I've finished the fifth chapter to Sky Ninja and I'm kinda disappointed in both myself and the story.
I mean honestly, I've put up five chapters and I haven't gotten a single review. I know that they are not necessary, but I always love to see what my readers think about my work. So please read and review.
disclaimer: don't own naruto, but i do own an ipod that can hold naruto music, is that the same?
We find Team 7 with one of their teammates out cold and the other two up against three sound ninja in the middle of the night. Also, another shinobi is watching from afar reading from his book with a smile.
"This is going to be interesting." the shinobi, Seirei, said to himself.
Down on the forest floor we return to the upcoming battle.
"So, which one of you wants to die first?" the ninja with the metal device on his arm asked with a polite, yet mocking tone.
Naruto of course didn't wait for an answer, but instead went running straight at the sound ninja with kunai in hand. "I'm not dying today you creep!"
Zaku, the shinobi with the holes in his hands, looks on at the oncoming blonde with the utmost confidence. "Heh. This guy's mine."
"Go right ahead." the one known as Dosu said, "I'll just have fun with the girl then."
The metal armed ninja moved to the side to make sure he had a clear path at Sakura and headed straight at her. Zaku stood his ground as Naruto jumped into the air ready to plunge his kunai into his opponent. Zaku simply raised up one of his hands and out came a burst of air and sound heading straight for Naruto. The attack hit Naruto squared in the chest and he went flying into a tree knocking the wind out of him, temporarily.
"This is too easy." just then, Naruto turned into a puff of smoke. Zaku's eyes narrowed as he then saw four more Narutos jump up from the brush. "They've been waiting for us?"
"You got it." Sakura said cutting away at a string next to her.
The results were tremendous. A large pit appeared in front of the mummified shinobi coming after her. Lucky for him, he noticed the trap just in time to leap over it, but unlucky for him was the giant log that appeared from the tops swinging down right at him.
"Dosu!" Zaku cried out seeing the trap that his teammate fell into. He let out another air attack from his hands to puff out three of the clones, but he couldn't get the fourth one as it came through with a fist into Zaku's face.
Dosu, who was heading straight for a log, flicked the device on his arm, which miraculously had then shattered the log into a thousand splinters. Landing safely in front of Sakura, Dosu was not ready for the fist to come at him, especially since it wasn't from the kunoichi.
Sakura was also surprised, because she was stunned that the ninja could break through her trap so easily. The punch that was delivered to Dosu was from the bushy eyebrowed ninja Rock Lee. He seemed to have gone ahead of his team to scout out for any scroll holders still in the forest.
"Just who the heck are you?" Dosu said rubbing the side of his face.
"I am your opponent." Lee moves into his usual fighting stance.
"Well, then. You'll be the first to die then." Dosu came at Lee with his fist in the air. But before he could reach the green shinobi, he vanished.
Dosu stopped and looked around for his opponent. Turns out that his opponent found him. A foot appeared below Dosu's jaw, seemingly coming from nowhere, and sent Dosu up into the air. When he landed, Lee was back in his stance awaiting the next move.
He got back onto his feet moving his jaw back and forth. "So. You're fast." he pursued Lee again but this time with a different approach as he appeared behind Lee.
Lee also reacted by performing a spinning kick that made contact with Dosu's metal arm. Right after the contact, Lee fell down to his knees holding onto his ears and began vomiting afterwards.
"Like I said, you're fast. But not as fast as sound. You see, this device here allows me to amplify sound waves. By using my chakra, I can direct those sound waves to where ever I want, which would be the inner part of your ear."
Sakura was astonished by the actions that had just occurred in front of her, Dosu was confident that his victory was in sight, Zaku was still having difficulty with Naruto and his clones, and Seirei continued to watch on.
But that all changed when Lee began standing up again with minor shaking in his limbs.
"I'm surprised you can still stand." raising his fist once more "But that's about to change." he swung his fist at the now standing Lee, who blocked the blow with his arm. However, the blow came from his metal arm again.
The outcome was the same but now with greater results. Lee couldn't help but empty what was left in his stomach and then collapsing to the ground, too weak to get back up.
