Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine, and neither is Final Fantasy. I just own my personal copies of the manga/games :)
Dance of the Pyreflyes, Chapter 37: The Fake Sound
by Chronodt
Neiji, using his byakugan, was the first to actually see the closest two enemy ninja. It was well over a distance of 200 meters, his range greatly increased due to extensive training after the failed invasion and his defeat at the hands of Uzumaki Naruto. They were barely hiding, and he concluded that they knew that the rescue party was aware of their presence, or at least suspecting it. They probably had some kind of intelligence on the rescue party as well, to reach that conclusion. After the short message that small toad carried back to Uzumaki and his own observation on the tracks they were following the only viable conclusion he could come up with was that they possessed some kind of long range surveillance ability. Even if the actual message spoke of only a single sound ninja backtracking from the group they were following, it was likely that the three unknown additions to the Sound Four reunited in a single unit to try to delay them, even if he only saw two of them, for the moment. The last one may have slowed down of just be farther apart, ready to enter the bout in mid-combat for additional surprise.
Signaling his team leaders about their enemies' number, relative position and distance, they proceeded with the plan. It was only after another few seconds that the suspected third enemy ninja was revealed to his eyes, easily piercing the concealing genjutsu surrounding him. With a few more basic hand signals, he relayed this information to the squad leaders, who acknowledged it. They relayed their final plan using a more advanced sign language that everyone except the Haruno girl and the Akimichi boy understood. As a genin with one and a half year field experience, Tenten and himself were already instructed on Konoha's battle sign language due to the overeagerness of Gai-sensei. Seeing Nara and Uzumaki follow the conversation, even if slowly, told him that it was a part of the chunin protocol instruction they were recently required to attend, but still too new for them to have complete fluency in the complex code. Fortunately the Haruno girl's understanding was unnecessary as she was a member of his squad, the one that would avoid this confrontation at all if possible. The potential problem would be the Akimichi, but he was sure that Nara had him covered. Their parents were in a famous team together and probably knew each other since they were infants and could communicate with each other with just a glance.
Darting in two different directions, the two teams separated just before the average kunai throwing distance, letting his team slip to the side. Tenten and Mitarashi-san immediately started their barrage of thrown weapons to discourage the sound ninja from pursuing his squad, while Nara positioned himself strategically behind the shadow of a tall tree.
Now that the enemies were closer, he noticed something... abnormal in the chakra coils of the sound ninja, and he had no idea what could cause it. His duty, however, was clear...
"Hatake-san." spoke up Neiji, "The enemies' chakra is behaving strangely. It's bleeding from their coils into their muscles and organs without conscious control or direction. I believe their coils are actually degrading themselves before my eyes."
Hatake-san nodded, saying: "It must be some kind of weird drug, probably one with nasty side effects. Don't worry, Anko and her team won't fail."
Neiji nodded and turned his attention to their surroundings, when he noticed the third ninja jumping out of the genjutsu in their direction. Apparently he realized his two companions wouldn't be able to stop his squad from disengaging.
"Incoming single at 5 o'clock." said Neiji, barely above a whisper but carefully modulated so everyone in his squad could hear him.
"Naruto, keep him occupied with three clones until Anko can pin him down." ordered Hatake-san, gesturing at the same time at the small dog to slightly alter their course and get out of the way.
Uzumaki performed his famous jonin-level cloning technique, creating three copies, who hurriedly ran in the direction previously indicated. A sudden light accompanied by a great heat wave from the left side was the telling sign of what Neiji's byakugan already allowed him to see: the enemy ninja performed a high-level fire technique on the clones, destroying them all at the same time, despite the distance between each clone due to their chosen formation.
"They have been destroyed, Kakashi-sensei." said Uzumaki. "He used a wide-area fire technique I never heard of before."
"Nara just managed to catch him with his shadow technique." said Neiji, keeping his byakugan active and his attention focused on the surrounding area. "We can easily proceed forward with no more obstacles."
Hatake-san nodded and ordered to the dog to resume the pursuit pace, with himself and the rest of the squad quickly following his example.
Anko summoned three medium-sized snakes, ordering them to hide themselves for a bit and started layering a genjutsu on the closest enemy ninja. She found it hard to anchor her chakra to his coils for an unknown reason, but she managed, with a little effort. Unfortunately it didn't 'stick' for long. Whatever drug these assholes took was crude, but effective. Her evaluation on their skill based on their movement told her that they were no better than high-level chunin/low-level jonin in skill, but they had the strength and speed of solid jonin. She actually began thinking it had been a mistake to engage three ninja of that level with just a bunch of kids, however when Lazy and Fatty actually caught and steamrolled the hidden little snake she realized she had severely underestimated her little boys (and a little girl, too). To manage that feat, they used the long shadows created by the enemy's own fire jutsu as the capture medium, using, naturally, the Nara Clan's unique shadow jutsu. She also knew that the 'F-word' was taboo around the Akimichi Clan, but... she just couldn't resist referring to that boy with that nickname at least to herself! She just hoped to never slip up where he could hear, or she would have a berserk Akimichi on her hands.
