In my way #2: Condensed Child Violence
"You are going to die here."
Oh no.
Sasuke darted forwards again, going for the head, but Kimimaro put his hand up and let the blade bury into his palm. His skin turned a dark purple, and his body began to grow and change, and was that a fucking tail? Horns? What the-oh and now he was growing bone over the injury, great-
Sasuke tried to make a jutsu but Kimimaro leapt up with a literal roar and slammed a fist into the ground, hurling him backwards.
"Clemantis dance, Whip." Growled Kimimaro, now resembling nothing more than a velociraptor, as he reached behind himself to-oh, what the hell-
Sasuke jumped out of the way of the bone whip. "Did you just tear out your spinal column? That is metal as fuck-"
Then he was ducking another sweep, and jumping away as it speared the ground next to him. "You know if it keeps switching between rigid and flaccid like that you should probably-"
"Shut up."
"I'm making a penis joke."
"Stop talking!" Kimimaro roared, sprinting towards him.
Sasuke did the sensible thing, and booked it towards the forest.
He was completely and utterly out of his depth. He knew this.
Kimimaro was stronger than him, faster than him (judging from the rapidly closing sounds of his monstrous footsteps) more durable than him, and probably still smarter, despite the cursemark.
The genjutsu trick probably wouldn't work again either, which left Sasuke with a mind completely empty of plans; his only thought was to get into the trees where Kimimaro's larger size would make him (hopefully) less manoeuvrable.
Of course the moment he actually got under the tree cover, he realised the problem with that plan. Kimimaro began swinging his whip wildly, and completely tearing the trees apart beneath Sasuke's feet.
Shit.
What can I do what can I do what can I do-
There was only one piece of advice Sasuke had left rattling around in his brain. Another gem from Itachi.
Remember Sasuke, a lot of people are gonna complain about your Sharingan. Laugh good naturedly, and promise to turn it off in sparring. But in a real fight, when your life is on the line? You abuse whatever the hell you have to to survive.
What was the only thing Sasuke had over Kimimaro? Visual prowess and a kickass lightning punch.
So how did he leverage that to win?
Hinata blitzed forwards and punched. Naruto caught it on his shoulder, not moving, shifting back into stance. Then he punched back. She slid backwards. Then the black markings from her cursemark spread across her body and she punched again.
That got a reaction.
The stone beneath them cracked and Naruto was thrown off, and this time Hinata jumped straight after him. Mid-air, they put their hands together at the same time. "Shadow clone jutsu!"
Three Naruto and three Hinata landed on the water's surface, and broke into taijutsu. Hinata...was better than Naruto at fistfighting. He knew this. Her gentle fist was frankly completely busted OP. But she wasn't more experienced at shadow clone combat. Being able to ruin someone with one attack means nothing special if they already break in one attack.
While Naruto Prime was backing up away from the waterfall and blocking desperately, his two clones were soundly beating Hinata's (mostly through self-sacrificial tactics and repeated clone-cloning.)
They ran up behind her as she pressed down on Naruto, but (seeing everything) she jumped upwards, catching both attacks and kicking both in the head midair. She landed, and kept walking forwards.
"Alright fine if you're gonna be a badass..." Naruto grouched. "Multi-shadow clone jutsu!" It was time to take off the 'this is just a spar' gloves.
One hundred, give or take. He's outdoing himself. Hinata noticed. She shifted her feet. "Eight trigrams. Sixty four palms." The clones rushed her and she countered, each strike deadly, movie like a reaper through their ranks and popping them one after the other. The Hyuuga multi-palm strikes were almost perfectly designed to take down the multi-shadow clone technique; allowing the user to put thirty, sixty, even a hundred and twenty clones into the ground in the course of a few seconds, even breaking through to the jutsu's caster and partially damaging them. This was, of course, against all shadow clone users that weren't Uzumaki Spam-It-To-Death Naruto.
The clones, getting the memories and chakra of their deceased comrades, made more clones. As her technique came to a close she had made no recognisable dent in the clones' forces, so she prepared a slightly more direct solution. "First gate! Open!" She felt her adrenaline pump faster as her body moved into overdrive. She blitzed forwards and punched, and her momentum took her straight through three of the clones. She didn't bother targeting them, simply elbowing and kneeing her way through any Naruto in between her and her target. The Naruto standing separately from everyone else. His eyes widened and he fell into a defensive stance as she approached, and she got within a few metres of him before her momentum was suddenly halted.
