also also, re: my author's note in the previous chapter about pairings.
i really DONT MIND pairing predictions or who you think what character works well with or what dynamic you find interesting. as a writer, those types of comments are like catnip.
my problem is with people who come into the comment section of a GEN fic and DEMAND pairings, or DEMAND why i havent included romance yet when the characters are LITERALLY twelve or, in the case of the MC here, HEAVILY traumatised and in no state to be entering romantic relationships anytime soon. THOSE people are who i have problems with. the rest of y'all are safe.
- hisashi worst dad in konoha #confirmed
- i love the inuzuka clan and you can bet they will show up again
- HEALTHY! ADULT! FRIENDSHIPS! ARE SO IMPORTANT. yes i will die on this hill. yes kakashi is my sad trash baby whom i've bullied both in cthots and PMW, he's getting all the hugs and the support here even if it was NOT my intention when i started writing this chapter. but hey, butterfly effect say hello.
- leave me and my love of minor characters alone. THEYRE ALL SO GOOD AND THEY DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER.
- canon ages and timelines are ridiculous, but i'm sticking with them unless otherwise indicated, and i WILL choose the bits and pieces i like most. canon may be a sprawling beach but i'm just here in my corner playing with the prettiest shells and i am NOT sorry about that.
- having said that, i like loopholes in the lore. watch me exploit them for all they're worth.
- the focus of this fic isstillrevolution 3
"Kakashi." Asuma greeted, slipping into Kurenai's apartment and dropping onto the armchair he usually occupied when they hung out, bemused to find the other man still in Kurenai's living room. "Teach your damn genin."
"I got him Ebisu." Kakashi shot back, appearing determined to become one with the shitty, deformed cushions on Kurenai's shitty, spring-ridden sofa.
According to Kurenai, he'd become like a housecat since she'd used Genma's needle on him, popping in and out at random times but always returning to her sofa. If Gai were to be trusted, however, Kakashi hadn't been back to hisownapartment since the end of the Preliminaries, and that simply wouldn't do.
"Ebisu wranglesjouninon the daily, he should be able to manage Naruto." Kakashi finished, not even bothering to glance at Asuma.
"Yeah, except the jouninrespectEbisu." Asuma snorted, stretching out a foot so he could nudge Kakashi's thigh with his toe, not above making himself into a nuisance. "Your Uzumaki wouldn't know themeaningof the word, much less how to apply it."
Kakashi finally pulled his arm from where it was covering his eyes and shot him a wary look. "What's he done?"
"Bitched, mostly." Asuma informed him dryly. "Loudly and indiscriminately. Pissed off a fair few jounin with his tone, too."
"Goddamn it, Naruto." Kakashi sighed softly, but with feeling, and Asuma almost felt sorry for . "Alright, yeah, I see your point."
Asuma gave him a moment, then, when Kakashi made no move to so much assit upafter his declaration, he nudged his thigh again and got swatted at. "You got a plan for the puppeteer?"
"My student knows theShadow Clone technique." Kakashi replied in a tone that suggested a plan was unnecessary in light of that information, but Asuma scoffed.
"So? A one trick pony's luck will eventually run out." He said, then smiled wryly when he added, "Shikamaru found that out the hard way."
"You fought him?" Kakashi asked, and he almost sounded interested in the answer.
"No. Hinata-chan did." When Kakashi just blinked at him slowly, clearly not following, Asuma's wry grin turned sharp. "Kurenai's Hyuuga. Hiashi's eldest. Y'know, therevolutionary."
"The shy kid beat your Nara?" Kakashi's tone told him what the Hatake thought ofthatsituation, and Asuma imagined Kurenai would be vindictively satisfied and more than a little proud if she were there with them.
He sent a mental apology to Shikamaru and boasted a little, because, hell, maybehewas proud of the little Hyuuga too, so what? Watching Shikaku stress-smoke a whole pack and finding out that ageninwas responsible for putting him in such a state had been the highlight of hisweek.
"Not a way to break his Shadow Possession, too." He added, proud when his voice remained even, if a little bragging.
Kakashi's eyes glinted thoughtfully, the Sharingan spinning lazily, a lazy sort of amusement radiating from him. "A genin?"
