Chapter 22: The possibility of evil part 5
1958017
"Where not going to make it." Kakashi repetitiously counted off every second of the time in his head as they wondered around the interior of the ship. After a short period of time being in side of this ship everything started to look just like everything, the steel structured and reflective linoleum floors and walls, the doors that held the confusing numbering system, each hall, each light, each pipe, all of it was conspicuously similar. By himself he probably would have gotten lost already, but Zabuza seemed to have a general sense of direction in ships, leading them closer with each new path they took. They were making progress, but they weren't moving fast enough, it was taking too long...
"Time isn't up yet." Zabuza repeated, stopping to and look down the corridor they'd come across. It looking exactly the same as every other one they'd passed through, the same except for an elevator at the very end of the hall, resting opposite of a descending stairwell instead of another door or another hallway. "That's it." It had to be it.
Kakashi wasted no time running past the useless doors until he reached the stairs, they didn't have time for the elevator. He and Zabuza didn't bother going the long way, both of them just jumped over the railing, bypassing 2 flights of winding stairs and landed on the floor below.
They landed right in front of a pair of large steel doors marked with numbers and lines indicating unknown things, It stood at lest 10 feet and was almost just as long. "That's a big door, wonder why they would need so much space." Kakashi lifted the sniper riffle strapped to his back, quickly pulling out the magazine to make sure it was loaded. Then he slid it back into place, giving a quick aim and firing too shots directly in between the double doors. The high powered weapon easily broke through the baring lock that bound it closed. "This must be the place..."
Zabuza took a single step back to gain his footing and kicked open the steel doors, finding himself entering an extremely large room no less then 29ft tall and almost twice as wide. He walking on to a balcony, an upper level 15ft above that encompassed the room in it's entity, in the center there was a large, square hole surrounded by a railing. Over looking a larger area below it was filled with different shaped steel boxes, the cargo, equipment and large cylinder tanks that resembled water towers.
Kidomaru stood in the center of the cargo bay below the balcony, awaiting their arrival. "That's a shame, you made it two seconds too late, valiant effort though." Kidomaru jumped on to one of the steel crates, leaping up to a taller one, and made his way up to the balcony opposite of Kakashi and Zabuza.
"Who the are you?" Kakashi asked.
"You guys still haven't figured it out?" Kidomaru laughed mockingly. "You've been set up, I'm here to kill you. It's nothing personal, you keep getting into Orochimaru-sama's way, so this is a necessary endeavor ..." Kidomaru looked over the two men observingly, this is who he'd been charged to fight, he had to admit it was an interesting pair. "Well, Sharingan Kakashi and The Devil Zabuza, how'd I get stuck with you two... Let's get this over with, I guess it's time we got this game started..." Kidomaru leaned over the balcony's railing and smirked when he heard the doors below opening.
Kakashi and Zabuza glanced at each other with silent glances, it wasn't particularly hard to figure out what the other was thinking since generally they both thought the same things... only in very different ways. "I don't like playing games, let's get strait to the point." Zabuza reach behind him and drew two black colored grenade from their place attached to his waist, he pulled the pins off of both of them and tossed the two items over the balcony on to the lower levels where the Sound Soldiers were pouring into the room, just as Kidomaru promised. With his usual fearlessness Zabuza dived over the railing to the cargo room below, just as the grenades exploded and a thick cloud of gray smoke rose from the benighted and swallowed the whole room. Those had been smoke bombs, he must have been curious of the cargo if he didn't want to risk destroying it by using real grenades.
They were very effective smoke bombs since the gray fog quickly covered everything, including the balcony where Kakashi and Kidomaru still resided. "That's cheating." Kidomaru yelled in aggravation, drawing a sniper riffle similar to Kakashi's that had been strapped to his back. "Doesn't matter, It'll make the game that much more fun." Kidomaru moved quietly and blindly across the steel platform, taking silent steps in the haze until he deemed he'd gone far enough away from where he had been he knelt down and lifted the scope of the riffle to his left eye. 'Alright Kakashi... where are you?'
A random shot came at him seemingly out of nowhere, gracing past his left arm. Kidomaru winced but with missing a single second his eyes immediately followed the small trail left behind from the bullet projecting itself through the smoke. Most couldn't see it let alone trace the trail before it closed up but Kidomaru, with all his accuracy and years of devoted skill could do it easily. He fired a return shot, '!' He flinched at the the loud noise that came from his gun when he did, he'd just made a very critical mistake.
Kakashi, alerted by the sound, dropped down to the ground just in time to evade the shot, feeling the heat of it as it grazed the side of his cheek.
'Geez, I can't believe I forgot to put on the silencer.' Kidomaru laid flat on his stomach while he reached into a pouch on his side, shuffling quickly around until he found a black tube and attached it to the barrel. 'Bastard almost got me.'
'Damnit Zabuza, how am I suppose to find him in this.' Kakashi waited silently in the haze that allowed no visibility beyond his hands, trying to track someone as stealthy as Kidomaru when gunfire was blazing below him because of Zabuza's fighting was nearly impossible. Well, then Kakashi would have to make Kidomaru reveal his own position... "!" Kakashi bit down on his lip to keep himself from making a sound when he felt a bullet come dangerously close to his cheek for the second time. Which meant that Kidomaru knew where he was.
