NARUTO
Forbidden Chronicles
Run In
Some week later…
Footsteps echoed from the surface of stone steps as a young, red-headed girl ran up a three-hundred foot climb towards what looked to be a deserted and run down Buddhist temple, situated in the middle of a hilly, ever-green forest.
Smiling, the girl paused for a moment when she reached the top of the stairs, beside the great archway that led onto the temple grounds. Dusting down the khaki jacket and blue pants she wore, and making sure the package over her shoulder was still there, then ran up into the chapel sized, oak constructed building. Ignoring the usual respect of removing shoes before entering a building, the girl briskly ran across the worn-down floor towards the other end, where another entrance hung wide-open. Coming to crouch at the far end of the altar, the girl quickly pried open a loose floorboard on the temple floor, and pulled out a small rucksack.
Inside, she drew a pot, a cooking grate, a bottle of water, and spark rocks. Putting them to the side, she then stashed her rucksack away, and soon to join the set items, a rack of recently caught fish. There were five in all, perfect for two people, but even better for this lone individual. She was quite pleased with catching this many.
"I'm eating well today!"
Licking her lips, the girl rubbed her hands together, and was about to gather up the gear to take outside and set up when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.
Gasping in surprise, she turned to see the thing that had captured her attention. To her surprise, displeasure and discomfort, she saw an unidentifiable figure lying beside the altar not too far from where she was kneeling, straw hat lowered over his face and a large scroll laid down at his side. He was comfortably lying atop of some hay, strewn across the hardwood steps in a makeshift bed, and dusty robes bundled up into a pillow salvaged from around the room. A lazy ass on first glance, the young girl also noted his attire, red and orange adorned in a light brown combat vest.
She didn't notice him when she first rushed into the temple, on account of her familiarity with the place, and the fact that no one ever comes up here save for her. Seeing a random stranger making his stay here in the temple for the first time in ages, was quite a surprise to her.
Rising to her feet, the ten-year-old girl frowned and pointed at the short, dozing stranger.
"Hey! Who are you? What are you doing here?"
The stranger murmured and rolled over a bit, trying to ignore the loud noises coming from its source. This made the girl even more annoyed, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, she huffed, irritated.
"Get out of here you peasant!"
Groaning, said 'bum' sat up slowly and removed the hat from his face. Letting out a sigh, the figure revealed himself to be a spiky haired blonde with whisker marks on his cheeks, and wearing a unregistered forehead protector. The revelation that he was a boy about the same age as her and not some older man came as yet another surprise to the red-haired girl.
"What… is it exercise session already, Baa-chan?" the boy groggily asked no one in particular, still dazed from his nightmare.
The girl growled and stepped forward, making rather animated hand gestures as she scolded the stranger.
"This is my place of residence! You have no right to be here! Please leave at once," the girl ordered.
However, in spite of her best efforts, the boy merely yawned and sat up completely, turning towards the source of the loud noises bombarding him. Placing his foot atop of a fallen temple relic lying on the floor, he stared stoically at the young girl standing just a few feet away. Upon inspecting the 'disturbance', the blonde deduced she was of no threat, and merely smiled at her.
"There was no one here when I arrived, so I decided to crash on the floor for a bit. Sorry," the boy, easily recognized as Naruto, said casually. "Since the resident owner is here now, I guess I'll address you then. You don't mind if I stay a while longer, do you…?"
"Yes! In fact I do mind!" the girl said, pointing at him. "Now this is the last time I'm going to say this! Get out!"
"Oh! Finally!" Naruto exclaimed, lying back down on his makeshift mattress. "I was wondering when you were going to stop. Good night…"
"I hope you mean good-bye…" the girl growled through clenched teeth. She was obviously fuming at this point.
"Nope." Naruto simply answered. "If this is your home, as you claim, then I would like to rent out this space."
Seeing as that this person wasn't going to budge through words alone, the girl then opted to try and physically get this boy to leave. She approached him, hastily reaching for the kunai she had at her belt, sheathed safely. However, before she got within striking range, the girl saw that the boy had even more kunai sheathed into the belt he wore, and a sheathed tanto at his side, gripped securely in his hand. The boy looked like he was packed and ready for a fight, so the red-head thought better against the idea of trying to scare him away, and backed away.
Naruto smiled under the shade of his hat… visibly. "Good choice…"
Huffing, the girl stomped back over to her gear, gathered it up, and headed outside through the entrance from whence she'd come. She had to make a fire to cook her catch, and it was best to do it outside, away from the tender wood.
