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, apologies for the slower updates, I've been busy with all sorts of stuff. Also, writing endless battles isn't really that interesting for me, so it's been harder to get into the writing. However, we're getting back toward some more interesting fights, so the update pace will pick up. Anyway, in this chapter you get to see the crazed powers of Tonetero, and Shiren fight for the first time in a while. I'm cramming this second round into two chapters with two fights apiece.
Thanks for the reviews everyone!
A Thousand Edges
A stiff wind blew through the exam stadium and ruffled coats and clothes, and the thin branches of the frozen plants that huddled at the edges of the stadium. Tonetero stood facing Aburanki Kei, each ninja with the jagged mark upon the forehead protector of grass they bore, Kei's high up on her head, Tonetero's forgotten on the base of his leg. It was only the beginning of the contrast. The compact and lithe Kei was carefully athletic, a skilled and talented young woman of fifteen years. She looked in every way to be a female ninja of the future, and despite the grassy branches she bore, was nothing more than human. Tonetero was something else. Thorns grew out from his flesh, the skin opening to let the brown and razor sharp edges cut out to form a second skin of deadly armor. Above his eyes they pierced his forehead like horns, and what appeared at first to be spiked hair was a crop of thorns that extended from his skull. His skin was ridged and bark-like and his eyes were circular pits, brown and brown as he opened them to face Kei, all the white gone. His age was impossible to guess, this creature that appeared almost more plant than man. Yet his mouth had a terrible and animalistic grin.
"What is he?" Dar whispered to Xi, as they watched both combatants take the field, the stone ninja's voice was harsh and accusational.
"A bearer of the Echiri bloodline, a bloodline that was supposedly ended forty years in the past, when the last two who held it and all their clan was destroyed in the war between Grass and Rain." Xi answered quietly. "It allows the bearer to command plants and bend them to his will, even insert them into the body. It is extremely dangerous."
"I see." Dar replied, dour. "Well, if the bloodline was destroyed how does this body possess its powers?"
"I do not know, but the possibilities are not good. Either someone survived, or the Grass ninja have done something forbidden." Xi did not say it, but he recalled a similar case. This is too like the creation of Gaara of the Desert, is the same hand behind both children?
Though they lacked Xi's knowledge, Shiren and Neji were watching the match with no less interest. Gosain also looked on, but he was focusing on recovering as much of his depleted chakra as possible before the next fight. Shiren has promised to fight this man, to avenge this match. Neji did not like the thought, looking at Tonetero. He is not like the rest of us. He is like me, a creature that kills. Silently Neji looked on, hoping he would see a method that would reveal a path to victory for Shiren.
Examiner Acade took his place between the two Grass ninja. He looked stern, and angry. "Keep this clean." He hissed at the two grass ninja, eying Tonetero. "There's been enough trouble already."
Tonetero didn't even bother to look at the examiner in response.
Acade raised his right hand, and fingered a kunai with his left.
The arm silenced the whispered and speculating crowd. Then it fell. "Begin!"
Kei jumped back at the same moment as the examiner, placing a great deal of distance between herself and her opponent. Tonethero didn't even move, didn't tense for battle, but stood relaxed in front of his teammate, grinning sickeningly.
Pulling the branches from her back, Kei slammed them into the ground, and focused on Tonetero. Her gaze was set, and her feet poised. Looking from afar though, Neji could see the desperation in her eyes. She does not want to do this, he determined. She expects something terrible to happen.
For a moment Kei did nothing, and Tonetero spoke. "What's the matter Kei? Don't want to fight me? I know you don't, but if you're scared, why don't you give up?" He mocked her mercilessly.
"You're right, I don't want to fight you." Kei answered levelly. "It's insane." She said matter-of-factly. "But this was what I was ordered to do as part of my mission to become a chuunin, and I won't refuse my orders." She placed her hands above the branches. "Grass element: Woven Leaf Spear!" Spears of Grass surged up and separated from those branches, a myriad formation that had proven its worth in the previous round.
Kei threw the weapons straight at Tonetero. He looked at her in amusement. "I thought you knew better."
When her opponent made no move to block or dodge Kei simply let the spears of grass strike into Tonetero's chest, as deadly as any combination of wood and steal was that woven point.
The grass ninja sprouted two great wooden extensions in the middle of his chest, and bent back from the force of the blow, but his torso snapped upright a moment later. The spears had stuck completely through him, but there was not a drop of blood to be seen. As the shocked crowd watched the spears broke apart into their grassy constituents, thousands of sharp leaf blades, and filled into Tonetero's body or slid around his skin, covering him in a coating of green that melded so perfectly it disappeared in moments. Though his clothing was torn, his flesh was undamaged. "You think to use those techniques against me?" He asked incredulously. "You know that can't harm me."
What a horrible ability. Neji thought from above. So such weapons are useless against him? He is simply immune to techniques that use plants. Does that mean he can see through the replacement technique as well? Looking down Neji suspected that to be true, for Kei had not formed grass clones, though she had been given a good opportunity to do so.
