Our Dark Waltz Chapter 23: Crimson Butterfly Meets Lightning, a naruto fanfic

The Crimson Butterfly meets Lightning

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A/N: Please imagine in your mind the imagery I used and think of it in a slow motion sort of way. When I wrote this, I imagined plenty of speed but also slow motion to give the moves a sort of 'action film'quality. Thank you.

The kunai sliced past Hinata's cheek, the cut roaring and throbbing along her flesh. She twisted her body, squaring off in a low bend and digging her heels in the dirty sand below her. The Byakugan activated, she read the chakra flowing through her attacker. The man bounded quickly off the acacia tree from her right and crouched low at a dead sprint to her position. He was moving fast, very fast and charging up his long steel blade.

Lightning.

He is a user of the Lightning technique.

The man swiftly brought his long, wide steel blade from behind his back and swung with deadly speed. Hinata could hear the whistle and crackle of the blade, the electricity coiling around the steel of the expertly crafted blade of the man's sword. The ninja was quick, but Hinata was prepared for such a move. She read his chakra build in the right arm of the assassin, giving away his move that he planned to use to remove her head if he had chosen to have his way.

Hinata bent low, her left foot digging in the sand as she quickly crossed her legs to do a dancer's grapevine. As she twisted her body and propelled it off the ground, she felt the blade swing underneath her chin and skim across her outstretched arms close to her sides. Her throbbing eyes took in the single strand of dark hair seared by the stinging blade under her delicate chin as her kicking legs and body landed in the rough sand next to the assassin.

Before the man could regain his senses from her quick twist kick, she grabbed his wrist with one hand and roughly jabbed two fingers into his weak point: the tenketsu near his forearm. He grunted in pain, barely registering the loss of his arm and dropped the long blade from his wrapped hand. The blade had barely hit the sand before she swung her small body underneath his arm and used an open strike with her palm, pushing his body a few feet from her.

"You, you were not supposed to be a challenge-"

Hinata swung back her hair into a twist, lowering her body once more and stepping back with one leg and preparing her hands for a move only two other fellow ninja had seen her perform,

"Y-you thought w-w-wrong."

Hinata's pale eyes closed quickly then flickered open, blue chakra emitting from her body and along the sand in a garish, glowing circle.

Neji watched in surprise and approval as Hinata walked back from the Chunin Exam's required one on one sparring fights. His arms uncrossed as he bowed to her and handed her an herbal ointment.

"I see you have created your own version of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms that is legendary of the main branch. You used 32 Palms? Interesting. Your opponent was overwhelmed. Your father and the Hyuga will be proud. You have improved, Hinata-sama. Make sure you watch how you land your last strike. You do not want the opponent to be able to move at all."

"Yes, Neji-nii-san. Of c-course. I will improve."

The assassin couldn't even see the blur of Hinata; only feel the hard and stinging rushes of her palms hitting each organ in his body. He could only recall the times he was hit in sparring matches by others' lightening or his own unstable unique Chidori style.

"2 strikes!"

"4 strikes!"

His hazel eyes met flashing white eyes, his ears ringing as the chakra drained from his body. His heartbeat became a loud rush in his ears before he heard her last quiet sentence, barely a whisper of the wind.

"32 strikes!"

She brought her small hand back before ramming it hard into his defenseless body. A pain he never felt before sang through his chest as his lifeless body stumbled a few steps.

Beat.

The assassin caught the last image he would ever catch in his long lifetime, a lifetime ended by a kunoichi that was reported to be weak and simple to kidnap.

White eyes…no, lavender. Innocent lavender eyes in the face of a young kunoichi supposedly of little bother. You have killed me, little crimson butterfly.

Hinata stretched her arms above her, bending her back and using the momentum of her feet to spring backwards. Her heeled sandal smashed into the assassin's stubble chin, sending him sprawling into the sand while kunai sailed through the air into the spot she had stood before.

The lifeless assassin fell into the burning, rocky sand with his arms and legs sprawled from his lifeless body. Blood crept from his nose and ears, dripping into the sand. The assassin was no longer, ended by the meek target Hyuga Hinata.

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Gaara's yellowing cat eyes narrowed, his lips split into a sneer before he calmed his erratic breathing to focus on the enemy in front of himself and Hinata. Hinata had quickly dodged the wide sword of the first assassin with a butterfly kick and performed a set of quick thrusts of her sparkling palms that he could not even register the speed of the strikes. It was definitely the Hyuga's signature Gentle Fist style, but not the same traditional style of Ko or Neji.

Gaara's eyes scanned near Hinata, his trembling hand reaching behind to uncork his painted gourd. The angry sand spilled out and swirled around his body in a wild tornado. The grains of tan sand tickled familiarly around his arms and down to his hands before he shot out his left sand as if commanding the small particles.

There.

The second attacker throwing the kunai.

The sand formed into an impenetrable curved wall before Hinata, whom moved to nearly press her right side to guard against the kunai that slammed into the hard sand. The kunai fell to the ground and sank into the hot sand near Hinata's feet. The sand returned to swarm around Gaara until he caught the movement of the attacker's crackling shuriken about to leave the owner's wrapped hands.

"Bind him with a prison of sand."

The sand left Gaara's fingertips and wrapped around the struggling body of the second assassin. The more the man writhed, the more Gaara sent waves of his chakra to command the sand to squeeze the victim for a victim he would be.

No one attacks what is ours.

For once, Gaara did not argue.

Gaara cocked his head and looked into the widening eyes of the terrified man.

"Sabaku no-"

"Sand Coffin!"

The last echoes were the crushing of bones, the oozing of blood and a smothered dying scream of a doomed assassin.

Gaara blinked his eyes, returning his hand to his side. The sand gently returned to swarm like bees on a journey to the queen. The smell of fresh blood filled Gaara's nostrils, disgusting and pleasing him at once.

"No one shall harm my crimson butterfly..."

Gaara then felt the warning in his gut, the sand automatically shielding him from another crackling kunai. He gritted his teeth, the small fangs digging into his lower lip.

Hinata…

The rushing sand from his clenched hand was evaded by the clever third assassin, the one who had hid in the shadows and perched herself in an acacia tree. The sand missed its target, the grains barely grazing along the kunoichi's white tunic and short brown hair.

Hinata turned in a semi circle, her eyes wide in small surprise before spreading her arms like a hawk about to fly into the heavens. The woman howled in anger, her sharp katana cutting into the air. Hinata bent back, her body vertical to the sand as she extended her right leg to snap kick the handle of the kunoichi's katana.

The katana dropped from the kunoichi's hands in anger, the blade whipping away and shooting into the air, singing into the air. The katana flew towards an acacia tree, a tree that was close to Temari.

"Temari!"

Kankuro yelled.

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Author Note: This is part one of this chapter thus why its short. This is my first action chapter that included quite a bit of Hinata's signature moves of her own and the Gentle Fist as well as Gaara's moves. I had to do a lot of research and take deep thought into how I wanted to write it the right way. Please feel free to msg me if anything isn't correct. I hope it is liked. Part 2 will come soon. Thank you very much.

Also please note, based on what I have read, crimson butterfly is supposed to be symbolic in Japanese lore of a grim reaper type of figure. I thought the butterfly kick and the blood on Hinata's check was a great way to make that symbolic as she took down the assassin fatally. If I am wrong, please msg me so I can fix it.

Also msg me about the Lightning techniques used by the land run by the Raikage for more info or correction. I couldn't find much information and I didn't access the anime nor did my memory kick in so I used what I could remember. I saw quite a bit about Chidori type attacks being used and charging lightning through their weapons.