Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Guess I have to settle with being #1 fan (not really, I'm sure there are bigger fans)
Chapter 10
Team 8's Problem: Nothing to Lose!
Medal Count so far:
Sand Team: 6
Team 6: 3
Team 8: 3
Team 9: 3
Team 10: 3
"Let's go, Akamaru! Inuzuka Rare Transformation: Double Headed Wolf!" Kiba shouted, as he and his partner transformed together into the Double Headed Wolf form.
"Don't make this hard on yourself. Just hand over the medals, we don't want to kill anyone this time around. We spared you that one time you hid in the bush." said Gaara, his arms crossed.
Kiba's response was to start spinning.
Gaara sighed. The only thing Kiba had managed to do to him in this whole battle is to have his dog pee on him a little, though he knew that was to do this attack. Still…
"Absolute Defense: Shield of Shukaku." Gaara said. A huge mound of sand in the form of Shukaku rose up. The spinning beast collided with it, and several moments passed while Kiba tried to demolish Gaara's barrier.
Ultimately, it failed, and Kiba ended up de-transforming, and he and his dog lay exhausted on the forest floor. Gaara walked over to them, scooping them up in his sand coffins.
Kiba awoke in a jolt, struggling against the sand, to no avail. Fear crossed his eyes for a second. Gaara sighed.
"Why do I have to keep telling all of you? I'm not like that anymore." said Gaara, "We're not going to kill you or your teammates. We just want these." said Gaara, pulling the medal off of Kiba's neck.
Kiba struggled some more, once again without effect.
"The sand will fall off once I get far enough away." said Gaara, jumping into the trees.
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Hinata shot chakra darts out of her hands as she ran from her pursuer.
Temari grunted. More darts? They were slightly annoying since she couldn't blow them away with her fan, but she easily dodged them as they tore into trees beside her. She swung her fan again, sending a cyclone to the retreating girl- Hinata dodged to the side as they continued their chase in the trees.
"I'm really trying not to kill her…" Temari said, "But she keeps hiding in all the trees…"
Temari bit her thumb, blood flowing from the wound as she spread it on her fan.
"Summoning: Quick Beheading Dance!" She said as she blew her fan, a fearsome scythe-bearing weasel appearing, spinning forward. Trees fell all over the place as the weasel cut through the forest. Hinata barely dodged the weasel as it soared over head, jumping to the forest floor, with Temari after her shortly.
Once more, Temari swung a cyclone… but not at the girl this time, but rather at the trees above her head. Large branches feel down towards Hinata…
Hinata stood still under the falling branches, seemingly making no effort to dodge. Does she have a death wish? Wondered Temari.
Then Hinata started waving her arms wildly, sending chakra darts everywhere. The darts struck every one of the falling branches, deflecting them from falling on her.
"Impressive…" thought Temari, "But it gives me the opening I need."
Just as soon as Hinata finished and the last branch was safely out of the way, Temari blew a focused cyclone at the Byakugan user. Even though Hinata saw what was happening, she couldn't make a move to dodge it in time- the wind tunnel caught her and threw her against the tree behind her. Temari moved forward as Hinata started fading consciousness, taking her medal.
"Now time to find the others…" Temari thought.
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"I will admit, you are much harder to beat with three puppets…" Shino said. Kankurou was using Karasu and Kuroari as a deadly combination team to trap or attack him. Sanshouou was less of a problem, as the shielding puppet did little to stop Shino's bugs, who could just go around it, but Kankurou could hide in the puppet while still controlling his attackers.
"Thanks, I've been waiting for this rematch ever since I got Kuroari and Sanshouou." Kankurou said, smirking, moving his fingers a bit.
Karasu and Kuroari suddenly sprang into action, and all Shino saw was a blur as they ran around him at high speeds. He raised his hands as Karasu shot a poison bomb, which exploded into a mist of poison gas. Kankurou smiled. He beat bug-boy!
