A Different Scroll Chapter 34: End of Mission, Part 1, a naruto fanfic

Opening - Uragiri no Yuuyake by Theatre Brook

"Once Naruto is finished his term as an ANBU squad leader, he'll be ready to take up office as the Sixth Hokage."

Hinata turned to look at Jiraiya with wide eyes, immediately distracted to the point where she ceased in her attempts to pull free of the field of earthy sludge around her. This was unfortunate, since she had already pulled herself free to waist-height by pushing off the surface of the mud with water-walking chakra in her hands. At the same time she was sucked back into the mud with a loud splash, she heard a similar sound coming from Naruto's direction to indicate his own chakra flow had stopped.

Rather than loudly and immediately asking Jiraiya about his statement, both of them merely cried out in shock and flailed in the mud desperately. Hinata was the first to free herself, using the same method as before to pull herself to waist-height in the mud. From there, she crawled forward onto the surface she'd stabilized with chakra, dragging her legs out of the sludge as she did. She collapsed onto the surface on her back, panting.

Shortly after that, Naruto stopped flailing aimlessly and quickly managed to free his right arm, holding it out over his head proudly. Tsunade raised an eyebrow at his triumphant laugh, then watched him unseal a Fuuma Shuriken from a fuinjutsu under his sleeve. He threw it in the direction of the nearest solid ground, then Substituted with it. With a wet plopping sound, he landed on his back in the dirt.

Both of them immediately took the oppurtunity to shout, "Sixth Hokage!?" Naruto was the first to stand, and he turned to Jiraiya with a subdued grin. "Pervy Sage, you'd better not be messing with me here! Am I really gonna be Hokage!?"

"Surprise," Jiraiya replied with a smirk. "I was gonna tell you... well, a few minutes ago, but you had to go and pick this stupid fight with Tsunade-hime." he gestured to the mud covering Naruto from head to toe. "Look where it got you."

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata appeared in front of him with the telltale sound of a Substitution, grinning broadly under her own coating of mud. Since he was in that same predicament, she had no qualms about wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a tight hug, which he quickly returned. "This is... I don't even know what to say! It's not enough to just say congratulations, I..." she fell silent for a moment, then squealed wordlessly, and continued, "You did it!"

"Hina-chan," he pulled away just enough so that he could move forward again and kiss her. "We-"

"Will you two give it a rest for a minute?" Tsunade growled. "I never said at any point that we were done fighting. Look what you did to me!" she gestured expansively with her mud-covered arms. "I know from experience just how long it takes to wash this stuff off! Now come here and let me... crush... you..."

Tsunade fell backward, landing in the mud once again with a loud squishy sound.

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune's quiet voice rang out in the otherwise absolute silence, revealing she was standing just outside the door to the tavern. "I warned you not to overdo it with the sake..."

"Don't even start, Shizune," the blonde Sannin commanded. "Damn it all..." she sighed, and remained where she lay in the swamp. "Alcohol, why do you betray me so? Haven't I always been so kind to you?"

"Hina-chan, I think we just won," Naruto commented quietly. Hinata smiled, and nodded in agreement.

"I heard that, brats. Do you realize I have so much alcohol in my system that I can't stand anymore? That means the whole time you were fighting me, I was so drunk I could barely stand. And I still destroyed you."

"Oh yeah?" Naruto countered with a grin. "Hina-chan and I both know a jutsu to wash away mud from the Swamp of the Underworld, and you've gotta clean yourself off the old-fashioned way! I say that makes us the winners!"

Tsunade sighed again. "...Fine. I'll give this Hokage thing some thought, are you happy now?"

"...It's an improvement."

"Shizune, was it you who said that!?" Tsunade flailed where she lay in the sludge. "Just wait until I can stand up, damn you!" the younger medic-nin promptly fled into the tavern with a shriek.

It was then that a tall man in a hooded black cloak chose to make his appearance. With his eyes glowing crimson, his hood sheathing his face in darkness, and a light breeze catching the edges of his cloak ominously, Itachi Uchiha looked every inch the embodiment of death that he was frequently mistaken for. His Sharingan eyes surveyed the mess before him with authority, drinking in every detail of the scene before himn with supernatural precision. Itachi stepped forward, narrowed his eyes slightly, and opened his mouth to speak.

The words left his lips with a terrifying sense of authority behind them. His voice was human, even normal, but the way he spoke gave off the feeling that with each word, he was sentencing the gods themselves to death.

"...I should come back some other time."

