Chapter 20

"BEGIN!"

Emi exploded forward, leaving a small crater behind her; Hibiki leapt out of the way of her fast and powerful jab, gathering a ball of explosive chakra in his hand as he rolled into an upright position. He extended his hand and aimed at Emi and let the explosive wave fly. She got smashed by the explosive chakra and flew back, but flipped mid-air and clawed at the ground to stop her. Like some kind of ape, or a wolf, she bounded forward on all fours, red chakra leaking out of her body like boiling, billowing steam.

Ooooooh shit! Hibiki did the first thing that came to mind and leapt back with all of his strength; his Sharingan was telling him exactly how outclassed he was: everyone else saw a small, translucent 'mist' of sorts of thin red chakra, but he saw it like a roaring bonfire, and it was only getting thicker and larger.

Hibiki created distance between the two and decided now was the time to experiment - Noboru had cracked her chakra cloak and injured her with his Chakra Drill, and while she didn't yet have a cloak, the chakra was thick enough to have an effect on the world around her, so he might as well try and Falcon Punch her in the face. Hibiki gathered and leached the chakra and ran forward; Emi grinned at the challenge and, without breaking stride, leapt onto her two feet and sprinted towards him, a large ball of magma forming in her left hand, as Hibiki's Falcon Punch formed in his right. Hibiki saw what she was trying to do, and decided against his better judgement to meet her attack - two rams, or perhaps a better allusion would be an Eagle and an Ape, butting heads and locking horns in a battle of strength.

Hibiki's chakra-streaming fist impacted Emi's swirling and revolving magma orb, and chakra exploded outwards at the point of impact as the two struggled to gain dominance. Hibiki's technique was more powerful, but Emi had more strength of chakra and more stamina backing her own technique, and her contempt for the Senju didn't hurt at all. Hibiki tried with all of his might, but his strength failed after a few moments of struggle, and the Jinchuriki's might won out - cancelling his technique, dispelling the chakra, and smashing into his chest with a burst of lava similar to a popped balloon. Hibiki yelped in pain as his chest burned, he ripped his shirt off and most of the lava went with it, he was only covered now by his unzipped windbreaker.

Emi noticed how Hibiki's wounds were healing just a bit faster than she could make them, to the point that every time they separated, he was back at full health. She narrowed her discolored eyes, was he a jinchuriki too? Could he just not take the chakra of his tenant? Or was he saving it for later? If so, that would prove to be the arrogant fool's undoing, she pressed her advantage and her chakra cloak began to form, first around her hand, making a claw twice as big as her fist. She slashed Hibiki's chest and blood flew, but Hibiki smashed his foot into her own chest and sent her flying back a few feet.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Thought Hibiki, as he felt his chest stinging painfully and leaking blood. Okay, here's her cloak. Problem. I need to see if I can't crack it. Fuck it! And with those silent words, he sent the signal to one of the clones in konoha, and it popped, topping him off and multiplying his chakra reserves one and a half times, while the rest went elsewhere.

Emi felt the force of Hibiki's sudden chakra increase, and her eyes widened - what beast did he have?! What beast was Konoha supposed to have?! Why wasn't his chakra red?!

Before she could answer any of these questions, Hibiki vanished and reappeared behind her. Once again, it was experiment time, but this time it was an experiment he felt much more confident doing.

"Explosion release - SHOOOOOOORYUKEN!" He channelled explosive chakra into his fist and leapt up in a spinning motion. With an impact similar to that of a shotgun firing rubber bullets from both barrels at once, and an explosion added in for good measure, Emi was sent flying into the air at breakneck speed.

Hibiki pressed his advantage and leapt into the air faster than she was flying, overtaking her with ease and channeling explosive chakra into both hands. It wasn't a fire-release, but it was a lot closer to the 'real' thing.

"FALCOOOON PUNCH!" Roared the Genin before he smashed a doubly explosive fist into his opponent's gut, he saw the cloak had faltered from his previous attack and now it was wavering violently - but the damnable thing was still up, even when he'd burst-fired his chakra to make the impact that much harder. She smashed into the ground before he could blink, and he landed a few feet away from her.