"Mmhm. Unfortunately, she's out of the Village as of this morning, so that trick is unlikely to work to knock some sense intoyourstudent." Asuma replied, shrugging a shoulder absently. "So I suggest you actuallyteachyour Uzumaki something to earn that promotion, 'cause with the way he's acting, he's unlikely to endear himself to sponsors."
Kakashi finally pushed himself into a sitting position, only to squint at Asuma suspiciously. "You're unexpectedly invested."
Asuma's laugh was sudden and seemed to startle them both.
"Oh, I couldn't care less about whether hewins. I just want the puppeteer tolose." His grin became smaller but far sharper than before, more feral.
Kakashi tilted his head, dog-like and visibly curious, andoh,it was a heady feeling, having all of the man's focus on him like that.
Asuma supposed it was justified though; after all, out of the free of them, he was always the composed one. It didn't mean he wasn't just as fucked up as the other two, but he hid it better, while Kurenai and Kakashi were feral down to their bones, and showed it, too.
So now, as he grinned at Kakashi, slow and sly and with teeth like the serrated edge of a knife, it was almost liberating, and he laughed softly as Kakashi shifted closer unconsciously, red eye spinning a little faster.
"He snapped Ino'sspinelike it was atwig. In thePreliminaries." Asuma murmured, his voice lower, quieter, like a secret. Apromise."If you hadn't held me back, I'd have killed him right there."
They sat there for a moment, and Kakashi seemed to almostrevelin the KI Asuma had unconsciously began leaking as he thought of the Suna-kid.
Finally, realising that someone was bound to notice and report them if he didn't get his shit together, Asuma shook himself off and wrangled his chakra under control, reminding himself not for the first time that getting even and starting an international incident wouldn't make Ino magicallybetter.
His KI lessening in intensity seemed to snap Kakashi out too because the man took a quiet breath and muttered a delayed, almost absentminded 'poor kid'.
Then,Kakashi closed his eyes and stretched, groping around blindly until he located his forehead protector, which he promptly slid on and covered his Sharingan once more, features falling into their usual lazy slant.
Meanwhile, Asuma took the time to get his KI fully under control, inwardly scoffing at Kakashi's complete lack of self-preservation. They both knew that Kakashi would've probably picked a fight with him just then, if Asuma hadn't reeled himself back in time, because Kakashi was agoddamn adrenaline junkieand unapologetic about it.
"What to teach him, though?" Kakashi mused an undeterminable amount of time later, forcefully shifting them back to their earlier conversation topic as if nothing had happened. He opened his eye and stifled a yawn, no sign of the earlier rapt focus on his face, the lackadaisical mask back on. "Kid's got Kushina-nee's attention span and none of sensei's genius. And we've gottwo weeks."
"Choji called him a prankster." Asuma replied with that same casual air Kakashi was affecting, and it would've been hard to believe he'd been a step away from a murderous rampage not that long ago. "I've never known you to ignore an easy advantage, Kakashi."
"You want me to make him into a trap specialist?" Kakashi asked, sounding rather disbelieving even as he followed Asuma's thought process flawlessly. "Intwo weeks? I'm good, but I'm notthatgood, 'Suma."
"I'm sure Raido would be up for a challenge, if you're feeling…lacking." Asuma offered, keeping his expression perfectly level and innocent even though they both knew his words were a blatant jab.
"Ha ha." Kakashi shot back dryly, and Asuma thought the man was going to blow a raspberry at him. "You got a copy of the contract they signed to participate? I need to check whether they can prepare-!"
Before Kakashi could finish, Asuma pulled the folded-up contract from his pocket and threw it at Kakashi's face, disappointed when the man caught it before it could smack him on the .
"Paragraph fifty-seven, clause three." Asuma informed him flatly, having an inkling as to what Kakashi was likely after. When the man quickly flipped to the right section, scanned the page, then shot him a suspicious look, Asuma shrugged. "Shikamaru asked about the same thing yesterday. You're not the only crafty asshole – sorry,genius– in the Village, Hatake."
"Yeah, yeah, rub it in." Kakashi scoffed, though he pocketed the contract with a thoughtful expression, then stilled, eyeing Asuma suspiciously as if a thought had only just occurred to him. "...Was this anintervention?"
Busted.
"I've no idea what you mean." Asuma bluffed, even though it most definitelyhad been."I'm just looking out for my friend."
