"Your mission..." Finally, it's my turn. I thought I'd be sitting here forever, waiting for that loudmouthed orange kid to take his group and leave. I pity the old guy they have to escort, blondie seems set on killing him before they leave the village.
"D rank, a girl lost her doll while playing in the woods at the edge of town." The third Hokage set down the D rank scroll, giving me a level look. "It's a stuffed fox, missing one ear."
Sighing, I nod and stand up, brushing off my pants as I do. It doesn't seem like I'm going to be a world famous ninja anytime soon. "Ja ne, Hokage-sama." Turning, I walk outside and stuff my hands into my pockets, heading for the edge of town. I'll check outside the gates first, it's the most likely place a kid would go to play outside of town.
It doesn't take me long to get there, and I begin looking around for small footprints in the grass. There's quite a few, must have been a bunch of kids playing here. I'll look for the lightest prints then.
Hmm, these wander all over the place- Ah. There we go, tracks leading towards the bushes. Hmm, there's a bit of rustling back there.
Too much for the kinds of animals that forage around here. Oh, duh, it must be some kids looking for the doll. "Ok kiddies, this is a job for a ninja, so why don't you go-"
Two figures in blue stand up, how they hid in the brush wearing all that blue, I have no idea, but they look like bad news. And, they're wearing-
"Oh crap." Lunging back, I narrowly avoid the set of steel claws that swipe through the air where my face was. Tucking into a roll, I spring back up onto my feet.
"It's your bad luck that we found you instead of the old man." I can't tell which one of them is speaking, not with those weird masks on. "We were expecting four with him, you won't even be worth our time to play with."
Four? Not blondie and his cell?
I didn't get a chance to clarify, they were already coming at me again. Too spread out for a direct attack, they're probably trying to put me in a pincer- "Oh shit!" Jumping back, it's too little, too late. I only just noticed the chain they have stretched between them, I'm not going to be able to avoid it.
"Kawarimi no jutsu!" Slapping my hands together to form a seal, I freeze completely. It's hard as hell, with that spiked chain bearing down on me, but I manage it anyways. If this doesn't work-
"Ch! Where did he go?" Tearing up the turf as they grind to a halt, both ninja are looking around wildly for me.
Kawarimi, the body substitution technique, allows a ninja to replace his body with an object, usually a log, and hide himself somewhere nearby. Nobody ever expects you to be faking it.
That was too close, and worse, I don't have any time to think up a plan. These two are just too fast for me to handle, and I can't split them up-
Hold on. Why split them up at all? Smirking, I lunge at the one on my right. Winding up, I smash my fist into his face, driving him back.
"Wh-" I was too close for him to react, and now he's stumbling back. Dammit, I'm weaker than I thought. The other one reacts to the jerking of the chain by charging at me.
Perfect.
"Hyaaaa!" Spinning around, I crouch low and thrust my arm out, setting my toes into the ground as hard as I can. I'm not trying to hurt him, though by the look on his face as my arm jolts from the impact, I did anyways.
"You're going to pay for that, you stupid kid." Winding up, he doesn't seem to realize that I'm holding my fist against his chest for a reason.
Idiot. "Nidan-ken!" Tensing the muscles in my arm, all at once, I hit him again, but this time, it's got twice the force since there isn't any gap between his chest and my fist. Without air to slow my punch, or room for him to go anywhere, it's got to hurt like hell.
That's right, I knocked the other one away for a reason. Right now, that length of chain between them is taut, holding the one I'm hitting in place. He might as well be leaning against a brick wall.
The look in his eyes tells me that it may be a more effective trick than I had first thought. The chain is starting to slack, so I whirl around, and lunge straight at the other ninja. He's got to be good and mad right now, so that may give me an opening.
Too fast, I can feel lines of fire drawing over my ribs. I was barely able to avoid being skewered on his claw, he closed the distance between us so much faster than I thought he would.
No matter.
Twisting my body, I stomp down on his knee as hard as I can, I'll need a good plant to pull this one off. Whipping my arm around, I slam it into the crook of his elbow as hard as I can. I can feel him relaxing his arm to absorb the force of my blow, but I can compensate by extending my leg. Right now I have more room to move than he does.
There! He hit his limit of movement, the chain is hampering him. I can see the other ninja crumpling to the ground, so it's time. "Nidan-" I tense my muscles again, it's starting to hurt, maybe I should have practiced this a bit more, I can feel my tendons strain. "Ken!" Damn, it's like a half dozen rivers of fire flowing up my arm. I'm shredding my muscles with this move, my body isn't durable enough to withstand the force I'm putting on it.
"Huugghh-Gyaaahh!" I'll bet that smarts, I can feel his muscles and elbow joint give away beneath my fist. I don't have time to pity him, the second ninja is back up on his feet and rushing in.
Using my position to my advantage, I drop down to the ground, squatting low and at an angle, since my foot is still ontop of this ninja's knee.
The other adjusts his angle of attack, moving to come in lower.
Good.
Pushing for all I'm worth, I use the knee I was standing on as a springboard to send me flying over my attacker's head. He narrowly misses taking off my foot at the ankle. Rolling to break my fall and pop me back up on my feet, I begin running backwards. These guys are much too fast for me to turn my back on safely.
The one with the undamaged arms comes rushing at me again, faster this time.
Perfect.
Dropping onto my back as he swipes at my face, I hear a muted scream of agony. Ignoring it for a moment, I drive my heels into this ninja's gut, arching my back to send him flying over me.
Another scream, much worse this time, as I roll backwards onto my feet. Woah... The world is starting to get a bit blurry. Feels like I'm spinning around a bit too. I don't think I've lost that much blood. Maybe I did, I can't tell.
The screaming goes on, and I know exactly what caused it. Me. When I smashed up the second one's arm, the first didn't notice, he just kept coming at me. And with that length of chain attached, he's been tearing the hell out of his buddy's arm.
I hear some sort of mechanical clanking, they must have just detached the chain. "Ungh..." Dammit, it's starting to get hard to move, and I don't carry any throwing weapons with me. Stupid stupid stupid! Slowly turning around, I can see the one with the busted arm getting up. "Shit..." Think! I need something, anything! Quick!
Taking a half step, I feel the ground move under my foot. No, the feel is off, but what- It's gotta be the chain.
"You're going to die slowly for this." Oh good, he's pissed, can't say that I blame him. I need som- That's it!
"I don't think so." Crouching, I snatch up the loose end of the chain and give it a quick twirl. I sound like hell, puked back up, and reheated, twice. I need to finish this one, now. Flinging the weighted end, I manage a weak strike on his arm. The gibbering cry of pain he lets out tells me which one I hit. Yanking the weighted end back, I put everything I've got into my second strike.
I'm lucky, that one caught him in the throat, and he drops like a rock. I've got to start carrying ranged weapons. It was stupid of me not to, and it nearly got me killed. No time to worry right now, I spin around and start to run at the other ninja.
My head starts to throb and I stagger, I've got to finish off the one I threw, before he recovers. An explosion of pain along the side of my head tells me I'm too late. Landing on my side, I try to struggle upright. I'm lucky he just tried to backhand my head off, instead of clawing into me again.
"I'm going to enjoy this." He's standing over me now, I think. I can't really tell, everything is too blurred for me to see anything but a haze of color melting together.
My ears work well enough for me to hear several fleshy impacts.
And a scream.
I can't tell if it's mine or not, since the world went very dark at that point.
I guess it doesn't matter.
I just wanna sleep.