This one is super-long to make up for the mildly-short-depressing flashback.
Dude. I SO hope you enjoy. I know I did. x3
Promises Not Made are Promises Never Kept
Chapter Twenty-One: Blade of the Puppeteer
The match began, and for the most part it was actually rather anticlimactic. For a few moments they simply stood there, facing each other with Kankuro holding up a strange object swallowed in cloth beside him and Kaoru snarling at Inaré's feet.
"What your teammate tried to do to mine was unnecessary," Inaré stated simply, her eyes flashing even though her voice remained calm – a trait she had obviously picked up from Sasuke. The clenched fists at her side gave her away. "The match had been called, and still he pressed forward. That isn't the way of an honorable ninja."
Kankuro, unfazed, rolled his eyes.
"I'm too young to worry myself with something like 'honor'," he replied simply, shifting the thing next to him. The movement sent Kaoru closer to the ground, her limps winding up like a spring ready to fire. "That stuff is for stupid old men. My teammate can do whatever the fuck he wants. But if you have a beef with me…" he grinned. "Why don't you just come over here and make it clear?"
Inaré's eyes narrowed, and she brought her hands together, her fingers almost dancing as she performed signs.
"You're ugly," she stated as she did so. "You stink." The air around her began to hum. "And your makeup sucks." She finished the chain, and her Chakra erupted around her like a pure white cloud of smoke, lingering in the air for a moment before it withdrew, sinking into the pores of her skin as she suddenly seemed to become one with the air, speeding towards Kankuro to spin a powerful, angry roundhouse kick directly towards his face. "THAT'S MY BEEF WITH YOU, YOU OVERGROWN TROLL!"
Kankuro ducked, the wind whistling through his ears as the force of her kick made him almost fall over, jumping backwards with his cargo. Landing solidly on both feet, Inaré followed. Inaré's physical attacks (mostly lower body with furious kicks and uppercuts) were fierce and fast, fueled by her anger and sending Kankuro jumping and sprinting across the room just to avoid her – to let one of those hits land would put him out of commission for the rest of the exams, and he knew that. Kaoru simply paced back and forth, staying well out of her master's way and waiting for her cue.
Good, Inaré. Sasuke thought as he watched the match, not taking his eyes away for a second. Keep him in a corner. Keep him pinned. Soon he's going to get desperate for a counter attack, and when he does, he's going to make himself wide open.
"Okay, ENOUGH!"
As if on command, Kankuro pushed Inaré away, and swung outwards with a kunai.
She jumped, landing on his outstretched arm with one foot and crouching, stabilizing herself with one arm clamped around his wrist. They locked gazes, and Kankuro's eyes widened. With Inaré's other leg (the leg closer to him) she swung it mightily, and her shin collided with a nasty crack against the side of his face.
It sent him flying, he and his parcel sailing away to tumble across the arena floor.
Inaré pushed herself up into a stand where she had flipped off the other ninja's arm and landed nicely on the ground, her hair having come undone in the tussle. Kaoru moving to be beside her, she took her hair tie and calmly took her hair back up into the high ponytail that it usually was in, tightening it silently before she flipped her hair back over her shoulder.
"That fucking hurt, you bitch."
The Kankuro that she had hit disappeared, leaving only the wrapped object behind on the floor. Her eyes widened as she realized a presence had appeared behind her, and she dodged the blade he tried to sink into her back to leap away, flipping across the arena floor with a single hand to skid to a stop near the mysterious object.
With that, she put as much distance in between her and Kankuro as she could. Kaoru, silently, backed up to the opposite side of the room, still behind her enemy.
But even though the Kankuro she had kicked had vanished, the new Kankuro was still bleeding, and she smirked as she rubbed the blood she had swiped from his bleeding lips in between her fingers.
Kankuro scowled at her from where he stood, his jaw heavily bruised and blood dripping from his lips. Angrily, he spit out a few of his teeth beside him. Inaré watched this with perverse, snide pleasure from where she stood.
Ha. Serves you right.
"You're gonna pay for that," he swore, turning back to look at her. She smirked, chuckled.
"Sure thing, fancy-pants," she replied easily, bringing her bloodied fingers to her mouth. Looking over them to Kankuro, she gave him a wicked half smile before she licked the blood off her fingers. "We'll just see how good you do after I rip all your limbs off."