Kei was looking at Tonetero with a viscous horror, but it was stale. She expected this. Neji noted. That attack was only to confirm it for sure. But what will she do now; her grass attacks cannot harm him?
As Tonetero and the rest of the crowd looked on Kei reached down into her shuriken pouch. Swiftly her hands moved, and she dropped shuriken after shuriken into the weave of her grassy branches before her, a lethal minefield of metal hidden among the boughs.
Tonetero hissed. "Heh. Try it then, Kei."
The lady grass ninja obliged him. She whipped her branches together, and the grass molded itself to fit them into a single weapon. "Life Reaper Shuriken!" Kei cried as she hurled the mammoth weapon at Tonetero.
The great weapon surged inward; Tonetero watched without reaction, and at the final instant Kei formed the seal that exploded the grass structure apart, sending a hail of shuriken everywhere around her enemy.
A feral lash of thorns erupted from Tonetero's body, whipping before him like the wind and blowing back everything in front of his body, scattering shuriken and grass and branches away like dust. "You cannot penetrate the Storm of Thorns with that!" Tonetero laughed with hideous glee.
Neji saw that whipping cocoon in all its terrible power, a blast of spines that could block any oncoming force, and could strike back to rip apart an opponent like a thousand spears. It's like Gaara's shield of sand, but it's not the same. Neji looked closely, examining Tonetero with the refined vision of the Byakugan for a spare moment. He's controlling it with his body, but the control is internal, his chakra shifts thorns within his hands, making seals and altering the Thorn Storm. It acts with his will and uses his chakra, so he cannot maintain that for long, but he's much faster than Gaara's sand shield was. It moves at the speed of his chakra, even Lee would not be able to strike him. It doesn't matter if you are faster, he can make it turn faster than any pure speed would allow.
Even as Tonetero laughed with glee and the crowd gasped at the power of his strange bloodline ability, Aburanki Kei was already acting. Her face set in a glare of grim determination; she had moved even as her attack was dashed apart by the storm of thorns.
Kei leapt high, coming down arcing at Tonetero, a kunai held in both hands, positioned before her body, so that all her strength and the strength of her fall would carry her through.
Seeing the move from above Xi raised his estimation of the Grass ninja. "This one knows how to fight." He muttered to Dar.
The Stone chuunin nodded silently, his face dark and sad.
By positioning herself that way she focuses all her force against a single point. Xi observed. Even if he lashes her with thorns, Kei will still come through to strike. It is a hard move, but she understands the principles of moves that kill.
"It won't do anything but get her hurt." Dar said as Tonetero turned his head and reacted to Kei.
So does this chuunin. Xi thought, as the impact struck.
Thorn struck ninja, but not a dispersed blast as before. Tonetero controlled the storm of thorns, forcing it into a solid spear form, striking right back at Kei's kunai, and matching her force completely.
They hung suspended in the air for a second.
Then the thorns stopped her completely, and exploded out as she began to fall.
Sharp and barbed, a hundred thorns lashed the flesh of Aburanki Kei, ripping open deep and jagged cuts, that would both bleed endlessly and sting terribly, scourging muscle so that it could barely function. Kei struck the ground with a horrible thud.
Tonetero looked at her, body bleeding and in agony, and he laughed. "That's all Kei?" He mocked. "I thought you were sturdier than that. After all, you claimed you didn't need me to become a chuunin. Where is your strength?"
Blood seeping from her mouth Kei spat and coughed to clear her throat, and managed to rise to one knee. "I don't need you, you monster." She said clearly and openly through her mangled visage at Tonetero. She pulled a kunai from her holster with a shaking hand, and drew a circle around herself in the dirt. The moment she completed it the kunai fell from her hand.
Tonetero stood a short distance away, towering over her. "Go ahead and try whatever trick you have left. It means nothing."
"It means many things." Dar whispered next to Xi, and the dragon ninja nodded.
This is important, for this girl at least, though she surely knows she will fail. Sometimes a ninja must go forward even when defeat is certain.
"Grass Whirlwind." Kei made seals over her circle in the dirt.
The grass on the field bent deeply, as a wind blew over it in a swirling pattern. The wind began in the circle Kei held, but it did not end there. It cut out over the field, less than an inch above the ground, slicing blades of grass in two, and sending them high into the air, taught as it being pulled to heaven, and sharp enough to mark stone, a rain of needles that rose from below.
There were too many for any simple wall of thorns to block, but the guard about Tonetero whirled on its own, in a strange pattern that was too swift to see, and blocked blade after blade of grass. Though they could not have harmed him in the first place, the monstrous ninja took an obvious pride in letting not a single blade touch him.
That is a potent defense. Neji saw. It moves so fast that it avoids presenting weak points for more than the barest instant, so that nothing gets through. How do you penetrate it? The darker thought behind that was, how does Shiren?
Kei collapsed face forward as her move completed, and Tonetero approached slowly. "Useless fool." He said to the crowd. "You should know better than to try to strike me with such things." Long thorns extended from his fists like blades.