Now four against two, Anko smirked, with just a hint of relief; their odds now more on equal terms.
Weapons Girl and herself, just as preplanned, were keeping those two losers occupied: the first one was large, bulky and was adept with water techniques, but he used them mainly to cover the ass of his scrawnier counterpart, who apparently fancied himself as a serious close combat fighter or a wrestler, because he constantly tried to get his perverted hands on her. If he wasn't such a dweeb and an enemy she might even have let him, just to allow him to have a little fun with a few of her summoned scaly friends in places a delicate lady such as herself would not even mention...
One poison mist jutsu later and Water Boy retreated from his position behind a rock. She knew that those sound ninja were too good to inhale her special-made poison cloud, but now he no longer had a good cover from where he could shield Mr. Grabby with impunity. Weapons Girl was also keeping him on the move, keeping him away from any more easy to reach hiding places. Seeing Lazy and Fatty preparing a new combo to entrap Water boy, she ordered the three snakes she summoned before to distract the big ninja as well, and she paused a little to get again the attention of Mr. Grabby away from her team with a few kunai. It didn't work. Those two guys were clearly trained to work together and if Fire Boy, the third of their squad, hadn't been caught flat-footed by the Sloth Duo they could have even organized a three-man concerted attack, that would have been hard to counter for a makeshift squad like theirs.
Mr. Grabby reached Weapons Girl before she could stop him, using a sudden burst of speed that she recognized as a sealless Raiton jutsu used to make a single high-movement speed jump in a straight line. While the other kunoichi barely managed to parry his hand-thrust with a pair of kunai crossed before her chest, she couldn't avoid the second Raiton jutsu that Mr. Grabby released, some kind of touch-ranged electrocution jutsu that flew from his hands through her metal weapons and into the kunoichi's arms and chest. Weapons Girl screamed in pain, causing severe muscular spasms, then the electricity reached her diaphragm, stopping her lungs.
"Tenten!" shouted Fatty, stupidly abandoning his attack on Water Boy to try and save her. Stupidly because Anko was nearer and already focused on taking Mr. Grabby's attention away from the kunoichi. Using her Hidden Shadow Snake Hands technique, she summoned a horde of snakes from her sleeves and wrapped up Mr. Grabby, pulling him away from the incapacitated kunoichi before he could damage her too much or, worse, finished her up. As soon as the ninja's hands were separated from Weapons Girl, she fell like a puppet with cut strings, clearly unconscious. Anko could not hold him for long, because her snakes took the remaining energy and were now pretty much barbecued. She herself felt quite a bit of the sting of all that voltage and was truly glad she had a way of pulling Sparky away without using her bare hands, or she probably would be napping on the ground alongside Weapons Girl. That jutsu was dangerous!
Water boy, in the meantime, used the opening Fatty's departure created to retreat behind a rock formation, where he was probably preparing something nasty to surprise them. Lazy could not stop him alone and retreated to a safer place.
Fatty tried and failed to punch Mr. Grabby, who retreated, evading all the rage-fueled blows with ease. Before Fatty could continue that useless attack, Anko yelled at him: "Come here, Big Boy!" Even angry, Fatty recognized the tone and realized that she just yelled an order, so he reluctantly obeyed. With most of the team in one place, Lazy too joined them. Anko summoned up a few more medium-sized snakes to keep momentarily occupied the two enemies and work something out, and chew Fatty up a bit. Anko was in fact fuming, she was too irked by Fatty's behavior, but at the moment she had only the time for a short reprimand: "Akimichi, the next time you leave an engaged enemy you should check if you can actually help! You could have left an enemy free to attack someone else!"
Lazy at that point, probably to keep her from destroying his friend's self confidence, started his analysis: "They work well in concert, the large one is apparently the shielder and the small one is an expert in grappling techniques coupled with specialized but very powerful Raiton jutsu. Fortunately we apparently have already disabled their long range fire support, so we are in a strategically better position. They probably have not yet used the entirety of their skills so we must be careful."