This is not good. She was tanking explosions, point-blank, and was walking out fine. He was able to hit her hard enough to make her cloak waver, but he couldn't hit hard enough to shatter it and do damage - and that was assuming she didn't heal instantly like she'd done with Noboru. Worse, she wasn't even low on chakra, and he'd burned through a quarter of his surplus maximizing those attacks.

I need a new strategy... The problem was, he only had actionable one trump card left - the clone in the tunnel wasn't done with his seal, and it wasn't even clear if he'd be done in time for the fight.

Emi was standing suddenly, having gone from laying on the ground to upright without use of her arms, like some kind of marionette.

Oh shit.

She was in front of him before he even realized what had happened, and before her fist hit his chest, he saw one bubbling tail sprout out from her cloak. He was sent flying from the force of her hit.

Fuckitfuckitfuckitfuckit! He needed to buy himself time - just five seconds, that was all he needed - so as he flew through the air, he threw both hands in front of him.

"KIKOHO!" A diamond-shaped wave of compressed explosive chakra flew forward and smashed Emi into a crater before it detonated violently, and just a second later Hibiki landed.

Desperate times! Hibiki clenched his fists near his hips and closed his eyes as he visualized a dam in his brain. Behind that damn, with the phrase 'One of Eight' written plainly upon it, was a torrential tidal wave of chakra being held back by unconscious limiters that could only be removed through an exact, meticulate process, that way they couldn't be removed on accident and kill the person. He'd read the books in his mother's extensive library years ago, and memorized them in the weeks before he'd graduated from the Academy. He'd never been taught the process or even had it described to him in detail - he'd figured it out just by reading about it.

The world around him knew it as one thing, but he'd recognized it as something else entirely. Chakra began spiraling around him as his muscles clenched so tight that his arms shook. He scowled and clenched his jaw in concentration, as he imagined a crack in that dam, one through which the tidal wave could break through. "The first gate..." He uttered, "Gate of Opening... KAIO-KEN!" He roared at the top of his lungs, before a shockwave burst through the air as the first of eight gates burst open, and his raw physical power was multiplied by a factor of five, and chakra began funneling through his muscles and his circulatory system with reckless abandon. The tidal wave in his mind burst forth before it hit a second barrier, and it took all of his willpower to know when to fold 'em and not break the second gate.

In the stands, Eiji's eyes shot open, wide as possible. "Oh... Dear... Kami." He muttered, dumbfounded. He reached forward and swatted Aoi, "go, go get Dante right now."

"What is going on?" Dai asked, as Akane gasped and Noboru slowly leaned forward.

"He just opened the first of the Eight Gates."

And just a second later, Hibiki exploded forward, his footfalls leaving cracks and breaks in the ground and sending sand flying. In a second he was in front of Emi, and his chakra-coated fist smashed into her gut before she could blink, and she hit the wall with a horrible 'thud'.

"What does that mean?" Dai asked, the phrase was familiar, but she didn't know what it entailed.

"The Human body can only handle so much chakra, even with training. The eight gates are formed when we are born to limit the chakra that flows through our body. Without those gates, we would burn out and die in mere minutes... Hours if we are lucky." Eiji explained, as Aoi dashed away, Kyo bounding after her. "The first of the Eight Gates... Kaimon... The Gate of Opening... It unlocks our physical strength, allowing us to use all one hundred percent of our muscle power, as opposed to the twenty percent limit. That limit exists because our muscles are strong enough to tear themselves apart and snap our very bones with ease." He leaned forward, not having blinked his wide-open eyes since Hibiki had unleashed the beast. "Hibiki is going to kill himself... But he's not that irresponsible. What is his game?"

Hibiki was in front of the pinned Jinchuriki in an instant, and he unleashed a massively powered up Falcon Punch into her gut, cracking and splintering the wall under the sheer force and sticking her to it in a spread-eagle crater. Not a second later he unleashed a flurry of punches on her wavering chakra cloak, blurringly fast.

