Opening 4 - Chase the World by May'n
"So... this is it."
Naruto, Hinata, Kiba, Temari, Kankurou, Tenten, Shikamaru, Chouji and Sasuke stood in the dead center of an arena specially designed for the Chuunin Exams, consisting of a grassy field surrounded by a forest, in turn surrounded by the audience. "We all know how important today is," Naruto continued, "and now that Chouji's been let in on it, we also know what else is gonna happen today."
"Hn." Sasuke shrugged. "If it wasn't for that, I'd still be training until the last possible second. Even as it stands, I'm gonna win this."
Heh, good luck with that one, teme. Hina-chan's gonna destroy you, assuming you even get that far.
"Whatever happens," Hinata suddenly spoke up, "Becoming a Chuunin is only one of the things we have to focus on. The other is surviving long enough to actually get promoted."
"What a drag."
"You're really depressing, you know that?" Temari shot back at him.
"He's got a bit of a point," Chouji threw in. "Today isn't gonna go well for us; we already know that. He's just pointing it out. But we can fight back. We can get through this, all of us."
Weird bunch of Genin this year, Genma observed silently. It's almost like they think they're all going to... war... together... fuck, they know.
"Enough talk." Kiba cracked his knuckles. "Let's just go beat the crap out of each other."
"You do realize you're up against me in the first round, right?" Sasuke chuckled. "You're not gonna beat the crap out of anyone today."
"If you wanna talk about who's lined up to fight who, you're pretty screwed yourself." Tenten shrugged. "If you beat Kiba, then you either fight me, or someone who managed to beat me." She gestured to Kankurou, who smirked. "Plus he's from Suna, so you know next to nothing about his abilities. You know he fights with a weaponized puppet, but other than that, you've got nothing. And the only Genin here who knows anything about my new abilities, is me."
"Hn."
"That's a weak comeback."
"Hn."
Genma couldn't help but smirk at that. "All right, enough rousing speeches and trash talk. Naruto Uzumaki, Hinata Hyuuga. You two stay here, the rest of you take a seat and watch."
"Hey, wait. What happened to Hayate-sensei?" Naruto spoke up. "I thought he was the proctor for the third exam."
"You should know by now that he's been suffering from an unidentified disease for a long time... last week it rapidly worsened. He's bedridden and was unable to come here even as a spectator... the silver lining is that the disease is now responding to certain medical ninjutsu, where before it was completely unaffected. The way things are going, he'll live."
Naruto grinned. "That's a relief... all right! Hinata, you ready?"
She nodded. "Now that we're really here, I feel so much more than ready." she grinned back, and triggered her Byakugan. "Are you ready, Naruto-kun?"
"Begin," Genma declared, and frantically leapt out of the way of the two Genin, who immediately flew at each other. These two... I don't know why, I can't explain how such a thing is even possible, but I can feel it. All of my instincts as a Special Jounin are telling me that there won't be much of an arena left, when these two are done.
To counter Hinata's Gentle Fist, Naruto unsealed the cutlass hidden in his ring, which put them on roughly the same level at close range. Every swing of Naruto's sword was dodged, and every thrust of Hinata's chakra-wreathed palms was slapped aside by the flat of his blade. "We're evenly matched like this," Hinata breathed, and leaned out of the way of Naruto's sword. "But this isn't where we can do the most damage. Water Release!"
"Oh crap." Naruto resealed his sword and began rapidly forming hand seals. "Earth Wall!"
"Hollow Water Dragon!" Hinata breathed out water instead of air, that rapidly took the form of its name and snarled. It slammed headfirst into Naruto's defense, and both jutsu were blown to bits.
Okay, I've got an opening now. She'll need a moment to make more hand seals... he formed a few rapid seals, and shouted, "Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!" He breathed out a plume of vivid orange flames that crackled and roared as they touched the mist left over from her Hollow Water Dragon.
"Rasengan!" A ball of blue light tore through the mist and flames, scattering both as it flew toward Naruto, whose eyes widened. He swore under his breath, and brought his hands together as though holding a ball of similar size to her Rasengan. His chakra materialized into random swirls in the space between his palms, filling the space quickly enough that he was able to block her Rasengan with his own, destroying them both.
"What!?" Jiraiya stood up out of his seat, drawing a few odd looks from the foreign lords surrounding him. "I wanted to teach the kid that move!"
Naruto grinned. "Maybe you can help me finish it, Pervy Sage! I still need both hands to shape it right now!"
"Dammit, don't call me that in public!"
"Too late." Naruto turned his attention back to Hinata. "So, where were we?"
"Here! Water Release: Eight Trigrams, Guardian Sixty-Four Palms!"
Hiashi, Hanabi and Neji all watched with wide eyes as the first ever elemental Byakugan ninjutsu formed into a perfect transparent dome around Hinata. She combined a Gentle Fist jutsu with her nature transformation... and not only that, but the jutsu she based this on was original as well! How could she have kept this much potential hidden from us... from me... for so long?