When Kakashi juststared at him,eyebrows raised and mouth curling upwards at the corner, clearly letting him know what he thought ofthat, Asuma snorted and gave in.
"Andmaybemaking sure that my friend gets his ass out of myotherfriend's apartment." He added, grinning at Kakashi's indignant squawk as he pulled him to his feet and ushered him towards the door, throwing Kakashi's mask at him, which he caught with annoying ease. "Honestly, man, this was getting a lil' weird."
Kakashi's soft laughter followed them out of Kurenai's home, and Asuma patted himself on the back for awell-executed intervention, if he did say so himself.
(Then he got the hell out of dodge when he caught a glimpse of green and orange shooting towards them once they'd settled at the bar, because no matter how much he loved Kakashi, he wasnotabout to allow himself to be in the vicinity when Gai was evoking genjutsu with his emotionsaloneand crying about Kakashi's 'coolness'.
His shrink was already dealing with a lot of weird shit from him, he wasn't about to addmoreonto their plate if he could avoid it. Besides, he knew Gai would manage the last of the heavy lifting to get Kakashi back onto his feet. The man had stuck by Kakashi through more than either of them would ever speak of, and a relationship like that far outweighed the result of the Preliminaries.
Kakashi would befine.
Gai would make sure of it.)
"Is it xenophobic to say I hate Iwa-nin?!"
At any other point, Hinata might've laughed or secretly rolled her eyes or exchanged a surprised glance with Shino or sensei. As it was, however, they had been running away from Iwa-nin for over two hours and werestillrunning, with a team of two Iwa jounin and a chuninchasingthem all the way through Hidden Stone.
The chunin they had been tracking as their original mission were killed as soon as the Iwa-nin sensed their presence.
Worse yet, two hours into the high-speed, high-adrenaline chase, Hinata could feel herselfflagging.
Shunshin had enhanced her speed over short distances, but it had done nothing for her endurance. Having spent the last two – maybe three, she wasn't sure anymore – hours running at full speed though, with the added anxiety of beingchasedlooming over her, and the knowledge that this hadnothappened in her first time, her stamina – both physical as well as mental – was all-but used up.
"Sensei," Shino huffed, his tone less dry than usual due to his panting breaths, and a part of Hinata felt relieved that she wasn't the only one struggling physically, while another wondered whether their lacking stamina would prove to be their doom, "Kiba's hit his head."
"Fuck off, man!" Kiba grouched, the only one of the three of them not out of breath, though he kept glancing worriedly over his shoulder, and Hinata didn't need to have her Byakugan on to know they werestillbeing chased. Still, his anxiety didn't stop Kiba from snarking back, "I'mliterallystudying to be a doctor!"
"I don't see the relevance between your med-nin aspirations and you knowing what xenophobia is." Shino replied, clearly choosing to focus on his banter with Kiba rather than on their pursuers and the fact that they were unlikely to be able to outrun them.
"You can't allow your prejudices to get in the way when treatin' patients!" Kiba snapped, glancing back over his shoulder again though this time throwing in a glare for Shino. "Different nations have different needs and biological profiles, so it's important to interrogate any biases ya got to avoid medical discrimination and malpractice!"
Inwardly, Hinata wondered whatherKiba would have thought if he'd known that there would one day be atwelve-year-oldversion of him that would speak likeSakura.
Shino, apparently thinking along similar lines even though he had never met Tsunade's-apprentice-Sakura, snorted tiredly. "Iruka-sensei would think you were aspyif you ever said that to him."
"You're not funny!" Kiba shot back, almost tripping over a jagged rock, Akamaru yelping from his perch in his jacket, but it was Kurenai who replied.
"Neitherof you is funny," she interrupted, her voice calm buticy, and HinatafeltKiba and Shino recoil, "and if you don'tpipe downin the next ten seconds, I'll have Genma drug you till you'requacking like duckswhen we get back to the Village,understood?"
Kiba and Akamaruwhined,and Shino fell silent, all three of them appropriately cowed.
There was a brief moment of silence, and it was precisely in that moment when things went from bad to worse, because Shinostumbled.
Hinata activated her Byakugan and skidded to a stop just as Kurenai almost wrenched her arm out by yanking Shino to his feet and out of the path of a barrage of kunai, and thewhooshof kunai had Hinata realising that their pursuers werefarcloser than she'd hoped.
