I do not own Naruto.
Speaking/Thoughts
Choji charged forward at the Ichibi's body, pulling his fist back, and delivering a quick blow to its side. Gaara didn't hesitate making the sand wrap around Choji's arm, and squeezing until the boy screamed in pain, and pried him off. Gaara forced the body back on its hind legs. "Air bullet!" Gaara cried, and from the Ichibi's body shot off several violent gusts of wind.
The attack tore through the air uprooting trees, and luckily only one of them hit Choji who was sent careening a few hundred feet back, but managed to stay standing. Choji let out a monstrous yell before he ran forward, and started to tear at the mass of sand trying to disarm it. Gaara let out a growl before he swung his arm the mass of sand delivering a blow to Choji's side.
Without missing a beat Choji grabbed the sides of Ichibi digging his nails deeply into its sides before with straining to lift him from the ground. Gaara was slightly shocked that the Akimichi had the strength to do such a thing, and the surprise stopped him from defending when he was slammed into the ground. The slam was enough to shock him out of his stupor.
Like a fool Choji tried to once again pick him up, but this time Gaara was prepared forcing the Ichibi's body to clamp around Choji squeezing tightly. "AGH!" Choji screamed in pain as the body started squeezing tighter, and tighter not leaving him even room to breathe. "Get off of me!"
With strength unheard of in a human Choji managed to throw him onto the ground leaving Gaara trying to recover, and leaving Choji to try to catch his breath. They both stood there not moving for a few minutes before they recovered enough to fight.
Gaara said reached over to pick up a large boulder, and raising it to eye level. Choji turned into his human boulder form, and he spun forward demolishing the terrain, and with a seemingly unstoppable force hit an immovable object.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Choji screamed as he hurtled forward at Gaara who struggled to uphold the sand barrier the Shukaku body had provided. "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DEFEND AGAINST THIS!"
"Gaara what are you going to do?" Shiki asked poking her head outside of the sand.
"Go back inside of the sand Shiki we're going to be alright." Gaara said with a very strained voice his body under high strain as it took at least some of the damage that Shukaku was taking.
"Alright." Shiki chimed before her head disappeared.
Finally Gaara's stamina broke because despite being a Jinchuriki, and training for a few months he had still never done much of his own physical activities leaving him physically weak. The body fell apart leaving Gaara, and Shiki to fall in a feather soft pile of sand. "Looks like I beat him." Choji said shrinking back to his normal side exhausted. He then noticed Shiki who was still awake. "Right he had a girl with him."
"You meanie." Shiki said tears coming to her eyes a deep pout on her face. This left Choji bewildered when a dark nearly evil aura came off of her frightening deeply. "You hurt Gaara you jerk!" She was quite literally giving off a black aura. "I'm going to beat you down!"
She launched at Choji catching him off guard making his stumble back, and she sat on his stomach launching a barrage of chakra punches at his face. Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but in his highly weakened state, and each punch was coated in demon chakra singing his face. She continued this until he was knocked out cold.
Gaara woke up ten minutes later with Shiki stroking his hair soothingly, and smiling down at him. "You won Gaara!" she said cheerfully pointing over at the unconscious Choji who seemed close to death, and very skinny. "He's not dead, but really close."
Gaara smiled at this she was very nice despite being slightly naïve, and he knew that he hadn't won, but it was nice to know that she would try and save his pride. "Thank you Shiki." Gaara said rubbing her face with his right hand causing her to blush, and smile.
-Scene Change-
Zale, Kira, Chrome, and Aria ran forward Kurumi slung over Zale's shoulder. There was a loud demolishing noise as well as a roar. "I think that Shiki might have had to use her demon body." Kira said with a bit of a shudder he himself had been Shiki's assistant in training herself to conjure up the sand body. "I actually feel bad for the leaf guy."
"We don't have time to worry about that." Zale said his eyes cold, and calculative slightly worrying them all. "Gaara can handle it, and he won't kill him. He'll be hospitalized for a few months maximum."