"Stop!" Examiner Acade moved in front of Tonetero. "Your opponent cannot continue the match. It is over." He said sternly.
"Fine." Tonetero said. "I'll kill her for her treachery later."
The examiner gave the grass ninja a dark look, and the crowd replied with a gasp. High above, standing next to Xi, Dar's sword slid loose a few inches.
"I hope you don't intend to try anything." Xi muttered to him. "This is internal politics, and not our business."
"Any foreigner who draws a weapon against another ninja in the village of Stone may be struck down immediately by any Stone ninja who witnesses it." Dar replied softly. "No one else will, but I will keep a watch, drawing a thorn is drawing a weapon."
"A dangerous assumption that your superiors will see it that way." Xi half-smiled at Dar.
"Then hope your own team manages to prevent such a thing." The stone chuunin was gone then.
"Winner: Tonetero!" Examiner Acade called from the field, though Xi barely heard it as he considered the stone ninja who had approached him. More than I expected, Kataishi Dar. I wonder what his purpose in speaking to me was? Then he turned back to the stadium, for Shiren was descending to her match.
Lightning ninja and grass ninja met twice on that battlefield. First, Tonetero brushed by Monihii Waru. The twin had the strength of will to stand steady and not tremble, but little more, and his discomfort was apparent to all. He turned back to glare at the approaching Shiren, transforming fear into anger. Yet the second meeting was the far more important one. Shiren walked over to the stretcher Kei had been placed upon by a group of medics. The grass ninja was pale and bloody, the cuts had seeped and run, covering her in a sickly red that threatened to clog her breathing.
Kei's eyes were clear as she looked up to Shiren lean over her stretcher. "So, I lost." She said through bloody lips, forcing the whisper out. "So you must be the one to win."
Shiren nodded, and placed her hand over Kei's. She leaned down and spoke into Kei's ear, so that only the other female ninja could hear. "I see why he needs to be beaten." She whispered. "But why must it be me?"
"We are alike." Kei croaked the reply through her pain. "Those who stand strong in the shadow of another." She coughed, and one of the medics moved forward, but Kei motioned him away. "I had to fight my opposite too soon, and I lost, but you must win that. Prove that we are not always the weaker ones, the shadowy ones who stand behind."
Shiren nodded, but did not whisper to Kei anymore.
The medics took the severely wounded Grass ninja away, leaving only Shiren and Waru standing on the field with the examiner.
Tonetero returned to the stands, and he faced dark looks from the three ninja who remained. As he stood against the stands the eyes of those three met, and there was a resolution there. From Gosain to Neji, to the Stone ninja Tsukabe Ota, the silent agreement was passed using only the eyes, something ninja could do. It went as follows: This monster, no matter who faces him, he must fall, all energy put toward that. For these three, in the other bracket, there was the hope that it would not be that. Neji and Gosain hoped Shiren would win, but even the stolid stone ninja obviously favored the victory of whichever lightning ninja should face the grass ninja. No grass ninja will win this chuunin exam; these three ninja had resolved to spend every ounce of their strength to prevent it.
When the medics had exited the field Examiner Acade again moved to his place between the two ninja. "The Second match of this round, two genin from Hidden Cloud. Senirai Shiren versus Monihii Waru!"
There was little response, for the crowd was listless. It had already been decided that which of these lightning ninja was victorious they would fall to Tonetero. Besides, who wanted to see these two unimportant ninja fight? The twin had already proved he was nothing special, and this girl could not be impressive, Kabure Gosain was the strength of that team, so the thinking proceeded. Only Neji, Xi, and Gosain looked down at this fight with true interest, and it was Neji who held the greatest concern. It has been a month Shiren, he recalled. What have you done? Will you win? Neji deeply hoped it would be so, he believed, and he wished. For once, he did not try to judge the battle, he simply watched Shiren, and stood silently supportive of his teammate.
"Begin!" Acade's arm swung down.
Shiren reached down with a smooth and bitterly quick motion, pulling shuriken and throwing them, taking the measure of her enemy.
Fast! Neji saw. Very, very fast, nearly perfect. Her chakra control has increased, as has her speed. He cannot block that, he can't see!
Monihii Waru did not block the oncoming strikes, with arms that seemed encased in mud compared to Shiren's swift and precise motions, he pulled his own shuriken and threw them forward, not even glancing at the path they took.
Metal darts crashed into each other and clanged aside.
What? Neji looked at the exchange. There's no way such sloppy taijutsu should have blocked those. Any ninja without motion like Xi's or eyes like mine would have been very hard pressed to block those, and this lightning ninja hasn't the skill. How did he throw them in the path? Then Neji saw it. He predicted the motion! He knows Shiren's method!
It was a frightening thought, for Neji knew the full implications of this. Shiren is fighting an opponent that has learned her. He could not know how, they must have fought before, many times, it was the only way. Perhaps they had served on a team, or under the same sensei, regardless, he could see and understand what it meant. Just like Lee, and I. I learned all his techniques, all his fighting styles, so that even without the Byakugan I could predict and counter his movements. He was able to learn me in return, but has Shiren learned this lightning ninja?