Naruto watched in interest and amusement as the strange and impatient girl knelt beside the tree close to the entrance of the building, dig up a small hole, set up some rocks around it, and gather various twigs, sticks and long grass, quietly mumbling about 'stupid boys', 'rude strangers', and surprisingly some other, rather inappropriate names Naruto would never had thought would spill from such a pretty young girl.
After setting up her fire pit, the red-head took the spark rocks from on top of her pot and started her fire.
As soon as she had set up her fish to cook, she breathed out and cast a glare at the ten-year-old boy lying inside the building. Seeing him still smirking away, she growled and looked back at her fish.
"Baka…"
Not too far from the temple…
A group of unknown figures scouting the coastlines of beach and cliffs along the northern part of the land lying between the Land of Lightning and the Land of Sound have stopped momentarily for a rest, and to thoroughly search the surrounding area for any sign of the quarry they were ordered to find. They knew full well that their superiors would not be pleased if they came back empty handed.
For a full month this group has been searching the north most countryside spanned out between the elemental nations, hunting down a very elusive target. After all, there weren't many villages, let alone high densities of a populace in this land. And even so, the small amount of people living in this area was very uncooperative or wanted nothing to do with the business of a bunch of strangers.
A gust of wind blew across the grey wastelands, rustling the leafless trees and blowing small clouds of sand inland. The figures, most of which were dressed in khaki jumpsuits, sporting purple vests, and many of them wearing ski-mask like head gear with forehead protectors, can easily be identified as ninja. Judging from the various different symbols on their head plates and the gashes across them, show that they were once all from different nations with Shinobi Villages and had abandoned them long ago.
One of the ninja sitting on a fallen log shivered as the wind whipped through him. "Brrr… it's so cold out here. Why the hell are we searching through these dead lands? There's nothing here!"
"Dunno. This is where our team leader said that we should search… something about information he had gotten from a village doctor, two towns over…" one of his comrades nearby replied.
"I still don't get it. Why would our target be hanging around here? There's nothing… not even a village for miles…"
"It's smart thinking, if that's what you're implying," his comrade replied again, turning towards the shivering Chunin. "She knows that she has to stay away from densely populated areas, so to avoid being found by the authorities or by anyone familiar searching for her. The fact that our target has ran all the way out here means that she is trying to throw us off… but she slipped up when she went to nurse a accidental injury, in other words… medical assistance…"
"So a deep cut to her shoulder was a dead give away, huh… how convenient…"
"Either way… now that the doctor has given us her 'home address'… we can soon put this pathetic search to an end…"
The two of them, including a couple of the other rogue Chunins standing around, looked up towards their team leader.
Their Jonin leader was the most easily recognizable of the lot, as he was dressed differently, and clearly taller. Adorning a white cloak, hiding grey and white standard ANBU attire and plastic body-armor, as well as concealed weapons, and a straw-hat covering a wooden, chipped and poorly made mask that looked as though it was bark torn from the side of a tree and painted on in a terrifying eagle representation of a Hunter Nin mask, this man stood high above the rest of the group. He was about seven feet tall, very muscular, and seemed passive in nature. He had a very intimidating presence among them, and not one of them dared question his authority.
His village of origin however, remained a mystery, even to his squad.
Walking quietly across the dry sand towards some rocks and wet, sandy areas close to the calm water's edge of the ocean, the ghost of a Jonin knelt down and traced a series of footprints running too and from the rocks. After which, he pinched some grains of sand within one of the sandal marks and sniffed the grains, holding it up to the winds so that it blew away. He then stood up and smelt the air, before following the footsteps inland. Disturbance in the gravel, earth, grass, and other areas of the terrain indicated that a person matching weight distribution, aggregate size and scent of their target had just been through here.
Nodding his head, the Jonin turned towards his team of rogues, who rose to their feet in a sign of readiness.
"This way…" the man said with a deep, rough voice.
In a blink of an eye, the group of eleven ninjas all up vanished inland, leaving behind the grey embankments of coastal terrain, and their own footprints.
Back at the temple…
The red-haired girl, now having finished cooking all of her fish, was now happily eating one. Like a kebab, she took nibbles out of it, careful not to choke on any of the bones. Kneeling by her fire pit, she ate with the manners of a young heiress, an expressionless face, and an air to the way she sat, straightened and respectful.
