Hi, and thanks for coming back :):):). Writing is a pretty empty experience without readers, so I hope you enjoy Chapter 5. --Jonohex.
Now, without further adieu...
Free for all
Pronunciation: \ˈfrē-fə-ˌrȯl\
Function: noun
Date: 1881
:A disorderly fight, argument, or competition in which everyone present participates. See synonyms at brawl.
A quarrel, fight, or disturbance marked by very noisy, disorderly, and often violent behavior: affray, brawl, broil2, donnybrook, fray, melee, riot, row2, ruction, tumult. Informal fracas. Slang rumble. See attack/defend.
Here we go, look out below
I'm on the prowl tonight
When it's said and done I have my fun
I can chew anything I bite
Come one, come all to a midnight ball
The invitation's there
I come alone and I'm drivin' home
I'm healthy, I do declare
It's a free-for-all.
--Ted Nugent, Free For All
Kiba
Having proceeded with greater caution, with Akamaru's sharp senses alert, and using chakra to heighten his own, Kiba Inuzuka soon discovered that they were far from alone in the woods that surrounded Senju Park. It appeared as if that lone sound-ninja they'd surprised earlier was only a sentry for an entire squad of them that lay in wait around the park's edge.
I can't freakin' believe there's so MANY of them, hissed the young ninja to himself. Leaf Village security never was that great but THIS is just ridiculous!
Kiba's eagerness to find out what these intruders were up to quickly gave way to wanting to get revenge, for his fists to start slamming into sound-ninja jaws, his kunai to start sticking into sound-ninja carcasses -- payback for what Otogakure had done to his village four months ago and he was NOT about to wait very much longer. The genin certainly wasn't going to waste time trying to find out what happened to the ANBU who'd replaced him or if they even knew about what was going on. As far as he was concerned it was obvious that these invaders were up to no good so it was better to f-ck up their plans first then find out what those plans were second!
Creeping around to their flank, a very simple plan of attack materialized – he and Akamaru would unload with their most powerful combined justu, Beast Transformation, first in order to take out as many as possible by surprise, fake a retreat into the woods to regroup then pick off whoever was left.
And if they pull that Okame scumbag from the wreckage, Kiba proposed with righteous anger, so much the better!
The young, chestnut-haired leaf-ninja pressed his fingers together for what would be the first in a series of hand signs but then stopped as the wind shifted, carrying with it a pair of familiar scents – Hiroo Okame's along with one of the ANBU's.
What the --? he thought then peeked out through the underbrush into the park, from where the scents drifted.
There on a bench, just as peacefully as could be, sat the girly-faced mist-ninja kid and some old lady having what seemed like a nice conversation. Except that Kiba's heightened sense of smell was telling him it wasn't an old lady, but a MAN in disguise and one of the ANBU he'd talked to earlier. One of the four gardeners toiling away on the hedges and flower beds just a few paces away from them was the other.
Wait a minute…what the hell's going on? Kiba puzzled as another idea crashed across his imagination. Maybe those guys weren't ANBU at all! And maybe Okame's NOT teamed up with these sound-ninjas!
The genin remembered that he really hadn't pressed the two masked shinobi to identify themselves, so they could easily have been imposters. Then too, they'd seemed a little strange even for black-ops. And it seemed kinda weird, now that he was thinking about it, how they'd never once referred to the visiting mist-ninja by name: Hiroo Okame.
Kiba's dark, wolfish eyes flickered in the direction of the ninjas waiting in ambush then back toward Okame who might or might not know anything about what was going on, back and forth again, until the memory of what Lady Tsunade had told him reasserted itself – 'If anything, ANY-THING, happens to him, then you'll be PUSHING A BROOM!'
"Oh, sh-t," muttered the leaf-ninja softly to himself, face blanching, breath racing, as he watched Okame rise, bow then start to walk away.
The visitor hadn't gone further than a couple of steps when the fake woman took up a length of the scarf he wore, flicked it like an expert fly-fisherman and snagged the mist-ninja constable around the neck. Okame staggered back, hands flying toward his throat, as the disguised ninja pulled hard, twisted into him and locked the young shinobi in tight, helpless and quickly being strangled.
The gang of gardeners, their disguises vanishing in blurs of dissipating chakra, rushed into motion with blades drawn as they leaped intent on butchering their helpless prey while still more ninja burst from the woods behind, all dressed not as shinobi but in ordinary street clothes.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" roared Kiba with teeth bared as he exploded from the underbrush with chakra surging into his legs. Thirty yards of distance flew past him in a green whirl as he threw himself toward Okame with all hopes of a decent future as a leaf-ninja crumbling away before his eyes. Lowering his shoulder, Kiba thundered through an as-yet unorganized skirmish line of enemies, knocking surprised assassins aside like a speeding train through so many hay-bales.
With feet pounding, muscles burning, Kiba looked up in desperation to realize that he and the gardener/swordsmen were going to converge simultaneously. The genin threw himself on, willing his legs to run faster, but lost control as he tried to push them too far. Stumbling over the last twenty feet that separated him from the mist-ninja, Kiba barely kept himself upright then at the last moment lunged in an effort to shove Okame away with as much strength as he could summon.
Even as his outstretched hands made contact with the trapped boy, Kiba knew he'd gotten there too late. The race was a tie and the enemy ninjas' fatal sword thrusts plunged under the visiting shinobi's vest up deep into his belly. But before the young Inuzuka's thoughts could flash on the ramifications or what he should do next, Okame's body burst into a spray of water and glistening vapor which caught the sunlight in prismatic, rainbow hues.
