat's right," Kakashi smiled at her, "Do you want to give up now?"
"Are you kidding, your bounty's pretty damn high too!" she grinned back as her other two companions came back and finally joined by Pepplu.
"And the other…he's Might Guy. He's definitely worth a nice chunk of change," Red Dragon said.
"We're about to hit the jackpot with a triple bonus. It's four on three, with one of them fatigued. I think we can do this," Black Dog said.
"Yay! Pepplu gets to play again!" Pepplu smiled happily. All of the Bounty Hunter Ninjas scattered and began to attack the Konoha jonin…
(A/N: Well I hope you enjoyed that battle. Having Guy and Kakashi show up was MysticFireBlood's request and as you can see it'll work out to Asuma's advantage to have backup against these guys. Also thanks to Narutopedia for having Asuma's techniques listed. I haven't seen much of him fighting in the series yet and wanted to know what he had at his disposal. Honestly I was hoping to finish this battle this chapter, but it looks like it'll take one more to do it…I don't mind though. More action for my readers. Please leave me a review to let me know what you think.)