Chapter 41: Back to Back

The chains wrapped around the assembly blade straightened. Bolt pulled them back, making the weapon leave a crater in the wall, hitting the dirt on the ground with a bang.

Suihi pulled it back with her small arms. She waved the thing back and forth, trying to get it free from her opponents grip.

"You know, I always kind of wondered, how you could carry such a huge sword with you," Bolt let the chains disappear.

Suihi flipped the blade around, making the sharp edge face Bolt. She swung it towards the boy who simply jumped over it, hitting his head on the ceiling in the process. Instead of rubbing his throbbing skull though, he landed on his feet and flick-flacked backwards into the room his friends had just disappeared to. It was a huge hall filled with weapons of different kinds, barrels, and-

"The armory huh," Bolt whispered to himself. He could hear his friends footsteps disappear at the end of the room. He tried looking around for a second, only to be interrupted by Suihi.

The thirteen year old had followed him into the room, once again swinging her sword at him.

"I remember you being much faster," he mocked her with a grin.

"I remember you being much more quiet," she retorted. With a mechanical clicking, she split the weapon in two parts and threw one at Bolt, "but you are still trying your circus tricks like when we fought two weeks ago. You remember? I sliced you up."

Bolt gripped his shirt tightly above the x-shaped scar on his chest. The fresh tissue was still thin.

"How could I forget. But… just so you know, you don't have the upper hand this time."

"What makes you think that?"

For a second she actually looked pretty worried.

"Last time, you were surrounded by water. Heck, you were the one who made it rain all day long, right? See, now we are underground, no water anywhere near us," the boys face grew a smug grin, "seems like all you can do now, is swing your blade."

Even though the tight space is limiting us both. Bolt didn't say the last sentence out loud. He thought it to himself. She would probably realize the situation they were in quickly, too.

But for once he actually had a decent plan. All he needed to set it off, was…

"There it is," he grinned and grabbed one of the oil lamps on the wall. He dodged another slice from Suihi, broke the glass of the lantern and threw it onto the barrels.

The oil spilled all over them and the tiny flame that had formerly illuminated the armory grew into an explosion. When the barrels caught fire, the exploding gun powder send a heat and shock wave into the armory and into the tunnel they had just come through. The noise from the explosion was deafening and a dust cloud quickly blocked the view.

Bolt felt wind on his face. He looked around and discovered a big hole in the crumbling ceiling leading outside.

He saw the opportunity and quickly send a thick chain towards Suihi, who was lying on the ground, coughing. The girl only had time to grab the second part of her sword, before Bolt pulled on the chain and threw her flyingoutside.

Now she couldn't go after his friends, could she.

"There you go," he grinned, "we have a lot more space to move out here. Don't you think this is great?"

Suihi groaned.

She dried a small tear in her eye with the sleeve of her shark leather armor and grabbed her sword.

"… you mean, I have much more space to move."

She jumped aside, dodging another chain. She ran around him, only charging at him when she was behind the blonde.

Bolt though saw it coming and had another chain ready, that charged right into the blade, knocking it off its course.

"Why not block it again with one of your kunai," Suihi mocked. The girl was clearly getting irritated.

"Yeah… Last time we fought, you sliced right through them. Admit it," he turned around and punched the white haired girl in the face, "without your water, you have no freaking chance against me."

Suihi went down. Some blood was dripping from her lip. Bolt had split it open. Tears were forming in her eyes again.

It must have hurt.

"You think you can win against me? I have a job to do! This is no joke," she hickuped, "and I cannot afford to lose to you bastard!"

"Oh spare me the explanations," Bolt bent down and patted her on the head, "it's not like you could do any-"

He shut up when water pierced his shoulders, throwing him into the air and back onto the ground.

"You make me do this," Suihis voice was shaking, tears streaming down her face, "I am not allowed to do this! But you make me do this! I hate you for making me! Stop it! Just go away!"

Bolt didn't understand what was going on. There was no source of water anywhere around them, but his clothes now were wet and he had been sent flying.

"Where the hell did you get that from," he spat while getting back up.