Water…Kiba considered with eyes wide as he crashed through where the mist-ninja had just been…clone.
Careening forward completely out of control, a hopelessly off-balanced prisoner of his own momentum, the wet genin raised his arms to guard his head and neck but the slashes he expected never came as the assassins near him stiffened eerily, their knees buckling, their weapons falling from failing grasps. Only at last did Kiba catch sight of the gleaming metal tines that stuck from their necks, backs and chests.
Sh-t! Kiba yelped, ducking down and drawing kunai, as bodies all around started to fall under a silent fusillade of senbon; with stricken, surprised cries filling the air.
"Ninja, scatter!" an order rang out way too late.
A man, another disguised sound-ninja dressed as a waiter, rushed at Kiba who gave a head-feint then ducked under his swiping sword and cut him across the stomach. Spinning back close and in-tight, the genin reversed his grip and hammered his kunai hilt-deep into the would-be killer's ribs.
The sounds of racing footsteps told Kiba of other enemies rushing toward him. Without sparing a look, Kiba hooked the first ninja's arm as he started to doubled over, and rolled over his back to turn the already wounded ninja into a shield. The oncoming attackers managed to stop their blows in time but then stumbled back as the young ninja shoved the body of the first into them.
Kiba leaped back to the edge of the tree-line then paused as he saw someone descend from a high leap onto the wooden park bench – a uniformed figure with a face far too fair and angelic to be male and who moved with an egret's grace, whose crossed hands ended in spreads of metal pinfeathers. A ripple coursed through the supposed victim, Hiroo Okame's, body, then uncoiled through his arms which lashed out, sending another wave of senbon streaking forth.
Two more assassins clutched their chests and fell, joining half-a-dozen of their comrades. More swordsmen, all in anonymous dress, rushed Okame and the mist-ninja whirled forth to meet them, batting away their strikes with bundled senbon then slashing and stabbing with their points unfurled like fans.
Kiba shook himself from the odd spectacle and got back to business. "All-Fours Jutsu!" he barked seriously with fingers locked in a seal, then dropped to his hands and the balls of his feet as his appearance shifted lycanthropically in response to his chakra. Leaping back and forth then, too agile to track, Kiba tore into the already disorganized and dispirited remnants of the ninja-assassins with fists, feet and short, slashing claws. Before the enemy could even think about regrouping, Akamaru rejoined his partner and an instant later flashed into an exact duplicate of him – the leaf-genin's 'Man-Beast Clone Jutsu'.
"Yeah! That's the stuff, boy!" roared Kiba with joyous satisfaction as their enemies fell before their combined onslaught one-after-another.
The young leaf-ninja looked back at Okame, having made a point NOT to lose track of him, and noted (not too unhappily) that not only was the kid uninjured, he hardly even seemed concerned.
Akamaru, still identical to his partner, spun suddenly and knocked Kiba down then as a jet of noxious liquid squirted from the direction of the forest right through where the boy's face had been. Though it had missed by a good couple of feet, the genin still gagged and coughed wretchedly, his eyes stinging, from the unknown substance's virulent potency.
Poison! the ninja realized at once, recovered then tried to shake off the effects. "So," Kiba growled as he and his double bounded evasively then dove into the woods in pursuit of their attacker, "there's one left. And THIS guy plays f-ckin dirty."
Haku
After the last of the assassins had fallen, Haku looked toward the trees where Kiba and a second Kiba had disappeared. He kind of hadn't expected the leaf-genin to come charging in for a rescue like that and, although it had been something of a complication at the time, Haku had to admit it gave him a nice feeling.
Evidently, my 'tail' is also my bodyguard, Haku concluded, and he sure seems to take his assignments personally, the ninja noted with an approving smile. Even though he WAS a second late.
It felt good that somebody 'cared' about him even if it was only in an official capacity. And then too this turn of events had, in the young shinobi's mind, shed some light on the bigger picture: Kiba's whole-hearted attempt to save him (and you definitely couldn't fake a performance like THAT) made Haku all but certain that these ninja who'd tried to kill him were not from Konohagakure as he'd thought, and gave some reassurance that Lady Tsunade's conversation with him earlier really had been on the level.
At first sight, Haku had worried that Kiba's arrival might ruin the counter-attack he'd planned, but it had all worked out in the end. Avoiding hitting the leaf-genin and his puppy (what was his name again?) with senbon had been easy enough to do and the pair had certainly handled a good share of the fighting afterwards.
Zabuza's disciple grinned. He really hadn't expected Sakura's friend to be quite so…unusual: the unkempt, dark brown hair; the slight wildness in his eyes; the big, grey, hooded and fur-fringed jacket he wore that made Kiba's lean frame seem so much bigger, or the bright red half-crescents tattooed on the sides of his face.
Fangs? Haku had guessed even before he'd seen Kiba grimace during the fight and noticed that the boy had real ones – not vampiric, but definitely longer and pointier than most peoples' canines.
Actually, for a second, Haku had felt a pang of trepidation at the idea that this genin might be like Hoshigake. But that didn't seem right. Kiba's abilities and traits felt as if their source derived more from a natural affinity with animals, maybe even a sense of kinship, rather than the ill-conceived experiments which had produced Zabuza's fellow Swordsman, The Scourge of the Hidden Mist, Kisame Hoshigake.
You really shouldn't be surprised by his peculiarities, Haku mused pleasantly. That's the only consistent thing among Sakura's class of genin, from Rock Lee to Naruto to Sasuke, to Sakura herself and now, Kiba – how different they all are.
