Neji took the scroll their opponents left on the ground, admitting defeat. The battle in itself hadn't been very hard. The three genins they faced had been in his academy class, and Neji knew his own team was stronger. It didn't take them long to beat them. By mocking Tenten and Lee being clanless, they had just fed them with more reasons to want to win, not that they needed any other than making it to the next round.
With both scrolls they needed in hands, their next goal was to get to the tower without falling into any traps. The Byakugan should make this part easy, Neji thought to himself as he activated it to analyze his surroundings. He expanded his range to the maximum he could, and spotted many traps near the tower. Probably from teams that had yet to get both scrolls and were hoping to steal some last-minute.
He was about to get his team moving when he spotted teams near him. It wasn't his academy classmates.
"The sand siblings are near us," Neji said.
"Let's avoid them and move on. They aren't trackers, and you can help us maneuver around them," Tenten said.
Neji took a deep breath and analyzed the situation.
"They are fighting a single person. We must be careful, their teammates could be around and masking their chakra to me."
"Do you see anyone else?" Lee whispered.
"No. I don't. But the siblings seem to struggle. Should we help?"
While they weren't from the same place, Gaara, Kankuro and Temari became friends with his team in their past life. A third round without them was not something Neji could imagine. From the information Neji could gather, Temari was on the ground, her leg seemingly injured, Kankuro's puppet was dismantled, and Gaara had sand dispersed all over the battlefield.
They approached carefully, going out of their way not to be noticed. When they got closer to the fighting area, Neji decided to assess the situation once more. It seemed to go even worse for their friends.
"What a minute!" Neji suddenly said, stopping Lee with his hand. "That guy is fighting with puppets, but he's inside one of them. I can see the chakra strings now that we're closer. I'm not even sure he has teammates, he could have used puppets all along. And from what it looks like, this guy is quite older. Either he's an eternal genin, or he infiltrated the exam."
"What should we do?"
"We have to let the Sand Siblings know which one to focus on."
Neji described the opponent to Tenten and Lee, so that they could do a surprise attack on the puppeteer. Tenten took out a few of her scrolls, choosing which weapon was best for the situation. Lee suggested he tried to dismantle one of the puppets.
"I know taijutsu is your specialty, but try not to stay close to the puppet too long. While most puppeteers are from Suna and this guy has a Yama headband, we don't know a lot about him, and his puppets could be more poisonous than Kankuro's. By how Temari presents, it's likely she got poisoned."
Temari had an open wound on her leg, and it looked infected. Neji knew the oldest sibling could fight even with an injury normally, so something stopped her from defending her brothers. She was on the ground, barely moving, with an animal, likely a summon, watching over her.
Neji approached carefully, jumping as silently as he could on the tree above the Yama guy. Tenten and Lee were standing close as well, waiting for his signal. With his Byakugan abilities, it seemed that his teammates trusted him to lead their current mission.
Kankuro was trying to fight with a broken puppet, and the guy kept mocking them. "There's no tricks I don't already know, Kankuro! Remember that I created those puppets!" the Yama guy said. Neji gulped. Was that guy originally from Suna?
Gaara tried to stop an attack from the puppeteer, who tried sending needles – likely poisoned ones – in the direction of the siblings. Gaara made a shield in front of him and Kankuro, but his sand wasn't hard enough. Kankuro dodged just in time, while Gaara turned around for his sand gourd to protect him. The needles fell to the ground. But the guy wasn't done and sent another round, this time in the direction of Temari, whose fan had been sent too far of a distance for her to reach it. Tenten was the one to defend her, sending in thousands of kunai to deflect the trajectory of the needles. Neji knew there was only one person who could succeed in doing what she did, and she was proven right. But that defensive move had consequences: they needed to move, now!
One of the puppets, an empty one, looked up in the direction Tenten had been, but she had already jumped on to another tree. "Who is there?"
Before anyone could react, not even Gaara, Lee used his bandages to immobilize the other spare puppets.
"If only I knew which one Sasori is hiding in!" Kankuro gumbled.
From his view with the Byakugan, Neji noticed the guy frowning. He wondered how Kankuro knew. First life, Neji thought to himself. Not that Sasori could know. Lee shared a look with Tenten. Their opponent was a known murderer. Now that they had joined the fight, they couldn't leave until it was over. Either they killed Sasori, or Sasori killed them.
Neji jumped down directly on the right puppet, to indicate which one. He needed Sasori to reveal himself before even thinking of most of his methods, but a rotation could do some damage, and maybe he could disturb the chakra strings in some places.
As Neji was trying to destroy the puppeteer, he noticed chakra under his feet, moving in the sand. Gaara was preparing his next move, only waiting for Neji to be done. Neji retreated in a tree, and observed as Gaara moved the sand to surround Sasori from all sides, creating a ball around him, hardening the sand as it started to compress the puppet.
"Sand coffin!" Gaara said, before raising his hand up, for the ball of sand to rise in the air. When he was satisfied, he closed his hand into a fist shape. "Sand Burial!"
The sand fell on the ground alongside pieces of what was once a puppet. Gaara frowned. Neji held his breath. Sasori was there, slowly standing up.
"How is he still alive?" he heard a weak Temari say. Tenten was next to her now, giving her back her fan, and looking at the injury Sasori caused. Kankuro threw a small object in the girls' direction.
"Give Temari this. It should clear the poison."
Either because he handled poison regularly, or because having fought Sasori once, he was ready for everything, but Kankuro seemed to have the right antidote on hands. Neji gulped. If Kankuro had waited this long before giving it to Temari, it was likely it was the only one he had.
"It's a given, but do not get injured," Neji instructed, trying not to show he was afraid of the fight going wrong.
