Chapter 29: Sasuke Retrieval Mission: Part 3
Naruto had been expecting many things when they attacked Tayuya and Sakon. He'd been expecting a trap, an ambush; perhaps a glowing purple monkey to descend upon them from the sky boiling with the rage of a thousand suns. He hadn't, however, been expecting both Kiba andSakon to fall down a ravine.
"Crap," he groaned. "Karin! After him!"
"Yes, Naruto-sama!" Karin threw herself into the gorge, leaping down from pentagram to pentagram. She was progressing quickly under Naruto's tutelage, although her technique wasn't as elaborate as Naruto's and she could only use them to move objects or as bouncing boards.
"And here I thought you all were so good and all," Naruto drawled. "Leader falls down a ditch?"
Tayuya glared at him. Naruto decided to take the direct approach and let himself go for once, leaping at her with total abandon now that there was only one to worry about. He flashed forward onto the tree branch the coffin sat upon, landing with his heel striking down on her shoulder; the force of it sent her stumbling back into midair, just barely dodging the strike of the Raijin no Ken. Even if she'd avoided the brunt of it, it still sliced through her thigh, making a long, jagged gash; with a hiss, she retreated several paces away as he knelt beside the coffin with a glint in his eye.
"Nice going," Shikamaru said, smirking as he landed beside him. "Now we've only got one to deal with."
"Doesn't matter," Tayuya hissed. "I'll take you both out anyway."
Naruto's eyes were roving over the symbols decorating the coffin. He whipped out a brush, placing it between his teeth as he unscrewed a bottle of ink and took out a sealing tag. "The hell do you think you're doing?" Tayuya barked, flute clenched tightly in one hand as she surveyed the best way to approach.
Shikamaru eyed the fuinjutsu dotting every free space of the wood. "Can you get that off?"
"Hell yeah," Naruto replied, slapping his tag on the lid. Instantaneously, the edges began to simmer, steam rising as purple energy evaporated off. "Twenty minutes tops for this baby to get cracked open." He affectionately referred to such seals as 'breaker tags'; they decoded a fuin formula and broke it on their own for him, leaving him hands-free to defend himself.
"Great. Now we just have to deal with her."
Naruto stood up and clapped his palms together. "Just leave that to me," he said with a grin.
A glowing pentagram appeared directly in front of Tayuya, startling her. Naruto used her split-second distraction to dash forward, slamming into the pentagram feet-first. The seal magnified the impact and sent her sprawling several yards back into a tree, landing in the bark with a groan.
"Y-you…" Snarling, she activated the curse mark on her neck, letting its pattern spread over her body. Abruptly, she paused, a smirk appearing on her face.
Naruto went rigid before whirling around. "Shikamaru, move!"
"Wha-?" Shikamaru tensed when he felt a presence appear behind him. He turned his head, barely getting the time to catch a glimpse before the coffin had disappeared from the space beside him.
Naruto landed in its place half a second later, a curse leaving his lips. The newcomer loomed on a branch above them, the coffin held under one arm, while Tayuya boxed them in from the other side, smirk still present.
"You're taking too long, Tayuya," the shinobi said, voice sending a shiver down Shikamaru's spine. "The only reason I'm not killing you right now is you still have a purpose."
Tayuya scowled in reply. "I'm taking the vessel to Orochimaru-sama. You know what your job is." The pale shinobi leapt into the trees, hightailing it for the border.
"Hold on, asshole!" Naruto bellowed, going to leap after him. Tayuya went to cut him off, ducking back when a kunai crackling with electricity zipped past her nose. She flipped back and landed on a tree, turning to glower at Shikamaru.
"Go after him, Naruto," the Nara yelled out. "I'll hold this one here. You were right; it's a mistake to be so divided, but we've got to work with what we're left with."
Naruto glanced at him, a bit indecisive on leaving him alone. When he saw the determined glint in his eye, he nodded, jumping onto one of his pentagrams and moving ahead.
He didn't like having to leave so many friends behind.
It appeared whoever the shinobi was, they weren't planning on trying to make an escape while he followed; they set the coffin down once they reached a clearing, standing docilely beside it and waiting for him to catch up.
"So, might I know the name of the person I'm going to take the head off of?"
"Hn, so overconfident. It's Kimimaro, if you must know."
"Not nice to meet you, Kimimaro." Without further ado, Naruto flashed forward across the field and struck out with his palm, eyes widening in surprise when Kimimaro blocked him with what appeared to be a dagger made out of bone. He's fast…
Leaping back, he made a good distance before flying through a set of seals. "Doton: Dochūbaku!"