When the smoke cleared, though, that was a different story. A solid wall of bugs surrounded Shino in a dome, who emerged unscathed.
"How?" asked Kankurou.
"My bugs… they eat the poison bit by bit and break it down inside their bodies." said Shino.
"Grr…" Kankurou said, "Eat this!"
Karasu and Kuroari, still running around Shino, all unleashed barrages of weapons that pierced Shino's body. Too easy… thought Kankurou, Probably a clone…
Sure enough, the impaled Shino burst into bugs and the real Shino came at him from behind with a Kunai. Kankurou sent Sanshouou to block while bringing back Karasu and Kuroari to attack. Karasu stabbed upwards at Shino's head with his concealed blade as Shino bent backwards to avoid the attack. However, the blade caught the edge of the chain of Shino's medal, bringing it off Shino's head.
"Heh, we'll finish this some other time. I got what I came for." said Kankurou, waving the medal as Karasu gave it to him, then he and his three puppets took off into the trees.
"Wait!" Shino called, trying to pursue, but a blast of wind interrupted him as a fan-wielding girl and her Jinchuuriki brother appeared between Shino and Kankurou. Gaara shook his head at Shino before taking off after Kankurou. Shino knew better than to pursue. While he could hold his own with the puppet master, the three of them would easily overwhelm them… he needed to find Kiba and Hinata.
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Hinata awoke with a start to find Shino and Kiba sitting around a campfire. She jerked upright, surveying their surroundings. They were still in the forest, in a clearing, with a fire going. Was that really wise?
"You woke up." Shino said.
Hinata nodded.
"I…I was attacked… by that Temari girl…" Hinata said.
"I know! That freaky Gaara guy fought me, except he didn't kill me!" Kiba exclaimed.
"It looks like we were attacked by all of them… they took our medals." Shino said.
"What does that mean? Are we disqualified?" Hinata asked.
Shino shook his head.
"No. We just have to work three times harder to get three more sets." Shino said.
"W-well… if we're going to try so hard… shouldn't we put out the fire? It's dangerous to draw attention." Hinata noted.
"No, Hinata." said Kiba, "Remember last time? We got our scroll by staying in the open and luring the enemies to a trap."
"At least, that was our plan while you recovered." said Shino, "Now, we can keep with this plan or go and look for medals. Either way. We have nothing to lose."
"We can find the hidden medals better than anybody." said Kiba, "Thanks to our individual talents, we can each search in different directions."
"Y-yes…" Hinata said, activating her Byakugan, "There's none in this area as far as my Byakugan can see, but if we spread out…"
"Ok. Meet back here after an hour, or once you find a medal." said Shino.
Then they scattered.
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An hour later they each had a medal to replace the old ones and had met back at the fire.
"Good job." Shino said.
"I looked for as many as possible, but I only found this one." said Hinata, "This is a very big forest… so they must be scattered really far."
"It's all right." said Kiba, "We can always take out other teams to get the last two sets."
"Speaking of other teams…" said Shino, "We have one eavesdropping on us now."
Kunai suddenly whizzed through the air, impaling the three of them, each of which scattered into thousands of bugs.
"Gatsuuga!" Kiba yelled as he and Akamaru spun, tearing through the branches. He exposed the three assailants, who had to jump backwards into the clearing to avoid the attack.
The three were leaf-nin that were obviously from a far older age group than Team 8. As far as Team 8 was concerned, these may as well be foreign ninja because they were complete strangers to them. They didn't know about their abilities or anything, so it would be a fair fight, in a way.
"Great. An Inuzuka and his mutt." said one as two Kiba's landed in front of him, "A Beast Clone, I assume?"
"You seem to know a lot about my clan." said one Kiba.
"But will that really help you?" the other Kiba asked.
"All right…" said the first, "Dorusake, do your thing."
"Gladly." said the one on the right, pulling a giant two-handed battleaxe off his back, "Earth Style: Stone Spire Jutsu!"