Naruto grinned at Hinata through the wall of water, and formed a few quick hand seals. "Earth Release." Hinata froze as he sank into the ground, and before she could react his hand reemerged beneath her, to grasp her ankle and pull her into the ground as he rose up. "Headhunter Jutsu!"
He grinned, but paled when she grinned right back and the dome began to distort itself inward. "Now what?" she asked innocently. "Do you have an ultimate defense too?"
"Nope." Naruto resumed grinning, and dodged away from a blast of water and the chakra blades within. Instead, the blades sliced into the ground where he'd been standing, and precisely carved the earth around Hinata into loose chunks. With considerable effort, she managed to pull her arms up through the rocks and dirt.
"Wind Release: Erasing Wind!" Naruto expelled wind and chakra from his whole body in all directions, increasing the air pressure inside the dome to the point where it splashed and exploded outward, destabilized.
Hinata finished climbing out of the ground, dusted herself off, and glanced around. "I'll have to remember to open a hole in the barrier, the next time someone tries a jutsu like that. Thank you."
"Glad I could help," Naruto grinned. "Now... I'm finished warming up."
"Me too." she couldn't help but grin back. "Now, we can get serious."
"Guardian Sixty-Four Palms!" She rapidly shaped several arcs of chakra and whipped them at Naruto, who dodged a few, then countered with Shinra Tensei. "Hollow Water Dragon Horde!" she breathed out eight water dragons, and guided them to circle over her head as a combined flock, at the same time forming a complete dome of chakra blades around herself and applying the Water Release to complete the jutsu.
"Damn." Naruto unsealed his sword and laced it with wind chakra without using the Wind Blade. If she does what I think she's gonna do... he blinked in surprise and dodged several thrown kunai that shot through her water dome. Kunai? He reached into his pouch and scattered a few of his own daggers around the arena. Clever, Hina-chan. Setting the arena up for our Substitution trick. He drew back his sword arm, and swung the weapon forward with a roar of "Wind Scar!"
Seven wind blades shot forward from the edge of Naruto's sword and slammed into Hinata's water dome. The Guardian Sixty-Four Palms distorted and rippled from the impact, but protected her and shed a cloud of mist kicked up by his attack. Inside the dome, she formed more hand seals and returned fire, directing four of her water dragons to attack him.
Naruto blinked out of existence just before the dragons would have slammed into him, and reappeared just outside the dome while the dragons tore a massive elongated strip out of the ground before exploding into a spray of mist. He tried to hack into the dome, but his sword merely scraped and skidded over it harmlessly. Her chakra's made this thing as hard as a rock!
Hinata guided the other four Hollow Water Dragons directly down on Naruto from above, but he dodged again with his 'flash step,' leaving the dragons to once again merely kick up a plume of mist, dirt and boulders. This time, however, it shot straight up like a geyser as the dragons tunneled viciously into the earth, awing the spectators.
Naruto, meanwhile, blinked into existence on the opposite side of the dome and sealed his cutlass to lay both hands on the wall of water. "Shinra Tensei!" he bellowed, and unleashed the power of the Deva Path.
Hinata Substituted with one of the kunai she'd thrown earlier, then watched from the outside as her ultimate defense was obliterated into a spray of water and chakra. "That's right," she murmured, "don't hold back anything at all." she threw another kunai directly at Naruto, then Substituted with it just before impact, aiming a Gentle Fist strike at his chest.
He dodged backward, just beyond the reach of her fingertips, then ducked a follow-up strike to slam his palms down on the ground. "Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"
The ground beneath Hinata's feet dissolved into a soupy mess, into which she immediately sank up to her neck. "Naruto, what is-" she was cut off by her head sinking under the muck.
Oh, shit I made it too deep! "Hina-chan!" he screamed, and reached for her through the chakra-infused mud. "Banshou Tenin!"
The result was a massive wave of mud from his own jutsu hitting him in the face and throwing him back at least twelve feet. He frantically climbed back to his feet and looked around for Hinata, quickly spotting her where she'd Substituted with another kunai. Despite being covered from head to toe in mud as well, she was giggling at him. After a moment, she stopped and asked, "What kind of jutsu is this, anyway?"
"That, dear Hina-chan," he replied once his panic faded, "Is one of the two ultimate pranking ninjutsu, along with our own creation. Imagine, your target yawns and climbs out of bed, suspecting nothing. He sits up, swings his feet out of bed, and stands, immediately sinking up to his neck in chakra-infused mud like glue. It'll take the poor guy hours to climb out of it unless he has help, and hours more to wash himself off. A prank like that isn't something one does lightly," he finished in a lecturing, grandiose voice, "but should the situation call for it, nothing else compares."
