A/N: I'm amazed that I've been able to keep up this speed with how 'busy' I've been. I think I may be developing the ability to perform mindless, repetitive tasks and apply myself here at the same time. Either that, or I'm slowly going insane. Anyway, don't leap out of your seats and claw the screen just yet, this party is barely started.
Chapter Seventeen: Tremors
"Damn them all," Haruka complained loudly. "They certainly are taking their sweet time! What the hell are they doing down there?"
"Whatever it is, it's good for us," Keisuke answered. "Without having to be constantly moving for a while, the saved energy is doing wonders for my system."
"Not for mine," his partner grumped. "They've already taken long enough to grab two cups of coffee, jog a lap around the Grave, masturbate, and walk from the cell all the way up here."
"You know, they might be doing just that," suggested Keisuke thoughtfully, "To play mind games with you. They probably know how moving at a glacial pace just thrills you."
"Shut up," Haruka snapped. "That isn't funny, nor is it helpful in any... what's that?" The Hyuuga woman's Byakugan flickered on and she stood up abruptly, causing Keisuke, who had been leaning a little too heavily against her, to fall flat on his back.
"Ite!" Keisuke exclaimed. "That's still a little tender back there. What did you do that for?" He picked himself up slowly, noting that the healing had progressed well; his muscles and joints gave him very little pain as they moved. He saw Haruka looking off in one direction and turned to stare that way himself.
"I see something," she told him. "Over there on the ground, can you see that glare? Think it might be a trap or trigger of some kind?"
Needing practice with his new eyes, Keisuke had a difficult time focusing into the distance to see what she was talking about. In a few seconds, though, he found it.
"That light there?" he asked. "What fool would put a lightbulb on the ground, where it could be so easily stepped on?"
Haruka looked at him as if he had just stripped naked and thrown his pants in her face. "You're the idiot," she said. "That's not a lightbulb! It's just a piece of metal that's reflecting other lights. By all that's sinful, those new toys of yours are causing more grief than good. I don't want to know how you're going to handle mirrors..."
"Okay, I get it," Keisuke interrupted, feeling exasperated. "I need more practice. So what is this metal thing, partner? Or do we have to go closer?"
In answer, Haruka walked over to it. It was perhaps fifty yards away, glinting in the dirt at their feet like a mysterious beacon. Neither of them knew how they had failed to notice it before. What was more, as they drew nearer, Keisuke noticed that his partner seemed to grow increasingly curious. What was it that had so captured her attention?
"Weird," she said once they had reached it. "I can't see any traps or anything... maybe somebody just dropped it by accident when they built the place?" She bent down to pick it up—Keisuke fought not to stare too hard at a certain portion of her—and came up holding the piece of metal that had been glinting at them.
It was a small, metal ring. It was argent in color—silver, possibly, or white gold—and into the band were carved old, unreadable sigils and symbols that neither of them could understand. A gem had been socketed into it; a brilliant, hexagonal sapphire reflected Haruka's silver eyes back at her almost like a blue-tinted mirror. She seemed almost transfixed by it, Keisuke realized.
"It looks valuable," he commented. "Somehow I don't think anyone would have just dropped it carelessly and let it go. Are you sure there isn't anything wrong with it?"
"Positive," Haruka affirmed, turning off her Byakugan. "I checked it five times over. No traps, no tampering, no taint. It's completely clean." She continued to stare at it like a hawk watching its prey, though she was apparently still aware of him.
"Too good to be true, almost," Keisuke acknowledged.
She finally removed her eyes from the ring and looked at him, smiling in her sadistic way. "You spineless worm," she said, stepping toward him. "You shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Have a little optimism, will you? At least now we have something pretty to look at... besides my back end, anyway."
Keisuke recoiled a little, realizing that she had caught him staring after all, but once that slight sting of surprise faded, he let himself relax. The thing didn't seem to be affecting her sense of humor, at any rate. That was a good sign. Also, if her Byakugan didn't find anything dangerous about it after checking five times...
"Sorry, you're probably right," he said, sitting down again. "And it does look pretty, I agree."
