Light. Everywhere she looked, there was light. It flooded all of her senses so that there was nothing left of them. Just brightness. Terrible, terrible brightness.
Suddenly, images began flashing away in front of her. A summer sky. An empty street. Bodies on the ground. Blood on the path. A towering obelisk. A green robe.
Shitana's eyes suddenly focused totally and completely on this last image, of the ninja in the green robe, laying blow after blow upon Suzunaka's form. The genin kept trying to block, but he stood no chance against this master. He would rarely even be able to get up to his feet between attacks, and his cries of pain were getting weaker.
Before she knew what she was doing, Shitana's hand had closed around one of the kunais in her pack, and she had thrown it. The green-robed ninja stiffened slightly, hearing the missile coming in at him. He twirled away from his victim, and flung his right arm out. A shuriken flew from the sleeve of the cloak, and smashed the knife out of the air.
The ninja's problems did not end, however. Hot on the heels of her kunai came Shitana, running incredibly fast. She jumped, and grabbed onto the ninja's still extended throwing arm. Using it as a pivot, the genin threw herself in a kick at the other ninja's face.
Her foot stopped as the ninja's left hand curled around her ankle, killing all of her momentum. The ninja grinned at her from beneath the hood of his cloak for a moment, then threw her away from himself. Even as he did so, he threw a kunai after her, aiming for her neck.
Suzunaka, having finally picked himself up from the ground, reacted as best he could. Reaching over, he ripped one of the kunais from his left arm, and launched it. The two weapons clanged together in the air, and dropped to the ground with a slight thudding noise.
Shitana hit the earth, and rolled with the force of the ninja's throw. She came up to her feet standing next to the staggering Suzunaka.
"Are you alright?" she asked quietly, trying to keep her gaze on the enemy ninja while looking at her partner from the corner of her eye.
"Y-yes," he stuttered back, wavering slightly.
"Not bad," the ninja's low voice called over to them. Both genin turned all of their attention over to him, waiting for another attack. "The two of you are quite good. For genin. However," he grinned at them, and chills ran down both of their spines, "you're in no way prepared for fighting a jounin…"
A tiny sound from behind found its way into Suzunaka's ears, and he twirled, slapping his hands together in the same sequence of seals he had used earlier. He pointed, and once again, there was that moment of silence, followed by a dull roar. A dozen or so shurikens and kunais fell from the air, hitting the ground.
Shitana, having turned to watch him, glanced back to her opponent quickly, to find him nearly on top of her. Gritting her teeth, the genin ducked under a punch, then threw one foot out and around, trying to trip the enemy ninja. He easily jumped over the attack, and then brought his own foot forward to kick her in the face.
The girl cried out and fell back, blood flowing from her nose. She landed hard, and began pushing herself up through the pain. However, a foot placed on her stomach pushed her back down, and knocked the breath away from her lungs. She blinked confusedly at the green-robed figure, standing above her with a sadistic grin on his face.
He turned his attention away from her suddenly, as Suzunaka threw himself at his opponent with his fist bared. The green-robed ninja quickly ducked underneath the boy, then drove his fist upwards into his gut.
Suzunaka gasped in agony, and felt himself lift perhaps another foot up into the air. He hung there for a moment, before the ninja grabbed the wrist of his left arm in a firm grip, and whipped the boy around. He released him, and Suzunaka made a short flight which ended when he smashed into the side of a building.
Grinning, the green-robed shinobi turned to glance back at the helpless Shitana. Slowly, he reached down, and lifted her off of the ground with one hand, as though she weighed nothing at all. She stared at him, and it was clear, for a moment, that she was frightened.
However, a moment later, that expression was gone, replaced by a completely different one. Her eyes opened wide, and a strange calm covered her face. This placid look, combined by the fact that the girl's eyes had suddenly turned totally black, was enough to force even this clearly powerful shinobi to release his grip and take a step back in surprise.
What was even more surprising, however, was that the girl remained where he had held her, floating perhaps half a foot from the ground. The green-robed ninja stared at her for a good while, before reaching into his sleeves, and coming out with a kunai in either hand. Letting out a slight exclamation, he threw both of them at her, hoping to finish the girl while she was, apparently, dazed.
The knives whipped forward, and passed through Shitana. However, they left not a mark. Indeed, they seemed to travel through her as though she were not there at all.
Staring at the girl in absolute confusion, the green-robed ninja slowly took a step forward, and then another. Finally, he stood directly before her, staring the girl in the eye. He reached hesitantly forward with one hand, and passed it through the girl's head. Somehow, both hand and head managed to occupy the same space at the same time, and when he withdrew the hand, there was no mark.
"What…"
With that one word, the girl's eyes suddenly went from black back to their normal confusing colour, and she lunged forward with a punch. The unexpected attack hit the green-robed ninja directly in the jaw, and sent him stumbling back.
