Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: Nothing.
Chapter Title: The Battle Between Geniuses!
Kakashi didn't let his sole original technique die. A number of lines of lightning actually moved away from it and out around him, forming a number of electric hounds that paced around him and Anko. The Tokubetsu Jonin knew when to follow the Jonin's lead and she did so, her senbon remaining secured away for now as she raced through a number of hand seals at speeds befitting a woman trained by a Sannin.
A trio of Anko soon crouched down in front of Kakashi and each raised their hands to their lips after racing through different seals.
A slicing wave of water fired through the middle of the air as Anko swung her head from one side to the other.
A barrage of air bullets soared forward above the wave of water, interspaced and staggered enough to make dodging them all difficult.
The ground beneath their feet twisted and morphed into a tangled carpet of stone serpents that bolted across the ground towards her targets.
"Pakura!" Chiyo retreated, her puppets vanishing in a burst of smoke marking their return to her scrolls. The Kunoichi silently appeared in front of the veteran Shinobi and threw her hands in front of her, two white spheres with a light red aura of blazing heat appearing in front of her palms. She turned her hands inward and joined them together. The two spheres fused and expanded into a shield against the attacks before Pakura thrust her hands forward, sending it towards the two Shinobi.
"Dammit." Anko cursed, her attacks failing as the water turned to mist, the stone broke under the heat, and the air only seemed to increase the power of Pakura's attack. She burned through the needed hand seals for her next technique with her clones mirroring her. "Stand b-"
Kakashi's hounds survived the attack. Lightning crackled off of several of them before it erupted outward as a devastating electric blast. The hounds that had been the center of each blast changed from lightning to water and howled, unleashing torrents of water from their jaws. Pakura's incoming attack shattered into a multitude of blazing spheres as she clenched her hands into fists, each sphere shooting through the hounds in an attempt to destroy them entirely. It failed. Another electric blast erupted from a hound and it suddenly became stone. It howled and dug its stone claws into the ground as jagged stones ripped through the air from its jaws.
Pakura noticed, the smaller spheres coming together into a single large sphere as she threw her hands out to her sides, splaying her fingers. Two more spheres formed from her palms and threw themselves forward and towards Kakashi's hounds. Two more electrical blasts erupted from the hounds as they shifted to a new element, more hounds of water suddenly present and unleashing a fresh torrent on Pakura's blazing hot spheres made of her famed Scorch Release.
'So this is what a battle between two geniuses looks like?' Anko could only look in with mute shock. The way that neither Pakura or Kakashi seemed surprised by the acts of the other, the way they countered each other seamlessly, and the sheer amount of Chakra both could produce somewhat terrified her. It was almost impossible to believe only two were fighting. 'I guess I'll go kill the old lady.'
Anko searched for Chiyo, spotted her behind Pakura as she unrolled a fresh scroll, and the Tokubetsu Jonin grinned. She rose her hands up to her mouth and bit down on both of her thumbs as the two clones on either side of her rushed around either side of the clash between Pakura and Kakashi.
Smoke shrouded her hands as she struck both against the ground before she dashed to the side before sprinting towards the older Kunoichi. A kunai slid down from her sleeves and into each of her hands and she threw both forward, the trio of explosive tags trailing behind both easily spotted by her experienced target. She couldn't do much to stop her attack from striking. Her clones attacked with a pair of jagged blades made from stone replacing most of their lower arms and hands. The elderly Kunoichi wasn't able to stop the four blades and her sudden attack all at once.
Anko had planned it as such after all.
'Time to die.' She couldn't help the smile on her face as she prepared the hand seal to detonate the explosive tags.
She didn't expect an expertly wielded blade to sever each blade from her clones, a great gale to knock aside her projectiles, and to have to avoid a pair of blade wielding puppets from cutting her down from behind by ducking low to the ground.
"It's such a shame I have to rescue you sister." Anko cursed when her eyes took in the sight of Ebizo, the second half of Sungakure's Honored Siblings, standing in front of Chiyo with an aged katana in his hands. She couldn't help the fear she felt at her odds, the two Shinobi in front of her renowned for their dangerous teamwork on the battlefield. They were legendary, few able to claim to have survived an encounter with both of them. Even fewer could claim actually beating the two.
The Fourth Hokage was among such a small list, the early period of the Third Shinobi World War a chaotic time where he emerged victorious against both Shinobi.