Staring contemplatively toward the tree-line, with almost a dozen pin-cushioned bodies laying near his feet, the ninja crossed his arms and hummed to himself. I suppose I should go after him, he concluded after a time. Kiba might resent my assistance but if he's gone after another one of my killers then helping him out is the least I can do.
Haku took a step toward the woods but then froze in his tracks. There it was again: a sense that he was still being watched.
A frown creased the constable's youthful, feminine face. Apparently, he realized, there are still at least TWO more assassins.
The shinobi looked slowly into the trees, between the trunks at first, then up into the boughs higher and higher until he craned his head all the way up toward the very top. There among the topmost branches stood a young woman with straight, sandy hair cut dead-level at the bottom, dressed in a long, off-teal smock of the sort a seamstress might wear. Though her face was deadpan, her eyes stared intently.
Haku bowed then gave the woman a disarming smile. There was a chance, he supposed, albeit a very, very small one, that she didn't come here to fight along with the rest or that maybe that she could be dissuaded; that maybe a friendly gesture was all it would take.
His watcher slowly unbuttoned her smock and shed it; part of a disguise she no longer needed. Underneath she wore a blousy silver shirt gathered at the waist with a yellow sash. The kunoichi raised her hand out level then rocked it back and forth. 'So-so,' the gesture said. 'Your fighting skills are so-so.'
In the blink of an eye the woman leaped from her branch and swooped down on him. Haku sidestepped nimbly but his new foe leaped backward then, to his disbelief, changed vectors in mid-air and struck at him again this time slashing his right forearm, not with any weapon but with the chakra focused into the tips of her fingers.
Zabuza's apprentice spun around, his fresh wound stinging, as the girl flew away then came to a stop -- perched atop the ridge of the distant restroom's gabled roof. Standing arrow-straight like a silver weather-vane with her light-colored hair waving gently in the wind, the assassin turned back towards him, coiled her hands past one another then, at the end, extended her lead hand out with her fingers flexed into a three-fingered claw with her back hand cocked close to her ear.
Such speed, thought Haku. In a straight line she's faster than I am. His expression shifted slightly as the realization gave him an idea.
The silver-clad kunoichi eyed him dispassionately then glanced at her fallen compatriots and expressed a sigh. "Never send rock-hogs to do an eagle's job," she intoned then scowled as her target adopted a rigid stance, with his right hand behind his back and the other held out in an open, upward-facing palm – something he'd seen before recently. "You…you just can't wait to die, can you?" the woman remarked then soared at him, almost faster than the eye could follow.
Again Haku sidestepped but this time, with a discordant chime and an explosion of crystalline shards and particles, let the oncoming ninja crash through a nearly invisible sheet of ice that he'd formed right in front of him using seals made with his unseen hand.
Haku coiled at the waist then fired a one-knuckled phoenix-eye punch targeted under the startled, shaken and off-balanced kunoichi's ear which she managed to weather, barely, by crouching down and hunching her shoulders at the last moment.
Following after her, Haku punished the assassin with a pair of instep kicks fired in quick succession, one low and one high. The woman drew her knee up into her chest to block the first with her shin then leaned away from the second to lessen its impact. Leaping back then to get some distance, the kunoichi gave the teenager a warlike grimace, brushed her length of sandy hair back with both hands then charged. Right before closing, she jumped at Haku with legs drawn in tight and arms outstretched but the move was only a feint. The actual targets for the snapping kicks that followed were low – into the bowels and groin.
Haku, being alert and experienced, blocked the first with a downward thrust of both overlapping palms then deflected the second to the outside as he jumped aside. Immediately, the woman spun around, slashing at the young ninja's eyes with a three-fingered claw then, after Haku ducked, struck straight toward his neck with her left.
Back and forth they traded blows and blocks, one flowing into the other and each move a continuation of the one before until the assassin suddenly leaped away.
Haku flung a spread of senbon after her but the kunoichi touched down then sprang straight up, avoiding the oncoming missiles which shot just under her. The black-haired teenager veered and readied another flight but then, catching a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and realizing that the woman's withdrawal had been calculated, sent them hurtling off toward his left.
The tea-vendor lurched and ducked for cover, his shot fouled by the long needles that struck him in his arm and chest, but still a stream of acrid liquid shot forth from a hand-held nozzle that fed back to his urn in a sweeping, wild arc which caught Haku across the neck and back of his armored vest as he turned to avoid it.
Haku's face constricted in pain. His eyes burned, his vision blurred and his breath stopped in his chest as his body, unwilling to inhale, recoiled from the caustic fumes. The young ninja, gagging and half-blinded, realizing he was a sitting duck, rolled aside as something fast whirled by him, tearing his vest in its passage.
Between the kunoichi and the tea-vendor, Haku presumed, he wasn't going to last long unless he was able to get his head clear and find some cover.
Chakra-empowered fingers slashed across his flank from one direction then again across his thigh from another and the ninja could feel the hot trickles of blood seeping into the fabric of his clothing. Haku huddled over, crouching to protect his stomach, with arms raised to cover his head but he knew this was a losing strategy, a futile stall for time at best.
Kiba
The youngest of the Inuzuka clan stalked through the trees around the edge of Senju Park, hunting for the ninja who'd sprayed poison at him.
Not a very nice thing to do, Kiba growled to himself, grimly sarcastic.
With his senses clearing in the forest air he ascertained what he already half-suspected – that the attack had only been a diversion to lead him away from the real target, that visiting ninja from the Hidden Mist Village.
