A/N: Another fast update, I really enjoyed the concepts I had for this battle so I could help but write the battle immediately. Thanks to luqie10 for reviewing the last chapter, it gives me a lot more motivation to write and it helps a lot. I found that this chapter was probably the most fun that I've had writing in a while, so I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: Naruto, its characters and story belong to Kishimoto, I've said this enough times, but it's probably necessary. I own the OCs and new stuff from this fanfiction though, but no one really cares anyways.
Chapter 3: A Handicapped Battle
Missing-nin Command Room:
The twelve missing-nin surrounding the Konoha shinobi rushed forward upon hearing their leader's signal, raising their weapons with the intent to kill. Naruto jumped to the front of the group with his hands forming a familiar hand sign, but before he could use his jutsu, he had to jump to evade shuriken and kunai thrown at him. Although Naruto avoided the weapons, they still headed towards his 3 team mates, before they were deflected by an 8 Trigrams Air Palm from Hinata. While in the air, Naruto performed his shadow clone technique and used the clone to swing himself towards the missing-nin, a planetary rasengan formed in hand. The attack scattered five missing-nin leaving them unconscious across the room.
Sakura, using a chakra enhanced fist smashed the ground in front of her sending another two missing-nin flying. Not too far from her, Hinata was engaged in a taijutsu fight with two other missing-nin, her jyuken cutting off her targets' chakra points quickly rendering one of the shinobi useless while the other jumped back to join another missing-nin who stood back from the rest. Sai quickly pulling out a scroll drew and summoned two ink lions to attack another two targets, quickly restraining them, before he went in with his tanto to finish them off.
The two remaining chunin-level missing-nin backed off from the four Konoha-nin, fearing for their lives as they were greatly outclassed by the Konoha-nin. The leader and his two accomplices still stood back, before the leader turned to address the ninja on his left, "Yakekoge, typically as my assistant and advisor, I'd have you stand by the sidelines, but these particular pests require me to call upon your assistance. You know what to do."
Yakekoge quickly leaped down from the raised platform the three higher level missing-nin were standing on, and performed a quick string of hand seals before announcing in a surprisingly lower pitched male voice, "Fire Style: Flame Stream!". A massive stream of fire was emitted through his bandana (not burning it of course), engulfing the two remaining missing-nin on its path to the Konoha-nin. Naruto and his active clone quickly grabbed Hinata and Sakura respectively before leaping out of the way of the fire stream, while Sai leapt to the other side of the stream.
"Dasu-sama, I'd recommend that we do not hold back against these ninja." Nagare stated, "We'll have to go all out if we hope to win, after all that Naruto kid wasn't put in the bingo books for no reason."
The leader, now identified as Dasu, nodded before reaching behind him and pulling an alarm, notifying the rest of the ninja in the complex that there was an intruder. "It will only be a matter of time before you are overwhelmed, why bother putting in the effort, just take the easy route and surrender now." he stated to the Konoha nin.
"Sakura-san what should we do?" asked Hinata, clearly realizing the situation could escalate quickly once reinforcements arrived.
Sakura shifted nervously as she couldn't think of a plan in this situation, 'there was no way they could take on that many ninja alone? Maybe Naruto, but the rest of us would get injured.' she thought.
"Don't worry, I'll send a few clones to stop the reinforcements before they can get here." Naruto explained. "That way we can focus on the fight against these scumbags." he finished while pointing specifically at the leader before creating five clones who rushed out of the room.
Dasu grew a tick mark of annoyance before jumping down from the platform along with his guard. "Very well, you leave me with no choice. Pick off the weak ones and break him, Nagare." he commanded.
The stoic man nodded before kneeling and performing a string of hand signs which caused… nothing? Or at least that's what the Konoha ninja thought before the ground gradually started shaking.
'A doton?' Sakura thought, 'Is he going to take down the entire base?'