Every so often, she would glance at the stranger occupying her place of residence. Since she had started cooking, the blonde haired boy had moved to the stairs of the temple, lying on the hardwood floor, and catching whiffs of the fish. Though she was still irritated at his unwillingness to move out, she soon quieted down, and decided to ignore him for the duration of meal time.
After a few minutes of watching and listening to the girl nibble down her lunch, Naruto's stomach growled and he made a look that showed this discomfort. Sitting up, he raised his straw hat and swung his feet over the steps, getting more comfortable. Scrolls back on his back in his bandoleer, along with his tanto, the spiky haired blonde gazed down at the girl. Silence dawned for the next few seconds, till the young ninja's hunger gave in.
"That fish looks good," Naruto exclaimed softly. "May I have some?"
The girl glared at him. She swallowed her food and placed the fish kebab back on the pot. "No, you may not. It's rude enough that you are refusing to leave, now on top of watching me to no end, you're asking me for food too? For a wandering Ronin or whoever you are, you sure are pathetic!"
Naruto shrugged off this statement. "Hey… I was just asking. I'll even pay you for some…"
The girl turned away, nose in the air. "Well, you can forget it. Go get your own…"
"Fine…"
The girl went back to eating, and Naruto went back to just watching her eat, bored and a little bit upset. They would remain like this for the next few minutes.
That was until a sudden vibration in the air caught Naruto's attention. Picking up this disturbance on the wind, he looked up casually, almost in an aimless way.
"Hn…"
"What is it now?" the girl growled, looking in his direction.
"Don't look now, but I think you've got dinner guests…" Naruto said, not at all worried.
Gasping, the girl stood up quickly, dropping her fish, and eyes darting around her. Through sharp senses, she spotted a glint of steel in the treetops of the evergreens, and reacting quickly, broke into a sprint for the stairs leading down the mountain. Little did she know was that the stairs was the only way in and out of the temple grounds, and the intruders were using it too.
"Oh no!"
Suddenly, kunai shot out of the bushes and down from the trees, catching her foot and stopping her in her tracks, and wrapping around her. Arms and legs tied, the girl feel forward, landing hard on the ground and yelping in pain. With their prey now caught, the figures hiding in the shadows then revealed themselves, leaping out of their hiding places, high and low, and surrounding their target and the boy sitting on the steps of the temple. All the while, Naruto did not move, nor showed any sign of surprise.
"Got her," one of the attacking, rogue ninjas exclaimed, putting his foot underneath the squirming girl bound by wires, and flipping her over, violently. "Looks like we've got our target!"
"Finally! After thirty days of searching!" another one said, walking over and picking up the girl by one of the cables that bound her. The girl yelped out more at how tied they were wrapped around her. "You have been quite the slippery slug, your highness…"
"Don't hurt her too much. We don't want to get scolded by the boss," the other ninja that had first approached the girl warned.
"Ahh… what will they care!" the Chunin that held the little girl up exclaimed, throwing her more into the center of the ring. The girl hit the ground and rolled, crying out in agony. "After all, she's just a bargaining chip for the village's High Princess to sign over the land to us so that we can finally call it our own! So what if she's got a few scratches, we'll have to kill her anyway!"
Naruto watched from under his straw hat as the girl was thrown around without any regard for her wellbeing. Bound tightly by chords and wires, it was a sight the blonde was quite familiar with, and winced inwardly at the way she was treated. Looking around, he saw that there were ten ninja all in all, all of them rogue as their headbands were scratched out, and apparently, from their garb, were also of Chunin status, mere soldiers. The two of the ten that stood on either side of him, kunai drawn, were also Chunin, and weren't as focused on him as they were the physical torment their comrades were inflicting on their quarry.
"Hmm… this dull day has just gotten interesting."
"Don't you think you guys are being a little rough on the girl," Naruto said, looking up at the rogue ninjas that surrounded him. "It's not very nice to hit a young woman…"
"Hey, what about this one?" the Chunin to Naruto's right called out. "Should we kill him?"
"He's just a boy, leave him be," one of the other ninja standing by replied.
"But he might have something valuable on him! Surely we can get some sort of bonus if we see what this brat's got on him!"
"Fine… kill him. But make it quick…"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Naruto said, lowering his head and running his thumb over the brim of his straw hat. "For a bunch of Chunin, you guys are surprisingly slow. You don't want to mess with me…"
"What was that?" the masked ninja towering over him on his left growled, reaching for his kunai pouch.
