Next chapter for you guys. Sorry it took so long to write out, but like I said, I had to rebuild some plot points. Not promising faster updates, since I don't like breaking promises, but things should be a lot clearer from here on in, and possibly faster, maybe.
Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 11: Title? Um... Over there!
Walking through the desert, Baki reflected that he'd gotten too used to the easy travel that the forests surrounding Konoha offered, as he reached up and adjusted the cloth he had wrapped around his face to try and keep the sand and wind off. At the moment, he would much rather be watching his team, making sure that the seal the Konoha-nin had told him about was working, but he had to bring news to his village which would likely change most of their plans for the immediate future.
He grimaced at that thought, wondering how the Kazekage and the rest of the advisory council would react to the news. Pulling down the cloth for a moment and shading his eyes, he scanned for the village, but still couldn't see it. He knew he was reasonably close, but something seemed wrong, as he'd been walking for quite a while with no sign of familiar landmarks.
"That's strange," the Jounin muttered, looking up into the sky to note that the sun was hanging over the land to the west, nightfall almost upon him. "I know I'm not slacking off this much," he noted, pulsing his Chakra outward and immediately getting a response, as the sand around him seemed to ripple and snap, resolving into the same scene, though now he could see a set of large rock outcroppings to the west that he recognized as being several miles to the north of Suna.
He considered pretending that the illusion hadn't been broken and turning back towards the village slowly, but he doubted that the weaver of the genjutsu that had trapped him would be enough of a novice not to notice the Chakra pulse he'd used to dispel it. Reaching one hand for a kunai at his waist, the sand-nin was rewarded with a sudden gust of air, and a white haired man appearing before him in a whirl of sand.
"Who are you?" Baki asked, narrowing his eyes and taking stock of his opponent, noting that he wore no village headband, and only somewhat loose fitting blue and white clothing.
"You won't have to worry about that," the newcomer said, raising one arm, and as the Jounin watched, a long white blade seemed to form from somewhere in his forearm. "I am here to remove the trash from my master's path."
Baki was about to respond to that, asking who the other man's master was, when he was sent frantically dodging, barely avoiding being skewered by his opponent's blade. Rapidly rolling to his feet, his wind blade followed his hand as he slashed at the white haired man.
His opponent tried to bring his own blade up to block the strike, even if he couldn't see it, but the white blade was parted neatly, falling to the ground, and its owner winced as a gash was made across his face before he could get himself completely out of the way. "I see," the man nodded, and then frowned, paying no attention to the blood that dripped down his cheek.
Preparing for another offensive, Baki channeled Chakra into the ground around his feet, creating a cloud of the stuff that blew around him, and tried to use the obscuring particles to disguise a retreat, however his foe burst through the same sand cloud, a new blade having taken the place of the old one, and accompanied by another on his other arm. As the Jounin prepared his wind sword for an attack, deciding that it would likely be easier to kill this person who had randomly attacked him than to retreat, the white haired man gracefully leapt over the arc of the invisible weapon, coming down towards the Genin team leader back first.
"What in the…?" Baki started, before several long, sharp spikes shot from the other's back, along the spine and moving so quickly that he couldn't dodge. Two of the spikes landed in his neck before he could cry out, and his opponent landed on the other side of the now dead Ninja, shaking his head.
"It is done," he noted, before vanishing in a whirling mass of sand.
HR.
Sasuke winced, rubbing the side of his face where pain still throbbed. He didn't understand why he had to do this, but the old man had mentioned, after being lead around on a chase for the better part of the last night, that if he did this he would be taught a new technique.
Still, the Uchiha had no idea that it would be so difficult to get such simple information. It was as though it were some of the most heavily guarded in the village, for some reason. Frowning, the black haired boy squared his shoulders. He would get that information, and when he was taught the old man's techniques, he would use them to defeat his brother… then probably kick the old man's ass for making him have to go through this.
Walking down the street, searching for another means to obtain the information he wanted, Sasuke saw several people walking towards him. Two of them, Rock Lee and his teacher, Maito Gai, held little interest for him at the moment, but TenTen, the weapons user of the group, was far more likely a target.
As he walked up to them, the black haired boy caught their conversation. "But I do not understand," Lee was saying. "He never challenges me, I always have to present our challenges to him."
