Y'all ever tried to write a fight from the perspective of a blind man? Don't do it.
Issues with Gravity
Sasuke charged, swinging Raito with incredible precision at where Kisame (probably) was.
He was proven correct when his blades crashed into Samehada's obnoxious width and length. "Kami, dude," he spat, "compensating for something much?"
"Wow, nobody has ever made that joke at me before." Kisame deadpanned, disengaging and pulling his blade away to swing downwards.
It was...really difficult to describe what Sasuke had learned to sense for, without his eyes to aid him. Sound was the obvious one: Kisame was hardly the most subtle of ninja, and the constant chattering of Samehada was incredibly useful when it came to pinpointing its location. But, well, Kisame was still a ninja, and when his right hand thrust out in a grab at Sasuke's face, it was done practically silently.
And yet, Sasuke ducked.
He dropped his stance low and slashed left and right, forcing Kisame to bring Samehada down and use it as a shield to block the cuts.
Sasuke was reacting 90% to pure kinaesthesia. Every time he touched Samehada, he could feel where Kisame was exerting force from (and everytime we kiss, I swear I could fly). He could feel where the strange shark-man was pushing from, what angle his arms were at, how his feet were planted (which in turn let him dodge the kick that was thrown out at him).
He felt the wind on his skin, an inevitable side effect of the mass of the attacking weapon and the speed at which it was displacing the air, and was able to sway away from the oversized cleaver's vertical chops. He jumped high above its following low sweep, temporarily releasing his swords to make the hand seals for the great fireball before grabbing them out of the air again and charging them with electricity as he completed the manoeuvre. Kisame, on his part, brought up the sword and swung it above his head to catch the flames with pitiful ease. The explosive tag (that Sasuke had left before beginning the jump) did detonate on time, and should have forced Kisame into a position where he had to stop two attacks from two separate directions, but he just...ignored it. Oh yeah, the damage on that thing is way too low this late in the game. Unless I get him to swallow one, premade explosives aren't gonna help me here.
"Chidori!" Sasuke shouted, stabbing forwards with both Raito, but again, Kisame brought Samehada up in the way, and the attack collided harmlessly into the weapon's surface. It just...rustled louder.
"Not gonna help you, kid." Kisame told him, smirk audible. "Samehada here eats chakra for breakfast. Literally, I gotta feed it. You're just doing me a favour."
Well, shit. "For the first time in a long time, it's not actually hypocritical for me to say this: Your powers are bullshit."
"Noted."
Kisame let out a roar and went on the offensive, and oh, boy, was it an offensive. He swung the obnoxious sword of his like it didn't weigh anything at all, and swung it like a motherfucking professional too, cos hey, the guy with the strongest sword in the group SPECIFICALLY RENOWNED for swordsplay is a good fucking swordsman. Who'd'a thunk it.
Sasuke gave ground, being battered backwards, until inevitably (yep, tree stump-) he stumbled under the pressure. A boot to the chest dropped him, and Kisame jumped, swinging Samehada all the way round in a meteor attack that would probably bury Sasuke a good twenty feet until into the ground if it landed. However, Kisame had just made his first mistake of the battle. When you stop using your chakra to anchor yourself to the ground, you become a victim to all of Newton's unpleasantness. Sasuke switched swords, and swung.
There was a boom, as Shibuki collided against Samehada. The blastsword definitely did not use chakra, at least not in a way that could be easily eaten, and while Sasuke was slammed (pretty painfully, mind you) back onto the ground, Kisame was thrown tens of metres backwards through the air.
Sasuke thought that maybe the extra space would do him good.
How innocent of him.
"Water style!" Kisame shouted. "Tsunami!"
From the roaring, Sasuke got a pretty good impression of just how much water was charging towards him, and holy shit was it a lot.
He jumped back up to his feet and swung Shibuki again, the explosion impacting the liquid's surface and buckling it, leaving him in a temporary dome of air as the water crashed down all around him.
