Chapter 9: An Unexpected Guest

Is he faster than I remember? Sora wondered as he dodged the spear-like bone jutting out of Kimimaro's right palm. Then a vague memory surfaced in his mind, That's right; Sasuke said he was sick when I fought him, didn't he? That explains it.

"Dance of the Willow," Kimimaro whispered, producing another bone from his left palm and bringing it around to attack from the side. Sora gritted his teeth as he parried the bone with one of his daggers, It seems like he's stronger too; this might be difficult.

Sora cursed his luck. His first real fight since he'd traveled back in time and he was forced to go up against Kimimaro: a close combat specialist with incredible offensive and defensive capabilities because of his kekkei genkai. Normally Sora would have been confident that he could defeat Kimimaro, even if the man had been only been killed by an illness in Sora's original time. Unfortunately, this situation was far from normal. Because he was erring on the side of caution, Sora wouldn't use his Rasengan, Sage Mode, or Byakugan unless someone's life absolutely depended on it, which deprived him of some of his strongest techniques. While he could attempt to create shadow clones like in his first fight with Kimimaro, he doubted they would do much good since they couldn't use his Wind Walking technique: The sheer amount of chakra he would have to give each of the clones to continuously use the technique, coupled together with the fact that having multiple clones constantly generating different wind currents would interfere with Sora's own wind bursts, simply made it too dangerous and impractical.

Still, Sora had an advantage: while he had wanted to avoid attention until now, he was planning to reveal himself on the bridge at some point or another to swing events in his favor, whereas Kimimaro was most likely under strict orders avoid being seen at all costs. It wasn't much of an edge since he only wanted to interfere with the fight on the bridge, not bring Kimimaro there, but still it was something.

Kimimaro spun, shooting a bone out of his elbow towards Sora's head, coming within a few centimeters of his face. Then he raised his knee, creating another weapon as he aimed for Sora's midsection that Sora parried away. Kimimaro continued to move like this, his body flowing smoothly from one attack to the next, though he was unable to land a clean blow. As Kimimaro drew his palm back for another attack, Sora jumped backwards, readying his knives, then blasted himself back towards his opponent with a gust of wind.

Kimimaro reacted almost instantly, creating a thick bone between his two hands to block the strike. Sora did not back down, however, and as he closed in, he poured his wind chakra into his daggers. Steel met bone, and for a fraction of a second, Kimimaro's block held. Then Sora's knives began to cut through Kimimaro's guard, and he was forced to jump away just as his bone was sliced apart.

Those bones are strong, Sora thought, eyeing Kimimaro, looks like I'll have to put in more chakra next time.

Kimimaro stood calmly and seemed to study Sora for a moment. "You're stronger than I expected," he said, speaking for the first time. "Who are you? What is your purpose here?"

Sora scoffed, but kept his guard up, still wary of the man. "How much of a fool do you think I am? I'm not going to answer any of your questions."

The man simply nodded, seemingly unoffended, "I see; very well then. Still, I do not have time to waste, so I will end this battle here." The tattoo on Kimimaro's chest began to glow and spread across his body.

As soon as Sora realized what Kimimaro was doing, he shot forward, trying to take advantage of the small opening. Kimimaro was too quick, however, jumping backwards as his left arm slumped to the side and his other hand reached over to pull out a short sword made of bone. Just as Sora caught up with him, Kimimaro parried Sora's attack with his new sword. The man was faster and stronger than before thanks to the release of his cursed seal.

"Dance of the Camellia," Kimimaro said, as he launched a counter attack.

Kimimaro's blade shot out at Sora, who knocked the sword away with one of his knives. Kimimaro pressed his attack, his weapon moving so fast that it almost seemed to flicker as he continually stabbed at Sora.

Sora changed tactics, jumping backwards. "Raiton," he began as one of his knives began to spark with electricity. "Futon," he continued; a current of wind began to twist around his other blade. "Storm!" Sora yelled, slashing forward with both of his knives in the direction Kimimaro.

Twin arcs, one of electricity and another of wind, flew into Kimimaro, who was barely able to block with his sword, knocking him backwards. Sora didn't let up as Kimimaro regained his footing; he continued to hurl deadly crescents of wind and electricity at his opponent. Kimimaro was forced onto the defensive and he backed away, dodging and blocking the attacks, though he was still clipped by a few of them. After nearly a minute, Kimimaro was finally made a mistake; the man was caught in the midsection by one of the arcs of wind and he was thrown into a tree, his sword flying out of his hand. Seeing an opportunity, Sora ceased his long ranged attacks and he ran towards Kimimaro, reaching him just before he recovered. Sora slashed downward at Kimimaro, but his blade was caught on one of the many bones that suddenly shot out of Kimimaro's body with no warning.

"Dance of the Larch," Kimimaro said. Though he'd managed to avoid a finishing blow, the man was hurt: he was bleeding and singed in several places; it appeared, however, that he had avoided any significant injuries as Sora could see a shield of bone covering his innards, visible underneath the tears in his skin. "I underestimated you," Kimimaro admitted, "But this ends now."

Kimimaro's curse mark began to glow once again as it spread even further across his body, causing Sora to back away cautiously. Kimimaro's body began to change, his skin darkening to a purplish gray and prominent markings appearing around his eyes. His eyes themselves changed as well: the sclera becoming black while his irises changed to a golden color. Finally, his body began to contort slightly as large bones began to jut out of his back and, even more noticeably, a large tail began to grow from the base of his spine and extended until it was a meter and a half long.