"Hey Lee, are you afraid that Sakura's going to steal your greatest rival?" TenTen giggled, though she was just as confused about the situation as he was.
"No, that is not it at all," Lee objected. "But, even with her increase in skill, Sakura is not nearly as strong as Neji, what if she is hurt?"
"Ah, worried for your girlfriend, I see," TenTen nodded.
"Don't worry my student," Gai said, slapping Lee on the shoulder. "I'm sure Neji knows how to hold back his attacks, and Miss Haruno will be fine. Also, TenTen?"
"Yes, Sensei?" TenTen asked, looking back to the older man, who was walking behind his two students.
"It's very unlikely that Neji will stop fighting Lee. After all, Eternal Rivalry is one of the most important parts of a young person's life!" The older green wearing man said, pumping his fist into the air.
"Uh, right…" TenTen said, slowly, sweat dropping and wondering, once again, why she had been stuck with this bunch of lunatics. The silence after her sensei's last pronouncement lasted for a few uncomfortable moments, before a clearing of a throat nearby finally broke it. Turning, the three noted Sasuke Uchiha, standing with a pad of paper in one hand before them.
"Hello Sasuke, how are you today? Have you learned any new techniques?" Lee asked, excitedly. "Are you going to see Sakura and Neji's battle as well?"
Sasuke looked confused for a moment. He didn't know anything about Sakura and Neji fighting, but shook the unimportant fact off quickly. He simply gave the excitable taijutsu specialist a noncommittal nod, before turning to TenTen. "I have to ask you something," he said quietly, looking steadily into her eyes.
"Um, what?" She asked, feeling just a little creeped out by the black eyed stare, the boy behind it blinking much less frequently than she was used to.
"What are your three sizes?" Sasuke asked, deadpan, producing a pen from the coils of the notebook.
TenTen twitched. "What?" She asked, calmly.
"Your bust size, waist width, and…" Sasuke started, before being cut off by a haymaker to the jaw.
"That's what I thought you said," the weapons user growled, marching past the Uchiha, who was laying against a wall, his eyes staring off into the sky, dazed.
"Why couldn't I feel it coming?" The boy grumbled, as the group walked out of sight.
HR.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Sakura said to herself, for what seemed like the thirtieth time, as she stared into a mirror in the changing room of one of the Hyuga compound's small training fields, straightening her clothes.
'Don't worry, it's just a spar. If he tries anythin really stupid I'll kick his ass,' Ranma's voice came from inside of her head.
She grimaced at the mirror, before turning and starting to go through a few basic stretches. 'Yeah, well it's still a spar against one of the strongest genin in the village,' she thought back.
'Well then, we'll have ta make sure you're ready, right?' Ranma said, and the smirk was almost audible. 'You wanna take your weights off now?'
'My weights…' Sakura thought, and then blinked, recalling the items strapped along her arms and legs. She'd gotten so used to wearing them in the past week and a half that she'd actually almost forgotten they were there,
'Won't give you much of a boost, like Lee's do, but it's still better than none,' Ranma replied. 'Plus, been wanting ta see you try out some of the stuff you've been practicing in a real fight. Sparring with Lee doesn't really give me the information I need, and TenTen's whole thing is ranged work, so she's not much better than you at close combat.'
'Gee, thanks,' Sakura thought, sourly.
'Saotome, did anyone ever tell you that you suck at cheering people up?' Kura-chan chipped in, from the back of their mind, where she'd been rather silent for most of this conversation.
'Oh, um, sorry?; Ranma said, sheepishly, before Sakura sighed, dropped her weights on a bench near the mirror and headed for the door that lead out into the training field.
HR.
Hiashi Hyuga stared at the drawings before him, pondering what they meant. Admittedly, he had been a little curious about the Haruno girl ever since rumors had come to him that she'd been held for questioning after the Third's death, but Neji's report that she had been using techniques that the boy had likely confused for Gentle Fist intrigued him.
Now, he was looking at drawings of the girl that had been made by branch house guards, their Byakugan fully active, as she'd arrived at the compound gates half an hour earlier, and what he was finding was very interesting. For one thing, Neji was likely incorrect about her use of the Gentle Fist, as she definitely didn't have a set of white eyes, though his mistake could be expected, given how little he actually knew about how and why the school was guarded.