"Sixth Hokage. Unbelievable." Tsunade poured a saucer of fine sake and slurped it back.

"Hime," Jiraiya began with concern, "You got your ass kicked last night by two kids because you were too drunk to stand. Maybe that's a sign you should slow down."

"Hair of the dog that bit you, Jiraiya," she replied simply.

The two of them sat on opposing sides of a large wooden table stained a rich, dark brown. This table was the centerpiece of the apartment Tsunade and Shizune were staying in. Gathered around it were Jiraiya, Naruto, Hinata, Gaara, Tenten and Haku, along with a shadow clone of Itachi. Shizune was still avoiding the older kunoichi, a pragmatic if not outright wise decision.

"First things first," she began, and pointed at Itachi halfheartedly. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm dying of a disease no one has yet been able to identify. I was hoping you could cure me."

"I'm retired," Tsunade replied, then groaned and massaged her forehead miserably. "Or at least I was last night... I'll take a look at you this afternoon."

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama."

"Now, you." she turned to Jiraiya. "What's this about Naruto being the Sixth Hokage? Show me Sarutobi's will; I need to see this for myself." Wordlessly, Jiraiya handed over the scroll, and Tsunade unfurled it across the table. "Ah, damn it," she sighed. "I'm not up to reading with my head the way it is. Gimme a minute..." she clasped her hands to her temples, and lit them with radiant green chakra. "Mm..." she sighed. "It's working this time, nice." she hunched forward over the scroll without pulling her hands away from her head.

For a long while, she was silent, but then she sighed again, this time with frustration. "Sarutobi, what the hell? Danzou, Akatsuki, the Hyuuga... what a catastrophe. I'm not gonna be Hokage if it means I have to clean up this mess."

"Leave that to me," Naruto smiled sadly. "Akatsuki's definitely my problem, not yours, and we've already got a plan for the-" he cut himself off sharply.

"...The Hyuuga Clan?" Tsunade finished, and Naruto couldn't help but nod. "I hope it's a good one, kid. With the clan as messed up as sensei claims, you'd need the authority of the clan... leader... to..." she turned to Hinata with wide eyes. "...to do anything about this."

"That's where I come in," Hinata admitted. "Otou-san intends to name me the clan head on the day I marry Naruto-kun, at which point he'll already be Hokage."

"That could work." Tsunade reached to fill the saucer with more alcohol, then stopped. "Wait, Hiashi's in on this? Cooperating with you?" Hinata nodded. "Yeah, this really could work." she smirked. "And as for Akatsuki, you said they're not set to attack for three years?"

"That's right," Itachi replied. "Granted, we've already made a move against the One, Nine, Three and Six-Tails, but all of those attacks have failed, and we have no further plans. There's been talk of attempting to capture the Seven-Tails from Taki, since they're a small, weak village, but I doubt Pain will go through with it."

"Pain?" Jiraiya asked.

"Our figurehead leader. Madara controls us through him without revealing his involvement. He possesses the Rinnegan much like Naruto, and he's very powerful."

"You'll have to tell me more when we get a chance."

Tsunade spoke again. "And Jiraiya, you said Konoha has promised to pay my debt? All for just two years as Hokage?"

"As suggested by Sarutobi-sensei himself. He knew that if nothing else convinced you to take up the hat, paying your debts would be the trump card. I chose to play that card a little early."

"...Alright." Tsunade poured more sake and gulped it down. "I'll be the Fifth Hokage. Kami help me, I'll do it. But I've got another condition to add," she continued. "We're going after Orochimaru before I go anywhere with you. He promised he could bring Nawaki and Dan back from the dead, and I need to know whether it's true."

"You mean for us to capture him and interrogate him," Naruto concluded.

Tsunade nodded to her fellow blond future Hokage. "Now's the perfect time. He's right here in Tanzaku, and he can't use his hands for ninjutsu. He gave me a week to consider healing his hands, so we can use that time to prepare a plan."

"A whole week..." Hinata looked up at Tsunade hopefully. "Is there anywhere Naruto-kun and I can train during that time? We're both working on new ninjutsu, but we'll need a lot of open space."

"Hinata, you've got a new jutsu too?" Naruto grinned. "I can't wait to see it, I'm sure it'll be awesome!"

"It's more like I'm finishing two incomplete jutsu I've been using," she admitted. "The Guardian Sixty-Four Palms and Hollow Water Dragon Bullet."