He was switching swords again when the wall of water in front of him buckled, and Kisame came roaring through, swinging upwards with Samehada. Sasuke brought Kubikiribochō down to block (the only sword he had that was big enough to effectively counter his opponent's) but had to let himself leave the floor to stop the attack breaking both his arms. He was punted upwards, breaking through into the water above him and then (I'm sure as hell not staying submerged in here with him) he thrust himself further upwards until he broke to the water's surface again.
Immediately, he slipped, almost falling entirely, as the force from the water on his feat and his sense of gravity and the sounds from all around him resolved into one inescapable conclusion.
Oh you gotta be shitting me.
He was balancing on the wavefront. The water was still moving, still spreading outwards from the point of the initial jutsu across the whole damn valley. Kisame popped up to join Sasuke there as the water at the top peaked above them, curling over both their heads.
Both combatants paused, and started laughing.
I am using my ninja powers to SURF on a FIFTY FOOT WAVE while SWORDFIGHTING a MISSING-NIN.
...My life is fucking awesome.
"Water clone jutsu!" Shouted Kisame, and "Shadow clone jutsu!" copied Sasuke, and four of each ninja crashed into each other on the surface of the wave, slipping and sliding along the moving, fluid, near vertical surface, and if this wasn't the ultimate test of chakra control then Sasuke didn't know what was. He threw himself against his personal Kisame, knowing this one was a clone, and that he had an advantage here; Kisame's clones were weaker than he was, while Sasuke's were (ignoring the chakra deficiency) exact copies of him. And still blind. But he was damn well making it work. He was stronger than the clone he was facing, and was able to slowly batter it back across the wave, managing to get a height advantage over it and pummel it with gravity's assistance. Eventually, he was able to knock the fake's sword away and pull off a beheading swipe that turned the entire thing to water, which in turn crashed sideways into the wave. That was when Sasuke realised there was a problem.
Dimly, he'd kept track of the battles going on around him, and noticed a bit of a disconnect; one of his clones had popped, and he hadn't received a rush of memories. What the- (Samehada was rustling) oh, shit. It drains chakra. It can consume the clones. That was 25% of my reserves in one kill.
"Dispel yourselves!" He shouted to his remaining clones, feeling the reassuring rush of the rest of his power back (seriously, how is Naruto so chill with this), and tried to come to terms with the fact that he was now being charged by three Kisame at once.
And without my eyes, I can't tell who's real. Does it even matter? Come on, Sasuke, think! What's different about the clones? They're slower? If he's smart, he'll just limit himself to their level!
They were all almost on top of him when he had an idea. Praying he was right, he jumped away from the wave, spinning, positioning himself so his head was downwards (no, sideways, Kami this is confusing) and put his hands to his lips. "Great fireball!" As he span, the flames span with him, blasting out in all directions.
There were two dull pops.
Sasuke grinned, making more hand seals, as the remaining, real Kisame cut through the flames as though they weren't there.
Shadow clones are just avatars. Their clothing isn't real cloth, it's just more clone. Same with their equipment, and weapons. Cloned explosive tags can't go off like the original...so cloned Samehadas can't absorb chakra.
"Lightning release!" Sasuke started, and then his outstretched feet crashed into rock so suddenly his legs buckled and his entire technique was thrown, What the-
On the wave, Kisame barked out a laugh, and of course, Sasuke had hit the cliff. They'd run out of valley for the wave to travel through, and now Sasuke was about to get caught between a rock and a hard bastard.
"Batter up!" Shouted Kisame.
Sasuke got one foot underneath him, and sucked in a breath.
Then, when Samehada was less than a foot in front of his face, his entire body flashed purple, and he was gone.
Hanabi Hyuuga tilted her head to one side, moonlight framing her face. "Yes? Um, who are you?"
Hinata's head was ringing, the room seemed to be spinning around her-
"Han-Hanabi? Hanabi it's me! It's Hinata, I'm-"
"Hinata?" Hanabi's face exploded into one of sheer joy and she jumped up off the bed. "Big sis!" She ran over and crashed into Hinata, throwing her arms around her. Hinata was too shocked to respond. "You-I-"
"I've missed you so much!" Hanabi gushed. "Ever since I first came up here I always wanted you to come up and meet me, but Toneri always said it was too dangerous, and-"
"Brought here?" Hinata grabbed her sister's shoulders, arms tense. "Hanabi, who-"
But, of course, she already knew the answer.