The normally very formal man couldn't help but smile a little at the ingenuity the branch house boy had exhibited, managing to take some of the highest level moves of the school from supposedly heavily warded sections of the compound, and their high security, along with what he'd been told about the eyes, likely contributed to a belief that the entire school was forbidden to outsiders, rather than that they simply couldn't learn it.
Of course, the girl's not having the Byakugan wasn't the most interesting thing about her, not by a long shot, and the thing that was, the obvious Chakra pattern of an active demon seal, was far more worrying. At the moment, the fact that the girl had been taken in for questioning by the ANBU was becoming a lot more understandable, and Hiashi seriously wondered why none of the family heads had been informed of this.
Hearing a knock on the door, the man looked up and called "Yes?"
"Sir, the fight you wished to watch is about to begin," a voice called from the other side of the opening, and Hiashi nodded, packing the papers into a small folder and putting it inside of his desk before heading out to see precisely what this Sakura girl was.
HR.
As the two combatants walked out into the middle of a large, grass covered square of land surrounded by benches, Sakura, at least, was rather surprised by the number of people she hadn't seen before who were sitting, watching them. It wasn't nearly as large a crowd as usually gathered at the village's main arena for exam fights, but most of the people in it were Hyuga, and the strange, almost pupil-less stare even their normal eyes held was just about as creepy.
The only ones in the crowd who she recognized were her current team mates, along with a few of the genin from her year including Ino, Choji, Shikamaru and Kiba, who had Akamaru held in his arms.
In the middle of the field was Gai Sensei, standing tall in his green jumpsuit as usual, and noting the arrival of his two students. "Neji, Sakura," the man said, nodding and smiling towards each of them. "Are you ready?"
Neji merely nodded, taking stock of his opponent. "I'm ready," Sakura said, taking a stance across from the Hyuga, who just stood there, much like how Ranma would when the two of them sparred inside of her mindscape.
"All right then!" Gai said, raising one arm to the sky. "This match lasts until forfeit or incapacitation, deliberately lethal blows are strictly forbidden, do you understand?" After both combatants nodded, the green clad man lowered his arm, yelling "Begin!" and vanishing in a teleportation jutsu that put him behind the bench where the rest of the team were.
Neither combatant seemed to move for several seconds, Sakura waiting for Neji to make the first move while he did the same, until the boy, who was trying to induce a specific set of attacks and was already sure of the general outcome, decided to start things off. Kicking off of the ground, he charged for Sakura, one fist raised. She prepared to defend, only realizing that he was telegraphing the blow far too obviously at the last minute, as the branch house Hyuga leapt over her head, landing behind her and spinning on one foot to land a palm strike into her back.
Sakura went flying about half way across the field, however she managed to turn in the air, landing on her feet and skidding to a stop. Neji immediately ran towards her again, and her eyes widened at his speed, though this time she was able to meet him, the two trading several fast blows and blocks. Neji's eyes narrowed as he noted that the girl seemed to be slightly slower than she had been against Gai a few days earlier, though as he missed one of her punches and it hit him in the ribs, he was surprised at the strength displayed.
Sakura, for her part, just grinned as a Chi enhanced attack got through the dark haired boy's defenses. 'Don't get too overconfident,' Ranma's voice rang in her ears, immediately followed by Kura-chan's snickering, and something about pots and kettles.
Ranma's advice soon became rather useful, as Neji increased his hand speed, making it obvious that he'd been holding back, landing two quick, painful strikes to Sakura's arm. As he did, Sakura heard Ranma curse in her head. 'What's wrong?' She asked, digging one foot into the ground and using it to toss herself away from the close in combat.
'Can't you feel it?' Ranma asked, and Sakura narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, she realized. Her arm was going numb, and there was a slight, though still noticeable, burning pain creeping up it. 'He's dumped his life energy into your arm somehow,' Ranma explained. 'It's blocking most of yer Chi and Chakra from getting down it.'
The pink haired girl nodded. "Okay, no close range stuff, then," she muttered, and reached for her kunai with her left hand. Unfortunately, this seemed to suit Neji quite well, as he seemed to squint for a moment, his Byakugan activating, before he tossed his own blade to intercept hers, following it up with two more, one of which she got cut by, leaving a rather deep cut on her arm.
'So, he can paralyze me close up, and he's got better aim than me far off,' she noted, rolling out of the way of another blade, which missed her shirt sleeve by inches.