"That dragon jutsu is incomplete?" Tsunade asked in disbelief. "Kid, it packed enough of a punch that it hurt me. You're saying that wasn't even the finished jutsu? What more can you do to it?"

"If all goes well, I should get to show you in a week," Hinata replied with a hopeful smile.

"...Fair enough," Tsunade decided after a moment's consideration. "The forest surrounding Tanzaku gets especially dense to the southeast. No one ever bothers to go there, so you can use that spot to train without putting anyone in danger."

"Baa-chan was right; this place is a jungle," Naruto observed. "But, I guess we can work with this." he glanced around at the massive trees that had grown twisted together, forming solid walls of living wood in many places. The ground was rough and uneven, covered with boulders and roots. "I'll just flatten out the ground a little, and we can make this a really nice place to train." He swiped his fingers through a few quick seals, and called, "Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"

He slammed his palms down on the warped ground in front of him, immediately liquefying it as well as a vast circle of earth and boulders ahead of that point. Hinata cast a curious glance at the freshly created swamp, then her eyes widened in realization when Naruto cancelled his jutsu. This allowed the earth to immediately turn solid again, but now it was a flat, smooth surface like hardened clay or sandstone. "What do ya think, Hina-chan?"

"This will definitely work just fine," she agreed with a nod. "I didn't know you could do that with the Swamp of the Underworld."

"Oh, that's not all it can do," Naruto turned and grinned over his shoulder at her. "This is actually a great time to test out another use for it, actually." he repeated the jutsu in a much smaller form, liquefying a six-foot circle of the ground in front of him. "Remember when I used it against Tsunade, we both fell in. But I was able to climb out of it in an instant and start yelling at Tsunade again, and you had a really hard time getting yourself onto the surface. I think this jutsu is supposed to do that."

"Ah... it pulled me in and stuck to me like glue, because that's the whole point of this jutsu," Hinata realized, "but you're immune to it for some reason."

"Yeah, but I don't even think Pervy Sage knows about this last bit." Naruto crouched down in front of the pool of mud, and sank his right arm in up to his elbow before pulling it out again. "I think if I focus my chakra the right way..." the thick coating of mud on his arm and sleeve dripped away perfectly in an instant, leaving him completely clean. "Yes! I can control the mud created by my chakra!"

"How did you know that it could work like this?" Hinata asked, and came to inspect the pool of mud curiously.

"Think about this, Hina-chan. Anyone who uses this jutsu has to fight in the same swamp as his enemy. If it restricted my movements like it does with my opponent, it would be almost useless. I think that the Swamp of the Underworld doesn't just prevent the enemy from moving, I think it's also a jutsu meant to help the caster move even more easily! Think of the Headhunter Jutsu. When I use it, it's like I can fly short distances underground. I think it'll be the same with this. I'll manipulate my chakra in the earth to push myself around under the surface."

"Isn't that risky?" Hinata asked. "To try it, you'd need to completely dive under the surface. If you turn out to be wrong, you could get stuck down there and drown!"

"That would be a nasty way to go," Naruto admitted, "But if I do get stuck, I can just pour everything I've got into a Shinra Tensei. With my Rinnegan, I'll still be able to see which way is up by keeping an eye on you. From there, all I've gotta do is aim my powers downward at the bottom of the swamp. If even that doesn't work, I'll cancel the Swamp of the Underworld and shoot a lightning jutsu upward. You should be able to dig me out with one of your jutsu, like Rasengan or the Guardian Sixty-Four Palms."

"Alright." Hinata flashed a smile. "We've fought two Hokage, Orochimaru and Akatsuki together. After all that, I trust you not to get killed by the ground, of all things."

Naruto grinned, and slapped the earth again to make a much larger swamp. "I'll be back in a second," he declared, then dove headfirst into the mud. Hinata immediately activated her eyes, but winced at the light filling the swamp. I can't see through the chakra that's keeping that mud in a liquid state, she realized. It's glowing too bright... Naruto-kun...

Naruto shot upward from the surface of the mud, and landed on his feet in the middle of it. He took a brief moment to clean himself off, revealing an excited grin. "Naruto-kun!" she called, sighing in relief. "Did you use Shinra Tensei!?"

"No!" he shouted back, and his grin broadened. "It worked perfectly! It was like I was flying!" he laughed. "Hinata, we've gotta figure out a way to make this work for you, too. Imagine if we could use this jutsu together as a battle tactic. Anyone we're fighting would be completely immobilized, while we move around them at incredible speeds! If we used this on Orochimaru..." he trailed off, still grinning.