"I bet you wish you'd found it first," she replied, putting it on her finger with a mischievous expression. "You could have given it to me for an engagement ring."
Keisuke laughed and gave a grin of his own that was part real, part exaggeration. "Engage myself to a hellion like you? You are too amusing; I'd rather elope with a hedgehog, thank you very much."
"Oh, suuuure," Haruka drawled, grinning wider. "Your mouth says that, but I know where you've been looking all damned day. Who's the laughable one?"
Keisuke's reply was put on hold when a small tremor shook the arena and the lights suddenly began flickering. They blinked on and off rapidly for several seconds, and when it stopped, they were not shining as brightly as before.
"What was that?" he wondered.
"Probably those bastards down below playing with the lights to screw with us," Haruka growled.
"That, or somebody's using an absurd amount of power somewhere," Keisuke amended. "Hey... do you think that maybe Naruto's team is here?"
"If they are," Haruka responded, "Then we'll probably be getting a lot worse than that little quake in a while."
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Sakura climbed up through the mental blackness that had fallen on her slowly and painfully. She could not remember much of what had happened to her; she could recall Gamatatsu's clumsy mistake, and the fall that came afterward, but memory beyond that point eluded her. Where was she now, and where were the frogs that Naruto had assigned to help her?
She opened her eyes, and immediately had the first question answered for her. The pink-haired medic found herself lying on an operating table, with bright surgeon's lights blaring down on her. Startled, she sat bolt-upright, frantically checking herself for tubes, wires, or incisions, but miraculously finding none. Relief at that realization was brief, however, for what she saw now that she was sitting up quickly brought new discomfort.
The room that she was in was all one gigantic medical laboratory. There were many more tables besides the one that she currently sat on, and almost all of them had something of its own on top of it. Several held large vials of blood and other substances, probably used for chemical tests. Others held apparatuses that Sakura recognized—sterilizers, defibrillators, and the like. Still others held things that she had never seen in her life. The rarest tables held human cadavers, many of them which she discovered, sickeningly, to be open.
One set of tables against the back wall, however, caught and held her attention. They held two huge glass vats of what looked suspiciously like embalming fluid or other preservative substance, lit from their bases by internal lamps. They would not have been so peculiar by themselves, if they hadn't been holding two large frogs inside of them. Gamakichi and Gamatatsu hung suspended in the vats, unmoving, either dead or comatose. She walked slowly over to them, in awe of the animals' plight.
"What could they want with these two?" she wondered aloud.
"Those particular specimens," answered a voice behind her, "Being descended from such a mighty amphibian line, will yield very rare, very potent frog oil, which can have many uses if one possesses the knowledge. It seemed a shame, to me, to waste the chance to harvest it."
Sakura whipped around, an angry look crossing her face. She saw the face and form that she knew belonged to that particular voice. Cunning eyes, a lean build, and white hair pulled back into a short ponytail matched the features of one of Sakura's fellow medical shinobi turned to evil. Kabuto had a smug look on his sharp face, regarding her with a slight pity mixed with enormous triumph.
"Oh, and what were you going to 'harvest' from me, you traitor?" she asked vehemently.
"The usual," answered the evil medic. "I was going to cannibalize all of your usable organs, pack them away in sterile, cold storage. One never knows when they might have need of a spare heart or a kidney. It's a pity that you woke up so soon."
"You could have used a better anesthetic," Sakura said. "Or is it that you were planning to let me wake up first?"
Kabuto's smug expression didn't change as he reached into the pouch strapped to his leg. "You know me too well, Sakura-san," he said. "Of course, I do get bored within my work from time to time. I didn't think you would mind terribly if I asked you to entertain me for a while..."
As he finished saying "while," he drew and threw and handful of long needles in one easy, flowing movement. They flew straight as arrows, one each aimed directly at her heart, liver, neck, forehead, and lungs. A shrill whistle sounded as they sailed towards their targets, splitting the air in their path.
"...Right?" Kabuto said as they impacted.
"I'm not the same useless kunoichi that I was when you last saw me," Sakura said as she dodged quickly to one side. Tsunade had made her practice evasion with such emphasis that even the lightning-quick throws that Kabuto made were ineffective without some way of keeping her still. The closest of his needles missed her by a hair.
