With the ease of the experience of dozens of ninja, 'Akayuki' danced through the tree boughs, wind rushing through her voluminous auburn hair. She didn't believe she was being followed. She felt a presence shadowing her while still in Rokugai and a little outside it but either she lost it or it was very good at hiding itself. Considering she was dealing with a Jonin of the Leaf it could easily be either. The Leaf had quite a number of Jonin who ranged wildly in the level of their skills to the point being called an 'Elite Jonin' had become something of an unofficial rank in itself. They had raised the bar, something that made other villages displeased to say the least. A situation ripe for Akayuki to take advantage of.
But there was that danger, wasn't there. That this time the Hidden Leaf village hadn't sent a run of the mill Jonin, or anyone like that ANBU squad that came before. That they had sent someone of note. Someone who could be a threat. If that was the case...
Coming to a ravine, the border of Grass, the redhead dove in so readily it was as though she expected to break the surface of water at the bottom. Falling straight down, her hands flashed through seals. "Earth Release! Subterranean Voyage!" Her arms rose to her sides as she slid effortlessly into the rock surface of the approaching ravine wall. From there she swam her way down as though it really were water, coming to the base of the ravine and popping out entirely unharmed. She brushed out her hair with a quick wind jutsu, not bothering to tidy the rest of her appearance.
"Boos!" another young woman called out. Her dark hair behind her slashed Hidden Rock headband had grown long to emulate her 'boss', though she took it rather a bit further, letting it hang almost down to her ankles and tied with a ribbon at the end. Her equally dark eyes didn't express joy so much as surprise at the woman's early return. "How did the observation go?"
"Four more from the Leaf," the woman answered. "Though excessive fishing may have roused the attention of the sharks."
"Like, literal sharks? Like the Hoshigaki?" another girl asked, her hat-covered hair closer to pink than red. At a look, one might have assumed she and the woman were mother and daughter. A tomboyish appearance of unflattering masculine clothing, a likewise slashed headband with a symbol resembling steam.
"Are you dense, Tayuya?" the third girl demanded, bespectacled and with vibrant red hair that was frazzled on her right side yet tidy and straight on the left. Her headband had the symbol for Grass at one time, but unlike the others marred with a clean horizontal line, hers had been scored many times, leaving the symbol unrecognisable. "The Hoshigaki are from Mist! Why would one ever come this far west?"
"Well excuse the shit out of me, Professor Karin!" the tomboy snapped back. "Guess I was busy learning to be a real damn ninja instead of–"
"Learning to be a bimbo spy like everyone else in your village?" the dark-haired girl needled.
"Kin, I swear to fuck, I will chop that hair you're so proud of down the the damned roots!"
"Enough!" the eldest among them put a stop to the meaningless argument. "We're leaving."
"Wha, seriously?" Tayuya asked. "Not like you to get so–"
"Tayuya dear," the woman spoke, suddenly holding the tomboy by the chin, lips a mere few inches away from hers, "If you talk back to me like that again, you'll wish you never found out what happens afterwards."
The former Hot Water ninja swallowed thickly. "Yes, Fuka."
And suddenly Akayuki, or Fuka, was all smiles again. "Good! Now we–" Before she could outline their next move her instincts screamed at her. Her hand snapped up and snagged something out of the air, finding in her grip a large and vicious snake. It writhed in her hand, forced her to grab it with the other when it tried to bite her despite being caught. "Well. That's unfortunate," she lamented, knowing exactly what the presence, the attack of that snake meant as she sliced off its head with a kunai and blocked another blade thrown at her in the same motion.
"You're tellin' me. What'd that snake ever do to you?" the source of the thrown weapon asked, a purple-haired ninja in fishnet and a trenchcoat with a Leaf headband partially hidden under her fringe.
"Fuka– AH!" Tayuya squealed as the kunai Fuka was holding shot between her legs. She leapt away to see the short blade skewering another snake.
"Tayuya dear, you should move out of the way."
"Yes Tayuya dear," Anko repeated the endearment mockingly, "You should!" Her arms thrust out, dozens of snakes emerging from her baggy sleeves to slither and strike at the younger of the two, chasing her and her two young compatriots further along the ravine. Anko smiled thinly as she watched the girls make a fighting retreat, killing only a few of the pursuing serpents before they rounded a bend out of sight. "So. Fuka. I guess that's your real name. You really took my poor little Genin for a ride."