"Neji did!" Hanabi beamed. "One morning I woke up, and me and him and Itachi were all on the road together! Apparently there was something really dangerous going on in the village that meant that I had to leave, but they both promised me that you were safe, and told me I shouldn't worry, and Toneri said that there was a genjutsu on me to stop me panicking because at the time I just thought it was a really cool adventure, and they brought me through that weird cave that gave me the funny dreams, and then we came up here and I was-"
Neji didn't kill her. Neji was...
"And you've been up here?" Hinata asked. "This whole time?"
"Uh Huh!" Hanabi nodded. "It's really nice here! I can go wherever I want in the whole palace, and the food is good..." she hesitated. "I've...tried to escape a few times. Because I missed you so much. But I could never get past the puppets, and Toneri said-"
"Hold on, hold on." Hinata shook her head. "Hanabi, who is Toneri?"
"That would be me." Said a calm voice from behind her.
Hinata spun.
The first thing she noticed about the man was his skin; it was beyond pale, whiter than chalk and lacking in the visible creases or blood vessels most humans showed. His hair was just as white, and his eyes were closed.
"Oh, Toneri!" Hanabi beamed at him. "Why didn't you tell me you were-"
"Stay away from him, Hanabi." Hinata called out, moving into a defensive position in front of her.
"No, I think you need to stay away from her." Toneri's mouth was set in a scowl. "I invite you to my palace on good faith, and your response is to break into the bedroom of my little sister?"
Hinata recoiled like she'd been slapped. "Your-She's my sister you sick fuck! What the hell have you been doing to her? Where are her eyes?"
"That is not a question you have any right to ask." He told her. "Where is the eye I requested, Hinata?"
Hanabi was 'looking' between them with concern. "Wait, what's wrong? Don't come into my room and fight!"
Toneri paused. And then he said "Very well."
His eyes snapped open.
Hinata's gut lurched and she was yanked forwards through the air but she'd been practicing in case anyone like Pain tried for her again and she span around, using the pull to increase her momentum and bring her foot around in an axe kick parallel to the floor. She crashed into his forearms and they locked eyes, her white irises staring into his single, glowing, aquamarine orb. Then she twisted again, struck twice, and he blocked both, and her Byakugan wasn't up so she couldn't target his tenketsu so he caught the attacks without any real problems, disengaging, and then she was falling, continuing to accelerate down the hallway since apparently that was Downwards now, and Hanabi was screaming from the doorway but Toneri flicked a finger and it slammed shut, and then Hinata had bigger things to worry about since the wall at the end of the corridor was getting closer and closer-
Lightning crackled, she split the ions in the air and then brought them back together, and-
BOOM.
Starlight.
Wow, really hollow. That crust was thinner than I expected.
Hinata flew forwards-(upwards?) in a cloud of rockdust and she was on the outside of the moon, and the Earth was up in the celestial sphere above her, green and blue and massive and oh, it was beautiful. Gravity reasserted itself, declaring to her body that the moon's surface was Downwards, now, and she spun to face the hole she'd made in the crust and LASER-
She fired off sideways one of the most basic wind jutsu she knew to propel herself parallel to the surface, as a metre thick beam of green light blasted out after her, almost catching her feet and turning all the chunks of stone in it's path to orange-glowing lava. Don't get hit by that, got it. Hinata landed amongst the dust, squinting at the aperture.
With a flash, a being suffused with azure light floated out onto the surface in front of her.
Toneri was...on fire, apparently.
"Behold." He declared. "The power of the greatest of all dojutsu. The Tenseigan."
She tilted her head. "I thought the Rinnegan was the greatest dojutsu?"
"Joint greatest." Toneri amended. "While the Rinnegan was the eye of the sage of six paths, the Tenseigan belonged to his brother."
"Oh." She nodded. "So it's not as good." Why can I breathe out here? You know what, I'm not questioning it.
"Of course it's as-" He paused. "Ah. You're trying to goad me. How cute. A technique you picked up from your teammates, I imagine? If you give me the eye now, I promise I will spare them."