"I think that might take some time to figure out, Naruto," she admitted. "Watch." she rolled up the sleeve of her hoodie and dipped her arm into the mud, then struggled for several seconds to pull it free. "It only lets you move around in it like that, because it's your chakra flowing through the ground."

Naruto came to her side, and laid a hand on her mud-covered wrist to force the substance away from her arm. "Maybe if you gave me a trace of your chakra, and I mixed it with mine to use the jutsu..."

"Maybe," she agreed. "But there's something I'd like to try before we set to work on that. I'm just so close to finishing that jutsu..."

"Oh!" Naruto nodded immediately. "Right, your new jutsu. Just give me a second..." he cancelled his jutsu, allowing the earth to turn solid again. "I've got my own new jutsu to work on too, so let's work on 'em together."

Hinata nodded, and activated her Byakugan again. "Here goes... first, Eight Trigrams Guardian Sixty-Four Palms." Countless green threads of chakra wove themselves into a dome-shaped grid around Hinata, then faded into a solid dome of water at her command. "Now, here's the tricky part..." a thin layer of chakra-laced water appeared over Hinata's entire body, and with it she lifted herself into the air, taking the dome of water with her. It quickly reshaped itself into a full sphere of water around her.

"This is it! Water Release: Aspect of the Water Deity!" The bubble of water was briefly distorted over its entire surface, then stabilized as the heads of five Hollow Water Dragons grew out of the bubble. Two dragons aimed downward and touched the earth with their snouts, while another pair flew straight out from the left and right, leaving a fifth to emerge upward. "Come on..." All five of the dragons shook and quivered for several seconds, then changed shape into humanoid arms, legs, and a head. The sphere around Hinata flowed into the shape of a human torso. "I did it!"

"Whoa," Naruto breathed, as he recognized the twenty-foot-tall aura of water as being an exact replica of Hinata's likeness. Both it and the real Hinata, who remained floating inside her giant counterpart's chest with hands clasped in the Snake hand seal, glanced down at Naruto and smiled. "Holy crap, Hinata!"

"It... it's too much!" Hinata declared suddenly, and the aura of water exploded into mist. "D-Damn it..." she floated back down to earth, and the water covering her vanished as well. She let herself slump to her knees sadly. "I couldn't hold it together. It was eating through my chakra too quickly..." she punched the ground halfheartedly. "I..." she looked up, training her gaze on a particularly dense grove of trees. "If I had Sage Mode, I could use it with no problem," she breathed. "When I learn senjutsu, I'll have that jutsu ready to use."

"Maybe I could give you chakra," Naruto suggested. "With both of our reserves combined, it could work."

"No," Hinata sighed. "I can't multitask enough to hold the Water Deity together, keep both of us floating inside seperately, and tap into your chakra all at once. But it's okay, really. I have another jutsu to work on, and it should do just fine against Orochimaru."

On the fifth day of their training, Jiraiya decided to pay Naruto and Hinata a visit, and he remembered the scene for the rest of his life. It would later appear as one of the fight scenes in Icha Icha Tactics, a fan favorite in fact. After the resounding success he'd seen from Icha Icha Violence's inclusion of action scenes, Jiraiya had immediately decided to include them in his next work. The first sign he noticed was a grove of trees that had been cut down halfway up their trunks, and his movements were careful from then on. It was thanks to this vigilance that he managed to see a thrown Rasengan coming and dodge it.

"What the hell!?" he pondered aloud, then picked up his speed. As he continued, the air grew thick with Hidden Mist. In the distance, he heard the clashing of blades, explosions of chakra, indistinct shouts, and the sounds of Rasengan exploding. "Naruto, Hinata, are you two alright!?" He leapt through the trees with steadily increasing worry, until he burst through a thick grove and emerged into the clearing where the sounds of fighting were coming from.

"Hey, Pervy Sage!" Naruto briefly waved to his sensei, and was struck in the chest with a Hollow Water Dragon for his trouble. "Ah, Hina-chan, that was a cheap shot!" he shouted just before he crashed into a huge tree.

"I already fired that jutsu before you turned away!" she called back, and Jiraiya then noticed that both of them had been fighting in midair. Silent in his disbelief, he watched Hinata fall straight down into a vast swamp of deep brown mud, landing in it with a loud splash. Several seconds later, she shot up into the air again, and landed on a tree limb. "Where are you hiding?" she murmured, and pulsed her chakra to clean away the coating of mud over her barrier armor.