"I'd say it was more mutual than that," the seductress smirked, her hip cocked. "An Uzumaki, hm? A shame. He would've been delicious. At least the sex was an amusing diversion. I assume he's with the other two. Let me guess, hoping to cut off my retreat."
"You're no amateur then," Anko noted, "No headband though. Missing nin? Criminal?"
"Now that would be telling!" the woman giggled. "Are you sure you want to leave your 'poor little Genin' to face my cohorts? They could get hurt!"
The Jonin rolled her eyes at the false concern, rotating her head to keep the enemy in her periphery at all times. "Yeah, I'm not exactly fearing for their lives fighting some little girls who ran away from a bunch of snakes. Most of those weren't even poisonous!"
"Oh trust me, there's more to them than meets the eye," Fuka smirked. "But if this is how it has to be, tell me. Would you prefer a deep kiss, or soft?"
"Ha! You know it's been a while since someone gave it to me hard and deep!" the snake mistress laughed, "But I'll warn you, I'm not the kind of lady who gives it up to anyone who asks!"
"Hmmmm," the redhead let out a pleased, anticipatory hum as her smirk turned hungry and wolfish. "Not to worry. Before long, you'll be giving me your everything."
The two stared one another down before some unseen unheard signal had both women moving at the exact same instant. Both moving through hand seals in a blur. Anko's finished first as she dropped to the dry earth beneath them. "Earth Style: Mud Wave!"
"Earth Style: Stone Column Spears!"
The wave of soft earth cascaded toward Fuka, fast enough to force her to move the moment her technique completed. Dozens of spikes of solid stone jutted out from the walls and floor of the ravine, turning the entire area into a deathtrap. With her leap to avoid the mud wave the redhead landed on one of those spikes, tossing a brace of kunai at her Jonin opponent as she dodged the erupting spikes. More hand seals to take advantage of putting her opponent on the defensive. "Water Style: Mouth of the Serpent!" What very little rainwater the area had gotten recently coiled and roiled, gathering together from separate puddles to form into a spiralling column of water. A head formed at the top resembling the maw of a giant snake. The water snake reared back, then lunged forward into the maze of stone spikes, chasing down Anko who weaved nimbly through the obstacles even as the snake followed her every step.
"Really?!" Anko shouted at the woman who she had lost track of in dealing with the other threats to her person. Her hand holding a half tiger seal. "A giant snake?! Do you have any idea who I am?! Compared to a hungry Manda this is nothing!"
"I assumed as much," Fuka's voice reached her right as she felt tails of hair wrap around her neck and legs. The hair grapple yanked her toward a spike on the ravine wall, only her incredible flexibility thanks to the Snake Style saved her from having that spike driven through her spine. Even so, for a moment she was pinned to the wall, Fuka grinning down at her, her shoulders jutting out of the rock. "Now, just to make sure you don't struggle so much," the redhead's arm raised toward the sky, her other hand settling on Anko's chest, "Lightning Style: Lightning Rod!"
Anko's body seized, jerked in the grip of Fuka's hair as she was electrocuted for several seconds. Even after the lightning ceased, her body continued to twitch.
And yet. That half tiger seal held.
"And now for the kiss goodbye," Fuka purred, brushing the hair out of the other woman's face. "Not to me, to everyone and everything you knew. Don't worry, you and I will be together forever. Doesn't that sound lovely."
"Yeah, thanks," Anko grinned.
"That's the spirit!" Fuka whispered as their lips were nearly close enough to touch.
"Thanks for getting in close like this. Fire Style: Dragon Fire!" An eruption of flame roared from the Snake Mistress' mouth, unbearable heat unleashed at the seductress from point blank range.
And Fuka screamed. An unholy sound. The sound of someone experiencing nightmarish agony as her body was burned to a cinders.
Anko felt the hair bindings release her, letting her drop to the ground again. "Heh, that wasn't so bad. Three elements though, even opposite ones. Damn. Glad I didn't have the kids here or they'd be super– Hurk!" Only her instincts saved her, demanding she dodge an instant before what looked like a bullet of wind struck her in the chest. However, they weren't enough to let her completely avoid the follow-up bullets, one of them clipping her in the leg before she found cover behind a stone spike.