Using her momentum, she focused chakra into her hand and punched the nearest table, releasing the chakra upon impact. The table cracked and split apart from the force, and the shockwave carried all the way through to the floor beneath, sending shards of tile and of the table rippling towards Sakura's opponent. "Because of Tsunade-sama, I am much stronger!"
"So I see," Kabuto said, easily leaping to safety atop another table. "But are you skilled enough yet?" He snatched up a vial from next to his foot and lobbed it at her. It hit the spot where Sakura had been only moments before and shattered, releasing a cloud of white vapor as the strong base used for titration ate through the floor.
Sakura dodged forward rather than away, springing for her enemy with knife and shuriken in hand. The shuriken she threw straight for Kabuto, watching to see which way he would move and preparing to strike in that direction.
Kabuto did not dodge, though; his skill was sufficient to deflect them all easily with his own kunai and still parry Sakura's weapon easily as it came up to bisect him. "Apparently not," he decided. "You have improved beyond recognition, but you are still imperfect, Sakura-san." The evil medic swiped at her weapon arm with his free hand. Sakura felt power in it, and knew that he was aiming to sever the tendons in her wrist. She leaped away to avoid it, making seals in midair.
"Ninpou: Dokugiri!" (Poison Mist)
Half of the room—the half which Sakura retreated behind—was filled with poisonous smog, preventing Kabuto from following her while simultaneously giving her a cover to hide behind. She ducked behind one of the larger tables to conceal herself from detection. If Kabuto outclassed her in close-quarters and projectile combat, then she would turn it into a stealth game. When the mist cleared, neither opponent could detect the other.
"So, now it's on to hiding, hmm?" Kabuto's voice rang out. "Cowardly, but intelligent. You can't beat me by any other way but surprise."
There, Sakura thought, following the sound of the voice to what she hoped was its source. She moved quickly and as quietly as she could until she was two tables away, and then leaped up, slamming her fist down on the return to send another ripple of equipment and floor tile.
Kabuto was not there anymore, however, and Sakura had given her stealth away. More needles flew from the enemy's hidden position, this time even faster than before. They struck Sakura dead-on, hitting at every vital spot. Any human would die from such an accurate attack.
But the human wasn't hit; the form of Sakura disappeared, replaced at each "vital spot" by a vial from a nearby table. Sakura had executed a perfect multiple replacement technique, regaining her stealth as quickly as she had lost it. Now it was Kabuto's stealth that was compromised.
"Oh?" Kabuto said, smiling. "Quite good, Sakura-san."
"Good enough yet?" Sakura asked, appearing inches from his back. Her kunai plunged into his heart, and her eyes were bright with victory.
The knife, however, did not strike flesh. It continued through Kabuto's body as though it were air, and Sakura's momentum carried her along with it.
Just a bunshin? Sakura thought. But then, I've revealed myself again...
Very suddenly, the arm holding the kunai was shot through with pain, and in the next second it went limp, the tendons in the upper arm cut. In horror, she realized that her forward thrust had left that arm exposed, and Kabuto, who had been waiting close by his clone, had capitalized on that. She jumped away quickly before the evil medic could cut any more, landing near the vats that held the motionless frogs.
"That was careless of you," Kabuto said. "I know there is more to your skill than that, Sakura-san. Heal that arm and come again... I haven't enjoyed myself this much in a long time."
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Hikaru had turned the room where his prey stood into an electric hell-storm. The tags spaced along the walls spat lightning at his will, making the air burn until it was rank with the smell of melted circuitry. The attacks came with such blinding rapidity and in such great numbers that it was all that Naruto and Hinata could do to dodge them all. As soon as they had evaded one, the Reiude or the Byakugan would detect another preparing to strike from a completely different angle.
And to make matters worse, Hinata's Byakugan still could not see him at all, and Hikaru was evidently quick and clever enough to stay well outside the reach of the Ghostly Arms.
"Hahaha!!" he crowed, his voice echoing as he launched another volley, "Run, run as fast as you can, little mice! You can't dodge them forever! Even if your stamina lasts, this room is sealed, and the lightning will eventually burn away all your oxygen! What will you do then, huh? Huh? HUH?!"