"But what was that he shouted? 'Kaio-Ken?'..." Dai asked, "is that something to do with the First Gate?"

Eiji shook his head, "Fist of the World King... No, I've never even heard of it. It might be a technique he developed himself to coincide with the breaking of the first gate... It might be something he associated with the gate to make the opening easier. I do not know." As Eiji spoke, Hibiki smashed her with a double-handed punch, making the fissures in the wall deeper and longer, and sending some debris falling to the ground.

Emi recovered faster than Hibiki was ready for, and like a switch flipped, she stopped fighting him like she fought any other Genin, or any other Shinobi period, for that matter, and started fighting him like a Jinchuriki. That was the only possible explanation for such a massive, sudden increase in power - he had to be a Jinchuriki. Barely a second later, a second tail sprouted from her cloak, and she double-palm-striked Hibiki in the ribs, breaking a few of the bloodline-reinforced bones and cracking a few more, while sending him flying backwards.

Hibiki saw what she tried to hide by sprouting another tail, though - he'd broken her cloak, if only for a second. He flipped in mid air and jammed both hands into the ground, slowing himself down and skidding to a halt. His head whipped up and he made eye-contact with her in a Solid-Snake style pose, and he grinned. She might have doubled her power just now, but now he knew that she wasn't infallible - and whats more, the perfect, albeit not yet matured, vision granted by his blaring Sharingan showed him something she herself hadn't yet noticed - bits of skin were starting to flake off of her arms and dissolve in the cloak. Whatever this was she was doing to get the chakra, the more she used it, the more it hurt her. She had to be reaching a limit, all Hibiki had to do was push her towards it.

The problem was, he was reaching a limit too. He felt he could keep going with this first gate opened, his healing factor was doubly accelerated by the excess chakra from the Konoha clone and the chakra unleashed by the gate, so the damage he was doing with his untethered muscles was being repaired, and while it didn't take much chakra to do it, the little things would eventually add up. His grin turned to a scowl and he launched himself forward at the same time she did, they met in the center of the field and each smashed their fists into the others' face. Hibiki's tore open and started leaking blood and bruising instantly, Emi's cloak faltered and her head snapped back, providing Hibiki with the distraction necessary to grab both of her shoulders and leap forward, sending a flying-knee into her cloaked gut. The cloak faltered more but didn't break, not until Hibiki spun himself mid-air - hands still locked to the cloak - and smashed Emi into the ground. He noted in the back of his mind that grabbing onto the second-stage cloak had actually burned his skin, but he ignored it for now as the wounds on his face and on his hands healed. He popped his wolverine-claws on both hands, and started punching, intending to make her burn more of her tenant's chakra by healing multiple deep wounds at once, constantly.

He smashed his fists and claws into her gut, her chest, even a few into her legs and arms, as fast as possible and as many times as possible, his Sharingan as red as the blood that started to fly around in thick ropes. After a few seconds, his arms were grabbed by the tails she'd sprouted and yanked up and away from her blood-covered body. She curled up into a ball and sprang both legs forward, smashing Hibiki's chest like a bucking bronco and sending him flying away as she sprang to her feet.

Hibiki's chest hurt like he'd been kicked like a mule, but he knew that had to pale in comparison to what Emi was feeling, as her wounds steamed and healed quickly. The cloak continued to flicker, but eventually sealed back up and went right back to bubbling like mad.

Still two tails... Thought Hibiki, as he wiped some thick red blood from his healed cheek. Is that her limit of control, or just what it's taking to fight me? Should I open another gate? Can I open another gate? That he'd opened the first one now, for the first time ever, he attributed to the same miracle that had granted him a literal new lease on life, he really didn't want to test whether or not he could open a second gate for the first time in a pivotal fight.