"Huh. But... couldn't someone just Substitute out of it?"
"If they're a shinobi with a conveniently disposable object nearby, sure. But they'd still be in this situation," he gestured to the mud dripping off of them both.
"That's easy to deal with too." Hinata grinned, and spun, pulsing her chakra from all of her tenketsu. "Revolving Heaven!" she cried, scattering the mud and leaving herself almost completely clean. "Now, what's your plan?"
"You learned the Revolving Heaven? Cool!"
"You haven't seen anything yet," she replied. "Just wait until I manage to combine it with my Guardian Sixty-Four Palms!"
Naruto grinned, nodded, and called, "Erasing Wind," cleaning himself off as well. "Damn... this jutsu is looking less and less effective every second. Plus, I made it too deep and nearly killed you."
"You didn't make it too deep," Hinata replied, giggling again, "I just crouched down so my head went under too, since I knew you'd try to pull me back out, and... do that to yourself by accident." she pointed to the spray of earthy sludge scattered around Naruto. "I was going to surprise attack you when you were down, but I just started laughing, and..." she trailed off, and shrugged. "Now we're here."
"Yeah... now we're here." he unsealed his cutlass, and blurred forward by pulsing chakra into his legs and sprinting at Hinata.
Her eyes widened, and she whirled into another Revolving Heaven to intercept his strike, but it never came. Instead, Naruto came to a stop just outside the wall of chakra, and poured Earth Release chakra into the sword before swinging it horizontally at the dome. The reinforcing properties of the earth chakra kept the sword from chipping and cracking from the impact of Hinata's chakra grinding against it.
After several seconds, Hinata had to cease her defense, allowing Naruto's blade to suddenly swing forward. "Wind Scar!" he called, taking advantage of the brief lapse in her defenses. Three blunted wind blades slammed into her, sending her flying, but after a groan and a brief pause, she climbed back to her feet. "You okay?" he asked hesitantly.
"I'm fine," she replied. "It'll take a lot more than this to take me down, don't hold anything back!" she started forming more chakra blades around her with the Guardian Sixty-Four Palms. "And I promise, I won't!"
"Right!" he sealed his cutlass again to form a Rasengan with both hands, then pulled his left hand away when the jutsu was complete. Hinata finished forming her water-chakra dome, and Naruto lunged forward to attack it with his Rasengan.
Just before Naruto's attack struck home, however, the barrier of water turned solid, white and opaque. His Rasengan gave off a loud screeching as it ground against the wall of newly formed ice, then dissipated leaving only a small crater in the ice. The top of the ice dome shattered to allow a Hollow Water Dragon to soar out of it, then it reformed after the dragon passed completely through. It hovered above the dome, growling at Naruto, then solidified into white ice as well. It cracked as it coiled to attack him, and the pieces grated against each other.
Naruto blinked up at it. "Damn." Times like this, I wish I had an ultimate defense. "Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!" he shouted desperately, and punched upward at the dragon to let fly a swirling ball of wind which struck the belly of the dragon. It cracked a little, then cast an unimpressed look down at Naruto, who swore and turned to run away.
It followed with a roar, and Naruto turned once he was a solid distance away from it. "Earth Release: Earth Wall! Earth Wall, Earth Wall!" The dragon tore through the first two walls, but shattered as it struck the third wall. Unfortunately for Naruto, the third wall exploded into pieces along with it, and together the chunks of earth and ice slammed into him.
Hinata's ice barrier crumbled into pieces, and she emerged, panting. Naruto crawled up out of the rubble of both his and her jutsu, badly bruised and likewise out of breath. "How did you get out of that?" she breathed.
"I used Shinra Tensei to form a sphere around myself, kinda like the Revolving Heaven," Naruto replied, and wiped some blood from his lip. "It didn't entirely work, though. I'm pretty beat up from all of this." he gestured to the mound of rock and ice he stood on. "I've only got a few tricks left, what about you, Hina-chan?"
"Same here," she panted, "but I think it's about time I used my secret weapon."
"Secret weapon?" he repeated, then groaned. "How bad is this gonna hurt?"
"I honestly have no idea. I've never used it in battle before, and... well, see for yourself." she reached into her weapons pouch and pulled out a small black flask.
"What... is that?" Naruto asked, suddenly filled with a sense of dread.
"Unusually strong sake," Hinata replied, and uncorked the bottle. "Naruto-kun, please make sure I don't do anything I'll regret too much," she pleaded, then gulped down the contents of the flask.
Hiashi began shivering uncontrollably. Neji glanced up at his uncle with confusion. "What's wrong, Hiashi-sama?"
"Hinata has had sake only once before in her life, as far as I know." Hiashi triggered his Byakugan and made sure he was ready to perform the Body Flicker at a moment's notice. "It was at a birthday celebration in my name, a few years ago."
"And? What happened?" Neji asked expectantly.
