"We outnumber them but their teamwork is superior to ours, they've clearly worked together for a while. We'll have better chances at success if we split them up and tackle them in smaller groups individually." Kotaro said.
"What are you suggesting?" Minato turned his attention to his teammate.
"Let's use the Flash Howitzer combination," Kotaro replied.
"You mean Blaze Slashing Sphere Explosive Dash Version Three?" Minato smirked. "Nice thinking…"
"That's why we don't let you name our combinations, Minato…" Kushina sighed.
Seeing how the entirety of Team Hokage was unaware of the combination that Team Minato had in mind, they just stood back and let them do their thing, approving of the desired outcome of splitting the enemy into three separate elements to be tackled individually.
Kotaro weaved a pair of hand seals. His hand seal speed was impressive for someone his age, it dawned on Kiyomi that he might have worked to improve that area similarly to Mana, although it was impossible that he'd have taken the craft to heights anywhere close to the sleight of hand of the ninja magician.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" Kotaro declared as he breathed in deep and bloated out his chest to an unnatural extent. Provided that what came in had to come out eventually, with matching or greater intensity, what did come out was soaked to the brim with Fire Release chakra and whirled into a fireball that grew in size a couple of times after leaving the boy's mouth. Despite its perfect, round formation, the fireball appeared less dense than a skilled user of the jutsu would have been capable of forming. It was a rather common technique amongst Konoha ninja, after all, Fire Release users being prevalent in the heart of Land of Fire and all.
Minato toyed with his kunai and then flickered off, dashing through the fireball like a speeding bullet and driving his kunai in a reverse grip, the force of the fireball's resistance, despite its rather fluffy density, still hit his wrist hard enough to have shattered it had Minato not trained to use this combination due to his astounding speed. The fireball burst like a bubble, firing off smaller flares aside while Minato rode the tunnel of flames his dash had created to slash at Danzo like a living weapon of blazing destruction. It was because of his speed and the wind tunnel he had formed and enforced with chakra around him while he was moving that he managed to avoid taking any damage whatsoever but anyone just a step slower would have eaten a faceful of fireball.
Caught unaware by the sudden, explosive outburst of offensive, or rather still hesitant to dash aside and part ways as the enemy had intended them to do, all members of Danzo's squad got hit one way or another. Danzo drew his blade himself, letting Earth Release chakra coat it to the fullest extent while he clashed with Minato directly. The young man matched the grit of his elder opponent as did the two match their tempered stares at one another but a metallic clang had put an end to their collision when Minato's kunai broke into two at the same time as did Danzo's sword.
The inertia sent Minato tumbling over up front but the draft of the lagging wind and flames behind him consumed Danzo and forced the old man to for once admit that the damage of the resulting battle was getting to him. Danzo shouted out in pain while spiraling after Minato, had the young man not kept his head low, the two might have collided but Minato was by now aware of the draft that followed him in his wake when using this combination.
Fuu and Torune attempted to assist their leader but two separate shells of condensed flame hit them in the sides, sending them covered in flames to roll aside just to deal with the fire. These circumstances forced both Torune and Fuu to remove their upper clothes so that their bodies didn't catch more of the fire's wrath than their chakra augmentations could shield them from at the moment. The Flash Howitzer combo was successful, it seemed, it proceeded to wear on the enemy even if it did not exactly part their ways.
"Minato Namikaze, a fine ninja even in your youth…" Danzo grumbled to himself while he rose on his feet, exposing his entire upper body and the fleshy scar tissue covering his entire right side, including a curious pocket of flesh and lumps that reminded of a sleeping face of a man. All over the scar tissue, Sharingan eyes glared at a blank point in space.
"You seem to have wanted to kill me not too long ago…" Minato took it to his own feet, observing the fact that he was now separated from the cluster of Teams Minato and Hokage. The youth that would become the Fourth Hokage in the future of his universe took a taijutsu fighting stance.
