Seinosuke laughed maniacally as he called out into the desert, "come out, come out little princess."
He groaned as a pressure point was struck, then a few others rendering him incapable of moving but the number of strikes this person was inflicting on him seemed to increase a bit more each set.
"Sixty-four palms," Hanabi called out before delivering a round house kick to Seinosuke's head.
Seinosuke fell onto the sand, motionless. The Hyuga woman observed him but quickly moved out of the way as he flew back up onto his feet with ease and moved to bring his sword down on her.
Then the sand moved up, pushing the man back with the force of a tidal wave. However, while this was going on villainous shinigami continued to laugh. Hanabi's eyes continued to scan around the desert until she locked onto who she'd been looking for and ran over to the girl who collapsed into Hanabi's arms, her blade was back to it's sealed state as a regular katana.
'Blocked Reiatsu points, and-' realization struck Hanabi as if she'd ran into a brick wall at full speed. She glanced over to the Kazekage and yelled out, "Lord Gaara, stop!"
Gaara eased up on his attack although he physically restrained the man, but gasped when he saw bruises appearing around the giril's wrists and neck, the same places where the sand was currently restraining Seinosuke.
"Her reiatsu points are blocked," Hanabi added to their observation.
"That doesn't make sense, you attacked him. She wasn't anywhere near the onslaught," Gaara pointed out.
Hanabi scowled angrily at Seinosuke and demanded, "Your Zanpakuto. It transfers any physical attack made against you onto someone your blade's c ut, doesn't it?"
Seinosuke didn't verbally respond but his grin widened. The unified thought each of the Jonin now pondered to themselves was one they'd never asked before, 'how do we stop someone who is invulnerable, and worse transferring their injuries to an ally?'
"kill me," came the weak request. Hanabi looked to Sakiya who repeated, "kill me—the only way."
"No way," Naruto objected as he left Kiyoshi and headed over to the others while adding, "I'll never let an ally die."
"We're not – same," she mumbled. Hanabi held her closer, protectively while shooting a glare at Seinosuke that would've killed him if looks alone could complete the task.
"Naruto and myself are not the same as other Shinobi. We're both Jinchuriki. We grew up with tailed beasts living within our bodies. Although the tailed beast that was within me was removed, I remember. I will always remember growing up feeling different, an outcast with power that others in my village didn't have. I remember being feared. We may not be the same, but you, myself and Naruto have that in common. We're not like the others in our villages, and in that we are similar," Gaara offered.
"You're not expendable, Sakiya. Whether you're human or not, you were born in the hidden leaf, which means you're part of my village. I view everyone in the hidden leaf as family. So as long as I'm Hokage, you're not expendable. I don't want to hear it again," Naruto chimed in.
Shikamaru began to sweat from holding the Shadow paralysis jutsu and gasped as he lost his hold on the blond man who then drew his blade against the shadow wielding shinobi. However the man seemed to stop six wide beams of yellow light seemed to be attached to the man's waist. Whatever that technique was, Shikamaru had certainly never seen it before, it seemed effective in keeping the man frozen in place.
Shikamaru blinked as he was whisked away by someone, or perhaps something that moved so quickly he couldn't see it and barely felt the motions. The next thing he knew he and Kakashi were between Hanabi and Gaara. Some kind of orange hued barrier was now surrounding them. Joining them in that barrier was Sasuke and the man that they had brought here to revive, Kiyoshi.
Looking in front of them was a someone who stood at roughly 5'11 ½', they had long black hair that reached the middle of their shoulders and were dressed in a black long sleeved kosode, and black hakama, along with white tabi and waraji. They had a white scarf around their neck and white fingerless tekko on both hands which hid the skin of their wrists from view. Yet Shikamaru blinked as he noticed something about Sakiya: there was a band of faint pink energy around her left wrist.
Sensing that this may have something to do with the new stranger, and perhaps they knew of a way to save her while taking on these opponents he shifted himself so he was obscuring their opponent's view of Sakiya. To anyone outside of their group he'd appear as though he was having a quiet discussion with Hanabi. The woman seemed to have a similar idea as she motioned with her eyes for Shikamaru to take note of Sakiya's neck, which now had a white gold necklace fully exposed. The pendent was heart shaped and adorned with pink diamonds around the edge of the locket, and at the center was a single white diamond.
'That was not cheap. Someone spent a lot of money on piece of jewelery like that. It might even be custom made,' he thought as he gently turned the pendent over and saw the inscription: life bond.
'Hmm? I doubt she's married. What else would that inscription mean? I wonder,' he thought to himself as he gently opened the pendent, revealing it was a locket, and inside were two pictures. One was a picture of a man with a kind smile, gentle eyes and long black hair. The other picture was of a boy and a girl the girl's hair was lighter than the boy's, while she wore her hair half up, his was down and appeared to fall to about the same length as the man who had just arrived. Shikamaru, Naruto and Hanabi all exchanged glances before turning their attention to the oddly dressed new comer.
Seinosuke chuckled as he addressed the new arrival to the fight, "it's been quite a while, Byakuya."
There was no response from the man aside from his eyes narrowing at Seinosuke. He wordlessly drew his Zanpakuto from his waist and flash stepped.
Seinosuke laughed but his laughter was soon cut short as the blond haired man that had the six wide beams of light at his waist collapsed into a bloody heap. The red liquid dripped from the tip of Byakuya's blade, and he wordlessly stared down Seinosuke.
"There's nothing you can do to me that won't hurt that girl! You've already lost this fight," Seinosuke threatened.
Byakuya held his blade in front of himself with the blade pointing to the ground then released it and spoke, "Bankai. Scatter, Senobonzakura Kageyoshi."
The others watched as the sword phased into the ground then the two Shinigami seemed to be surrounded by countless pink cherry blossoms.