Kimimaro's eyebrows rose in surprise when the earth quivered beneath their feet, rising up in a landslide. He leapt high into the air to avoid it, while the coffin was sent tumbling to the edge of the forest, slamming to a stop against a tree.
Naruto winced. Sorry, Sasuke. But you can't be in the way.
"Seems rather counterproductive," Kimimaro called out. Naruto couldn't see anything beneath his sleeves, but he saw another bone-like dagger slide into his hand.
Slipping a scroll from his pouch, he threw it open once he'd landed on the side of the field with Sasuke to his back. "Bakuryūgeki!"
The seals on the paper glowed, unleashing a construct made of flames that barreled across the field towards his opponent. Kimimaro pushed off from the ground and dodged around the dragon's strike, sending what appeared to be tiny bullets made of his own bones from his fingertips.
Naruto slammed his palm into the ground and summoned an earth wall. He uses his bones to attack?
Ask what clan he's from, brat.
"What clan are you from?" Naruto called out.
"I am the last of my clan," Kimimaro replied, stoic. "The Kaguya no longer exist but through me."
Kurama grimaced. Just as I thought. He's directly related to Kaguya. She was able to do similar techniques with her bones. Be careful with this one.
"Well, after today they won't exist at all." Naruto summoned enough shadow clones that the field was full of them, gathering in a circle around Kimimaro until they were but a wall of green and orange. As one, they charged forward, obstructing Naruto's view while he took a sealing tag from his pouch.
Should I use it…? I need to get Sasuke back quickly, but…
Smoke exploded into the air. He's good. He's dispelling my clones at such a rate. A bunshin barreled past him and dispelled when it smacked into a tree. Within the circle, he could see Kimimaro slicing through them with mild difficulty, occasionally getting hit because of the sheer number of them. He vaguely heard the teen call out "Dance of the" something; he and Madara seemed to share the habit.
Thunk. Naruto went tense, narrowing his eyes. No way…
He whirled around, catching sight of Kabuto's silver hair just before he snatched the coffin and leapt away. "Oh, hell no! I killed you!"
"You should be more thorough," the Sound nin called over his shoulder, clearly amused.
Naruto went to sprint after him, stopping short when he was forced to dodge a barrage of bones that made to skewer him. Ducking behind a tree, he leapt onto one of its branches and summoned a group of plain-looking kunai from one of his storage seals, littering the field with them after he dodged another bone strike.
In a flash, he appeared on the other side of the field, a Rasengan forming in one hand. Kimimaro wheeled around to face him, stunned at his appearance, but he was too late to block him. Naruto slammed the Rasengan straight into his chest, sending him careening back into a tree.
Holy crap, he thought, blinking in surprise when Kimimaro slowly started to rise. Steam was rising off the broken bark around him, a shinobi-shaped indent in the tree itself. The top portion of his shirt was destroyed, leaving a pale expanse of skin in its wake- he could see broken bits of bone falling off him, having shielded him like armor.
"This is getting irritating," Naruto scowled. He shot a glance behind him towards the forest, searching for Sasuke's chakra and finding it already over a mile away. "And time-consuming."
"Keep your eyes on your opponent!"
Naruto ducked, and Kimimaro sailed over his head. He slipped the Raijin no Ken from its holster, turning to take a slice out of the other's back, eyes widening when spikes protruded from his spine in mere moments. At the angle, they would skewer his wrist, so he prepared to jump to another Hiraishin.
Before either one of them could do anything, a blur slammed into Kimimaru from behind Naruto himself, sending him slamming into the ground a good distance away. "Lee?" Naruto asked, startled.
"Leave him to me, Naruto!" Konoha's second green beast of battle fell into his usual stance in front of him, sending him a thumbs up over his shoulder with a blinding grin. "You go after Sasuke!"
"Awesome," Naruto said, leaping up and flashing to the Hiraishin mark closest to the forest. He took off into the woods, not sticking around a second longer than he had to.
When Karin reached the bottom of the gorge, she found Kiba and Akamaru standing across from Sakon and Ukon in bad condition. She could feel their chakras were depleted greatly, while Sakon was already in his second cursed state.
She wasn't a heavy-hitter and she knew it. No good would come of her revealing herself too early, even though her first instinct was to leap in and help Kiba as soon as she could. 'Dog breath', as she called him, may have been annoying sometimes, but even the Leaf shinobi she weren't even friends with showed her more care and concern than any Sound nin ever had.