Then, her Byakugan caught a pool of chakra gathering underground right where Kurenai had stopped, and she was turning and spitting a Water Bullet at her sensei's feet right as the ground rose up around Kurenai's shin and knee, the same technique that had crushed Kiba's leg not three months ago-
Hinata wrenched her mind off that train of thought, deciding that it wasnotthe time to be thinking about all the ways that this mission could go wrong if she wanted to come out of it alive.
She forced herself to focus on the present, and this time,luckily, the water-logged earth didn't manage to harden sufficiently, and Kurenai, startled both by the Water jutsu and the realisation of what had nearly happened, yanked Shino by the back of his jacket again and Shunshined them both a few dozen metres ahead, effectively dislodging the remaining dirt that clung to her leg, and Hinata breathed a sigh of relief.
Only for her breath to get caught in her throat on the exhale when she heard one of their pursuers shout "They have a Hyuuga!" with a confidence that spoke of a degree of familiarity with her Clan's dojutsu that she didn't want to think about.
Her heart then proceeded to skip a beat when she realised she was nowfar too closeto their pursuers.
"Hinata, on me!" She heard Kurenai call, her sensei apparently noticing the same, and Hinata pulled on her waning reserves to execute her clumsiest but fastest Shunshin to date, covering the hundred-odd metres that separated her and Kurenai in three leaps.
She skidded to a stop by Kurenai's side dazed and quietly terrified, and a glance at Shino showed her the result of his stumble – he was keeping his weight off his left foot, his mouth twisted in a pained grimace, his ankle likely sprained.
"Sensei!" Kiba called anxiously from a few meters ahead, and Hinata knew he could smell what she could now see with her Byakugan: their pursuers were less than two hundred metres from them, and gaining fast.
" !" Kurenai swore, then swung Shino roughly onto her back and set off at a faster run than before, forcing Hinata to alternate between sprinting and Shunshin leaps to keep up.
"Kiba, all fours, shoot ahead and find us a cave or tunnel orsomethingto hide in!" Kurenai ordered, and Kiba nodded jerkily then began rummaging in his pouch for his Clan pills. "Shino, put a tracker beetle on him and make sure you don't lose his location!"
Hinata was only half paying attention as Kiba activated his Clan jutsu and dropped to all fours, his fingers lengthening to claws and his centre of balance shifting to allow for even faster leaps. Shedidnotice when he shot off, though, Akamaru managing to keep pace with the help of the soldier pill Kiba had fed him, leaving Hinata once again alone with Kurenai and Shino.
"Hinata, remember the genjutsu I taught you last month?" Kurenai asked sharply, a frown pulling at her brows, her voice sharp and direct, none of the usual warmth in it, and Hinata managed a quiet 'yes', battle-calm blanketing her anxiety now that Kurenai had taken initiative to come up with a plan of action. "You're going to let them come into your range and use it on the one with the least chakra."
Hinata's calm wavered for a moment and she almost missed a step on her next leap. "D-do you think it's good enough-?"
"No." Kurenai cut her off, and Hinata bit her tongue at the curt interruption, though she could understand the reason for it:they were slowing. Her own stamina was waning, and Kurenai, weighed as she was by Shino's added weight, had also slowed down from the earlier mad dash.
(They didn't know how far ahead Kiba was. They didn't know if he would evenmanageto find someplace for them to hide. They didn't knowwhythe Iwa-nin were after them, only that theywere,and had apparently planned to lure a Konoha team to Iwa from the beginning, having killed the two chunin Hinata's team had been tasked with tracking the moment they felt their approach-!)
"No, it's probably not." Kurenai elaborated, and her voice sounded far away even as Hinata's Byakugan could see her sensei's chakra flex. "But your illusion doesn't need to begood, it needs to be shocking. It needs to be unexpected enough to hopefully get them to at leasthesitate."
"Kiba stopped." Shino reported quietly, voice pinched with pain and frustration. "About five miles ahead. Sensei, we can't outrun them."
"I know. Working on it." Kurenai replied through gritted teeth, her expression tense, her chakra building. She bent down mid-leap, Shino still on her back, and swept a hand over the front of her sandals, releasing-
-seals?
