Disclaimer: I do not own NARUTO.
WILL OF STONE
CHAPTER TWELVE: "Asylum, Part Two"
"Protect the Asylum at all costs!"
The voice of Tosuken echoed after them as they fled into the depths of the Asylum. There were other sounds as well: one faint, through the tower walls. The sound of ninjas killing each other outside. And another sound coming from inside the Asylum.
It was prayer. Rows of Rain Priests kneeled on the spiraling rings of metal platforms and walkways, their hands clasped before them, begging their god to protect them in their time of need. "Oh Lord Hanzou," the Rain Priests prayed. "Oh Lord Hanzou, save us. Deliver us from evil… Save us. Oh Lord Hanzou, deliver us from evil…"
The soulless insane human sacrifices of Hanzou's death jutsu lay motionless and naked atop dark pools of water, paying no heed to all the activity around them.
Ninjas joined around them as they leaped down the shaft of the Asylum from platform to platform. There were many defenders in the Asylum itself, including multiple teams of ANBU from both Rain and Konoha. Hanzou and the Fifth were no fools. They had not left the Asylum unprotected.
"Lord Aumono!" one of the Rain ANBU said, bowing down to him. "The walls are soon to be breached!"
"And the roof as well," Aumono said. "Tosuken-sensei and Konoha's Butcher Beast are holding them back… though I don't know for how long." He grinned, and his eyes were dark and cold. "Let us make sure they are welcomed appropriately."
The ANBU nodded. "We shall, my lord." Now the ANBU regarded the three Leaf genin, plus Sakura. "So these are the Butcher Beast's prize students… and Tsunade's little pet, too."
"The Demonslayer's child," another of the Rain ANBU hissed. "It is blasphemy for her to enter this sacred place. None of them should be here."
Aumono laughed. "That's for me to determine, lieutenant, not you. I happen to think the Hyuuga and the Haruno girl will be quite useful." Aumono turned to the Leaf genin. "Now, do you all understand the mission? I am especially referring to the mentally disabled ape in the green jumpsuit."
"Stop insulting me, damnit!" Lee said. "Protect the Asylum! I understand!"
"Lee, listen," Neji said. "Akatsuki is attacking the Asylum for one reason only. They want to kill as many of Hanzou's human sacrifices… martyrs, if you prefer… as possible. The more martyrs they kill, the weaker Hanzou becomes. Our mission is to protect the martyrs. Since the martyrs are spread all throughout the Asylum, the defending forces will have to spread out as well. Each team of defenders will be responsible for protecting one specific sector of the Asylum. Get it?"
"Oh," Lee said.
"We'll go to the main pool on the ground floor," Aumono said. "It should be more… exciting."
The seven of them jumped and dropped down to the base level of the Asylum. Here the main pool stretched across most of the level. On various raised, interconnected platforms above the pool there kneeled hundreds of martyrs. Many teams of Ame and Konoha ANBU were already in place, ready to defend the martyrs. But there were clearly holes in the defense—a consequence of being undermanned from the attack Hanzou was leading on the Akatsuki base. The genin took a spot in one of these holes.
At last Sakura learned the names of the three rain genin. The leader was Mukai Aumono, the only grandson of Lord Hanzou, tall and aristocratically handsome. The other boy genin was Junichiro Tenshe, a short, almost pudgy frog-like boy with splotches on his face. The bloodthirsty girl genin was Kyoroku Erima. Erima cradled a long, black knife that seemed to cast no shadow; occasionally she would lick the tip of the knife as if in a caress. The #1 elite genin team in Ame, Sakura thought. And the #1 elite Konoha genin team. And me. A fine company.
The seven of them waited, but not for long.
The Akatsuki attack was well organized. The sounds of fighting outside quickly grew loud, deafening. Only minutes had passed and already the terrorists had made it to the Asylum gates. Sakura brandished her chakra-cast kunai in one hand, and reached her other hand into her shuriken pouch. Her eyes were wide, her heart pounding.
Damnit… can I… can I be strong this time? Is this part of the test, Tsunade-sensei? Is this my second chance?
Is this what I wanted?
"Akatsuki has the gates," Neji said. He could see through the Asylum walls with the Byakugan. "Thirty seconds to breach."
CRRREEEKKKK!
One of the walls of the Asylum shook madly, rippling and cracking even though it was made of five-meter thick steel. A giant vertical gash was hacked into the side, from the base, streaking upward.
Lee was crouched next to her. "Sakura-chan!" he whispered. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," she said.
CRRREEEKKKK!
Another gash was cut into the wall, a vertical line parallel to the first. The Akatsuki outside were trying to cut open a hole, a door, into the Asylum.
"Don't worry!" Lee said, smiling. "I'll protect you!"
CRRREEEKKKK!
