Arc Two, Chapter Six: Flying Streams

Hours seemed to pass before Hikaru's head slowly moved to focus his attention to Hayato. Hayato had become unnerved by this sudden technique; he hadn't known that Hikaru was holding back at all. His moves were fierce and swift enough with such prowess that Hayato thought his opponent was giving it all. Now though...

Hikaru's eyes seemed cold now (no pun intended), that burning passion of anger no longer standing above his other traits.

"H-Hikaru," Suiren trembled, "You didn't have to do that! Do you know what you've done, you idiot?!"

Hikaru swung his head towards her, rage returning to his (again, no pun intended) chilled features. "I know, I know!" he screamed, "I'm an idiot, I know! That wasn't needed, but..."

Silence again.

"I..."

"It's... alright. We can't let-"

"I know." He said, staring at the palm emitting mist. He turned his head to Hayato and a chill crept up his neck. This fight had changed suddenly, he realized with a start. "We can't let them leave."

. . .

"Emi!" Ren ran by her side, sliding smoothly next to Takehiro. "What's happened, What's wrong?"

"She-I, I don't know! Something's wrong with her."

Emi's eyes were closed, and her blond hair was stuck to her head by an enormous amount of sweat. She didn't breath raggedly, but she also didn't breath at a normal pace. She'd take a shallow breath, stop breathing for a moment, then take another breath.

"Is she injured?"

"I don't know Ren, she doesn't seem to be damaged anywhere!"

"Do you think... When she was in that salamander..?"

Takehiro took a second and the face he made confirmed Ren's fears.

"But how would we know if she were... Poisoned?"

"We have to find out, some way."

"Like how!?" Takehiro's voice cracked.

"We've got to find whoever sent those animals."

"Ren, come on. We barely made it out of that alive, not to mention whatever she did to Emi! We need to find a healer, we need to find some medic or some-"

"To find a medic means to either to risk going to another team or quit the exam!"

"Well it's either that or let her die, and that's not an option, now is it?" Takehiro snapped. Takehiro was hot with anger now, Ren realized. "Come on, let's go. Where's the neares-"

"Kaito!" Ren shouted aloud, "How about we look for Kaito's group?"

Takehiro turned. "Do they have medicine for poison?"

Ren nodded his head affirmatively.

"Ren," Takehiro said slowly, "If something happened to their antidote, it might cost Emi's life. Are you sure you want to go look for it?"

"I-I'm fine." Emi suddenly spoke, attempting to pull herself up. As she struggled, one of her eyes opened, and Ren realized her eyes were still that new red that he wasn't used to. Beads of sweat rolled down her paling face as she struggled to keep herself up on her elbows.

"Emi! Stop it, take it slow!" Takehiro laid her down gently. She moaned in protest, but it was obvious that she had no strength to fight back.

"Takehiro, Ren, we're not giving up on this challenge. This is our chance. We're not going to lose because I inhaled some stupid poison-"

"So you are poisoned? We're leaving, now-"

"Takehiro, look," Emi sighed, grabbing something from her shuriken pouch and dropping it into her mouth. With an audible gulp, Emi opened her eyes and stared a challenge at Takehiro. "That will stop the poison for a while. Two or three days, I don't know, but until that time passes I am not letting you take me anywhere except towards another group for their scroll or to look for Kaito's group."

Ren observed Takehiro's face as a silent battle took place in his head. It was clear that Takehiro was against it, and Ren couldn't blame him; in fact, if it weren't for... them, he'd want to give up on the exam also for Emi. This new red-eyed Emi, however, was hanging on more strongly than their soft, blue-eyed Emi would have. He was silently thankful for this Emi, for it made his job a lot easier.

"..Tsk," he said finally, "Two days, Emi. Two freaking days, otherwise I'm dragging you by force."

Emi stared at him without saying a word. She nodded and got up. Ren stayed silent also. He felt absolutely terrible for this. He should've agreed with Takehiro, like a good teammate. Like a good friend.

"Let's go." Takehiro mumbled angrily. He shunshined off, then Emi. After a bittersweet moment of reminiscence to himself, Ren went also.

. . .

In the distance, a sweet melody could be heard in the forest. It played softly as its speed rose, the notes flowing perfectly and smoothly throughout the whole music arrangement. The player of the music stopped to marvel at the piece he played. "What a nice sound for a pleasant evening."

He looked around him and squeezed his nose. "But what a putrid order..." he mumbled, moving from that area. After all, the piling corpses of both animals and human bodies underneath him didn't smell all that pleasant.

. . .

Hayato rolled to his right side as ice senbon flew at him at amazing speeds. Hikaru moved his hands in a blur, and suddenly Hayato was on the defense, dodging and tucking and rolling to stay alive. He had no time to do any jutsu. He cursed at himself mentally as he thought of all the opportunities he had to learn quick lightning jutsu after Sora had told them their chakra affinities.