"Heave!" Shouted one of the Naruto clones; two of them had launched the adamantine chakra chains from their hands and caught her about the arms. They may not have been real, but they certainly had Naruto's mass, and his strength. Not strength enough, though, and chakra suppression did nothing against the gates. She yanked one arm and took one of the clones off his feet entirely, slamming him into one of the statues, then punched off the chain on her other arm, before lunging back at Naruto. The half second it took her was too long; by the time she got to him Naruto had substituted with a clone, who had the audacity to grin at her as she punched it in the face. She turned around towards the Naruto crowd, sprinting towards the one she'd seen doing the handseals for the substitution, but by that point the rest of the Naruto had caught onto the plan and were randomly substituting the real Naruto amongst them, and with each other, making him nearly impossible to keep track of. Those that weren't were just gang piling Hinata. They came at her from every angle, deliberately choosing the path of most resistance, planning only to impart as much momentum as they could before they died. She could destroy them no problem, but it left her slow, struggling, more at risk from the chains that snaked in occasionally to try and grapple her.
Oh. He's using his anti-Lee plan against me. she realised with a start. And it was actually working. Bastard.
Deciding she needed some breathing room, Hinata resealed the first gate, and smoothly shifted into a more defensive posture as they continued to lunge at her. "Eight trigrams! Heavenly spin!" She twisted, and the blue dome of chakra came to life around her. A few more shadow clones dispelled themselves running into it before they got the gist and hung back.
"I thought it was called 'Rotation'?" The real Naruto said, from some distance away.
"So did I!" Hinata replied, still spinning. "It depends on the translation!"
"Sounds like a plot hole!"
"It's really not; the only info I had on it before was from some less advanced scrolls and-"
"Wind blade jutsu!" She glared at him, annoyed, as he interrupted her with a large scythe of chakra that shattered on her shield.
This only compelled the other clones to try.
After a few unsuccessful seconds of kunai, explosive tags and other wind jutsu, one of the clones had the brains to use the adamantine chakra chains, and that had an effect, especially when over a dozen of the others tried it. The golden chains wrapped around her dome and the chakra that made it up began to fizzle out; in fact it created a sort of chakra suppression zone within the dome that began to stop her emitting energy. Her usually perfect vision flickered. She wondered if he even knew he was doing it.
Grimacing, she cut the technique and fell into a sprinters position, and the moment the technique finished she blasted off the ground, jumping through a gap in the chains back towards the army. But this time, she had a plan, and started making hand seals.
Time to break out the new techniques. Assuming I can pull it off...
As horrible as her introduction to it had been; her family's vaults were a figurative goldmine of techniques. How to do the heavenly spin properly, how to focus her Byakugan's vision like a telescope, how to extrapolate the eight trigrams technique to a theoretically infinite number of strikes...None of which had immediately piqued her interest as much as one technique, which she had promptly spent the next day trying to learn. It's effectiveness against Naruto specifically was...a fortunate side effect.
"Gentle step!" She cried. "Twin lion fists!"
Blue chakra blazed to life about her hand, and she struck.
She destroyed well over five shadow clones before the remainder realised what was happening, and another five before they all had the thought to dispel themselves. Left alone was the real Naruto, gaping at her. "That is awesome. What the hell is it doing?"
Hinata stood to her full height (which was still embarrassingly below five feet) and held her arms out to either side. The two lion heads around her hands did look pretty cool. "The twin lion fists is one of the greatest techniques of the Hyuuga clan." She orated. "They drain the chakra of whatever they touch. Am I correct that you didn't get the memories or power back when the clones dispelled?"
Naruto's eyes narrowed in focus, and she could feel him reevaluating his options. Hinata herself made sure to keep her expression calm, and not show the fear she was experiencing. Due to him summoning so many clones at once, each one had had only a miniscule fraction of his chakra, yet she was feeling swamped by the quantity currently running though her system from draining ten of the hundred-and-change. Some quick mental maths left her in awe of his chakra reserves; she'd seen them before, sure, but feeling was a lot different, and she was almost certain if he split himself only in two, draining the clone would probably knock her unconscious.
But for now, all he knew was that his zero cost bullshit technique was no longer zero cost.
Perfect.
Kill him kill him kill him-
Was the mantra Kimimaro used to maintain his focus. A bit unorthodox, but it worked. Above him, in the trees, Sasuke had begun throwing shuriken. Lots of them.
Most bounced off Kimimaro's hardened skin, and plenty just missed entirely; the Uchiha was throwing them with reckless abandon, seemingly at random, often not even close to their target.
A distraction tactic, then. Kimimaro ignored them, and focused on using his whip to try and snatch Sasuke's leg and pull him down, chasing deeper into the forest.
His target began to swerve, double back on himself, trying to punish Kimimaro for his smaller turning circle. It was a decent plan. So Kimimaro began smashing completely through the trees in his way. That certainly helped; eventually Sasuke was left standing on the only remaining tree in a brand new clearing. Grimacing, he began making hand seals as Kimimaro charged towards him.
"Clemantis dance; Flower." Kimimaro grinned as he called checkmate, and prepared the final part of his fourth dance. His free hand morphed and twisted, growing into a long, wickedly sharp bone lance, capable of punching through just about anything.