Waru gave Shiren a dark smile, almost a laugh, as she noted the fall of her shuriken. "You should have expected that we'd remember."
"Twins." Shiren spat the word. "Each one contributes his knowledge of an opponents fighting style to the other innately, so that you learn an opponent from two different perspectives, mastering an opponent's abilities in only a few matches."
"Exactly." Waru did laugh now; filling the silence that had been left by this revelation, the proclamation of a truly uninteresting fight, one where all the moves of a ninja were countered foolishly by another ninja. "You've improved Shiren, but even with better skills, you can't beat someone who knows all your moves."
"All my moves?" Shiren raised an eyebrow. "You're an idiot." She smiled happily. "This will be easier than I thought."
"Don't mock me!" Waru shouted. His hands flashed through the same seal pattern he'd used in his last fight. "Lightning Element: Ball Lightning no jutsu!" The blasts of lightning energy sprung forward and arched around, coming at Shiren from many angles. "Block this!"
Shiren rolled forward, ducking under the first impacting sphere, and then changed motion in mid-roll, surging right, and flipping upward. She came up with a kunai in her left hand, and hurled it at the immobile Waru, forced him to relax his control of the ball lightning for a second.
It was only a second, but the balls of lightning energy held still in midair. Only a second, but Shiren was fast enough. She reached into her shuriken pouch, and her hands came free filled with shuriken. "Lightning element: Multiple Spark Star no jutsu!"
Four stars of shuriken, held together by lightning, and centered around hilt-less kunai, forming a web of energy and steel, launched out from Shiren's hands, perfectly targeted at her immobile targets.
Stars grabbed ball lightning, taking it to the ground and holding it within their forms, trapping the spheres useless and grounded.
Waru's mouth snapped open and closed. "You!" He hissed.
"Your tricks are trapped, and you might as well get rid of them, they use to much chakra." Shiren said calmly.
"Bitch." Waru spat, and the ball lightning faded into dust. He pulled out his own kunai. "I'll gut you."
Shiren matched the move, and they closed, charging forward. Shiren's movements smooth and directed, but Waru's going to her position with perfect prediction. He knew her destination, and had moved to intercept. Knowing the move the counter is far easier than actually completing the move, despite her advantage in ability, Shiren could not succeed.
She has you, Neji saw, that's not the true attack.
In one of the stars she had thrown out before, there was buried a kunai with a wire attached to the end.
Shiren's left foot slammed down only inches from crashing into Waru, like a whipcord pulled she spun backwards, twirling faster than the eye could track, the ground beneath her feet literally crackling with the energy unleashed. "Lightning anchor!" Shiren's spin reached its end and the charged kunai ripped outwards, spiraling out to electrocute its target mercilessly, and with great speed.
"Even is you use that move, I still know it!" Waru had already begun his complex dodge maneuver from the moment Shiren began to spin, charging along the outer edge of the anchor's spin, where the line would come slowest, and when the kunai had ripped free he leapt. The tall twin was launched in a long arc, a slow and exposed motion, but one that would carry him over that flashing wire that threatened with deadly force.
"You know nothing!" As Waru jumped Shiren slashed her right hand, the hand that controlled that lethal wire, downwards. The kunai shivered, and then slammed into the ground.
High above in the stands two men wore identical expressions of shock. One was Draci Xi, who clutched the handrail in excitement. The other was Raikage, who had stood up suddenly, hand on his sword hilt. They saw, and they knew. That kunai should not fall!
So, that is how she uses her improved taijutsu. Neji thought, and he felt a surge of happiness, knowing that Shiren would win, and that he had helped her achieve this.
As the kunai on the end of her wire touched the earth, Shiren had one in each hand, and she held spinning band of electrical force in her right hand, low and against her body. Her left hand was held wide.
Kunai struck the ground, and stopped. Force snapped back along the taught wire, all the power propelling the lightning anchor sought to pull past, and with Shiren holding it, it pulled her.
Waru was out of range of Shiren, his arc carried him across her backside, so that she could not throw and continue the lightning anchor at the same time, but now she threw as part of the move. "Counterspin!"
Shiren's body was pulled along and spun like a top, her arms flashing wide and brightly, pulled into perfect alignment with her flying target, a counterforce to a target that dodged the swirling strike, and one that shot forth with all its power.
Slingshotted from her hands the kunai traveled blistering fast, and a tremendous crack broke over the stadium from the very speed of their passage through the air.
Monihii Waru took both in the right side, and the force of the impact carried him many meters through the air, and he slid along the ground into the exam wall with a soft thud. His body collapsed suddenly, with not even a gasp or spasm, all the strength driven out.
The crowd drew in a single breath.
Acade was next to the fallen lighning ninja in moments, examining his wounds. "Medics!" He called, and ripped out the kunai.
The medics trotted over, but the wounds Waru had suffered, while grievous, were not life threatening.
Special Jounin Acade stood in the center of the arena. "Winner: Senirai Shiren!"
The crowd let out the breath in a roar of applause.