'Then do something else,' Ranma said, in the annoyingly superior tone that she got when she thought something was obvious. Sakura's eyebrow twitched.
About the only other thing she had, save a few Jutsu that Neji would be able to stop her from performing easily, was the bunch of techniques she'd started learning from Ranma, and she hadn't fully mastered them yet. Worse yet, the only one she could think of trying right now was the Moko-Takabisha, and other than her full body variant, the only way she'd practiced firing it was with her right hand, which was now completely impossible to move.
As the girl tried to think of what to do, Neji stood across from her, a kunai in his hand, and very confused. He hadn't really bothered with following her skill level before, but the few samples he had of it now, since the fight with team Dosu, seemed to be rapidly moving up and down the scale from somewhere near his level to complete rookie and back. Granted, she was starting to stabilize closer to his level, but this annoyed him in many ways, not least of them being that she was, by changing so rapidly, either deliberately holding back or making a mockery of his value system by existing.
Narrowing his eyes, the Hyuga decided to push just a little harder, removing four more kunai, fanning them between his fingers and tossing them. What happened next, he couldn't quite follow. Sakura seemed to grab her uselessly hanging right arm with her left, lifting it so that the open palm at the end was facing towards him. He wasn't sure why she wasn't moving out of the way of the projectiles, though as her Chakra flows began to glow with pure, and very strong, stamina, his eyes widened again.
The girl's arm pulsed once, and she let out a shout of pain, before a large blue ball of energy erupted from the hand, intercepting the kunai and keeping on its course. Neji only managed to jump out of the way at the last minute, and the blue ball dug a furrow in the ground behind him several feet deep. The strangest thing was that Sakura's right arm now moved, dropping into a defensive position with her left, and she was grinning.
She raised the arm by itself this time, firing a much smaller blast, though this one was faster, and Neji cursed, finding himself on the defensive. He tried throwing a few more kunai, but the time it took him to retrieve them from his pouch and aim them was enough for her to aim her own attacks, the much larger balls usually intercepting the pointed projectiles.
Grimacing, Neji decided that the ranged attack game was getting him nowhere, and that he would have a much better chance of seeing what he wanted close to her. Easily tracking the trajectory of her projectiles, now that he knew how they flew, he began moving towards the girl, who tried to get out of range again, though Neji stopped that with a burst of intense speed that put him within punching range.
Sakura cursed as she took his first blow on the arm. Although she knew that she couldn't keep the barrage of small Moko-Takabisha up forever, it had seemed to be the most effective tool she had, and as she tried to disengage and get range on him again, Neji caught her with a leg sweep that she just barely caught herself from, pivoting on her hands and trying to kick his own legs from under him.
As she sprang up again, Neji's palm smashed into her chest, and knowing what to look for she felt the beginnings of the Chakra burn that had effected her arm. Immediately, she shoved chi through her skin in that location, wincing as it started to actually burn. 'Note to self, don't do that to anything internal until I've got better control,' she thought. 'Don't you have anything to say back there?'
'…huh?' Ranma asked, as though she was distracted by something. 'Your fight, remember?'
'My fight,' Sakura grumbled, just as she managed to catch Neji's hand in hers, and the two ended up trading blows with their other fists. For Neji, all this apparently did was cause a bloody lip, but the smaller girl's head seemed to ring like a bell as the punch impacted her cheek, and she could taste blood in her mouth from where she was pretty sure she'd bitten her tongue.
Seeing the pained look on Sakura's face, Neji frowned, jumping back to get some distance. "Why are you holding back when you know you'll lose?" He asked, glaring at her.
"I'm not…" Sakura said, panting for breath, "I'm not holding back."
"Then why haven't you used it?" Neji asked, in a tone too low to carry to the spectators. "Why haven't you started using the gentle fist, and why aren't you moving as quickly as I've seen you move before?"
Sakura simply looked confused. "The gentle fist? Isn't that… I don't know how to use your family school, don't you have to be a Hyuga to know that?"
Neji scowled. He did not like hearing that statement. He knew what he had seen when the girl had been fighting Gai, though now she was standing there, looking rather shaky on her feet, and hadn't pulled the techniques out. The energy flows of the attacks had seemed slightly different, through the fingers rather than the palm of the hand, but… He turned from her, looking up to see that Hiashi was looking down at the field from a window of the building next to the training ground. When the two Hyuga's eyes met, the older man shook his head.