There was a tiny wave of chakra and a change of pressure that made Hinata feel like her ears were going to pop, but she didn't have much time to contemplate what her sensei had done because-
-"Hinata, any time now." Kurenai ordered tersely and slowed down some more.
Hinata allowed herself to slow down too, no matter how much her mind wasscreamingat her to keep running, her desperate breaths drowning out the sounds of the outcroppings of jagged rock and the desert around them.
Finally,finally,her target came into her range.
Concentrating on the illusion even as she tried to pay attention to where she was putting her feet as she ran, she sped through the hand seals and allowed the ghost of the genjutsu to leave her, feeling it wrap around her target's chakra coils andlatch on.
Then, when her target screamed and the other two jounin slowed down in alarm, Kurenai released the network of chakra she'd been building up in a terrifying wave ofintent. The scenery around them shifted before Hinata's very eyes in a kaleidoscopic mirage of overlapping illusions and she felt Kurenai snag the back of her jacket and lift her off the ground with one arm thenshoot offfaster than Hinata had ever seen the woman move.
Ten minutes later, Kurenai skidded to a stop by a rock wall marked with Kiba's chakra and unceremoniously let go of Hinata's jacket, letting her drop to the ground, then scaled the rock. Hinata caught herself, ascertained that it was indeed Kiba waiting for them in the barely-visible crack in the rock wall twenty feet above ground, and called chakra to her shaking legs to follow her sensei.
It was only when she collapsed inside, the cave barely wide enough to stretch her legs out, that she realised that Kurenai's reserves were all-but depleted. And from the way sensei was moving, that last dash through the forest had taken more thanjusther chakra to pull off.
"Sensei-!" Kiba began, likely noticing the same, his eyes wide and hands reaching out hesitantly, but Kurenai shifted Shino off her back and placed him next to Kiba instead, while she shuffled off to the mouth of the cave, fingers flying through seals.
"Can you heal Shino's ankle?" Kurenai demanded curtly, clearly not sparing much thought for her own physical state, and Kiba, it seemed, knew better than to try and argue, merely setting to work getting Shino's sandal off.
Hinata…wasn't sure what to do.
She wasn't injured, just shaken and exhausted. Her chakra was more than half-way depleted, so she pulled off her backpack carefully and dug out ration bars, handing one to Shino and placing another by Kiba's knee, though she hesitated when she glanced at Kurenai. She decided against disturbing the woman in her self-assigned task of – if Hinata had to guess – hiding their cave from view, and simply pulled out her water bottle, offering some to Shino, then Kiba, who took it with a grateful nod.
About three minutes after they arrived, Kurenai finally shifted away from the mouth of the cave and slumped against the wall, covering her face with her hands.
"C-Ranks are cursed." She mumbled, and Hinata wasn't sure if she intended for them to hear her. "Fuckin' mission desk."
"Sensei?" Kiba tried again, and Hinata hated hearing him this quiet and subdued. He'd taken off his jacket in the meantime and bundled it up on his lap, propping Shino's foot up on it so it was as elevated as it could be. "Your chakra is, like, really scary low. D'you wanna, uh, take a nap? Hinata has ration bars, so you could maybe, uh, eat…one?"
Hinata watched Kiba trail off when Kurenai pulled her hands down her face to reveal her eyes and pin him with the flattest look Hinata had ever seen the woman direct at any of them.
"Those werejounin-level Iwa-nin, Kiba." She told him slowly, and Hinata saw Kiba shrink away a little at her tone. "If they find us when I'm 'taking a nap',we'realldead."
"If they catch up to us when you're too chakra exhausted to fight them, we're all dead anyway." Shino replied quietly, his chin down, his eyes trained on his hands which he'd balled into fists so tight his knuckles had gone white.
Kurenai stared at Shino briefly, her face completely wiped of expression, then her eyes slanted Hinata.
And Hinata-
-she took a deep breath, steeled herself, then dug through her bag until she found the rations bar she'd been planning to give Kurenai earlier. Wordlessly, she held it out until Kurenai took it, and shuffled past her sensei, curling up as much as she could at the mouth of the cave, switching her Byakugan back on even as she felt the beginnings of a tension headache pulse at her temples.
"I'll take first watch." She offered quietly, not looking back at her sensei, though she could both see and feel the woman stare at her back for a few seconds.
