Notice: I do not own Naruto, and make no claims of copyright on the
characters who are not my property. Original characters, however, are mine.
Author's Notes: So, the resolution of the second exam cometh, in all its gritty nastiness. Sorry to keep everyone waiting. Unfortunately, I will have to keep people waiting for the next chapter, since spring break occurs now and it won't be until next Sunday before I can post again (though I will definitely be working on this during that time).
Thanks to reviewers, and some replies: Orlha: I'm glad the tiring aspect of Xi's fight came across, exhaustion is difficult to picture in writing, and yet it's a significant aspect of how Naruto fights get resolved.
Hautteline: Yes the fights were ended somewhat un-naruto-esque, but that's mostly the point, that's the difference in the way a dragon ninja fights versus other ninja, destroying the enemy with a single lethal attack. Oh, and those jounin are more like the Genma/Kurenai level of skill, not Gai/Kakashi, Waterfall jounin aren't as capable as left jounin. And Xi, is significantly stronger than Kakashi anyway.
Atop the Heights
With the refined vision of the Byakugan Neji glanced out through the light snow, as the dawn broke over the mountainside behind a cover of clouds, and the world became light once again. He, Shiren, and Gosain stood on the edge of a canyon, already having fought one battle and killed two foes. A kilometer of brutal slope rose above them, to meet a small shrine atop the mountain peek. On that slope was naught but ice, rock, and snow, a brutal expanse devoid of life and unsuited for the living to journey upon. Yet they would have to cross that ice. Nineteen Waterfall ninja stand in our way. Neji saw. We are stopped.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Gosain spat. "What the hell is this? The examiners should throw them all out for this bullshit conspiracy trick!"
Neji heard the frustration, the anger in Gosain's words, and inside he echoed it, but he was already past that. "This is no longer an exam," he told his teammates softly. "The examiners have allowed this, and now the Waterfall ninja are our enemies."
"I agree Neji." Shiren said beside him, her voice still slightly pained. "But how can we fight all of them?"
There were no good answers, but Neji was searching for them frantically. If it were two teams, or even three, I would say we should fight without hesitation, we could still win, and it would simply be a difficult challenge. This though, this isn't the exam anymore, this is a war, and Shiren and Gosain are not meant to be part of it, this is between Waterfall and me. What choice do I make? Thinking of his companions, and knowing that the last fight had cost Gosain much of his chakra and Shiren had been forced to injure herself to win, Neji made his decision. "We retreat." He said finally.
"What?" Gosain asked, still angry.
"We cannot fight and win, and this is not what was supposed to happen. So we retreat, perhaps we can lose them and come around to approach the peak another way, or we can go back down to the gate and leave the exam. If the examiners have allowed this they might try to kill us even if we win through." Neji said, still quietly. He could hardly believe he said the words. Backing down from a challenge was not something he did lightly. This is not worth our lives though, it is not a mission, it is a test, and I will not have three people die and kill some great number of Waterfall ninja just for a test if I can prevent it.
"Damn!" Gosain muttered. "I hate to say it, absolutely hate to say it, but you're right."
Neji nodded. "Ah."
"Well, then we can run along the top of this canyon for a while." Gosain said. "Maybe we can get back into the trees and lose them."
Neji was about to confirm that course, but then he saw all the Waterfall ninja move. Each team at six different points where they stood had pulled out a scroll. Now they crushed them against the snow.
A great cracking noise split the air.
Impossible! Neji thought as he saw it happen.
A gigantic crack opened in the ice above, separating from the rock. A thousand cracks shot through the icy block, and then it shattered.
Shiren and Gosain had turned to look and their eyes were wide with terror.
The ice began to fall.
Avalanche! The word rang through all three ninja minds as they saw that form move. The mountainside was tumbling down toward them at tremendous speed, a force of power so massively destructive that it would sweep them aside as if they were but specks.
"Run!" Neji ordered, and they spun and began to scramble down the slope, burning away chakra to run over the snow.
"We can't outrun it!" Gosain shouted.
"I know." Neji answered. "But we must buy some time, to think of some plan."
"Could we simply run up it?" Shiren asked. "If we jump the leading edge couldn't we simply run across the top, it would be difficult, but-"
"It could work!" Gosain said. "It's insane, but it could work!"
"No." Neji told them in a voice like death itself. "It will not. See for yourselves."
The two cloud ninja turned their heads to see something out of nightmares. The mountain fell toward them in a torrential blast of ice and snow that could bury cities, and it was burning.
"The power of Mizuho." Neji said as they ran. "It will be all of Misain Seve's strength, but if we touch the avalanche, it will mean death."
"Then there's no escape." Gosain said, and all the energy seemed to instantly leave him. "Even if we tried to get above it, or avoid the brunt of the blast by climbing some rise, we'd still get exposed to some effect. What demons created that bloodline technique?"
"The demons of Waterfall." Shiren said sadly. "What an unfortunate way for this to end, burned and crushed by ice."
Waterfall indeed. Thought Neji. Waterfall? Something in that word brought and image to his mind. Then he recalled the last waterfall he had seen. The water, it flows out and over, so that there is a clear space behind that is untouched. That is it!
"Gosain, quickly, where does the canyon turned so that it runs across the slope." Neji demanded.
"There is a point not far, but what does it matter?"
"If we cling to the canyon wall the avalanche will flow over and into the canyon, and we can avoid it." Neji told him.
For an instant some hope seemed to return to Gosain, but then he stopped. "No, ice is heavier than water, it would fall directly downward, pushed by the force of what's behind it. You'd have to burrow into the wall to avoid it."
"Neji, your Kaiten!" Shiren spoke up now. "It creates a crater when used. You can drive a wide hole into the canyon wall for us to shelter in."
It could work. Neji saw as Shiren made the suggestion. "Yes! Hurry!" Was all he said, and then leapt forward.