Sasori laughed. "You really think you'll get away from me this easily? You're not the only one on a mission."
Neji frowned. "What mission?" They needed to gather as much information as possible, to relay it to anyone that time-traveled.
Sasori pointed up to Gaara. Neji took a few breaths. If the Akatsuki was not existing anymore, it seemed that at least one of their former members was after the tailed beasts. Did Sasori act alone? Why did he want the power of Shukaku?
Neji was trying to think of a next move, now that the surprise effect was over. They were five able to fight, plus Temari's summoning that probably wasn't only there to attend to her injuries. Also, Temari could probably swing her fan even if she was sitting on the ground, so she could probably defend herself if she needed to. Neji jumped near Gaara and Kankuro. They needed a strategy, and yelling at each other's instructions meant Sasori would hear: not ideal.
Even though his puppets were destroyed, Sasori kept grinning. Neji noticed he took out a scroll. Of course, he has more puppets, doesn't he? It was another human-looking puppet. The siblings paled, the three of them.
"Of course, if you killed the Third, you used him as a puppet," Gaara said between his teeth, his sand moving to form an arc on the ground, as if it was ready to raise to protect them if needed. "Neji, Lee, Tenten, watch out, it's likely to be able to use iron sand. This time, it should be a good match-up for me."
"Don't get hit by the puppet's sand," Kankuro added. "It's probably poisoned too."
Sasori frowned in confusion. "How do you know this?"
Kankuro laughed in his face. Neji knew why: he'd never tell he time-traveled. "Gaara, play with the Kazekage puppet, we'll focus on Sasori."
Gaara jumped aside, and tried sending sand in the direction of the puppet, but Sasori was skilled, and some finger movement later, he was attacking, the sand transforming itself into weapons.
"I'm out of puppets, do you have anything useful?" Kankuro whispered, taking advantage of Gaara keeping Sasori busy.
"Lee and I are close-range fighters mostly. I have a few long-distance tricks though, but I guess Temari already tried that?"
"I can do pretty much what Sasori is doing right now with weapons, but poison-less," Tenten added, grabbing scrolls. "If you all and Gaara can create a diversion, I can go hide and wait for the moment to strike."
Sasori had enough of them talking, and sent his next attack toward them. It was useless, with Neji's rotation and Temari's fan. When Neji stopped spinning, Tenten, Kankuro and Lee had all disappeared.
"Where the hell are they?" he thought to himself. He didn't have the time to gather information, Sasori was trying to fight both him and Gaara at the same time. Neji couldn't keep on his rotation, while he had enough chakra to do so, he risked sending the poisoned black sand in the direction of allies.
Neji noticed something that made him panic, but at the same time, it gave them a target. He said aloud, seeing where his friends were with his Byakugan.
"You guys, Sasori is its own puppet. I see a scroll where his heart would be."
Neji tried thinking of any way to hit while dodging everything – his life depended on it.
He didn't expect what he saw next. Lee appeared behind Sasori, directly behind him, engaging in a taijutsu fight. Sasori used tools from his puppet body to fight, trying to scratch Lee, but Lee was too skilled.
I've never seen Lee move this fast, Neji thought. He was clearly better than he was the day before. That's when Neji noticed… Kankuro was helping Lee move, controlling his movements with chakra strings. Kankuro knew puppeteers tricks that Lee didn't, so he could plan ahead and avoid Lee getting injured.
"Neji, Tem, watch out!" Gaara yelled. Neji felt a strong wave of wind hit him. It was coming from Temari, who was trying her best to prevent black sand coming her way. He couldn't let himself get distracted. He and Tenten needed to be useful too. She was watching the scene from trees above their heads.
Temari stood up, limping. "The antidote's effects are in, I can move again. Let's distract Sasori too."
Her fan was out, her summoning on top of it. She was ready to swing it. Neji decided to join in, with his Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm.
They heard some cracking noises. The Third Kazekage's puppet fell to the ground, in pieces. Brown sand falling from the broken articulations. Sasori's eyes widened.
"If the Third could harden ironed sand, don't you think I can?" Gaara said with a smile that made Neji shiver. He noticed worry in Temari's face. Gaara seemed to take pleasure in destroying that puppet that made them recall psycho Gaara. The one who enjoyed killing.
Lee and Kankuro took advantage of Sasori's sudden moment of distraction from the broken puppet and Temari and Neji's combined attack. With his foot Neji knew to be his strongest, Lee broke four of Sasori's right hand fingers, pieces detaching and falling to the ground. It made things harder for the assassin now, with nearly only one hand left to control whichever puppet he had scrolls of.
Lee and Kankuro suddenly retreated, and so did Gaara after immobilizing Sasori to the ground with sand. Temari swang her fan another time, taking advantage of allies being away to have the wind stronger, enough to break Sasori's other hand, and cut through nearby trees. Neji wondered if his friends were injured or if the retreat was part of a plan he didn't know about. But then his Byakugan noticed Tenten was moving on the tree above. It was her turn now to fight. She only sent one weapon: a kunai on which she always had an explosive tag on. It landed directly where Sasori's heart was. Gaara's sand suddenly protected them all from the blast that followed. When he lowered it, Sasori's body was in pieces. His heart had blown up as well.
Kankuro approached the puppet first. "Well, if I wanted to, I could build him back and use it, but it's going to be a fucking lot of work. But thanks, at least he's dead."
Tenten smiled, taking something from her side pocket. It was a scroll. "I found this on the ground while trying to find the best spot to wait in. I don't think Sasori cared about the exam at all." She turned to Temari. "Is it the one you need? Neji's supposed to have both of ours."
Neji didn't know why, but he felt the need to check if he still had his team's scroll. They were still in his pocket. Temari took Tenten's with a smile. "Thanks. We owe you one."