"Damn it," Naruto panted as he twisted to avoid two bolts at once. "How much power does this guy have? Anyone normal would have run out of chakra by now, blasting that much..."
"Naruto-kun, look out!" Hinata cried, barely deflecting a large bolt with a burst of lancing chakra.
"I see it!" Naruto said. Hikaru was striking with four bolts at once, all headed toward him from different directions. "Futon: Kamisori Kabe no Jutsu!" The air around him became a slicing gale, and the rapid movement of the air particles excited the flow of electricity between the lightning-spitting tags and their original target, causing the flow to change course. Like a bull aiming for a matador's cape, the bolts all struck and burned the air around Naruto rather than Naruto himself.
"Heh, so you're another wind guy like Kouhei was, huh?" Hikaru growled from wherever he was hiding. "That just makes this even better. Let's see how many you can handle, huh? We'll forget the Hyuuga bitch a while and make this between you and me."
All at once, the attacks stopped coming at Hinata, and Naruto found himself besieged by a flurry of shocks. They came at an alarming rate of what Naruto thought must have been at least eight per second. Within seconds he felt one of them clip his shoulder as his defense was overwhelmed.
"Ugh!" he grunted against the pain. "You haven't got me yet! Haaaa!" The wind picked up intensity as Naruto poured more power into it, and the attacks were pushed back again.
Hinata watched with aw the clash of the two powers, but dared not approach; the lightning and wind, with the intensity at that level, would rip her apart. But she felt the strain on their combined chakra pool, and knew that with the amount of chakra that Hikaru had, the vengeful Cloud nin couldn't possibly keep this up. In fact, he should have run out of chakra already by now...
"Heh, weak! Puny!" Hikaru yelled. "You're not going to hold me back with just that! My power is infinite, now! You're only going to burn up your oxygen faster!"
Hinata and Naruto were both amazed as the lightning attacks suddenly tripled in number. The slicing wind wall was overrun, and Naruto screamed in pain as more than one hundred bolts of electricity cut into him simultaneously, knocking him to the floor.
"That'll teach you!" Hikaru yelled from his invisible perch. He watched as Naruto struggled to stand. "Still alive, huh? We'll take care of that..." His tags charged full of power again, preparing to strike a death blow against the orange-wearing blond.
When Hinata rushed to take Naruto's defense, however, he delayed the strike. "Oh, this is too good," he laughed. "She's actually going to die to delay the inevitable. This is wonderful..."
"I will not die!" Hinata yelled. "You will not kill either of us while I am standing! Neither of us knows how to give up!"
That only made Hikaru laugh harder. "What can you do, Hyuuga? You've seen what I did to your little blond lover-boy there. We both know that your defenses are no better against that level of attack. You might as well learn to give up now, while you still have a chance."
"I'm not going to take back my words," Hinata said firmly. Her white eyes pulsed with almost alien tenacity, showing no fear. She would do whatever it took to protect Naruto until he recovered, and win.
"Suit yourself," Hikaru said, his laughter finally subsiding. "You're stubborn, I'll give you that. It was a pleasure destroying you. Now die!" The lightning lashed out even heavier than before, one hundred strikes of electrical dynamite...
"Shugo Hakke," Hinata cried, taking a low stance she had not used since the development of this technique, "Hyakunijuuhachi Sho!" (One-hundred twenty-eight Hands)
Light so strong as to be migraine-inducing flashed in the air, extending in straight lances from Hinata's palms. They formed a grid so tight and so quick-shifting that the lightning experienced something akin to what a man would experience running into a brick wall. The bolts lashed away from the grid, completely repelled, to either fizzle out in the air or to strike the next best thing: the tags from which they had come from.
Seeing his lightning-spitters start to burn, Hikaru called off the attack. Out of danger, Hinata also stopped, and began gasping for breath; that version of the Shugo Hakke consumed a huge amount of energy. The Synchronization would feed her replacement chakra, but that would not help the soreness of her muscles, which she almost never forced to move that fast.