A hand grabbed Lee from the collar of his shirt and threw him off into the distance. Dosu then directed his attention back to Sakura. The pink haired ninja remained shocked by how fast Lee had fell even though he was a master at taijutsu. Anger was boiling up in her, but even more than that was fear. As Dosu neared her, she began to remember what had happened to her that night after the first day of the exams.
(Flashback)
Sakura was walking back from the store with her mother's groceries that she sent her out to get. Almost halfway to her house, she takes the shortcut through the park, which she always thought was scary in the dark as a child.
Walking along the pathway, small noises were being made by scurrying critters off in the bushes. A squirrel then all of a sudden ran out from one of the bushes and ran right by Sakura's feet. Sakura let out a small yelp at the sudden sight of the squirrel, and dropped her groceries. When the little rodent left out of sight, Sakura got angry with the dropped groceries and started to punch a tree, chipping away at splinters.
Still pounding away at the tree, she heard a mysterious voice coming from somewhere.
"Still attacking in anger now are you?" out from the shadows came out the person who had just left Sasuke standing still just hours ago that same day. Musuko.
"You're about to get some of it too for freaking Sasuke-kun like that." her fist came flying at the sky ninja who, like before, caught it in his hand.
"I told you not to attack in anger. Not to mention that you need to take the role of ninja more seriously."
"I do take it seriously!" she throws over her other fist which was caught by the same hand now holding both fists.
"Then why did you faint during the bell test?" Sakura looked straight into Musuko's eyes.
"H-how do you know about that?" her knees shaking now in fear of her life.
"Oh believe me, I know more than that." Musuko applied pressure to her hands and forced her to fall down to her knees. "You are weak. I'm sorry to be blunt but you just don't have the strength to be a shinobi." Musuko too kneels down to her eye level. But when he did, Sakura was in tears.
(End Flashback)
Without any warning Sakura was kicked down to the ground from behind, forcing her out of her flashback. Kin, who had been missing in action for the moment, had attacked Sakura from behind and grabbed her hair to keep her on the ground, as well as a foot on her back.
"Looks like the little princess was in dream land. Thinking that your knight would come to save you?" Kin said insultingly.
An orange body came flying through the air crashing into a tree and falling straight to the ground in a weakened state. Naruto was breathing heavily after being struck by a second sound wave from Zaku as he lay there. He was then lifted up along the tree trunk by the very same ninja that had sent him to the ground.
"You annoying little squirt!" Zaku started punching Naruto in the gut with his free hand.
All around, Team 7 and Lee had been taken down. All Sakura could do was watch Naruto get beaten up, see Lee lie motionless on the ground, and remember.
(Flashback, return)
"Please, let me go."
"That's just it. If I was an enemy ninja, I wouldn't. I would rather kill you, if not worse." he then placed his hands over Sakura's eyes for a short moment. When they were removed, Musuko was gone, and she was standing in the middle of woods unknown to her.
She began walking through these mysterious woods in search for anything. Finally, she came to a spot that she wished she never had found. Ever.
In the distance, a tall black figure, had her two team mates Naruto and Sasuke hanging from a tree by their hands and were being brutally beaten. Blood coming from their noses and mouths and both in immense pain.
"Stop it!" Sakura cried out. The black figure turned around to the source of the noise. After seeing the pink haired female, it turned back to its victim and beating them. "I said stop it!"
Sakura ran towards the figure with rage, anger, and hate, wanting to kill the figure for what it had been doing. But that fit of rage was stopped short by her being close lined by an arm, belonging to a familiar ninja.
Down on her back, she continued to cry as she saw that it was none other than Musuko who had brought her down and stopped her from saving her teammates.
"Why? Why are you letting this happen?" tears pouring out from her eyes now. She stood up and landed her head onto Musuko, "WHY!" she began pounding on Musuko's chest with what strength she had left in her.
Musuko could feeling the crying and tears running down his shirt, and yet he showed no pity for the girl.
"Stop your crying. I did this to teach you a lesson." she lifted her head up to see that the two were back in the park with the groceries still spilled on the pathway.
Looking around, Sakura stopped crying a little, being surprised.
"A genjutsu?"