It was now that Dante arrived in the stands, the moment Aoi had arrived he'd body-flickered up there as fast as he could. "What?!" He said urgently, looking from Eiji in his seat to Hibiki in the arena. "What happened?!" He looked to Hibiki's opponent, two tails and all, and a few pieces fell into place. "How long have they been fighting!?"

"Three minutes. When did you teach your Genin how to open one of the Eight Gates?" Eiji answered and asked.

Dante's neck nearly broke he turned to look at Eiji so fast. "WHAT?!" He screamed, "he opened the gates?! How many?!"

Eiji turned to look at Dante, narrowing his eyes at this revelation. "Just the one, so far. You didn't teach him?"

Dante shook his head and turned to look at the fight again, as Hibiki and Emi clashed once again in a furious blur of chakra-enhanced fists and kicks. "I've never even gone over the eight gates... You three are good, but I thought it would be a few years." He said, with a brief glance to Noboru. "How good is this kid?" Even Tsunade hadn't said anything about the eight gates, Hibiki had truly done this on his own. Was this something afforded to him by blood, or was it his own skill?

Down in the arena, the battle raged. The tides turned as fast as the punches and kicks flew - one moment, Hibiki was blocking fists and feet as fast as he could, the next minute, he was throwing them himself. They both knew that this had to be a battle of will and of martial arts, as they both assumed ninjutsu would largely be useless, Hibiki because he knew that the first gate only enhanced his strength and not the power of his techniques, which still would be unable to pierce her cloak, and Emi because she falsely concluded Hibiki was in a proto-first-state Jinchuriki release, and as such her techniques would either be blocked or cancelled by his accelerated healing factor.

They both released from their clash and leapt back. They both were visibly panting with exertion, though neither was yet exhausted.

Or, at least, visibly exhausted. In the case of Hibiki, he could physically feel the drain of the first gate and all of the chakra he'd been spending to fight on the level of a jinchuriki. He panted deeply, still in a battle-stance. Oh... Oh shit. He thought, staring deeply at Emi, who too was panting but didn't seem to be too worse for wear, outside from the gashes on her body from the skin shaved off and burned to continue powering the bubbling, boiling cloak. He still hadn't got an update from the clone in the tunnel, and it was too early to pop the last clone in Konoha. Oh fuck... He swallowed deeply, as he saw a small stub form on her cloak, a third tail was beginning to form, but it was stunted, as if not ready, or not available. Hibiki clenched his teeth. I've gotta do it... God damn it. He inhaled deeply and clenched both fists tight.

The second gate, the gate of healing, is like the first gate located in the brain. Opening this gate temporarily re-energizes the body and forcibly augments the muscles to handle more power. He remembered reading before a lengthy list of side-effects that essentially boiled down to 'whatever the first gate does times 'x''.

But, desperate times called for desperate measures, and all that, and if the lady in front of him was trying to go Super Saiyan Three, he had to go match it Kaio-Ken Times Two.

He grinned, Double it... But go no higher. Once again, there were many things he could resist doing, but there were also some things he just had to do, no matter how stupid, how cheesy, or how asinine it was. He'd been given a second life, he might as well enjoy it.

"Kaio-ken..." He muttered audibly, but lowly, as the chakra, and the air itself, suddenly stilled around him. "TIMES TWO!" There was a sudden outward explosion of chakra that swirled around him in a vortex, as his muscle-mass was forcibly increased by all of the chakra pouring through it.

In the stands, Dante had to take a seat. "The second gate..." He barely believed what his Sharingan eyes were telling him. He'd told Hibiki to hold nothing back, and by Kami, the kid delivered.

"He's forcing her to draw more of her beast's chakra... He's dragging this fight out." Noboru realized. "He's using the eight gates to augment his strength and to allow him to fight on her level... But there has to be a limit to what he can do... He cannot keep opening them, he will die."

"He's shown he can open two so far, and one allowed him to fight on equal terms with a two-tailed Emi. Perhaps two will allow him to fight against her in a three tailed form?"

"If he goes further, he'll do potentially irreparable damage to his body. I know this personally." Dante said, his voice shaking with memory. "What is his play?!"