The avalanche moved with ever increasing speed, and it was thunderous and deafening behind the three ninja when they finally reached the appropriate spot in the canyon. They had mere seconds ahead of it. Neji ran down the side of the canyon walls, only a few feet below the lip. "Kaiten!" He screamed the word with his throat raw from running, focusing forth a tremendous amount of chakra.
The force of the escaping chakra blasted a tremendous gouge into the wall, a circle of destruction just deep enough to shelter the three.
Gosain jumped in next, slamming his pole into the rock, forcing electricity down it so it would penetrate. "Grab hold and force yourself into the wall, every inch will matter!"
The three hung there, crammed in as tight as possible, even closer than they had been the night before, forcing themselves against cold and sharp stone until it hurt, and the chakra seemed to slip away.
Then the avalanche came.
It burned as it poured over the side of the canyon, a hellish torrent lit with blinding fires. Ice and snow dropped downward into the depths then, falling the long way to strike with booms louder than the greatest thunderclap from any storm. They passed so close that the wind of their passage sucked the air away and tried to pull the ninja from the stone, and all the air was gone, so that they could not breathe. Still, the three hung in place.
It is rising. Neji saw of the canyon floor below, the avalanche is filling it. Surely it will slide down the canyon and make space. He hoped for that, for there was nothing he could do. That stream of rock and stone and snow passed over their heads now, and nothing could be done to avoid it. Endless instants passed by without breath or motion, as all Neji could do was hang on and watched the snowy floor below rise ever higher.
Will we die buried like this? He wondered. Cemented together like some hideous sculpture?
I refuse to die like this, cheated by fate! Neji swore.
And then there was silence.
It was an instantaneous transition, the roaring and crashing destruction was gone, and the rising wall of ice had stopped a few feet below them. The supreme tactic of Waterfall, the burning avalanche, had ceased. We live? Neji wondered, and then he felt Shiren ad Gosain move against him, and heard the brutal ringing in his strained ears. Yes, we are alive.
Slowly they emerged and crawled up from the canyon, or what was left of it. All around was a seen of absolute devastation. For all directions, above and below, east and west, the land had been scrubbed free of everything, taken by the avalanche. Now there was nothing but snow and some patches of scoured ice. A wasteland.
Neji looked up the slope, and there stood the Waterfall ninja, unscathed and vile, blue blots against the colorlessness of the world they had just made.
"I hope no one else died." Shiren commented from Neji's side, her voice sounding terribly soft and empty in Neji's ears, though his hearing was returning.
"Worry about them later, Shiren." Gosain said, gruff and tired. "We're still in trouble." He looked at Neji. "So, what now? Try to outrun them?" Gosain asked, expecting affirmation.
"No." Neji said, and just so he could hear himself clearly he repeated it. "No. There is nowhere to run, now. All is exposed and empty. We must fight."
"How?" Gosain railed. "They're nineteen, we're three. You called this a war Neji, but while they might be a small army we aren't even a platoon!"
He's right. Neji reminded himself. There are nineteen Waterfall ninja out there, and even if they depleted their chakra with that trick, we aren't nearly at full strength either. We can't do this by ourselves. Then he laughed. "We aren't even a platoon? Ha!" Neji's eyes quieted and instant later and went terribly cold.
"You're right Gosain, I did call this a war." Neji said, his voice steady and terrible. "Dragon ninja fight wars, and we fight them in one way. We kill as many of the enemy as quickly as possible." He recalled Xi's words. "So, stand back. I'll grant us an army."
There was an image in Neji's mind now, an image both majestic and terrible. Gosain and Shiren moved back a step, even as the Waterfall ninja above them began to advance. Neji called upon that image. His hands formed the seals. Claw, Fang, Gaze, Breath, Spirit, Dragon, and Circle. Neji brought his left hand to his face, and bit the index finger lightly, drawing a single drop of blood. He brought out as much chakra as he could, every last drop that he could feel within, all the energy he found buried in the depths of his system, remembering that face, the one he had seen but once before, but the one face he trusted to bring forth now. Draci Neji's hands slammed down upon the ice. "Dragon Summoning no Jutsu!"
Wind hollowed, ice slashed through the air, and the clouds spun.
Then a fourth being was there at the canyon's edge. Eighteen feet long he was, and glowing like the sun in this snowy sky. His eyes were red upon red, and they met Neji's with the gaze of eternity.
The T'ien Lung, Wusashu.
Those red upon red eyes stared at Neji, projecting tremendous fear from beyond this world. Some of that fear spilled over into Shiren and Gosain, and they were frozen in terror. Neji felt that fear, and he threw it out of his body almost instantly. He had just survived the terrors of an avalanche and the hellish fires of Mizuho, he was not going to be intimidated right now, not before his teammates who he must save this way. "All honor to thee, T'ien Lung Wusashu, the Wind that Flows Beneath Leaves. I have your stone." Neji held up the brilliant aquamarine he had carried since facing Ryukin. "And I must demand a service from you."
"Throw that stone here, dragon ninja." Wusashu replied.
Neji did as the dragon ninja requested, and was shocked to watch the T'ien Lung swallow the gem whole. "What is your request, summoner?" The dragon asked imperiously.
"There are nineteen Waterfall ninja on the slopes above, and they have all attacked me and my team." Neji said coldly. He paused before saying his next words, hesitating, but then he continued. I have to do this, no matter how terrible it will be. I can't let Shiren and Gosain die. "Remove them."
"A great request this is." Wusashu replied. "I am bound by my summons to serve, but if you wish to make this debt manageable, you and your team must fight as well. I am not going to throw myself at them for you, even if they have betrayed the chuunin exam." Wusashu's eyes flashed with wrath when he said that. "These waterfall ninja, have they no sense of honor?" He shrieked at the sky.
"I will fight. I cannot speak for my companions." Neji answered.
"I, I will not hesitate to fight beside such a creature." Gosain said quietly, the awe deep in his voice.
"Neji, I am going to fight along with you." Shiren said calmly.