Shitana dropped to the ground, landing lightly, and glanced up at the ninja again.
He was still on his feet, rubbing his chin where she had hit him. For all that she could see of his face, he appeared incredibly confused. Finally, after a long moment of silence, he announced, "I hadn't expected this…"
Though her own feelings were perfectly mirroring those of her opponent, Shitana said nothing. She simply kept her eyes on the same place where his eyes would be if the hood weren't covering them.
"…it appears that I'll have to wait for you two until later. However," his grin reappeared, "with the two of you are here, then the third target is alone. Let's see how he manages…"
With that, the figure disappeared.
Shitana was left breathing heavily, and reaching up to wipe the sweat from her brow. She fell slowly to her knees, and placed her head in her hands.
"What the hell is going on…?" she whispered to herself.
A moan from behind her reminded Shitana that there was the matter of the beaten and broken Suzunaka lying on the ground. Slowly, she walked over to him, and kneeled by his collapsed form. His left eye was swollen over from one of the many blows he'd taken during his fight with the ninja, and dozens of other bruises and cuts covered his form. Both of his eyes were firmly shut, and his breathing was terribly shallow.
"Suzunaka?" she asked, not quite knowing what to do. Medical knowledge had never been her expertise.
"What happened?" he asked weakly, not opening his eyes.
"He left us, for a while at least," Shitana muttered.
"Why?" he asked, cracking his eyelids open slightly to glance at her in confusion.
"He said something about the third target, whoever that is…"
"Hide," Suzunaka said simply.
"What?"
"The third target is Hide," he repeated. "The first two targets, me and you, are both on the same team; how likely is it that the third target is the third member of the team?"
"Dammit…" she muttered, standing up straight and looking around. "Are you good to walk?"
Gritting his teeth, Suzunaka slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position. He let out his breath, then placed pressure on both of his hands, attempting to push up until he was standing. However, the moment any pressure came onto his legs, he wavered, and fell back to the ground. He looked pitifully up at Shitana, and shook his head.
"Great…" she whispered, looking around for inspiration.
"Just go and get to him," Suzunaka told her, shrugging. "I'll be fine here."
"And what if he was feinting so that I would leave you defenceless to him?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. " 'Ninjas have to look beneath the beneath'. First rule of being a shinobi."
"True," Suzunaka conceeded, nodding slightly from his position on the ground. "But that still leaves us with Hide fighting that man alone."
"…right," Shitana replied, exasperated. "If only we could just, I dunno, be in two places at the same time."
"Not quite possible," Suzunaka muttered, "though a nice thou- Shitana!?"
The girl had fallen to her knees again, that blackness returning to her eyes. Suzunaka was beginning to hate her for this. It was more creepy than before when she wasn't speaking. Shitana was slowly rocking forward and back, forward back, those dark wells focused on something far away which Suzunaka couldn't even guess at.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………...
Hide stood, panting, the ground surrounding him littered with fallen kunais and shurikens of all sizes. The volleys had lasted for at least six minutes straight, forcing Hide to use every technique he had learned back at the academy, a few others which he had kept hidden, and still more techniques which he had been practising, and only now managed to pull off.
The new genin was slowly turning, making sure to keep his eyes moving every few seconds. In truth, he just wanted to lie down and sleep from exhaustion. That right, however, was completely denied him by the inconvenient fact that somebody wanted to kill him.
Possibly the most annoying thing about this entire event was the fact that he hadn't even managed to get a look at his attacker. The coward hadn't shown his face during the entire battle. How powerful was this attacker?
"Hide?"
Hide yelped and spun around, getting into a ready position to fight. He found himself staring at a confused-looking Shitana. She looked quite beat up, with dried blood crusted abover her lip, and several bruises on her arms. What was oddest, however, was the look in her eyes. On top of the normal shifting of their colour, there was also a constant shifting in perspective and focus, like she was trying to follow some incredibly fast moving speck of dust which was darting around in all directions.
"You got attacked too?" Hide assumed, trying to get his pride back.
"Yeah," she said, somewhat surprised. "Suzunaka and I just managed to fight the guy off…"
"Suzunaka?" Hide asked. "Where's he?"
"I-I don't know, I was just with him, and th-then…" she said, glancing around as though she were looking for the boy.
"What, you lost him?"
"No!" she yelled, looking back to him. Hide actually took a step back; she looked genuinely scared and confused beyond anything Hide knew. "I was literally just next to him a second ago, halfway across the city, and now I'm here!"
There was a moment's silence, before Hide whispered, "But that's not possible…"
"Well, it happened," she shrugged, "and now, we have to go and find him!"
"Why?" the boy demanded.
