Disclaimer: No, I don't own Naruto, thank you very much.
Chapter 15
Battle on Three Fronts: The Leaf-nin Alliance!
(For real this time!)
Medal Count So Far:
Sand Team: 9
Cloud Team: 9
Rock Team: 9
Team 8: 9
Team 9: 9
Mist Team: 6
Team 6: 3
Team 10:3
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"Fire Style: Fire Burst!"
The flames roared through the clearing, dissolving the incoming icicles before they could reach the two leaf-nin.
"It's taking more and more chakra for me to keep this up!" Raigar hollered, "What are you doing?"
The blonde kunoichi was busy making a box with her fingers and trying to get Kyban in its sights.
"I just need one clear shot, and it's over!" Ino said, "But he keeps moving!"
"No, really? He's a ninja, of course he's moving! Can't you do anything else?"
"Well, can't you stop him for two seconds?"
Kyban laughed.
"Seeing you two argue like an old married couple sure is funny," he said, "But I've got places to go, people to kill, and you're in my way!"
More icicles shot from Kyban's fingertips, countered by Raigar's flame attack again. Except this time, the icicles kept coming, forcing Ino and Raigar to dodge.
"I'm telling you, he keeps shooting more icicles each time! I can't stop them all anymore! We're going to have to come up with something else!" Raigar yelled.
"And I'm saying I am trying to do something else but you have to get him to stand still first!"
"Fine! Lightning Style: Lightning Burst!" Raigar exclaimed.
One of Raigar's hands rose up from the bushes behind Kyban, shooting a blast of lightning energy.
"Ice Shield!" Kyban held his hands out at the advancing bolts, ice forming out of thin air instantaneously, forming a thick barrier of solid ice, blocking the attack.
"That is so annoying…" Raigar commented.
"This isn't good." Ino thought, "Raigar's using up chakra fast, I can't use my mind techniques, and we can't even touch this guy!"
"I'm tired of playing with you. It's time to finish this!" Kyban raised his hand up in the air. Ice crystals began to gather in his palm, elongating more and more, growing into a single monstrous projectile.
"Holy-" Ino started.
"Less admiring, more moving!" Raigar said as he shoved her towards the trees.
"Ice Style: Gigantic Ice Spear!" Kyban laughed.
And then he threw it.
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"I don't care if my genjutsu won't work, I'm still no pushover!" Ryuna exclaimed, "Water Style: School of Minnows!"
A ball of water coalesced in front of her, bursting into hundreds of little tiny darts of water, each assuming the form of a minnow.
"Human Boulder!"
Chouji rolled into the torrent, deflecting the pieces of water, fighting the stream to a standstill.
"Chouji? Chouji!" Rasha yelled as the minnows that Chouji deflected to the sides came around his rolling form, lancing at her.
"That's right!" Ryuna exclaimed, "You can't escape my minnows, I'm controlling them with my chakra! You're done for!"
The minnows shot forward at Rasha as she was dodging, exploding on impact, sending her flying back into a tree behind her. But it wasn't Rasha; the fallen Rasha exploded in a puff of smoke, revealing a log.
"Do you really think I'm that weak? You keep forgetting, I'm reading your mind. I knew what your jutsu did the moment you thought to use it in your head." Rasha's voice came from behind Ryuna as she threw some kunai with exploding tags at Ryuna, who redirected her water onslaught at the new attack. However; by countering Rasha's attack, she allowed Chouji to roll forward. That mistake almost cost Ryuna her life; even still, she was unable to dodge Chouji entirely. The rolling attack sent her flying across the clearing, landing in a heap on the other side.
"Partial Multi-size jutsu! Arm!" Chouji formed a fist as his arm and hand expanded to a ridiculous size over Ryuna.
"Give us your medals now, or I'll squash you!" Chouji said.
"You should have done that when you had the chance!" she shot back. Chouji's eyes widened as he slammed his fist down- but it was too late. Ryuna dove out of the way, rolling to her feet, forming handseals.
"Water Style: Great Vortex Jutsu!"
"Oh, dear…" Rasha yelled, "Chouji! Expand now!"
Too late… Rasha thought, as ridiculous amounts of water appeared from seemingly nowhere, shooting at them in a deadly vortex.
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Tamaru gawked as the form of Karken vanished.
"What? How can he be that fast? He's almost as fast as that Lee kid who graduated with us!" Tamaru gasped.
He barely managed to block Karken's arm blades as they sliced for his neck, the two pushing against each other in a vicious weapon lock; the pressure faded as fast as it had come as Tamaru heard the noise of a leaf crunching behind him. He reflexively spun around to meet the Mist-nin's blades with his own.
"He's so fast!" Tamaru's mind was reeling, "Too fast for me to combat effectively!"
A sudden impact left a crater where Tamaru and Karken had been standing as Sakura leapt out from the trees behind them, aiming at Karken. She missed both, however, leaving a crater in the middle of the field. Tamaru ran next to Sakura, facing down Karken on the other side of the crater. They stared at each other like that for a while, each glaring as if the venomous stares could somehow kill the opponent.