"As if I didn't have it handled." Chiyo twitched her finger, the two puppets that had attacked Anko drawing themselves back to her, a glance to their hands revealed that each finger had been replaced with long, slender, and no doubt poison coated blades. More blades jutted from the bodies of the puppets, no doubt the puppets could become deadly saws that would cut her to shreds. "That brat didn't stand a chance of killing me."
'I'm going to kill you.' Anko narrowed her eyes at the two, cautious for any movement from Chiyo as she readied her Chakra to attack her, now, two opponents. 'But I do not like my odds.'
Odds were not in her favor at all. She withheld the urge to sigh or glance behind her to see if Kakashi could lend any support to her. She figured he was busy dealing with a renowned Kunoichi like Pakura. She couldn't rely on him to help her anyway.
Her hands shifted to her side, her fingers wrapping around the hilt of the blade she had taken from Sasuke before his second round match with Temari.
'This isn't going to be easy.' Anko took a single short breath before she darted forward.
Her acquired blade immediately clashed with Ebizo's single katana, Anko catching sight of the seals that wrapped around it just in time to avoid the several kunai that erupted out of them. She dodged the poisoned weapons and replied with a trio of senbon the elderly Shinobi avoided with ease that surprised her. She pushed herself to press the attack when the two puppets she hadn't forgotten about attacked her, the clicking and clacking of their movements the only tell Anko had to avoid them. She ripped through the needed hand seals to unleashed a Fire Release technique when Ebizo pressed forward with his attack instead. She narrowly avoided a trio of slicing blades of air before she was forced to dodge a dozen shuriken and kunai released from hidden seals on the puppets she had been attacked by. Even then the attack was joined by Ebizo swinging his blade through the air, sending a trio of crescents of wind towards her once more. She avoided them by dropping into the ground before erupting outward and breathing out a stream of fire. Ebizo looked at it with almost contempt before his sword was a whirlwind around him.
He cut a pocket into her attack, one he leaped through and towards her. Wind Chakra ripped free of his form in a burst, causing her to curse as she was thrown back and through the air before she could even land on her own two feet from her emergence from the ground. Ebizo knew she was open to his next attack and so took a deep breath as he sent his sword spinning into the air. A puppet Chiyo had summoned snatched it out of the air and surged forward with it held directly in front of it. Anko drew a kunai to counter the old blade in the hands of the mechanical weapon just as Ebizo unleashed a vortex from his mouth.
She was trapped in it before she could counter, the puppet torn out of it by a deft tug from Chiyo, and the katana was handed back to Ebizo as the puppet was sealed away once again. Chiyo sent the two blade covered puppets forward instead and, just like Anko thought, they turned into deadly saws as Chakra caused sections of their bodies to begin to spin faster and faster. What Anko didn't think would happen was the fact that the blades would grow longer, that more would appear from hidden seals, and even more seals unleashed a torrent of kunai and shuriken into the vortex.
Each one of the weapons was covered in an abundance of poisons and the sheer varieties Chiyo was known for obviously. There was enough that the vortex actually began to take on a purple tinge from the sheer amount that it had ripped free from the weapon as they entered it. Ebizo remained where he stood, a pair of small humanoid puppets perching on his shoulders and erecting a shield of Chakra in front of him to keep him safe from any poisonous fallout.
Anko was torn back and forth by the roaring vortex, her blood soon joining the poison as she found it was impossible to avoid the countless weapons within the vortex. She narrowly avoided the multiple passes of the bladed puppets. She avoided being torn to shreds but she could already feel the dozens of poisons now burning through her veins, her body going through a multitude of reactions, and the pain ripping apart her mind.
She couldn't help but scream as she slammed into the ground, more poisoned weapons cutting into her as the vortex ended. She tried to rise but the two puppets crashed into her, their blades further tearing into her skin and two actually impaling her through the stomach.
"It looks like she's dead." Chiyo's voice came from far away.
"Rasa-san needs our help." Ebizo's voice came from close by.
"That young man, always coming to us with his problems. This generation is so reliant on its elders." They were leaving her to die here. They knew she would die here. "I remember a time when I could sleep all day."
"Those times are long gone brother."
"No…" She couldn't move, couldn't escape the growing pool of her own poisoned blood she had been left to lie in. She wanted to curse them, to kill them, but it was truly hopeless. She couldn't move, she knew she was going to die from the sheer number of her wounds, too many already severe enough to kill her on their own. All of them together sealed her fate, she would bleed to death in a minute at most. Chiyo's poisons only made sure of it. "Not yet…"
'Not without that bastard too…' Her once teacher came to mind, filled her with rage despite her state. Her hands balled into bloody fists. 'He needs to die before me…I have to stop him...'