"That's it! He's so dead!" the Chunin on Naruto's right growled, quickly swiping out at him with the kunai he held in his hand.
The move was instantaneous, and to the Chunin on the surrounding temple grounds, was in a blink of an eye. The boy sitting on the steps, suddenly rolled and slid underneath the Chunin attacking him, drawing his tanto from its sheath and slicing at the man's feet, cutting out his Achilles heels, and knocking him forward. Crouching behind his would be attacker now starting to stumble forward, he quickly leapt onto his back and impaled him through the neck with his weapon, directing the weight and forward motion of the Chunin straight into his comrade, and stabbing him right in the chest, right above the heart. Naruto leapt off of his opponent, sending them both into the ground, and landing silently himself near the fireplace.
By the time Naruto had sent the two Chunin face first into the dust, the ninja in the surrounding area had finally reacted. Shocked at the speed of the boy, their immediate thoughts were, to clear up the dialogue a little, 'what in the holy hell happened?' A few seconds after watching two of their ranks go down, the remaining ninja who were able-bodied enough, sprang into action.
A ninja charged at Naruto from his right, throwing a cluster of shuriken in his direction. Spotting the direction of attack, Naruto ducked under the hail of ninja stars, and immediately tossed a kunai knife in that ninja's direction, impaling him right between the eyes. The spray of blood and the yell of pain were soon followed by a loud thud of his target hitting the ground, and a groan as the Chunin's life floated away on the breeze.
Two more ninja charged at Naruto from his one o'clock, leaping through the air and lunging at him with large katana sized kunai drawn. Upon landing they immediately launched into a flurry of attacks, with Naruto easily stepping into and easily avoiding their line of attack and strikes, as if he were avoiding two kids trying to lunge at him. He kicked out at one of the attacker's feet, sending him tumbling into his friend and effectively knocking the two of them over.
The two Chunin watching over the girl looked on in shock, while their prey, bound at their feet, looked up at the yellow haired boy with wide eyes and in complete disbelief.
Another ninja attacked from Naruto's right. The boy jogged towards him in return, before leaping to the right to avoid the kunai strike, barrel-rolling over the fire place. Coming to a crouched stance beside it, the spiky haired blonde picked up the pot of boiling water on the metal grate by the handle, and tossed it at the Chunin that had overshot his strike. He hit him right on the head, splashing water all over him and burning him severely. The man staggered around clutching the side of his head and face, crying out in agony.
The Chunin whom had toppled onto each other after attempting to hit their target, were back on their feet. Adjusting their weapons and stances, they charged the boy down. However, before they could even get into striking range, Naruto had already formed a series of hand seals and, crouching where he was, took in a deep breath of air and took aim.
"Wind Release: Ash Burning Cloud!"
Blowing out his lung full of air, he sent a cloud of black, hot ash his technique picked up from the fireplace, and enveloped the two Chunin within it, including the staggering one that was hit in the face by the pot of hot water. The screams that followed were ones of pain and agony, as the burning ash set their skin and clothes alight. Seconds later, as the hot ash cloud grew, it suddenly exploded within itself. The fiery explosion did not detonate beyond the ash cloud, but within it, and Naruto stood back and watched the fire show.
Once the explosion died out, three bodies fell out of the cloud of dust to the floor, charred remains of the three shinobi.
With Naruto's back turned, two more ninja decided to make their attack. Landing on either side of the stock still ten-year-old, the two ninja threw kunai attacked to cables in his direction, looping them around him and bounding him the same way they did the girl. Holding him by the snares at a distance of ten meters, the two Chunin formed a series of five or so hand seals, and launched their attack on the stoic youngster, intent on killing him.
"Ninja Art: Poison Sting Shower!" they both shouted in unison, inhaling air, and exhaling a shower of hundreds of chakra needles.
The needles shot through the air faster then arrows, but about half a second before impact of their target, Naruto crouched low against his restraints and leapt straight into the air, with strength that yanked at the Chunin's cables connected to their gauntlets under their sleeves, extending them further and knocking them off balance. This inevitably caused the shower of needles to miss their target and instead hit the Chunin users on either side. Staggered, they were unable to avoid and were killed in a shower of death, impaled in over a hundred different locations.