While she'd been a Grass shinobi originally, they'd used her bloodline and leeched off her, treating her like a walking chakra source instead of a person; they'd killed her mother that way. Originally, she'd thought Sound was her home- she'd been totally loyal. But living in the Leaf was a breath of fresh air.
Sound nin treated their comrades as dispensable. Even with the exceptions and outliers, Karin knew ninety-nine percent of the time no Leaf nin would leave her behind on a mission or purposely hurt her for the sake of one. Once she'd proven her loyalty, they'd welcomed her with open arms. She helped at the hospital without feeling like they would force her into being used like a machine. She felt safe.
Taking out several of her poison senbon, she wrapped a few electrical tags around half, holding them tight between her knuckles as she tried to get a better vantage point. She saw Akamaru leap onto Kiba's back as he yelled something, and a plume of smoke later, a gigantic, multi-headed dog had taken their place.
Pausing in surprise, she watched the dog leap into the air and start spiraling, imitating the destructive power of Kiba's Gatsuga. Sakon dodged the first strike, leaving a small crater in his wake, and was hard pressed to dodge the second.
I'm not going to be able to get a shot in with him doing that, she thought. I'll have to wait.
She watched the spiral rear up for a final shot. It barreled into Sakon head-on, making her tense up in excitement to jump down. He got him!
A ball of anxiety formed in her gut. The two halves of Sakon's body lay on the ground on separate sides of the landscape below, twitching. Slowly, the legs that had been blown off filled out, and the two halves- now whole- stood up, closing the exhausted Kiba in on both sides.
Crap. I forgot he could split in half like that.
She leaped further down the side of the cliff, trying to move in closer without either of the Sound nin noticing. Kiba's head snapped up, and for a moment, he glanced in her direction, before turning back to Sakon with false bravado.
When she reached the riverbed, she heard Sakon's voice drifting from ahead. "Ah! My eyes! It's different from before, it's like acid!"
"Go and wash your eyes in the river. I'll take care of this," Ukon chuckled.
Karin ducked down behind a boulder as Sakon ran past. Now's my chance! She followed him with sharp red eyes.
The boy was kneeling down by the river, splashing water into his eyes. Karin took a senbon and considered for a moment; there was nowhere she could aim that would kill him or knock him unconscious instantly from her angle, nor did she want to alert him to her presence. She decided on the back of his calf, rearing back her arm.
Sakon groaned, holding his hands over his eyes and rubbing his palms against his eyelids. "Damned dog," he hissed.
There was a prick on his leg. "Hmm?" He lowered his hands and blinked rapidly, twisting around to look at his leg through a bleary gaze. Nothing. He slapped at it for good measure, convinced a bug had stung him.
Karin tugged her senbon back to her by the wire attached to it, breathing a sigh of relief. He didn't notice me. Turning around, she darted back towards Ukon and Kiba, trying to beat the now poisoned Sound nin back.
She was halfway out from behind the boulder she'd been hiding behind when she froze, horror making her feet stay stubbornly stuck in place. Ukon's head protruded from Kiba's shoulder, one of his hands holding the Inuzuka's wrists in its grasp. Kiba's other arm was occupied with the kunai he'd driven into his gut; even through the pain, there was a smirk on his face.
Karin saw them begin to separate. She tossed a smoke bomb and lunged forward, throwing an electrified kunai with only half her attention on where it would land; she snatched Akamaru up and hightailed it away with one of Kiba's arms over her shoulders, Ukon's strangled cry of pain alerting her to the fact her aim had been true.
Karin set Kiba down behind a boulder, making him wince as he settled on the ground. "Let me see your wound," she said, setting Akamaru down on his knee.
Cringing, he took his hand away from his side. Both it and his coat were saturated with blood. "Got yourself real good, didn't you?"
"Had to," he grunted. She placed her glowing hands over the wound. "That guy fused himself with my body."
"I'm sorry I wasn't able to mention that before," Karin apologized. "I didn't know he could fuse with others. I thought it was just each other. They were born conjoined, and that's their kekkei genkai."
"Don't sweat it. He probably would've got me even if I'd known." Kiba flinched as a wave of pain ran through him. "Can you do anything for Akamaru?"
Karin bit her lip. "I can try. I've never healed an animal before."
