Killing was nothing special to Kimimaro. He had been doing it, quite literally, as long as he could remember. First his sibling, (he wasn't sure, but he thought it had been a sister), then at intervals after being released from the cage his clan had kept him in afterword. Sometimes it pleased his lord to see an especially gruesome display of dance of the willows, but his own skill produced neither disgust nor pride within his breast. Just like the ability to walk, the shinobi felt no real connection to it as an accomplishment. It was simply too easy.
The experience he was currently going through with the jinchuriki then was nothing but an exercise in patience. He had fought powerful opponents in the past, even watched kages die; for a teenager, even in a world of blood and murder, his accomplishments rivaled legendary killers in everything except fame. Worry over the speedy recovery of the vessel was the only thing then making him nervous. It was a plausible reassurance. I am not afraid of this thing.
Naruto was a burning blur of color. The tails, he vaguely realized, were giving him strength. My strength! This bastard can't ignore me! Damn him, I'm more than he is! More than Sasuke!
THAT'S RIGHT. MY STRENGTH.
Naruto wasn't ignoring the Other anymore. Not precisely. Instead, he was pretending it was his voice. The thought twisted his blackened lips into a sneering grin as he lunged again.
The chakra whipped and sped around him, moving not as he did, but winding about as if it had a mind of its own. Kimimaro, for all his dances and speed, had needed his full level one curse mark just to stay ahead of it. He pulsed with the power that was part gift, part curse, but still he was being outmatched. The tall grass was being scythed down and burned black. Kimimaro felt almost like a flower trapped in the eye of a hurricane- safe so long as he kept moving inside its center.
This is fine. I'm not the one out of control. It is. Kimimaro danced and the child fumed and bellowed.
Frustration and pain had given way to confusion and rage, and for a moment Naruto paused. Why can't I hit him? How's he avoiding this!
Now.
For some reason the jinchuriki couldn't put his finger on, the moment stretched into an eternity. It's because I can't move. The color had left him as well. And when did I start staring back into the sky? Naruto couldn't add up for the life of him how the day had so suddenly reversed itself but he again found himself flat on his back, staring into a set of eyes. The color's gone. And you can't move.
Time started to crawl forward again and Naruto realized just how terribly things had changed. He was pinned to the ground, a giant marrow bit splitting his ribcage, hammered through the spine and into the scorched earth beneath. The spike was connected to a massive tan arm, the arm to the monstrosity that had suddenly replaced the dancer. These eyes are yellow- how can these be the same eyes?
Kimimaro had the child pinned like an insect on display; only his greatest manifestation of bloodline ability had allowed him to penetrate the chakra shroud. His sudden metamorphosis into his complete second stage had been necessary in order to achieve victory, and that had required him to perfectly time the transformation to fit the lull in his opponent's attacks. The few who understood the curse seal would have suggested that such precise control and jutsu manifestation were beyond human ability. But most would agree that it was beyond human ability for the sole survivor of the Kaguya clan to even be moving.
I have a reason to live, you were just caught in a rage. You're going to die alone and no one will even notice. The philosophy slipped from between his teeth as a single syllable. "Trash." Amazingly, the subject of his reflection seemed to hear him.
NOW DO YOU REALIZE BRAT? NOW DO YOU SEE?
yes
THEN LET GO OF YOUR WEAKNESS. LET GO OF THAT FALSITY, HUMANINTY. STOP PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING OTHER THAN ME!
Fear suddenly rushed through Kimimaro. The fear was quickly followed by confusion. "What is this?" the prodigy whispered aloud. The aura was back, but now it was burning the flesh from the dying whelp's body. Instead of struggling to gurgle its last breath- the thing was gulping in air like a newborn. Vaguely, Kimimaro was aware that his marrow spear had been burned away to ash. More prevalent and startling was the awareness that he was, for perhaps the first time in his short life, in mortal danger.
The Kaguya came down with everything he had. Ninety-seven different bones sprang from his shoulders arms, chest, knees and tail. Each was harder than diamond, each was beyond razor sharp. The mutant drove down on his glowing prey with the strength and momentum to smash through six hundred meters of compacted earth. It was not enough.
Ten hours before.
I'm too slow- Kakashi lunged forward, sure that he was about to be buried under a pile of dead flesh.
Then the music stopped.
A fucking purple haze?
Tayuya had no idea where the cloud had come from, its sudden expansion had rolled in forcefully from behind her with momentum, the poison stinging her eyes and driving her mad. The flute was away from her mouth in an instant and she was flinging herself through the fog, blind and unable to breath. Simultaneously she triggered her second state. Can't take any chances- I'll have to kill them the second I break this cover!
"Do Leaf Nin just live in the woods!" screamed Sakon as he flung the goatee bearing ninja away from himself with a burst of rage. Sakon felt it then. It was time to get clear of this. The poison mist had enveloped his partner, and she had ceased her tune immediately. Having an open mouth would have been a death sentence and she would have to conserve her air to get clear.
As such, the copy-nin had escaped the doki- just. Almost simultaneously this newest Leaf-nin had made his appearance and Sakon had taken several kunai stab wounds to his vitals before recovering from his surprise and broke his attacker's collar bone. Now the twin was running out of energy and chakra. And patience.
Where the hell is Ukon? The frustration was back, mingling with the pain, and setting off his temper. If I stay in second state I'll be dead in several minutes- then he saw Tayuya break through the cloud. Her horns were out, red hair free, and she was terrible to look upon. It was as if her real personality had clawed its way up to her skin and taken physical form. That's perfect… Without hesitation, Sakon fled into the woods.