Kakashi quickly took a few crouched steps to the left, it was just the type of hint he was waiting for. Judging from the angle of the shot and which direction the bullet was heading... 'Perfect. But I need to be sure...' If he wasn't sure he could give his own position away by firing unnecessary shots. He again lifted the riffle, took aim at where he estimated his target was, and fired one strategically placed shot far above it into a chain hanging from the ceiling. Part of it snapped and broke off, causing it fall noisily to the ground and draw the attention of Kidomaru...
'I got him now.' Kidomaru smirked victoriously, firing three contentious shots in the direction of the sound. He was sure that he'd got him... "It's over Kakashi!" he called out in a cocky manner, placing his back against the wall with his eye sill pressed against the scope of his lifted riffle.
The haze of smoke started to clear away, just in time for Kidomaru to see... that he hadn't hit anything at all, he didn't even see Kakashi anymore, 'Damn...' and at that moment he knew it was over. "Hmm...you guys are good."
Kakashi pressed the barrel of the gun against Kidomaru's head, standing over him. "Game over. Don't move or-"
Kidomaru rolled his eyes."Yeah Yeah, you'll blow my head off." Kidomaru glanced over the balcony's railing to the cargo room below with the inquisition of why there was no more sounds of fighting. Maybe they'd killed Zabuza, if they did that then it was only a matter of time before- 'Oh...' He found 30 men laying dead scatted across the ground, Zabuza sitting carelessly on one of the steel crates, one leg drawn up while the other hung down lazily, tossing a knife smeared with blood casually up into the air while resting the shotgun against his shoulder. 'Holy Crap, he just killed all of those guys by himself...' That's when he realized why the called him Zabuza the devil. "So why haven't you done it yet?"
"First, why do you want us dead?" Kakashi asked.
No wonder he was still alive, Kakashi wanted awnsers. "I told you already, it's simple, you guys keep getting in Orochimaru-sama's way." Kidomaru couldn't help thinking how unbelievably fast he was beaten, he really need to work on somethings ...or... use the Curse seal...no, he couldn't do that now, as soon as Kakashi saw the mutation starting... he'd just have to wait. "He wants you dead, I can't believe you guys haven't figure it out yet. It really doesn't speak well of your intelligence."
"Watch it." Kakashi warned firmly. "What didn't we figure out?"
"Everything!" Kidomaru had to restrain himself from just yelling out every detail, he was so sick of watching them struggle to figure this whole thing out. "The fake police offices we planted in KPD years ago, the dead signals and phone lines, complete radio silence was done just to get to lure you guys in and make sure you were the only one's who showed up." Kidomaru said casually "You have no idea how tediously annoying it was to plan every single detail down to charting who would be doing what and when. And it worked, all of you guys are right where your supposed to be, hell, the rest of them are probably dead by now."
"How could you possibly know how each of us would respond?" Zabuza didn't think it was possible for someone to set a trap this thoroughly, one so carefully thought out to the point where they knew every reaction he would make. "How?" He made sure that Kidomaru was keenly aware of the knife he was holding when he asked, since when giving out this type of information he may have started to get uncooperative.
"Man you guys are idiots, were you not listening to me? How do you think we did it, we had to study each and every one of you." Kidomaru grunted, showing every bit of his frustration and annoyance at the tasks he had to preform. "For instance, Zabuza wouldn't have normally come here on his own. There are more places in Konoha that Orochimaru would have likely been since he's obviously in town. But since he knew Kakashi would want to know about something like this... long story short, your here now."
Kakashi and Zabuza gave each other another wordless glance, both sharing a feeling that something couldn't be right here, with all of the planing that went into Orochimaru's project there was no doubt they were still being set up. "Then what were you going out of your way to steel? What is all this stuff?"
"This ship's only purpose wasn't just to get at you guys. Come on, all of Konoha's in radio silence, the police are in complete confusion and it's a freakin' blizzard outside. Who's gonna stop me? I mean come on, did you ever stop to think that all of these things were tied into something larger?" Kidomaru blurted out. Then he smiled oddly "I don't really need to tell you what this stuff is, you won't be alive much longer."
"What? You think your going to kill us?" Zabuza found the thought of it was a little amusing. "Not in your current position."
"In 10 minutes this ship will be intercepted by 2 Sound naval carrier ships, they're gonna transfer the cargo and blow this tanker to hell. Even if you do manage to get past the rest of the crew and take over the ship, there's no way you can get this thing back to Konoha before your intercepted." Kidomaru looked up at Kakashi in particular when he said that. "It's really impressive that you can take out 30 men this easily, I'll admit, but what about 300? Did you really think that was all the people I took with me?"
Kakashi shook his head with denial. "That's impossible. We would have noticed them on our way here!"