"She... she started giggling."
In the arena below, Hinata started giggling.
"After that, it was hell on earth," Hiashi shuddered. "I'm grateful I can only remember a few brief moments of it."
Hinata kept giggling, and a deep red blush spread over her cheeks. "Naruto-kun... you're cute when you're terrified." she lunged forward at a speed that rivaled the Body Flicker, then tripped and landed facefirst in front of Naruto. "Ow." She climbed back to her feet in a blur, and he unsealed his cutlass once again to counter a few Gentle Fist jabs.
Out of nowhere, she completely dropped all pretense of taijutsu use, and headbutted Naruto who stumbled back several feet. "Ow." she giggled again. "Um... Naruto-kun, why are we fighting, anyway?"
"Ugh..." he clutched his bruising forehead. "C-Chuunin Exams, remember?"
"Oh, right!" she gave a sickeningly cheerful grin. "Come on then! You've got thirty seconds to land a hit on me before I use that jutsu!" she stalked forward with her arms raised loosely in a halfhearted Gentle Fist stance.
Naruto paled. "By... 'that jutsu,' you don't mean...?"
"Mhm! The nosebleed one!"
"Oh, Kami. Not here, not in public, Hina-chan! You said to stop you from doing anything you'd regret, remember? Well your dad and your little sister are right there!" he pointed to Hiashi and Hanabi in the audience. "Don't do it!"
"Oh, don't worry. I can use the Hidden Mist Jutsu to keep them from seeing anything, and leave a pocket of clear air in here for us, watch! Hidden Mist Jutsu!" she called cheerfully. True to her word, a cloud of fog cut off the view of the spectators. "The clock starts now! Twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."
With no other choice, Naruto unsealed his sword again and lunged at Hinata, only to watch in total disbelief as she dodged each strike in increasingly inconceivable ways. After a dozen swings that she dodged merely by stumbling, she started Substituting randomly around the arena, sprinting toward Naruto, occasionally falling flat on her face before resuming her approach, only to Substitute again as soon as she reached him.
This went on for significantly longer than thirty seconds, and only stopped when Hinata ran headlong into the sinkhole Naruto had created with his Swamp of the Underworld. She blinked a few times, struggled briefly in an attempt to free her arms, then simply stuck out her tongue and said "Bleehhh... slimy."
"Hina-chan, can you please go back to making sense!?" he ran toward the sinkhole with sword in hand.
"Okay, sure!" she grinned at him, still trying to squirm out of the chakra-infused mud that was specially made to prevent the victim's escape. "Just stand still for three and one-quarter seconds, and everything will make sense again."
"...Huh?" Naruto blinked, and stopped approaching her. Big mistake.
"Substitution."
"Wha!?" Naruto's eyes widened as she switched places with him, trapping him in his own jutsu. He, of course, quickly Substituted back out of the ground via one of the kunai scattered on the ground, namely one at Hinata's feet. The moment he reappeared in front of her, he already had his sword arm pulled back to slash at her. I don't know what's going on here, but I've gotta snap her out of this!
Hinata leaned back out of the way of his blade, then raised her right arm and flicked a glob of mud into his face.
"Gah!" he stepped back away from her and tried to wipe the mud onto his left sleeve, but with his eyes covered by both the earth and his arm, he was wide open to a taijutsu combo from Hinata that sent him to the ground.
"Okay... um, I think it's been thirty seconds," Hinata decided once Naruto had wiped the mud from his eyes. "You know what that means!"
"Hina-chan, no!"
"Revolving Heaven." She disappeared inside a dome of swirling chakra, and when the dome faded away, her Sexy Jutsu counterpart was wearing nothing but a mischievous, Naruto-esque grin and a few strategically-placed wisps of smoke. Naruto's nose promptly gushed blood and he passed out. "Alright!" a cloud of smoke poofed up around her, and her clothes, once again clean, reappeared. "I've had my fun, time to go back to sanity!" She drew a kunai from her weapons pouch and nicked her left index finger with it to rapidly sober herself up.
"Ugh... something tells me that was a really bad idea," she groaned, then spotted Naruto and the 'damage' done to him. "Oh Kami, please tell me I didn't..."
"You did," he confirmed, having regained consciousness only a moment before. "You're shameless when you're drunk, ya know."
"I'm a lot of things when I'm drunk," she replied. "Remind me never to do that again."
"I promise," he answered solemnly and sat up. "Uh... you knocked me out for a second there. Does that mean you win?"
Hinata shook her head, and made a hand seal to dismiss the fog from the Hidden Mist Jutsu. "You can still fight, so I haven't beaten you. Besides, I'd hate to win like that."
Naruto stood, and clasped his hands together in the Tiger hand seal. "Okay... well, I still haven't used a lightning or water jutsu, and I was hoping to go through all five elements today, so let's keep going!" his hands blurred for a moment, coming to a stop on the Snake seal. "Water Release: Water Bullet!"