"True, that wasn't because of the fact your skill was demeaning to the post of the Fourth Hokage, it was merely because, similarly to your son, you bring hope and smile to the village, you expose the secrets of the ninja life to the sunlight where it needs to stay in the shadows. Orochimaru would have been a man more suited for the job, every bit your equal in skill while having the right mindset at the same time…" Danzo declared while one of his forever closed eyes opened with a squint to get a decent look at Minato.
Torune and Fu charged at Minato at once from separate corners of the battlefield, gripping the handles of their short-blades and aiming for a cross slash that would have either removed the boy's head altogether if he failed to react in time or left him with a lethal cross-shaped slash, sentencing him for a slow, bleeding agony on the forest floor if he managed to correct where their combination attack hit him.
Minato flickered, in a blink he had moved above Fu and kicked off his shoulders, using that second ground for a jumping dash to the air to avoid Torune's blade as well and grab a slender branch with his hand which he used to swing back over them and dive toward his team. Danzo's hands began forming hand seals the moment he was almost about to land, aiming to interrupt Minato in mid-air with a cleverly-timed and well-aimed ninjutsu attack.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere!" Danzo yelled out while exhaling small ripples of Wind Release chakra that darted off at the enemy like invisible, sharp projectiles that carried an awesome spread to them as well, making them difficult to dodge without injury.
Meiko covered her face up, feeling a pair of sharp slashes throw her body in a state of shock that, while initially seemed heart-stopping after a few seconds it drove her adrenaline just high enough to seem beneficial in a battle as her battle awareness sharpened. Hitting her in the range she was in from Danzo, the projectiles had lost some of their stopping power already.
Kiyomi had leaned aside, dancing around the handful of projectiles and avoiding all damage from Danzo's jutsu. Naruto's grunts suggested that he had used the powering through method of dealing with such a jutsu and the multiple tears on his tracksuit through which minor trickles of blood could have been seen suggested that he took some damage where his disgruntled face revealed that he didn't much care. Kawaki raised his cybernetically modified arm and deflected each of the Wind Release projectiles coming at him. Kushina screamed out in pain from the sides, judging from a couple of bloody stains on her sleeveless blouse, she took some nasty cuts too from Danzo.
"Damn! We can't separate them or prevent them from working together." Minato grit his teeth, offering his childhood crush a few moments of attention to see how she was dealing with the minor wounds she sustained.
"In that case, we just need to attack them together, separately, give them too much to deal with to combo off of their teammates' actions." Meiko declared and activated the seals on the back of her hands, unsealing her Reactor Gauntlets over her hands while she took a Strong Fist Style taijutsu stance, preparing to rush at the enemy head-on.
"Leave it to Meiko to form a plan I approve of, you know!" Naruto pounded his own palm and then took his own taijutsu stance, directing his stare right at Danzo, leaving no doubts about the target he had chosen.
"Alright then, we've tried planning but it couldn't have worked with our limited experience working together. Let's just wing it, pick a guy and go at them until you can go no longer." Kiyomi nodded, not feeling to glad about submitting to Meiko's base instincts but that was just that the blacksmith's cute and excited face sometimes did to her. It wasn't that bad of an idea either so Kiyomi didn't feel too bad about her personal bias as a team leader.
"Reactor Breath!" Meiko yelled out while cupping her hands together and letting the emanating aura of channeled chakra that became turned to a mass of heat focus into a single blast of heat-based chakra and take off at Torune.
"Rinkaichu: Insect Armor!" Torune crossed his arms while the violet corruption overtook his entire body, dyeing his entire skin, even the bits and pieces of his face that could have been seen through his mask. Despite the clothes covering his upper body ripping off entirely, the Aburame's mask remained fixed to his body, suggesting that it was made of a bit sterner stuff.
When Meiko's expulsion of the built-up chakra via the Reactor Breath technique hit Torune head-on, the insect armor he had formed over his skin rippled like the surface of a lake in which somebody had thrown a decent stone but upon taking in all of the Breath's might and remaining on his feet, Torune's insect armor had settled down again, seeming like he had taken absolutely no damage whatsoever from that attack.