"My mom," and her voice was shaking, "is called Karin Uzumaki. I grew up by her side, but I'm only a half-blood. I'm not allowed to stay with all the others. I don't have red hair," Suihi raised her hand, "because my father was an experiment from some other guy. That makes me impure. But he passed his powers on to me. Therefore I can do… this…"

Her hand suddenly changed from flesh to crystal clear water. She waved it and sent ice cold droplets towards Bolt. He dodged most of them, but two hit, tearing open his clothes before breaking through his skin, right into the flesh beneath. As soon as the water had lost its force, it also lost its form and mixed with the rivers of his warm blood.

"For fuck's sake… you are such a bad looser. Having an ability like this…" Bolt gripped his arm, where the water bullets had hit.

There was no time to think. He had to keep her busy as long as possible, so that the others could save the country.

No time to think.

Just charge.

And Bolt charged at her. He tried to impale her with his chains, but instead of hurting her, she simply turned her skin and flesh into water.

With a jump Suihi got a hold of her sword again and started her counter attack.

She drove him back, flashing her sword at him left and right, while sprinkling everything with water droplets, which could even stay in the air, if she wanted them to.

Bolt had to stay safe. She couldn't hit him with the sword, as long as he had his chakra chains, but he also couldn't attack her as long as he had to use them to protect himself.

Suihi tiptoed, twirled around and tried to slice through his defense once more. This time though, she sent some droplets at him right after the blade had hit the chains. The water bullets were too small for Bolt to dodge, so he was hit again by them.

The boy winced at the sharp pain in his right arm. It felt like someone had pierced him with hundreds of tiny needles. Blood droplets formed on his skin, quickly staining his clothes crimson.

"Shit…" he hissed and turned around.

He needed to keep calm, but he felt his anger bubble deep inside of his mind. This time, he would beat her instead of her beating him. He would make her run. He would mark her for life – not the other way around.

With the anger, energy rose. Bolt felt the fresh boost coming when she hit him first with more bullets.

He shoved all the fresh energy into his feet and jumped up into the air, just as he heard the sound of breaking wood.

"I'm sorry princess," Sarada bowed mockingly, "but your business is with me…"

Saeko was furious.

How could this insolent Uchiha girl stand in between her and her brother. And who was the bald guy they were dragging around. Why was her brother even with them.

"Get out of my way," the red-haired girl spat at the raven head, "you are not supposed to be here or anywhere close to this place. This is the Daimyos castle, not some run down bath house!"

Saeko nervously tried to brush some wrinkles out of her kimono. As much as she wanted to fight the girl in front of herself, she couldn't risk tearing or getting the expensive clothes dirty. Her grandma wouldn't forgive her. It was her betrothal gift after all.

To Sarada though, it looked like Saeko was lost in thoughts and the Uchiha girl would not let the opportunity to strike first go to waste.

She quickly pushed herself off the ground and charged towards the princess. Her fist almost connected with Saekos face, but she had her sand wall up within the blink of an eye. At first, Sarada's hand got stuck, until she forced it back. The sand had roughed up the skin.

But that would not stop her. The black haired girl was already on the move again:

She pushed forward her left hand, only to pull it back in the last minute and swoop Saeko from her feet with a swing of her right foot.

Wearing a kimono comes close to wearing a corset. Both limit the wearers mobility and it was no wonder, that Saeko just couldn't react fast enough to not fall to her feet.

Sarada of course took advantage of the situation, quickly tying the long ends of the kimono sleeves together.

"…stop it," Saeko hissed, her eyes wide open.

"Pardon ..?" Sarada was confused. Would her opponent get angry about this now? About clothing?

"Do you have any idea how expensive this thing was?!"

Saekos face turned red and Sarada could feel the heat.

"THIS WAS A GIFT FROM MY FIANCE!" Saeko yelled. She struggled away from Sarada, hands still bound.

The sand rose again and wrapped itself around Saradas ankles, as she tried to follow the read head. The young bride to be leaned against the wall, her hair – formerly tied neatly in an upper class hairdo – had loosened and was now hanging in front her face.

Sarada tried to get out of the sand shackles, but there was just nothing she could do, the thing was wrapped too tightly around her ankle.

And Saeko knew.

She glanced at the Uchiha girl, freed her hand and raised it. "Be gone. BE GONE!"