Dorusake slammed his axe into the ground, causing tremors all over. The ground in front of the Kibas split as stone spears lanced out of the ground at them, nearly impaling them. The two landed on all fours as more spires came at them, splitting them in opposite direction.
"Now, Kanzaku!" the leader said.
The remaining one pulled out two kunai with exploding tags and drew back his arm to throw them… but gasped as two darts of chakra shot through his heart. He fell over face-first, blood trickling out of his mouth.
"What the?" the leader asked, "Move! The exploding tags!"
The two jumped out of the way as the kunai Kanzaku dropped exploded, incinerating him.
"I… I didn't mean to kill him, Kiba." said Hinata, coming out of the bushes.
"It's ok, Hinata! Get back!" Kiba called, but it was too late. The leader swept down from his hiding place in a tree, grabbing Hinata and leaping to another tree, holding a kunai to Hinata's throat.
"Drop your medals now, or this girl dies!" he said.
"You should really pay better attention to who you grab next time." Hinata said, fading away into bugs.
"Curses! That Aburame is really getting on my nerves!" the leader said.
"It's all right, I'll level all the trees to find him, Satame!" Dorusake said, slamming his axe into the ground again. Stone spikes started shooting up all over the ground, sometimes piercing through the trunk of a tree, causing it to fall. Nothing seemed to happen, no scream of pain from Shino or Hinata, still in hiding. All that attack served to do was to clear out some trees and place stone spires all over the place at strange diagonal angles.
"Forgetting someone? Gatsuuga!" Kiba said, spinning at him again with Akamaru.
"Earth Style, Stone Spire Shield!" Dorusake said, as large, thick stone spires shot out of the ground in front of him, making a barrier. Kiba collided with it. Eventually, though, his attack broke against the barrier and he and Akamaru were thrown backwards.
"Akamaru!" Kiba called as the puppy ran to his hands. Kiba launched Akamaru in the air over the enemy's barrier. Akamaru started spinning, yellow-ish liquid spraying everywhere.
"Dynamic Marking!" Kiba exclaimed as some of it got on Dorusake's clothes, "It's over."
"Don't act so arrogant! I'm not going down because of that!" Dorusake yelled back.
"I'll finish this quickly, in one blow… Akamaru! Inuzuka Rare Transformation: Double Headed Wolf!"
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"Girl, why do you fight so hard?" Satame asked. His hands were glowing green as he fought hand to hand with Hinata. Hinata was trying to hit him with a Gentle Fist blow, but he kept parrying her strikes and attacking back- every five hits or so he would bring his hands together and fire a green beam which would send her flying back. Whenever she tried to shoot her Chakra darts he blocked them with the green glow.
"I… have to show how much I've improved!" she said, charging again. She shot two Chakra darts at Satame's head, who blocked with his hands. She tried to strike him low since his hands were by his head, but he somehow managed to bring his hand down to block it.
"Earth Style: Object Manipulation!" He said, the green glow on his hands shooting beams at two nearby trees. Hinata gasped as the trees uprooted themselves and started floating menacingly towards her. One swung downward at her at high speeds…
"Bug Wall!" came Shino's voice as an army of bugs stopped the strike.
"S-Shino! Where were you?" Hinata asked.
Shino held up a medal.
"I had to go find the medal of the one you killed. It flew far away in the explosion." he said.
Hinata nodded.
"Now we're ready to fight for real… I don't think you can beat both of us." said Shino to Satame.
"That's what you think!" he retorted, "We'll just have to see, won't we?"
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Medal Count so Far:
Sand Team: 9
Team 8: 4
Team 6: 3
Team 9: 3
Team 10: 3
What will happen next time? Will Kiba's ultimate attack manage to break through the stone barrier? Will Shino and Hinata be able to defeat Satame? R&R please, and wait for tomorrow for the next update!