"Chidori!" Sasuke countered with an unfamiliar technique, blue lightning coalescing around his fist, as he propelled himself off the tree down towards his opponent.
In the back of his mind, Kimimaro recognised that as an incredibly silly move, and that suspicion was what allowed him to spot the faint glint of reflecting sunlight in front of him.
Razor wire.
Sasuke began to grin.
Kimimaro quickly understood the gambit, seeing in his peripheral vision the kunai and shuriken embedded in the trunks of trees; not random, but carefully thrown, with stands of wire wrapped around their hilts. A net stood in front of Kimimaro and if Sasuke had his way, it would wrap him up and slow him down, trapping him for long enough for that lightning blade to stab into his chest.
And it almost worked.
Kimimaro made his whip rigid, and swept it in front of him, slicing the razor wire apart.
Sasuke's face fell.
Now, he was falling, with no surfaces to bounce of, and on a trajectory that was painfully easily to calculate.
Kimimaro quickened his pace.
With the path he was on, he would skewer Sasuke before he even hit the ground, and proceed to smash him against the tree he had jumped from in a guaranteed killing blow.
Which was why it was such a surprise when Sasuke suddenly jerked in midair.
Time slowed down.
Kimimaro's eyes widened and he saw it, wrapped around Sasuke's right leg; more of the wire. But that was impossible, Kimimaro had just cleared out the whole web, there couldn't be any left! Not unless he had prepared it in a way so that when certain wires were snapped, others were tightened, so that the overall web would change entirely when...but that was impossible! In order to have everything interconnect like that, thrown with perfect precision, the visual acuity required...it was impossible. Without something like the Sharingan.
Kimimaro closed his eyes.
Sasuke's downwards acceleration was halted, converted into a swing, as Kimimaro's momentum carried him inevitably forwards, not into but underneath his opponent.
Uchiha Sasuke winked at him.
And then the Chidori tore down into his back.
Naruto bit his finger and palmed the surface of the water. "Summoning jutsu!" Doing this with any degree of precision rather than just throwing the net out for the strongest summon he had...it required a lot of chakra control, especially for Naruto, but he was able to grab and pull the toad he was looking for.
This one was a dark purple with orange splotches, lean bodied, standing just over two metres tall on its hind legs.
"Toxicroak! Close combat!"
"Yeah, okay, can you stop with the naming us after Pokemon?" Toxicroak winced. "We have names. Blastoise is a turtle, not a toad, and I've never even heard of Toxicroak."
"Really? Gen four, dude. The best generation."
"It is not."
"Yes it-you know what, whatever. Hit the lady with the blue hair."
Toxicroak jumped forwards, and Naruto followed him.
Hinata glared, and Naruto grinned at her. Sage creatures used sage chakra, which Jiraiya had vaguely explained to him at one point. Most importantly, Hinata's Byakugan couldn't see them, so she'd have to keep Toxicroak in normal sight range. And it didn't have tenketsu, so she couldn't use the gentle fist on it. And unless he was mistaken, she couldn't drain sage Chaka either. Toxicroak, meanwhile, was Naruto's best taijutsu summon. How do you like them apples, huh?
Hinata of course had her solution, she slit her thumb open with a nail and palmed the water beneath her, copying him. "Summoning jutsu!"
Beside her, Forsooth appeared, taking one look at the situation and sighing. "My lady-"
"Tell me you've changed your mind about the plan, and we'll call it off." She told him, not looking away from Naruto.
Forsooth tapped his beak, but said nothing, before rising to the air with a few mighty flaps of his wings.
Naruto wasn't having any of that 'altitude' nonsense.
"Boost me!" He shouted to Toxicroak, jumping up onto his back, and the toad pushed him upwards. He reached and blasted out a chakra chain, managing to wrap it around Forsooth's legs just before the owl could cast a jutsu. He didn't think the chains could stop sage techniques, but they could certainly wrap its claws up.
"Ha ha!" He shouted, victoriously.
Forsooth glared at him. Then dived.
"Ha! Ha-ugh?" The chain went taught. With an incredibly unmasculine scream, Naruto was sent hurtling off the edge of the waterfall.
Left alone, Hinata moved to block the punches of the worryingly muscular toad. The lionfists didn't seem to do much draining, but they did increase her attack potency, and her other strength multipliers were still up. They went back and forth, her a concentrated bullet of power, it a larger, more evasive opponent.
It was a hell of a fight, pushing her taijutsu to the limits, and she idly wondered if Naruto was having a similar fight with the ever-calculating Forsooth.
"LET GO!"
"NO!"
"LET GO!"
"NO!"
"LET GO!"
"NO!"
The trees beneath Naruto were going past way too fast. He tried not to look down, and focused on climbing his way up the golden chain linking him to the big blue bird.