"If all you're gonna do is stand and block, you're gonna get wrecked, you bastard!" Kawaki yelled out while switching his pipe to his left hand and throwing his right hand forward in a cross. Despite the range between him and Torune being absolutely massive, large enough for an exchange of mid-range ninjutsu techniques being the preferred method of engagement, Kawaki's arm grew massively in size until it became as large as a speeding train and caught Torune unprepared.
"The Akimichi expansion ability!?" Torune gasped in disbelief before letting the unstoppable strength of the incoming fist consume him and send him crashing through the forest on the back. The trees shook, cracked, shred and crumbled in a tunnel of force that made its way through them and showed the sacred place of the Land of Fire absolutely no mercy.
"Holy shit, Kawaki!" Meiko yelled out. "That was awesome! Didn't know you could do that!"
"I told you, I'm cybernetically enhanced, my whole fucking body's a living weapon…" the punk grunted while his fist returned to normal size. The violet rot that had covered Torune's entire body had stuck onto Kawaki's skin too, it seemed as a small mass of it festered onto the place of contact between Kawaki's body and Torune's. Meanwhile, only a pile of purple mush remained where Torune's body was before being blasted away. The mush pulsed for a little while before beginning a creepy crawl up a tree until it crept up Torune's body that hid up in that tree.
"So you've chosen to sacrifice your life to destroy an insect clone? Essentially, you've died for nothing…" Torune declared while pointing his finger at the expanding rot over Kawaki's right fist.
"Fuck, that burns!" Kawaki grunted before gripping his arm by the bicep and pressing hard enough to cause damage to the scar tissue that was covering it.
"That's right, my rinkaichu are different from the normal insect breed that the Aburame clan uses – the kikaichu. My insects are almost unperceivable, nano-sized, if you will, and they are highly deadly, though they can only be transferred through physical contact with the target." Torune explained while Kawaki continued to scratch his arm and curse while the purple rot continued to overtake him bit by bit. Then, a fleshy tearing sound made everyone present widen their eyes – Kawaki had outright ripped off his infected arm and gritted his teeth at Torune.
"You motherfucker… You're gonna pay for making me do that!" he exclaimed while his cells began rapidly dividing one over another and regrowing the lost limb bit by bit. Multiplying the boy's own nano-sized ninja tools rapidly as his fleshy stump grew larger and larger and would eventually begin to once more resemble the arm that he had lost.
"Just what… Is this boy?" Danzo muttered. "Boy, would you by any chance like to live through this encounter? The Root could very much use your uncanny talents. You could employ your amazing gifts to protect Konoha from the shadows."
Danzo covered his face up, a minute splatter of blood sprayed from his ordinary, left hand when Kawaki's pipe hit it on the back of his upper arm and left a mean bruise over it. It was the best attempt that the recovering punk could make in order to silence the veteran shinobi.
"You've got nothing to offer me, freak. I'm no goddamned ninja so you better nail it into that braindead noggin of yours, got it?" Kawaki growled out. "I don't give rat's ass about protecting anyone but myself, I don't very much like fucking anything. It was only today that I found out I liked confectionaries. So stick that dumbass ninja shit up the ass, which you've probably got covered up with those weird red eyes too."
"He… Has a way with words and not the right way but… I'm glad to see he's on our side, ya know," Kushina nodded with the most confused face that could accurately translate her inner turmoil about how she felt at the youth that liked to act just like he looked – defiant of social norms and local tradition in all ways imaginable.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Kiyomi weaved a hand seal and created one shadow clone, the pair launched themselves at Fu together, utilizing the moment of confusion and admiration directed at Kawaki from both sides of their team as well as the enemy squad.