Kidomaru realized that he'd just found his opportunity. "Heh heh, you should know by now that things aren't always what they appear. If you haven't figured that out by now then what happens next will really be a surprise. Oh and one more thing, do you really think I would let the game be over that quickly?" Kidomaru sent a swift punch up into Kakashi's arm, hard enough to force the man to drop the gun, Then with out a moments hesitation he took the opportunity to get to his feet and dive head first over the railing and off of the balcony. "Were would the challenge be in that?" It seemed like he was going to be intercepted by Zabuza but he pressed a button on a strap on his wrist causing the cage to a ventilation shaft to fall from the ceiling and a cord to drop down before he got close. Kidomaru grabbed on to it and was immediately reeled up...
Yep, they were still being set up.
And he should have seen something like this coming. "Damnit!" Kakashi growled in anger as he punched the steel wall as hard as he could, pounding his fist into the steel repeatedly "I should have seen this coming."
Beep, Beep, Beep
'?' Zabuza reached down to his waist and retrieved a radar holstered there. It was working now?... No, it was something else."Shit!"
"What? What is it?" Kakashi knelt down and picked up his discarded weapon, then he jumped over the balcony's railing and landed in front of Zabuza.
"An alarm, I put motion detectors in all of the paths we took to get here." Zabuza didn't have any types of markers so he used them instead, something he could afford to expend. "Kidomaru wasn't lying, a very large number of what has to be sound solders are coming this way. That brat , he sent every one of them after us..." Zabuza lifted his head... he could hear them from here, it a distinct rumbling sound was faint but growing stronger and coming through the walls and the ceiling from all sides... "They're everywhere."
Kakashi lifted his head forehead in annoyment, he felt a headache coming on. "How do we get out of this one?"
...This wasn't completely hopeless, he was getting an idea...
It came to both of them at t he same time, Kakashi and Zabuza called out "I have a plan." in an odd unison.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, because it's going to sound really bad if your not." Kakashi joked in his usual manner. "You still have those bombs planted on the ship's hull-"
"And since there's no way a ship this large will be able to even turn around completely before we're intercepted-" Zabuza added.
"I climb out of here through the vent and since only one of us will be able to go through anyway-"
Zabuza nodded. "I stay behind and detonate the bomb, that'll take care of the Sound's men and Kidomaru... if we're lucky. Konoha doesn't get this stuff back but the Sound doesn't get it either." Speaking of which, out of curiosity Zabuza climbed off of the crate he was sitting on and preyed it opened ... "What the hell is this stuff?"
It was packed with a large capsule surrounded by Styrofoam, the capsule was filled with green fluid 'Why would they want this?', it didn't matter now, the only thing that did was the plan, it was their only chance. "I saw flood gates on the way down here, if you close them this ship wont sink immediately. I'll give it 6 minutes at the most. So while this thing is going down, you get us a boat."
"I'll fight off Kidomaru and whoever else is there, I'm sure there's a life boat or something. You focus on getting back to the deck. Then we get out of here." Kakashi finished with a deep breath, almost a sigh of relief, then he looked up at the ceiling where Kidomaru had escaped from. "This sounds like a really bad plan, you think we'll make it out of here alive?"
Zabuza shook his head. "No." he replied without even the slightest change in his voice.
"Now that we have that established." Kakashi strapped the sniper riffle on to his back and gave his full attention to the open vent residing on the ceiling "Give me a boost."
"How the hell am I suppose to get you all the way up there?"
! - ! - !
Lee and Shikamaru gave each other a quick, reassuring nod as if to be sure of their course of action, then both of them charged at Jiroubou. Shikamaru crouched lightly and swept his foot across the ground with a hard kick into Jiroubou's legs while Lee jumped up and thrust an even harder kick into Jiroubou's head.
It was reminiscent of attacking a brick wall.
"Heh, it's over for you." Jiroubou caught Lee's leg before he could pull it back and then reached down to seize Shikamaru by the foot. Jiroubou held them up painfully, completely ignoring the struggling and blows thrown at him in an attempt to escape. Then threw the both of them, watching their helpless bodies fly through the living room's entrance and burst through the kitchen wall a considerable distance away, falling into the back yard.
Lee hit the snow covered ground on his back and slid to a stop, Shikamaru on his stomach. "Oww." Lee lifted his head from the snow it had been halfway buried in and studied the trail of destruction that had been left behind, there where so many rather large holes in the large house that he didn't know how it stayed standing. "I...I think he broke something." He had to yell over the howling winds blowing a heavy torrent of snow in to his back.
Shikamaru lifted his head and spit out the snow that made it's way into his mouth, shaking the white flakes out of his hair that coated the black strands completely. He could barely see anything, and what he could see was a blur in the white haze, the snow was falling so hard and in such a thick volume that visibility was only a few feet at the most. "Are you alright?"
"Sure, the cold already made me numb." He joked as he tried to sit up, only to find the part of him that had felt like had been broken was his back. '!' He crashed back down into the snow, grimacing at the pain flooding his senses. "Ow... Ok, he's way too strong. I guess neither of us has a choice." With a visible wince Lee rolled over on to his stomach, then with as little movement of his back as possible, he reached into the small pouch on his waist and removed a small glass capsule containing the same plant from before still rooted in the same soil. He was thankful that it was still alright during such a hard fight, Lee held it out in front of him as far as his arms could reach and lifted the glass casing. Then he slowly slid the pant with his right hand and on to his left.