"Dead?" Fuka asked, no longer smiling as she appeared almost completely unscathed. The scorch marks and breaks in her hair the only signs she had even been hit by Anko's fire technique. "Don't worry. I'll get to them later. Right now you've gained my undivided attention." With a breath into her hand, another wind bullet fired at Anko, smashing through her cover and forcing her to move again.
"Oh! You're still alive! Great!" Anko shouted, giving the woman a once-over. No damage at all. It shouldn't be possible after taking the brunt of a fire jutsu to the face but there she was just as smugly pretty as before. Well except for–
Her hair.
"I was going to end your suffering but," Fuka tossed her head, sending her damaged locks to hang behind her, firing another wind bullet, "I think you've earned yourself the ultimate pain before you can receive the ultimate– Ack!" Her hand flew up to her neck at the stabbing pain of the snake biting into her throat, at the same time as another latched on to her thigh.
Smirking, Anko substituted herself with a fragment of a broken spike to appear behind her opponent. Once again fire coursed over the woman's body. It wasn't necessarily the case that the damage to her hair and nothing else mattered, but this way her long mass of red hair would bear the brunt of her assault before her body. "By the way, did you think I'd run out of snakes?"
She never ran out of snakes.
-(-)-
"We should go back."
Kin looked at Tayuya like she was crazy, which as far as the dark-haired girl was concerned, she must be. "You wanna get even more on her bad side? She told us to run so we're running! You wanna be her next meal so bad, go on your own!"
"She told us to leave so maybe we should," Karin voiced hesitantly, "Like, actually leave. Go somewhere else, do our own thing."
"Why am I surrounded by idiots with a death wish?!" Kin bemoaned. "We follow her, we stay weak and unimportant and we don't end up dead!"
"We could–" Whatever Karin was going to suggest was left unsaid as her eyes widened. "Scatter!" The three girls all dove in different directions, narrowly avoiding a storm of metal that showered down on their position.
"Dammit, there's more of them?!" Tayuya demanded.
"Three," Karin immediately supplied, "There!" pointing them out partway up the cliffside.
"Damn," the only male of the three cursed as he dropped down in front of them. "You're a sensor, huh? That makes this harder." The two girls dropped down and flanked him. "So you three were working with Akayuki."
"Man, he looks pissed," Tayuya noted.
"Akayuki?" Kin echoed her head rearing back in confusion at the unfamiliar name. Then she smiled viciously. "Oh, I get it. She got you, didn't she? Bet she buttered you up and got all lovey-dovey, played you for a sap. Maybe you should just cut your losses and consider yourself lucky you aren't dead." Her hand settled on her hip. "Trust me, you won't be that lucky with us."
"Yeah, well bring it!" Ino shouted back. "Sensei told us to guard this path so we're guarding it!"
"Your funeral," Kin replied as her hand flicked out.
Sakura's eyes widened before she dove in front of Naruto as Kin's hand fully extended, wincing as she felt a half dozen senbon pierce her skin. "Sakura, what the hell?!" her boyfriend demanded.
With one hand glowing green, she pulled out the needles and repaired the numbness and damage they caused. "I can recover from those better than you."
On the other side of what would become their battlefield, a cloud of smoke appeared to obscure their foes for a moment. By the time it cleared the three girls were riding atop strange beasts two to three times their height, one wielding a giant club, another claws and a third with seemingly no weapon, not even seeming to look in the Leaf ninjas' direction. "How will you recover from this?" Kin taunted as Tayuya began playing a flute. Seeming to respond to the sound, the three beasts lumbered forward.
"Up the walls!" Naruto exclaimed. The three Leaf ninja scrambled to walk up the ravine, Naruto and Sakura on one side, Ino on the other. As the beasts reached their position they didn't attempt to climb after the fleeing ninja, instead they slammed their weapon into the rock, hoping to force them to fall. Enormous chunks of rock were smashed from the walls as the one with the club hammered away under Ino who looked unsteady on the shaking vertical terrain. She wasn't helped by the senbon that pierced her hand when she tried to steady herself with it.
"Dammit!" Naruto cursed, "Sakura, wait here and don't fall!" He leapt off the wall, pulled out a seal and released it, causing another rain of kunai on the beasts the two redheads were riding. With a panicked trill on her flute, Tayuya's and Karin's creatures moved to protect their riders, taking the brunt of the attack but more importantly kept occupied as Naruto leapt from one to another to land on the third, the one with the club.