"So, it's a stalemate now, is it?" Hikaru mused. "I can't get past that defense of yours without hurting my offensive power, and neither of you can find me. At this rate, the only sure way for me to win is to wait for your oxygen to run out, and that's slow and boring, no fun at all..."
"Then quit skulking around and show your ugly face, you coward!" Naruto yelled, finally picking himself up. His clothes were blackened in places, and Hinata was certain that there would be blisters underneath them. However, she felt a surge of power flood through her from his end; he was employing the chakra of the Kyuubi to heal himself and replenish his power. She grew somewhat worried—their experiences with Kyuubi had not been pleasant, recently—but he apparently had good control of it, and so she chose not to linger on those thoughts.
Hikaru did not say anything for a long moment. He seemed to be considering.
"Well?" Naruto said, impatient for an answer.
"I guess it can't hurt that much," the enemy said. "At least it'll be fun to see your reactions. You want to see me? Feast your eyes on this!"
A flash in their peripheral vision indicated where Hikaru was as the light-jutsu stealth was canceled. Naruto and Hinata turned to get a better look at their enemy, hoping to see what it was that had made him so troublesome.
The sight that greeted them made Naruto's jaw drop and Hinata recoil in horror.
Hikaru was still human—he had two legs, two arms, a core and a head—but there was so much attached to that human frame that it seemed they were looking at something out of a terrible movie. His wounded upper left arm had been encased in a metal shell, from which protruded numerous thick wires that ran into the wall. From what they could see, the wires looked as though they could extend several meters out from the wall, and with the stealth jutsu gone, a long track was visible that ran in a circuit around the room, to which the wires were affixed by a small trolley, which accounted for his freedom of movement. He also wore an oxygen mask on his face, the air tube running from it into the wall to join the wires.
"Elaborate, isn't it?" he said. "They had this place made ready for me overnight. Wires that lead all over the facility, extending my stealth range, and my own generator so that I can use as much power as I like. Not bad, for a band of shinobi that's supposed to be wiped out."
He grinned evilly at Hinata for a moment, and then he reactivated his stealth jutsu, disappearing into the burning air.
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Shino's second battle with the Ibara prodigy began in much the same way as the first. Needles laden with deadly poison flew from their blooms at him, necessitating guard or evasion. They were quick; Shino managed to avoid the darts, but a number of them grazed his jacket and he could hear at least one whistle right by his head.
Vines whipped forward from around Ayaka's feet, trying to trip him up as they had before. Bugs attacked these vines, intent on preventing any possibility of the like. Their master easily dodged the plants that they laid siege to, freeing him to evade the second wave of vines with less worry.
Immediately, Shino could spot differences between this battle and their last. Firstly, they were in a more enclosed area, which meant less room for both him and the plants to maneuver in and, while it may not have given either party the advantage, it certainly forced a new level of agility and skill. Second, Ayaka's plants appeared to be much stronger and much faster than before, and oddly enough, she had made them so apparently without sunlight. While this fit Shino's memory, it did not make sense for the plants themselves.
"How did you cause the plants to grow so strongly below the ground?" he asked as he came down from one leap over a massive vine and twisted around a volley of darts. "Is it the quality of the soil that does this to them?"
"Partially," Ayaka admitted. "But it is largely possible because the varieties of plants that I use for combat do not need sunlight and photosynthesis to survive; they are all carnivorous. The last of the Sound, which Orochimaru called here after their last defeat, have provided very well for them..."
Graphic images of plants tearing animals and possibly humans apart and then eating them found their way to the forefront of Shino's brain. Unfortunately, the middle of a fight was as bad a place for having such thoughts as it was for staring at women in form-fitting battle suits. The vines were nearly upon him from behind before his insects intercepted the attack, and even with their defense he barely registered them in time to get away.
At this point, however, Shino noticed a third—and very important—difference between this battle and the last. Ayaka was not using her insect-killing, paralyzing poison at all. She had no cloak in which to hide any of the seeds for them, and neither he nor his insects could detect any sign of the mature plants anywhere.