"Still, you served with them for while Zale, don't you feel bad for him at all?" Aria probed.
"What I feel doesn't matter from this point on they're our enemies, and sympathy for enemies is what gets people killed in the battlefield." Zale said closing his eyes, and when he opened them up they were red. "We need to pick up the pace come on."
They started leaping forward, but the team following them didn't let up in their pursuit with Satsuki urging them all on to near dangerous speeds. "I can see them behind us." Kira said as they came upon a clearing with nothing, but trees and hanging shadows around it. "I'll stay behind, and stall them."
"Just don't take too long." Zale said, and he got a nod of confirmation before they ran off.
"We don't have time for this." Satsuki said as they halted seeing Kira standing with his legs apart, and arms up. "Shikimaru would you mind staying behind, and fighting Kira. Remember that he has random attack patterns, and no predesigned fighting style, so be careful."
"Man this is really troublesome, but if I take care of it then I'll be able to get back home faster and take a nap, so I'll do it." Shikimaru said forming a hand sign carefully staring at Kira his eyes analytical taking in every little move that he made. Satsuki, Kiba, and Lee ran around intent to catch up to the others.
"I won't let you guys just pass by." Kira said running to intersect them only to suddenly stop, and feel his body move without his consent. "What the hell did you do to me pineapple head?"
"It's my shadow possession jutsu; you won't be able to move without my own body. You couldn't have chosen a worse field for combat with all of these shadows around you won't be able to avoid me like Gaara did." Shikimaru said with a somewhat smug smirk on his face. "I'll just keep you here until the retrieval squad comes, and picks you up so we can interrogate you."
"That's a really stupid idea; do you think that I would just let it end like that?" Kira asked a smirk forming on his face as steam came off of his body.
"Ow, that really hurts." Shikimaru said grabbing his hand that had steam coming off of it.
"It's a double edged sword, what happens to you happens to me. I heard that from a few friends." Kira said more steam coming off of his body causing Shikimaru to scream. "I can Manipulate fire so that it doesn't hurt me, but you'll feel it." The steam stopped replaced with full blown fire that made Shikimaru scream, and pull back the jutsu. "You can't take it can you? Well if you can't take the fire get out of the kitchen!"
Shikimaru jumped back as a blaze of flame shot at him Kira running at him trying to deal a hit because of Shuko Hand Claws. Pieces of black cloth wrapped around his hands with spikes on each knuckle sharp enough to split a hair, and could cause enough damage to kill. "Aren't those a bit lethal for a non death fight?" Shikimaru asked sweat coming off his brow.
"I'm thinking it's no worse than fighting on fire." Kira said a smirk placed on his face. He punched the air fire launching from his knuckles forcing Shikimaru to dodge the columns of fire, and left him panting. "You know I'm starting to think that I got a freebee fighting you."
"Don't underestimate me." Shikimaru said disappearing, leaving Kira to look for the hidden boy.
"Come out, and fight me you wuss!" Kira yelled out launching more, and more fire out in random directions hoping to randomly hit Shikimaru, but not getting any cries of pain from the boy. "Alright then if you're not going to come out then I'm going to have to flush you out." The fire on Kira suddenly stopped mid burn, and turned a deep blue. "This is some of my hottest fire."
'This isn't good; he might actually kill me if I'm not careful.' Shikimaru said looking around to see fire around him burning hot and he had to wipe his brow. Unexplainably he found it harder to breathe as the fire burned longer. 'Wait a second he wasn't just firing off randomly, he planned that. The fire is burning away my oxygen; if I stay here then I'm going to pass out.'
"I wonder how hot I need to burn it before I can flush you out." Kira said more fire launching off of him, but this one burned through the trees and grass much faster. "You're over there!" Kira yelled burning right through a boulder that fell to the ground in ashes. "Whatever I'll burn him eventually."