"Then the bargain is made!" Wusashu thundered.
The approaching Waterfall ninja looked up into the sky in shock as the T'ien Lung launched himself like a bolt of molten gold into the sky, rolling and surging with a mighty roar that shook the very sky. "Come puny honorless ones! Feel the wrath of the lords of the sun!" The dragon began.
Neji, Gosain, and Shiren raced up the slope after them. Neji was conscious that even if he had promised to fight, his chakra was almost entirely gone; he could feel only the barest remnant within him. I will have to rely only on the Jyouken. It is all I can manage now.
One team of Waterfall ninja had advanced before the rest. It was these who first felt the wrath of Wusashu.
"Idiot mortals!" The dragon thundered as shuriken bounced uselessly off his scaled hide. He crashed down onto them, heedless of hard stone. Neji, with the Byakugan, saw the slaughter begin in every detail.
A single swipe of a massive claw took one ninja's head from his body, while the dragon's jaws snaked over to rip the leg off another. The third ninja tried to stab a kunai into Wusashu's flank only to thrown backward by the lash of the dragon's tail, sharp scales ripping him open cross the belly and laving him lying broken upon the snow.
The dragon roared his triumph and launched into the air again, to charge a group of three clustered teams to one side. "The others are yours, Draci Neji!" Wusashu's voice carried over the winds.
Wusashu engaged nine ninja, five were already slain, and one team, that of Mizain Seve, yet remained above. That left four to fight with Neji's team.
They met in a lat saddle scourged clear by the avalanche. No words were spoken.
Shuriken ripped clear of hands, and the battle began.
"Lightning element: Spark Star no jutsu!" Shiren called, unleashing her weapons.
Two of the ninja laughed, for she had left herself open to attacks.
They did not understand that Shiren and Neji, having trained against each other so much, now knew how to combine their fighting.
Neji leapt in front of Shiren, and grabbed kunai and shuriken from the air, tossing them aside.
Shiren's jutsu wrapped around one of the waterfall ninja. The star hit, and collapsed in, driving points and lightning energy into the man, knocking him to the ground, twitching and bleeding.
Gosain took the other two. "Chain Style: Stormcloud Spin!" His chains ripped around in a spiral all about him, blocking attacks and clipping one of his opponents, knocking her away.
"Three on three now!" Gosain called.
"Shiren, take your enemy!" Neji called, and turned to the other.
Gosain's chains continued to whip around, as his opponent struggled to regain her feet. The older ninja beat her back, not letting her up, not allowing her to regain equilibrium, waiting for an opening.
Shiren set against her foe, each holding kunai, eyes focused.
Neji was left to face the enemy who had evaded Gosain's chains.
"So, the dragon ninja huh?" The man smiled cruelly. "Then I'll kill you and get promoted for certain."
The ninja's hands flashed through seals. "Earth Element: Ground Spear no jutsu!" He spat out a gob of mud, and the ground beneath it formed into a long spear, as wide as a man's chest, and launched itself towards Neji.
Neji dodged aside, seeing the move. He moved in to attack.
The ninja put his hand to the ground. "Earth Element: Ground Thorn no jutsu!" Spines of rock surged upwards all around where he was standing, bending and moving forward to impale Neji.
He dodged backwards.
Gosain had driven his opponent far back down the slope, and she was slipping and losing her grip on the ice, but the other ninja needed to finish the fight soon, he was tiring obviously, losing the strength to wield his chains.
Shiren and her foe spared back and forth, kunai striking kunai, their battle completely undecided.
Neji was having trouble of his own, as his opponent used several more ground spears against him, but he could dodge them without too much difficultly.
To the west he saw Wusashu engaged in combat. The dragon lay about against his foes, diving down from the sky and then leaping back upwards again, spinning in midair or paralyzing with his eyes. The ninja who opposed the dragon had no way to stop the mighty creature. Though they might buffet Wusashu with jutsus, there was truly no contest. The dragon was simply killing them slowly, claws, and fangs ripping them apart.
Breathing hard, Neji's opponent turned to face him. "I guess I have to bet everything against you, dragon ninja."
That's bad, Neji recognized a complex seal pattern being formed, and
charged.
Beneath his feet the ground turned to mud.
What? Neji strove to move, but the mud had him. It's not genjutsu, so how did he form the mud without any seals. Then he saw the answer. Those stone spikes he made! They're melting into mud, and I'm constrained. Neji struggled to free himself. I should be able to cut the chakra in this mud and break free, but I don't have enough to blast all this mud away and get lose, and I can't Kaiten.
Below them Gosain's opponent stumbled, finally providing the older ninja with the chance he wished. Chains snaked in on both sides; their wicked kunai ends looking for flesh. The female ninja managed to deflect them aside, but they slammed down into the ground. "Chain Style: Ground Thunderclap!" The chains hit the stone with the force of a thunderclap, driving energy through it and into the female ninja. Her knees wobbled and she fell to the ground. Chains wrapped around her instantly. The older ninja looked up and saw Neji's situation, but he was too far away to do anything. Gosain's face went dead.
Shiren saw as well, and her face fell as mud trapped Neji, but then she gritted her teeth. The ninja before her threw a kunai, and Shiren blocked it with one of her own, which clanged away to stick in the stone. Neji saw it. She's going too...
One foot spun backwards, carrying Shiren in a mad spin down the slope. The waterfall ninja looked on in puzzlement.
"Lighting anchor!" Shiren tugged hard on the wire to her sunken kunai, and switched one spin for another. The chorded lightning arched around toward the other ninja, whose eyes went wide in fear.
Yet Neji was in even greater danger. "You can block any kunai, but you can't block this." His hands formed seals. "Waterfall element: Searing water surge no jutsu!" A shimmering blast of water was released from the ninja's mouth, a razor edged fan of water running down slope to cut Neji in two.
Can't spin, can't move, can't block. Is this the end? Neji stared at the coming blast.
