Hey! I'm back with another chapter! Couldn't make it for the weekend as I said I'd try, but anyways.
I wanted to answer to some reviews, so you can skip this part if you want to. First of all, I wanna thank all reviewers for the now 100 reviews! I've received some very useful feedback through those, so thanks a lot as you've helped to my very slow progress on writing.
To Soliam1234 I'll answer in spanish, as his comment is in that language (you can translate if you want): Entiendo tu punto, y volviendo a leer toda la historia desde un inicio creo que en parte tienes razón. De ahora en adelante trataré de centrar un poco más el foco en Gohan, aunque seguiré desarrollando detalles secundarios porque más adelante jugarán un papel importante, además de que en mi opinión es de gran relevancia desarrollar las cuestiones que pasan alrededor de la línea principal de la historia, así como a los personajes más secundarios. Muchas gracias por tu comentario.
Now I'll answer to Xana2: I've received many comments (specially when I first began publishing this story) about the power scaling and such. I've already figured out how to deal with it so the story doesn't get too boring and/or predictable. I'll let you read it for yourself, so yep. Hope it's for the best!
Anyways, so here's the story, I hope you like it! And remember:
Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ nor Naruto, all the credit for the original material goes to Akira Toriyama and Masashi Kishimoto.
Not letting himself get distracted by his thoughts, he was quick to react and join his partner on the fight.
With a kick, he pushed one of the sound-nin back, and continued to nail a punch directly at his face. He followed his attacks by swiftly moving behind his opponent, and elbowing him to the ground.
Lee, with more space now that the saiyan took care of one of his opponents, went on with his classic fast fighting style. He began a series of punches, fast enough for his opponent not to be able to avoid them, and finished with a kick on the ribs. The genin of the green jumpsuit took advantage of the lack of breath his opponent suffered as consequence of the kick he just received and finished the battle with a carefully positioned hit on the neck to knock him off.
"Oh, you know that too?" Gohan was surprised to see his partner do such a move.
"Well of course, Guy-sensei taught it to me as an alternative to killing someone. It also might make it easier to win a battle." Lee explained, ignorant to the fact the saiyan knew the move pretty well.
"By the way, should we head back and check on the others? They might be in danger," said Gohan while sensing for the others' chakra signals. His eyes snapped as Lee was about to answer.
"Alright, I'll follow." Lee said as the saiyan left running at an absurd speed.
Ino put her hand between the sound kunoichi's kunai and her own face, and closed her eyes, hoping she'd be able to block the attack. A drop of liquid fell onto her face, and she opened her eyes. For some reason she didn't feel the pain, was it the adrenaline? The real question is what would prevent her from feeling the pain of a kunai going through her hand.
Behind the two kunoichi, Neji was already exhausted and tried his best to block as much attacks from his opponent as he could. Palm against punch, palm against bone, palm against blade. But he only had two arms, so when a third attack arrived, a kick to his abdomen, he couldn't do much about it. His back ended up hitting the wall behind him.
The blonde kunoichi, though still shocked, saw an opportunity as her opponent gave up on taking her kunai back. She quickly stood up, and using her other hand, she punched the sound-nin in the face. And as she managed to land the punch, she quickly took the kunai out of her hand and tried to nail it on the opponent's chest.
However, the sound kunoichi managed to move at the last moment and got the kunai nailed into her shoulder. Ino jumped back, and only when her heartbeat started to relax, she noticed the pain on her hand. And it got very strong very quickly.
The prodigy of the Hyuga clan faced the white-haired shinobi, who stood expressionless in front of him. He attempted to stand up, but another kick from the sound-nin prevented it and left him sitting against the wall. It was over.
"Have you wondered why you got tired so quickly?" Kimimaro asked, his face still not showing a trace of emotion. He received no answer, but he decided to go on with his words. "Well, you see..."
The white-haired shinobi got closer to Neji, and took a very thin needle from behind his ear. Hyuga was astonished at the sight of the needle, so much so that he missed the chance to attack his enemy.
"This needle contains poison, and Tayuya nailed it on you before she even approached you." Kimimaro threw the needle away as he turned to look at his teammate. "Your friend, however, was too far away, and missing one of these isn't the best idea."
Neji lowered his head, now he had no doubt: it was over.
Ino got distracted for a second due to her pain, and that mere second could always result lethal. The dark pink-haired kunoichi jumped from the floor and landed a kick on the blonde's face, pushing her away.
She now found herself facing the floor, and once she noticed the shadow of the other kunoichi, she tried to roll away. A kunai landed next to her, so she finally decided that the best option was to stand up and face what probably was death.
"I gotta admit," Tayuya took out the kunai from her shoulder and licked the blood from it, "you managed to impress me."
"Oh really? Wonder how you'll react when I kill you," Ino confidently said as she put her injured hand behind her back and the other one in front of her, in a similar fashion to a certain shinobi that used a green jumpsuit.