Landing several feet away, Naruto grabbed the cables and wires bounding him, and casually shrugged them off. After which, he turned his attention to the last two.
Realizing that they were next, the two Chunin completely forgot about their primary target at their feet, and simply went in to attack the boy. Drawing kunai, they charged into battle, yelling at the top of their lungs. However, as they were halfway across the temple grounds, Naruto had already begun his attack, charging straight at them in a zigzag pattern. His speed ensured he covered more ground in a much shorter amount of time. From the Chunin's perspective, the boy seemed to shimmer from one point to another, and was constantly out of focus. That was how fast the boy was, and he was just getting started.
In a blink of an eye, Naruto flash stepped right in between the two Chunin. There was a flash of streaks of light on either side, the blonde ninja shimmering into full view and skidding to a stop behind the rogue ninjas, tanto drawn. All of a sudden, the left arm of the Chunin, who had ruthlessly been throwing the little girl around, flew right off; a clean cut. The other Chunin however, had his throat slit open, and he nearly lost his head. Gurgling and spraying blood, he fell to the floor dead, while the other collapsed, clutching the stump of his former arm and crying out in agony.
"OH MY GOD! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! AAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH! GAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Naruto stood up fully, sheathing his blade and looking back at his handy work. Having finished them all off and leaving one of them screaming in pain as punishment for his actions, the young ninja felt his entertainment for the day was over. However when he turned around, he suddenly saw another combatant he didn't notice before. Dressed in white, and wearing a straw hat and battered mask, this towering figure glared across at Naruto from twenty meters away.
Raising an eyebrow, the blonde turned to face him, while the red-headed girl lying on the ground behind him continued to gawk at the boy. She blinked several times, unable to believe what she was seeing before her.
Watching the boy from afar gave the Jonin initiative to enter the battle himself and have some fun. Looking at the damage caused by this ten-year-old, nameless warrior, he saw the kid had skill, and was inwardly ecstatic at the prospects of a good fight.
Reaching up with his right hand from underneath his cloak, the Jonin removed his mask, tossing it aside, revealing a rough face with black, wavy hair, a goatee, and a large scar moving from above his right eye, down, and across his nose, stopping at the left corner of his lower lip. He was blind in the right eye, but that meant a lot of his other senses would be sharper.
Upon throwing the mask away to his side, that swift movement allowed him to draw three large kunai, each appearing in between his fingers. A huge grin on his face, he threw them straight at Naruto.
The speed of them caught Naruto off guard a little, but he managed to dodge the first barrage, knocking one aside before charging forward, kicking up dust. One kunai in particular struck the injured Chunin on his knees right in the head, impaling deeply, and killing him instantly.
The Jonin charged forward as well, moving to his right, with Naruto mirroring. The two skidded to a stop, the young boy's back to the temple, and the cloaked Jonin's back to the evergreen forest. Right hand behind his back, the Jonin reached for more kunai, with the blonde shinobi taking a defensive stance, preparing for another attack. From his position, Naruto could easily see bandoleers of kunai strung up on the Jonin's body armor. This array of weapons, topped with an unusual chakra signature coming off of his opponent, made Naruto a little worried.
He narrowed his eyes on his opponent.
"Sorry to disappoint pal, but I'd rather not get more involved in this than I already am…"
The Jonin wordlessly smirked, drawing from behind him a large cable, laced with serrated edges and a heavy kunai acting as a counterweight on the striking end. Unrolling it by dropping the kunai end, the Jonin then swung his arm out, transferring kinetic energy into the body of the whip, and causing it to fling through the air wildly. Naruto backed away a little, watching as the kunai on the end slapped against the ground, kicking up dirt and dust, and cutting huge gashes into the dry earth. What the Jonin formed with this lashing of a whip was a wall of cutting steel power.
Seizing the opportunity, the Jonin slashed out with the whip, its cable slicing through the air with a burning hum. Naruto leapt to the side, avoiding the strike, which ended up slicing straight through the wooden temple. The ferocity of the strike came out of the sheer length of the weapon, with the velocity and strength put behind it cutting straight through the building with ease. Naruto barrel-rolled, landing crouched and charging at his opponent, trying to use his speed as an advantage.
His opponent gritted his teeth, and with great effort, pulled the whip back and flung it around, using the unorthodox and unpredictable movements of the whip to strike at his opponent. With quick reflexes, Naruto leapt forward through the air, flipping, ducking, sliding and cart wheeling through loopholes in the whips. However, he had to evade to the left and right quite frequently as the length of the metallic cable came screaming at him, cutting through the air like a buzz-saw. This made it impossible for Naruto to get close to his opponent.