The sand shackles pulled on Saradas feet. She fell over, hitting her nose harshly on the ground, as the shackles pulled her back, over the floor with force. A force so strong, that when her feet hit the castle wall, it didn't stop.

Feet first, the shackles pulled her through, into the air. At the highest point they suddenly disappeared and for a moment Sarada seemed to be hovering in the air high above the ground, before actually falling down.

Sarada had no idea what was happening to her at first. But it only took her seconds to try turning around – hitting the ground with her back first could hurt her far more, than at least trying to catch herself.

But as the ground was racing towards her, she realized, even if she would try to land on her feet, she probably couldn't. She was falling from far too high up in the air and crashing onto the ground would probably break her limbs and render her unconscious.

Shit.

That was all that she could think. She closed her eyes. Sarada didn't need to watch the ground racing towards her …

But suddenly, the wind in her face slowed and her hair fell into her face.

Carefully, Sarada opened one of her eyes to peek around and she almost got grass into it. For no apparent reason something had slowed down her fall and stopped it right before she would hit the ground.

Around her ancles, Sarada spotted a thick chain, connected to the hand of a shadow running towards her.

Where are my glasses, the Uchiha though, touching the ground with her hands, trying to find that one thing that could help her see, which she had apparently lost while falling.

They weren't anywhere close.

"You really need to put a leash on those." A familiar taunting voice.

Foot steps.

And in her vision, a big yellow blob slowly sharpened into Bolts bloody face.

"… what the hell – I mean, how the hell," Sarada couldn't grasp what had happened.

"I heard something breaking and when I looked around, you were falling from the skies. When did you learn to fly?"

"Stop joking around – where is Suihi and… and what happened to you." Sarada couldn't really see her teammate, but what she could make out were the huge red blood stains on his clothes.

"I kind of ditched her back there to help you. But she's fast. She'll be here in no time. Let me see…" he quickly turned his head around and ran towards a stone garden.

Bolt bent down and picked up Sarada's glasses. They were a tad bit dirty, but not broken. Her father really had picked out something of quality.

"I got them," Bolt said and quickly ran back to her side.

With a dark grin, Sarada cleaned her seeing device and put it back on.

"I really owe you now, don't I."

"Well… Maybe. But first," Bolt gave the girl a hand as she stood up, still kind of shaky. "We need to fend her off."

Suihi had finally decided to catch up and was approaching fast. She looked a bit confused at first, but the moment she spotted Sarada, her face grew dark.

"Do you think you can fight me together? Let me tell you the truth: you can't."

Bolt twitched and grabbed his arm, "she got a point there. I simply can't fend her off."

"Let's change opponents then," Sarada patted him on the back, her eyes fixed onto the hole she had just fallen through.

A red headed girl was looking down to them from high up there

"I mean, I'm far better at dodging than you and if I remember correctly, that girl up there has a crush on you."

"Quite the plan, but how do we switch? They probably won't just let us do that no questions asked," Bolt hissed at Sarada.

"They had the upper hand till now, they were dictating the terms of the fight. Now we will take over this shit-show – are you up for it?"

A huge grin formed over the boys face, "oh hell yes!"

They quickly turned their backs to one another, arms raised high.

Fighting stances.

Back to back.

End of Chapter 41

Guys - this is it.

I have officially run out of pre-written material for this story. Yes, I have a background chapter concerning Murasaki and I have a huge mind map with everyone and their mother and how they all relate to each other and stuff. But like... written content.

On one hand I'm happy because it means I can go ham on the next few chapters. On the other hand I'm scared as fu** because I'm afraid I won't be able to capture the essence of the characters again. But seriously. Bratty 14 year old seem to have been my speciality back then. So why should I not be able to work this out. :D
But I'm confident that I've got this down.

Honestly, I really hope you are as excited as I am. Those next few chapters are going to be one huge roller coaster and ooooh gosh! There is still so much to do for our two heroes!
Also.. I realised something, that was planned in the beginning, but I never knew how well it would work out. I'll tell you at the end of the story. I just really hope you are as excited as I am. This is... yeah. I'll tell you next time

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of Finding Papa. :)

I wish you all the best. Please stay safe, healthy and alive.

Usagi.