Tayuya chuckled, she couldn't deny that she liked the young kunoichi that currently was her opponent, but duty is duty, and she had to kill the blonde. There was a positive side to all of this, still, and that's the fact that she did not require her summons.
Ino attempted a feint, but as she moved a step forward, a purple flash passed over her and hit the sound kunoichi, propelling her all the way across the alley, causing the wall of a building to break. The blonde girl, speechless, looked to the figure that now stood in front of her. The familiar purple gi and spiky black hair relieved her from any fear.
"Are you okay?" Gohan asked as he turned around, seemingly ignoring the ongoing fight between Hyuga and the white-haired sound-nin.
However, as she was about to ask, Lee jumped past them and kicked Kimimaro, pushing him slightly and giving Neji the chance to escape. The genin of the green jumpsuit adopted his fighting stance and stared directly at his opponent.
"Well, it seems you've got reinforcements," Kimimaro carefully watched in front of him, analyzing the four leaf-nin facing him. "Unfortunately, I'll have to leave for this time."
In the blink of an eye, a cloud of smoke appeared where the white-haired shinobi was standing, and once the smoke dissipated, he was gone.
The blonde kunoichi tried to go forward to check on Neji, but she was stopped by Gohan, who repeated his previous question.
"I'm fine, don't worry," she answered before finally running towards the genin of the white eyes.
But when she went to check on Hyuga, the saiyan noticed the injury in her hand. And for such, he started to look for any place where the injuries of his partners could be treated.
After hearing several explosions coming from the park in front of the town hall, the couple of jounin ran directly to it, being aware of their duty during these types of situations. This last aspect couldn't be attributed to the governor of the town, who didn't act and left the shinobi dealing with it alone.
Making their way through the crowd of people running away, they tried to see what was happening further away, but all they could see was dark smoke and fire. Asuma quickly gave up on seeing and grabbed his trench knives and, once the crowd passed them, he ran directly at the smoke. Might Guy followed, of course, though he didn't agree with his fellow jounin's approach.
On the way, Asuma was forced to cut through a bunch of fallen trees, but once past them, the way was clear. Only problem was the smoke, which made breathing harder, as expected.
"Anyone there?" Sarutobi yelled, trying to find any possible survivor to the explosion that couldn't escape the smoke.
"Asuma-sensei?" Chouji asked back, recognizing the voice of his teacher. "We found a couple of people, and Shikamaru is injured!"
Guy beckoned his fellow jounin to go deeper into the smoke, but while they continued moving forward, a giant hand appeared. Asuma knew who the owner of the hand was almost immediately, and beckoned Guy to step aside.
With simply waving his hand, Chouji created a wind current that partially dissipated the smoke. And once their view was clearer, they approached the jounin along with a couple of injured people they'd found.
Asuma took Shikamaru from Tenten's arms, checking his injuries before leaving the park along his fellow jounin and the genin. He looked back one last time, though, and noticed that the statue of the Feudal Lord had been destroyed.
They headed to the hospital of Noen, which was located in the center of the town. And just to bother Sarutobi even more, only when the group of shinobi exited the park, the authorities of the town entered. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn't restrain a vein coming out on his forehead due to his annoyance.
"What happened back there?" Guy asked as they kept running through the city. "Any clue?"
"Not really, everything was calm and we didn't notice anything until the explosion happened out of nowhere," explained Tenten, who was now guarding the shinobi that held the injured people.
"Could it be sound or sand shinobi?" Asuma glanced at the jounin of the green jumpsuit, who seemed to be concentrated on their way towards the hospital.
"Maybe, but why would they hold operations in the Country of Fire two weeks after the invasion?" With his eyes firmly put on their way forward, he managed to keep the conversation going.
Sarutobi thought of many possible reasons why the Sound or the Sand would remain inside the Country of Fire, but none seemed to be logical enough to be accepted as a possibility by him. After all, one of the requirements for becoming a jounin was learning the basics of logical thought to improve mystery-solving skills.
"Could it be that they're trying to protect or take something?" Chouji suggested. "Like, why else would they be here, in a smaller town in the middle of the country."
Protecting something...? Or taking something...? Asuma dived deep into his thoughts, though not completely because he could crash against a wall at any time. His student's suggestion was logical for him, but now the question would be what exactly they'd want to protect or to take?
"Definitely a possibility, but it's hard to tell exactly what he'd want from the country after killing the Third Hokage." Guy said, finally glancing to somewhere else, and this time he looked directly at the grandson of the previous Hokage. And as he did, he put his finger close to his eye and started spinning it.
Itachi Uchiha?! The gesture his fellow jounin did rang a bell almost immediately, specially as it was commonly used to refer to a sharingan. It was a serious possibility, now that he thought of it, after all, Kurenai and himself had been forced to confront Itachi and his partner some days prior. However, his eyes snapped after another realization, and Guy nodded before glancing back forward. Or Sasuke...