Akamaru, still an identical copy of Kiba by means of the boy's 'Man-Beast Clone Jutsu', sniffed the air then cocked his head.
"Yeah, that's kinda what I thought," agreed the leaf-ninja who was already cutting back towards the park. "Let's head him off before he gets there."
Suddenly, with a percussive pop and a cloud of billowing smoke, the enemy ninja appeared before them only a few paces away and let loose with a flight of shuriken that swept right to left. The two evaded but right into the path of a flash bomb that followed immediately after. Kiba and Akamaru both shielded their eyes but still got caught by the dazzling magnesium flare.
Kiba grit his teeth and blinked rapidly, seeing through a haze of white spots the point of a kunai stabbing toward his neck. Caught flat-footed, the genin parried, barely ducked a reverse-handed slash then dropped to the ground and spun away. Akamaru, he knew, was right there to cover for him. Still in Kiba form, the ninja-puppy blocked the attacker's thrust, grabbed his wrist, pulled it down then slashed at the man's face with clawed fingertips.
Kiba's vision cleared as he rolled to a crouch in time to get a better look at their enemy who was dressed as a tea-vendor -- regular grey-colored slacks, roomy tan shirt and vest, and a towel worn at his waist along with a sleeve of disposable paper cups. Upon his back was strapped a cumbersome-looking metal tea-urn which reminded the boy of that sand-ninja Gaara's giant gourd.
Kiba tumbled toward the shinobi's legs with a scissor-kick takedown, but the man ducked and twisted away from Akamaru's attack then jumped backward over Kiba, turned and started to run.
With his face breaking into a confident grin, Kiba slid to his feet and wiped a sleeve across his chin then sped eagerly after him. Trying to outrun him and Akamaru in the forest was pure stupidity, or else this ninja just didn't know any better. The trees flew past, branches whipping, as the two leaf-ninjas closed in on the imposter tea-vendor.
Following a move from their playbook so familiar and well-practiced that it required no signal, Akamaru headed the man off then took him down at the ankles with a sliding, soccer tackle that plowed a swath though the forest's carpet of fallen leaves.
Kiba pounced quickly over Akamaru and atop the downed ninja, intent on driving one foot down hard into the man's back to pin him while he hammered into the side of his head with the ringed pommel of his kunai. But as the genin made contact, he found that his target was only a tangle of brush and branches; and at the same time felt a trip-wire pull across his chest.
"Ah, SH-T!" Kiba cried, rolled forward then, once his feet were under him, put everything into a single outward leap as a tensioned branch suddenly released with a snap.
A cloud of fine, particulate red burst forth which filled the air, spreading out in inky billows around the forked branches and tree trunks like crimson fog. Kiba leaped again to be sure he got clear then stopped cold as a desperate yelp rang out.
"Akamaru!?" the boy cried wide-eyed in horror then rushed back, picking his way carefully around the whorls of treacherous powder that drifted more like smoke or mist. "AKAMARU!?" Kiba called again with raw emotion cracking in his voice then saw his little ninja-hound at last, clone jutsu dispelled, twitching blinding and whining in distress amidst the vaporous red.
The young ninja winced, heartsick at the sight.
For what seemed to him like an unforgivably long time, the genin looked around frantically for any way to fix this. His eyes darted as his hands and feet started in one direction, stopped then started in another as they seized at any number of unresolved ideas.
At last, unable to think of any other way to rescue his friend, Kiba steeled himself. The young ninja drew close to the edge of the red cloud, took a deep breath, shut his eyes tight then waded in. A score of blind paces took him to his beloved ninja-hound's side where the genin crouched, groped around for the puppy then scooped him up, turned around and made a measured pace back out – quickly but carefully.
Having held his breath in for as long as he could, he exhaled it as slowly as he could then held it out, hoping it would be enough to get him clear of the ninja's dust cloud. In the darkness behind his closed eyes, Kiba thought he'd kept his path straight though it was hard to be sure.
Am I out? the genin wondered when he felt the strain burn in his chest and his heart start to pound loudly. I took twenty-two paces in and twenty-nine back just to be sure so I should be clear, right?
Although he was 'pretty sure' he was, that seemed like an awfully long way from being 'absolutely sure.' Well, I'd better be clear, the chestnut-haired ninja told himself, because I'm out of breath and it'll really be bad if I'm not!
Knowing it was a risk he'd have to take, Kiba cracked an eyelid. When all he saw were the clear, muted colors of the forest, he sighed with relief, opened them fully then knelt to tend to Akamaru whose white coat was splotched and stained with dark red. Juice dripped from the puppy's eyes, snot from his nose and slobber from his mouth as he thrashed his head this way and that, crying and pawing uselessly at his face.
"Aw, no!" moaned Kiba, who set him down then brought out his canteen. "No, boy, don't rub it, that'll only make it worse," he advised in a strong, comforting voice, poured water over Akamaru's face then forcibly held the puppy's eyes open one at a time to painstakingly wash them out. Afterwards, the young ninja put his mouth over the dog's nose and blew water down it in a sloppy gush that came out Akamaru's mouth.
"Sorry about that," offered Kiba guiltily, then worried as he watched the grey-eared, grey-lipped puppy sputter and cough. "You know I had to."
Back at the academy, Iruka-sensei had taught them the basics of ninja powders and poisons. Some only blinded and were meant to hinder their opponents while others could certainly kill, often in ways that were horrifically painful.
Kiba quivered with anger at getting suckered like that. Now not only was Akamaru out of action, and maybe poisoned, but that enemy ninja was undoubtedly getting a free shot at Okame right now.