"Water Wall." Hinata raised a three-foot-thick barrier of water that absorbed Naruto's attack with a dull splashing sound. "Naruto, you'll never hit me with a Water Release jutsu," she informed him with brutal honesty.
"I know. Lightning Release: Lightning Bolt!" he jabbed forward with an open right hand, reminiscent of a Gentle Fist move until an arc of lightning shot forth from his fingertips into Hinata's Water wall, lighting the structure up with surging, crackling lightning. Hinata yelped and covered her eyes, stumbling back away from the Water Wall as it collapsed.
He used the Water Bullet, just so I'd counter with either a Water Wall or my Guardian Sixty-Four Palms! He was planning to use that lightning to blind me! Hinata instinctively leapt backward away from Naruto, stumbling on a chunk of ice as she landed twenty feet away. She managed to keep her balance, and formed her Water Release: Guardian Sixty-Four Palms faster than she ever had before. She turned her back to where she assumed Naruto was, to use the Byakugan's vision where it wasn't still blinded.
Naruto, meanwhile, remained where he was when he fired his sole lightning jutsu, a C-rank technique that rarely killed its target even with a direct hit. Konoha's jutsu libraries had next to nothing on lightning-based jutsu, and nothing at all in terms of powerful lightning jutsu, with the exception of Kakashi Hatake's Chidori and Raikiri, which he'd never written down instructions for.
Quit your complaining, Kurama growled. It served its purpose well enough, now focus on your battle!
Naruto blinked, shook away his brief daydream of learning the Raikiri, and resumed making hand seals. "Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!" Hinata watched Naruto's strongest wind jutsu approach her ultimate defense, then her eyes widened when her Byakugan showed her Naruto blinking out of existence behind his attack. "Drilling Air Bullet!" he called again, firing another blast of wind with his right fist, this time in front of Hinata where she was still blind.
He's moving faster than his own attacks? She instinctively turned to the sound of Naruto's voice calling the name of his jutsu again, this time to her left, then her right, all before the first Drilling Air Bullet behind her struck. My defense won't hold up to four of these at once... Come on, think! Hinata panicked, but just before the attacks hit, she came up with an idea.
Naruto came to a stop, panting heavily and clutching his side. Even for me, four Drilling Air Bullets rapid-fired like that, after everything else... I'm almost done. He watched the dust and mist around Hinata dissipate to reveal a small but thick cocoon of ice, which cracked and fell apart. She emerged from within, just as winded as he was, and called, "This can't go on for much longer." she formed a Rasengan with what remained of her chakra. "Let's just finish it right now."
He nodded, and formed a Rasengan of his own with both hands. "Sounds good to me."
The two lovers sprinted at each other with their most powerful jutsu in each of their right hands. The two Rasengan struck each other, and for a moment, both of them simply grated against each other, but then, something strange happened. The two Rasengan reacted to each other, and grew, engulfing both Naruto and Hinata in a massive ball of white chakra easily thirty feet across.
The two blinked and looked around at the pure white light around them. "...What is this?" Naruto voiced the obvious question.
"So bright..." Hinata breathed, then glanced at her right hand. Both Naruto's Rasengan and her own had vanished, leaving their right hands to only hold each other's. "Naruto-kun... it's still not over..." she drew back her free left hand, and shaped a second Rasengan with it.
Naruto reached behind his back to draw out a Flying Raijin kunai. "Not yet."
"Rasengan." she reached forward with the jutsu of the Fourth Hokage, but Naruto caught it on the blade of the Fourth's kunai. Slowly, the Rasengan began to grind through the kunai, but before it could reach Naruto, she felt the jutsu weakening, and she gasped. I'm... out of chakra, aren't I? The Rasengan faded away into scattered wisps of chakra. "D-Damn it, I..."
"Won." Hinata weakly blinked. "You won, Hinata-chan. Proctor!" he called through the sphere of light. "I forfeit the match! Hinata beat me."
"...I won?"
Naruto nodded, dimly realizing that the white light around them was fading slowly. "Told you. You're stronger than you've ever given yourself credit for, Hina-chan... and now seems like a really good time to mention that I love you, ya know?"
"Naruto-kun... Aishiteru," she answered with a grin.
Naruto grinned back, and stole a quick kiss. "Now... kick all of their asses, Hinata."
"Mhm." Hinata nodded. "I promise."
Without warning, the white light around them vanished completely. "Naruto Uzumaki has ceded the match; Hinata Hyuuga advances to the next round," Genma proclaimed, still nervously chewing the senbon between his teeth. He watched in disbelief along with the rest of the spectators, as the secret lovers each produced a bright blue pill and swallowed them.