"Here!" he shouted and appeared behind her with his cutlass in hand. Hinata leaned into the attack, catching it on the staff sheathed on her back before spinning to knock him away. She drew the staff from its now gashed leather scabbard, extended the hidden blades in the ends, and charged at Naruto with a battlecry.

They briefly engaged in kenjutsu against each other, and their weapons gave off a loud metallic ringing. Then Hinata tossed her spear into a tree trunk far from Naruto and Substituted with it, clinging to the bark of the tree with her chakra control. "Water Release: Hollow Water Dragons!" she called, and fired one from each hand at Naruto. Jiraiya's eyes widened when he saw that in each dragon's closed mouth was a swirling blue Rasengan.

"I've been hit with enough of those for one day!" Naruto roared, and heaved his sword through the air to fling a huge crescent of dark steel at the dragons. "Banshou Karu!"

Banshou Karu? Jiraiya watched the arc of metal fly toward Hinata's dragons. Cut of All Creation? I can see why he would call it that!

The water dragons opened their mouths and shot forth the Rasengan they carried. The orbs of chakra shredded deep into Naruto's crescent blade, but most of the blade was left intact and continued to fly toward Hinata. Jiraiya blinked in surprise as Hinata cut off her chakra flow, allowing herself to fall into the swamp again while Naruto's attack cut through the tree she'd clung to and kept going.

Naruto lowered his sword arm and sealed the weapon away in his ring, narrowing his eyes and watching carefully for any sign of movement in the mud. My Rinnegan can't see your chakra through the swamp, but the second you make your move I'll spot you!

Hinata shot out of the swamp, straight toward Naruto with a cry of "Gentle Fist!" Naruto immediately leapt backward away from her taijutsu attacks, and began parrying her open palms with his cutlass when she closed in. "Two, Four, Eight, Sixteen, Thirty-Two Palms!" Hinata finished her attack sequence, gritting her teeth in frustration that Naruto had evaded all thirty-two strikes. "I'm not fast enough to hit you with that?" she asked. "Then try this! Gentle Step!"

Naruto's eyes widened. What? I've never even seen her practice this!

"Twin Lion Fists!" Her hands exploded with an aura of vibrant blue chakra, and she swiped at him furiously. "This time, I'll get you with just my taijutsu!" After he successfully dodged a dozen swipes, Naruto's defense faltered and he took a hard strike to the ribs. The Lion Fist around Hinata's right hand exploded, flinging Naruto back a solid distance until he struck the trunk of another tree, denting it. "It destabilizes when I hit my target," Hinata mused. "Hm. It still needs work..."

"You're..." Naruto panted and pulled himself from the crater in the tree. "You're really taking this seriously, Hina-chan."

"My taijutsu needs work," Hinata replied. "I have to use it more if I want to improve my skills. Still..." she let the other Lion Fist fade away, replacing it instead with a Hollow Water Dragon that shot from each of her hands. Both dragons coiled around her protectively, and hissed as they turned to ice. "I suppose I've been getting better results with ninjutsu anyway..."

"I don't know about that," Naruto admitted. "You ruptured a bunch of organs and blood vessels with that strike. I had to use my purple chakra to heal from it." Hinata blinked in surprise. "So come at me with whatever move you want, Hina-chan. You don't have a single move that isn't useful and powerful."

"Hey, Naruto!" Jiraiya called, revealing his presence. "Maybe this is a bad time to ask, but why aren't you fighting with Kurama?"

Naruto smiled sheepishly at the Toad Sage. "The truth is, I'm being selfish. I don't wanna share this fun with anybody, not even Kurama! It's just me and Hina-chan who get to fight here!" he turned back to Hinata and unsealed his sword, swinging it as he did. "Banshou Karu!" Another huge blade was generated by his slash, this time with a sphere of bright blue chakra set into a hole in the center of the blade.

Is that a Rasengan!? Jiraiya gaped, then watched Hinata dodge away from the flying blade. She managed to move far enough away that when the Rasengan exploded, it only tore apart the blade and never scratched her. She landed on all fours on a lower tree limb, then quickly straightened and aimed both hands at Naruto. "Hollow Water Dragon Horde!"

Naruto watched all five of the dragons approach, then vanished as they drew near. He reappeared directly in front of Hinata, and swung his cutlass with tremendous speed. Hinata activated her barrier ninjutsu and caught the blade on her forearm, then countered with a series of Gentle Fist strikes, one of which struck Naruto's shoulder and threw him off-balance immediately. She seized the oppurtunity to grasp his shoulders and swing him off the tree limb. His own hands reached out and tightened around her waist, pulling her from her own perch and together they plummeted into the swamp below.