Sakura however was incorrect as Naruto sensed some powerful chakra build up beneath Hinata who was at the back of the group at the time. Naruto quickly leapt back to her, before picking her up and bringing her out of the way before a massive high pressure jet of water burst out of a pipe in the ground leaving a hole in the ceiling of the room.
"Naruto-kun, thank you." said a shocked Hinata, before Naruto set her down.
Naruto turned towards the three missing-nin, giving them a glare, before saying, "No one hurts my friends!" and quickly bursting towards Nagare while forming a rasengan in hand. The large man was shocked by his incredible speed as he was unable to bring his arms up in time to block the attack as he was blasted into a wall. "One down." Naruto remarked, before quickly dodging multiple attacks from Dasu using a kunai.
At the same time, Sai summoned more ink lions who charged towards Yakekoge, who quickly destroyed them using powerful swift taijutsu punches. After destroying the lions, Yakekoge charged towards Sakura at an alarming speed, with Sakura barely managing to bring up her fists in time to block a punch, before she was kicked into a wall. Hinata quickly charged at Yakekoge trying to strike him with her jyuken strikes, but to no avail as he evaded each attack before countering with punches Hinata could barely deflect.
Sai meanwhile turned his interest towards Naruto and Dasu's fight where Naruto was now going on the aggression pushing Dasu backwards with taijutsu before landing a kick, knocking him backwards several feet towards some ink snakes which leapt at Dasu's legs, before he quickly jumped over the snakes while slashing a kunai downwards destroying them. As he did that, Naruto had prepared another rasengan and as he was about to make contact with Dasu, he quickly redirected himself as he dodged a cleaver that missed his face by a few inches.
Naruto turned to see that Nagare was standing with a hole in his anbu-style armor, but no remnants of his rasengan hit remained on him. "You see, Nagare here is a top-tier bodyguard, you didn't think that he'd have medical ninjutsu too?" Dasu remarked while grinning, "Nagare collaboration ninjutsu time."
"Ok Dasu-sama" replied Nagare before forming another string of hand seals before shouting, "Water style: Water Dragon Bullet!" as a water dragon burst forward towards Naruto, before a second technique was heard, "Lightning style: Electromagnetic murder". Dasu reached his hands out sending a massive discharge of electricity into the water dragon forming a truly deadly technique, Naruto quickly leapt out of the way and onto the wall, but the technique continued along its path heading towards Sai, whose eyes widened as it approached. Naruto quickly formed a rasengan and leapt towards the electrified water dragon, slamming the rasengan into it, which redirected the dragon, but not enough to completely avoid Sai.
Sai was smashed by the side of the dragon's head into the wall, while the technique did not contain too much power normally, the electricity damaged Sai enough to render him unconscious. "Sai!" Naruto shouted worriedly before quickly jumping to Sai and bringing him towards Sakura on her side of the room.
Hinata was fighting a losing battle against Yakekoge as the jyuken was too rigid of a fighting style to face against a ninja of his caliber, who was likely close to kage level with his taijutsu alone. Yakekoge broke through Hinata's guard before throwing a punch at her face. Hinata was knocked to the ground, but before Yakekoge could continue his assault he heard a certain pinkette.
"SHANNARO!" Sakura shouted as she smashed the ground with a certain ferocity leaving a hole in the ground where Yakekoge had previously stood. She looked to her side to see Hinata standing back up and wiping a bit of blood from her lips before turning back to Yakekoge, who stood completely relaxed, apparently unfazed by her attack.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted as he placed Sai down against the wall, "Sai was injured by the enemies jutsu, I need you to heal him!"
"Ok." replied Sakura as she leapt to where Sai had been placed before performing the healing palm technique on Sai.
"I need you to keep Sakura-chan and Sai safe ok?" Naruto asked a newly formed clone. "Sure thing boss." replied the clone before standing next to the medical-nin.
"Hinata, do you think you can take on the one in red?" the real Naruto asked while staring towards Yakekoge.
"I'll do my best Naruto-kun." answered Hinata, before bringing her hands to her side while forming chakra lion heads around each fist.