Soldier pills!? They could've taken those during the match and kept fighting! Genma chomped down on the senbon, hard. If I'm honest with myself, I'm glad they didn't. I can still feel it in my whole body, that if these two really wanted to... they could destroy this whole arena. I can feel how lucky we are that they didn't.
Naruto and Hinata both gasped as their chakra reserves skyrocketed back to almost full. "Whoa," Naruto breathed. Mizuki wasn't kidding, these blue pills are WAY stronger than Konoha's brown ones!
"Such talent you have in these children, Hokage-dono." Orochimaru grinned behind the Kazekage's mask. "I look forward to seeing what the others can do... the Uchiha boy in particular..."
"You do realize I know exactly who you are under that mask, right?" The Third asked, and Orochimaru nodded. "I can only make this offer once, to honor the years we shared as student and teacher. Call off your invasion, and I'll let you leave Konoha unharmed."
The Kazekage laughed harshly. "You really have gone senile! Sarutobi-sensei," he hissed, "You're going to die today."
"I'm ready for that fate," The Hokage replied, and reached into his pocket to touch a small white scroll marked in red with the kanji for fire. "Completely ready. But are you?"
"I don't have to be. I'm going to live forever," Orochimaru replied bluntly.
"When is the invasion set to begin?" Gaara demanded halfheartedly while staring down at his brother and his girlfriend about to meet in the arena.
"Oh, not for a while yet, but I won't give you the exact time for obvious reasons. I want to at least see the first round of this tournament finished, to see if any other Genin here might make suitable recruits."
"That's a bad move."
"Oh?" Orochimaru glanced at the Jinchuuriki with vague interest. "What makes you say that?"
"They're under my protection." Gaara turned to the Sannin with his arms folded and hate in his eyes. "If you lay a finger on them, I'll kill you."
"...I see. And what does your 'mother' have to say about that?" Orochimaru asked, recalling Gaara's outburst in the Forest of Death.
Gaara remained silent for several seconds, then finally spoke. "Shukaku was rather long-winded and crude about it, but in essence he wants you to know that anyone who interferes with my own goals and desires will, and I quote, 'be fed their own internal organs one by one.' Since he listed the spleen first and heart last, I assume he intends for me to feed them to you roughly in increasing order of importance." he paused. "He insists I also mention 'throwing this freak into the sun,' but I fail to see how he could manage that."
Dammit fleshbag, let me have my fun.
Neither one of us has yet fulfilled our end of the agreed-upon contract. Until that happens, you and I are neither allies nor friends. So I certainly won't 'let you have your fun,' not when it involves me repeating the sort of things you said just now... even if I agree with them wholeheartedly.
You were more fun when you were insane.
Of course you would think so. I was your plaything, after all. He glanced back down to the arena, where Tenten and Kankurou were about to begin their match.
So who are you rooting for, kid? Your girl, or your brother?
I don't see any need to make a choice. They're both strong enough to earn a Chuunin promotion, so it's completely irrelevant who wins this match. Though, to be honest, I predict Tenten as the winner.
"Begin!" Genma called loudly, and Kankurou deployed his puppet immediately. Tenten drew a scroll out of her pouch and unfurled it to throw a barrage of assorted weapons she unsealed from within. Crow and Kankurou both dodged the weapons easily, and Kankurou retreated backward as he simultaneously directed Crow to attack Tenten. Blades extended from all four of the puppet's arms and slashed at Tenten, who dodged and retreated away from the construct.
He can move this thing pretty quickly, she noted and twisted out of the way of another attack, then ducked a purple smoke bomb that exploded at a safe distance behind her, releasing a cloud of poison. His dexterity with it is great too; he can control multiple weapons at the same time he's moving the puppet. It's almost like he's controlling his own body, not a machine.
She unsealed a jian from her collection and hacked off Crow's head in a single fluid movement, or so it seemed. She quickly realized the head had simply detached itself just before her blow struck, meaning it could reattach with no difficulty.
She's fast enough to dodge Crow's melee weapons, Kankurou frowned, but kept pressing his assault. I can deploy a few projectile attacks if it comes to that, but it'd be best if I just tire her out. That way, neither of us is injured, and we can fight off plenty of Oto shinobi when the time comes.
Tenten dodged another few strikes from Crow's arm blades, and halfheartedly countered with her jian, chasing Crow back a short distance. This guy is Gaara's brother. I can't just destroy his favorite weapon so soon before a huge battle. If I can find some way to isolate this puppet from Kankurou's chakra strings... an Earth Release ninjutsu to contain it would be ideal, but I only have the Fire Release affinity, and I barely use that anyway... her thoughts were abruptly cut off by Crow firing several poisoned senbon at her. She pulsed her chakra into the fuinjutsu on her armor at the last second, deflecting the senbon harmlessly.
"What the hell is that?" Kankurou asked, wide-eyed.