Anko, once she calmed down, checked out Weapons Girl's health, and said: "She is out of the battle and is breathing irregularly. Her heart fortunately is still beating, even if weakly." she rose on her feet, looking at the snakes engaging Sparky, studying his movements. "Big Boy, stay away from the small guy, he is too fast and we cannot afford to lose you, too. Lazy and you will concentrate on keeping the large one too distracted to shield his friend. I will take care of our electric pervert."
The group separated as a shower of kunai shot through the area where they previously stood, courtesy of Water Boy from his hiding spot. Lazy carried Weapons Girl into a safer place, while Fatty would need to contain Water Boy by himself for a bit despite his defensive stance and favorable position against the Akimichi's best jutsu.
Catching Mr. Grabby's attention, they began her favorite game, that is cat and mouse, or snake and rat, or whatever... She simply attacked, hid, set snakes on his trail, threw poisoned kunai and evaluated even more his skill level and reactions, giving an eye to Water Boy's situation as well, once in a while. The Sloth Duo was a pretty good team, once the chunin returned to help his friend, and together they managed to keep occupied a clearly superior opponent in both experience and jutsu knowledge. Between the three of them they managed to keep the two sound ninja separated. That is, until they pulled off their ace from their asses.
Water Boy suddenly stopped using water walls and shields, shot out of his hiding hole and started using high level taijutsu, catching Fatty flat-footed and hitting him heavily, throwing him at a high speed against a tree. Mr. Grabby, meanwhile, used the Raiton: Lightning Dragon jutsu on Anko, that she barely managed to evade. Unfortunately that allowed the two enemy ninja time to regroup. Anko realized that the whole first part of the fight was a ruse, accurately studied beforehand to reverse the flow of the combat at the best possible moment, when their enemy got used to that particular fighting style and made countermeasures. And she fell for it completely! Ibiki would laugh at her for weeks once he heard of it!
"How is Big Boy?" Anko asked.
"He is ok." was Lazy's reply. "He took heavier hits training with his father. It was just the surprise that made it quite a bit worse."
Fatty was, in fact, shakily getting up. The two sound ninja were now performing a long string of handseals.... "CRAP!" she yelled, trying to hastily erect a Doton: Earth Wall jutsu, but a monstrous blast of electrically charged water ripped it apart like it was tissue paper, throwing her on the ground and leaving her a bit shaken, shocked and completely pissed off.
Anko had had enough, and decided to truly get loose and summoned a very large snake, a 'Holy shit, it can swallow a herd of cows in a single bite!' sized snake, one of Manda's sons that she befriended over the years, the largest snake she dared to summon as long as Orochimaru and Manda were both still alive.
"Ok, boys, say hello to Setin. He is truly hungry." she said, palming a few more kunai, but she received no reactions from the sound ninja. What a pity, they didn't play the snake and rat game very well!
Creating an Earth clone to slip away, she observed Lazy crouching down behind a tree in that strange position he used in the chunin exam fight, while Fatty was rigging himself up with ninja wire and kunai, probably to prepare himself to use that spiked fat-ball technique his clan was known for. As soon as her clone loudly ordered the snake to attack, she slipped behind the sound ninja and prepared a few traps. She noticed Lazy looking at her and her work, and was probably already adding the traps she was building in his strategy. Lazy bastard, as soon as the mission was completed she would hunt him down and force him to train with Sasuke for a bit, just to see him work, before returning his carcass to Asuma!
Her clone, Setin and Fatty were now keeping Water Boy and the Electrical Pervert extremely occupied, and she was free to chain up a long handseal sequence. Waiting for the right moment to release the jutsu, to rid the world of their sparky friend as soon as Water Boy was too distracted to stop her, she paced her handseal speed so that she could complete the jutsu in a few instants once she spotted the opening. With a pointed look at Lazy, she noticed he was signaling her with Konoha's battle code what he wanted her to do. She was a little miffed at following the strategy of a 13 years old boy, but she saw him in action and read his personal data, so she conceded. Luckily, he somehow already foresaw that she would conceal herself to launch a powerful ninjutsu attack, and she saw that Fatty, under his instructions, had just forced Water Boy to evade the Spiked Meat Ball Tank jutsu away from his friend, by extending his own shadow in his preferred evasion route. That damn brat already managed to read their movement patterns within a few minutes!
With Water boy too far to help her target, she completed the last few seals of the Katon: Great Fire Dragon jutsu on Sparky, who likewise found his evasion patterns disrupted by Fatty's rolling presence, Lazy's shadow and a couple trees. His only way out was on her traps, and he did so. Sparky found his legs snared in ninja wire while a dozen poison-coated kunai flew in his direction. Most of them even caught him, and unless he had a strong immunity to poisons or some serious medical help he was a goner. With an evil smirk she noticed that he was already breathing hard. Within ten seconds he collapsed on the ground, dying.