"He could barely move when I left him," Shitana explained, still using that terrible stare on him. "The green-robed ninja said he was coming here, but he might have seen me disappear and gone after Suz—"
"Wait," Hide interrupted, raising an eyebrow. " 'The green-robed ninja'?"
"Yes," Shitana nodded, "he's the one who attacked us. He's got amazing taijutsu, and his shuriken and kunai abilities are," she shuddered, "impossible to explain."
"I think that I already saw that," Hide muttered, glancing around at the many weapons littered about him.
"Yeah, I guess so," Shitana replied, taking in a long, shuddering breath. She placed her hands on her knees, and knelt slightly, trying to control her breathing, so that she wouldn't hyperventilate. She glanced back up at her partner, and in a totally different voice from the frightened one from before, she asked, "Uh, Hide, where did you get that chain?"
Hide glanced down at the chain which he had been carrying for the last several minutes. It was about as long as he was tall, twice over, made of normal links. He seemed surprised to see it for a moment, but then shrugged. "I had it with me."
"What?" she demanded, staring at the chain. "I think I would have noticed it if you were carrying a bloody chain around the entire time we were waiting for sensei back there."
"Apparently your eyes aren't as good as you thought," Hide replied, completely unable to avoid making one stab.
"Right," she muttered, shaking her head. She stood up straight again, and said, "Let's go. He should be in this direction."
They started walking, cautiously. Their eyes were on the rooftops, the back alleys, any side streets; in short, any place where the man could be hiding. Several times, one of them would think they'd seen something and panic, forcing both of them to start. However, there was never anything there, and it all just caused them to become more and more exhausted.
"I was just thinking," Hide muttered suddenly, causing Shitana to jump.
"What?" she snapped.
"How was he managing to attack me while fighting you and Suzunaka at the same time?"
Shitana stopped to consider this for a moment, but ended up just shaking her head. "Just another question with the dozens of others I've got right now."
"Such as?" Hide inquired, and they began moving again.
"Well, how did I magically appear right next to you? Where did you get that chain? When did Suzunaka learn to use blasts of sound? Where the hell is everybody? Wha—"
"Wait," the boy interrupted, glancing over at her. "What was that about Suzunaka?"
"Yeah," she nodded, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. "He just started blasting shurikens out of the air all of a sudden."
"With sound?" Hide muttered, weighing things in his head. "I guess that at least makes sense, with him."
"It's true. I can't really see him suddenly throwing around fire or water, but sound? It—" she stopped suddenly, gasping.
Hide stared over at her, alarmed. He half expected to see a knife sticking out of her stomach, but, fortunately enough, there was none to be found. She had just fallen to her knees, shaking. Hide himself simply remained silent, not knowing what to say. He approached her slowly, staring on.
Suddenly, she looked directly at him, and he saw that her eyes had turned fully black. Her voice came to him from far away, it seemed, saying in a whispy little voice, "He's here…"
"What?" Hide demanded, spinning around. He saw the kunai headed for him, and jumped, throwing his right foot out hard. It smashed the small knife out of the air and flying to stick into the road up to its handle.
He stood there, glaring in all directions, his hands gripped tightly around the chain. Shitana still hadn't gotten up, which meant that he would have to cover her. Great.
He heard a whistling noise behind him, and spun. On instinct, he released his grip on the chain, and then grabbed it with his left hand closer to the end of its length. As soon as he saw the missiles coming in for himself and Shitana, he swung his arm, throwing the chain whipping around. With several metallic clangs, it slapped all of the weapons out of the air. Before the thing could come around and slap him, Hide threw his right hand out across, and stopped the chain about halfway along its length. The rest of the chain quickly wrapped around this arm, finishing up with a slight clanking noise.
The boy turned quickly, and found that the ninja was already standing behind him. He brought the chain up, held between his two arms, and blocked a punch with it. Moving on instinct, he twirled his left wrist, wrapping the chain around the attacking fist. Using this to keep his opponent in place, Hide lifted his right foot up and kicked out at the ninja's stomach.
The ninja, however, simply leaped slightly, and landed with both feet planted on Hide's extended leg. Then, he punched forward with his free hand, and caught the boy in the face.
Hide fell back, releasing his left hand's hold on his chain and freeing the other ninja. He hit the ground, and sat back up quickly, trying to get a good look at his attacker for the first time.
Shitana's very brief description had been accurate: he was a ninja in a green robe. Not much else to identify him by. The thing was done up tight enough to leave no other part of the body exposed, and loose enough to prevent any of the wearer's form to be seen. In short, the perfect garment for anybody performing an invasion.
"Hide?" asked a voice by his side.
Without glancing to her, the boy replied, "Yeah. Thanks for the warning. Are you good?"
He heard her getting up to her feet, brushing the dirt off of her knees. "Good enough to fight."