Then, Kurenai huffed quietly, somewhere between angry and reluctantly amused, and bit into the rations bar. About half an hour after Hinata claimed her spot on 'watch', Kurenai's chakra evened out with sleep, shallow though it was, and Hinata felt all three of them breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Kurenai gave them five hours rest, then, under the cover of night, they snuck out of their cave and headed for the Land of Rivers.
They had tracked their targets all the waythroughStone and into the Land of Earth, then the team of Iwa-nin that had been pursuing them had chased them out of Earth, through Stone, and deep into the Land of Wind.
"They were herding us." Kiba had told her quietly when Shino had taken over guard from her. Hinata had blinked at him, not following, not so much tired as mentallyexhausted. "Towards the Wastelands. We're maybe…a hundred miles off?"
Hinata had stilled at that, because while she'd noticed that they had been running west, but she hadn't realised that they had ended upquite so farwest.
The Wastelands, as the name aptly suggested, were a barren desert wasteland, rumoured to be the home of the terrifying flora and fauna that Suna's poison masters used as ingredients for their poisons. Non-natives didn't survive long there, no matter if civilian or shinobi.
Running back towards the Land of Rivers, shedefinitelynoticed that they were much further west than she had ever ventured. It felt like they had run further just to get across the Land of Wind than they had from Konoha toStone.
But Kurenai seemed to believe they would be able to find proper shelter in Hidden Valleys, so they pressed on, even though stopping in Hidden Valleys meant they would be taking the longer route back to Konoha.
Except they never reached Hidden Valleys.
Because once they passed into Land of Rivers and were about halfway between Suna and Konoha proper, they came across two figures Hinata had hoped to never meet in this life.
Two figures clad in black cloaks with blood red clouds.
No.
There were matches people waited for.
If the Uchiha had gotten through, Asuma was willing to bet people would have been betting serious money on his match.
Compared tothe last Uchiha, or the Kazekage's children, a match between a member of the Nara Clan and a member of the Hyuuga Branch House wasn't anything spectacular. Shikamaru's obvious lack of enthusiasm as he walked down the stairs into the arena also wasn't helping endear him to the audiences.
But it couldn't be denied that, when they clashed for the first time and Neji attacked with the Eight Trigrams, and Shikamaru appeared to, for all intents and purposes,shake the attack off,they caught the attention of those in the stands familiar with theannoyingnessHyuuga fighting style.
When Neji started angrily ranting aboutfateand the Branch House anddestiny, some more shinobi tuned in.
When he heard Neji mention Hizashi-sensei, Asuma channelled chakra into his ears and paid attention to the conversation too instead ofjustthe fight.
Then, Shikamaru seemed to decide that he wantedeveryone elseto pay attention too, and Asuma worried at the mean little smirk he could see on his student's face.
A Shikamaru motivated enough to bemeanwas a dangerous Shikamaru.
He increased the chakra going to his eyes and ears.
"I'm gonna tell you something someone much smarter than you showed me recently." Shikamaru drawled as he once again shook off Neji's Eight Trigrams, and his smirk stayed on even as he winced and kicked out to put more distance between them. "Tradition is strength, yeah, but tradition is you have apattern,Hyuuga."
"You haven't fought me long enough to figure that out, no matter your apparent genius." Neji scoffed, and Asuma really didn't envy Gai for having to deal with that attitude. "And no other Hyuuga would fight you knowing you are to face me."
Shikamaru didn't say anything at that, and Neji, it seemed, read something in his face that Asuma couldn't see, because the scowl on his face became even more hateful.
"Ah. I should've clarified; no other Hyuuga that could help you defeatme. You should know Hinata is my inferior in every way that matters. Even her Father has begun to acknowledge that she is not suited to her position of heir." Asuma sucked in a quiet breath and wondered what Hiashi thought of his nephew's commentary. He'd gleamed from Kurenai that the man was far from World's Best Dad, but the fact be somewhat of an open secret between a group of jounin was different to having it aired out for all of Konoha's population who came to see the matches to hear.
Neji squared his shoulders and glared at Shikamaru as he finished his assessment of his cousin and Shikamaru's chances of winning: "Defeating her means nothing. You will not beat me."