Jiraiya watched them vanish under the surface with a splash, bewildered. These two... he jumped when he saw a sizable torrent of mud thrown upward by a flash of blue light, possibly an exploding Rasengan or a Revolving Heaven. He grinned and folded his arms over his chest, content to simply watch the battle. Looks like I chose my students well.

"Rasengan!" Naruto and Hinata roared as they burst through the surface of the mud in close proximity, and slammed their attacks together. Jiraiya shielded his eyes with his hands when the two Rasengan expanded into a much larger ball of white light around both of their wielders.

"Banshou Karu!"

"Hollow Water Dragon Horde! Rasengan Barrage!"

Jiraiya retreated deeper into the forest as the sphere of white light was torn apart by fresh attacks. "H-Holy shit," he breathed. "Damn, I picked my students well!"

Naruto's Banshou Karu blade had been held back by the six water dragons, and crushed to bits by the Rasengan each dragon fired. The result was that Naruto and Hinata were both unharmed, and they resumed a close-range battle of kenjutsu and taijutsu. This in turn was shortly interrupted by Hinata firing two more dragons and Naruto destroying both with Shinra Tensei.

Hinata showed her teeth in a triumphant grin. Now he can't use his Deva Path or Banshou Karu for five more seconds! This is the opening I needed! "Gentle Step: Twin Lion Fists!" she shouted again, and her hands flared up with a fresh aura of chakra.

"I won't let you use that again!" Naruto declared, and retreated away from her to another tree limb. She quickly followed him, but as she landed on the branch he extended one leg to trip her. This distracted her enough that Naruto was able to grasp both of her wrists and pull them out to her sides, rendering the Lion Fists she wielded useless. He leaned forward over the edge of the tree limb, until Hinata was hanging from his grip. He smirked at her, and leaned a little further.

"...I don't get why this matters," Hinata told him. "It's not like you're dropping me off a cliff or something. This won't even hurt."

"Oh, I know." He leaned forward again, this time closing the distance between them to steal a kiss. "After all, I'm coming with you," he murmured next to her ear.

Just before they struck the surface of the swamp, Hinata started blushing. "N-Naru-"

Then they splashed down into the mud, and she was forced to cut herself off and hold her breath. She brought up her right knee to strike him in the gut, and he was shocked into releasing her wrists. She took the oppurtunity to spin her entire body through the thick liquid, flaring chakra from all of her tenketsu. Revolving Heaven!

Naruto was struck by a spinning wall of Hinata's chakra, which flung him away horizontally through the mud. He took a moment to figure out which way was up, and surfaced for a desperate breath of air. "Ow," he groaned, focusing his chakra so the mud covering his face trickled away, leaving him free to open his eyes. He saw Hinata surface almost thirty feet away with a gasp, and she cleared her own vision with the same trick.

"All right," he decided, and unsealed his sword again. "Let's try something new..." Hinata's eyes snapped wide open as he shot forward with his Empty Wind Jutsu, and a plume of liquefied earth sprayed upward in his wake. She activated her barrier armor and moved to block his sword with her arms, but he turned around her. He was still too fast to follow without a Sharingan, but by following the splashes of mud trailing behind his maneuver, she was able to realize he was behind her.

She folded her arms behind her back and shouted, "Hollow Water Dragon Bullet!"

"Shinra Tensei!" he yelled back, shattering her attacks into a fine mist and throwing her forward through the mud. That's another five seconds, damn. Hinata surfaced again, then turned to face him with a smirk. "What are you so smug about?" He asked with a grin of his own.

"Just this." she dove back under the surface of the swamp, surprising Naruto. Several seconds later, she burst up through the surface wielding her spear with both hands, directly behind Naruto. His eyes widened at the sound of the splashing mud, and he frantically threw himself to the side, dodging Hinata's deadly strike by mere inches. He tuck-and-rolled sideways, straightening and standing several feet from Hinata. This gave him enough time to ready his sword and kenjutsu stance before she closed that distance and attacked again.

"It's not so fun when you're the one getting ambushed, now is it?" Hinata grinned.

Naruto's own smile faded. "Does that really annoy you, Hina-chan?" he asked sadly. "I'm-"

"No, I was kidding," she giggled. "Don't get serious on me, we're having so much fun!"