"Well," the green-robed ninja muttered, giving them an annoyed little glance. "Good to see that the two of you are alright. How you managed to get here so fast," he glared at Shitana, "is far beyond my understanding. However, the three of you are annoying me quite profoundly. Thus," he said in a business-like manner, "I have decided to destroy you. Now."
He lunged.
"I'll cover the left," Shitana offered.
"Nah," Hide replied, rubbing his nose. "That punch hurt. I'm taking a piece of him!"
With that, he threw himself forward. The chain started spinning on either end, without him even moving it, throwing up dust as the last links scraped the ground.
The green-robed ninja, seeing this, swept both of his arms out to the side, sending several kunais out in front of him. Without even a flick of his wrist, Hide's chain's whipped out in front of him, and picked off each one in its whirling links.
Just as the two ninjas were about to collide, Hide's chain swung out in front of him. It wrapped around the surprised ninja's wrist. Hide pulled back hard, trying to knock the ninja off-balance, and extended his foot out, preparing to kick.
The green-robed ninja, however, avoided this easily. He simply reached out and grabbed the chain with his free hand, giving it a tug of his own. This pulled Hide out of his kicking position, and flying face first at his opponent. The green-robed ninja, exactly as Hide had, extended his own foot, and caught the genin under the chin. Stars flew into Hide's eyes, and he shot up violently with the force of the blow.
The green-robed ninja landed easily, and, seeing as the chain was still wrapped around his wrist, yanked down on it. Hide, who had yet to release his weapon, whiplashed back down towards the earth.
The green-robed ninja suddenly looked away from his current foe, to catch a kunai thrown at him by Shitana. He attempted to throw it back, but the genin was already moving. She jumped over the weapon, and directed her momentum to bring her towards Hide. Knowing that he would probably break his neck if he hit the ground like that, she opted to tackle him out of the air instead. The two of them landed heavily in a pile, rolling over several times with the force.
As soon as they had stopped, Shitana jumped up, and turned to face the ninja. He was already coming.
Shitana's hands flashed, and suddenly, there were two shurikens flying towards him. The green-robed ninja found no difficulty in defeating this attack, simply sweeping out a hand and knocking them out of the way with his cloak. Gritting her teeth, Shitana prepared herself for another bout of pain with this clearly greater-skilled shinobi.
The fist came in, and Shitana ducked underneath the attack. She threw an arm up into the air to knock it out of the way, hoping that maybe she'd be able to knock him off balance and get an attack in like that. However, the shinobi would have nothing of this, instead throwing his leg out to knock her feet out from under her. The genin hit the ground hard, and bit back a yelp. Instead, she forced herself to roll to the right, out of the way of the ninja's stomping foot.
The moment that the foot hit the ground, a chain reached out and snaked around it. The shinobi glanced over at Hide, still on the ground, in alarm. The genin simply grinned at him, and with a slight movement, sent a wave down the chain. The shinobi got tripped up, and fell to the ground. Hide jumped quickly up to his feet, and attempted to slam his chain down upon the fallen form.
However, the green-robed ninja was already gone, without a single trace left behind.
Shitana pushed herself slowly up to her feet, and the two genins simply stood there, completely exhausted. It took them several moments before either could speak.
"What do you think that that was all about?" Hide muttered.
"Damned if I know," Shitana replied, coughing a bit. "But we should get to Suzunaka now."
"Why?"
"Now that guy knows that he's alone; he won't hold back on him. I doubt Suzunaka'll be albe to hold up for one more attack."
"Right," Hide replied, shaking his head. "Are you good to go?"
"Perfectly fine."
The two genins started walking, not having the energy to run.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………...
Suzunaka had himself propped up against the wall of a shop. His breathing was laboured, but at least he wasn't falling over anymore. He had taken off his jacket, and was slowly shredding it and using the strips as bandages. He bit his lip for a moment, then ripped out another of the shurikens from his arms. A small splash of blood greeted him, but he quickly stopped it by tying up the wound, as tight as he could manage with just the one arm.
He stopped suddenly, and stood as still as he could. He had heard something. This time, he had definitely heard something. What was it…?
He heard a slight whistling, and Suzunaka dropped to the ground. A kunai slammed into the earth nearby, and he swore, trying to get back up. He sighed. This was getting incredibly old incredibly fast.
He glanced over to Shitana, but she was still in that odd meditative state. No help there.
Another whistling forced Suzunaka to jump backwards. His feet stumbled on the landing, and he fell back. He hadn't even hit the ground before a foot smashed down onto his chest. As his back slammed down, all of the air was crushed from his lungs.
He stared up at the green robed ninja, who was looking down at him with kunai in hand.
"Oh-"
The shinobi grinned, and threw his kunai.