Author's Notes: So, apologies for the slower updates, I've been busy with all sorts of stuff. Also, writing endless battles isn't really that interesting for me, so it's been harder to get into the writing. However, we're getting back toward some more interesting fights, so the update pace will pick up. Anyway, in this chapter you get to see the crazed powers of Tonetero, and Shiren fight for the first time in a while. I'm cramming this second round into two chapters with two fights apiece.
Thanks for the reviews everyone!
A Thousand Edges
A stiff wind blew through the exam stadium and ruffled coats and clothes, and the thin branches of the frozen plants that huddled at the edges of the stadium. Tonetero stood facing Aburanki Kei, each ninja with the jagged mark upon the forehead protector of grass they bore, Kei's high up on her head, Tonetero's forgotten on the base of his leg. It was only the beginning of the contrast. The compact and lithe Kei was carefully athletic, a skilled and talented young woman of fifteen years. She looked in every way to be a female ninja of the future, and despite the grassy branches she bore, was nothing more than human. Tonetero was something else. Thorns grew out from his flesh, the skin opening to let the brown and razor sharp edges cut out to form a second skin of deadly armor. Above his eyes they pierced his forehead like horns, and what appeared at first to be spiked hair was a crop of thorns that extended from his skull. His skin was ridged and bark-like and his eyes were circular pits, brown and brown as he opened them to face Kei, all the white gone. His age was impossible to guess, this creature that appeared almost more plant than man. Yet his mouth had a terrible and animalistic grin.
"What is he?" Dar whispered to Xi, as they watched both combatants take the field, the stone ninja's voice was harsh and accusational.
"A bearer of the Echiri bloodline, a bloodline that was supposedly ended forty years in the past, when the last two who held it and all their clan was destroyed in the war between Grass and Rain." Xi answered quietly. "It allows the bearer to command plants and bend them to his will, even insert them into the body. It is extremely dangerous."
"I see." Dar replied, dour. "Well, if the bloodline was destroyed how does this body possess its powers?"
"I do not know, but the possibilities are not good. Either someone survived, or the Grass ninja have done something forbidden." Xi did not say it, but he recalled a similar case. This is too like the creation of Gaara of the Desert, is the same hand behind both children?
Though they lacked Xi's knowledge, Shiren and Neji were watching the match with no less interest. Gosain also looked on, but he was focusing on recovering as much of his depleted chakra as possible before the next fight. Shiren has promised to fight this man, to avenge this match. Neji did not like the thought, looking at Tonetero. He is not like the rest of us. He is like me, a creature that kills. Silently Neji looked on, hoping he would see a method that would reveal a path to victory for Shiren.
Examiner Acade took his place between the two Grass ninja. He looked stern, and angry. "Keep this clean." He hissed at the two grass ninja, eying Tonetero. "There's been enough trouble already."
Tonetero didn't even bother to look at the examiner in response.
Acade raised his right hand, and fingered a kunai with his left.
The arm silenced the whispered and speculating crowd. Then it fell. "Begin!"
Kei jumped back at the same moment as the examiner, placing a great deal of distance between herself and her opponent. Tonethero didn't even move, didn't tense for battle, but stood relaxed in front of his teammate, grinning sickeningly.
Pulling the branches from her back, Kei slammed them into the ground, and focused on Tonetero. Her gaze was set, and her feet poised. Looking from afar though, Neji could see the desperation in her eyes. She does not want to do this, he determined. She expects something terrible to happen.
For a moment Kei did nothing, and Tonetero spoke. "What's the matter Kei? Don't want to fight me? I know you don't, but if you're scared, why don't you give up?" He mocked her mercilessly.
"You're right, I don't want to fight you." Kei answered levelly. "It's insane." She said matter-of-factly. "But this was what I was ordered to do as part of my mission to become a chuunin, and I won't refuse my orders." She placed her hands above the branches. "Grass element: Woven Leaf Spear!" Spears of Grass surged up and separated from those branches, a myriad formation that had proven its worth in the previous round.
Kei threw the weapons straight at Tonetero. He looked at her in amusement. "I thought you knew better."
When her opponent made no move to block or dodge Kei simply let the spears of grass strike into Tonetero's chest, as deadly as any combination of wood and steal was that woven point.
The grass ninja sprouted two great wooden extensions in the middle of his chest, and bent back from the force of the blow, but his torso snapped upright a moment later. The spears had stuck completely through him, but there was not a drop of blood to be seen. As the shocked crowd watched the spears broke apart into their grassy constituents, thousands of sharp leaf blades, and filled into Tonetero's body or slid around his skin, covering him in a coating of green that melded so perfectly it disappeared in moments. Though his clothing was torn, his flesh was undamaged. "You think to use those techniques against me?" He asked incredulously. "You know that can't harm me."
What a horrible ability. Neji thought from above. So such weapons are useless against him? He is simply immune to techniques that use plants. Does that mean he can see through the replacement technique as well? Looking down Neji suspected that to be true, for Kei had not formed grass clones, though she had been given a good opportunity to do so.