Neji growled in frustration. He didn't understand what was going on here, but he would learn the truth now, or at least end this fight. "If you don't use it, you'll lose," he said calmly, before moving towards her again.
'Wow, he's building up a lot of Chakra there,' Ranma noted, and Sakura could only agree as the boy came at her. Holding her fists in front of her, she prepared to defend, knowing that the match was probably over, but not willing to just give up. Just as Neji began to open his mouth to call his next attack, Sakura did as well, speaking the name of a technique that she actually hadn't quite completed the training for yet.
"Eight Trigrams, two palms!"
"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!"
As Neji's first attacks came in, he was surprised to have both hands forced off target, passing by the girl harmlessly by incredibly quick movements of her own. "Eight Trigrams, Four Palms!" He yelled, increasing speed as he attacked again, though the attacks were brushed off as well. "Eight Trigrams, Eight Palms!" This time, Sakura was sweating, deflecting the last blow as it stroked the front of her shirt. "Eight Trigrams, Sixteen palms!" It was then that the battle ended. Sakura slipped when trying to deflect the fourth palm strike, which landed on her shoulder, sending a pulse of burning pain through her body. The distraction of the pain caused her to miss the fifth, and the sixth. Neji was about to land the sixteenth strike, but stopped, recalling the rules of the match. Even still, without the finishing attack, the girl teetered on her feet for a moment, before falling to the ground.
HR.
She groaned as the light hit her eyes, wondering why she hurt all over. 'Well, you did get hit by twelve Chakra laced palm strikes,' Kura-chan's voice answered her unasked question.
"Right," she muttered. "So, where's Ranma?"
"Who?" Came TenTen's voice, causing Sakura to open her eyes.
'She's off in the back of our mind somewhere. Started saying something about 'understanding now,' whatever that means,' Kura-chan provided. 'And think, don't say, or they'll think you're talking to yourself, remember?'
'But I am talking to myself,' Sakura observed. "Don't worry, it's nothing," she said to TenTen.
"Ah, I thought Neji hit you in the head too hard or something," The other girl said, grinning down at the pink haired girl where she lay on the grass near the edge of the training field.
"TenTen! Do not even joke about that!" Lee said, horrified, from where he stood behind his team's weapons user. Next to him, Neji stood, nursing a rather painful looking black eye that Sakura was reasonably sure she hadn't given him. "Sakura, are you all right? Neji told me that he and the healers here have reversed as much of the damage as they could, but I was worried when you fell."
The kunoichi experimentally moved one arm, and winced as she felt the sensation of sore muscles, but not the somewhat contradictory numb, yet burning sensation she'd begun associating with Neji's attacks. "I'll be fine," she said, sitting up slowly, as the world tried to spin around her.
"I am so glad to hear that!" Lee proclaimed, and TenTen smiled. Neji, however, turned and walked away, towards the Hyuga compound's main house, unnoticed by the rest of the group.
HR.
Neji stood in Hiashi's office's waiting room five minutes later, rubbing his eye where Lee had punched him, and wishing that his team mate wasn't so emotional. He'd mistaken a comment that Neji would leave the girl for the medics to take care of as saying not to give her treatment at all, and attacked him for it.
Sliding the door open, he winced to see Hiashi sitting at the desk, staring directly at him. Of course, now things would be much worse than a black eye as he'd given what seemed to be faulty intelligence to the leader of the main house. It didn't make sense, though. It was as if the girl completely changed the way she fought from one battle to another, though her style when she fought him did have some hints of that used against Gai.
"Neji Hyuga," the older man said, steepling his hands in front of his face to hide his mouth. "You have brought very important intelligence to the house, and you fought well today."
Neji blinked. "Your service to the clan has been noted," Hiashi said, and the young ninja actually let himself gape for a moment, before snapping his mouth shut.
"Thank you, sir." Neji said, confused and wondering precisely what joke was being played on him at the moment. As the main house leader waved for him to leave, he turned and exited the room, his mind full of confusion.
END.
Note: Sakura's skill. That wasn't a perfect Amaguriken, more like half or quarter speed. Also, there's a very good reason why her Chi control seems to be incresing so quickly, which should be revealed next chapter, or the one after that at worst.
Hope the fight was all right.
Please, Read, review and tell me what you thought.