Her eyes shut against her will, her rage could not keep them open. She couldn't keep herself alive with just her rage.
But it did awaken something else.
"Anko…" Kakashi avoided Pakura's scorching hot spheres coming from seemingly everywhere, at least a dozen of them keeping his elemental hounds occupied and a dozen pressuring him. He tried to throw a kunai to kill her but the dome she had used a handful of spheres to create melted the metal before it could even get close enough to harm her. The explosive tag was incinerated before it could detonate as well. The tag he attached to it activated through, a storm of senbon failing to pierce through her attack by attacking from multiple fronts.
'Her defense is automatic like the Jinchuriki's it looks like.' Kakashi dimly observed the fact. His single visible eye remained focused on Anko's dying form. 'I need to get to Anko still, get her som-'
His thoughts were interrupted when he narrowly avoided a trio of Scorch Release spheres coming at him in a pincer movement. He avoided them and avoiding the two spheres arching down on him from above. Two hounds of water threw themselves into the way of another two coming from behind him. His Lightning Cutter bearing hand lunged forward, a fresh pair of hounds of lightning darting forward and roaring, unleashing a stream of lightning bullets that tore through the Scorch Release spheres that tried to kill him. Pakura actually broke free of her sphere, running to the side to avoid the barrage. She formed the necessary hand signs and unleashed a gale of wind from her mouth that swiftly shifted into a number of widespread slicing crescents that dissipated Kakashi's lightning bullets as they tore through them.
'I almost forgot she can use Wind Release.' Kakashi almost wanted to curse himself as he dodged to the side, avoiding her attack and taking a short breath. He breathed out a stream of fire with a single hand sign, the flames quickly separating themselves into a number of fireballs. Quantity was his friend here. Pakura seemed to sneer at him before she breathed out a torrential stream of fire.
She blinded herself because of her pride.
Kakashi threw himself free of the ground beneath her, his Lightning Cutter plunging through her chest.
The Fire Release Clone erupted. It made the Lightning Release Clone he made from his Lightning Cutter follow suit.
The two Shinobi clashed with kunai in the middle of the air, Kakashi not letting how impressed he was at Pakura's planning show in what was exposed of his face. The fact she then countered the shuriken he pulled back on a wire string tied to his finger with her own received nothing as well. He threw a trio of kunai forward, expertly hid a number of senbon in their shadows, and Pakura countered them with a large shuriken she no doubt summoned to her hand, threw, and then engaged his kunai in the blink of an eye. He had used the time she had taken to replace himself with a clone of course, the clone using a smoke bomb moments later and broke away from the talented Sunagakure Kunoichi.
'She's good.' She didn't even pretend that he was still in front of her, a sphere punching through the clone's chest and dispelling it. It was a normal Shadow Clone and Pakura landed on the ground. She stared directly where he was hiding and the Copy-nin revealed himself.
"You're good." He admitted it out loud. He settled his hands in his pockets, took hold of a kunai in one hand as the other burned through one handed hand seals he had developed in his free time since seeing them put to use by Zabuza's apprentice in Waves.
"Better than you." The voice came from behind him. He turned to the side to avoid the white hot sphere she unleashed on him and unleashed a stream of water from his covered mouth. He drew in a deeper breath, shifted the arrangement of his fingers, and spewed out a stream of water that created a heavy mist around the two.
Pakura surged towards him through it, two spheres spiraling ahead of her to not only light her path through the mist but also to keep Kakashi from striking at her from ahead. He was already off to the side of her, a pair of kunai launching towards her head. She ducked to dodge them, correctly guessing that there was a wire string tied between them via the rings. Pakura severed the string based on principle with a shuriken sent racing through it before she made a finger gun towards Kakashi and his eye actually widened at the sight of such a gesture.
"Shakuton: Gian!" An orb didn't leave her finger. A superheated beam nearly punched through Kakashi's head at the blinding speed it fired off at. He barely managed to avoid it knowing exactly where it was coming and was still in the process of dodging the first when Pakura channeled her Scorch Release Chakra to her finger once more and smiled. "Shakuton: Gian!"
She fired a second beam and Kakashi vanished from sight, a log taking his place. He narrowly avoided it with the Substitution Technique and quickly he prepared himself to dodge again only for the Kunoichi to not press her attack.
'He seems to have remembered the last time we fought.' The two prodigies had clashed more than once on the battlefield, their youth and inexperience the only reason either had remained alive pass their first clash and the sheer talent and power of both making sure neither could take the life of the other in their other clashes. 'He's expecting them now.'