Looking back toward the park, his jaw clenching, conflicted as to what he should do next, Kiba told his friend: "Wait here, boy. I'll be back in a minute, ok?"
Akamaru growled savagely then, to Kiba's astonishment, pushed his way to all-fours.
"Are you sure?" the leaf-ninja questioned then reached toward him but the puppy snapped at his hand then jumped up and down with feisty impatience. "Ok," Kiba reluctantly agreed, "but I'm gonna make Hana check you over top to bottom, inside and out when this is over!"
"Er-raar!" piped the ninja-hound who dropped to a crouch then leaped away, running full-tilt back toward the park, back toward where they'd left Hiroo Okame.
Haku
Half-blind and choking, knowing that what he planned to do was going to be painful, Haku swallowed hard. Apparently thinking him helpless (and she wasn't too far off) the kunoichi's relentless attacks had started to fall into a predictable pattern.
Timing the next one, instead of trying to evade, sidestep, leap or roll away, Haku would instead spring straight into her, jumping as hard as he could at the grey blur he saw streaking toward him. The ninja felt the surge of chakra build in his legs, the rush of acceleration as he made his leap then the deadening shock of impact as the two ninjas' bodies crashed together with hard cracks of bone-against-bone, twist and wrack in mid-air like kites in collision, then crumple hard to the grassy ground.
Though dazed, Haku grabbed hold of her, trying to tie up the woman's arms with his and hook his legs around her to keep her too close and out of position to use her clawing techniques…then, THEN, if only he could get one arm free…
But the kunoichi assassin was fast and well trained too, was not nearly as stunned by Haku's stunt as he'd hoped for and had being able to see and breathe as definite advantages. The woman slammed the back of her elbow into Haku's jaw then spun her hips and reversed him easily, sliding around to his side then his back…where she unintentionally got a big face full of poison fumes from where her partner had sprayed Haku only a few seconds ago.
The slender teenager, still reeling, heard the woman gasp then felt her push herself away and stagger off, coughing with every step. The ninja constable crawled to a crouch then rose shakily to his feet and raised his hand for a jutsu, hoping he could complete it before the girl recovered and slashed him open or her confederate, the tea-vendor, hosed him down with more poison like something an overzealous exterminator.
Kiba
Crap! thought Kiba who tried to rush as fast as he could through the woods while at the same time being as careful as he could lest he trigger another tripwire. This mission's really starting to SUCK!
It was hard to believe that just a little while ago the genin had thought this assignment a massive waste of his time. Now it seemed daunting and like he was grossly under-qualified for the job.
I sure wish Hinata was here, he couldn't help but think of his teammate, I could really use her byakugan to find out what's happening, or Shino.
It was times like this that made him realize how nice it was to have friends like that to rely on, with such amazing skills and strengths and whose very presences reassured that everything would turn out ok.
The ninja chanced a look at Akamaru who doggedly (no pun intended) kept pace with him, but who was still ragged and red-stained from the fake tea-vendor's powder. The sight made the boy's jaw tighten as he thought about what he was going to do to that enemy ninja, like making his damn urn fit into a VERY uncomfortable place.
Kiba hurdled over a fallen tree while his ninja-hound raced through a gap under it. It was only going to take them a couple of minutes to clear the forest, but it seemed like forever. The guy he was supposed to protect, Hiroo Okame, as capable as he seemed might already be dead – then Kiba, and probably the whole Hidden Leaf Village would be screwed.
Ah, damn it, I screwed up! he fumed, furious with himself. I let that guy draw me away from his real objective. That kinda play's day-one stuff and I should have known better. I should've been smarter!
Up ahead the sunlight streamed in bright beams through emerald tree canopies and glowed between the trunks. They were almost there. Unwilling to break stride, Kiba and Akamaru flew past the last of the trees onto the rolling lawns of Senju Park where he saw, once his eyes had adjusted to the changing light, that things were not looking especially good for Hiroo Okame BUT the girly-looking mist-ninja was definitely still alive!
He was on the grass, actually, wrestling with some woman in a silver shirt, while the tea-vendor guy stood a distance away, ready but unable to let loose with his poison spray while the two were entangled.
Kiba snarled, nose crinkling as he bared his teeth. This time, he would definitely NOT be late.
Springing towards the three-combatants, the pair covered the ground in a flash. The tea-vendor startled, looked towards them and started to raise his nozzle to fire but Akamaru jumped at his head, knocking him off-balance, while Kiba's kunai flashed and cut the hose connecting nozzle to urn. The tea-vendor shouted in alarm as noxious fluid jetted explosively from the severed, pressurized hose, bathing him as he thrashed around trying desperately to free himself from the urn's straps.
The woman meanwhile had outwrestled Okame but for some reason was staggering away from him. Whatever that was all about, Kiba didn't care. It was time to take her down. And though he hated to push Akamaru after what the little guy had been through he didn't see that had much choice.
"Come on, Akamaru," Kiba urged, using jutsu to again transform his partner into a double of himself, "FANG-OVER-FANG!"
Gathering speed, the two criss-crossed their paths and let their chakra energies merge. As Kiba finished his hand signs, the two leaped, and went spinning and twisting in the air, corkscrewing like a tornado toward their surprised target. The woman's face went wide with shock; she managed to leap away but not without taking glancing blows under the chin and into her ribs and legs from the pair's storm of pin-wheeling strikes.
Maintaining their jutsu, Kiba and Akamaru caromed off the ground, using it to push off from, reversed course then stuck the kunoichi again, this time fully. Blows rained down on her from every side and the woman flew back toward the tree line where she landed in a battered heap.