"Damn…I shouldn't've let this happen…Akamaru." Kiba stroked the dog's forehead, lips pulled down in guilt.
Karin pulled her hands away. "I did my best to stop the bleeding. It's too serious to treat here," she said glancing around before forming a hand sign. "We should get moving, too, or else-" She paled when she felt their chakras moving in. "They're coming. We have to get out of here."
"Crap. Where are we supposed to go?" Kiba hissed, sitting up and holding Akamaru close to this chest. Growling, he surveyed the riverbed, looking for a path upwards.
"The river. We have to go through the river. You're making a blood trail," Karin said, pulling him to his feet. She hurriedly shrugged him out of his jacket, looking around for cover before pulling a few branches from a shrub. They waded into the water until it was up to their chests, and she helped situate Akamaru on his head before taking up her own branch and letting the river sweep her away.
They did their best to stay together and simply look like a piece of shrubbery floating down the river, linked together by their arms. "Where are they?" Kiba whispered, eyes darting around suspiciously.
Karin gritted her teeth, struggling to focus her chakra while staying upright and keeping the branch covering her bright red "We're over here!" hair. "I think they're following the river," she whispered. Two chakra signatures were loping after them, for lack of a better term, but one was slower than the other. "I managed to poison one of them. If we can get them to fuse again, it will spread to Ukon, too."
"Nice," Kiba whispered in reply. "Then we can just wait for 'em to drop and get out of this hell-fest."
"Hopefully."
Karin didn't know how long they drifted down the ravine. She pulled Kiba out once she saw an opening to the forest, supporting him until they'd made it a good distance inside. Taking out a scroll Naruto had given her, she set him down against a tree, briefly searching for the brothers' chakras again.
"All right, you stay here and keep yourself hidden. I'm going to try and trap them," she whispered. "It's hard to differentiate between them, but I think they've joined up again."
Kiba sniffed the air. "I think you're right. I only smell one person coming towards us." He paused, frowning. "Do yo-?"
"Those other three coming towards us? I don't know, but we need to finish this before they get here in case they're from Oto."
He nodded. She stood up and started away, jerking when he snatched her arm. "What?" She looked down at him, squinting.
"Just-" He paused, swallowing. "Be careful."
She stared at him for one short moment before nodding and pulling away.
Karin waited patiently in the clearing she'd chosen, drawing a useless storage seal on a scroll as she did. She knew Sakon and Ukon knew nothing about fuinjutsu- they would probably think she was trying to make a last-ditch effort to trap them, or a type of bomb. Her stomach churned as she drew her patterns, making her slightly nauseous.
"Well, well, what do we have here?"
Karin held her breath, slowly looking up. Sakon stood directly across from her, his brother's head lolled against his shoulder as usual. Swallowing, she stood up, leaving the scroll on the ground. "Sakon."
"The little traitor, hm?" He walked almost lazily into the clearing. He didn't think she was a threat.
"That's me," she said, barely able to keep her voice from wavering. He was wrong.
"You know, Orochimaru-sama was very…upset at your absence, especially after seeing what that blond kid can do. He rather wanted a chance to study the Uzumaki body…especially that kekkei genkai you took so much trouble to downplay. But I'm sure he'll be satisfied with just your dead body."
Karin tensed. "Let's see if you can catch me, then," she snapped, whirling around and sprinting into the forest.
Sakon raged after her, not bothering to check around him for traps. Karin kept track of his breathing, right on her heels, as she pounded across the grass, a kunai held tightly in hand.
His hand wrapped around her leg. He'd lunged for her, taking them both to the ground; she twisted around and threw the kunai at him, making him duck and roll to the side. Her aim, however, hadn't been him; the kunai thunked into a tree branch, activating a trap. Sakon shoved himself backwards to avoid a log that came tumbling down from the tree canopy, looking up just in time to catch the end of a set of hand seals she'd made.
"Dokugiri!"
Karin took a deep breath and breathed outwards, releasing a torrent of poisonous fog into the area in front of her. She saw Sakon try to dodge, but he stumbled suddenly, swaying in place. Her poison was taking effect.
The fog rolled forth through the trees. Karin leapt up and started running again, stopping when she'd reached the tags she'd placed on the trees from the scroll from Naruto. "Activate!"
Sakon came stumbling after her, swaying so badly he was barely standing. He was pale, an abnormal amount of sweat sliding down his face, gasping for breath as he went. "W-what did you do to me?" he rasped.