She dropped into a sprinter's pose, eyes narrowed. "Thanks. But nobody threatens my team."
A brief check, and oh, good. Her Byakugan was finally working sensibly out here.
She pulled up the first two gates, and charged.
Naruto stepped up to the bars of the Kyuubi's prison. "Hey, bud? You in there?"
Somewhere in the dark recesses (Damn, he must be really mad if he won't even come to the edge) something stirred.
"I let you back in because I assumed you were here with an apology." Came the fox's voice. "Or your soul. Am I getting either or do I kick you out again?"
"Well, depends on whether or not you play your cards right." Naruto leaned on the bars. His proximity caught the fox's attention; he saw its ears prick up from somewhere in the darkness. "Hey, these things have always been here, presumably to keep you away from me. What happens if I cross them?"
"Well." The Nine-tails stood up and padded closer. "There'd be nothing to stop me attacking you inside your own head. It'd be showdown in the mindscape, we'd be going at each other like we were actually fighting in the real world. And if I killed you in here I'd be able to take control of your body, or just escape entirely. 'Course, this only ever happens when a jinchurikki's seal breaks down in some way. Yours won't, and it's not like you'd ever be stupid enough to cross the bars willingly."
Naruto waited.
The Nine-tails looked at him. "No fucking way."
"You want out?" Naruto took a breath, then walked a few steps forwards, passing the barrier. "Go ahead. Try for it."
The Kyuubi was stood there for almost a full second, before snarling and lunging.
Samehada smashed into the cliff face less than a millisecond before the entire wavefront did, shaking the surface hard enough to dislodge a miniature landslide of rocks that came tumbling down into the wet, muddy mess that had been created at the bottom.
Sasuke didn't care, having already sprinted up the entire cliff in an instant and propelled himself backwards into the centre of the valley.
He landed in a burst of electricity, and smirked.
The Sharingan allowed him to copy any technique he witnessed with it, and perfectly mimic said technique so long as he had the chakra reserves and the nature affinity to do so.
He definitely had lightning release, and his chakra reserves were pretty damn good.
So he'd copied the Raikage's lightning release chakra mode.
"What you're about to witness!" He called out to Kisame, who he heard walking closer, "Is a little something I call 'ninkenjutsu!'"
"Uh, I'm not Kisame." Said Kisame, in Kankuro's voice. "Kisame's over there."
"Oh, right, my bad. Wait, are you pointing?"
"Hehe, yeah."
"Fuck you!"
"Impressive." Said the actual Kisame, and Sasuke thanked Kami this opponent was too honourable to try and play tricks on him, "And tasty. How do you think I bested the jinchurikki, boy? Wearing your chakra in a cloak just makes it easier for me to drain it all."
"You'd have to hit me first." Was what Sasuke said, but what he meant was 'one hit from that thing will kill me anyway if I don't have my Susanno up, so it doesn't really matter'. So he charged.
LCM was fast. Real fast. Sasuke suddenly found that he was pressing his advantage, darting around Kisame and swinging Kubikiribochō like...well, like lightning. Electricity suffused the blade, and while Samehada absorbed it from every strike, Sasuke didn't particularly care. Exhausting Kisame's chakra was never going to be how he won.
"Water release! Shark bombs!" Kisame shouted, and shot out giant spheres of something. Sasuke was going to go ahead and guess water and sharks and bombs.
"Chidori," lighting techniques were so easy in this mode, "pincushion!"
Lightning spears shot out in every direction, striking the balls of water and shocking everything inside them. There were a lot of poofs of desummoning from every direction except one; where the rustling told him the electricity had struck Samehada. "Phoenix fire jutsu!" Sasuke called out, firing a hail of burning flak, most of which (again) crashed harmlessly against Samehada, while others flew wide.
A few shuriken dropped to the floor.
Sasuke threw his cleaver above his head and made the hand seals to "Substitution jutsu!" Substituting with an object when you couldn't see it was almost impossible, but Sasuke was one of the only people in the Chunin exams who'd done that kunai projectile question without cheating. Just because he couldn't see it didn't mean he didn't know where it was. He appeared behind Kisame, sweeping up one of the other burning shuriken in his left hand and forming a chidori with his right, thrusting to Kisame's back.