Just as before the roots took on a life of their own, like snakes they begin to work their way under his bandages and embedded themselves painfully into his palm, '!...!...!' some how managing to find the same half healed wounds they created.
"Yeah, I guess so." Shikamaru forced himself to stand in the ankle deep snow, and block out the contentious thought of how cold he was so he could concentrate. 'Snow is so troublesome...' He closed his eyes and stood silently, draw out his Chakra with years of practice that made the action almost inane, and the most definitely inane reaction came about which in turn made his left arm start to hurt again. '...'
He wasn't completely sure what about this process caused him to be in pain, or why it had the effect it had, but all he knew was that he'd have to use it to his advantage if he wanted to win this fight. So he kept drawing on his Chakra, increasing the throbbing pain with each second ... "If we do it right, then we can get this over with quickly." He needed to get this over with quickly, he was sure he'd pass out if he didn't.
Jiroubou finally climbed out of the hole in the back of the house, leaving behind the sound of gunfire as Naruto and Sasuke fought against the 10 sound soldiers in KPD uniforms. "Give up now, Orochimaru needs you in one piece and I'd rather have it that way." Jiroubou told Shikamaru, his voice leaving behind no doubt of his intentions. "It would be a shame if I had to kill you."
"Your forgetting that he's not the only one here." Lee would have shouted if he could conger the strength, there was no way in hell he'd let himself just be written off like that. Though it was hard to sound threatening when he laying on the round and couldn't get up. "I'll show you."He lifted two fingers on his right hand and pressed horizontally against the small sapling blowing in the cold wind. From the outside nothing looked as if it was happening.
"You don't concern me." Jiroubou didn't even bother to take a second look at the boy, which only served to make Lee angry. "I don't need to waste my time with someone as useless and weak as you, he's the source of Chakra that I need."
"Useless." Lee glared at the man angrily, the generally impulsive part of him made his anger even worse. The plant was really helping now, he didn't even feel the pain now, he wasn't even sure if it was still there at all. With out that inhibiting him he easily stood to his feet and turned toward the large man. "I'll show you how useless and weak I am..." Lee outstretched the plant in his left land while he clinched his right into a fist and thrust it forward at the air in a punch with no target. Out from the ground shot up a rather thick tree root that buckled and was thrust to the surface below Jiroubou, it lashed painfully against his lower body back and knocked him in to the air.
"!" As unexpectant as he was of Lee's attack he still managed to recover himself and land on the roof of the Uchiha mansion...
Lee glanced back at his teammate who he'd seen hadn't take any recent action. "Shikamaru?"
Shikamaru was struggling to stay standing, his face contorted in pain as he clinched his right bicep tightly. He didn't even hear Lee's voice, maybe this was a bad idea... Shikamaru opened one eye and looked down at his right arm, he felt that throbbing pain fade away strangely into an unexplained numbness. It felt like dead weight, like he didn't even have an arm, it seemed to listen to him when he forced it to move but other then that it was like it was missing completely. 'What is this...' His Chakra was visible, flowing out of him in a pitch black aura that swallowed all light near it, and oddly enough his right arm was the same color. "!" Shikamaru lifted his arm with natural alarm, it was completely covered shadow, shadow that didn't fade when he attempted to rub it away. "How...?"
"Shikamaru look out!"
Shikamaru was so busy trying to figure out what had just happened that he became unaware of what was going on around him, he looked up just in time to see Jiroubou coming at him from above, in fact he was already too close for him to avoid. His body involuntarily flinched and lifted both arms to block... but the attack didn't come."Huh?" Shikamaru lowered his conflictingly shaded arms and was surprised to find Jiroubou entangled in a mass of extremely long grass that sprouted from the ground.
"What the hell is this!" Jiroubou looked down at his captor in alarm, he hadn't expected to come against anything like this.
"How useless am I now?" Lee uttered confidently with a small sense of pride in his voice. He had some how stimulated and accelerated the growth of that grass in that area, then even manipulated it to catch Jiroubou and constrict him painfully. But his strength in this type of attack was no longer adequate to damage Jiroubou when in Curse seal level, but he was leaving a wide opening for Shikamaru... "Shikamaru! Now!"
With no idea of what he was doing, Shikamaru went purely on instinct and what his previous level of control over shadows allowed him to. He outstretched his now completely black right hand and concentrated on drawing in the surrounding darkness, with the intent of doing his Shadow mimic technique, but he found that his control was higher then he expected and instead of drawing it in, he was actually creating it... he could feel it even before he saw it... 'How did this happen, it doesn't even hurt anymore... maybe that's why I'm able to do this.' The shadows began to form around the person he was looking at, who happened to be Jiroubou, drifting up the other man's body like rising floodwaters.