Kei was looking at Tonetero with a viscous horror, but it was stale. She expected this. Neji noted. That attack was only to confirm it for sure. But what will she do now; her grass attacks cannot harm him?
As Tonetero and the rest of the crowd looked on Kei reached down into her shuriken pouch. Swiftly her hands moved, and she dropped shuriken after shuriken into the weave of her grassy branches before her, a lethal minefield of metal hidden among the boughs.
Tonetero hissed. "Heh. Try it then, Kei."
The lady grass ninja obliged him. She whipped her branches together, and the grass molded itself to fit them into a single weapon. "Life Reaper Shuriken!" Kei cried as she hurled the mammoth weapon at Tonetero.
The great weapon surged inward; Tonetero watched without reaction, and at the final instant Kei formed the seal that exploded the grass structure apart, sending a hail of shuriken everywhere around her enemy.
A feral lash of thorns erupted from Tonetero's body, whipping before him like the wind and blowing back everything in front of his body, scattering shuriken and grass and branches away like dust. "You cannot penetrate the Storm of Thorns with that!" Tonetero laughed with hideous glee.
Neji saw that whipping cocoon in all its terrible power, a blast of spines that could block any oncoming force, and could strike back to rip apart an opponent like a thousand spears. It's like Gaara's shield of sand, but it's not the same. Neji looked closely, examining Tonetero with the refined vision of the Byakugan for a spare moment. He's controlling it with his body, but the control is internal, his chakra shifts thorns within his hands, making seals and altering the Thorn Storm. It acts with his will and uses his chakra, so he cannot maintain that for long, but he's much faster than Gaara's sand shield was. It moves at the speed of his chakra, even Lee would not be able to strike him. It doesn't matter if you are faster, he can make it turn faster than any pure speed would allow.
Even as Tonetero laughed with glee and the crowd gasped at the power of his strange bloodline ability, Aburanki Kei was already acting. Her face set in a glare of grim determination; she had moved even as her attack was dashed apart by the storm of thorns.
Kei leapt high, coming down arcing at Tonetero, a kunai held in both hands, positioned before her body, so that all her strength and the strength of her fall would carry her through.
Seeing the move from above Xi raised his estimation of the Grass ninja. "This one knows how to fight." He muttered to Dar.
The Stone chuunin nodded silently, his face dark and sad.
By positioning herself that way she focuses all her force against a single point. Xi observed. Even if he lashes her with thorns, Kei will still come through to strike. It is a hard move, but she understands the principles of moves that kill.
"It won't do anything but get her hurt." Dar said as Tonetero turned his head and reacted to Kei.
So does this chuunin. Xi thought, as the impact struck.
Thorn struck ninja, but not a dispersed blast as before. Tonetero controlled the storm of thorns, forcing it into a solid spear form, striking right back at Kei's kunai, and matching her force completely.
They hung suspended in the air for a second.
Then the thorns stopped her completely, and exploded out as she began to fall.
Sharp and barbed, a hundred thorns lashed the flesh of Aburanki Kei, ripping open deep and jagged cuts, that would both bleed endlessly and sting terribly, scourging muscle so that it could barely function. Kei struck the ground with a horrible thud.
Tonetero looked at her, body bleeding and in agony, and he laughed. "That's all Kei?" He mocked. "I thought you were sturdier than that. After all, you claimed you didn't need me to become a chuunin. Where is your strength?"
Blood seeping from her mouth Kei spat and coughed to clear her throat, and managed to rise to one knee. "I don't need you, you monster." She said clearly and openly through her mangled visage at Tonetero. She pulled a kunai from her holster with a shaking hand, and drew a circle around herself in the dirt. The moment she completed it the kunai fell from her hand.
Tonetero stood a short distance away, towering over her. "Go ahead and try whatever trick you have left. It means nothing."
"It means many things." Dar whispered next to Xi, and the dragon ninja nodded.
This is important, for this girl at least, though she surely knows she will fail. Sometimes a ninja must go forward even when defeat is certain.
"Grass Whirlwind." Kei made seals over her circle in the dirt.
The grass on the field bent deeply, as a wind blew over it in a swirling pattern. The wind began in the circle Kei held, but it did not end there. It cut out over the field, less than an inch above the ground, slicing blades of grass in two, and sending them high into the air, taught as it being pulled to heaven, and sharp enough to mark stone, a rain of needles that rose from below.
There were too many for any simple wall of thorns to block, but the guard about Tonetero whirled on its own, in a strange pattern that was too swift to see, and blocked blade after blade of grass. Though they could not have harmed him in the first place, the monstrous ninja took an obvious pride in letting not a single blade touch him.
That is a potent defense. Neji saw. It moves so fast that it avoids presenting weak points for more than the barest instant, so that nothing gets through. How do you penetrate it? The darker thought behind that was, how does Shiren?
Kei collapsed face forward as her move completed, and Tonetero approached slowly. "Useless fool." He said to the crowd. "You should know better than to try to strike me with such things." Long thorns extended from his fists like blades.