Naruto let out a soft sigh of relief, then vanished and reappeared behind her. "Good! 'Cause this is one of my favorite tactics!"

"Revolving Heaven!" Hinata cried, throwing Naruto back with her jutsu and kicking up a sizable wave of mud as well. She stopped spinning and faced the direction where Naruto had been standing. She patiently waited for him to resurface with her spear ready. Her heart leapt into her throat, however, when Naruto's hands snared her ankles and pulled her down into the swamp until she was buried to her waist.

Then he exploded up through the surface himself, and swung his cutlass with lightning speed. Hinata blocked the strike forcefully, then parried and countered a flurry of additional kenjutsu moves. She flared her chakra and shot upward out of the swamp, landing in the trees again and retracting the blades of her spear. She slipped it back into its sheath and took up a Gentle Fist stance, waiting for Naruto to follow her.

Instead, Naruto leapt backward to another branch on another tree. Both of them took a moment to pulse their chakra and clean themselves off, then Naruto pulled back his cutlass and roared, "Banshou Karu!"

"Eight Trigrams Guardian Sixty-Four Palms!" A grid of chakra threads wove itself together between Hinata and the oncoming blade, cutting it into hundreds of shuriken-sized pieces which Hinata scattered with a Revolving Heaven as they drew near. "Hollow Water Dragon Bullet!"

Naruto sealed away his sword and leapt toward the dragon, forming a Rasengan with both hands. He threw it in midair at the dragon, tearing it apart into a spray of mist, then unsealed his sword again as he continued to soar toward Hinata. She dodged a few rapid kenjutsu moves and retreated to another tree, then assembled another Guardian Sixty-Four Palms. This time the grid of chakra created a sphere around her and the tree limb she was perched on. She added her water affinity to it and froze it solid, breaking Naruto's line of sight to her.

"Banshou Karu!" he called, and fired another blade at the top of the ice orb, cutting it off. He jumped and perched on the edge of the opening in Hinata's jutsu, peering down into it.

The only thing inside was a mossy old log.

"Rasengan!" Hinata screamed above him, and shot down toward him with the Fourth Hokage's jutsu in hand.

"Damn!" Naruto blurred and vanished, reappearing on another tree. Hinata's Rasengan slammed down into the ice he'd been standing on, shredding it to bits and continuing into the tree limb the ice was clinging to. The end of the branch creaked and snapped off, falling into the swamp with a mighty splash. He vanished again, briefly flickering into existence in a third tree, then a fourth.

Hinata recognized the tactic, and kept her Byakugan and barrier armor activated. I can't follow his movements to predict where he'll appear next or when he'll attack, but when he makes a move I'll be ready. She drew her staff forth and extended the retractable blades. No matter what move he uses, I can counter it.

"Banshou Karu!" Naruto shouted behind her.

Shit. Hinata spun into a Revolving Heaven almost instantly, but her heart leapt into her throat when she saw the huge crescent blade continue through her defenses without slowing down at all. Oh, Kami! She poured more chakra out of her tenketsu, strengthening both the Revolving Heaven and her barrier armor. When even that failed to stop the blade, she dove to the ground and let it sail over her.

It was then that she realized the blade wasn't real. A genjutsu clone fired this attack! Naruto only uses Banshou Karu on me when we're a safe distance apart, so if my defense fails I can still dodge. That means... this is a distraction from the real attack! She drew a kunai from her pouch and threw it to her right, Substituting with it just before Naruto landed where she'd been laying on her belly.

She carefully and silently concealed herself behind a group of trees, watching him look around for her. With the Hidden Mist Jutsu still in the air, he can't see the silhouette of my chakra. I have the element of surprise now, but I have to make it count... she jumped up to a higher branch, and looked around with her Byakugan deactivated.

There! She carefully jogged along the tree limb she was on, then jumped off the end to another branch a short distance away. This one sloped upward toward the trunk, and she ran along it until she reached the end. Without slowing down she grasped the trunk and swung around it to the next limb, then slowly crept to the end of that branch. She came to a stop fifteen feet above Naruto, and smiled. Below her, he was watching the surface of the swamp, expecting her to burst from it at any moment.

She jumped, reaching down with her left hand while focusing chakra into a Lion Fist on her right. She landed behind him, and he tensed as he heard her feet hit the bark of that tree limb. By this point, however, her left hand was grasping his shoulder tightly, and she stabbed forward with her Lion Fist, striking him in the back and discharging the chakra she wielded into his spine.