The Jonin swung the whip around him and twirled it above his head and around his body, sending another series of strikes straight at his opponent. Naruto landed right in its path, ducked under one lash of the cable then leapt back through the air, gaining altitude. Flipping over and out of the whip's loops, Naruto swiped his hands outwards in a throwing motion, sending a barrage of ten ninja stars through the air at his opponent.
The blonde's opponent however was well-rehearsed in his use of the whip, grabbing the handle in two hands and lashing the whip around him, knocking every single shuriken out of the air in mid-flight. They scattered, and the Jonin sent another lash of his whip at his still airborne target. Naruto, seeing the attack come in, drew a kunai and brought it to bear, blocking the strike with a loud clang, that sent him into the crumbling roof of the temple with the force of the impact. He landed on his feet, but quickly leapt off the roof as another slash of the whip came right at him, taking a huge chunk of the temple's roof out.
Naruto landed and rolled, throwing another four shuriken at his opponent, curving them through the air. The Jonin expertly deflected them once more, and lashed horizontal and vertical strikes of his whip directly at his opponent once more. The boy gritted his teeth, bringing around his kunai and blocking the first strike, but the second strike caught him in a guard-break, and the whip batted his wrist, the cable carving a nice gash and knocking the kunai out of his hand.
Seeing an opening, the Jonin grinned widely and charged at his opponent with speed to match the boy's. he leapt through the loops in his whip, Naruto looking up to see the flicker of the Jonin before he appeared right in front of him, spinning to gather momentum before a side-kick was sent his way. Naruto crossed his arms and blocked, the sheer size of the man being a big advantage in terms of strength, as the kick, though guarded against, sent Naruto flying straight through the wooden temple. Crashing through the wooden pillars, Naruto shot out the other side, and landed on both feet, skidding to a stop.
Frowning, Naruto glared back through the building. Suddenly the man came careening through another part of the wall of the temple, breaking it into splinters and making another nice hole. Amidst the flying debris, the Jonin charged straight at Naruto, grinning maliciously. The boy gritted his teeth, and flipped out of the way as the cloaked man lunged, striking with a kunai.
The two engaged in close quarters, kicking up dirt, dust and wooden debris, with Naruto on the defensive, ducking, shifting, and side-stepping and flipping in an unorthodox and complicated fighting pattern that the Jonin just couldn't keep up with. The Jonin chuckled and with a yell, lunged again with a series of kunai strikes, kicks and punches. Naruto ducked the kunai and blocked the kick, before suddenly dropping to his feet and sliding straight under the Jonin between his legs. In that instant, Naruto reached up and grabbed a kunai from the man, before standing to his full height behind the Jonin and reengaging.
Naruto lashed out, the two warrior's kunai clashing, sparks flying. Pushing forward, the young ninja's very strength matched the older man's, the Jonin skidding across the ground, before they broke the grapple. The cloaked ninja tossed his kunai and another three on a second swipe, Naruto blocking the first and seemingly shimmering out as he avoided the next three, spinning in and side-kicking the man in the stomach, sending him skidding across the ground.
The Jonin laughed. "Not bad!" He charged again, another kunai drawn and he lashed out at Naruto. The boy leapt clean over, kicking off of the taller man's head and landing behind him. They both spun to meet each other, the taller of the two lunging down with another strike, which Naruto leapt over again, this time landing with his right foot on the man's arm, and using it as a surface, pivoted and sent a left roundhouse kick straight into the man's face. The blow rocked the surrounding air with a bang, and the Jonin was sent flying back into the temple, crashing through the massive gap and tumbling out on the other side.
Using the momentum from his flight, he barrel rolled and flipped off of the ground, getting back to his feet, blood seeping out of his mouth. He grinned as he locked his sights back on his opponent.
Naruto followed him over the temple, leaping clean over and descending straight down at his opponent. Reaching into his robes, the Jonin drew another six kunai, and flung them up at his opponent, who managed to dodge them by stepping on the first one in mid-flight, and kicking off of fifth one's underside to drop to the ground. Flipping and landing crouched; Naruto lunged at his opponent, who struck out as well with his whip once more.