A third gash was cut into the wall, horizontal to the first two lines, so that the wall was now cut apart on all three sides. The door was complete. Now Akatsuki only had to open it. All the defending ninjas prepared themselves for the onslaught. For a moment there was complete silence in the Asylum, except for one sound. One prayer.
The prayer of the Rain Priests had reached their greatest fury. "—Oh Lord Hanzou, save us! Deliver us from evil! Save us! Oh—"
BOOM!
The wall fell forward, a giant slab of metal, blasted into the Asylum.
A dozen destructive jutsu exploded at once from both sides.
"Water Release: Great Waterfall!"
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!"
"Water Release: Rising Water Slicer!"
"Water Release: Tidal Shield!"
"Fire Release: Dragon Fire!"
"Fire Release: Great Fireball!"
"Earth Release: Bedrock Coffin!"
"Earth Release: Sinister Spikes!"
"Wind Release: Vacuum Wave!"
"Wind Release: Beast Wave Palm!"
"Lightning Release: Air Static Charge!"
"Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!"
The jutsu collided halfway in the middle of the doorway, a giant roiling furnace of nightmarish elemental destruction, steam and storm and quake and lava and thunder. Blinding, indescribable power. But both sides were evenly matched. The jutsu neutralized each other.
Into the breach rushed Akatsuki.
"Kill them all!" Aumono roared to the defending shinobi.
From their perches within the maze of walkways and platforms and tanks, the defenders threw a furious hail of weaponry—senbon needles, kunai, shuriken, spears and arrows—to meet the Akatsuki attack. Most of the first wave of Akatsuki was ripped apart by the assault, falling where they lay in horrible disfigurement. But more rushed in immediately, dodging the weaponry now that they had seen the location of the defenders.
"Exploding Needle Shower!" the Akatsuki ninjas shouted. Spinning bamboo tubes were launched into the air, into the defenders' midst, and from the tubes thousands of long, thin senbon needles burst out in all directions.
It wasn't hard for Sakura to take cover, but that wasn't the point of the attack. The defenders could dodge the needles, but they couldn't stop all of them. Many of them hit the human sacrifices, the motionless martyrs. When the martyrs were hit by a senbon, even if they were just grazed, they collapsed immediately, falling dead to the floor. Poison! Sakura realized. The senbon were poisoned.
"Everyone cover a side!" Aumono yelled. "Don't let the senbon through!"
Sakura threw shuriken as best she could. The Akatsuki needle tubes were everywhere, hundreds of them, and needles shot through the air like sand in a sandstorm. By her side Tenten was throwing kunai at a blistering rate. Lee used his taijutsu speed to parry the senbon with his arms and legs. Aumono, Tenshe, and Erima used senbon themselves, controlling multiple senbon via barely visible chakra strings, weaving an impenetrable curtain of razor needles. Neji used Gentle Fist taijutsu and at the same time threw kunai enhanced with his chakra in opposite directions. With perfect accuracy the earth chakra-flow kunai hit the needle tubes closest to them and exploded, destroying the tubes.
Somehow the seven of them managed to stop the blizzard of needles from hitting any more martyrs.
"Exploding Needle Shower!" the Akatsuki shouted again. A second wave of senbon burst outward. But this time the needles were much more dangerous.
They were wrapped in explosive tags.
Wherever the senbon touched anything they exploded. Explosions ricocheted around the Asylum, causing chaos and havoc among the defenders. Platforms and walkways were blown in half and started to fall down through the hollow of the Asylum. From the level above a broken walkway swung down upon them with an earsplitting screeching of metal on metal, sparks flying.
"Shit!" Lee cried.
"Sakura!" Neji said.
"Earth Release: Earth Wall!" Sakura shouted. She flashed through the seals and pressed her hands to the platform. A wall of earth erupted from the metal, covering the martyrs on her platform. The walkway crashed down, breaking on the wall of earth. Senbon needles with explosive tags slammed into the wall and exploded, but the wall held, barely. Sakura tried to reinforce the wall with more chakra.
"Four Akatsuki from behind!" Neji shouted.
They turned just as three ninjas leapt from behind them.
Standing in place, Erima silently reached out and flicked the strange black knife in her hand. Somehow, the shadow of the knife fell on the throat of the Akatsuki ninja in the center, even though he was far out of reach, and a bright red slit appeared there. The Akatsuki fell, blood gushing out.
Lee leaped up to meet another ninja, the one on the left. "For all those who died on December 7th!" Lee shouted. He attacked in a blur of taijutsu.
Tenshe met the third ninja from the side, throwing a web of poison needles of his own.
But immediately behind the first three Akatsuki leapt a fourth ninja. "Exploding Needle Shower!" the ninja screamed. This time the bamboo tube shot out directly above them. It spun, sending out a blizzard of poisoned senbon at point blank range.