The way Kakashi held himself appeared to be in his normal lackadaisical way but her trained eyes saw how tense he was, how ready he was to avoid her attack.
'I thought I had him beat with this. I guess I only have myself to blame for this fight not being over. I telegraphed that attack too much. I should have left a clone to keep him busy and kill him with it from behind.' Despite how well the tactic would have worked, Pakura couldn't help the distaste she felt at it. She wanted to kill Kakashi Hatake at his best, the genius unable to counter her. Killing him with a surprise attack from behind while a clone kept him busy, while the most practical, would make her feel displeasure at her victory. She wanted him beaten by her power after all. If the best Shinobi of Konoha of their generation fell to the best Kunoichi of Sunagakure of the same generation, the prestige of Sunagakure would be clear for all to see. Not even Kakashi Hatake could compare to their greatest Shinobi. 'He would expect such an attack anyway. His Sharingan would let him see through any clone I make in the blink of an eye.'
"You still remember that technique Kakashi?" Pakura didn't lower her hands. She channeled Chakra for her next shot as she spoke to her foe. Kakashi and her both knew that she was only talking to keep him busy while she prepared her next shot.
"After seeing how well you used it the first time? How could I ever forget a technique that powerful?" Kakashi was ready for her. He was preparing his own counter to her it seemed.
"Shakuton: Gian!" She had lowered the time between her shots through training. A fresh beam lanced through the air before he had fully prepared his counter. He spewed out a jet of water towards the ground, throwing himself into a quickly forming pillar of water. He moved through the necessary hand seals and took a deep breath.
'I'm borrowing this from you Izumo.'
"Suiton: Mizuame Nabara!" He spewed out a stream of the sticky liquid, sweeping his head from side to side to spread it as much as he could His genius showed as he followed behind the wide stream with small bullets of the sticky liquid, accurately predicting where Pakura would throw herself into the air to avoid the attack.
As well as the multitude of Scorch Release Clones she released at the same time.
'What the?' The water wasn't evaporated as the Scorch Release Clones flashed to red and white, they were encased in shells of the liquid. 'How isn't it turning to mist?' Pakura avoided the bullet sent towards her before her danger senses screamed to her. She tilted her head forward and narrowly avoided the lethally sharp blade from the suddenly still mass of liquid behind her.
The pillar of water Kakashi stood on quickly threw itself forward as a pack of hounds as he connected his hand to it. Pakura didn't waste her time with playing a game with Kakashi as she dodged them, she drew up her hand once more and gathered the needed Chakra to it.
"Shakuton: Gian!" She once again unleashed her technique but swung the beam as she moved, making a deadly laser that turned the hounds of water to nothing but mist. Kakashi of course dropped into it, vanishing into the growing mist around her as she pointed her free hand palm down towards the sticky liquid below her.
"Shakuton: Kajosatsu!" A sphere of her fearsome Scorch Release fired down, spread out into a large disc to provide her a space to stand on without fear. It struck the syrup beneath her and was stopped.
'Again?' Pakura released a second sphere with far more force than was really needed, throwing herself up into the air and avoiding a trio of spikes from the syrup once more. 'His control over such a technique is also rather impressive. I've never seen him apply constant Shape Transformation to a technique like this one before. It would make sense if his Chakra leaned to a Water Nature but I know he has a Lightning Nature. Has he prepared this technique for me? Has he mastered Water Nature Chakra? How is he doing it?'
Kakashi landed on what remained on the pillar of water, a small jet that kept him above the syrup. Strands of water tied his hand to the water hounds as he plunged it into the top of the remaining water and the water surged down the strands, the hounds each letting loose a howl as they bulged. They grew in size, doubling in size before they erupted forward, leaving droplets of water in their wake as they sprinted across the still surface of the syrup.
"How are you managing this Kakashi?" Pakura drew up her free hand, formed a second finger gun. "Shakuton: Gian!"
Two beams lanced through the air as she crossed her arms over her chest, the beams lancing through the air behind her as well. Kakashi's hounds evaporated into nothing but mist, destroyed by the heat of her attack, and she drew her arms back around, crossing them over her chest, and unleashing the beams towards the masked Shinobi.
She cut his Water Release Clone into quarters with the X her attack cut through its chest. It collapsed into water, the pillar of water broke down, and revealed the second clone that had its arms severed from the syrup it had been manipulating.
