Hey you guys! Guess what, here's the next chapter of The Sparring Tournament! :D
Enjoy!
Chapter Eight: Round Two, Fourth and Fifth Battle; Fire Vs. Shadow and The Dogfriend Vs. The Demon Child
1. Ino Yamanaka (1) Vs. Roronoa Zoro. (2)
2. Usopp (5) Vs. Shino Aburame (6)
3. Edward Elric (11) Vs. Sai (12)
4. Natsu Dragneel (13) Vs. Shikamaru Nara (14)
5. Kiba Inuzuka (19) Vs. Nico Robin (20)
6. Naruto Uzumaki (23) Vs. Sanji (24)
7. Chouji Akimichi (25) Vs. Monkey D. Luffy (26)
After Sai was brought to the sidelines to get treated and Edward was able to breathe again, it was time for the next battle.
"Man, how troublesome…It's my turn again…" Shikamaru mumbled lazily.
"Don't say that Shikamaru, I know you can win!" Chouji said, trying to encourage his lazy friend.
"No I can't, haven't you seen how strong that guy is? I'm gonna get myself killed. It's too much of a drag to even try." Shikamaru resplied and pointed at the Fire Dragon Slayer, standing a few metres behind him.
"Natsu, I'm sure you can win!" Lucy told the pink-haired young man with a smile.
Natsu grinned. "Thanks Luce!"
"You have to win! You're the only one of us left so show them the power of Fairy Tail!" Erza yelled, almost angrily. "If you don't and make a fool out of yourself, I will personally make sure that you can't do exactly that ever again!"
Natsu shrunk in fear. "A-aye."
"That's my line!" Happy shouted.
"Hahahahahaha! You guys are so weird!" Luffy laughed loudly, making Nami facepalm.
"Oi Nami, why are you hitting yourself?" the Strawhat asked dumbly, making Nami facepalm again.
The group decided that Gray would be the referee again, and the two fighters for this battle stepped forward.
"Alright, battle four: Flamebrain Vs. Shikamaru Nara! Begin!" he announced.
Natsu, of course, was very pissed. "Hey! Shut up you Ice princess!"
"You shut up and kick that guys ass already!" Gray countered.
The large croud and Shikamaru sweatdropped.
'Well, at least I have an opening…' Shikamaru thought. Then, the Nara made the first move while the referee and his oponent were bickering. He made the right handsigns and made a shadow slowly close in on Natsu.
"Natsu! Shut your damn mouth and fight already!" Erza yelled.
This made Natsu and Gray stop their fighting immediately and allowed the Dragon Slayer to dodge Shikamaru's shadow just in time.
"Wow, that was close!" Natsu said surprised.
Shikamaru smirked and stayed in his crouched position. "Shadow Stitching Jutsu!" he called and shadows started launching themselves at Natsu.
Natsu started dodging them, with a surprised look on his face. 'Those shadows…They look…sharp.' He thought while still dodging many of Shikamaru's shadows. Then, to Natsu's surprise, the shadows started attacking him from behind too. He had nowhere to go, he was completely surrounded.
"Oh no, Natsu's in trouble." Lucy said worried.
"Yeah, this doesn't look good." Erza agreed, standing with her arms crossed and with a serious look on her face while watching the battle.
"Natsu will get out of this, I'm sure." Happy stated, observing how his best friend and partner was fighting Shikamaru, with a confident expression decorating his blue furry catface.
Lucy smiled. "Yeah, you're right, Natsu will win."
Meanwhile, all the shadows that surrounded the Fire Dragon Slayer shot towards him, all at once.
Shikamaru smirked. 'Got him. Looks like I'll make it to the next round after all.'
But then, all Shikamaru's shadows dissapeared and to everyone's surprise, Natsu was standing in the middle, completely unharmed and with one of his fists on fire.
The Nara's eyes widened. "What?!"
Natsu smirked. "Heh, looks like it worked."
"Did he just-!" Shikamaru uttered shocked.
"Heheh, yeah, the shadows dissapeared thanks to my fire."
"Amazing…"
"Wow, Natsu actually did something smart!" Lucy uttered surprised.
"Yes, I'm as shocked as you are." Erza agreed.
"Amazing Natsu-san." Wendy complimented, even though she knew that Natsu probably couldn't hear it.
'I'm surprised, I didn't know he would actually come up with something like that…' Shikamaru thought.