"Flash Mind Body Switch!" Fu placed his hands together in the Yamanaka hijutsu signature hand seal. Kiyomi's mouth went ajar at the immense speed and ease at which this man performed the Mind Body Switch. It was as easy for him as raising his hand up for a block. To make matters worse, he had managed to hit the real Kiyomi square in the chest with the transfer of his consciousness too. With a whirlwind kick, Fu dispatched of the heiress' very confused shadow clone and then turned for her team.
Kushina took a step back and threw her fists forward, preparing to engage her comrade. Kotaro gave his teammate who was infamous for her outrages of physical violence in the Ninja Academy a wary glare but upon receiving a serious and very much in her own mind look back from Kushina he realized that the Red Hot Habanero knew very much what she was doing right now and that she wasn't about to beat the snot out of Kiyomi just to drive the possessor of her body out.
"Right, let's go, ya know!" she braved herself onward while she took off to engage the enemy in her comrade's body. A red hue of chakra emanating from her like an ever-present aura expelled from the girl's body as she charged onward at the possessed Kiyomi, throwing brutal but normally effective fists at her.
"Hmph… Engaging in a taijutsu exchange using the Strong Fist style. What a simpleton…" Fuu mocked Kushina in Kiyomi's voice while throwing his palms outward and driving every single pumped fist of Kushina sliding to the side harmlessly. "Strong Fist is the standard taijutsu style taught to all Konoha children in the Academy, if that is the only fighting style you have, you're better off staying in long-range because your moves are like an open book to anyone who's read from the same textbook as you…"
Fuu answered with a fist to Kushina's abdomen, quickly transitioning from a deflecting palm strike into the stalwart fist of the Strong Fist style himself. Kushina gasped for air as she spat out slobber from her mouth, tumbling back from the brute force present in the fist of possessed Kiyomi. With renewed vigor and a valiant battlecry, Kushina leaped back into the fight, throwing more and more mad Strong Style attacks and forcing possessed Kiyomi on the backward-moving defensive loop.
"Such a numb-skulled girl. At least you know how to… Take a punch…" Fuu complained with a panting tone from Kiyomi's body.
"You talk too damned much, ya know!" Kushina yelled out while throwing a mad headbutt straight at Kiyomi's own forehead. Fuu had tried to withstand its awesome might but upon realizing that Kiyomi didn't wear her forehead protector on her forehead, as it was meant to, but on her left knee instead, he could only surrender to the buzz that drove him to black out just for a blink and falling on his back, crawling back for his own good. A crimson ripple went down in multiple trickles off of Fu's limp body positioned by a tree, matching the painful gash on Kiyomi's own forehead.
"Heh, it looks like you're taking all the damage that I inflict on Kiyomi too, huh? Shoulda picked a more advanced mind hopping jutsu, ya know!" Kushina cracked her knuckles as she loomed over the helpless body of possessed Kiyomi.
"You might have figured out my weakness but…" Fuu proclaimed while driving both of Kiyomi's palms into the dirt and flipping his body backward, hitting Kushina straight in the jaw as he vaulted back and over on his feet, sending the redhead flying back and falling on her own bottom. "This technique is all the disruption I need for now, Torune!"
"Understood!" Torune nodded and put his hands together. "Poison Cloud…" before he could complete his technique. The barrage of Phoenix Flower Jutsu projectiles hurled from Kotaro's side, it appeared as if though Meiko's makeshift strategy of splitting the enemy between them and then pressuring them so that they couldn't support each other was yielding some positive results.
That was for the better too, since, without a doubt, Fuu had intended Torune to spread his deadly nano-insects all over Kiyomi's body while fleeing her mind at the very last second, making it impossible for the possessed leader of Team Hokage to escape her inevitable and very painful death. It wasn't like she could have just torn her body to shreds and replaced it like Kawaki, hell, not even Kawaki was likely to be able to perform a full-body recovery like that…
Even when the strategic advantage and the numbers were on their side, this battle was still a handful for the two teams. Such was the category of hunter ninja that they've ended up facing here.