Kankuro scowled at her, and then started to make hand signs himself. Inaré's eyes brightened.
Ah, finally!
The thing beside her shifted, and a rattling sound met her ears as the thing actually moved on its own, wooden hands with spikes in the palms shooting towards her. Drawn to the motion, her eyes moved and the threat registered just in time for her to step back, the sharpened points narrowly missing her (one of them managed a thin, light slice across her taut belly) as it zoomed sideways.
What the-?!
As it passed, she grabbed the material that still covered it, yanking it off as it sailed away.
"Meet Crow," Kankuro stated simply as Inaré blinked in disbelief, the life-size puppet made of wood and metal rattling and clacking as it pulled itself up, the head with gapping eyes rolling in the socket. Sasuke pulled a disgusted face at the unsettling image, but Inaré was completely intrigued. "He's going to be the one ending your life today."
"So you're a puppet master," she breathed simply as Crow gathered itself back up, readying for the next attack. The look of awe slowly broke into a smile as she dropped the cloth. "Oh. So cool."
Taking her hands together, she began to make signs again, and as Crow leapt for her again, spikes coming out of its body to start spinning wildly, she finished the new Jutsu and held her palm up to face the puppet.
A blast of Chakra went directly through Crow, not harming it in the slightest but causing just enough disturbances to throw it off-course and tumble off-balance, making Kankuro grunt with the strain to straighten it up and send it back her way.
But that time was enough. When Inaré raised her hand to deflect Crow and throw it to the side to skid wooden face-first along the ground, the change had already taken place.
Her face had acquired similar markings to Kankuro's, and the same strange mechanical designs that were etched into Crow's body had appeared upon her skin. Smiling, she even moved differently, each joint and limb moving separately but together, as one single unit of individual moving parts.
Like a puppet.
Naruto blinked in the utmost confusion, staring at the match in awe.
"What did she just do?" He asked as Kankuro sent Crow her way again and she dodged, joints shivering, as she threw a hand upwards to whack it against the side of Crow's head, snapping it sideways and making it careen that direction. "She's not fighting like she was before. It's like there are two of those things on the field now!" His anger forgotten with this new mystery, the blonde made his way over to Sasuke and stood next to him. "What's with her? What's she doing?"
Sasuke, a little relieved with the idea that Inaré seemed to have this situation under control for the moment, turned to him.
"She's a Copy-Cat nin," he replied simply, as if this explained everything. Naruto's face screwed up into a look of confusion.
"So she's like Kakashi?" He blinked in awe. "Does that mean she has the Sharingan too?"
Sasuke actually managed to laugh at that.
"No, that doesn't mean she has the Sharingan," he responded. "While your sensei is able to copy techniques solely because of his left eye, Inaré's entire clan is made to copy other people's styles. Her bloodline is built to imitate other bloodlines. While Kakashi permanently retains all he learns, she only has access to the skill as long as she's with the fighter she's mimicking. Her last name, KriKo, literally means 'copy-cat'."
Naruto blinked in awe as Inaré's movements matched Crow's, and Kankuro was almost howling in frustration with the ease that Inaré matched his puppet's moves, almost a mirror image of the machine she now faced.
"Wow, that's so cool!" He exclaimed. "So she could copy anyone's bloodline?!"
Sasuke shrugged.
"Well, not permanently of course," he replied. "But for a certain amount of time, sure. Of course, it won't be as potent or as intense as the original, but she uses her own Chakra to make up the difference."
"That's actually… really kind of sad," Sakura replied, walking over to stand next to Naruto as she looked at Sasuke. "So Inaré doesn't have any real skills of her own? She just borrows from other people?"
Sasuke blinked at her for a moment before shrugging.
"That's just the way her clan is," he stated. "Don't worry; I'm sure that's an issue they've struggled with since their bloodline first surfaced. You shouldn't feel sorry for her though." He looked down at the arena, where Inaré was almost cackling with glee at Kankuro's exasperation. "She takes quite a bit of perverse pleasure in turning people's own techniques against them. Especially if she thinks they deserve to suffer."
And by the look in her eyes, she thinks it so. He thought fondly as he watched her, a soft smile on his face. Yep, put her training in a room alone, and she's pretty worthless. But… the smile widened as memories of the days when they had first begun to get into rhythm with each other bubbled up to the surface. Stick her with someone else – just one other person – and she becomes an angry force to be reckoned with. He seemed to nod to himself. She, if anyone in the world, deserves the Sharingan.
