I HATE Numerical Analysis. I just thought I'd say that right now. Stupid necessary math, but not really, course. Moving on. Fic!
Miss 'one time, at band camp' can use her flute for any number of things, so why begrudge me an assumption on what the Grass guys can do? Not like we seen a passel of them around doing badass grassy deeds. Ohmigawd, I flashbacked. God help me, but I flashbacked, and to POKEMON. I don't know how many of y'all did the original pokemon run, and WHY is this giving me the 'correct' spelling for "Pokémon"?
Anyway, as it was released international-like, there was a soundtrack, and on that soundtrack was a song, and in the song were some FANTASTICALLY cracked out lyrics. "Good luck with Muk and its poison gas/ Make one wrong move and it'll kick yo' grass". I still find it fsking hilarious. And not just because Muk… well… not so much capable of the kicking thing.
Holy crap, I am made of fail.
25 trouble lurking
The Suna medic said it would cure itself, no disease or poison, just her body trying to reconcile too many things at once. Hanabi said something dry about her health and her personality being entirely too similar, and allowed Naruto to pick up her precious sister.
She was floating in some hazy semblance of consciousness, trusting nin, endurance, to hold her through this as well.
She's functional enough by the next morning to insist on their departure. She dodges all three attacks with fluid grace, determined to prove to skeptical eyes that she is not helpless. Her sister still looks doubtful, but takes her kunai back silently.
He should have known fate hated him enough that there was trouble lurking, waiting for the most inconvenient time to strike.
-vovovovov-
Hanabi stops them by trying to take out Naruto's head with her foot.
"Hold up," she snarls, planting her feet on the solid trunk of tree. She looks around, sharp little movements and sighs. "The moon's broken," she informs them with no small annoyance.
And it is. It hangs in the sky, as dim as it was when the sun was out and yellow as aged paper, and Sasuke thinks that with two nin possessing the sharingan present, the team is highly unlikely to fall prey to an illusion.
He has noticed the elder heiress sneezing her eyes out for the past five minutes, and he nearly falls when he comes to the realization.
He closes his eyes and isolates his senses. He breathes in and tastes, lets every nuance drift into him; tree sap, crushed leaves, far away townsmoke, and there, an unfamiliar sweet shadow, heavy, sticky, death.
"Fucking Grass nin," he snarls.
"Wha?" Naruto is incapable of making the mental leap, which shouldn't surprise any one.
"Drugs and an illusion. Can't believe the half dead princess noticed it first." He ignores her feeble protests about being dull enough to only think it was allergies. She spends too much time being humble, in his opinion.
They break the genjutsu, and are relieved to find they haven't deviated horribly from where they are supposed to be going. They can recover time, but it will require them to push harder, and Hinata is still trying to burn away what afflicts her.
"We haven't lost ground, but we have given them a chance to prepare for us." Kakashi looks and sounds solemn. "We're going to go with the assumption that they are after the Hyuuga. Hanabi, keep close to me. We take point."
-vovovovov-
Even though they are expecting the surprise, it still comes too sudden to counter fully. He lets Naruto's kage bunshin do their thing, taking hits and kunai and where five poof out of existence ten more appear, Sakura once called it self-perpetuating canon fodder, since the clones never manage to land a blow that matters, and really all they are good for is pissing everyone off.
Whoever the fuck these guys are, it's pretty clear they're better at this than the ones before. The go almost immediately to separate the girl, who is the easiest target even with her sister half unconscious, because her twelve-year-old-girl attack range sucks, and Kakashi either trusts them to take care of each other, like he did five years and forever ago, or he's getting fucking old, and dammit she's getting herded; unless she loses a foot at the ankle, there is nothing she can do about it.
-vovovovov-
Hanabi is even less pleased than Sasuke to know what's going on, because it means the situation is more than a little dangerous and she's hoping she can take care of the guy with the chain soon, because the faster he and his freaky bladed spinny thing are gone, the faster she's not cornered all by herself, easy pickings for someone else.
And it doesn't help that her being in a bad situation makes Hinata do something stupid like try to help, crossing three battles to put herself in direct way of her sister's opponents, and some how manage to succeed at it despite almost tripping on something sharp and kind of lethal several times.
Hinata knows Hanabi doesn't have the experience to fight well against weapons she's not familiar with, and this modified shoge is definitely in the category of 'things to keep away from'.