Natsu grinned. "Alright! Now it's my turn!" he exclaimed and ran towards the Nara, his fist still on fire. "Iron Fist of the Fire Dragon!" he yelled and jumped in the air. Then he tried punching Shikamaru in the face, but he was able to dodge the attack, although just barely. Then, the Fire Dragon Slayer tried to hit him again with his other fist, and was able to punch the Nara in the chest, sending him sliding back a couple metres.
"Yeah! You can do it Natsu!" Lucy cheered.
Then, Natsu jumped back and launched his next attack. "Roar of the Fire Dragon!".
The attack hit Shikamaru dead-on. A bit of smoke covered the area where the Nara was standing. When, the smoke dissapeared, everyone saw that Shikamaru was still councious and sitting in a crouching position, looking a bit charred.
Natsu smirked. "Not bad, you're a pretty tough one."
Shikamaru smirked as well. "Thanks." He said and stood up again. Then, before Natsu could attack again, the lazy Nara raised his hand. "This fight is too troublesome, I give up."
The entire group looked at him with a shocked expression decorating each of their faces.
"What? You're giving up?" Natsu asked again, tilting his head slightly.
"Yeah, I don't want to go through the trouble of fighting while knowing that I'm going to lose anyway."
Gray then raised an arm into the air. "Alright then, Shikamaru resigns, so the winner of this battle is Natsu." He announced.
The small crowd cheered, except for the Leaf Shinobi, who all either sweatdropped or facepalmed.
"Well…that's Shikamaru for ya…" Kiba muttered.
"That side of him will never change, will it…?" Naruto stated.
"Probably not…" Ino agreed.
Natsu pouted. "Awwww~! I wanted to kick his ass…" he whined.
"Well, at least you won." Lucy tried to cheer her best friend up, having walked up to the Dragon Slayer and now standing beside him.
"Yeah Flamebrain, cheer up or you'll infect the others with your idiotic and bad mood." Gray agreed.
"Shut up Popcicle!" Natsu yelled pissed.
"You should start, Squinty Eyes!" Gray countered.
"Pervy Icecube!"
"Come at me bro!" he countered, getting in Natsu's face. (Don't get the wrong idea! You know what I mean! xD)
"With pleasure!"
But before the two could start a real fight, they were stopped by Erza who punched the back of their heads very harshly. "Stop it you two!" she yelled angrily.
"A-aye." The two young men obeyed, large bumps growing on their heads.
"Stop stealing my line!"' Happy shouted.
Then, everyone left the middle of the field so that the next battle could begin. Kiba and Robin stood in the middle of the grassy field, facing eachother.
After Shikamaru was fixed up, he stood in between them again. "Match five: Kiba Inuzuka Vs. Nico Robin! Begin!" he announced and jumped out of the way.
Kiba smirked. "Let's end this one quickly." He suggested, Akamaru barking in agreement.
Robin smiled. "Of course." She replied and crossed her two arms.
"Oh no you don't!" he yelled, running towards Robin, Akamaru following him close behind. "Fang over Fang!" he exclaimed and he and his parnter started spinning rapidly, flying towards their oponent.
Robin quickly formed many arms, which all held eachother, forming a shield. Kiba and Akamaru crashed into it, making Robin wince a bit from the pain she still got. Kiba and Akamaru kept pushing against the barrier, still spinning as fast as before. It stayed like that for a couple of minutes, Kiba and Akamaru pushing against Robin's shield of limbs and the pirate trying to keep him from passing through and also everyone cheering them on. After a while, Kiba and Akamaru caught Robin by surprise by suddenly heading towards her over the sides. Kiba came in from Robin's left and Akamaru from the right. Robin wasn't able to avoid it and was hit. The woman was send flying back, but she was able to keep herself from crashing into a tree by forming a net of arms. But she was still hurt pretty badly.
"Not bad Kiba-san." She complimented while landing on her feet.
Kiba smirked, he and his parnter having stopped spinning and landed on his own feet. "Thanks, you're not bad either."
"Thank you."
Kiba smirked again. "But I will definitely win!" Kiba exclaimed. "Right Akamaru?" he asked his hairy partner, who barked in agreement.
Robin smiled. "We will see about that."