"Lightning element: Swarming spark wall!" Shiren's voice broke through the doom in front of Neji. A wall of shuriken, held together by an endless shower of sparks blasted into the razored edge taking Neji. Suddenly Shiren was in front of him, her left hand holding a seal steady, and she pulled a kunai from Neji's pouch and hurled it through the mess her jutsu had just made to bury itself in the Waterfall ninja's eye.
At the same time a pair of shuriken struck her left side. The ninja she had been fighting had struck when Shiren released her lightning anchor.
"Why?" That was all Neji managed to say through his shock.
"Teammates protect each other." Shiren said through her bitter pain.
"Then you can die together." The remaining Waterfall ninja sneered.
"Go to hell!" Gosain's steel pole, bereft of chains, came crashing down on the man's skull with a brutal crunching sound.
Neji grabbed Shiren, holding her up. "Don't fall." He said sadly. "This isn't over."
"Indeed it isn't!" A cruel and childlike voice came from above. Mizain Seve and his two companions, Waterfall ninja with cruel and hungry eyes, looked down upon them.
"So you are the child who has called all this!" An inhuman voice roared above the winds as Wusashu moved between both teams of ninja. "This boy dares proclaim vengeance and break the traditions of the Chuunin exam. I think not!" Wusashu's head turned, his golden form was covered in blood and many of his beautiful scales were scraped. He appeared to be a terrifying demon. "Draci Neji. You will stand there. I will deal with this idiot child who plays with powers he cannot comprehend."
Neji managed to nod with what little strength remained to him.
"You will not stop me, you, you Monster!" Seve laughed. "It is still snowing, and I have recovered enough of my chakra. Burn demon, burn!"
"Mizuho: Rain of Fire!" Seve's hands formed into a single seal, and all around him, fire spread, first it ran down his hands, but then it leapt onto a snowflake, and from there another snowflake, and another, and another, until the whole of the sky seemed to be burning. These drops of water then ceased their suspension in the air, and began to fail.
Neji grabbed Shiren and leapt away, knowing he had to get away from those flames. Gosain likewise leaped down the slope, hastily enough that he skidded and rolled in the snow instead of making a solid landing.
Wusashu stood in the center of that fiery rain, watching it pour down with his red eyes. The fire touched his scales and the blood that coated them and a great gout of red steam rose up, obscuring everything, even the Byakugan could not reach inside that red haze. Are you alive, Wusashu? Neji wondered, and he desperately needed the dragon to be so. Shiren was injured, Gosain exhausted, and he had no chakra left. I have summoned you to fight, and you must win!
The red haze spun, a tornado of blood in the air, and a great blast of wind burst outward, sending the burning rain all across the snow, where it fizzled into nothing.
Six pairs of eyes peered into the haze as it was flung away.
"FOOL!!!" Came the voice of Wusashu in a roar so powerful in blew all the ninja to the ground.
The dragon hovered above the crouching Mizain Seve, revealed once again in his golden glory. The blood was gone and the dragon was unstained against the sky, even as the sun suddenly broke through the clouds in the east, bathing the snow in brilliant light. A circle of sunlight fell upon Wusashu and he burned like the sun. "I am a T'ien Lung, a lord of the heavens, forged of the sun itself, your paltry Mizuho cannot harm me!" Wusashu shook his brilliant mane, reflecting a rainbow of colors that delighted the eyes. "If you love fire so much boy, then I will teach you what it truly means to BURN!"
Wind poured into the T'ien Lung's mouth, and then he let loose the breath once more, but now it was fire.
The dragon's breath, a surging flame that burned so hot as to be white before the eyes. A brilliant cone of fire that Neji could not bear to see, even with the Byakugan to aid him.
The fires enveloped Mizain Seve and his teammates, and when it was gone there was nothing but dust upon the mountainside.
Gosain turned his head and retched.
Shiren gripped Neji's hand and shoulder like it was the only thing left in the world, and Neji returned the grip just as hard. That is the ultimate power of the dragon? It is terrible. I cannot imagine it. Seeing the emptiness where there had just moments ago been men, Neji's mind rebelled. Never again, I can't do this again. Wusashu has killed fifteen ninja, all dead and gone, blood and dust on the mountainside. It is too terrible. I cannot look at him.
The dragon fluttered before Neji, who did not met his gaze, but the Byakugan remained, and it revealed all sides, so the glorious terror of Wusashu remained unavoidable. "Draci Neji, I have done as you demanded in your summons. You owe me a great debt now. In the future you will be forced to pay it back."
Then the dragon was gone, and the three ninja were left alone on the mountain.
Gosain limped up to Neji and Shiren, his energy all but gone. He was dragging his chains behind him. "Somehow, I survived even that." He began. Then he stopped for a moment, looking at Shiren and Neji. "So did you." He added quietly. "Thanks, both of you."
"Indeed, to you as well." Neji managed to mutter.
Shiren just smiled at both of them, all she had the strength for then, as the cold seeped into them and they felt the weight of battle and blood clinging to them. Neji felt the frozen blood in his hair now. It will not come out. He decided. Better it should stay anyway.
Neji let the Byakugan evaporate, gone with the last of his chakra. He looked up the slope. It was shear, but much of the ice was gone now, and the sun was shining. "Gosain, hand me your chain. We still have to finish this part of the exam. It is not far from here."
The older ninja passed Neji his chains, and they both tied them around their waists and began the trek to the top. Shiren walked holding onto Neji, her left leg still able to support much of her weight, though every step was painful.
"Why?" Neji asked her when Gosain was far enough ahead that h could not here.
Shiren's eyes, even with his own, showed she knew exactly what he met. She said nothing for a long time, and Neji shut his mouth and kept walking.
"I couldn't watch you die." Shiren said suddenly as they topped the last ridge. "That would be far worse than these stings. Don't you know that?"
"Ah." Neji said slowly. "The same for you." He replied, and he meant it. Shiren, searching his empty eyes, seemed to see something.