"Kaiten!" Neji said, going into a massive blue-white chakra spin that protected them from the needles. But he couldn't deflect the ones not headed in his direction. Multiple martyrs were hit directly by the poison needles; the senbon embedded in their flesh. And the other senbon—
"Explosive tags!" Tenten yelled. All the senbon had explosive tags on them.
"Goddamnit, run!" Aumono yelled.
They ran. Sakura and Tenten leapt to the left just as the martyrs that had been hit by needles exploded, destroying their original platform. Sakura and Tenten jumped onto the platform next to the one that had sunk. The martyrs on this platform were still alive. It was up to the two kunoichi to protect them now. They moved to opposite ends of the platform, watching carefully for any sign of attack.
"This is bad," Tenten said. "I can't even see anything."
"Neither can the enemy," Sakura said. But the enemy doesn't need to see us, do they? That was a bad disadvantage for the defenders.
The Asylum was all in darkness. The power had been cut, and the hole the Akatsuki had entered through had somehow been sealed up, too; Sakura guessed to prevent reinforcements from coming. Though whether it was rain-nin or Akatsuki reinforcements she couldn't say. Now only the faint light of momentary explosions allowed them to see. If any attack came they would have to listen for the sound in order to detect it in time. The noise of battle was all around her, above and to the sides. Sakura strained her ears to their limit.
There!
Through the smoke the Akatsuki ninjas attacked.
One leapt at Tenten, and Tenten threw ranged weapons at him, but he blocked them in midair and took Tenten in the chest with a kick. Sakura made to help her but another ninja attacked her simultaneously. Sakura blocked the ninja's kunai with her own chakra-cast kunai. The super sharp edge of the chakra kunai bit into the metal kunai deeply, catching it. Sakura immediately brought her other kunai up for a counter-thrust, but the Akatsuki blocked her thrust with his own kunai. For a moment they struggled as their weapons locked on each other. But the Akatsuki's strength was greater than her own, and he forced her down on one knee. Behind her she heard Tenten scream in pain. Damn!
"Sakura-chan!" the voice of Lee called from somewhere near her.
"Here!" she shouted.
An explosion occurred above them, a flash of light, and for an instant Sakura stared into the Akatsuki ninja's face. He was a young man. On his forehead he wore a metal forehead protector etched with four parallel lines, the symbol of Rain, except with an additional horizontal line slashed through it. A Rain missing-nin. An expression of utter hatred was twisted in his baby blue eyes. "Go to hell, you damn fascists!" he spat.
"Binding," she whispered. For a split second the genjutsu worked again, freezing the Akatsuki's muscles. Sakura attacked with all the force she had, whipping around her chakra-cast kunai to stab the ninja in the throat. But the ninja reacted too fast, breaking the genjutsu, flipping backwards and kicking brutally Sakura in the stomach. Sakura, off-balance, went flying down hard to the metal platform, the breath knocked out of her. She cried out in pain.
The Akatsuki stabbed down with his kunai at Sakura's head. There was no way Sakura could dodge or block it, but somehow Sakura managed by pure instinct to throw her own chakra-cast kunai at the ninja's face. She didn't think it would work but it was extremely fast—twice as fast as an ordinary kunai—and the ninja had to dodge the kunai, interrupting his otherwise fatal thrust. The kunai whistled upwards into the smoky darkness. Sakura rolled to the side, avoiding the ninja's next kunai attack, and jumped back up to her feet.
"Stay away from Sakura-chan, terrorist!" a voice shouted from behind her. Rock Lee entered the fight with a flying dropkick. "Dynamic Entry!" His weights were off and from his speed he looked like he had opened at least one Chakra Gate.
The Akatsuki blocked Lee's kick. He threw his kunai at Lee, who dodged and immediately engaged again. But the attack gave the Akatsuki an opening to pull senbon out of his robe. He started to throw them at an incredible rate. Even as the two of them fought hand to hand he was throwing senbon. None of them hit Lee, but the ninja wasn't aiming for Lee. Fuck! Sakura noticed.
"Lee!" Sakura said. "He's killing the martyrs with the senbon!"
"Fascist fools!" the Akatsuki cried. "You can't stop the New Dawn! We will destroy this place of abomination!"
Sakura ran in front of the martyrs, whipping out her kunai and shuriken to try to intercept the needles. But it was too hard to see in the darkness. Some senbon shot past her and stabbed into the martyrs behind. The martyrs died, poisoned, collapsing to the floor. There were now only about five left. Damn! This is bad!
Sakura didn't want to use this jutsu, because it took so much chakra, but it looked like she had to. "Mud Clone!" she shouted. Two clones created from her chakra, shaped with the element of earth, sprung up around her. She hoped two would be enough. She didn't control the clones directly—they weren't her—but they could act with her original intentions. One of the clones leapt in front of the remaining living martyrs, just in time to block another wave of senbon. A dozen needles pierced and stuck in her clone body. The clone turned back into mud upon taking such damage, but it had served its purpose.