"Yeah, we definitely will!" Kiba agreed and started running towards Robin again, Akamaru following him close behind. "Man Beast Clone!" He called out and the young man turned a bit more animal-like, gaining sharp claws and other minor beast-like features, and Akamaru became a flawless clone of him. The two lookalikes then started running on all fours like wolves.
"Interesting." Robin commented, watching the duo quickly approach her.
"Suge~!" Luffy, Usopp, Chopper and also Natsu exclaimed enthousiastically with stars in their eyes.
"Wow, normally both of them keep running on their two legs." Naruto stated.
"Maybe they went a bit more to the beast-side." Sakura spoke.
"Yeah, probably."
The two half-beasts kept running and soon reached their oponent. They both jumped at her, with their sharp claws ready to cut through flesh. Robin managed to dodge one of them, but was cut in her right arm by the other while dodging the first. She jumped back and winced in pain as she held the now bleeding arm.
"O-oh, Robin's hurt." Nami pointed out a bit worried about her friend.
"No~! Don't you dare hurt Robin-chan you damn dog-bastard!" Sanji yelled in anger. The blonde cook was about to run towards Kiba and Akamaru to kick their asses, but he was held back by Franky and Zoro. "Let me go, you damn bastards! I have to help Robin-chan!" he shouted furiously, his eyes literally burning in anger and frustration.
"You can't you idiot! You'll get in the way, and besides, this is just a sparring match, they won't kill her." Franky countered, holding Sanji back with his powerful steel arms.
"Yeah Ero Cook, they won't kill her or anything." Zoro agreed.
Now Sanji's anger turned towards the green-haired swordsman. "Shut up you damn Marimo! Like hell I'd listen to you!"
This of course, pissed Zoro off. "Eh, what did you just call me you bastard?!"
"I called you Marimo, Marimo!" Sanji yelled back.
"Oh yeah, wanna rumble?!"
"Fine with me!" Sanji shouted.
Franky decided that he could let the crew's cook go now, he'd be too busy fighting Zoro to keep trying to help Robin in her battle. And as expected, as soon as he was released, Sanji started fighting Zoro while yelling various insults at eachother.
Meanwhile, back at the sparring match, Kiba had the winning hand. After having been injured, Robin had become a bit slower and had difficulties with attacking since she needed both her arms for it.
After having kicked Robin in the stomach and sent her flying back a few metres, he landed back on his feet and smirked. "Just give up, you're definitaly gonna lose."
"I won't give up, I'm not done just yet Kiba-san."
"Yeah, go Robin!" Nami cheered.
"Heh, sure. If that's how you want it." Kiba said and headed towards Robin again. He clenched his clawed fist and was ready to punch the Archeologist in the face, but the woman dodged it just in time. "Still fast enough to dodge, huh?"
"Indeed." Robin replied while dodging another punch from the Inuzuka.
And so, Kiba kept launching punches and Robin kept dodging them. This lasted for a few more minutes, until eventually, Kiba was able to hit Robin, in her stomach again. The latter was sent back a few metres and stood there for a second to regain her breath. She was really starting to have a hard time though. She was tired and she was hurt and still bleeding. She knew that she wasn't going to last long like this, so she knew what she was going to do next. She stood up straight and raised her good arm in the air. "I give up." She stated.
The group was surprised that the woman gave up just like that, while she had said that she wasn't done yet just a minute ago.
"Really? You're giving up? Why?" Kiba asked surprised.
"You have proven how powerful you are Kiba-san. And I think it's unnecessary to fight until one of us loses counciousness in a simple sparring match. I also know that if I would have kept going, I would have surely been defeated in a couple more minutes. So you win, Kiba-san." Robin explained.
"Alright then, Nico Robin has resigned so Kiba Inuzuka wins!" Shikamaru announced.
The spectators applauded and cheered and Kiba walked up to Robin. "You were really good, I haven't had a battle that exciting in a while." Kiba said with a smirk on his face and held his hand out.
Robin smiled and nodded. "You were very strong too Kiba-san, and I also had fun." She stated and shook the young man's hand.
Well that was it for this awesome chapter! Srry for being so late, but I have been REALLY busy lately. But well, I hope you still enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Next time, we will be ending round two with Naruto Vs. Sanji and Chouji Vs. Luffy! But first, I still have to finish a commission, write the second chapter of Long Lost Friends, of which I have already written quite a bit, and the next chapter of The Tale of Naruto Uzumaki.
See you guys soon!
FanFictionneer. :)