"Stop!" Examiner Acade moved in front of Tonetero. "Your opponent cannot continue the match. It is over." He said sternly.
"Fine." Tonetero said. "I'll kill her for her treachery later."
The examiner gave the grass ninja a dark look, and the crowd replied with a gasp. High above, standing next to Xi, Dar's sword slid loose a few inches.
"I hope you don't intend to try anything." Xi muttered to him. "This is internal politics, and not our business."
"Any foreigner who draws a weapon against another ninja in the village of Stone may be struck down immediately by any Stone ninja who witnesses it." Dar replied softly. "No one else will, but I will keep a watch, drawing a thorn is drawing a weapon."
"A dangerous assumption that your superiors will see it that way." Xi half-smiled at Dar.
"Then hope your own team manages to prevent such a thing." The stone chuunin was gone then.
"Winner: Tonetero!" Examiner Acade called from the field, though Xi barely heard it as he considered the stone ninja who had approached him. More than I expected, Kataishi Dar. I wonder what his purpose in speaking to me was? Then he turned back to the stadium, for Shiren was descending to her match.
Lightning ninja and grass ninja met twice on that battlefield. First, Tonetero brushed by Monihii Waru. The twin had the strength of will to stand steady and not tremble, but little more, and his discomfort was apparent to all. He turned back to glare at the approaching Shiren, transforming fear into anger. Yet the second meeting was the far more important one. Shiren walked over to the stretcher Kei had been placed upon by a group of medics. The grass ninja was pale and bloody, the cuts had seeped and run, covering her in a sickly red that threatened to clog her breathing.
Kei's eyes were clear as she looked up to Shiren lean over her stretcher. "So, I lost." She said through bloody lips, forcing the whisper out. "So you must be the one to win."
Shiren nodded, and placed her hand over Kei's. She leaned down and spoke into Kei's ear, so that only the other female ninja could hear. "I see why he needs to be beaten." She whispered. "But why must it be me?"
"We are alike." Kei croaked the reply through her pain. "Those who stand strong in the shadow of another." She coughed, and one of the medics moved forward, but Kei motioned him away. "I had to fight my opposite too soon, and I lost, but you must win that. Prove that we are not always the weaker ones, the shadowy ones who stand behind."
Shiren nodded, but did not whisper to Kei anymore.
The medics took the severely wounded Grass ninja away, leaving only Shiren and Waru standing on the field with the examiner.
Tonetero returned to the stands, and he faced dark looks from the three ninja who remained. As he stood against the stands the eyes of those three met, and there was a resolution there. From Gosain to Neji, to the Stone ninja Tsukabe Ota, the silent agreement was passed using only the eyes, something ninja could do. It went as follows: This monster, no matter who faces him, he must fall, all energy put toward that. For these three, in the other bracket, there was the hope that it would not be that. Neji and Gosain hoped Shiren would win, but even the stolid stone ninja obviously favored the victory of whichever lightning ninja should face the grass ninja. No grass ninja will win this chuunin exam; these three ninja had resolved to spend every ounce of their strength to prevent it.
When the medics had exited the field Examiner Acade again moved to his place between the two ninja. "The Second match of this round, two genin from Hidden Cloud. Senirai Shiren versus Monihii Waru!"
There was little response, for the crowd was listless. It had already been decided that which of these lightning ninja was victorious they would fall to Tonetero. Besides, who wanted to see these two unimportant ninja fight? The twin had already proved he was nothing special, and this girl could not be impressive, Kabure Gosain was the strength of that team, so the thinking proceeded. Only Neji, Xi, and Gosain looked down at this fight with true interest, and it was Neji who held the greatest concern. It has been a month Shiren, he recalled. What have you done? Will you win? Neji deeply hoped it would be so, he believed, and he wished. For once, he did not try to judge the battle, he simply watched Shiren, and stood silently supportive of his teammate.
"Begin!" Acade's arm swung down.
Shiren reached down with a smooth and bitterly quick motion, pulling shuriken and throwing them, taking the measure of her enemy.
Fast! Neji saw. Very, very fast, nearly perfect. Her chakra control has increased, as has her speed. He cannot block that, he can't see!
Monihii Waru did not block the oncoming strikes, with arms that seemed encased in mud compared to Shiren's swift and precise motions, he pulled his own shuriken and threw them forward, not even glancing at the path they took.
Metal darts crashed into each other and clanged aside.
What? Neji looked at the exchange. There's no way such sloppy taijutsu should have blocked those. Any ninja without motion like Xi's or eyes like mine would have been very hard pressed to block those, and this lightning ninja hasn't the skill. How did he throw them in the path? Then Neji saw it. He predicted the motion! He knows Shiren's method!
It was a frightening thought, for Neji knew the full implications of this. Shiren is fighting an opponent that has learned her. He could not know how, they must have fought before, many times, it was the only way. Perhaps they had served on a team, or under the same sensei, regardless, he could see and understand what it meant. Just like Lee, and I. I learned all his techniques, all his fighting styles, so that even without the Byakugan I could predict and counter his movements. He was able to learn me in return, but has Shiren learned this lightning ninja?