Meanwhile she and her other clone attacked the Akatsuki ninja with Lee.
The ninja reacted quickly, making a series of hand seals. "Water Release: Water Shark Missile!" the ninja shouted. A huge spear of water shaped like a shark shot out at them with explosive force.
Sakura and Lee dodged to either side of the Water Shark Missile, while one of Sakura's mud clones blocked it directly in order to keep the martyrs unharmed. The attack dissipated.
Yet the Akatsuki ninja did not stop there. He threw a hail of needles at the martyrs. Lured to opposite sides of the platform, on the wrong bank, neither Sakura nor Lee was in a position to block them. "For the New Dawn!" the Rain missing-nin cried out.
The five or so kneeling martyrs still alive on the platform fell to the senbon needles, like bowling pins, row by row. In the blink of an eye there was only one martyr still alive on the platform. She had survived because she was shorter than the rest, and had been protected by the height of the martyrs around her. A girl, a little girl. The girl was kneeling with her hands on her knees as if in prostration. She was completely motionless. There was another explosion above them, and for the first time Sakura saw her clearly. The little girl's face was twisted into a grotesque expression of hell. Her mouth was gaping wide open, as if she was screaming, but no sound came out.
The Akatsuki ninja threw a single needle at the martyr to kill her.
Out of nowhere, in the darkness and the shadows of the Asylum, a man stepped out. It was one of the Rain Priests. Sakura had no idea where he had come from. He stepped between the poisoned needle and the girl martyr. The needle pierced him through the stomach and stuck there.
"Lord Hanzou… save us… deliver us…" the priest whispered as he sunk to the floor.
"You brainwashed cult fascists!" the Akatsuki ninja screamed. "We're trying to release these people from their torment, why do you stop us?"
He threw more senbon, a storm of them, enraged.
Suddenly Neji was there, jumping down in front of the martyr from a higher level above. With the Gentle Fist taijutsu style he easily parried every one of the senbon.
At the same time Mukai Aumono emerged from the water behind the ninja. He pointed his fingertips at the Akatsuki, and thrust them forward slightly. "Reap," he said.
Instantly the young ninja was split in two at the chest. It was an invisible cutting attack—like a knife through butter—that went straight through the ninja's flesh. The Akatsuki missing-nin just had time to gurgle a gasp, which was full of red liquid. Then the top half of his body, the chest and head, slid down into the water, bobbing, and the bottom half followed. Blood stained the pool.
"We saved one martyr," Neji said.
Aumono laughed. "And we killed five traitors."
Now the other genin arrived at the platform, together. Erima, Tenshe, Tenten. They were all alive. No, something was wrong. Tenshe was carrying an unconscious Tenten in his arms.
"Tenten!" Lee shouted.
Sakura and Lee rushed over to her. Tenshe laid Tenten's body on the floor. Sakura saw that a senbon had grazed Tenten's neck, leaving a slight red line of blood. Poisoned.
"Is she alive?" Lee cried.
"For now," Sakura said. She moved her hands over Tenten's body, using the Mystical Palm medical jutsu to feel out her condition. "What kind of poison is this?" she asked Tenshe. "You must know."
"It's a neurotoxin distilled from the Kokaeo tree of Rain," said Tenshe. "It attacks the muscle nerves… it'll stop her heart…"
That was bad. It was impossible to extract the poison; it had already attached itself to Tenten's nerve cells, like ink staining over paper. What could she do? Think, Sakura! If the poison attacks the nervous system…
Inspiration struck her. Sakura could use the chakra circulatory system as a workaround instead. It was like the opposite of the Binding genjutsu, using the same principle to stimulate instead of freeze the muscles. She could supercharge Tenten's chakra circulatory system, which was unaffected by the poison, and use it to temporarily stimulate Tenten's vital organs. The procedure would require a surgical bypass to connect the systems together. She concentrated, and a chakra scalpel formed in her hand. She worked as quickly as she could. There… yes, done…
"I stabilized her," Sakura said. Lee, who had been very tense, gave her a thumbs up. Sakura smiled back, but she was very tired. She slumped to the floor, breathing hard. The healing had taken most of her remaining chakra. Only a couple minutes had passed since the battle had begun, but it felt like forever.
Elsewhere, the defenders in the Asylum seemed to be holding their ground and driving the Akatsuki back. It was still so dark she couldn't really tell. At least no one was attacking them.
"What's happening?" Sakura asked Neji.
"Battle's dying down," Neji said. "The ground level is secure, though there's still some fighting on the higher levels. I don't know what's happening outside."
"The strongest Akatsuki are still—" Aumono said.
SHHHKKKREEEEETTTTTT!
The roof of the Asylum blew up.
Next: CHAPTER THIRTEEN: "Asylum, Part Three"
