Now this is definitely interesting, mused Sasori. A pig-tailed boy is now attacking me. He seems much stronger than the other two. Time to test his limits.
And with that, Sasori fired Hiruko's left arm.
"Well-met, Tenchi!" declared Naruto, having been pinned-down by Azaka and Kamidake's capture field. "But you forgot one thing!"
Tenchi looked around the battlefield, seeing warriors from both sides locked in battle, and saw one of Naruto's kunai lying around, with a card attached to it. The Juraian's eyes widened with understanding as the card began to glow. Tenchi began to tense up when a green blur escaped from the light of the card and attacked Kamidake. The log splintered, but did not break.
The capture field, on the other hand, did.
"Thank you, Lee," said Naruto as he smashed the other log with his own fist.
Tenchi pulled out two more gems, and unleashed the original Azaka and Kamidake, the two powerful Knights of Jurai. He then recalled the log versions of the pair back into their gems.
"Yosh! I shall show them my Flames of Youth!"
"Lee!"
Before the green spandex-wearing boy could charge, he stopped.
"Take off your weights."
"But..."
"Now."
Rock Lee did so. He then sprinted at insane speeds towards one of the Knights (Azaka) while Naruto fished another card out of his deck.
Sasori was impressed. Not only did the pigtailed boy avoid his exploding arm, but he helped the other three to safety in the same motion.
Sasori decided to try for scare tactics. He took off the Akatsuki robe, revealing the body of Hiruko - the giant demon mask for the back, the long, bladed tail, and the kunai launcher hidden in the head's mouth.
"Come on, boy! Let's see what you've got!"
Ranma was at first startled, but then his eyes narrowed. He went on the offensive, dodging the knives shooting out of the mouth and the bladed tail while blocking the blows from the legs, complete arm, and stump. But his blows hit wood and metal, as if his opponent was a machine of some sort.
Ranma gave up on punching or kicking the thing and went straight for poking it, trying to get the Bakusai Tenketsu to work. He finally succeeding by poking the giant mask on the back. A dark blur escaped from the exploding puppet to land on a nearby building.
Ranma got a good look at him. This opponent seemed to be about twenty with blue hair. And he wore another one of those black cloaks with red clouds on it.
"Well done!" exclaimed the man who had hidden inside the machine. "What is your name?"
"Saotome Ranma of the Saotome School of Anything Goes!"
"Mine is Akasuna no Sasori. Nice to meet you."
Then, the puppeteer unfurled a scroll and placed his hand on it, unleashing four puppets. One was large and the other three were small. All of them had peculiar weapons (they looked like tuning forks), green skin, pointed ears (some with bite marks on them), and sharp teeth. They seemed to all be the same type of creature.
"Goblin Shock Troops," declared Sasori. "Although they were suicidal the last I fought them, I decided that they should be a bit closer to their name. So I must ask: can you dodge lightning?"
Naruto had released Might Guy to fight alongside Rock Lee against Azaka and Kamidake. Now he and Tenchi were in a stalemate again. But then, Tenchi did the unexpected - he attacked on his own. Naruto had noticed that Tenchi had pulled out a small sword hilt that looked like the woven branches of a tree in miniature, but until that point it didn't seem like it served any real purpose. But when Tenchi attacked, faster than Naruto realized the boy could move, the sword grew a blade made of pure energy.
It was only due to having gained the element of surprise that Tenchi managed to stab Naruto in the chest with the energy blade, piercing his left side through the lung.
Naruto blinked.
And then he laughed.
"Although I could continue fighting, I think you have learned your lesson. I concede. You may have Ryoko."
Naruto recalled all of his cards. Tenchi blinked, but then he removed the Tenchi-ken from the blond's chest and de-activated the blade. Naruto's chest healed almost instantly and gestured towards all of the Juraian Princes summons.
Chuckling nervously, Tenchi recalled all of his troops to their gems as Naruto handed over Ryoko's card. The piece of paper reformed into a gem.
"Tenchi, never forget that you will have to kill to protect your friends. And the next time this sort of thing happens, don't avoid hitting a vital area, even though it wouldn't have killed me."
As Naruto turned to leave, Tenchi's response stopped him.
"Thank you, my friend."
Naruto just stood there for a second, stunned. When he turned to look at the Juraian Planeswalker, Tenchi was already gone, having returned to his home plane and homeworld.
Ranma initially had a hard time dodging the attacks of the goblin puppets, but then he realized that the area of effect of their lightning weapons was actually larger than it appeared to be, so his narrow dodges weren't dodges at all. Each time he was hit, the affected area would go temporarily numb before hurting like hell.
So he changed tactics.
"Moko Takabisha!"
KABOOM! went the large goblin, showering its pieces around.
Sasori was impressed, but he wondered if this boy had the spark. He might, he might not. Sasori sent a request to Naruto for him to check himself.
Soon, the 'Walker would arrive.
Nearby, Cologne, Shampoo, and an unconscious Mousse (made that way by the Amazon Matriarch because he wouldn't shut up) waited for the battle to end.
"What technique freak-man use?"
"I don't know, child. The way he waggles his fingers it looks like puppetry, but I don't see any strings."
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(Posted Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:39)
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