Kokuto Chouji lay silent and absolutely still in the bush, stalking them. His team's lead gave him a brief nod, and the three rain genin peeled down their balaclavas. Kokuto stalked the three targets, kunai handed. The young woman crossed his sight, each step flaunting an aura of confidence. She was oblivious to the situation. Next to her, the young man dressed in black sauntered, equally ignorant. The red-haired sand-nin in the middle shot him a scowl which could have melted battle plate. His features were blank and deathly pale, with a crimson tattoo blazed on the corner of his right eye.
Cold blue eyes peered into his soul, and for a moment, he couldn't move. Flash-frozen blood chilled his veins, lethargy poisoned his limbs. Suddenly...he had the sinking feeling they were better off passing this opportunity. The team's lead nudged Kokuto's side, and the consoling gesture spoke volumes. They had to win...for the sake of Amekagure—Village Hidden in the Rain.
Kokuto whipped an arm out, snapped his wrist—and the kunai lanced at the three sand ninja. The wedge-shaped dagger pierced air, arced...and whizzed past target. His heart pounded with such force he felt it in his gut—and the three rain genin lunged into the tree cover.
Temari's hands flashed overhead, snapped the giant fan down–and a twisting vortex of air spiraled at the bush. The whirlwind peeled vegetation as it went, grinded through the bush, and stormed into a clan of redwoods, stripping bark and leaving crushed boulders and splintered twigs strewn in its super-sonic wake.
"I'd point that eye somewhere else," Temari sneered, her voice cold with malice. "I might rip it from its socket."
The voice resonated in Kokuto's head. There wasn't a thought in his mind–only raw instinct, and the three rain genin slotted from their cover. Shinji, the team's lead crossed the corner of Kokuto's eye, and snapped his wrist. Three kunai traced fine strings of silver at the girl.
Temari brought the fan to bear—and whipped it in an opalescent blur. The concentrated jet detonated forth, engulfed the kunai in mid-flight, and gunned them back to the enemy. The rain genin bolstered his fingers, prayed a jutsu–and vaporized from the column of air.
The wind cut a twisting, sinuous swath of wreckage into the tree-line. Shinji snapped into view straight behind the red-haired genin. One small problem, though: the sand-nin stood absolutely still, backside facing his opponent. Shinji's ringed kunai twirled, and a streak of shimmering silver flew—
A red-hot hammer shot into his gut, lung, and forehead. The world twirled a full three seconds before he pancaked with a dull thud and tumbled across the wind-scarred terra. A crimson lace freely flowed from the corner of his cracked lip.
Shinji coughed sand, and his marred skull rolled to the left, then right. His two team-mates lay beneath the red-haired genin, blood pooled beneath their twisted figures. He tumbled upright with the grace of a wounded animal—
And felt cold sand snake up his legs. He tried to move, he had to, but arms and legs only gave a sluggish response. It spiraled upward, engulfing his figure as it went. Team mates, protecting his village–everything suddenly became meaningless, not if he didn't survive. "Here!" Shinji tossed the Heaven Scroll at the red-haired nin, "just let me go!"
Soil beneath Gaara's feet welled in a concentric ring–and shot up in a cascade of finely hewn sand. The scroll impacted the shield of sand and harmlessly clattered right next to the kunai on the ground. His fingers moved, the sinister melody of shattering bone sung in his ears. The wide-eyed, manic look twisted on Gaara's features contorted. His heart throbbed, and his head was full of warm blood. The left hand rose, digits quivering with sinful ecstasy. His fist closed shut—and the sand imploded.
Concrete around the rain ninja's constricted form upheaved, cracked, and fell straight down. Uprooted trees balanced in the vacuum of air—then splintered as walls of atmosphere clapped the void shut. Specks of ivory-white bone flew in glittering, ugly arcs. Scarlet tears gushed from the crushed rain genin like a graceful tide of red, slicked with grass, and coalesced into a viscid, dirty-brown gel. The implosion's force was so strong that it superheated blood to the point of evaporation in a faint, scarlet evanescence. Ninja Art: Sand Coffin Technique.
Gaara's fingers curled, beckoning his weapon into his gourd. Finely hewn sand detached with the twisted figure, surged into a fine stream, and poured into his gourd. The tell-tale blood-lust poisoned his mind, stripped him of free-will...and the feral instinct of the demon within took over. He tore his gaze from the crimson spectacle and turned to Kankuro. He wanted more.