"I appreciate it." She said. "Neji."
They reached the shrine.
Author's Notes: So, the resolution of the second exam cometh, in all its gritty nastiness. Sorry to keep everyone waiting. Unfortunately, I will have to keep people waiting for the next chapter, since spring break occurs now and it won't be until next Sunday before I can post again (though I will definitely be working on this during that time).
Thanks to reviewers, and some replies: Orlha: I'm glad the tiring aspect of Xi's fight came across, exhaustion is difficult to picture in writing, and yet it's a significant aspect of how Naruto fights get resolved.
Hautteline: Yes the fights were ended somewhat un-naruto-esque, but that's mostly the point, that's the difference in the way a dragon ninja fights versus other ninja, destroying the enemy with a single lethal attack. Oh, and those jounin are more like the Genma/Kurenai level of skill, not Gai/Kakashi, Waterfall jounin aren't as capable as left jounin. And Xi, is significantly stronger than Kakashi anyway.
Atop the Heights
With the refined vision of the Byakugan Neji glanced out through the light snow, as the dawn broke over the mountainside behind a cover of clouds, and the world became light once again. He, Shiren, and Gosain stood on the edge of a canyon, already having fought one battle and killed two foes. A kilometer of brutal slope rose above them, to meet a small shrine atop the mountain peek. On that slope was naught but ice, rock, and snow, a brutal expanse devoid of life and unsuited for the living to journey upon. Yet they would have to cross that ice. Nineteen Waterfall ninja stand in our way. Neji saw. We are stopped.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Gosain spat. "What the hell is this? The examiners should throw them all out for this bullshit conspiracy trick!"
Neji heard the frustration, the anger in Gosain's words, and inside he echoed it, but he was already past that. "This is no longer an exam," he told his teammates softly. "The examiners have allowed this, and now the Waterfall ninja are our enemies."
"I agree Neji." Shiren said beside him, her voice still slightly pained. "But how can we fight all of them?"
There were no good answers, but Neji was searching for them frantically. If it were two teams, or even three, I would say we should fight without hesitation, we could still win, and it would simply be a difficult challenge. This though, this isn't the exam anymore, this is a war, and Shiren and Gosain are not meant to be part of it, this is between Waterfall and me. What choice do I make? Thinking of his companions, and knowing that the last fight had cost Gosain much of his chakra and Shiren had been forced to injure herself to win, Neji made his decision. "We retreat." He said finally.
"What?" Gosain asked, still angry.
"We cannot fight and win, and this is not what was supposed to happen. So we retreat, perhaps we can lose them and come around to approach the peak another way, or we can go back down to the gate and leave the exam. If the examiners have allowed this they might try to kill us even if we win through." Neji said, still quietly. He could hardly believe he said the words. Backing down from a challenge was not something he did lightly. This is not worth our lives though, it is not a mission, it is a test, and I will not have three people die and kill some great number of Waterfall ninja just for a test if I can prevent it.
"Damn!" Gosain muttered. "I hate to say it, absolutely hate to say it, but you're right."
Neji nodded. "Ah."
"Well, then we can run along the top of this canyon for a while." Gosain said. "Maybe we can get back into the trees and lose them."
Neji was about to confirm that course, but then he saw all the Waterfall ninja move. Each team at six different points where they stood had pulled out a scroll. Now they crushed them against the snow.
A great cracking noise split the air.
Impossible! Neji thought as he saw it happen.
A gigantic crack opened in the ice above, separating from the rock. A thousand cracks shot through the icy block, and then it shattered.
Shiren and Gosain had turned to look and their eyes were wide with terror.
The ice began to fall.
Avalanche! The word rang through all three ninja minds as they saw that form move. The mountainside was tumbling down toward them at tremendous speed, a force of power so massively destructive that it would sweep them aside as if they were but specks.
"Run!" Neji ordered, and they spun and began to scramble down the slope, burning away chakra to run over the snow.
"We can't outrun it!" Gosain shouted.
"I know." Neji answered. "But we must buy some time, to think of some plan."
"Could we simply run up it?" Shiren asked. "If we jump the leading edge couldn't we simply run across the top, it would be difficult, but-"
"It could work!" Gosain said. "It's insane, but it could work!"
"No." Neji told them in a voice like death itself. "It will not. See for yourselves."
The two cloud ninja turned their heads to see something out of nightmares. The mountain fell toward them in a torrential blast of ice and snow that could bury cities, and it was burning.
"The power of Mizuho." Neji said as they ran. "It will be all of Misain Seve's strength, but if we touch the avalanche, it will mean death."
"Then there's no escape." Gosain said, and all the energy seemed to instantly leave him. "Even if we tried to get above it, or avoid the brunt of the blast by climbing some rise, we'd still get exposed to some effect. What demons created that bloodline technique?"
"The demons of Waterfall." Shiren said sadly. "What an unfortunate way for this to end, burned and crushed by ice."
Waterfall indeed. Thought Neji. Waterfall? Something in that word brought and image to his mind. Then he recalled the last waterfall he had seen. The water, it flows out and over, so that there is a clear space behind that is untouched. That is it!
"Gosain, quickly, where does the canyon turned so that it runs across the slope." Neji demanded.
"There is a point not far, but what does it matter?"
"If we cling to the canyon wall the avalanche will flow over and into the canyon, and we can avoid it." Neji told him.
For an instant some hope seemed to return to Gosain, but then he stopped. "No, ice is heavier than water, it would fall directly downward, pushed by the force of what's behind it. You'd have to burrow into the wall to avoid it."
"Neji, your Kaiten!" Shiren spoke up now. "It creates a crater when used. You can drive a wide hole into the canyon wall for us to shelter in."
It could work. Neji saw as Shiren made the suggestion. "Yes! Hurry!" Was all he said, and then leapt forward.