'He used clones to manipulate the water and the syrup. Both were Water Release Clones and manipulated them both as if they were a part of them.' Pakura ended her technique, steam leaking from her fingers from the residual heat, and looked to the syrup that was quickly shrinking. 'He must be-'
"You're too predictable!" She threw herself onto Kakashi's arm, avoiding the Lightning Cutter he aimed to punch through her chest from behind. She pointed her free hand to him, her fingers taking on the shape of a finger gun once again and his single visible eye widened.
'She can still fire!' He tried to pull back, already knew he would be too slow to make it, and braced himself for the fatal attack. 'Her limit was six last time we fought.'
"Shakuton: Gi-WHAT THE HELL!" She recoiled, pushing off of his arm and avoiding the leaping snake that emerged from his Flak Jacket. Kakashi's eye even widened at the sight of the deadly serpent that drew itself back into his collar. He hadn't sensed it just as much as Pakura hadn't.
'Anko?' Kakashi looked to the bleeding Tokubetsu Jonin. He wouldn't hide or deny it, he was shocked at the level of skill she had. He had thought he had been aware of everything in the battle, forced to be to keep himself alive against a Kunoichi as skilled as Pakura, but he was clearly wrong. The snake settled behind his collar and, even though he had just seen it, he didn't know it was there by his senses. 'Anko.' Resolution entered his eye even as smoke drifted up from his collar, marking the disappearance of the snake.
He needed to repay Anko for saving his life.
He needed to save her life to make sure he could.
"I can't believe that snake was there the entire time." Pakura planted her hand on her hips, shaking her head from side to side in almost disappointment. "I should've expected something like that from a girl trained by a Sannin but even you look surprised."
"Anko's full of surprises like that." He desperately wished she would surprise him now, prove the bleeding form not too far away was nothing but a clone, a doll she had filled with fake blood, anything to show that she wasn't so close to death so close to him.
That she wouldn't be another death because he had failed. Again.
"I am too Hatake." Pakura's smile spoke of dark intentions. "You remember THAT technique, the one that turned our last battlefield into hell?" She was taunting him, crossing her arms over her chest. "You were so angry when I incinerated all of your friends."
She knew she struck a chord when his hands balled into fists at his side.
"Let me reintroduce you to that hell."
Pakura created a pair of Scorch Release Clones without any movement that threw themselves towards a suddenly sprinting Kakashi by the time she finished speaking. The Kunoichi rushed through the needed hand seals and dropped one hand to her side. Fires emerged from each of her fingertips on one hand before she made a fist. A fireball grew around her hand before she took a deep breath and drew her free hand up to her lips. She formed a tunnel with her fingers and blew out a stream of wind, fueling the flames in her hands to grow.
Kakashi didn't waste his time with the Scorch Release Clones, two Water Release Clones pouring out from his hands and simply tackling their targets into an explosion of mist. He was focused solely on the Kunoichi that aimed to turn the stadium, turn everyone inside it, into nothing but ash.
The preparations complete for her technique, Pakura let her hand fall from her mouth and unleash a crescent made up of her Scorch Release with her free hand. It grew as it hurtled through the air as Pakura drew her hand up above her head and channeled more Chakra to the inferno growing on her hand.
The amassed Scorch Release Chakra made even the user begin to sweat, made her own hand begin to dry out.
'This isn't good.' Kakashi had seen the technique before, just like he had seen her Scorch Release: False Darkness, so rushed through his next hand seals. He finished in the blink of an eye, three clones made of Lightning erupted forward from him as he threw a single kunai forward and followed after it in a dash. 'She's going to use THAT technique it looks like. She'll turn this place into hell with it if she can pull it off but Anko's a goner if I can't do anything for her.'
His eye shifted to Anko's soon to be corpse.
His eye moved to the thousands still in the stadium.
He only had enough time for one choice.
'I'm sorry Anko.'
His hands moved through the necessary hand signs, the Lightning Cutter shone with life as it erupted in not one but both hands. Bolts of electricity ripped free of the back of his three clones, connected to each of the concentrated spheres of Lightning Chakra in his hands with a multitude of bolts. His kunai was melted by the heat of Pakura's Chakra.
In the blink of an eye the trio of clones launched themselves forward at the speed of lightning.
In the blink of an eye Pakura created an aura of Scorch Release around her body. His clones were destroyed by a barrage of Scorch Release spheres.
In the blink of an eye Kakashi was before her with an identical swirling sphere of Chakra in each hand.
"RASENGAN!"
AN:...
Peace.