Two down, one left.
Setin, with Anko's Earth Clone still laughing atop him, launched himself toward Water Boy. The last sound ninja evaded his lunge and applied a few exploding notes on the snake's skin, but her Earth Clone was quick to tear away the paper bombs, almost removing all of them before he detonated them. The clone was completely destroyed, sacrificing herself and leaving the giant snake singed but otherwise unharmed. Setin was now truly angry, and focused his gaze on Water Boy, preparing another lunge. Unfortunately, the large ninja used that bit of time to get close to Fatty just as he was slowing down his rotation to turn around and managed to get a few good strikes in before Lazy managed to get him away with a few thrown kunai. Anko noticed that Water Boy's strength and speed had significantly increased again. What kind of drug behaved like that?
"He is getting stronger!" cried Fatty, nursing his chest where he probably had a few bruised ribs. Damaging an Akimichi when they were using the meat ball jutsu (or their variants) with just taijutsu wasn't easy. He must have truly reached freakish strength to do so!
Signaling Lazy to order the use of lethal force, since they had the Fire Boy knocked out and that was already one prisoner, she tried again with ninjutsu, using a Doton: Earth Projectile jutsu to make him dance a bit. After all, just as Earth was weaker then Lightning, Water was weak against her Earth jutsu, so he wouldn't be able to use his Water Walls to stop her attacks.
It actually felt good to truly cut loose and despite his strength he was quickly subdued. Three against one are not good odds, and that was without including Setin. You cannot dismiss such a pissed off big snake as an opponent without serious consequences, so they were actually more than four against one. Anko, however, could not allow Setin to eat him due to his willingness to fight to the death. He could decide to let himself blow up if he was swallowed alive and she would rather avoid that. Snakes with a stomachache were a pain in the butt to deal with.
Finally pushing Water Boy in another of her traps, they managed to stop him for a few seconds, enough to use again the shadow capture and steamroll combo. That maneuver resulted in a flattened enemy ninja, a still disgruntled giant snake (because Anko wouldn't allow him to eat the ninja) two relieved boys and a smirking and satisfied kunoichi. The giant snake then disappeared with a giant cloud of smoke, his services no longer necessary.
"Ok, boys, time to gather them up. Lazy, go check on Weapons Girl. Big Boy, bring the Firebug here and I'll tie them up a bit."
Anko unsealed the capture devices and tied them up, checking the one she poisoned first. She realized then that all three enemy ninja had internal bleeding, as well as blood flowing from their eyes and ears. So in the end it was a 'last stand' type of drug, what a pity.
"They are dead." she said, rising to her feet after a few moments. "They were clearly using some kind of suicide drug, possibly a strong stimulant as well because they moved with a skill clearly inferior to their overall strength and speed. They were, however, very well trained in concerted fighting and that switching tactic in the middle was a nice touch. That makes me think a bit because that isn't Orochimaru's style, he prefers either a much subtler misdirection or a blunt straight-on fight with overwhelming force. It is his style to throw away useless underlings, but they were showing a lot of promise and no one of them possessed a cursed mark. It's conflicting with Orochimaru's Modus Operandi because if they took a drug from Orochimaru willingly they were clearly already loyal enough to be 'rewarded' with the seal." She did a quick check to see if they had any medical reason to be sacrificed that way, but found none in her hasty search. That would be a mystery best left alone, for the moment, because they still had a mission to complete.
Lazy, carrying their unconscious teammate, said: "Her breathing is regular again. She will probably awake within a few hours, hopefully still able to move."
"Ok. We leave her here, for the backup squad to pick her up. Big Boy, you carry her supplies, we may need them. Due to these assholes' wonder pills we still have both our mission objectives to complete, so let's go."
The two boys nodded and Fatty took the girl from his friend's arms and placed her under a tree root, while Anko put a few subtle markers to inform the backup squad of their hidden injured member.
"Well, now let's go. We need to make up for the fifteen minutes these losers lost us." Anko said, jumping on the nearest tree, following Kakashi's marks.
Kidomaru suddenly tensed for a bit, then snorted. "Those three losers barely delayed them." he said to his companion, with disdain in his voice. "The Konoha ninja split up in half. The forward group evaded those losers and the back one fought, but cleaned up the deck in less than 15 minutes. Really pathetic."
"I agree, damn censored censored losers." said Tayuya. It was nice to finally be free from that fatass for a while and be allowed to be completely free with her tongue without any prudes around.
They continued in their path, believing they would reach the other half of the Sound Four within a few minutes. Unfortunately, they were no longer sure of their ability to reach the border unhindered...