Jiroubou growled in pain when he felt darkness forming over him, it wasn't a destructive force, instead it was oppressive, it was constricting, very constricting. An amazingly obstructive force. 'How are a bunch of kids able to do this!' Jiroubou pushed outward with all his strength and after a few idle seconds he was able to rip through the plants holding him in place and break out of Shikamaru's attack, making the shadows fall back like mice scurrying out of sight. "What are you two."
"We could ask you the same thing." Shikamaru was clearly indicating Jiroubou's transformation resulting from activation of the curse seal when he said this.
"Uh, is it just me or is the snow getting worse?" Lee, who could barely be seen by anyone now on account of the increasing snow fall, was starting to worry about his own well being as well as his plant's. How cold do you have to be to officially have hypothermia? He'd only been outside for about at minute and he was already asking that question.
"Damn." Jiroubou lifted his arm over his eyes in an attempt to shield some of the wind, things had gone bad fairly quickly. He couldn't see his target any more, and he hadn't had any idea he'd becoming up against these types of enemies when he started this mission. It wasn't a good idea to go into a fight with out any information about your opponents, especially ones these dangerous. He had no choice but to retreat and try again later. "Next time..."
They waited a few more seconds, not hearing any talking or movement.
"Did he just leave?" Lee asked.
Shikamaru nodded though he knew Lee couldn't see, "Yeah, he's gone... We should get back." With just his general sense of direction, Shikamaru made his way blindly towards where he hoped inside would be. He couldn't see it until the hole in the wall was sitting right in front of his face. He couldn't see Lee either. "Lee, where are you?"
"Right here." Lee stumbled his way into the hole in the living room after some how managing to get to the other side of the house.
They entered to a quiet atmosphere, surreal of the fighting that filled the air when they left. The floor covered in fallen Sound solders wearing KPD in uniforms numbering quite a few more then the 10 they first thought were. Naruto was leaning against the wall, clinching his chest with one arm and draped on to the Glatting gun he took from Jiroubou as a crutch. "Are you alright?" Lee ran up to him, looking over the smaller body with worry.
Naruto gave a victorious smirk, attempting to catch his breath and steady his heartbeat. "I'll be fine." He laughed lightly as he patted the one of barrels of the large gun. "I don't care what Sasuke says, I'm keeping this thing."
! - ! - !
Sakon sighed with his own growing annoyment, placing one foot back to keep his stance on the icy pavement. "Your a weird one. I won't have to deal with you too much longer."
Gai charged at Sakon in a furry of anger, the handle and trigger of the M50 rocket launcher clinched tightly in his hand over his shoulder. "Sakon!"
"Idiot." Sakon outstretched his arms at his sides, causing the hum of machinery on his back to grow even louder... then a golden flash came just as Gai was about to attack.
"What!" Gai staggered back a few steps, rubbing his eyes in the hopes of speeding up the return of his vision, "What did you just do?"
Sakon smirked. "Look around you."
Gai paused and reassessed his surroundings per Sakon's suggestion '...?' He was surrounded in a 5ft radius by an bright golden electrical field just barely visible, all centered around Sakon, "What is this?" Gai called out, his anger suspended for questioning. An oddly smiling Sakon took a few steeps back... and Gai felt a strong surge of electricity rushed through his body as the field was pulled forward with Sakon and crashed into his back. "Urraaaaaaaa!"
Sakon watched as Gai fell to his knees before him, gasping heavily. "You and I are trapped together by this field, no one can get in and you can't get out."
'It's too close to use this then.' Gai tossed aside the rocket launcher, noticing it easily passed through the field with out incident, then climbed to his feet. His back was smoldering. 'Is he serious...' "Fine, I'll just have to beat you by hand."
Which was unfortunate for Sakon since Gai was an expert in Taijutsu, and Sakon was banking this whole fight on his own fighting skills.
"I'd like to see you try!" Sakon closed the gap between them with a quick jump, with one fluid motion he landed and dropped to one knee, then threw a punch at Gai's stomach. Gai caught him by the fist with swift reflexes, gave a sharp kick to the man's chest and sent him sprawling backwards to the ground. Sakon pulled the 5 foot radius field forward was he fell backwards, making it crash into Gai's back for the second time and sent a strong surge of electricity coursing through his body.
"Ahhhaaa!" Gai stumbled forward away from it while Sakon climbed to his feet, seeing that Gai was still recovering, Sakon kicked Gai in the stomach. Gai placed one foot backwards and caught himself, shaking his head lightly to regain his senses then lunged forward. He was easily quick enough to wrap his arm around Sakon's waist before the other man could do anything about it and used the hold to lift him in the air. Then he slammed him forcefully on the ground and punched him furiously and repeatedly.
10 or so blows were forced upon him before Sakon was finally able to pull his knees up under Gai's torso and kick him off, throwing him dangerously close to the shield. "I don't have time for this.." Sakon rolled back and flipped on to his feet while Gai scrambled to follow his motions and get clear, with patience thinning, Sakon closed in the shield in another 12 inches unexpected to Gai.
"!" It crashed into his back again, making him cry out loudly and stumble forward. By that time Sakon was waiting right there, he grabbed Gai by the back of his neck and pulled him toward the field on the opposite side.