'Satsuki was wrong his attacks aren't completely random; it just seems that way. There's a pattern to it, but it's hard to see.'
Kira looked around at his fire, and smiled. He loved the burning heat that it came off. "Over there!" Kira screamed throwing senbon intercepting the kunai that launched at him. "Over there!" More senbon intercepted more kunai.
'There it's a split second hesitation, but it's definitely there. His left side is slower, and that means it's his weaker side.' Shikimaru said taking out more kunai, and some ninja wire.
"One kunai is so lame!" Kira said going to intercept to kunai only for it to be suddenly pulled back, and hit him on the left side cutting his hand pulling back fast enough to not be burned by the fire. "God damn it, this one might be a little harder to stop then I thought."
Shikimaru smiled happy that he had found the boy's weakness. He wrapped more wire around his kunai, and did the same tactic cutting Kira. 'This fight's going to come down to smarts because he's not strong enough to take me down. It's too bad we didn't leave Chrome, but I'll be damned if I'll give Gaara an opportunity to make fun of me for losing.'
Kira watched closely as the kunai came from him now from all angles making it hard to determine where the lazy genius was. He leapt back avoiding all except one kunai that slashed his cheek, and shocked him slightly. All the kunai retracted, and hurtled back at him wrapping around his body cutting off escape.
"It looks like I win this one." Shikimaru said holding a stick with the other ends of the wire wrapped around it. A single tug was all it would take to cut him to ribbons.
"You're an idiot; nothing like this could bind me." Kira said a smile on his face as his body stopped flaming for a few seconds. "I'll show you a fire burning hotter than your will of fire." The fire immediately returned this time white hot the wire burning away leaving the ground underneath him literally on fire.
The fire turned back to red, and orange leaving Shikimaru shocked. "What kind of monster are you to do that without sustaining a single burn mark." Shikimaru said horrified backing away from Kira who came closer, and closer. 'Stop it Shikimaru, stop being afraid, you can fight this guy.'
"You're right. I may not be a Jinchuriki like Naruto, or Gaara, but I'm no less than a monster." Kira smiled a demonic smile his claws brought up ready to strike down Shikimaru.
'This feeling, it's not real it has to be genjutsu!'Shikimaru thought straining to stand at this point Kira's genjutsu enough to mess with his brilliant mind. 'Don't let him get to you, fight it off!' Shikimaru's finger twitched, and a kunai that was tied to it came hurtling at Kira (did I make Shikimaru too much like a puppet master) who simply turned his head easily dodging it.
"That was a sad attempt." Kira said moving agonizingly slow.
"It wasn't meant to hit you." Shikimaru said with a kunai buried deep in his leg, and a smile on his face. "I can't believe that you could use genjutsu. It threw me through a loop, and you almost had me with that fear." Shikimaru leapt back never taking his eyes off of Kira who glared back at him.
Kira suddenly fell to all four panting. 'He called my bluff that took more out of me than I let on.' Kira thought looking up to meet Shikimaru wondering how he would fight the genius now. 'I'll give my earth Manipulation a try.' Kira slammed his palms on the ground the rock under them barely cracking.
"Looks like that fire took more out of you then you let on, and now you've lost." Shikimaru said pulling out the last of his ninja wire to tie up Kira who panted. He stood straight above him holding the wire ready to wrap around him.
In a last ditch effort Kira threw his head up slamming into Shikimaru's chin, and sending him careening back into the only tree still standing, and hitting his head. "That was a sad victory at best." Gaara said appearing out of nowhere.
"Shut up, you don't look any better than me." Kira said panting as he slowly rose to his feet. Shiki and Gaara walked over to him helping him to walk. "We're not in any shape to fight, I've used up my chakra, and if I Manipulate again my brain will implode in on itself."
"Hopefully no one will require any help from us." Gaara said as they tried as best they could to catch up to the others.
Sorry, but I'm not good at fighting scenes, and the next few chapters might lack in luster