Surprisingly, Shikamaru snorted, loud enough that Asuma wouldn't have needed the chakra in his ears to hear it.
"Defeatingher? Hinatawhooped my assevery time we sparred. And then the one time I thought I had her caught, she found a way tobreakmy technique." Shikamaru admitted freely, and Asuma paused, wondering desperately if Shikaku was anywhere in the audiences and if anyone could be counted on to record the man's reaction to his son's declaration. "Somehow, I don't thinkyou'llbe that smart."
Shikamaru had to pause his speech to dodge Neji's sudden attack, and Asuma winced in sympathy at the memory of the pain of blocked tenketsu, but Shikamaru seemed uncharacteristically determined to keep going despite it.
All of a sudden, Shikamaru's mean little smirk grew, and he crouched. "My turn."
He brushed some dirt aside and something glinted metallically in the sunlight.
Ninja wire,Asuma realised suddenly, and he watched as Shikamaru dug it out from the dirt andtugged.
Dozens of kunai rained on Neji from all directions, coming from the tops of the trees around the edges of the arena, each blade heading unerringly for Neji's current position, and all through it, Asuma couldn't help but thinkatta boy.
He saw Neji's eyes widen even from as far in the stands as he sat, but then Nejispunandoh,what Asuma wouldn't have paid to see Hiashi's expression just then.
Because Neji, just like his father before him, had somehow managed to reverse-engineer the veneratedKaiten,at the tender age ofthirteen,at that.
Asuma glanced at Shikamaru then, wondering how his student would combat the Hyuuga's ultimate defence, but if anything, Shikamaru everything was going according to plan. And, if his suspicions as to Shikamaru's strategy were correct, it probably was.
"One." he thought he saw Shikamaru mouth.
"That's cheating." Neji snapped when he stopped spinning, all of Shikamaru's kunai successfully deflected.
"No, it's not." Shikamaru denied, grinning freely now. "The contract doesn't say anything about preparing the terrain beforehand. I checked with Morino-san, too. All's perfectly above-board."
Asuma let out a startled chuckle at Shikamaru'ssass, some of the jounin in the stands beside him sending him amused glances, though some looked a little miffed, likely not having ever entertained the notion of exploiting that particular loophole.
Then, his attention was drawn back to Shikamaru, because the Nara's smirk was back, his fingers in half a Ram seal.
"Think fast." Shikamaru warned sharply, and then the kunai scattered around Nejiexploded.
Kunai with explosive realised 'stryingto make the Hyuuga use the Kaiten.
"Two." Shikamaru mouthed again, and indeed, when the explosions began to subside, Neji was once again spinning.
And then, as Asuma watched Neji leak chakra like a sieve, it dawned on him.
The Kaiten releases chakra fromevery single tenketsuon the user's body. The chakra drain fromonealone would be-!
Asuma had to bite back a startled laugh as he realised what Shikamaru was probably aiming for.
Bleed him dry, kiddo.
"We need to run."
Kurenai had never heard that note of urgency in Hinata's voice before, and as she glanced at her student, she did a double-take, because Hinata lookedterrified.
Her eyes were wide and her grip on Kurenai's sleeve was white-knuckled, and as she followed her gaze, Hinata's eyes were trained on two shinobi clad in black cloaks and straw hats. It wouldn't have been alarming, Kurenai thought, if not for thegiant bandaged swordstrapped to the back of one of the men. His appearance was mostly hidden, but hetoweredover his partner, and Kurenai also reckoned that there was only one country she knew that producedswordsthat emittedbloodlust.
"Kurenai-sensei." Hinata demanded again, tugging on Kurenai's sleeve, Kiba and Shino both staring at her in alarm, though their faces and postures were also writ with exhaustion. "We have togo."
Then, the shorter figure turned their head slowly, their gaze coming to rest on Kurenai and her team, and Kurenai felt her stomachdrop.
Because staring back at her was a boy she'd routinely cooked dinner for five years back, him and Kakashi and Yugao and Yamato all crowded into her tiny living room, all in varying stages of beaten-up.