Down in the arena, Emi saw what was happening and scowled deeply, realizing that she had to push it to her absolute limit if she wanted to keep the fight going. As Hibiki thundered forward, a third tail sprouted from her cloak and the speed at which her skin flaked off and blood floated to the surface increased, slowly turning her bright red chakra cloak bloody, almost as if it were a barrier from the inside as well as the out, and was filling with her blood as a balloon was filled with water. She sprinted forward with a savage, ape-like roar to meet Hibiki's sprint. Her fist collided with his open hand, and his fist collided with hers, so hard and so fast that they created a small shockwave. They were locked together in a physical grudge-match, and their strengths were arguably equal.

Hibiki's blood red Copy-Wheel Eyes were locked to Emi's yelow and white eyes, as the former spun rapidly and the latter slowly bled to pure white as her cloak filled itself blood-red. Neither were budging, they both had their legs braced behind them, they both were putting all of their chakra-enhanced strength behind it. Hibiki suddenly felt Emi slowly gaining ground on him, so he improvised the first thing he could, and headbutted her. The force of impact created a small crater, and the force of the second made the crater deeper; each headbutt forced them deeper into the ground and made her solid-red chakra cloak flicker violently.

Emi thought fast, and yanked her arms back - forcing Hibiki off balance. She hopped up and kicked outwards, sending Hibiki flying into the wall of the small crater he'd formed. She leapt on top of him and started beating on him savagely, like some sort of blood-lusted ape, screaming and shouting with each impact. Her own hits were forming their own shockwaves and deepening that part of the crater, they drew blood and cracked Hibiki's steel bones.

Thinking on his feet, so to speak, Hibiki used one of the techniques he'd stolen earlier and blasted a bullet of wind from his face. The hyper-compressed air slammed into Emi's face and stunned her, allowing Hibiki to punch her twice and then smash both palms onto her cloaked chest. The barrier flickered, but Hibiki noticed that this blow, which would have popped it like a balloon earlier, didn't break the barrier this time - its strength hadn't simply multiplied, it'd increased exponentially.

Hibiki sprang to his feet and sprinted forward, chakra streaming from both hands as he prepared another Falcon Punch. Emi, however, landed on the ground and reacted fast enough to catch his right hand before it could slam into his left - halting the technique through use of her tails. Her fists were still open to use, but Hibiki acted fast enough to stun her again - and opened both hands and blasted her in the face with explosive chakra. This, however, while stronger than it usually was without the Eight Gates, was nowhere near strong enough to even cause a ripple in her cloak; the first two gates were almost solely about enhancing Taijutsu effectiveness, Ninjutsu strength - from what he'd read in the book - came with the fifth gate. It was enhanced anyways as a byproduct of all of the chakra channeling through his body, but the Eight Gates in general were taijutsu-focused, almost as if they had come before Ninjutsu had ever even entered the equation.

The stunning point-blank facial explosion caused Emi to lose her grip with her tails, giving Hibiki the chance he needed to unleash a Falcon Punch. This impact broke the barrier for a brief instant, which showed Hibiki's dojutsu all he needed - she'd practically shaved off an entire layer of skin. She was bleeding profusely, almost as if the blood was a source from which the cloak was powered. The problem was, this blood was replaced by the cloak at the same rate which it was burned, almost in a state of self-destructing and self-healing limbo.

Come on... Come on! Hibiki forced himself forward, the second gate having revitalized him and replenished his stamina, giving him the strength to carry on. "Break damn you!" He roared as he slid under Emi before she landed, whirled around on one hand similar to a break-dancer, and kicked her high into the air.

Dante shook his head, "holy fuck, he's going to do it!"

"If he's self-trained in the Eight Gates, how does he even know this?!" Eiji demanded of the air, as Hibiki leapt into the air and bodily snatched Emi out of it.