Naruto nodded and turned back to the other two opponents only to see a massive stone being standing across the room with Dasu on one shoulder and Nagare on the other. "Do you really think we were just sitting idle while you and your friends were talking? Behold my most powerful technique, the Earth Style: Stone Titan. The stones that create this monster are packed with my chakra, so there is no way you and your damned rasengan can do anything against it." Dasu called from the shoulder of the titan. He then looked at his assistant who stood idle staring at Hinata's jutsu, "Yakekoge what the hell are you doing, KILL THEM!"
Yakekoge merely nodded before dashing towards Hinata who in turn dashed towards him. Yakekoge threw a punch towards Hinata's stomach, but Hinata used her natural flexibility to twist around the punch and send a twin lion fist towards his head, to which he also dodged before spinning around while delivering a backwards round house kick which Hinata blocked sending her back several feet, before they engaged in close quarters combat again. The flexibility of the twin lion fists technique gave Hinata much more pull in the fight than before, as she had the ability to maneuver around her opponent much easier, which was necessary against a fast taijutsu user.
Meanwhile Naruto was running to the other side of the room while dodging a surprisingly fast fist from the stone titan, before he jumped onto the wall and hung there for a second. He had to find a way to take down the titan without killing the leader, so he knew that his wind style: rasenshuriken would be too damaging, however he couldn't use any of the bijuu chakra enhanced rasengans either. Before Naruto could plan anymore he had to dodge another fist which smashed into the wall he was standing on leaving a large hole. He landed skidding across the ground before coming to a stop before he noticed both the men on the titan stringing together handsigns.
"Water style: Water Pressure Laser!" Nagare announced, blasting a very high powered thin stream of water from his mouth, which drilled straight through the ground as it quickly approached Naruto and followed him as he dodged the technique.
A moment later, he heard Dasu shout, "Lightning style: Bolt Barrage!" as he fired a lightning bolt from his hand which narrowly missed the dodging Naruto, leaving a small crater in the location he had just stood.
'Damn, with all this dodging I won't even be able to land a hit' Naruto thought as he barely dodged the water laser before jumping over a lightning strike on his location. He was then punched out of the air by the titan, hitting the wall and landing on the ground. He quickly got to his feet as the water pressure laser approached, then ran to his right to dodge the laser only to be hit by a well aimed lightning bolt, once again knocking him into the wall.
Hinata's fight was at a stalemate, as both sides of the fight were very good at evading each other's techniques. Yakekoge leapt backwards after dodging another fist aimed at his stomach before skidding a bit and bringing his hands together to string together a chain of hand signs. However, he was not presented with that opportunity as Hinata dashed forward, connected two fists with his abdomen before shouting, "Two fists!" before she continued with another two fists connecting another two fists "Four fists!". Without providing Yakekoge with an opportunity she continued her assault, "Eight fists!", "Sixteen fists!", "Thirty-two fists!" she continued, while knocking her opponent a little ways back, before she prepared two finish the attack with the final step. However that step would not occur as she slipped on some of the water from Nagare's earlier water jutsu, causing her to stumble out of the technique.
Yakekoge instantly saw a moment to capitalize on and somehow managed to rush towards Hinata despite taking so many hits, while producing a kunai out of his kumino before reaching it towards Hinata's throat. However, the kunai did not connect as a chakra-enhanced fist met Yakekoge's stomach instead, blasting his backwards into the wall with incredible strength. Yakekoge slumped to the ground clearly defeated and Sakura turned to her Hyuga team mate. "Great job Hinata, you bought me enough time to heal Sai, he won't be able to do much in his current state though, the lightning jutsu messed up his chakra a bit." said Sakura before continuing, "We better go help Naruto."
"Hai," responded Hinata, panting a bit from the difficult taijutsu fight which had just occurred.