"No!" Gai placed one foot forward and stopped himself just a few inches away from the sparking golden wall, then he thrust his elbow back into Sakon's face. 'I have to get that field down...' Gai sent a swift kick back into Sakon's chest, then turned and ceased his arms. 'The curse seal must be letting him use whatever was on that back to putout this field, so how do I stop it?'
Sakon tried to pry himself free but Gai's grip was too strong, "Let go you son of a bitch!"
"You. Wreaked. My. Car!" Gai shouted in his rare impulsive furry, driving down a knee to the man's stomach hard enough to force blood out of his mouth and a sharp headbutt that undoubtedly broke his noise. Then he lifted the half disoriented Sakon by his arms, slamming and pinned him to the ground.
'How is this guy that strong?' Sakon, unable to move his arms and with out the flexibility to do anything useful with his legs, had no choice but to close in the field even more. By the time he was done there wasn't inch between Gai and the golden energy.
"UHhaaaaaaaa!" Gai screamed in pain, feeling every volt of the energy taring through his body. He felt as if there was a fire inside of him, setting his muscles and organs ablaze and scorching him from the inside out. But the pain only made him hold on tighter. 'I...can't... let go...' If he could hold on to Sakon while he was being electrocuted, then he could shock Sakon too and send some feedback to the machine on his back... It didn't seem to be working as well as he hoped, but at least Sakon was in the same situation. "Drop...the field...or...I'll...take you...out with me!" Gai managed to force out.
"Let go!" Sakon shouted in his own deal of pain.
"No!"
"Get off me you bastard!"
"N-No!"
"Let go you son of a bitch."
"Make me!"
Gai was right, he would have to drop it, Gai wouldn't let go for anything and Sakon, smart.
"Drop it!"
"Ahhaaaaa!"
"Drop it!"
'Damnit!' Unable to handle anymore, Sakon finally dropped the field and with out a seconds delay Gai rolled off of him, leaving the both of them laying weakly on the ground, smoldering, feeling as if they had just been set on fire, in fact Gai's shoulder was on fire. "!" He quickly patted it out, though that half unnatural panic that drove him to do it seem to expel most of his strength. 'Damn, that took a lot out of me...'
His current state of weakness allowed Gai noticed that, how ever less it might have been, Sakon wasn't as out of it as he was. Maybe because he only got electrocuted once. 'I have to find away to get rid of this-' And that's when he saw it, out of the corner of his eye, he'd completely forgotten about it, his rocket launcher!
Though it was only 12 feet away it seemed so, so unimpeachably far away.
Gai rolled on to his stomach, hissing in pain as his burning hot torso met the freezing ground. He reached out with both arms and pulled himself toward it desperately, looking back every so at Sakon, who was still recovering. 'Damn!' Gai moved faster, as fast as he could mange to go.
"Your going to pay for that!" Sakon said angrily, shaking his head in an attempt to stop the deafening ring in his ears. "Meito Gai!" Sakon glanced to his side where the man had rolled off, he wasn't there.
Click.
The small sound made him flinch... that sounded like... he look over his shoulder anxiously. Gai was laying on his back a few feet away, still smoldering, with his head tilted just enough to get the other man in view and his eye pressed against the scope of the rocket launcher mounted on his shoulder. 'Oh fuck!'
"It's over!" Gai pulled the trigger and sent a missile projecting out of the barrel in flare of bright flames propelling it and a white stream of smoke, heading right at Sakon. Sakon lifted his hands with his eyes widened in fear and once again raised the electric field, this time to full power. The barrier spread outward about 10 feet before it intercepted the missile with a powerful explosion. It was like watching a monster that move so fast that it came in a blink of an eye, flames rushed out from the impact and swallowed them in the red haze, the force scent Gai flying back into his car parked only a few feet away from where he was but Sakon took the blunt of the blast, enough to send his helpless body over the guard railing and off bridge.
It was over finally.
"That didn't work out as well as I hoped." Gai sighed weakly, nosily letting the rocket launcher roll off his shoulder and crash to the ground with a loud clank. 'Now how am I going to get out of here..' He could barely move, let alone drive a stalled car...
Gai fell on to his side and began crawled over towards he end of the car, sliding along the slick asphalt that both helped and hindered him. It seemed like an eternity before he reached the rear of the car, he reached up and grabbed the bumper, using it to pull himself up to the knees, then he withdrew his keys from his pockets, unlocked the trunk and opened it. This was hard, really hard. Even his key felt infinitely heaver then it should have, every movement made his singed muscles scream in pain.
Grunting heavily he dug around blindly in the snowy haze for something. His vision was blurring on top of that ... "Uha..." he couldn't pass out now, he wouldn't let himself... With a small groan he pulled a red tool box along the bottom of the trunk until it went over the edge and fell nosily to the ground, 'I can't pass out now... not yet...'
! - ! - !
"Well I see you have the curse Seal." Asuma knelt down low, pulling his shirt over his nose in an attempt to evade and filter some of the smoke in the air. He was sealed in with Tayuya, and the one thing they desperately needed right now was ventilation. "Your arms are fire resistant, but what about the rest of your body?" He inquired curiously.