The issue with the substitution jutsu, however, was that it was hella predictable once they caught you doing it. What I wouldn't give for an instant, no-seals substitution...Kisame had spun once he'd seen Sasuke making the hand seals, and was able to catch the chidori on Samehada. Sasuke kept up the pressure, feeling the sword pulling the chakra straight out of his body...but smiled, and tugged his left arm. "Ninja tip for the uninitiated." He panted. "If you're gonna keep using the same trick, your opponent's gonna find a way around it."
The ninja wire on the shuriken very pointedly didn't glint, because Sasuke had learned, and gotten a special paint for them to stop his opponents noticing his schemes right before they came to fruition. Unlike Raikage A, and Kimimaro before him, Kisame didn't see the oncoming threat. Not until Kubikiribochō, tied to the other end of the wire, flew forwards and buried itself in his back.
The shark-man made a "hrk!" noise, and Sasuke darted in past his guard, grabbing his sword and tearing it back out with a very nasty noise.
"I'm calling this the Kimimaro special." He told his opponent, who he could hear falling to one knee. "See that, motherfucker? You just witnessed character development."
"He he heh...not bad." Muttered Kisame, spitting on the floor. "Not bad at all."
And Sasuke promptly shat himself.
Remember, Sasuke. Itachi's words came back to him again. When a seemingly downed opponent starts complementing you and/or laughing maniacally, it's time to start worrying.
The rustling intensified.
"Just once, I'd like to run someone through, and for that person to actually die." Sasuke sighed. "Someone gimme a sit-rep! What's happening to him?"
"He's turning into a shark-man!" Shouted Kankuro.
"What, more than he already is?"
And then he barely brought up his sword in time to prevent his stomach being punched in.
Toneri held up his right arm and shot out a beam of blue energy at Hinata, and she strafed right, analysing it's constitution with her eyes. It was...adamantine. Like Naruto's chains. It would neutralise anything she threw at it. And he was covered in the stuff.
Bullshit. She thought, dodging another beam and running even closer, my powerup may block chakra but it doesn't stop attacks working if they hit me! And I have to kill myself to use it!
She darted left and he tracked her, raising his left arm to fire, but there was a crackling of light and then he yanked the limb back in pain. That let her close in, giving her an opening to swing a lionfist for his head.
He just...moved.
This is why True Flight and True Teleportation are supposed to be almost impossible (without flying raijin). They're just not fair. Hinata's arms cut through nothing but air as Toneri flew backwards and upwards, charging more blasts of energy.
She'd learned something though. Whatever he was doing, he wasn't supposed to be only doing it with one eye. The green flames were barely spreading to his left torso, and from his expression, he was in serious pain. Time to worsen that.
Taking a leaf out of Sasuke's book, she reached into her belt and threw up a line of razor wire before he got any further out of range. It wrapped around his arm (his left, unprotected arm) and she stuck herself to the ground with chakra, making him jerk to a halt in midair.
Got you. She ran through the seals for a blast of lightning jutsu.
Whatever Toneri was doing had no such necessities, and he was able to counter fast, his blast of adamantine energy tearing her techniques out of the air and scything down towards her.
It was move or be disintegrated, and Hinata chose the latter, jumping away and relinquishing her hold on the earth (no, moon)'s surface.
Toneri took full advantage of that, pulling away, and tugging on the razor wire she was attached to him with. Hinata's gut lurched as she was pulled up, well over a hundred metres above the planet's surface. She refused to let go of the wire, but he didn't seem too inclined to remove it either, since he certainly could have by now. Instead, he started spinning.
Hinata's rotational momentum quickly caught up with his, and she was yanked round into a wide orbit with him at the centre. He grinned, and aimed his right hand at her.
Oh, this is just ridiculous. Hinata thought, cheeks flapping from the Gs she was pulling. She made use of what limited movement she had to dodge the blasts as her angular speed increased and the tensile strength of her wire was pushed to its absolute limit. Coming up with a plan quickly, she began throwing shuriken. He batted them all aside, pitifully, throwing them into the distance, and she waited until one went flying at just the right angle-There!