Tayuya took in her surroundings with a contemptuous sweep of her eyes. Her flesh golems lay in a heap like discarded toys, there was another wretch of a leaf-nin lying on the ground clutching at a severe break in his skeleton, and no sign of the copy-nin. Or her teammate for that matter. Goddamnit! How did he let this shit happen!
Murder. Her primary concern then was not her safety, nor completion of the mission. It was simply to hurt anyone and anything no matter its alliance or relationship to her. A vague wisp of something that might have been a survival instinct whispered about recovering the vessel. That alone helped restore a modicum of control. I'll grab him as soon as I find the bastard who- she was in mid-thought, wiping the down her flute to ensure that not a speck of the mist remained upon it when her opponent made her play.
Shizune had never cared for combat. It was war that had taken her father years before she could remember, lead to her mother's grief and suicide, the loss of an aunt she had barely known, then her last relative and guardian. War destroyed lives. Very nearly had destroyed hers'. That did not mean she was opposed to violence. Not in the slightest.
How many lives would have been spared if a few select individuals had simply been eliminated quickly, quietly, efficiently? War was a horribly inefficient way to end conflict and disagreement. Drawn out combats were disgustingly unnecessary when a simple scratch from the right knife would suffice. For the life of her, Shizune couldn't understand how or why the nations ever allowed such such conflicts to break out. People just don't understand the true pain of others. She lived her life to mitigate that pain. Which was really what she was doing now.
The medic was eye to eye with the girl in a split second. She had suspected the young kunoichi would move forward from the mist as she didn't know what lay precisely behind her, and Shizune and repositioned accordingly, moving to the center of the battlefield the second the poison cloud had enfolded her target. As such she had seen her target emerge and waited for the exact moment her defenses were at their lowest. Cleaning her instrument.
The shock was obvious from the widening of her opponent's yellow eyes but Shizune took no satisfaction in it. They were separated by a distance of an arm's length, and Shizune released the strings on the needle thrower.
Tayuya responded instinctively never even aware that her death sentence had been all but signed. She lunged toward her attacker, horns striking and breaking cheekbones, fists clenched and punching into midsection.
"You bitch! I'll kill you! I'll fucking-" In a rage she hadn't even felt the five needles that had just driven venom into her chest.
Shizune felt every bit of the goring, felt something break and bleed in her torso; knew she'd have to do something to stop the assault. The poison simply wasn't going to be fast enough. She was being pitched sideways from the momentum of the headbutt, and she was doubling over from the blows that had collapsed her abdominals. She shot her hand up reflexively, got a hold of the thing's left horn, and jerked the musician's head toward her own. Her fall halted immediately and she looked into the fiend's murderous eyes.
Tayuya stared at her handiwork for a moment and felt superior in every respect. With the mutation having consumed her she could hold the kunoichi's entire body weight with her neck muscles alone. She wasn't even straining as she stood hunched over, head slightly canted with the Leaf shinobi dangling half-horizontal off her horn by a desperate grab. The other arm hung limply, the floppy sleave obscuring her hand and dragging on the ground.
One side of her victims cheek had been completely torn away, exposing gums, broken bone, and teeth. The right eye had immediately been swollen shut from the impact and there was blood in the woman's black hair.
"You look ridiculous bitch."
Tayuya's mocking comment provoked a stream of bloody spittle from between clenched teeh, impacting just under her left eye. Tayuya felt the rage return, her fist come up to smash the enemy into the dirt where she belonged. Then the rage was gone and they both were falling.
Very slowly it seemed. Tayuya locked her gaze on to her enemy's one remaining eye and saw nothing she could recognize in it. Death took its time with her, but only Shizune felt the impact of the ground. Tayuya, the North Gate, was asleep a moment before she collapsed on top of her. The next moment she was dead.
The needle's tip had just scratched her brain stem, but its poison had been enough. Shizune rolled the corpse off of her, vaguely aware that the body was changing as she did so. Changing into a raggedy urchin of a girl, who's rough features would have been softer in a different life. The only blemish on the dead girl's face was a red smear of saliva- which covered the hole where the needle Shizune had spat had gone into her.
Shizune didn't have time to contemplate such tragedy as she clamped her chakra enfused hands to her midsection and cursed herself for her carelessness.
Why Shizune? Why must medics always avoid becoming injured?
"Because who will take care of our comrades if I'm hurt?"
All around her she heard the groans of her teammates and comrades.
Have I failed?
Sasuke had to help shoulder his companion back toward the ambush site. Shikamaru's leg had a kunai lodged into it, but the Uchiha couldn't seem to remember when he had gotten stabbed. Was it while I was concentrating on the chidori? It must have been but who- and then they stumbled into the forest clearing.
They arrived just as the pile of freakish, mutilated giants disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Sasuke realized that still left a lot of bodies on the ground. There was a young girl, and three men (two of whom he recognized as Leaf jonin they had tried to rescue), the six armed mutant, and a young lady in Leaf attire, sitting upright with her back to them and clutching at her face. All around them were weapons; easily hundreds of those unique yellow kunai, and dozens of daggers and throwing stars. Tree limbs had been liberally scattered about as well and the ground was encrusted in splinters and fallen leaves.
Shikamaru grunted through the pain and whispered as quietly as he could manage, "Where's Kakashi?" As if in answer, the teacher's voice responded behind them, "Oh, thank God." Which was quickly followed by a gasped, "Oh no." Before Nara's brain could compile the fact that their teamleader had gotten behind them it finally identified the female sitting in the middle of the forest.
"What's the Fifth's assistant doing out here?" When her head jerked around at the sound of his voice, he realized just why Kakashi had suddenly become off put.