The avalanche moved with ever increasing speed, and it was thunderous and deafening behind the three ninja when they finally reached the appropriate spot in the canyon. They had mere seconds ahead of it. Neji ran down the side of the canyon walls, only a few feet below the lip. "Kaiten!" He screamed the word with his throat raw from running, focusing forth a tremendous amount of chakra.
The force of the escaping chakra blasted a tremendous gouge into the wall, a circle of destruction just deep enough to shelter the three.
Gosain jumped in next, slamming his pole into the rock, forcing electricity down it so it would penetrate. "Grab hold and force yourself into the wall, every inch will matter!"
The three hung there, crammed in as tight as possible, even closer than they had been the night before, forcing themselves against cold and sharp stone until it hurt, and the chakra seemed to slip away.
Then the avalanche came.
It burned as it poured over the side of the canyon, a hellish torrent lit with blinding fires. Ice and snow dropped downward into the depths then, falling the long way to strike with booms louder than the greatest thunderclap from any storm. They passed so close that the wind of their passage sucked the air away and tried to pull the ninja from the stone, and all the air was gone, so that they could not breathe. Still, the three hung in place.
It is rising. Neji saw of the canyon floor below, the avalanche is filling it. Surely it will slide down the canyon and make space. He hoped for that, for there was nothing he could do. That stream of rock and stone and snow passed over their heads now, and nothing could be done to avoid it. Endless instants passed by without breath or motion, as all Neji could do was hang on and watched the snowy floor below rise ever higher.
Will we die buried like this? He wondered. Cemented together like some hideous sculpture?
I refuse to die like this, cheated by fate! Neji swore.
And then there was silence.
It was an instantaneous transition, the roaring and crashing destruction was gone, and the rising wall of ice had stopped a few feet below them. The supreme tactic of Waterfall, the burning avalanche, had ceased. We live? Neji wondered, and then he felt Shiren ad Gosain move against him, and heard the brutal ringing in his strained ears. Yes, we are alive.
Slowly they emerged and crawled up from the canyon, or what was left of it. All around was a seen of absolute devastation. For all directions, above and below, east and west, the land had been scrubbed free of everything, taken by the avalanche. Now there was nothing but snow and some patches of scoured ice. A wasteland.
Neji looked up the slope, and there stood the Waterfall ninja, unscathed and vile, blue blots against the colorlessness of the world they had just made.
"I hope no one else died." Shiren commented from Neji's side, her voice sounding terribly soft and empty in Neji's ears, though his hearing was returning.
"Worry about them later, Shiren." Gosain said, gruff and tired. "We're still in trouble." He looked at Neji. "So, what now? Try to outrun them?" Gosain asked, expecting affirmation.
"No." Neji said, and just so he could hear himself clearly he repeated it. "No. There is nowhere to run, now. All is exposed and empty. We must fight."
"How?" Gosain railed. "They're nineteen, we're three. You called this a war Neji, but while they might be a small army we aren't even a platoon!"
He's right. Neji reminded himself. There are nineteen Waterfall ninja out there, and even if they depleted their chakra with that trick, we aren't nearly at full strength either. We can't do this by ourselves. Then he laughed. "We aren't even a platoon? Ha!" Neji's eyes quieted and instant later and went terribly cold.
"You're right Gosain, I did call this a war." Neji said, his voice steady and terrible. "Dragon ninja fight wars, and we fight them in one way. We kill as many of the enemy as quickly as possible." He recalled Xi's words. "So, stand back. I'll grant us an army."
There was an image in Neji's mind now, an image both majestic and terrible. Gosain and Shiren moved back a step, even as the Waterfall ninja above them began to advance. Neji called upon that image. His hands formed the seals. Claw, Fang, Gaze, Breath, Spirit, Dragon, and Circle. Neji brought his left hand to his face, and bit the index finger lightly, drawing a single drop of blood. He brought out as much chakra as he could, every last drop that he could feel within, all the energy he found buried in the depths of his system, remembering that face, the one he had seen but once before, but the one face he trusted to bring forth now. Draci Neji's hands slammed down upon the ice. "Dragon Summoning no Jutsu!"
Wind hollowed, ice slashed through the air, and the clouds spun.
Then a fourth being was there at the canyon's edge. Eighteen feet long he was, and glowing like the sun in this snowy sky. His eyes were red upon red, and they met Neji's with the gaze of eternity.
The T'ien Lung, Wusashu.
Those red upon red eyes stared at Neji, projecting tremendous fear from beyond this world. Some of that fear spilled over into Shiren and Gosain, and they were frozen in terror. Neji felt that fear, and he threw it out of his body almost instantly. He had just survived the terrors of an avalanche and the hellish fires of Mizuho, he was not going to be intimidated right now, not before his teammates who he must save this way. "All honor to thee, T'ien Lung Wusashu, the Wind that Flows Beneath Leaves. I have your stone." Neji held up the brilliant aquamarine he had carried since facing Ryukin. "And I must demand a service from you."
"Throw that stone here, dragon ninja." Wusashu replied.
Neji did as the dragon ninja requested, and was shocked to watch the T'ien Lung swallow the gem whole. "What is your request, summoner?" The dragon asked imperiously.
"There are nineteen Waterfall ninja on the slopes above, and they have all attacked me and my team." Neji said coldly. He paused before saying his next words, hesitating, but then he continued. I have to do this, no matter how terrible it will be. I can't let Shiren and Gosain die. "Remove them."
"A great request this is." Wusashu replied. "I am bound by my summons to serve, but if you wish to make this debt manageable, you and your team must fight as well. I am not going to throw myself at them for you, even if they have betrayed the chuunin exam." Wusashu's eyes flashed with wrath when he said that. "These waterfall ninja, have they no sense of honor?" He shrieked at the sky.
"I will fight. I cannot speak for my companions." Neji answered.
"I, I will not hesitate to fight beside such a creature." Gosain said quietly, the awe deep in his voice.
"Neji, I am going to fight along with you." Shiren said calmly.
"Then the bargain is made!" Wusashu thundered.