"Barrier ninjutsu," she replied, and the layer of translucent energy over her body vanished. "Come on. I wouldn't willingly put on an outfit like this if it wasn't meant to save my life, and this is just a prototype anyway. Once I have the design completely finished, I'm gonna make 'em available to the whole village alongside conventional flak jackets."
Naruto leaned forward with interest from where he was sitting in the crowd. She wrote a seal to trigger a barrier ninjutsu without hand seals, and even more impressive, she's shaped the barrier to fit a human body. It's even flexible; she can move around in it! And... she's being responsible about it, too. Rather than keeping it active and draining her chakra with it, she triggers it only when she can't dodge or conventionally block an attack. "That's brilliant," he mumbled to himself.
"Hm?" Hinata turned to face him. "What is?"
"That armor Tenten's wearing." he pointed. "She managed to create that fuinjutsu by herself, without anything to base it on except generic Konoha seal script. If she had access to the Uzumaki Clan's fuinjutsu library... I gotta be honest, most of the stuff in there goes way over my head, like the Flying Raijin for instance, but if I gave her access to it..." he watched Tenten counter a barrage of poisoned kunai with her sealed armor, and his interest continued to grow. "If she uses Uzumaki-style fuinjutsu to create a new version of that armor..."
"Ah..." Hinata nodded, and recalled, "The Uzumaki were the greatest fuinjutsu masters ever, and they had their own complex script they used to write their seals, and if Tenten had access to it, she could write a better version of the seal."
Those seals were strong enough to perfectly contain the Nine-Tails, for instance, Kurama threw in. Uzumaki seals are inherently better written than any other style of fuinjutsu, because of that script. Every rune is more precise in its effects, yet can also do more as a component of the whole.
Meanwhile, Tenten caught sight of a four-foot-wide sinkhole filled with chakra-infused mud, designed specifically to ensnare and imprison whatever fell in... or was thrown in. He's gonna hate me for this, she noted sadly. But... it can't be helped. This is the best way for me to neutralize his puppet without damaging it, and if he cleans it off before the invasion, it should be in working condition. The weapon I made for him... I'd like to think it suits him well, but he's had next to no experience with it, and the same goes for Temari, so they both might just use the weapons they already had. That makes it even more important that I don't break his puppet.
She reached into her pouch, pulling out a scroll and unsealing two weapons from within. One was a simple shuriken, if odd in that it had six thin blades that were rather dull compared to the usual four-bladed variety. The other was a jian, which struck Kankurou as unusual since she was already wielding one. However, she quickly sealed that first sword in place of the new one, and returned the scroll to her pouch.
"This," she held up the longsword, "Is my favorite sword, in case you're wondering. There's nothing really special about it, other than the fact that I've never made a sword I like better. I guess the balance on it's a little better, and the grip feels nicer in my hand." True to her word, the weapon was rather plain, with a handle of unidentifiable hardwood and a guard and pommel of smooth brass. The blade was likewise unadorned steel. Even the vibrant blue silk tassel that hung from the pommel and extended for two feet was normal for a jian.
"So, why switch to that sword if nothing's special about it?" Kankurou asked with eyebrows raised. "Does the fact that you're using your favorite weapon somehow signify that you're about to step it up a notch?"
He definitely reads shounen manga, she decided. "Nope. I'm just gonna need every edge I can get, if I'm gonna make this plan work." And for what it's worth, I'm throwing my own favorite weapon into that gunk too. Maybe that'll keep you from going completely nuts on me.
"Huh." Kankurou shrugged, and sent Crow to attack her again with the blades on its four arms extended, hoping to catch her off-guard with the sudden close-range attack after several projectile attacks. Tenten, however, pulsed her chakra into the seal on her shuriken and threw it at Crow. Since such a weapon would do no damage to his puppet, Kankurou didn't bother making it dodge, and instead let the throwing star hit Crow in the forehead.
Unfortunately for him, the seal was intended to be unlocked by the user's chakra, then release its payload upon impact. Its payload happened to be a massive cloud of white smoke that obscured Crow, Tenten, and the sinkhole left behind by Naruto's Swamp of the Underworld. She then lunged forward, closing the remaining distance between herself and Crow to stab her jian into the puppet's abdomen. The damage to a body without organs, blood, or the capacity for pain was negligible, but it got the desired result of Kankurou feeling the impact and sudden shift in his puppet's weight.
As Crow began flailing blindly and preparing several ranged attacks, Tenten let go of her sword and jumped away from the puppet with her barrier armor already turned on. Having memorized the location of the sinkhole, she leapt backward and focused chakra into her feet to stand on it as though it were water.
Naruto's chakra still laced the soft earth, however, and interfered with hers slightly. Her feet sank several inches into the mud before stabilizing. Kami, that feels absolutely disgusting, she noted with a grimace. How did those two stand being covered in it up to their necks? Ugh...