"Hey!" Kin exclaimed, seeing someone else suddenly on the club wielder with her. Another brace of senbon flew his way only for him to dodge by dropping down and hanging from the back of the beast.
He never thought he would have to use one of these, he thought to himself as he pulled out another set of seals. At least not this early in his career. Slapping four paper tags on the back of the creature he placed his hand in the middle between them. "Sealing Technique! Four Points Banishment!" The complicated swirling patterns on the papers glowed, extended to form a circle on the creature's back before they began to burn away. Three quarters of the papers were gone entirely before the creature slumped and vanished.
"What?!" Kin yelled as she fell, landing awkwardly. "Ngh, how did you do that?!" she demanded.
"Never underestimate the sealing skills of an Uzumaki, ya know!" Naruto boasted, only to be forced to roll out of the way as the giant with no arms tried to step on him.
"A Leaf ninja doesn't get to say that name!" the bespectacled redhead riding it screamed at him. "Your village let the Uzumaki die!"
"What?! No they didn't!" Naruto denied between frantic dodges of stomping feet. He could see Ino duking it out with the dark-haired girl, Sakura was trying to distract the flute player who seemed to be controlling the monsters.
"Liar! The Uchiha wiped them out and you're invoking their name like you have any right to it after what your village did to them!"
"What are you even talking about?! I'm an Uzumaki, ya know!"
Indignation turned to rage. "How dare you?! You don't even have red hair and you think I'd fall for such a disgusting lie?!"
"Well I'm sorry for inheriting my dad's hair, ya know!" he offered a sarcastic apology, flinging a few shuriken up at the flute player when given a spare moment. "But my mom has red hair like–" He stopped. His whole world stopped. "I don't believe it." With a newfound resolve, a glowing golden chain burst through the back of his jacket and snapped out to coil around a leg of the redhead's mount.
"What?" Karin's anger fizzled as she saw the supposed pretender to the Uzumaki name present one of their signature abilities.
With a mighty heave of his chakra construct, it yanked the monster's leg out from under it, tossing the redhead riding it into the air as it fell. Letting the chain dissipate, Naruto rushed to leap and catch the falling girl in his arms. "You're really... An Uzumaki?" she asked, eyes as wide as saucers as the reality of it struck her.
"Naruto, they're getting away!" Ino called out. While he had been distracted it seemed the other redhead had seen how the situation had been going south and decided to exercise discretion. Her monster had scooped the dark-haired girl into one of its clawed hands and begun to make a hasty retreat to the tune of a trilling flute.
Tayuya knew things were only going from bad to worse. Down to two of her ogres, soon to be one if that blond kid could do that banishing trick again. She couldn't fight and play at the same time, Kin was being kept busy, Karin was going through some love at first sight bullshit or something so Tayuya was getting no backup while that pink-haired bitch chucked metal at her. She had no choice. Karin was new to the group, who cared if she got captured. But Kin had been with Tayuya for years as Fuka's underlings, glorified distractions. Even if they were shitty to each other sometimes they stuck together. What was important was to get back to the boss so she could deal with these assholes.
This was her hope. Her expectation. Fuka was a monster. All of them knew it. They continued to live at the woman's discretion and for no other reason. There was no possible way she could be taken out by some snake bitch ninja. This was her fervent belief.
Until she saw her boss looking decrepit, ghastly, her long red hair blackened and cracked. The woman on her knees before her opponent.
And then immolated until she was only ashes on the breeze.
"Phew," the Leaf Jonin breathed, coughing as she favoured one leg. "The technique is rough on the throat. Good workout though. Fighting a demon hag is gonna be a fun story to tell when I get home." Her head turned, fully looking at Tayuya, at her ogre, at Kin in its hand. Tayuya didn't believe for an instant the woman was ever fully not looking at them. "So... Two of you and none of my kids. If you killed them this is gonna end badly for you."
The flute fell from Tayuya's fingers, her ogre knelt on the spot without instructions to guide it. Soon after it vanished entirely to reveal three mostly healthy Leaf Genin. Sakura tending to a wound on Ino's hand, Naruto carrying Karin.
"I s-surrender..." Tayuya spoke kneeling and putting her forehead on the ground. What else could she do? They were beaten.
Kin stayed exactly where she was when the ogre dropped her. On her hands and knees, staring uncomprehendingly at where Fuka had been moments ago.