The approaching Waterfall ninja looked up into the sky in shock as the T'ien Lung launched himself like a bolt of molten gold into the sky, rolling and surging with a mighty roar that shook the very sky. "Come puny honorless ones! Feel the wrath of the lords of the sun!" The dragon began.
Neji, Gosain, and Shiren raced up the slope after them. Neji was conscious that even if he had promised to fight, his chakra was almost entirely gone; he could feel only the barest remnant within him. I will have to rely only on the Jyouken. It is all I can manage now.
One team of Waterfall ninja had advanced before the rest. It was these who first felt the wrath of Wusashu.
"Idiot mortals!" The dragon thundered as shuriken bounced uselessly off his scaled hide. He crashed down onto them, heedless of hard stone. Neji, with the Byakugan, saw the slaughter begin in every detail.
A single swipe of a massive claw took one ninja's head from his body, while the dragon's jaws snaked over to rip the leg off another. The third ninja tried to stab a kunai into Wusashu's flank only to thrown backward by the lash of the dragon's tail, sharp scales ripping him open cross the belly and laving him lying broken upon the snow.
The dragon roared his triumph and launched into the air again, to charge a group of three clustered teams to one side. "The others are yours, Draci Neji!" Wusashu's voice carried over the winds.
Wusashu engaged nine ninja, five were already slain, and one team, that of Mizain Seve, yet remained above. That left four to fight with Neji's team.
They met in a lat saddle scourged clear by the avalanche. No words were spoken.
Shuriken ripped clear of hands, and the battle began.
"Lightning element: Spark Star no jutsu!" Shiren called, unleashing her weapons.
Two of the ninja laughed, for she had left herself open to attacks.
They did not understand that Shiren and Neji, having trained against each other so much, now knew how to combine their fighting.
Neji leapt in front of Shiren, and grabbed kunai and shuriken from the air, tossing them aside.
Shiren's jutsu wrapped around one of the waterfall ninja. The star hit, and collapsed in, driving points and lightning energy into the man, knocking him to the ground, twitching and bleeding.
Gosain took the other two. "Chain Style: Stormcloud Spin!" His chains ripped around in a spiral all about him, blocking attacks and clipping one of his opponents, knocking her away.
"Three on three now!" Gosain called.
"Shiren, take your enemy!" Neji called, and turned to the other.
Gosain's chains continued to whip around, as his opponent struggled to regain her feet. The older ninja beat her back, not letting her up, not allowing her to regain equilibrium, waiting for an opening.
Shiren set against her foe, each holding kunai, eyes focused.
Neji was left to face the enemy who had evaded Gosain's chains.
"So, the dragon ninja huh?" The man smiled cruelly. "Then I'll kill you and get promoted for certain."
The ninja's hands flashed through seals. "Earth Element: Ground Spear no jutsu!" He spat out a gob of mud, and the ground beneath it formed into a long spear, as wide as a man's chest, and launched itself towards Neji.
Neji dodged aside, seeing the move. He moved in to attack.
The ninja put his hand to the ground. "Earth Element: Ground Thorn no jutsu!" Spines of rock surged upwards all around where he was standing, bending and moving forward to impale Neji.
He dodged backwards.
Gosain had driven his opponent far back down the slope, and she was slipping and losing her grip on the ice, but the other ninja needed to finish the fight soon, he was tiring obviously, losing the strength to wield his chains.
Shiren and her foe spared back and forth, kunai striking kunai, their battle completely undecided.
Neji was having trouble of his own, as his opponent used several more ground spears against him, but he could dodge them without too much difficultly.
To the west he saw Wusashu engaged in combat. The dragon lay about against his foes, diving down from the sky and then leaping back upwards again, spinning in midair or paralyzing with his eyes. The ninja who opposed the dragon had no way to stop the mighty creature. Though they might buffet Wusashu with jutsus, there was truly no contest. The dragon was simply killing them slowly, claws, and fangs ripping them apart.
Breathing hard, Neji's opponent turned to face him. "I guess I have to bet everything against you, dragon ninja."
That's bad, Neji recognized a complex seal pattern being formed, and
charged.
Beneath his feet the ground turned to mud.
What? Neji strove to move, but the mud had him. It's not genjutsu, so how did he form the mud without any seals. Then he saw the answer. Those stone spikes he made! They're melting into mud, and I'm constrained. Neji struggled to free himself. I should be able to cut the chakra in this mud and break free, but I don't have enough to blast all this mud away and get lose, and I can't Kaiten.
Below them Gosain's opponent stumbled, finally providing the older ninja with the chance he wished. Chains snaked in on both sides; their wicked kunai ends looking for flesh. The female ninja managed to deflect them aside, but they slammed down into the ground. "Chain Style: Ground Thunderclap!" The chains hit the stone with the force of a thunderclap, driving energy through it and into the female ninja. Her knees wobbled and she fell to the ground. Chains wrapped around her instantly. The older ninja looked up and saw Neji's situation, but he was too far away to do anything. Gosain's face went dead.
Shiren saw as well, and her face fell as mud trapped Neji, but then she gritted her teeth. The ninja before her threw a kunai, and Shiren blocked it with one of her own, which clanged away to stick in the stone. Neji saw it. She's going too...
One foot spun backwards, carrying Shiren in a mad spin down the slope. The waterfall ninja looked on in puzzlement.
"Lighting anchor!" Shiren tugged hard on the wire to her sunken kunai, and switched one spin for another. The chorded lightning arched around toward the other ninja, whose eyes went wide in fear.
Yet Neji was in even greater danger. "You can block any kunai, but you can't block this." His hands formed seals. "Waterfall element: Searing water surge no jutsu!" A shimmering blast of water was released from the ninja's mouth, a razor edged fan of water running down slope to cut Neji in two.
Can't spin, can't move, can't block. Is this the end? Neji stared at the coming blast.