"I will drop yooou!" Forsooth threatened.
"You can't!" He shot back, moving further up.
"I will desummon myself, and yooou'll fall!"
"You can't do that either!" He pointed out.
As long as he had Forsooth (literally) by the claws, he had him (figuratively) by the throat; no jutsu, no auto-dispelling, no attacking.
The owl evidently decided on the next best thing, which was to drop until he was just above tree level and let Naruto fall towards the leaves. "Oh for-"
He grabbed the chain harder and braced as his body smashed through the branches of the trees Senju Hashirama had so thoughtlessly grown there; not to mention at least three squirrels and one enraged crow. Eventually, Forsooth's own momentum was bled dry as Naruto attempted to deliberately grab the larger trunks, forcing the summon to climb higher into the air and drag Naruto back out of the danger zone.
"Okay, if you-pthuh!" Naruto spat out a twig. "Do that again we're going to have problems! Take me back to Hinata!"
"I will not." Snapped the bird. "My lady specifically desires yooou remoooved from her presence."
"Yeah, but she summoned you because she didn't think she could fight that frog. And now she has to, alone, without you." Naruto pointed out.
"Lady Hinata will be fine." Forsooth replied, with a little less certainty.
"Are you really helping her betray everyone she cares about?" Naruto tried. "What happened to owls being wise?"
"I disagree with her decision." Forsooth grumbled. "But the higher ups, as it were, have decided tooo support her."
"And you're just going with that?" Naruto exclaimed. "Look, bring me to her and I'll talk to her, convince her she was being stupid, bring her back, everyone's happy!"
"That would be against-"
"Screw the rules!" Naruto interrupted. "Screw the elders! Do what you think is right!"
Forsooth looked down at him. Huffed.
"I am going to regret this..."
"Water bullet!" Croaked Toxicroak, blasting the projectile towards Hinata; who put one lionfist out and caught it with little difficulty. She lunged through the ensuing explosion and was able to get a kick in to the toad's ribs. It flew backwards, but instead of landing on the surface of the water it vanished into the currents with a loud splash. Of course, amphibious. And now it can attack me from below without my Byakugan being able to track it.
But stupid. She made a few hand seals and poured some lightning release chakra into the water. There was a smell of ozone, a few fish flopped up to the surface, and there was the sound of desummoning.
Hinata sighed and stood up, stretching, and remembered to pay attention to her previously useless Byakugan. Which was when she spotted Forsooth flying towards her from upstream.
Naruto, dangling from the owl's tied up feet, released his grip. The chains dissipated, allowing Forsooth to make the hand signs to dispel himself just before there was a bang from (presumably) an explosive tag. Naruto inherited all the momentum, flying forwards with a double kick Hinata barely had time to get her hands up to block.
Naruto slammed into her arms, and not wanting to break both her own legs, she released the water-walking attraction and let herself be thrown backwards. She hadn't anticipated to fly quite as far, however. Her eyes widened as she was flung metres away, legs kicking down to catch the ground and missing, as with a small "eep!" She fell over the edge of the waterfall and began plummeting down to the lake below.
Kimimaro slid to a stop after a few metres. The pain was so intense he could hardly even move, as behind him Sasuke disentangled himself from the wiring and dropped to the floor.
"I really need to stop fucking with my leg." He heard the Uchiha growl. "And that's what you get for falling for the same trick twice, bitch. WOO!"
He was right. A second trick hidden beneath the first; not even that complex of a plan by ninja standards, but Sasuke had pulled it off with the genjutsu, and again with the wire. It was the price Kimimaro had paid for the power of the cursemark, detriments to his higher brain functions.
And now he was dying.
He could feel it; even as his body desperately tried to regrow bone over the damage to his heart and central nervous system. There would be no excuses this time, either. It was just as his master had promised. Here his mission had bid him succeed at all costs, and he had failed.
No. Not yet.
Death was not failure. His master would have his new body if Hinata made it. He could still succeed; if he was able to kill Sasuke now.
He inhaled, marshalling his chakra, and preparing his broken body for a last few minutes of action.
Then he put his palms to the floor, and uttered the words.
"Bracken Dance."
I promised you violence, and lo I have delivered. I hope I got across the fact that Kimimaro is way stronger than Sasuke. But stronger doesn't necessarily mean better or going to win. I'd claim the influence of how Sasuke's desire to save his friends is stronger than Kimimaro's will to serve his master, but nah really it's more that Sasuke's an actual genius and his dojutsu is freaking busted. Naruto's and Hinata's respective toolkits finally get to come to blows and do so pretty spectacularly; his stupid chakra levels and spammable techniques going up against Hinata's very specialised abilities and crippling lack of AoE damage. Next chapter; the conclusion of the big fights I've been planning ever since like chapter fifteen.