The large cable swung through the air again, causing Naruto to double-back and back-flip out of its range as it collided with the ground, chunks of debris flying everywhere as the ground exploded. Naruto skidded to a stop out of the whip's range, the Jonin letting out a short laugh, reaching into his robes with his free hand, and sending three kunai flying at Naruto through the loops in his whip.
The blonde shinobi dodged the first two, but was hit in the by the third, scratching his arm. Wincing, Naruto slapped his hands together, forming a series of hand seals and breathing in deeply.
"Wind Release: Dragon Tornado Ball!"
Naruto exhaled, a massive blast of wind erupting from his mouth and spinning at a high velocity as it shot straight at his opponent, carving a nice trench into the earth as the ball of wind shot forward. From within the wind, the shape of a Chinese Fire Bolt Dragon formed, and with a roar matching the ferocity of the attack, it collided head on with its target.
The Jonin growled as he was struck by the massive attack, the ground around him cracking and shattering as debris and dust blew over him, his whip being knocked out of his hand and entangling around his waist. However, the blast, which was enough to level a lot of the earth, and blast over a number of evergreen trees behind the cloaked ninja, failed to knock the rogue Jonin off balance. He took it, battling against the winds and seismic forces till they stopped.
When they did, the rogue ninja charged at Naruto, with great speed, surprising Naruto greatly. Not even Jiraiya could withstand that attack, let alone continue fighting. There was enough force in it to break every bone in the body. However, undeterred, the blonde ninja retaliated, charging at the Jonin as well.
Meeting each other halfway, the reengaged in close combat, the Jonin lashing out with a series of kunai strikes from both hands, slashing and stabbing through the air as he attempted to hit his opponent. One strike however, overshot, and Naruto side-stepped it, the kunai lodging itself in the tree where the fireplace was. Pivoting on the ground, the young boy, struck out with a palm strike for the man's elbow with full force, the sound of bones crunching and cracking soon to follow as Naruto snapped the Jonin's arm inwardly at the elbow.
The cloaked ninja leapt back leaving the kunai lodged in the tree, his right arm hanging limply at his side, while his left continued to clutch his other kunai. He grinned maliciously, before charging at Naruto with one arm still in use, the boy recovering from his surprise at the man's quick recovering and flipping to the left quickly, avoiding the next strike.
Landing outside of the man's reach, Naruto drew a cluster of shuriken, and threw them at the Jonin, scoring a number of hits on the man's chest, shoulder, neck and torso.
The impact of the shuriken caused the man to stagger back. However, after taking the force of impact from the throwing weapons, the Jonin looked back up with a grin, and charged Naruto again, the blonde gasping in shock and leaping clean over the man as he lunged, stepping on his head and pushing him forward to try and knock him off balance.
"A ninja who doesn't feel pain? This is unreal! Even though he's human, he should still feel something!"
Landing against the side of the tree, Naruto crouched against it and grabbed the Jonin's kunai lodged in the side. Pumping wind chakra into it, he pushed off of it and spun through the air, slicing the tree there and causing it to collapse towards him, he barrel-rolled out of the way, and watched as the tree came crashing down on the staggered Jonin, still in its path and unable to move out of its way fast enough.
The tree certainly did crash down on him with its full weight, but with superhuman effort, the Jonin withstood it once more, and tore his way through the branches when it crashed to the ground.
Clenching his fist, and gathering up a serious expression, Naruto barrel-rolled to the left, avoiding a punch from the Jonin's still working arm. When he did, he at the same time grabbed up the whip the rogue ninja was using before then charged at him.
The Jonin spun round to meet him, sending a kunai flying at the boy, who dodged it then leapt over him, somersaulting and looping the whip around the Jonin's neck. The sudden pull on it caused the cloaked ninja to stagger, who then spun around and punched out at the boy, gritting his teeth and letting out a roar of frustration. But before he could land another blow, Naruto lunged back, sending an elbow right into the Jonin's neck and sending him straight into the ground, with the blonde landing on top of him with such force, he formed a small crater in the earth, a loud bang and crack resounding.
Naruto paused, the dust settling and silence falling. Looking down at the Jonin who now lay under his elbow and knee, the spiky haired fighter could clearly see a startled look on the man's face, blood dripping from his mouth. When the young shinobi retracted his elbow, there was a snap of bones popping, and the man's head rolled limply to the side, eyes hollow and lifeless.
He was dead.
TO BE CONTINUED…