"Lightning element: Swarming spark wall!" Shiren's voice broke through the doom in front of Neji. A wall of shuriken, held together by an endless shower of sparks blasted into the razored edge taking Neji. Suddenly Shiren was in front of him, her left hand holding a seal steady, and she pulled a kunai from Neji's pouch and hurled it through the mess her jutsu had just made to bury itself in the Waterfall ninja's eye.
At the same time a pair of shuriken struck her left side. The ninja she had been fighting had struck when Shiren released her lightning anchor.
"Why?" That was all Neji managed to say through his shock.
"Teammates protect each other." Shiren said through her bitter pain.
"Then you can die together." The remaining Waterfall ninja sneered.
"Go to hell!" Gosain's steel pole, bereft of chains, came crashing down on the man's skull with a brutal crunching sound.
Neji grabbed Shiren, holding her up. "Don't fall." He said sadly. "This isn't over."
"Indeed it isn't!" A cruel and childlike voice came from above. Mizain Seve and his two companions, Waterfall ninja with cruel and hungry eyes, looked down upon them.
"So you are the child who has called all this!" An inhuman voice roared above the winds as Wusashu moved between both teams of ninja. "This boy dares proclaim vengeance and break the traditions of the Chuunin exam. I think not!" Wusashu's head turned, his golden form was covered in blood and many of his beautiful scales were scraped. He appeared to be a terrifying demon. "Draci Neji. You will stand there. I will deal with this idiot child who plays with powers he cannot comprehend."
Neji managed to nod with what little strength remained to him.
"You will not stop me, you, you Monster!" Seve laughed. "It is still snowing, and I have recovered enough of my chakra. Burn demon, burn!"
"Mizuho: Rain of Fire!" Seve's hands formed into a single seal, and all around him, fire spread, first it ran down his hands, but then it leapt onto a snowflake, and from there another snowflake, and another, and another, until the whole of the sky seemed to be burning. These drops of water then ceased their suspension in the air, and began to fail.
Neji grabbed Shiren and leapt away, knowing he had to get away from those flames. Gosain likewise leaped down the slope, hastily enough that he skidded and rolled in the snow instead of making a solid landing.
Wusashu stood in the center of that fiery rain, watching it pour down with his red eyes. The fire touched his scales and the blood that coated them and a great gout of red steam rose up, obscuring everything, even the Byakugan could not reach inside that red haze. Are you alive, Wusashu? Neji wondered, and he desperately needed the dragon to be so. Shiren was injured, Gosain exhausted, and he had no chakra left. I have summoned you to fight, and you must win!
The red haze spun, a tornado of blood in the air, and a great blast of wind burst outward, sending the burning rain all across the snow, where it fizzled into nothing.
Six pairs of eyes peered into the haze as it was flung away.
"FOOL!!!" Came the voice of Wusashu in a roar so powerful in blew all the ninja to the ground.
The dragon hovered above the crouching Mizain Seve, revealed once again in his golden glory. The blood was gone and the dragon was unstained against the sky, even as the sun suddenly broke through the clouds in the east, bathing the snow in brilliant light. A circle of sunlight fell upon Wusashu and he burned like the sun. "I am a T'ien Lung, a lord of the heavens, forged of the sun itself, your paltry Mizuho cannot harm me!" Wusashu shook his brilliant mane, reflecting a rainbow of colors that delighted the eyes. "If you love fire so much boy, then I will teach you what it truly means to BURN!"
Wind poured into the T'ien Lung's mouth, and then he let loose the breath once more, but now it was fire.
The dragon's breath, a surging flame that burned so hot as to be white before the eyes. A brilliant cone of fire that Neji could not bear to see, even with the Byakugan to aid him.
The fires enveloped Mizain Seve and his teammates, and when it was gone there was nothing but dust upon the mountainside.
Gosain turned his head and retched.
Shiren gripped Neji's hand and shoulder like it was the only thing left in the world, and Neji returned the grip just as hard. That is the ultimate power of the dragon? It is terrible. I cannot imagine it. Seeing the emptiness where there had just moments ago been men, Neji's mind rebelled. Never again, I can't do this again. Wusashu has killed fifteen ninja, all dead and gone, blood and dust on the mountainside. It is too terrible. I cannot look at him.
The dragon fluttered before Neji, who did not met his gaze, but the Byakugan remained, and it revealed all sides, so the glorious terror of Wusashu remained unavoidable. "Draci Neji, I have done as you demanded in your summons. You owe me a great debt now. In the future you will be forced to pay it back."
Then the dragon was gone, and the three ninja were left alone on the mountain.
Gosain limped up to Neji and Shiren, his energy all but gone. He was dragging his chains behind him. "Somehow, I survived even that." He began. Then he stopped for a moment, looking at Shiren and Neji. "So did you." He added quietly. "Thanks, both of you."
"Indeed, to you as well." Neji managed to mutter.
Shiren just smiled at both of them, all she had the strength for then, as the cold seeped into them and they felt the weight of battle and blood clinging to them. Neji felt the frozen blood in his hair now. It will not come out. He decided. Better it should stay anyway.
Neji let the Byakugan evaporate, gone with the last of his chakra. He looked up the slope. It was shear, but much of the ice was gone now, and the sun was shining. "Gosain, hand me your chain. We still have to finish this part of the exam. It is not far from here."
The older ninja passed Neji his chains, and they both tied them around their waists and began the trek to the top. Shiren walked holding onto Neji, her left leg still able to support much of her weight, though every step was painful.
"Why?" Neji asked her when Gosain was far enough ahead that h could not here.
Shiren's eyes, even with his own, showed she knew exactly what he met. She said nothing for a long time, and Neji shut his mouth and kept walking.
"I couldn't watch you die." Shiren said suddenly as they topped the last ridge. "That would be far worse than these stings. Don't you know that?"
"Ah." Neji said slowly. "The same for you." He replied, and he meant it. Shiren, searching his empty eyes, seemed to see something.
"I appreciate it." She said. "Neji."
They reached the shrine.