Waru gave Shiren a dark smile, almost a laugh, as she noted the fall of her shuriken. "You should have expected that we'd remember."
"Twins." Shiren spat the word. "Each one contributes his knowledge of an opponents fighting style to the other innately, so that you learn an opponent from two different perspectives, mastering an opponent's abilities in only a few matches."
"Exactly." Waru did laugh now; filling the silence that had been left by this revelation, the proclamation of a truly uninteresting fight, one where all the moves of a ninja were countered foolishly by another ninja. "You've improved Shiren, but even with better skills, you can't beat someone who knows all your moves."
"All my moves?" Shiren raised an eyebrow. "You're an idiot." She smiled happily. "This will be easier than I thought."
"Don't mock me!" Waru shouted. His hands flashed through the same seal pattern he'd used in his last fight. "Lightning Element: Ball Lightning no jutsu!" The blasts of lightning energy sprung forward and arched around, coming at Shiren from many angles. "Block this!"
Shiren rolled forward, ducking under the first impacting sphere, and then changed motion in mid-roll, surging right, and flipping upward. She came up with a kunai in her left hand, and hurled it at the immobile Waru, forced him to relax his control of the ball lightning for a second.
It was only a second, but the balls of lightning energy held still in midair. Only a second, but Shiren was fast enough. She reached into her shuriken pouch, and her hands came free filled with shuriken. "Lightning element: Multiple Spark Star no jutsu!"
Four stars of shuriken, held together by lightning, and centered around hilt-less kunai, forming a web of energy and steel, launched out from Shiren's hands, perfectly targeted at her immobile targets.
Stars grabbed ball lightning, taking it to the ground and holding it within their forms, trapping the spheres useless and grounded.
Waru's mouth snapped open and closed. "You!" He hissed.
"Your tricks are trapped, and you might as well get rid of them, they use to much chakra." Shiren said calmly.
"Bitch." Waru spat, and the ball lightning faded into dust. He pulled out his own kunai. "I'll gut you."
Shiren matched the move, and they closed, charging forward. Shiren's movements smooth and directed, but Waru's going to her position with perfect prediction. He knew her destination, and had moved to intercept. Knowing the move the counter is far easier than actually completing the move, despite her advantage in ability, Shiren could not succeed.
She has you, Neji saw, that's not the true attack.
In one of the stars she had thrown out before, there was buried a kunai with a wire attached to the end.
Shiren's left foot slammed down only inches from crashing into Waru, like a whipcord pulled she spun backwards, twirling faster than the eye could track, the ground beneath her feet literally crackling with the energy unleashed. "Lightning anchor!" Shiren's spin reached its end and the charged kunai ripped outwards, spiraling out to electrocute its target mercilessly, and with great speed.
"Even is you use that move, I still know it!" Waru had already begun his complex dodge maneuver from the moment Shiren began to spin, charging along the outer edge of the anchor's spin, where the line would come slowest, and when the kunai had ripped free he leapt. The tall twin was launched in a long arc, a slow and exposed motion, but one that would carry him over that flashing wire that threatened with deadly force.
"You know nothing!" As Waru jumped Shiren slashed her right hand, the hand that controlled that lethal wire, downwards. The kunai shivered, and then slammed into the ground.
High above in the stands two men wore identical expressions of shock. One was Draci Xi, who clutched the handrail in excitement. The other was Raikage, who had stood up suddenly, hand on his sword hilt. They saw, and they knew. That kunai should not fall!
So, that is how she uses her improved taijutsu. Neji thought, and he felt a surge of happiness, knowing that Shiren would win, and that he had helped her achieve this.
As the kunai on the end of her wire touched the earth, Shiren had one in each hand, and she held spinning band of electrical force in her right hand, low and against her body. Her left hand was held wide.
Kunai struck the ground, and stopped. Force snapped back along the taught wire, all the power propelling the lightning anchor sought to pull past, and with Shiren holding it, it pulled her.
Waru was out of range of Shiren, his arc carried him across her backside, so that she could not throw and continue the lightning anchor at the same time, but now she threw as part of the move. "Counterspin!"
Shiren's body was pulled along and spun like a top, her arms flashing wide and brightly, pulled into perfect alignment with her flying target, a counterforce to a target that dodged the swirling strike, and one that shot forth with all its power.
Slingshotted from her hands the kunai traveled blistering fast, and a tremendous crack broke over the stadium from the very speed of their passage through the air.
Monihii Waru took both in the right side, and the force of the impact carried him many meters through the air, and he slid along the ground into the exam wall with a soft thud. His body collapsed suddenly, with not even a gasp or spasm, all the strength driven out.
The crowd drew in a single breath.
Acade was next to the fallen lighning ninja in moments, examining his wounds. "Medics!" He called, and ripped out the kunai.
The medics trotted over, but the wounds Waru had suffered, while grievous, were not life threatening.
Special Jounin Acade stood in the center of the arena. "Winner: Senirai Shiren!"
The crowd let out the breath in a roar of applause.