Hibiki acted on instinct and oriented himself and Emi so their heads were facing the grounds, and he used his legs to start a rapid, dizzying spin. They fell to the ground at blistering speeds, and smashed into it with a massive explosion, one so powerful that it made the barriers separating the fight from the people waver. Sand and smoke, both white and black, were thick in the air, no one but the Konoha-nin with dojutsu could see inside it.

In the center of a large crater were both Hibiki and Emi, whose cloak had broken, but still had red chakra leaking out of her and repairing her more grievous wounds. Hibiki was groaning and turning to his side, facing Emi.

Urgh... Fuuuuuck. Thought Hibiki, who clenched his jaw and scowled in pain. What did I just do? That hurt... Oh fuck that hurt. He exhaled shakily and clenched his gut, finding it very hard to move after a hit like that. Nobody wins with a spinning headbutt of doom with the ground, fuck! His shoulders nearly slumped and his arms almost gave out on him when he saw Emi stirring; how much goddamn chakra did she have, and how much goddamn chakra could she pump through her body before she collapsed?!

If I go further... Ah shit! He collapsed, his arms gave out from underneath him and he got a facefull of sand and rock. If I go further I can keep going, I can break her cloak again, but that might come back to bite me in the ass! He turned his aching head and saw Emi staggering to her feet, the cloak was slower in coming back this time, but it did come, starting from her feet and crawling its way up.

Emi was in pain, not for the first time in her life, but still for one of the few significant times in her life where it was nothing but what she felt. She was in a state of conscious limbo, a lot of her actions driven by a combination of her primal battle instincts and the raging beast inside. She just wanted to finish this fight, she just wanted to kill this arrogant pest, she just wanted to go to sleep. She gritted her teeth and screamed at the top of her lungs, chakra exploding outwards in a torrential cyclone, the cloak reformed instantly and became a much darker shade of solid red. Her roar deepened in pitch and became deafening, as it sent shockwaves outwards. She roared so loudly that neither she nor anyone else heard the words from the genin beside her.

"Fuck it..." Hibiki spat, "TIMES THREE!" His own chakra exploded outwards, the raging winds cleared the air almost instantly. The increased bloodflow through his body almost instantly turned his skin dark red. With all four limbs he launched himself at the Jinchuriki, bodily slamming into her and sending them both to the ground again. His first were a blur as he beat the cloaked genin senseless, eventually breaking her cloak and causing bodily damage. This went on for a solid five seconds, before, for a brief moment, something snapped inside the Jinchuriki, and all at once her power pulsed outwards, creating dozens upon dozens of small, miniature orbs of chakra.

Hibiki was so focused on injuring the girl that he didn't notice what was going on until those orbs started gravitating towards her opened maw and coalescing in a single, dark orb. Hibiki's eyes let him see what was going on, and for a moment, he was mesmerized by the raw amount of chakra compressed into such a small place; for just a second, he felt a sense of familiarity..

After that moment passed, he was blasted in the chest by the bijuu-dama. The Senju heir was sent flying into the air in a wide arc, before he finally hit the ground. Body broken, skin red, three of the eight gates that kept him from destroying himself open, the tailed-beast-ball had done so much focused damage that it was all his healing factor could do to keep him alive. He could barely move anymore, it took everything he had just to turn his head, but what he saw made him smile.

The cloak was gone. Emi may still be healing, but she was channeling no more red chakra. She slowly limped forward, eyes livid and still morphed yellow and white. Her hair was swinging freely, having long since ripped out of its pony-tail. She was breathing raggedly, but unlike Hibiki, she was still on her feet. After a few seconds, the albino found herself standing above Hibiki, whose arms were spread splayed out to the side. She stared at him for a moment, furious, before she reached into her weapons pouch, and grasped something within.

Slowly, she pulled it out, and in the stands, everyone who was aware, held their breath. Agonizingly slowly, she pulled out her Equalizer, Hibiki's Vindicator, a six-chambered revolver with random bits and spare pieces jutting out from various points. Hibiki smiled.