Another wave of senbon, and Hayato realized that a tree blocked his right side. Swinging his head back and lifting his feet off the ground, he watched in what seemed like slow motion as the thin icy needles passed over his face, nicking his hair as they flew by. He landed on his hands and performed consecutive backflips until he flipped over a fallen tree trunk and took cover.

Hayato made three handseals and called, "Black Pine Style-" when suddenly Hikaru flashed above him with his hands clenched together in a tight grip. "Not today." Hikaru yelled as he came down. Hayato cursed and pushed off the ground.

Hikaru slammed his clenched hands down and gigantic ice shards erupted from the ground around him. His head rose in an evil glare. Hayato made more seals and slammed his hands on the ground. "Earth Style: Implosive Landslide!"

The ground under Hikaru grew soft, and started to cave in at a rapid pace. Hayato watched as Hikaru reached inside of one his summoned ice shards—yes, inside of it, Hayato witnessed in disbelief—and pulled the rest of his body inside of it, fitting inside perfectly and becoming almost a reflection. He then shot himself out of it like a rocket, spinning in the air like a paper twirler. He let lose a thousand senbon-both ice and metallic-rain down, yelling "Dance of the Senbon: Eternal Frost Shower!"

Hayato made a special hand seal like before. "Black Pine Dome!"

A black crystal dome rose to shield him from the onslaught of senbon. Hayato took this time to look at the battlefield. Something had been bothering him...

Where was the girl?

He looked for the other dome where Kaito and Aoi were. He cursed to see she was using the time Hayato was preoccupied to attack it. If Hayato could concentrate, he knew he could preserve its strength for quite the while. He couldn't concentrate, however; this easy battle had changed into an equal grounded fight to the death.

The pelting of senbon had stopped, and he looked to see Hikaru was coming down to strike. Hayato made another combo of handseals and stored chakra in his stomach, condensing and changing its shape into the black liquid of his clan. He let the dome over him come down. This had to end quickly.

. . .

Kaito held his hands together and was channelling chakra. Kaito was up for letting Hayato fight alone, but that ice kid had turned the tides of the battle. Now, in this already dark dome, their vision on the outside was completely gone since a certain kunoichi was splashing water at them from all directions. It made it harder for Kaito to concentrate with the heavy thud of a water jet driving into this heavy hunk of rock. Kaito looked over at Aoi and saw she had no problem, however.

Her hair was, and this was no exaggeration, floating in the air in long wavy strands, her body emitting a very faint blue hue associated with chakra. She gathered chakra at a far greater rate than Kaito could ever dream of. He wondered where she had learned that. He knew Sora hadn't taught that to them. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he kinda wondered what their sensei was doing...

. . .

Sora made a loud, exasperated sigh as he flopped to the ground. He hadn't realized how fun being with his students had been until he was stuck to hang around his own peers. What was that saying? Something about not appreciating something until it's gone? Meh, whatever it was, that's how he felt now.

A tall burly man with black hair walked over to him. He looked down at Sora and Sora couldn't help but pay attention to the scar placed diagonally over his right eye. The Konoha head-band wrapped around his even muscular neck cast a reflection of the sun to shine in his eyes, causing Sora to look away.

"Sora, fucking take this seriously. You have one job, how complicated can that be?" he sighed irritably.

"Ahh, Isamu-san, must you always be so stiff? Enjoy the sunlight, bask in it's glory and all that." Sora smiled, amusing himself by pissing the jounin off.

What? He had to pass the time some way.

"Uh, Sora, can you not invoke his rage, please? One he starts it's hard to stop him. I'm shocked his students even passed the test. Even my little Shika-chan." Ensui walked up to the two, scratching his head idly.

"Sorry Nara-san." Sora waved.

"Ensui, Shika's the one who saved my blond brat from getting split in half. I hafta' admit; I never saw the use of incapacitation jutsus until it stopped me." Isamu groaned.

"R-really? You? Wow, at such a young age too! She's already a prodigy!"

Sora sigh and crossed his arms behind his head, laying his head down when he felt something smooth and plush instead of the usual soft and prickly feeling that's accustomed with grass. Something lightly stroked his left cheek. Sora's eye twitched as he looked up to see the curly red hair he had annoyingly gotten used to, and somewhat expected.

"Ahh, Sora-chan. You're so cute when you're in my lap." Shirai said as she continued to caress his check with her finger. "I want to stay like this forever."

Sora's eye twitched again, twice this time, before his eyes flashed to Ensui. "Nara-san, how long do you think it'll be until someone opens a scroll? And also, how likely is it that it'll be me? Very likely right? Right?"