He's releasing his seal again?! Sora thought, Damn it! The fight on the bridge will be ending soon and I don't know if a few clones can stop it without anyone dying; there's no more time to deal with this bastard anymore, but I can't just let him get away!

"Dance of the Clematis: Flower," Kimimaro said, a drill-like weapon forming around his hand. Then the man began to charge.

Sora made a choice, took a deep breath, and readied himself. I hope I'm making the right choice, he thought as he sheathed his daggers.

Sora began forming hand seals and the air began to swirl around him, its currents moving faster and faster. It may not have been the way he'd have preferred, but one way or another he was going to end this.


"Your future is death," Kakashi declared, his Raikiri crackling in his palm.

Kakashi ran; sprinting across the gap between him and Zabuza in mere moments. He thrust out his hand to deliver the killing blow. Then something happened: A mirror made of ice appeared out of nowhere, and a boy, Zabuza's companion, stepped out of it. No! Kakashi thought. He tried to slow down, but it was too late. Kakashi was already moving so fast that he wouldn't be able to change his momentum in time.

Suddenly, Kakashi was pushed back, slowed down by an unnatural gust of wind. Then five men appeared out of the mist; Kakashi was moving so fast, that his Sharingan was the only reason he even noticed the men at all through the thick mist. Four of the men grabbed Kakashi's arms while the last man pushed Zabuza's companion out of the way of Kakashi's attack as he was being slowed by the others. Even with four men holding his arms, Kakashi continued forward, his Raikiri smashing into the ice mirror, though he did not reach Zabuza. If Kakashi had not already been trying to stop himself earlier, he doubted Zabuza would have survived, even with four men slowing him down. The Copy Ninja jumped far backwards instinctively, mind reeling in an effort to catch up with what had just happened in the past few seconds.

"That," a familiar voice said with a slight huff as the five men moved into Kakashi's line of sight, "was too close."

It can't be. Kakashi looked around, trying to see past the mist to focus on the man who had spoken. Recognizing the speaker and, now that he had come to a stop, finally noticing that all five of the men around him were identical, Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief. "Sora-san? What the…" The moment his attack had been deflected, he'd been expecting another enemy, not an ally. He certainly hadn't been expecting his new friend to appear of all people. Kakashi was even more surprised that Sora had stopped his attack when he had been heading towards someone who was obviously an enemy. The entire situation was confusing and a little suspicious: there should have been no way for Sora to know that he had been trying to stop himself from hurting the child who had protected Zabuza.

"Questions later, Kakashi," Sora said, cutting him off before he could speak again. The man had an air of nervousness about him. "You need to get everyone away from here; we don't know how well the original is doing against him."

"Against who? What do you mean?"

Just as the clone opened his mouth to speak, a sword cleaved through him and another clone, turning them both into puffs of smoke.

"Crap!" one of the clones yelled as the three survivors leapt to stand next to Kakashi. With their focus on a dire sounding conversation and the mist obscuring their vision, neither Kakashi, nor Sora's clones, had noticed that the jutsu that had been binding Zabuza had ended.

"Good job, Haku," Zabuza said, "Now get up!"

"Yes, Zabuza-san," Haku replied. His voice almost sounded guilty; still, despite the trace of emotion in his voice, the boy struggled to his feet. Even though Kakashi was only able to make out a vague silhouette of Haku, he could tell by the boy's posture and ragged voice that he was probably injured; most likely as a product of the boy's fight with Naruto and Sasuke. A surge of worry overtook Kakashi and he was hit with a strong desire to go check on his students. If Haku was here, what had happened to Naruto and Sasuke? Still, he couldn't risk turning his back to Zabuza. If the man managed to get past Kakashi and the clones, his students were as good as dead.

Zabuza pointed his sword at Sora's clones. "I don't know who you are, but thank you for being stupid enough to save my precious tool and stop Kakashi's attack.

"I stopped his attack because that kid jumped in front of you," one of the clones countered. "Anyway, we have a bigger problem on our hands. We need to–" he was interrupted by howl of noise. It sounded as if a hurricane had appeared out of nowhere.

All of the clones cursed at once. "We're too late," one of them said quietly.

Before Kakashi could even being to guess what the clone was talking about, a large pocket of mist near the forest was blown away as a twisting mass of wind erupted from the trees and flew towards the bridge. As the wind drew closer, Kakashi noticed that it was in the vague outline of a dragon and that it, even more surprisingly, held a hulking form in its jaws. As it neared the bridge, the dragon made of wind flew high into the air before turning downward, crashing itself, and its victim, into the bridge, creating a large crater and throwing up bits of wood and stone. As the dust began to settle, a red haired figure darted past the crater and came to a stop next to Kakashi and the three clones.

"Hey there, Kakashi-san," Sora said, "Sorry I'm late."


Author's Note:

Hey there! I hope everyone is doing well. I apologize for the time it took to get this latest chapter out since I'd said that I was going to try to get these chapters out quicker, but I got hammered with a bunch of things that have just made my life super busy lately. I'd also been having a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to do a proper fight scene and trying to flesh everything out in a realistic manner, plus I'm still not quite sure yet what I'm going to do with a few of the characters (which is why this chapter is so much shorter than I'd usually like it to be). So because I figured people would enjoy having at least something to tide them over while I hammer out a few more things with the story to make sure everything's perfect, I'm just ending the current chapter here and pushing it out since this part of the story is already done.

Life permitting, my writing speed should actually start speeding up after I get through the wave arc since I've already got a lot of what's going to happen during the Chunin Exam Arc fleshed out already. With that said, I'll finish up Wave in the next chapter. I hope everyone enjoys this and, as always, feel free to message me or review with questions or what you think!