She shook away the thoughts and ignored the squishy feeling under and around her feet, then pulled out and threw a special sealed tag in the general direction of Crow. She watched with satisfaction as it exploded with light; a flashbang tag. The light illuminated Crow's silhouette through the smoke for long enough for her to lock on with her jutsu and cry, "Substitution!"
Kankurou sharply drew in a breath as he felt his chakra strings detach from Crow and connect with a body that was currently moving. He knew it was possible to control a living human with chakra strings, but only if they didn't resist, and Tenten surely would. That meant that until the smoke cleared, he would be defenseless with no way to reattach himself to Crow. "Damn it."
He was, however, mistaken in his guess that Tenten intended to attack him before that happened. Instead, she emerged slowly from the cloud of smoke, with her hands raised to show she was unarmed. "I didn't damage it, don't worry, I just cut it off from you-"
"What the hell did you do to Crow!?" Kankurou shrieked, now much more concerned for his puppet's safety than his own.
"I... buried him," she admitted, and behind her the cloud of smoke faded slowly. Sure enough, Crow was nowhere in sight. Kankurou's eyes flickered over the scene with increasing worry, until he spotted the mud on Tenten's soles and the upward bulge on top of the previously flat Swamp of the Underworld. "I'm telling you though, he's totally fine! Just surrender and we can get someone to dig him out!"
"...'Dig him out'..." Kankurou repeated with a growl. "You actually threw him into that crap..."
"Well what was I supposed to do? Break it? That thing's your favorite weapon, and Gaara said you cared for it like it was your pet or something! What else could I have done?"
The puppeteer blinked, several times, and his scowl slowly faded along with his killing intent. She's got a point, said a small, reluctant voice at the back of his mind. It'll take me a while to wash Crow off after... that, he added disdainfully with a glare toward the mud currently engulfing his prized puppet, but that's nothing compared to the time it would take to repair or completely rebuild him.
"...Fine. I forfeit, damn it."
Genma nodded. "Tenten advances to the next round by way of forfeit," he called to the audience.
"Hm... she's clever," Orochimaru noted. "She intended specifically to avoid damaging the boy or his weaponry, likely knowing about the imminent invasion..."
"Which will earn her a Chuunin promotion, beyond any doubt," the Hokage replied.
"There won't be anyone left to promote her, in fact she'll probably die as well. In just a few hours..." Orochimaru giggled sadistically.
"She'll be fine," Gaara observed. "But I must ask... threatening her like that, in front of me... are you eager to die?"
"Don't presume to threaten me," Orochimaru said offhandedly. "It was amusing at first, but it gets old."
"I wasn't threatening you." Gaara turned to face the Sannin with a blank, emotionless face. "I'm simply curious. Threatening Tenten in front of me implies you want to die, immediately and painfully. I can't think of any other reason why you would, so I'm asking."
Orochimaru remained silent for a moment, then it clicked. "...Ah, so you're close to her, then. Romantically or otherwise. I take it back, this is still a very amusing subject!" he grinned, and set to work dissecting Gaara's emotions. "I can't kill you, since I need to trade you to the Akatsuki, but I can certainly drive you even further insane than you already are. How would you react if I told you I intend to kill her in front of you?"
He was immediately hit with a wave of killing intent unlike anything a normal human could generate. By itself, the feeling was significantly less intense than what he could radiate, but Gaara's killing intent brought with it a series of emotions and concepts, some of which were beyond the comprehension of a human and thus had to be from Shukaku. The Sannin's head began to pound from those thoughts bombarding him, and he hesitantly clutched it, letting out a weak groan. What... is this...?
Gaara spoke then, and his voice echoed and resonated. The sound of Jinchuuriki and Bijuu speaking in perfect stereo was horrifying. "Tenten will not be harmed." Orochimaru visibly recoiled from Gaara, as the killing intent was multiplied tenfold. Even the Hokage and the ANBU in the room began to feel the intent indirectly, and paled. "You, however, are going to die."
Then, the killing intent cut off completely, and Gaara turned back to the arena. A moment later, Naruto blurred into existence next to his fellow Jinchuuriki, and asked quietly, "What was that?"
"He threatened Tenten. I showed him how unwise his course of action was."
"I heard that much. I mean, what was it?"
"Killing intent," Gaara replied simply.
"How long have you been able to do that? Kurama says he could feel Shukaku's killing intent mixing with yours."
"This was the first time. Suffice to say, Shukaku and I have come to an agreement. One of the more important terms of our contract requires him to help me in defense of Tenten, no matter the other circumstances or his feelings on the matter."
"How'd you get him to agree to that?" Naruto asked incredulously.
"...I offered him... something."
"Uh..." he blinked a few times. "Gaara, that's a little bit vague, ya know?"
"Yes, it is." the Sand Waterfall turned his attention back to the arena, and refused to elaborate further. Temari and Shikamaru stood opposing each other in the arena.
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