Enough of this, thought Kiba who was determined this time not to let himself get distracted. Who knows what other surprises these sound-ninja, or whoever they are, have in store. Adjusting his flow of energy, the genin ended his jutsu and let an exhausted Akamaru return to his normal canine state. I'm just gonna grab Okame and get him the hell out of here. Then the REAL ANBU can sort out the rest.
But when he looked back toward where Okame had been, the ninja was gone. Kiba looked around frantically then saw the constable stumbling half-blindly toward the edge of the forest.
"Hey! Wait!" the young leaf-ninja shouted and started after him, but it was too late.
The visitor from the Hidden Mist Village reached out with one hand to guide himself through the trees while the other flashed through a series of seals.
Is that…is he doing jutsu one-handed? Kiba marveled, taken-aback. He can't do that!
But as impossible as it seemed a thick mist rose up in the ninja's wake, filling the air and reducing visibility to zero.
"Wait up, Okame!" howled Kiba between cupped hands. "Hey! I'm on YOUR side!"
Haku
Tendrils of mist from the park beyond crept over the forest floor, snaking through the trees and pooling thicker in its little leaf-strewn valleys and depressions. All was eerily quiet.
A lone figure, a slender boy with long, black hair, wearing sea-blue fatigue pants, and a vest covered by layered, senbon-filled pouches, dropped down silently from a bough obscured by foliage then broke into a run towards Konoha's streets on the other side of the woods.
From the shadows between the trees behind him, a man in grey slacks emerged, seized the younger ninja by the shoulder and spun him around, spitting a stream of foul liquid into the surprised teenager's face.
Haku choked and staggered back, his face blistering as his skin smoldered; eyes turning bright red with burst blood vessels. The young shinobi then lost all color, becoming semi-transparent for a moment, before he turned completely into water which fell to the ground with an undulant splash.
The older ninja gasped in surprise then leaped away, wove evasively through the trees then bounded for the protective cover of a patch of dense underbrush. While still in mid-stride, a single, silent, silver blur struck him in the back of the head below the skull, and severed his spinal cord. The man went limp and fell, limbs flailing, face expressionless into the tangle where he remained for a moment before vanishing with a burst of dispersed chakra. All that remained was a similarly-shaped mound of dead vines.
Silence once again.
"Yo! Kid!" a voice echoed through the trees, though it was impossible to tell from where. "You're kind of wearin' out that water-clone thing, don't cha think?"
The words faded. Nothing stirred, not even birds or insects, until at last:
"As long as it keeps working," a voice low and lilting, confident and feminine answered, "why should I stop?"
Silence returned.
On a bough not too far away, the tea-vendor, conspicuous without his metal urn, and thoroughly saturated with his own brew of venoms though apparently without effect, frowned but nodded his head. His supposed 'target' had a point. The ninja turned then hopped up higher into the next tree but drew abruptly to a stop as the mist-ninja himself dropped down onto a limb at the same level not a stone's throw from him.
That the boy had shed his poison-contaminated high-collared grey vest was the first thing the intruder noticed.
"I guess you made the switch when you went to the bathroom," the man called out as the two regarded each other across the distance.
Haku nodded. "I really did have to go but it seemed like an opportune moment. And there was plenty of water."
"And I guess the real you was hiding out the whole time?"
"Yes, on the restroom's roof, on the other side of the ridge. The height gave me a positional advantage." Zabuza's student sniffed the air once, made a face then raised a thin, dark eyebrow. "Did you intend to soak yourself in your own poisons?"
The tea-vendor seemed annoyed as he glanced aside first but then admitted genially, "No, no, it just kind of worked out that way. But," he continued happily, "no big deal. My clan raised me on the stuff, weaned me on poisons, toxins and venoms as a baby so, as you can see for yourself, I've pretty-much built up an immunity."
"So it seems."
The strange shinobi grunted noncommittally. "So," he began anew while pacing back and forth along his bough. "A ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist; I guess the sucky way this is working out for us so far is our fault for not giving you the credit you guys' reputation deserves. I gotta say though, you don't look much like a killer to me."
Haku nodded then stated: "And you're a ninja from the Village Hidden in the Sound. To be honest, I don't know what your reputation is." Answering the shift in the assassin's clever expression, the young shinobi continued, "I only just figured out that not all of you left Konoha after your defeat four months ago. Some of you stayed, blending in as newcomers, or taking the places of those you'd killed, waiting for the chance to strike again."
The fake tea-vendor nodded. "Mm-hmm, that's about the size of it."
"One thing I would like to know," inquired Haku with an upward tilt of his delicate chin, "what makes ME deserving of such an honor?"
The man grinned. "Being an emissary from Kirigakure of all places, if you were murdered here in the Hidden Leaf Village your Mizukage would certainly get pissed off – maybe even enough to go to war. My master would be well pleased to have the Mist finish what his Sound started. Sorry," he conceded almost politely, "but that makes YOU what we call a 'high-value target'. Heh, I sure never thought I'd see the day when a mist-ninja shows up here and walks around like he's on vacation or something."
Haku, dumbfounded at first, rolled his eyes and chuckled softly. "I…I don't even know where to begin with what's wrong with your logic."
"Oh, is that so?" the sound-ninja spat back, clearly insulted. "Well I don't know what kind of deal brought you here, maybe a trade, maybe a treaty, but before you get too comfortable with your new Leaf Village 'friends' just ask yourself: how do you think a team of sound-ninja infiltrators THIS big managed to hide out for four months undetected, huh?"