Musuko placed his hands on her shoulders, and started to talk in a way that made him seem older than he really was, "I showed you what would happen to your teammates if they had to rely on you to save them." Sakura looked at Musuko, saddened by the comment. "Like I said before, you're weak. And that's because you keep fawning over that Sasuke. I understand that you like him, but he's not gonna like you if you keep acting like a fangirl. No one does, believe me." he tilted her chin up to look at her face which was now in deep thought, and still with some tears in them, "If you want him to notice you, stop being an anorexic, train for goodness sake, and stop attacking in anger. Fight for those you care, that's true power." Musuko then does the unexpected, he leans over and kisses Sakura's forehead. "Your friend Naruto has already learned that." and with that, he disappeared like before, leaving no trace of his existence except for the bag of groceries sitting next to Sakura, all picked up.
(End Flashback)
'Fight for those you care.' that was what was running through Sakura's mind right there. 'Sasuke.' she thought about the raven haired ninja, lying unconscious under the tree trunk. 'Lee.' she turned her view to the lying ninja, with no signs of getting back up. 'Naruto.' she looked to see Naruto, hanging from the tree and recieving each punch from Zaku. 'Fight for those you care.'
She drew a kunai from her pouch. Kin noticed it and chuckled at the sight.
"That's not gonna do anything against me you know." her smile went away though when she saw that Sakura was also smiling.
"It's not for you." she placed the kunai to her hair and cut it off to release the grip Kin had on her.
Sakura took her kunai and chucked it at Zaku, who was right now completely defenseless to the attack, but Dosu had intercepted the kunai and caught it.
"So the little girl wants to fight, aye? Then let's give her one." Dosu was about to run forward when he realized something. He couldn't.
Looking down he saw his shadow extending into the bushes, where Shikamaru was standing.
"Just who are you?" Kin yelled out ready for the new opponent.
"That's none of your business. Chouji, now!" just then, a large ball came bursting out of the trees rolling straight at Dosu.
Zaku saw this and let go of Naruto's body to go aid his teammate. Zaku then fell to the ground due to someone grabbing hold of his ankle.
"Not so fast." Naruto said slowly standing up with Zaku's leg in his hand "I'm not finished with you." he lifted Zaku in the air and swung him around, hitting a tree and landing on the ground in pain.
"My arm! You broke it, you..." Naruto punched him out before he could say anymore.
"Kin, a little help here!" Dosu could barely speak as the ball came towards him.
Kin threw a needle at Shikamaru hoping for him to lose his concentration. It worked. The shadow disappeared in time for Dosu to evade the human boulder, but that didn't stop it from turning around and heading straight back at him.
Dosu was about to jump again, but was trapped in the shadow for a second time instead.
"Kin!" Kin was going to throw another senbon needle at Shikamaru, but Ino came running at her catching her completely off guard.
"Oh no you don't." she delivered a powerful right hook into Kin's jaw and sent her shooting into the air.
While Kin was in the air, two kunai shot out and each one stuck into the insides of her knees. The female sound ninja landed on her back, crying in pain and holding onto her knees. Ino came walking out of the brush holding another kunai at Kins neck.
"Nice one Ino-pig." Sakura complimented with the usual insult she gave Ino.
"Thanks Forehead, learned it from one of those sky ninja." Sakura's eyes widened, hearing that Ino too had encountered the sky ninjas.
Just then, Dosu came crashing to the ground right next to Ino and Sakura after taking a direct hit from Chouji. With Dosu moaning on the ground, Sakura stood up and began walking towards the masked shinobi.
"I've got this one." she cracked her knuckles as she neared Dosu, who was now just opening his eyes.
Seeing the girl with her fist behind her head, Dosu could only say one thing. "Crap." Sakura landed her best punch square into his chest, knocking him out.
Now the only sound ninja who remained conscious was Kin...wait a minute, my bad. It appears that she was knocked out when I wasn't looking, sorry folks.
Zaku now was picking himself up from Naruto's punch and lifting himself up. Looking around, the sound ninja saw both of his teammates on the ground, and five enemy ninja surrounding the area. Slowly, he backed away, trying to make his escape quietly. But that went down the toilet when a kunai came out of nowhere and landing right in between his feet.
Looking up, Zaku saw two more ninja. Neji and Tenten had appeared on a branch each holding shuriken in hand.
"Where do you think you're going?" Team 7 and 10 looked up to see Neji and Tenten as well, and then drew their attention to the final sound ninja who tried to get away.