"Go, Inaré," he urged her quietly. "Go."
Crush him.
All of the sudden, as Inaré thought she was about to deliver the finishing blow to Kankuro as she appeared behind him and – joints rattling – sent a kunai straight towards his back, she froze.
Quite literally. She could feel all of the parts inside her that had become quite moveable slow and fall silent, and she immediately stilled, kunai barely scratching the clothing covering Kankuro's skin. Sasuke's eyes widened, and he pushed himself up on top of the railings, his feet tangling a few inches from the ground.
"INARÉ!"
Kankuro chuckled as best he could, so out of breath was he, as he turned to face the frozen fighter.
"It's about time that thing kicked in," he commented as he did, eying the small scratch on Inaré's belly. "What, you didn't think I'd go against someone as infamous as you without a little edge, didja?" He smirked, and Inaré could only stare at him in shock as he stood less than a foot away from her, the kunai she held still outstretched and still dangerously sharp, but no longer any threat. "I see the paralytic finally started to affect you. The timing couldn't be better." He grinned at her, and her body began to quiver a little as she struggled against the poison.
"NO!" She wanted to cry, unable to move. "YOU FUCKHEAD!"
"It won't last for very long though," Kankuro continued as he drew Crow nearer to him, taking a wooden pike from the machine's armory of weapons (one with an angry metal spike on the heavier end) and twirling it in his hand. "Especially because so little was administered. So I suppose I should make it count." Grinning, he lifted the mace up. "Time for some payback."
With the blunt side of the weapon, he smashed Inaré across the face, sending her tumbling sideways.
With his other arm though, he caught her, and Crow fell lifelessly to the ground as the Chakra Threads severed. Laughing, he lifted her back up and tilted her back into a stand. Then he did it again to the other side of her face, pulling her straight again. Like a punching bag.
"NO!" Sasuke shouted, enraged and moving as if to leap into the fray. "STOP! THAT'S NOT-!"
Kaoru beat him to it. The great wolf leaped out from where she had been sulking near the edge of the battle and sank her teeth into the hand that held the weapon, making Kankuro cry out in pain as the sheer momentum sent him crashing down with the animal.
"You fucking mongrel!"
"YEAH!" Kiba cried along with Akamaru, recovered for the most part from his match with Naruto, in glee as Dagina roared in appreciation for her companion. "IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!"
Kaoru hit the ground on all four paws, releasing Kankuro's now-useless hand and skidding around in a circle to face the ninja, bloodied teeth bare and aching for flesh. Kankuro, from where he had collapsed, groaned and picked himself up.
"You filthy animal," he snarled at the creature, switching the weapon to his other hand. "I had forgotten about you."
Kaoru's growl assured him that he wouldn't forget again and she leaped for him, faking an attack from directly in front to drop short of contact just as Kankuro swung his weapon, hopping to the left and lashing forward to sink her teeth into his weakened right shoulder, as out of range as she could get from his weapon.
"That wolf is so smart!" Sakura breathed in awe as Kankuro let out a yell, trying his best to hit Kaoru with the pike but only grazing her fur. "She knew exactly where to go to avoid his weapon!"
That's not all. Sasuke thought, some relief in his eyes as he kept his gaze on Inaré. Come on, Inaré. He said it didn't last long. Fight it off!
Switching grips so that he held the weapon by the tail end instead of the center, Kankuro sent the spike of the pike at Kaoru again, and she released his shoulder just in time to duck beneath the blow and move behind him, jumping onto his back as she tried to gain purchase with her fangs on the back of his neck and hopefully end the match in Inaré's favor.
However much in pain he was, Kankuro's reflexes were fast, and he took the animal by the paws and put his entire body into throwing her off and sending her sailing away to the far side of the arena, a high-pitched whimper marking her hitting the floor on her flank and sliding away.
Gasping and bleeding, Kankuro spit in Kaoru's direction and swallowed heavily.
"Damn mutt," he muttered before fingering the pike with intent. "Now…" he turned to Inaré. "To finish the job." He sent the pike forward-
Sasuke's eyes widened.
"NO!"
End Chapter Twenty-One: Blade of the Puppeteer
OMG! *le gasp*
You hate me right? So much you're going to review and tell me so, yes? x3
Much love,
DDB