Naruto flew forward with a scream and smashed into another tree. He tapped into the reserve of Kurama's chakra safely mixed into his own, healing his broken back and ribs.

Kid, that's the last of your hybrid chakra you just used, Kurama commented.

Thanks for the heads-up, but I already knew that, Naruto pried himself free of the ninja-shaped dent in the tree trunk, and turned to see that Hinata hadn't moved to attack him again. Instead, she'd taken the time to create a Hollow Water Dragon armed with a Rasengan in its mouth, then freeze it solid and await Naruto's counterattack.

His Rinnegan eyes narrowed slightly, and he noticed that the blue Rasengan inside the dragon was covered in a bubble of teal chakra. Damn... she had time to charge that attack up. I was hoping to keep her from using it. He readied and raised his sword, focusing both his wind chakra and the Deva and Asura Paths into the blade. "Here goes, Hina-chan. Banshou Karu!" he swung his sword down, firing another crescent blade. This one had three Rasengan set into holes on the blade, and it was the strongest version of his strongest attack.

"Water Release: Dragon Rasengan!" Hinata shouted back, and directed her ice dragon to fly directly at the Banshou Karu blade. Likewise, this was her strongest jutsu, and it took several seconds for the Rasengan to absorb the nature transformation from the surrounding dragon.

The two attacks met, and all four of the Rasengan exploded on impact. Sharp pieces of ice and metal were sprayed in all directions, and all three of the ninja present took cover behind the nearest tree. The shrapnel flew with great force and pierced deeply into the surrounding trees. After careful experimentation, Hinata had been able to discover that adding the Water Release to a Rasengan gave it an additional blast of concussive force, pushing away anything within range with an explosion of vibrant blue chakra and mist.

Naruto and Hinata emerged from their hiding places, panting. "Hina-chan," Naruto began, "Ya wanna call it a day yet?"

"I guess we could take a quick break," she panted back.

Jiraiya emerged into the clearing. "Now that you two have finally stopped, I've got a question. What's with the Swamp of the Underworld? And how come neither of you got stuck in it?"

"I figured out that anyone whose chakra created the swamp can move around under the surface like with a Headhunter Jutsu, for instance." Naruto sealed his sword away. "Hinata gave me half of the chakra for the jutsu, and it's the same with the Hidden Mist Jutsu. This way, neither of us can use the Rinnegan or Byakugan to track each other when we're fighting. As for why we're using the swamp at all, it's because this is how we're gonna capture Orochimaru. We've been training like this for a few days now, so we're getting used to fighting on this kind of terrain."

"It can do that?" Jiraiya asked, and peered down at the swamp with new interest. "I don't remember learning that bit when I picked up this jutsu... Okay then, how did you two manage to create jutsu that include Rasengan as part of a larger construct?"

"That was my idea, and I was working on it for a while," Hinata admitted. "I did it first by creating a Hollow Water Dragon and then manipulating the chakra in it, swirling it around using the dragon itself instead of the tenketsu in my hands. It was a lot easier than I expected, and I thought it might have something to do with these gloves," she held up her right hand to show the fuinjutsu on her palm. "They let me use ninjutsu without hand seals."

"So that's where I came in," Naruto continued, "and I tried to do the same thing with my Banshou Karu. It was harder for me, but I learned how to channel my chakra into the metal I made with the Asura Path, and spin it into a Rasengan the same way as Hinata did it with her Hollow Water Dragon. It doesn't take that much more chakra control than making it like I normally do, but it's a hard concept to figure out. It's like I'm using the chakra in the Banshou Karu to make artificial tenketsu, and spin the chakra using those."

"So you're saying that anyone who knows the Rasengan and the right ninjutsu can combine them like this? Could I do it?"

"...Probably," Hinata mused. "I can't say for sure. The ninjutsu you use would have to hold a set shape, but you'd also need to flow your chakra around inside it. There's probably a limit to how big or small the jutsu can be, so you couldn't use something as big as a Swamp of the Underworld, or as small as an elemental bullet..." she paused. "Haven't you ever tried it?"

"The thought never occured to me, Kakashi, or even Minato as far as I know. The three of us all wanted to put the elemental ninjutsu into the Rasengan, but you two did it the other way round. You put the Rasengan into an elemental ninjutsu. Well, you did, Hinata. Naruto... your Banshou Karu is completely different. You've built a Rasengan inside a completely non-elemental jutsu. The fact that's even theoretically possible opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for the Rasengan and anyone who can use it. I have to learn how to do this," he decided excitedly.

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