Neji saw his team mate Lee, practically dead on the ground. "Hmph, guess he couldn't handle a couple of ninja." Tenten jumped down and picked up Lee. "So, who wants a piece of him?" the weapon kunoichi asked. Seven ninja were now looking at Zaku with a smile growing on their faces.
"I'll take him." everyone looked behind them to see beneath the tree trunk, Sasuke had awaken.
His left arm was covered in black tattoos in a flame-and-dot pattern as well as purple chakra pouring out around it with small streaks of blue chakra every now and then. The strange Sasuke slowly walked towards Zaku who was holding onto his broken arm, but still could break a smirk, being filled with confidence.
"Heh. I can still take you down, even with one arm." Zaku lifted up his good arm and shot out a sound wave at full force straight at Sasuke.
Sasuke didn't even move from where he stood, nor did he make any facial expressions. The sound wave came rushing at him, Sasuke stayed put. The wave was now right on top him, and instantly, he had lifted his tattooed arm and completely stopped the wave from continuing further. Surrounding his flat palm was a wall of the purple chakra.
Everyone was astonished by the feat that Sasuke had just pulled off.
"Dang it. He's nullifying my attack completely." Zaku put his all into the attack trying to break through the strange chakra barrier.
"Time to finish this." with that, Sasuke clenched his fist.
The reaction was the shield piercing straight through the sound wave, like a knife through butter. The chakra ran straight into the hole in Zaku's hand, ripping the muscles and bones from within. The chakra continued on through his entire body, killing him from the inside out. It poured out of the poor shinobi's mouth and eyes with blood dripping out from both areas.
When the chakra was diminished, the tattoos disappeared as well, Sasuke was a bit wobbly, and Zaku fell down dead. Everyone was now even more awestricken, if not shaking in their skin.
'He's gotten stronger. But how?' Neji thought to himself.
'I guess I really was too late.' Seirei punched the tree he was kneeling on, upset.
"Come on Tenten, Let's get out of here." Tenten nodded to Neji's order and jumped away into the trees.
The only people left now were the five ninja still looking at Sasuke, regaining his balance. Sakura ran over to him in aid.
"I can take care of myself, thank you." Sasuke said snuffing his shoulder away from her.
"Give me the arm or I'll take it from you detached from your shoulder." killer intent spewed out of the pink haired kinouchi, the same that they felt the morning before with his jewels in danger. Reluctantly, Sasuke handed over the arm as Sakura began checking it.
"There doesn't seem to be any cuts or bruises from that attack." Sasuke then fell down to his knees, wincing in pain, and grabbing onto his neck.
Sakura was worried for her teammate as he was kneeling over. After a quick look over at where Sasuke was holding, she noticed that it was an unusual mark with two dots and one tomoe glowing red and orange, the glowing tomoe then changed back to a black mark but with a small black dot near the tip of the tomoe.
'What is that on his neck?' Sakura wondered as she saw the new dot form on his neck. "Are you ok Sasuke?"
"Yeah, I'm alright. Just a bite mark."
"Bite mark?" Sakura had no memory of the Uchiha being bitten by anything during the forest.
"That grass ninja bit me on the neck and then I went out. He must of had injected some kind of poison in me."
"Yeah... Yeah that must be when." she really didn't believe that was the whole story. There was more to this mark than there really was, but she didn't believe that Sasuke knew anything about it.
"Naruto." Naruto was looking in the sound ninjas' pouches to find their scroll as he looked over to see Sasuke. "Good idea dobe. Grab the scroll and then we're heading out to find a place to rest." Naruto nodded and continued to search for the scroll.
When Tenten met up with Neji, he was looking in a different direction.
"What's up Neji?" he didn't answer. Instead he left Tenten behind and ran over in the direction he was facing. "Neji!" she let out a big sigh and followed behind her pale-eyed teammate.
Neji jumped along a few branches until he landed down next to another ninja.
"Did you enjoy the show?" Neji asked with his arms crossed and a frown on his face.
"Actually." the ninja stood up from where he was kneeling to face Neji, "I found it quite interesting. I didn't expect Zaku to die like that."
"You know who that sound ninja was?" Neji, sounding very suspicious.
"And yet, I'm not even a member of the sound. Now, how is that possible?" the two remained silent staring at each other, until Tenten came along with Lee on her back still.