"I..." She panted, "I don't care... That this will end my chances. Though I am sorry I will never face you... In true battle... When ours destroy yours." She said, pointing the gun at Hibiki's face, pulling back the hammer, and firing.

The explosion was like a crack of thunder, the bullet sailed forth and entered right between Hibiki's bloody eyes, piercing his red skin and coming out gorily from the other end, bits of skull, brain mater, and other such gore spread about the ground as the bullet shattered and tore a few gashes into the back of Hibiki's skull.

Eiji looked to Dante, whose jaw was slackening and his eyes were, for the second time that day, morphing into another shape entirely, almost of their own accord.

Emi grinned, people in the crowd started panicking as the echo of the gunshot wore off in the distance.

"DISQUALI - " The burly Jonin began, before Hibiki burst into smoke, leaving no corpse whatsoever.

For a second, all was still. The crowds were silent, Dante's eyes widened, Noboru grinned, Dai gasped, Akane nearly fainted, and Emi blinked, the gun still in her hand, barrel still smoking, still pointed at where Hibiki's head had been.

"What?"

The ground exploded in a massive burst of pure white smoke. A great many of them had been accidentally burst since they'd been placed earlier, but seventy five clones still stood disguised amongst the sand. With the eight-gates chakra from the dispelled Hibiki topping them all off, and the chakra from the clone from Konoha adding excess, it was as if seventy five true-blooded Hibikis had spawned. Worse for Emi, they all got the memories and experiences from the first clone, meaning they all knew their limits with the eight gates. In less than a second, a tornado of wind was sent flying as seventy four of them opened the first gate, and all of them sprinted towards Emi.

"SOMEONE GET THE GUN!" A deep voice screamed out over the battle-cries of seventy four charging Genin.

Emi readied herself, but she was in a state where she could barely handle Hibiki in base form, let alone seventy four Hibikis with the first of the Eight Gates opened. Emi was thrown around violently, and in an almost coordinated dance of punches and kicks, she was beaten bloody, senseless, and unconscious by seventy four Hibikis with too much chakra and all of the power they could physically bring to bear. In thirty seconds, the clones began dispelling, until it was just her and the Alpha Hibiki, who stood without a scratch on him, not a single of the body-wrecking gates open, and without a hint of lethargy. Clutched in his hand was Emi's gun, barrel still smoking from when it had been fired.

Hibiki started forward, his Sharingan told him Emi was still conscious, but she was hanging on by a thread, she was more out of it than she wasn't. He stood over her, she turned her bloody, bruised head, raw skin and all, towards him. Hibiki knelt down, and sent a silent command for the clone in the tunnel to dispel - he didn't need him anymore, but he kept the memories it had made for later, he might need those.

Hibiki's Sharingan and Emi's human eyes locked in contact, before Hibiki pistol-whipped the girl and knocked her out.

He stared at her unconscious form for a few moments, before he looked up, at the silent crowds around and above him. They couldn't believe it, and to be honest, neither could he. How many times had he pulled this trick in the last week alone? He was surprised he hadn't been associated with it yet. Hibiki stood up, and spread his arms wide, deciding to have a little fun before he had to retreat and collapse from the collective exhaustion of one clone opening three gates, and seventy four opening one.

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!" He yelled out as loud as he could, silently cursing his eight-year old vocal chords.

And the crowd went wild, cheering his name, cheering the fight, just cheering in general. Hibiki allowed himself a moment to soak it all in, before he made for the tunnel.

"The winner is: Hibiki Senju!" Shouted the Burly Jonin as multiple medics rushed straight past Hibiki and for the beaten Jinchuriki. "The next match will now begin. Dai Aburame and Aoi Inuzuka, please enter the arena."

Hibiki chuckled, as he got deeper within the tunnel, before he finally fell to his knees and let the last quarter of an hour wash over him.

He'd done it.

He'd won.

To celebrate, he let himself fall out cold.

AN:

Of all the fights I've written, this one holds a special place in my heart.

And trust me, we've only scratched the surface, thus far.

Something a lot bigger is headed our way.