"Sakura?" Tamaru asked.
"Yes?"
"We might have a problem."
"What's that?"
"It's raining." Tamaru pointed up.
And indeed it was raining, pouring but not like any rain either of them had ever seen. For one, the forest of Death had a canopy that would stop this much rain, even in the heaviest of storms. For two, the rain was moving in odd patterns- first blowing one way, then the other. Second, the rain seemed to be dark- almost black, really. The craters Sakura had created started to fill up with water as the downpour became heavier.
"This isn't like normal rain." Sakura noticed it too.
"Genjutsu?" Tamaru offered.
"No…"
Karken laughed.
"No petty jutsu could be like this! This is my bloodline! My Kekkai Genkai, Demon Rain!" he laughed, "I can create a rainstorm anywhere, at any time, which is mine to command! You're done for now!"
Tamaru grimaced.
"We'll just see about that." he said.
"Look! The two craters you made are already filling up! Do you want a demonstration of what I can do?" Karken laughed, his hands forming a blur of practiced hand signs.
"Water Style: Water Tentacles Jutsu!" he said, touching the edge of the pool of water.
A ripple spread throughout the crater, then suddenly, arms of water shot out. They moved about like sentient beings, grappling towards Tamaru and Sakura as they dodged and fled, avoiding the tentacles at all costs. Karken stood, laughing, as the rainstorm thickened some more and he was hidden from view.
"We can't keep this up much longer, Sakura!" Tamaru yelled.
"What! I can't hear you!" and indeed, the rain was getting so loud now it was even obscuring their voices.
"I said, WE CAN'T KEEP THIS UP MUCH LONGER! WE'VE GOT TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING ELSE!"
Tamaru slashed through one of the tentacles trying to grab him and pull him under, but the part he severed just fell to the ground with a splat while the tentacle regrew itself. Sakura was a little more successful by throwing an exploding tag at it, sending water spraying everywhere- the tentacle still regrew, but it took longer. Tamaru slashed through three tentacles at once that were trying to grab him from all sides, spinning around to sever the deadly arms.
"I'LL KEEP THESE ARMS OFF OUR BACKS, YOU FIGURE OUT A WAY TO STOP THEM!" Tamaru yelled, throwing both of his katanas, glowing with the glow of his chakra as he controlled the spinning blades to sever the tentacles. He took the remaining two katana off his back, throwing them as well, sending four spinning blades of death through the air, continuously chopping the water arms so that they could never fully regrow. In the meantime, he took out his Giant Shuriken, keeping an eye out for Karken if he tried to attack either of them.
Meanwhile, Sakura was searching her brain for some way to stop the tentacles. The obvious solution was to keep up what Tamaru was doing, but she knew he couldn't keep doing that forever. She always figured that between the brute force Tsunade had taught her and her natural brain, she could conquer any problem she faced. But this seemed like a quandary. The jutsu in itself was not that much of a threat, but Karken's rain could always thwart her in some way or another… and she wasn't even sure how much that his ability could do.
Oh well. She had come up with something, may as well try it.
Jumping to the edge of the pool of water, she punched the surface with all the force she could muster, sending the force straight downward into the natural curve of the crater. At first the pool just began to roil, but then the water found a way out- up. The water splashed everywhere, overflowing from its banks, splashing all over the area, emptying the pool in one stroke and nullifying Karken's deadly jutsu.
Meanwhile she was still working on the problem of the rain. Karken was using it to hide like the mist from before, but Tamaru couldn't blow it away like before. Karken could attack them at his liking as the pool of water refilled, or… there were endless possibilities.
Sakura's throat tightened as she realized she wasn't thinking of any good ways out.
"Sakura!" Tamaru cried.
Then she realized that that wasn't why her throat had tightened at all. Her throat had tightened because there was now a hand grabbing it as the rain coalesced into Karken's hand, then arm, and then his full body. He grinned as his hand tightened on Sakura.
"You see," he said, "I'm not just hiding in my rain. I can travel through it!"
"You… you bastard!" Tamaru yelled from behind him, slicing at him with his Giant Shuriken.
The Shuriken passed through nothing as the entire middle section of Karken dissolved into water, then reformed after the Shuriken passed harmlessly through.
"Well, that was useless." Karken said.
Tamaru smiled.
"That's where you're wrong." he said.
Karken's eyes widened as four katanas zoomed at him from all sides. He twisted and turned, trying to dissolve his body in time. He dodged well, managing to avoid three- but the fourth slashed him in the side while passing. He vanished and appeared several feet from them, holding his side. The rain curtain stopped.
Tamaru and Sakura grinned triumphantly at him.
"Fine, take your medals." Karken hissed, tossing them to the two Leaf-nin, who caught them promptly, "But don't think you've seen the last of me!"
Then he vanished.
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"Expansion Jutsu!" Chouji expanded to a round size, floating on top of the current that swept Rasha up.