Her hand clenched around the razor wire and flooded it with as much lightning chakra as she could muster.
Toneri howled as Kami knows how many volts and amps coursed through the wire and into his arm; it would have killed any human ninja, but his alien body or the effects of the Tenseigan left it only Incredibly Painful. The wire overheated and melted immediately, but Hinata had already substituted away, leaving behind a rapidly falling shuriken.
Now she was forty-five degrees 'earlier' around the circle, and anyone who's taken maths at a high level could tell you what happened next. All the speed that would have sent her flying away at a tangent instead had her rocketing straight towards the centre. And to him.
Toneri noticed, as she charged up a "Chidori-Lionfist!" but he was facing the wrong way, and in the time it took him to recover from his shocking and turn and bring his arm up, she had more than enough time to extend her own arm and-
Toneri's eyes narrowed. There was a low boom.
Something manifested behind his back, something black yet white that sucked in all light yet glowed and it spread, forming an umbrella in her way, and her technique crashed into it yet did absolutely nothing, and then another sphere of the stuff arced down from above the shield and there was nothing she could do-
Entirely on instinct, her eyes flashed fully white. A shield of Kesshotoketsu blossomed out from her other hand, but the orb just smashed straight through it, and out of sheer desperation, she brought up the Vishnu, opal flooding her entire body and-
There was a dull thud.
Hinata fell, trailing shards of crystal, and crashed through a rocky spar to land on the moon's surface in a crater.
She tried to stagger to her feet, and despite herself, looked down.
There was a cavernous hole in her chest. Over fifteen centimetres in diameter, it was...she could see her own heart. It was the only colour in her body she could see. The rest of her insides were completely white, from skin through to her shattered bone and organs. She couldn't feel any pain, but she crumpled to one knee nonetheless, her body collapsing beneath her. Was this how Neji felt, at the end?
Toneri floated to the floor in front of her, looking at her with pity. Three of the black things floated behind him as he walked towards her. "Your powers are so strange." He mused. "But not beyond my ability to repair. Hanabi would be distraught if you were killed, Hinata. Give me the eye, and I will spare you."
The eye...arms shaking, Hinata reached into her pocket, and pulled out Neji's left Gokei.
Toneri nodded, and there was a tug of telekinesis, yet she tightened her fingers around it, not letting go. "You didn't kill her." Hinata said, addressing the eye, not her opponent. "I...heh. It's funny. That was the condition I used this whole time. I tried to believe, at first, that maybe my cousin couldn't have betrayed me, that there was some secret plot, and eventually you'd come out and tell me what really happened...but I couldn't let go of the fact that you killed Hanabi. Surely, nobody good could have ever made that sacrifice."
"Hinata..." Toneri warned. She ignored him.
"I was so terrified." She mused, throat feeling dry, cracked, as her heartbeat slowed beat by beat. "Itachi started making excuses for you and I almost killed him on the spot because I was so afraid. For the same reason I felt I had to join Orochimaru, really...I couldn't bring myself to let the hate go. Who would I be without it?"
She rasped in a breath. "But...I have to. The violence...it has to stop. Otherwise I'll just destroy myself, and everyone I love in the bargain.
So I accept the truth. I let you go. Neji Hyuuga...I forgive you."
Before Toneri could move, she touched the eye to her throat.
It slid, seamlessly, beneath the surface of her opal, her body accepting it as though it had always belonged as a part of her.
Lower down, the white slowly crept across her labouring heart. It beat one last time...and was still.
And then Hinata died and Toneri blew up the world, the end. That's what happens when you try and fuck with truth seeking orbs, hun.
Again, these fights are taking a long-ass time to write. There's basically no point in me trying to plot what happens on a chapter-by-chapter basis because I just cannot get my head around how long each individual scene will last. I guess that's something that comes with practice, but I'm 200k words deep into this mess, you'd think I'd have figured it out by now!
Also, side note, someone count how many times I wrote 'he/she charged' in this chapter. It's too fucking many, that's how many times.