The willowy-limbed teenager thought for a moment then looked at the sound-ninja squarely. "You're insinuating that you had help on the inside. But I don't see how anyone in the Leaf Village could possibly benefit from --."
"Listen," the sound-ninja interrupted, raising both hands and gesturing back and forth, "you and I are just pieces in play. But everything's different higher up on the food chain when you can see the whole board. If you were the Hokage, or somebody of influence like that, don't you think that having us around could be really useful like when you needed something bad to happen and someone to blame it on?" He paused for effect then gave Haku a leering smile before he intoned: "Like when you needed somebody KILLED? You be surprised how seemingly contrary ends can dovetail. Do you get it now?"
Haku's large, grey eyes narrowed. "An interesting insight," he commented. "But why tell me?"
"Because you're f-cked," the ninja explained to him curtly. "And you don't have to be. You got talent – the kind MY boss appreciates. I guarantee he'd make it worth your while."
"Pass," answered Haku with a scowl.
The tea-vendor goggled slightly, as if genuinely surprised. "Oh, like living in the Land of Water is so great. You really should reconsider."
"Why's that?" replied the young ninja. "All in all, I'm not doing so badly."
The tea-vendor leveled his gaze. "You say that now, but there's still more than one way you can lose. Even if we can't kill you we could kill someone else, that Inuzuka kid for example, and make it look like YOU did it. The end result would be the same." The man produced a senbon then casually flipped it aside. The long needle spun end over end on its way to the ground below. "You left an awful lot of these things lying around. Who knows whose body they could end up in?"
For a moment Haku considered his situation then decided almost immediately on a course of action. It wasn't difficult. Of a half-dozen choices, only one had any resonance.
Haku's eyes flickered up and noticed that the tea-vendor had let something drop from his long sleeves into each of his palms. Maybe the sound-ninja had followed the teenager's train of thought or maybe the man said all he'd said just to stall or get into his head. Either way, the teenager's expression triggered something in the tea-vendor who, in a flash of movement, flung out his arms while Haku raised his palm to the center of his chest, edge out.
Eggshells filled with poisonous powder detonated right on target but a fraction of a second late. Haku had already vanished into a whirling wind.
Kiba
"Ah, crap," said the young ninja who considered his plight as he made his way through the misty woods, trying to track down the wayward Hiroo Okame. "It just figures that all hell would break loose on MY mission."
He rolled his eyes and sighed wearily. Just stop it, Kiba. Whining about it's not going to get the job done. And there's still a chance you can pull this clusterf-ck out of the fire. But you're gonna have to dig deep, the boy thought, really, really, really...REALLY deep.
Akamaru, close by his partner's side, sniffed the air diligently but even he was having trouble scenting out the mist-ninja in this haze and with that tea-vendor's poisons fouling the air.
Okame, thought Kiba and he realized he'd been way too quick to judge him by appearances alone.
I should have known better, and I DO know better…at least, that's one of the answers I got right on the written test. The lesson seemed to highlight the difference between knowing the theory and actually putting it to use. And, after all, no one would EVER guess how tough Hinata is just from how she looks and acts, he reaffirmed, as gentle and pretty as she is.
And as for Shino, well…
Kurenai-sensei had told them once that the Mist Village was little more than an incubator for soulless killers, though that description didn't quite seem to fit this Okame guy. As expert as THIS mist-ninja was with those senbon, the only way he could NOT have hit him and Akamaru earlier was if he'd gone out of his way not to.
Senbon, considered Kiba, he took out all those ninjas with freakin' senbon!
Senbon and shuriken were pretty common weapons, dangerous in the right hands, but easy enough for any real ninja to dodge or deflect or so at least the leaf-genin had thought. But like Iruka-sensei had explained to them back before he'd graduated, 'There are NO basic techniques and no advanced ones, only the mastery with which they're applied'.
True enough, Kiba had to agree and wished he was one of those people who could learn as well from books as from experience.
But what else seemed weird about the guy, other than how girly he looked, was how much he seemed to get along with people, especially Sakura and Kakashi-sensei. If anything, they'd seemed happy to see him.
Hmm, Kiba wondered, could they have met before? Is that possible?
A sudden growl from Akamaru quieted his thoughts. It was the only warning Kiba got before a silver and yellow shape darted down from the trees and whizzed close to him. Despite throwing himself to all-fours, he could feel pain lance across his back, the tough fabric of his coat tear and pull, then the hot trickle of blood.
From high up, his attacker struck again in blurring motion, bounded off the ground and slashed at his neck. Kiba jumped aside and tried to counter with a kick but it was far too slow. Again and again attacks came and went until the genin was able to find cover in the middle of where three thick trees grew close together.
The boy panted for breath, grateful for the respite.
Dammit! he cursed to himself. I thought she was down for the count!
"Leaf-ninja, huh?" a woman's voice drifted down to him. "I gotta say, your jutsu's not bad. But let's just see how you do against mine."
Akamaru growled between pointy teeth while Kiba frowned. "Last time I checked the scoreboard it was 'good-guys' about twenty and you scrubs, ZERO!"
Laughter echoed. "Those guys? Please. They were excess baggage; we never should have relied on them." The kunoichi fell silent for a time and when she spoke again her voice came from an entirely different direction. "Look at you – a boy and his dog. Are you really leaf-ninja? How you guys beat back our invasion, I'll never know."
Kiba clenched his teeth and snarled back: "yeah, well, you're about to find out how!"