She didn't bother acknowledging his question."I'm going to enjoy killing your sorry ass!" Tayuya drew her inflamed fist back and ran forward. Asuma, who was starting to be heavily effected by the smoke, wasn't interested in continuing this fight. One of them would pass out...both of them would pass out before the it was finished. Asuma dived to the side, evading her attack, and rolled across the cleared area of the marble floors. Then he rolled to the side to avoid a wooden support that fell from the ceiling hard enough to shake the entire building..
Which made him realize something dangerous. 'This whole place is coming down... the hell with this!' With a sense of urgency, Asuma took the flamethrower equipped riffle and climbed to his feet. Then he pointed up toward the ceiling and started firing at the already weak structure, speeding up the inevitable.
"Hey, Come-" Tayuya went after him, or tried to at lest, she would have if not rain of burning tiles and wood started to fall heavily from the ceiling, the whole building started to shake violently. "Oh shit!"
With his will to live taking priority over his will to fight, Asuma ran towards the ascending stairs hoping to make it out of a window on the second floor, and then to have those hopes fade when the stairs started to crumble. And to make matters even worse the whole ceiling collapsed over them and a burning mass unrecognizable wreckage was sent tumbling down on to this floor in a mass of flames. '!' Asuma quickly slid to a stop, turned around and ran in the opposite direction, the ceiling falling through as the second floor dropped to the first in a cascading manner that chased after him.
Asuma had no choice but to keep going and face a wall of burning debris separating the lobby in the hallway. 'Try and breakthrough or be crushed...I have no choice.' With the loud rumbling blaring in his ears so loudly that he could barely hear himself think, Asuma took a step back, so close that he could feel the heat from the crumbling building at his back. Then charged forward, lifting his arms to his head and diving forward into the burning wall. It hurt, a lot, his body smashed though the wall of debris and tumbled down to the ground on the other side in a mass of it. "!"
Asuma scrambled to his feet, his back on fire and his arms smoldering as he did so. He was just ahead of cascading roof, so close that he was hit a few times by debris that ricochet when the hit the ground. That was one among some of his many problems at the moment, the most prominent one was that he was starting to become hazy from the smoke inhalation and the only thing keeping him awake was the fire burning and his will to live. 'I'm all most there!' He was almost there, he could see a window at the end of the marble lined hall just before his vision began to blur and his head started to spin with dizziness... Asuma lifted the gun he'd seized from Tayuya and opened fire on the window up ahead, or tried too, it was out of ammo.
"Damnit!" Asuma glanced over his shoulder, he was out of time, he couldn't run fast enough, a few more seconds and it would take him over...Asuma pulled the second trigger and unleashed a blast of flames from the second barrel, the blast smashed through the window and with out a seconds delay he dived forward, gaining a small boost of speed that propelled him out out of the empty frame just in time...since the KPD was built strangely, the first floor was two stories high, that fact made Asuma's fall to the ground that much more painful.
But on the bright side, the snow and the ragging blizzard did put out the fire on his back.
He hadn't noticed it, he passed out as soon as he hit the ground.
! - !- !
Kabuto and Iruka naturally parted, drifting away from each other before they hit the ground in separate places, landing among the sea of telephone wires streaming outward like a river from the side of the building. Neither one of them crashed into any, luckily able to avoid any of the towers, but that may have been even worse since it was a strait drop to the thankfully snow covered ground.
Iruka landed on his back, throwing a mist of snow into the air on impact. His back throbbed with an aching pain and his head seemed to pound with a pain at lest 10 times worse. "Ow..." Iruka immediately lifted his hand to the back of his head head and rubbed the injured spot soothingly. 'Where did that explosion come from?' Though that did hurt, a lot, he was fairly aright, he could even stand.
Iruka slowly climbed to his feet, it was much easier for him once he was actually standing, he was sure to be careful not to touch any of the towers that were bound to the wires since they could have been and probably were electrified. "Kabuto..."
"Right here."
Iruka flinched at the unexpected voice and quickly turned around, finding himself face to face with Kabuto, a slightly different Kabuto. He could see black chain like markings under his collar, those weren't there before... "Let me guess, this is what you meant before." Despite the anger pulsing through him, he was starting to get nervous, how could Kabuto get behind him so quickly when they hadn't even landed near each other.
"You noticed, I expected you would." Kabuto nodded, "It's the curse seal, I'm sure you remember it."
Iruka looked at him with slight questioning for a moment, what was Kabuto talking about- "You! That's what you put in me! That what you used to manipulate me!"
Kabuto nodded again. "That's right, I'm surprised you remembered." Kabuto adjusted his glasses with a soft push from his index finger, speaking proudly when he talked about his invention. "With one press of a button I could-"
"Kill me?"
"I I'm sorry to admit I couldn't do that much, If I did the process would take much too long. But I could make it considerably harder for you to move...to breathe...to think--"
Iruka narrowed his eyes dangerously, was he being set up? "And why didn't you?"
"Heh, where would the fun be in fighting you that way?" Kabuto barely finished speaking before he moved forward, so fast that Iruka couldn't even see him until he felt a strong punch drive in his chest.