"Who is this?" Tenten asked.
"Oh, please forgive my manners. My name is Brother Seirei of the Sky Village." giving a gentlemen's bow to the female.
"Why didn't you help my teammate?" Neji not beating around the bush, "He could have died thanks to you. All you did was watch as he was-"
"-defeated. Yes, he was. But... he wasn't killed." Seirei then reached into his weapon pouch "And that's where I leave you at. I have to go and meet the others." he pulled out a small gray shell which he threw onto the branch creating a smoke screen. When it had cleared, he was gone.
Neji snarled at how the ninja did not answer him, and left him with even more question than he had started with.
"Come on. We still have to find our scroll." Tenten nodded and the two leapt from branch to branch continuing their search.
Back with Team 7 and 10, the two teams were getting packed up and ready to go. The sound ninja only had an earth scroll which both teams already had, so Team 7 took it ,just in case they lost their first one or they could use it for trade. The two teams traveled together for awhile, until they believed they were far enough from the battle sight to rest for the night.
Morning broke, and Sakura didn't have to get the boys up with her previous threat. As a matter of fact, they were up before she was.
"Well, good luck you guys. Hopefully we'll see you at the tower tonight." Chouji said to the others, still munching down breakfast.
"Yeah, this whole forest of death is really just troublesome to me." Shikamaru replied in his lazy tone.
"You always say everything is troublesome, Shikamaru. Why don't you take that sky ninja's advice and actually try to train for once?" Ino barked at Shikamaru.
"Wait. You guys met one of those sky ninja?" Sakura pointed at them questionably. "When?"
"Well we met one while training on the day before the exams began. He told me something about not attacking in anger, and for lazy boy here to actually start training." Ino explained.
"If you didn't notice, he too was sitting up next to the tree for the entire time we were there." Shikamaru remarked.
"He was? But, I saw him come walking down into our training grounds." Chouji said still eating.
"That was his clone. He was actually relaxing on the same tree as I was the whole time. After awhile, we began playing mental shogi while we were sitting down." everyone gaped that Shikamaru was actually interacting with the sky ninja before anyone else knew he was there.
"Oh and we also fought one of them on the first day in the forest too. The kid had white hair and beat us down good." Chouji changed the subject by speaking of another encounter.
"That shinobi beat one of Shikamaru's strategies with ease." all gaped once again. They all knew that Shikamaru was not the best ninja of them all, but when it came to strategies, he was practically unstoppable.
"And the sad part is that I almost had him beat in mental shogi. That is if he didn't make that one move." Shikamaru repeating already past events.
"You mean he beat you in shogi!" Ino gaped even more than the others.
"No. We just didn't finish our game, you punched his clone before we were done." Shikamaru explained.
"So what you're saying is that these sky ninjas are geniuses like Shikamaru, but possibly even better?" Sasuke finally spoke up.
"Oh that's what I need. Another bunch of geniuses to fight against. They always mess with my head with their logic." Naruto shouted out holding onto his head.
"That's not very hard to do dobe." crossing his arms in satisfaction of his insult.
"You wanna say that again buddy!" Naruto screamed at the top of his lungs with clenched fists.
"Both of you stop screaming. You're giving me a headache." the two instantly stopped when Sakura asked. Ino was impressed, not only did Sasuke listen to Sakura, but Sakura was now demanding and forceful.
'Wonder what's gotten into her?'
"Come on, I'm getting tired of just sitting around. This is our last day to find a scroll, or we fail. Not that I really care though." Shikamaru intervened into Ino's train of thought.
Ino nodded and smiled to her rival-friend "He's right. We need to go. See ya guys later." she turned around to leave, but then realized that she was the only one moving. "Come on guys." she grabbed both Chouji and Shikamaru by the collars and began dragging them into the woods.
"Well that was fun." Naruto said, with his signature fox grin.
"Yeah, fun." Sasuke said in a sarcastic tone "But like them, we too don't have a scroll either. We better get going." the other two nodded and the three jumped off in their own search.
Battle with the sound is over, Team 7 is till looking for a scroll, and there is till no Kabuto in the forest, should I put him in now? Give me suggestions and I might, and as I said before just review, I like comments. Well it's getting late, so I'm out like a candle light.