"That's big talk…from a cornered animal."
The boy grimaced at her words which, for right now, rang truer than he would have liked. Up above and around him, Kiba could hear the ninja fly from branch to branch, looking for just the right place to attack him from again.
This is no good, the ninja assessed. She's got me pinned down. Meanwhile, who knows where that Okame guy went off to?
"Just who are you anyway?" Kiba called, hoping to buy time while he came up with a plan.
"Kaori," the kunoichi answered proudly, "the desert eagle."
The boy made a face, his expression turning puzzled. "Hold on," he shouted. "Are you…are you from the SAND Village?"
"That's right," echoed the voice. "I've waited all these months to get another shot. You may have won the last battle, but it's a long way from being over."
Kiba stared then tossed his head in disbelief. "It IS over!" he bellowed, fists clenching. "Don't you know anything? The Sand and Leaf Villages are ALLIES now."
"Ha!" cried Kaori in return, "you'd like me to believe that, wouldn't you?"
"It's true, dammit! Look, Sound f-cked you over. They used you then betrayed you. That snake-bastard Orochimaru KILLED the Fourth Kazekage then took his freakin' place! HE'S the one that got you guys to attack us!"
The woman's pealing laugher rang out. "That's some story. Necessity really is the mother of inventions…AND inventiveness. There's no way that's true."
Kiba clapped his hand over his forehead and rubbed it. "How can you not know? We've been at peace for four months now, FOUR MONTHS! Did that poison guy really keep you in the dark for THAT long? Don't tell me you've been drinking his tea!" In the limited space he had inside the encirclement of trees, the young ninja stamped his feet in frustration. "Look, Gaara, Temari and Kankuro were JUST HERE like, only a few weeks ago. If you'd been paying attention, MAYBE you could have asked them!"
"That's enough!" the woman roared angrily. "I won't listen to any more of your bullsh-t; you're not talking your way out of this. You're gonna die, plain and simple."
Kiba shook his head. Great! he summarized sarcastically. Oh, this is just great. So…if Okame dies, Lady Tsunade will get all pissed-off and I'm screwed – I'll be pushing a broom. If this Kaori-%#* dies, then Sunagakure will probably find out about it, get all pissed-off and I'm screwed again, and if *I* die then I'm most-definitely screwed even though NOBODY'S going to be pissed-off. Sh-t!
He tried again. "Can't we just --."
"NO!"
That's what the hell I thought. Fine, have it your way, Kiba grumbled and started to wrap what was left of his blood-stained grey jacket around his left forearm, picked up a branch roughly the size of his arm that lay nearby then looked down at Akamaru who awaited anxiously. "On three," he whispered.
When the short, silent countdown had run its course, the leaf-ninja detonated a smoke bomb at his feet, waited a moment for the cloud to develop then made a run for it. Kaori was upon him almost the instant he reappeared. Her three-fingered claw tore toward him but Kiba raised his arm from the drifting smoke and weathered the blow with the armor the jacket wound around his arm provided. Pivoting sharply, the young ninja swung down at the woman's head with his branch which burst into a shower of bark and yellow splinters when it hit.
The sand-ninja grunted, bent by the impact, but dropped to her back and kicked up into Kiba's stomach as the leaf-ninja leaped at her. Though the young genin went sailing, he landed on his feet nimbly and sprang back in time to seize Kaori's ankle then yank her back down as she tried to leap up again into the trees.
The kunoichi buried the point of her elbow into Kiba's back then tried to clutch him behind the neck and knee him, but the ninja retaliated first with an uppercut that clipped her chin. Knocked back on her heels, Kaori barely avoided the cross the followed and the sweeping kick that came after that.
Kiba pressed forward, hoping to get the upper hand, but the girl seized hold of his wrist. The tips of her powerful fingers dug into his skin, crushing nerves against bones. Jolts of pain shot through the genin's body as he went lifeless for a moment, more than enough time for the sand-ninja to lash out with a three-fingered claw. Instinctively, the boy's free hand came across and grabbed her wrist, stopping it only inches away from his exposed throat.
Kaori surged and shoved forward, pushing Kiba back through the forest until finally she pinned him against a tree with one hand helpless in her grip while the other fought a losing battle against her clawed fingers which, inch by inch, forced their way forward.
But the woman's leer and smile of grim victory turned to shock as she cried out, eyes wincing shut, leg buckling. She lurched away from Kiba then looked down and saw that his puppy had sunk his teeth deeply into the back of her unguarded ankle.
"Sh-t!" she cried angrily then slashed at the ninja-hound who was wise enough to let go and run off rather than take the blow. The kunoichi twisted evasively but it was no good. Kiba flew at her, connecting hard with a punch square in the face that sent the sand-ninja flying across the forest with blood streaming from her nose.
Kiba ran after her, eager to keep his advantage, as the girl fell backwards apparently off-balance, but then rolled, back-flipped and vaulted back into the trees where the genin and his puppy declined to follow.
Glaring down at Kiba, Kaori wiped the blood from her face with a hand then shook it off with a contemptuous wave. The kunoichi looked again at her red-washed hand and grinned with knowing superiority.
Kiba skidded to a halt, his braking feet leaving trails in the fallen leaves.
As the woman completed her summoning jutsu, a dark hole in space opened before her and from it a stream of raptorial shapes poured forth with wings beating, talons flexing and screams tearing shrilly through the air.
I wish this was my job, just write fanfiction ALL day long :):):):):):) Anyway, please leave a review and let me know what you think, what you liked and where I went astray.
Thanks for reading!!
--J