"Ehh, Sora, I don't think you want the honest answer." Ensui chuckled nervously.

"Oh, Sora," Shirai pulled his head up to squeeze him in what felt like a choke hold, "I hope my kids are smart enough to follow the rules! Kaori and Hibiki are okay, but sometimes Jin worries me..."

"I-I'm sure.. they'll be okay!" Sora struggled to get out, clawing at Shirai's forearms as he tried to gasp for air.

. . .

"Black Pine Style: Pinecone Torrent!" Again Hayato shot the liquid from his mouth, the liquid driving the Mist-nin into the air and keeping him stuck like a bird in a trap. Hayato had made sure to make this liquid extra sticky, changing the texture in his stomach to soft and sticky so he could get caught easily, but not too soft to where he could easily slide out of it. Hikaru struggled mid-air until he froze the liquid and broke out, but Hayato had already launched himself in the air; He spun forward raising his foot high and brought it down with a mighty swing. His axe kick slammed into Hikaru's shoulder, sending him crashing into the ground.

Hayato grabbed shuriken from his pouch and flung them in the dust below. Sure, he didn't have the same accuracy as someone like Aoi, but it was still somewhat on point. He heard the vague ding of deflection, and suddenly Hikaru was behind him. Hayato had no time to turn as he was grabbed from behind, the Kiri-nin thowing his arm around Hayato's neck while making rapid hand signs with his right hand.

'He can make hand signs with only one hand?' Hayato thought incredulously. "A Thousand Flying Water Needles of Death!" Hikaru called, and all around the two, a thousand long water needles appeared from the air. 'Shit,' Hayato cursed mentally, 'Is he planning on taking me with him?'

Hayato looked around desperately for an escape route, but the needles surrounded him from every angle in the air. He cursed and apologized to his teammates. He should've been more careful. If only he took the time to learn some ice techniques-

"Haah!" He activated the technique, disappeared from Hayato's back.

"GO LEFT!" he heard a familiar voice scream. He flung himself the suggested way. He looked towards his destined direction, and closed one eye in preparation to become a pin cushion.

However, for some strange reason, the voice made him keep one eye open.

Something blue shot from somewhere on the ground and hit one needle. As the blue object lost its hue, he realized that it was a chakra embed senbon. That needle crashed into another needle, which crashed into two others, causing a chain reaction that left the whole left side in dissary, allowing Hayato to sail to the ground without worry of being a human cactus.

"Gah!" he cried aloud, feeling four sharp pains across his right arm and two along his back. He turned his body, flinging himself into a slide that skidded his left arm and leg. It hurt, but it was needed so that the needles wouldn't dig in any deeper into his body. He stumbled to rise on his right leg, opening his left eye to see where Hikaru was standing, his gaze that of an enraged and crazed woodsman. But his gaze wasn't towards Hayato; it was towards someone behind him.

Hayato turned behind him and saw Aoi standing tall and mighty, three senbon she probably picked up from the ground gripped tightly in her balled up fist. "Now do you need help?"

. . .

Kaito admired Aoi with a newfound respect. Whereas he only thought that the same amount of pressure of water was getting shot at their dome from all over, she deciphered which side was getting the most pressure and waited a split second before it broke to tell Kaito the blast it with his own water.

"Now!" Aoi said. "Wild Water Waves!" he launched the technique at the shuriken she dug in the spot she placed it. The dome broke, and Kaito poured more chakra in the technique to overpower the opposing water technique. Aoi shot an arrow from her chakra bow through the water and struck something. The opposing water force stopped and so Kaito cancelled his technique. "Kaito, stay here and protect that kid. She's aiming for him, so she'll be back. You shouldn't stay in here. In fact, you should really get out of here in case she wants to drown this place."

"Gotcha," Kaito had said, throwing the unconscious boy over his shoulder and jumping out of the after Aoi. "GO LEFT" Aoi had called, and as she went to go intercept an attack on Hayato, Kaito jumped to evade a water blast.

A blue-haired girl sat on top of an orb of water, a long black stick in her hand. As Kaito looked closely, it seemed like it was an umbrella handle. Kaito looked around and saw other orbs in the air, each holding pieces the top pieces of her umbrella. She smiled innocently before the other orbs shot high pressured water beams his way. Kaito swung Yoshi's—that was his name, right?—body and used it as a shield, the unconscious boy taking the blunt force as they were launched towards a stream of water. He grabbed Yoshi's body in his arms and flipped so his feet would land on the water.

Last minute, Kaito added chakra to his feet to walk on the water. It wasn't a perfectly balanced amount, so instead of slamming and splashing on the surface, he kinda skated on it. "Wooahh" he called out, before balancing the chakra. 'That was pretty cool!' he said to himself.