Naruto pushed himself off the wall only to be met by a massive titan fist coming towards him, looking to his side he saw the water laser approaching from one side, while a lightning bolt was headed towards the other side. However, he found a solution to escape from this situation as he jumped over the fist and landed on the titan's arm, before dashing up it towards Nagare. Nagare immediately stopped his technique before pulling out his cleaver and dashing towards Naruto swinging it in a horizontal slash. Naruto ducked under the cleaver and sent a sage chakra enhanced punch at his face blasting him off the titan and knocking him out. Naruto then leapt off the titan's arm and towards its chest as he dodged a lightning bolt aimed at his previous location. He began forming a planetary rasengan in hand and held it behind him as he approached the titan's chest.
"You bastard! A measly runt like you can't defeat me! I built this damned base, this is my legacy!" the leader shouted before the titan brought its arms towards its chest to defend itself.
'There is no way that basic attack can defeat this giant' he thought to himself.
Naruto quickly started to add more chakra to the rasengans, increasing their size tenfold before shouting, "Senpou: Oodama Planetary Rasengan!" as he connected the massive rasengan with the titan's arms which protected its chest. It slowly started to dig into the arm, before one of the smaller orbiting rasengans collided with one of the arms, breaking it off the giant before the main rasengan broke through the remaining arm and collided with the main body of the titan, now digging into its chest. One of the two remaining orbiting rasengans collided with the head of the titan blasting it off, before the final one collided into the top of the chest, causing a large crack to form down the chest of the titan, before the central rasengan broke through, finally destroying the titan. Dasu fell to the ground, landing on his back with a groan.
Naruto approached the fallen missing-nin leader, who pulled out a kunai and started retreating from him. "How can you be so strong, I don't understand, I've always been the strongest around here." Dasu explained frightened, while backing away from the approaching Uzumaki.
Naruto grinned while saying, "I'm not even going at you with the intent to kill, not to mention I'm not even at half of my true power right now." Dasu's eyes widened at that statement before he slumped to the ground after fainting.
Naruto walked up to the former missing-nin leader and lifted him over his back before walking towards the rest of the team, who was crowded around Sai after watching Naruto's victory, none of them noticing Yakekoge's "body" slowly burn into nothingness, leaving no evidence of ever existing.
Unknown Location:
Yakekoge walked deeper into the cave before kneeling before a figure turned the opposite direction. "What do you have to report Yakekoge?" a commanding voice asked.
"The Konoha team was stronger than expected, Naruto Uzumaki appears to live up to the rumors we have heard about him. Regardless, I took the necessary funding from Dasu's treasury and brought it here," Yakekoge finished, pulling a large bag of money off his back and placing it down.
"Perfect, it should be enough to fund all of our operations. I take it Uzumaki was the one to take out your fire shadow clone, correct? Did you 'tie up loose ends' with Dasu?" the voice asked again.
"Actually, it was his team mates who defeated it, but they wouldn't be much of a threat to my actual body, I did not put too much chakra into that clone anyways. As for Dasu, I didn't feel the need to kill him as he didn't know enough about us to compromise our plans." Yakekoge answered.
The other figure sighed before continuing, "Very well, it is almost time for us to put our plan into action. You are to meet with your partner at the border of the Land of Fire and await further instruction. It is time for us to put an end to these cursed days. Akatsuki may have been the dawn of this era, but we will be the dusk. You are dismissed Yakekoge."
Yakekoge nodded before leaving the cavern while slightly quivering at the figure's sheer presence and power that they emitted.
A/N: If you couldn't figure out why the chapter had this name it's because both Naruto and Yakekoge were not fighting at full power, ingenious title right? (crickets chirp in the background). Anyways, thanks for reading, let me know what you thought of the first battle and some poorly named jutsus. Also forgive me for shifting in and out of Japanese, most things sound better in Japanese, but we read English so I don't really know what to use for jutsu names and etc.
Next chapter will be up at some point next week? I probably won't post over the weekend at the very least. I'll keep updating as quickly as possible, but I don't want to guarantee anything. Thanks again and feel free to write a review, I'd really appreciate it as every review helps to better the story and my writing.