It must be because of the enclosed space, he realized, ducking under another vine. If she uses the gas in this place, it will not dissipate into the open air as it did before, and it is likely that she would also be affected. This changes the battle dramatically.
Indeed it did. Shino had withheld from attacking the needle plants, which stood behind his opponent, for fear of that very kind of defense. Now realizing that there would be no such retaliation, he summoned his insects to attack the needlers without mercy. They swarmed forward eagerly, diving into the fleshy stems with primal fury. In moments, the dart-spitting flora had crumpled to the ground.
Seeing her needlers die, Ayaka's attention was momentarily diverted from commanding her tangler vines, enabling Shino to evade them even more easily. Meanwhile, the bugs, having finished with the living projectile weapons, turned on Ayaka herself. Shino joined them, attacking with a kunai at her momentarily exposed back. Though she parried and managed to get into a position to fight back, the bugs attached themselves to her and began feeding on her chakra.
The battle was now turned heavily in Shino's favor, all because of the enclosed space.
"So," Ayaka said, straining to hold back his knife under pressure, "You have realized my disadvantage in this place. You can no longer say that I fight unfairly, Aburame Shino." She reached with her free hand into a pouch at her waist, and flicked a handful of powder into his face. Though his jacket and sunglasses shielded him from the initial impact, the white, pepper-smelling stuff was potent; it puffed and expanded to fill the air all around him, and that air flowed behind his glasses anyway, causing his eyes to become terribly irritated. Ayaka broke free of him in his confusion and fled both him and his insects.
It became a battle of mobility from thereafter. Shino would attack with his bugs and Ayaka with her vines, each proving too nimble for the other's attack every time. The Ibara's resolve seemed to reinforce her, and her plants attacked with even greater strength and speed than before, forcing the bug user to use all of his available energy and attention to dodge them and leaving great long gouges in the dirt floor.
Shino was still in possession of an advantage, however. As long as he could keep this up, his insects would continue to chip slowly away at Ayaka and her vines until she either ran out of weapons or lost all of her chakra. All he had to do was keep moving with enough speed and skill, and victory would be only a matter of time.
At least, that was what he planned. The plant user still had some tricks up her tight-fitting sleeves, apparently. For while he was occupied with evading the vines, he failed to notice the danger forming behind him. When all was ready, the vines—which had been keeping him away from that corner of the enclosure at Ayaka's command, waiting for the right moment—maneuvered him into the soft, cement-like ground that had formed there. Too late, Shino stepped into it, and the mud immediately re-solidified, locking him in place.
"Earth-mover plants," Ayaka explained, "Trap their food by secreting an enzyme that will turn ordinary ground into a sinkhole. Prey that are not quick enough to escape before the second enzyme, which hardens the ground to a solidity even greater than the original factor, are consumed slowly over the period of several weeks. You need not worry about starving to death, however, Aburame Shino."
She molded her chakra, freed from the bugs who were now busy trying to free their master, and caused the entire chamber to rumble. Shino looked left, right, and behind, searching for the source of the tremor, but it was not until dirt fell onto his head and he looked above that he knew the source of his danger. From the ceiling had emerged a ball of vines, from which were suspended many large, dark purple, blotchy fruits.
"To an honorable man, I give an honorable death," Ayaka continued. "The same plants that produce the paralyzing insecticide in their floral stage develop these fruits as an intermittent stage before moving on to the reproduction. In those fruits, the gas is no longer produced, but has been replaced by a strong acid which both protects the plant and keeps the maturing seeds at a suitable pH."
The fruits certainly did not look healthy. As Shino watched, more and more of them appeared directly above him, hovering suspended but ready to drop like acidic meteors. If the acid was as strong as she professed...
"You will die quickly and relatively painlessly," Ayaka finished. "It has been pleasant to know one such as you. I hope that the rest of your clan will learn from your honorable example. Fare well in the world that comes after, Aburame Shino."
With a wave of her hand, the sickly fruits burst.
OoOoOoOo Multi-Cliffhanger no Jutsu! End Chapter Seventeen oOoOoOoO
Next Chapter: Wow, I sure was harsh on the good guys in this chapter. How will they get themselves out of it? Only one way to find out!!