He held Yoshi's body in his arms like a bride, and jumped to avoid more shots of water as the orbs flowed closer to him. As he continued jumping around like a grasshopper avoiding feet, he noticed that the orbs began to shrink in size the more water they exerted. He kept avoiding the blasts, the water feeling remarkably great against his muddy skin. It kind of felt like it was getting easier to move on the water.

As the battle raged on, soon even Suiren, still floating on her little orb, noticed that the orb's power was getting weaker, slower, and more sloppy at a rapid rate. She spun her black stick and the orbs circled above him on all sides. "Final shot!" She yelled, and the orbs shot the remaining water they had left before they plummeted to the ground. Kaito let himself fall into the water, avoiding the beams as they slammed into the spot where Kaito would have surely gotten squashed.

Descending into the water with Yoshi in his arms, he felt even more relaxed, as if he had been underwater like this before. Something moved underwater, and he almost gasped as he saw another orb underwater. It finally dawned upon him that what the girl had been holding was the handle, shaft, and runner of the umbrella, while the black sticks in the water orbs were each stretchers wrapped in the parts of the umbrella's canopy. The stretcher pointed towards him, and something strange happened; Kaito swung his left arm across his face to protect him, and suddenly his arm warmer grew warm, and the whole stream moved towards the right, the orb getting flung out of the water. At the sudden move of the ocean, he unknowingly raised the same arm up, and the stream seemed to jump into the sky.

. . .

Aoi stared at Hikaru, still awaiting an answer from Hayato. From the corner of her eye, she still saw Hayato sitting on the ground, clutching his arm with a pained expression on his sweating face. After a long moment, he nodded. She nodded back at him, letting her chakra flow into the senbon. She always thought of covering something in chakra like being in a shower and letting water drip from her hands to her towel. It became simple and easier to her the more she did it.

Hikaru continued to glare at her, anger evident and prominent in his features. "Hayato," Aoi called, "I'm gonna need some defense for a bit."

He looked up at her and nodded. He stood up straight and turned towards Hikaru, but not without a pained expression on his face. Aoi had never known Hayato for making faces other than annoyed ones, and she couldn't help but feel mad. She wasn't mad because Hayato had basically trapped Kaito and her in a dome to just watch as a battle, 2 on 1, took place, nor was she mad that it would have been his fault if they drowned in that air-tight dome or anything along those lines. She was mad because these guys, Hikaru, Yoshio, and Suiren had caused them trouble, and that anger she now possessed was more than enough to rival Hikaru's.

Aoi channeled chakra throughout her body and created her bow just as Hikaru charged, senbon gripped in both of his hands as tightly as she had hers gripped in her left hand. Hayato grabbed held a kunai in each of his hands and charged at him. They clashed, and though Hikaru was much faster than Hayato, who moved sluggishly due to his injuries, Hayato's skill at hand-to-hand combat kept the battle somewhat equal. Aoi rose her bow, holding the three senbon between her fingers. She let the chakra extend from the tips as she pulled her drawstring back. She wasn't aware as a light blue hue grew around her, and chakra swirled around her feet at a quick rate.

Hikaru, however, had noticed.

He clashed with Hayato one last time before pushing himself off of the raven-haired genin, jumping into the air and launching all ten of the senbon in his hands towards Aoi. Aoi simply stared as she prepared to fire the technique. She didn't care if she got hit, she had one job to take care of. Suddenly Hayato was there, his hands weaving through handseals. Then he stood in front of her and threw his arms out. Audible shinks could be heard from his back as he grit his teeth, yelling "SHOOT!" with all the power in his lungs. He fell to the side, and Aoi's rage grew tenfold.

"Chakra Bow: Senbon Archway!" She released the grip her left hand held, and the senbon, now three arrows due to the chakra stretched around them, flew at Hikaru in a flash. He was in the air with nowhere to run, and he threw his arms across his face as they curved, each slamming dead into his torso area. His mouth flew open, and the arrows, now intertwined into one, blasted him towards the stream.

That's when something strange happened.

The stream moved almost away from the attack, and Aoi looked around in confusion. She looked behind her towards the left, and suddenly the stream rose, a small figure moving in the water. In an almost domino-like effect, the stream continued to rise, until it curved and reached Hikaru. The technique was slamming Hikaru into the water, but the water's weight shifted the direction and the arrow tore away from Hikaru. He screamed, and it rung throughout the forest horrifically. Blood flew in the air along with his body, a gaping hole along the side of his body gruesome and disgusting. He flew into the water as it came back down, splashing with a loud slap.

Aoi felt a wave of nausea creep up her throat when suddenly her attention went elsewhere.

'Hayato!'