Kurenai had known Yugao for years, stuck by Kakashi since genin-hood, and listened to Anko wax poetic about her and Yamato's 'trauma-bonding' enough to feel like she knew the man far more than she ever wanted to even without speaking to him all too often: hiding the fact that her friends were ANBU and on a team together would've never worked on her. The fact that they were her friends also meant that she knew they didn't take care of themselvesnearlywell enough. Having her fridge ransacked on short-notice was a small price to pay for the knowledge that Kakashi and Yugao would eat a warm meal before getting sent out again.
The fact that Kakashi and Yugao and Yamato came with a pint-sized, genius tagalong hadn't been a problem: Kurenai had been dealing with Kakashi since before she even knew what trauma reallywas,much less how it manifested. She'd engaged the boy in conversation, wracked his brain on genjutsu, and did her best to make sure he knew that he could come to her even without his team there. She'd tried to be the sort of support drunk-Kakashi sometimes mourned never having after the Yondaime. She'd thought she could heal the boy at least a little from the horrors of ANBU and the suffocating expectations of his Clan.
And then the boy who liked matcha dango the most and hated all sort of red meat and kept his hair long because his mother liked it long and fed the street cats when he could spare the time to had slaughtered all of the Uchiha Clan and become an S-Ranked missing-nin overnight with seemingly no remorse.
So when Kurenai's gaze met Uchiha Itachi's on a no-name road to Hidden Valleys, saw the recognition in his eyes, and saw the crossed-out Kiri insignia on his partner's headband, she could think of only one thing:
"Run."
"Here's the thing," Shikamaru sighed as Neji panted for breath, the third Kaiten of the fight clearly taking its toll, while Shikamaru looked pained and tired butsmug.
"No matter how impressive or flashy the tricks," the Nara continued, spinning a kunai idly on his finger, "at the end of the day, a one-trick pony is just that. And some day, you're going to come across someone who will be able to counterevery last oneof your tricks."
He caught his kunai and threw it at Neji's centre of balance, the Hyuuga having to throw himself bodily out of the way, though that unnatural Hyuuga grace saved him from the motion looking as uncoordinated as it should've been.
"What will you dothen, Hyuuga?"
And then, not waiting for a reply, ShikamarucaughtNeji.
Smirking lazily, the Nara started walking backwards, five feet, then ten, then twenty, only stopping when he was at the treeline and Neji was back in the centre of the arena.
And Shikamaru reached out towards one of the trees that lined the arena, Neji mirroring him, though the Hyuuga's hand only touched empty space. Then, Shikamaru pulled and wrenched out one of the kunai that had lodged in the tree after being deflected by Neji's Kaiten.
The kunai which, if Asuma's memory served, was part of the set Shikamaru had tagged with explosive tags.
Shikamaru considered the weapon almost idly, then threw it at Neji's feet, and Asuma could see the exact moment Neji noticed the tag around the handle.
"Forfeit." Shikamaru offered, having quite literally pinned the Hyuuga in place.
Whispers broke out among the audience as those who couldn't see the explosive tag checked what grounds Shikamaru had for the demand.
But Neji remained silent.
"Your pride is not worth getting an explosive tag to the face at point-blank range." Shikamaru snapped, scowling at the other teen. "Forfeit, damn it."
Neji still did not speak.
"For fuck's sake." Asuma thought he heard Shikamaru mutter, then the Nara started walking towards the middle of the arena, Neji coming closer but also remaining firmly within range of the explosive tag while each stride they made towards each other shortened Shikamaru's shadow and strengthened the Shadow Possession.
And then, when Shikamaru was about fifteen feet away from Neji, more visible to the public now, he turned to Genma.
"Hey, proctor-san." He called, and Genma obligingly flash-stepped closer, though still kept out of range of the explosive tag just in case Shikamaru changed his mind about exploding it.
"I refuse to kill this idiot. No matter howmoroniche's being, he's still a Konoha-nin." Shikamaru announced almost boredly, though he spared a glare for Neji as if personally affronted by the other teen's stubbornness. "I forfeit."
Asuma let out the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding.
Then, he started laughing.
The uproar from the crowd once they processed Shikamaru's words drowned out his mirth, but Asuma couldn't have stopped himself even if everyone around could hear him.
One glance at Neji's startled, disbelieving expression as Shikamaru cancelled the Shadow Possession and walked over to pick up his kunai sent him straight back into hysterics.
Goddamn it, but he was proud of the brat.
And he couldn'twaitto tell Kurenai.