"Human Boulder!" Aagain, Chouji started spinning, except this time he sent water spraying everywhere as he tried to find ground to get traction on. There was too much water; he was just spinning like a pinwheel, not actually doing anything. Chouji reluctantly deflated himself, seeing as how it wasn't doing any good.
"Partial Expansion Jutsu! Arm!" Chouji expanded his arms, grabbing the trunk of a sturdy-looking tree, while expanding his other arm further down the newly made miniature river. After a few minutes of fishing around with his expanded hand, he found Rasha, pulling her up and over to him. She gasped, coughing up water.
"Thanks." she murmured, "Now let's finish this."
"How?" asked Chouji.
She whispered and he smiled.
"That's crazy enough to work." he said.
Ryuna kept pumping out water to sweep the two away as Chouji grabbed onto two trees for dear life, Rasha on his back.
"He thinks he can hold on for much longer? We'll see about that." she said, pushing more force.
The current pushed Chouji a dozen or so feet back, his arms stretching to their limits.
"Just a little more!" Ryuna exclaimed, pushing the last of her chakra into the water blast. It pushed Chouji even farther back until she felt sure he was going to be swept away.
"NOW!" Rasha shouted.
At first Ryuna didn't understand what happened, but suddenly there was an overweight leaf-nin hurtling at her at insane speeds. What happened was a rubber band effect- Chouji had stretched out his arms to the maximum, then instantly released his jutsu, snapping his arms back to normal size. This flung him- and Rasha on his back- towards Ryuna at the insanely high speeds rivaling that of a cannonball. Ryuna dove out of the way of the chubby as he plowed into the trees behind her, but not before Rasha leapt off of his back with a kunai, flipping once in the air, coming down on Ryuna, putting a kunai to her throat.
"Operation: Human Cannonball, success." Rasha said, smiling.
"All right, you win." Ryuna groaned as Rasha removed her medals, tossing one to Chouji, "Now let me go."
"I think I'll leave you knocked out for a while. Chouji, you want to do the honors?" Rasha asked.
Chouji walked over to Ryuna, cracking his knuckles.
"She called me fatso." he said, "She's got to pay the price."
Ryuna gulped as her world went black.
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"Ice Style: Gigantic Ice Spear!" Kyban shouted, wielding a ridiculously huge icicle.
And then he threw it.
"Go!" Raigar shouted as they dove out of the way of the projectile.
The two managed to escape direct impact, but upon impacting the ground, it shattered into thousands of little icicles that sharpened them everywhere, skewering them in multiple places. Kyban laughed. He had won! There was no way they could survive this attack!
And then the two Leaf-nin just… disappeared.
Kyban blinked, his mind disbelieving. One second they were there, being skewered by his attack- and then the next, they were just gone.
"What's going on here?" he gasped.
"Mind Paralysis Jutsu!" came a female voice from behind him as he was hit behind by Ino's spiritual essence.
His mind was racing as Ino began to take over his body, all screaming the same thought: how, how, how how HOW?
Raigar smiled as Ino's body collapsed in his arms.
"Nice thinking." he said.
"It wasn't hard." she said from his body, "While he was standing still gathering that oversized icicle I just cast a basic mind confusion jutsu that made him see us standing still there while he used his attack, letting us get behind him."
"Well, nice thinking anyway." Raigar said.
"Can I trust you to get my body back to Chouji and Sakura once I knock this guy out?" Ino from Kyban's body asked.
Raigar nodded. Ino tossed him the two medals, one which he hung around her neck to prove he was going through with the bargain.
"All right." she said, picking up a large piece of wood, "Good night!"
Then she smacked herself (in Kyban's body that is) with the piece of wood. Kyban's body fell backwards, unconscious, as Raigar took back off for the clearing they had started off in, carrying Ino.
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Soon Team 6 and Team 10 were back in the main clearing, talking and laughing over their recent victories.
"I hate to spoil the party, but we pretty much have one day and each of us still has to get another set." Raigar said.
The others sighed.
"You're right." said Sakura, "We should get going while we can, I guess. All the other teams will be near the tower at this point, so we should start heading that way for now…"
"Well, that was fun while it lasted." said Tamaru.
"Good luck on getting the rest of your medals!" said an Ino with a bloody nose from knocking herself out (remember, damage to the body Ino's in gets inflicted on herself too).
"See ya'll at the tower!" Rasha called.
"BYE!" Chouji bellowed as the two teams took off into the trees.
"You think we can do it?" Raigar asked as Team 6 sailed on their way.
"We better," said Tamaru, "Or all of that we just did will have been all in vain."
"We will." Rasha assured them, "I'm sure of it."
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Medal Count So Far:
Sand Team: 9
Rock Team: 9
Cloud Team: 9
Team 8: 9
Team 9: 9
Team 6: 6
Team 10: 6
Mist Team: 0
Next Time: The start of the preliminaries! Anything can happen! But most of us are rested and ready to go! Well… most of us. Team 6 and Team 10 are pretty worn out, but compared to that team that just burst in the door at the last second- who are these guys, anyway? And can this guy stand up to his claim and really beat Neji? Neji better not be beaten- I still need to fight him in our grand duel of youth!