"!" "Uhhggaaa!" Iruka was sent flying backwards, sailing down the neat row of steel towers, crashing painfully into a brick wall at the end of the lot hard enough to leave an imprint were he'd stuck it..
'...' "W-what...what was that!' Iruka dropped to his knees, clinching his chest we're he'd been struck. He coughed, spewing a small amount of blood from some internal bleeding no doubt in that area. But he pushed aside the pain and wiped his mouth,. by the time he looked up Kabuto was standing over him, causing him to flinch.
Kabuto grabbed him by the neck, lifting him off the ground with one hand and pressed him against the wall.. "I'll give you a deal, give up." Kabuto said playfully, listening to the weak and strangled coughs and cries coming from the other man. "And I'll let you live."
"I'm flattered..." He snorted weakly, pausing to take in starved gasped in the hopes of getting the cold air past the constriction around his neck. Even that weak he managed to show every bit of his anger. "If living means giving up to you, I'd rather die!" Iruka yelled.
"Passionate as always." Kabuto gave him one seemingly gentle push that sent Iruka's body through the wall and tumbling in to a parking lot with the broken bricks that used to form a barrier.
The man hit the ground and his head fell to the ground, struggling as hard as he could to catch his breath he managed to catch a glimpse of something particularly interesting parked behind him. Kabuto's jet, and it was still running.
Iruka rolled onto his stomach and crawled on to his knees, force to pause until he could get enough air to continue. "You had to pull something like this just to beat me." He said weakly, stumbling on to his feet. He could barely see with the wind and snow blowing directly into his face. "I guess Konoha isn't so weak after all." Iruka punched Kabuto across the face as hard as he could. Kabuto didn't waver an inch under the blow, instead he sent another untraceably quick punch into Iruka's torso and launched him into the air, before the man could rise to high or even cry out Kabuto gave him a swift kick to the torso, throwing Iruka another 10 feet before he hit the ground.
'He's too strong...' Iruka found his mind inconceivability repeating that thought right before his body crashed into the same plane he'd just looked at only a few seconds earlier, landing right above the wing and sliding down on to it's surface in a painful change of events... Things were looking pretty hopeless right about now. 'He's got me...there's no way I can win." Iruka coughed up some more blood, spitting out the red liquid and let his head fall back weakly against the steel surface ...just enough to something to come into his eye's view, something reflective that cast a glare, something in the cockpit. He immediately recognized it. And his chances of wining just went. "Heh heh..."
Iruka, with all the strength he could force himself to put out, climbed to his feet and grabbed on to the edge of the open cockpit and pulled. He lost his balance halfway through and tumbled into it rather painfully but it didn't matter, he had it in his hands now.
Kabuto looked up at his already running ship, smirking lightly when he saw the other man attempting to enter his plane, he should have know there was no way he'd be able to use it. "If your thinking about using it against me don't bother, you don't have the lock code, you won't get anywhere."
Iruka stood up, a large silver gun in hand, it looked as if it was an over sized rifle. The back of it had to be carried under his arm, the battery, and the barrier was nearly squared and forked so it looked almost like a mouth, a small and steady stream of electricity sparked between the two parts. It was a very distinct weapon, it was Kabuto's Rail gun, one that had been used against him twice so he knew just how powerful it was. He wasn't completely sure how it worked, or what the screen just above the barrel was showing him, the only thing he knew at the moment was to pull the trigger. "I wasn't running!"
"!"
He tried to evade, diving to the side desperately as if his life depended on it, it probably did. But he wasn't nearly fast, Iruka pulled the trigger and a streak of blue electricity streamed like lighting from stormy clouds. There was no way he was faster then that even if in lv 2 curse seal, the beam struck him directly in the chest and a static stream of flickering electricity coursed through his body with immense force. Kabuto was thrown a good distance and slid a few feet after he crashed, sprawling onto the ground. He felt his stomach kindling a dieing flame, smoldering with thick black smoke. His curse seal immediately reverted back to it's normal state, it couldn't hold up to that type of damage.
Iruka didn't expect the feedback the weapon would have to it, it was so strong that he was thrown backwards out of the cockpit, his balance wasn't great as it was. "Uff!" He landed in the snow a short distance away, still with a tight grip on the weapon as if it would some how protect him with out any of his own intervention, he was to tired too move an inch anyway.
Kabuto was in a bad state himself, with the last electricity coursing through him in an attempt to get to the ground he couldn't even move. For what seemed like a small eternity he'd gone blind, his vision had faded into nothing but white, and the ringing in his ears over powered any thoughts he had. By the time he regained his senses he realized what had just happened to him, there was no way he could keep fighting, he had to get out of here. 'He actually hit me... dammit.' With his legs trembling slightly, Kabuto pushed himself on to his feet.
'?' Iruka looked up when he heard the engine of Kabuto's jet flare and a burst of warm air sent a wave of snow washing over him. By the time he wiped the snow off of his face the airship had ascended hopelessly out of reach.
"Next time Iruka!"
'I hope not...'