Karin glared at him, standing safely behind her barrier as he ran into an invisible wall. "Dirty traitor," he said, voice gravelly.
Karin reared back her fist. She was by no means as proficient as Sakura, but she trained with both her and the slug sannin, and now that Sakon was immobile-
Her fist slammed into his cheek, knocking his head to the side with something between a crack and a crunch. His body whipped back and slammed into a tree, and he slumped, finally going still, stuck in the indent he'd made. The kunai spread out in a formation around him lit up, zapping everything within their confines with electricity and making his body spasm and twitch until it slumped to the ground.
Karin took a deep breath, letting herself relax. I did it, she thought, turning and hurrying back towards Kiba's chakra. I actually did it.
Karin gingerly opened Akamaru's mouth and set it over her arm. "Can you tell him to bite down and suck on my chakra?" she asked, taking a moment to prepare herself.
Kiba's eyebrows creased. "Um…okay…Akamaru, do what she says. Come on, boy, I know you can hear me."
Akamaru's teeth barely moved, gripping her arm loosely. She pressed his jaws together and winced when his teeth broke her skin. "Come on, boy, you can do it," Kiba urged.
Karin had no idea if it was going to work; she'd never had an animal use her to heal before. A pull on her chakra made her give a small sigh of relief, relaxing as the puppy fed off her.
She pulled away when she felt his grip tighten enough that she felt some strength returned to his body. "All right," she panted, "you next."
Kiba gaped at her. "What the hell was that?" he asked.
"What'd it look like? I heal people."
"By letting them bite you?"
"Just do it already!"
He winced. She offered her arm; looking reluctant, he sunk his teeth into her wrist, making her cringe.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"
They both jerked, blood spraying over Akamaru's coat when Kiba ripped his teeth out of her arm. Karin whirled around with a cry, but her vision was spotty, and her knees had gone weak. Crap. I gave too much.
She collapsed, wincing when her head hit the ground.
"I-I killed you," she whispered, staring up at Ukon through barely-open eyes.
"K-Karin!" Kiba shifted Akamaru and reached for her, dragging her torso off the ground and pulling her to his chest. "Dammit!"
Ukon smiled at them. Pale as he was, he looked like a vampire surveying its dinner. "Killed me? Do you really think you could kill me, Karin? I seem to remember all our sparring matches ended with you in the infirmary."
Karin cringed into Kiba's shoulder. "Unless, of course…you mean Sakon. Do you think you killed my brother, Karin?" Ukon leaned closer, eyes going narrow.
"Leave her the hell alone, bastard," Kiba growled, retreating against the tree and wincing. Dammit, I can't move…
It was just a trick, Karin thought, trying to focus around the pounding in her head. He was just…transformed…I'm sorry, Kiba…
Ukon raised the hand that was transformed into something gruesome due to his cursed seal. "You'd better not have," he said with a scowl. "I'll go find him after I finish you off. If he is…"
Kiba gulped and pulled Karin and Akamaru closer.
"Dammit…"
Shikamaru gave Tayuya a wry smile, twitching as his shadow's grip on her loosened. "Don't suppose you'd just agree to give up, would ya?"
Tayuya grinned. It was less of a grin, really, and more of her pulling her teeth back and exposing the unnaturally sharp canines resting in her gums. "Not a chance, shadow boy."
Choji stared down at his hands, wondering if this was real.
He'd beaten Jirobo- all by himself. Just him. Not Team Ten, not Ino-Shika-Cho, just Choji.
Naruto had given him a leg up, and not just by blowing Jirobo's arm off. Throughout the whole fight, his words had been reverberating through Choji's mind, like an echo that wouldn't leave. One of the strongest genin in the village.
He walked through the woods in the direction they'd gone, holding the forehead protector Jirobo had knocked off his head. He knew what was going to happen now. He'd taken the red pill.
Even though Jirobo had only had one arm, he'd still had to use the red pill.
How did Team Seven do it? If it had been any of them- Sakura, Sasuke- they could have taken care of Jirobo in a few minutes. Not only that, it would have been easy for them.
They were all so far behind. He wanted to catch up.
But not because he was jealous.
No, he wanted to walk beside him. He wanted to be their support. He wanted to be strong enough to help and protect the one who'd called him strong; he wanted to be able to help his own team, too.
He didn't notice when he slumped over against a tree, mind still going a mile a minute.
His last thought before everything went dark was he wanted to be strong.
He didn't want Team Seven to keep showing them their backs anymore.