The woman frowned at the smoke of the dispersed clone and glanced around looking for the real Naruto before another form leaped down to attack.
Sasuke took in the reddened face, as if she'd recently been badly sunburned and the shattered glasses of Ryoko Saotome as the girl hurled her bokken ahead of her and landed in a tight stance before whipping about with her leg and slashing swiftly over the ducking form of the Kusagakure shinobi. Already she was whipping out with a fist at knee level as she twisted and the woman sharply dodged.
The Kusagakure shinobi grimaced as the trailing air of the attacks brushed into her with painful if not debilitating force. Lines and trails of chi were following the girl's attacks. Another chi-slave, and that explained a lot of why the other three were here and who they were looking for.
The dead woman harboring a darker force leaped away and formed a hand sign, letting the blood lust flow out of him and wash over the two children as Ryoko ended a leap within five feet of him.
Sasuke, hit a second time, felt himself brought down to his knees again, but the effect on Ryoko was…different.
The fear for self was not normally a trigger for Ryoko's Kishu-Osore, but the raw intensity of the blood lust slipping out of Orochimaru pushed past the barriers most people had to keep the primal responses buried. Ryoko's fears were closer to the surface, even if her lack of self-esteem meant that she had a greater than usual resistance to threats to her person.
As the fear slammed into her, her face twisted away from the normal battle expression of feigned skittishness into one of true and total terror. No paralysis washed over her, her mind was shifted such that even the deepest pits of fear, she was capable of tactical thought and control, though her overall decision would grow more and more narrowed into a small segment of existence.
Her chakra coils swirled madly and unstably, letting the chi flows move through her with heavy rapidity and reaching Ryoko's brain strongly enough to awaken her normally poor chi awareness into a cacophony of corrupted and twisted sensation that did nothing to calm her and did everything to drive home the unnatural hideousness of the being provoking her into this state and layering everything around her in a similar mask formed by a combination of her own uncontrolled terror and the inhuman spirit of the person she faced.
Too much chakra flood her body and pushed outward with nowhere to go but through. Normally, the overflow was mild enough that it would only appear in the eyes as an orange flash or glow. Barring that, it would manifest as small coating flames. Earlier, in the belly of the snake, it had been a slowly building inferno, carried by chi that was no longer pure and light, but heavy and thick with her own corruption.
This time, it came to fast for her to adapt to it, and the fire exploded outward like a brilliant flare that Orochimaru barely leapt away from before the fire overtook him in its path to reduce everything near Ryoko to bare ash and cinders, including the formerly firm footing underneath her.
Ryoko dropped as her footing was lost, eyes a pair of brilliant bronze points staring out of the darker orange flames whipping heavily around her, as she landed and the pain of her burning flesh as she landed, but muscles obeyed a mind that had been dropped down to a single goal and she was swiftly rising up through the air at ridiculous speed to pursue their attacker.
Sasuke swallowed as a new wave of fear lashed out around the scene and he suddenly knew what Ryoko meant by "heavy chi". The air was choked with Ryoko's terror and even as far away as he was, it felt like the weight of the heavens crushing down on him. In his sharingan, he saw her chakra coils spiraling madly and seemingly trying to tear her apart from the inside as she pursued the Kusagakure out of the bonfire that had erupted around her.
And the freak was smiling at her.
Her fist slammed into the tree as she lashed out and just barely missed Orochimaru, it burned through leaving behind a trail of grey, sickly ash and black veins spread out through the tree like some sort of swift infection.
Her own head was already turned to follow Orochimaru and rocketing away from the burning, sickened tree.
Snickering, Orochimaru landed on his next retreat and bent down to place something at his feet. Ryoko landed as the first fire finished burning through the branch this had started with and the great piece of wood tumbled down noisily to the ground below. She lashed out with a complex sequence of kicks and punches sped by both the chakra she couldn't control desperately seeking an outlet and the chi she could and did force unnaturally into destructive power.
The Snake Sannin was struck and slammed about as feet and hands slammed into his vital points carrying lethal combinations of chakra fire and deadly corrupted chi that demanded a return to balance.
Sasuke watched with some satisfaction, and disappointment that he wasn't involved, as the freak screamed in pain and fear, Ryoko tearing him apart in a freakish combination of primal fury and focused discipline. Then the body burst into a shower of heated and dried clay pieces in Ryoko's face and Sasuke's eyes widened.
"A substitution!" he called out in a warning.
The immediate threat gone, Ryoko's fires released their hold on her, leaving her a ravaged body desperately needing rest and recovery with which to shape her normal, again purified chi. She stumbled down and looked out of eyes surrounded by blistered skin.
"Ano…?"
And then the paper bombs that Orochimaru had left behind exploded around her and she was thrown into the air, shock on her face as she passed out and slipped into a tumbling, random fall.
Sasuke watched as Ryoko tumbled to another branch, barely saved from a deadly fall, but crumpled in a little heap that was only barely breathing.
"Well, that one is a trouble maker," a soft voice said behind Sasuke.
The Uchiha heir froze and turned about slowly to look at the form behind him with terror. He couldn't account for the technique that had so thoroughly overtaken Ryoko, but it had been powerful and deadly, even now, the poisoned chi she'd infected the second tree with was spreading through it, cracking its bark in several places, but she had been taken out easily.
"Do you let your friends do all the fighting then?" Orochimaru asked behind his stolen face. "Stay in the back and hide behind the herd? Of course, that is only proper for prey like yourself. And now the herd is gone and you're alone."
"Like hell he is!" Naruto shouted as he landed down beside Sasuke.
"Ah, speaking of the herd," Orochimaru said with a light smile.
"Hmph," Naruto said as another version of him landed down near the fallen Saotome and scooped up Ryoko. "Let's take this freak, Sasuke."
"We can't, Naruto," Sasuke said. "Not as we are. We need more help!"
Naruto turned and fixed Sasuke with first a frown and then a smirk.
"Don't worry," he said. "I've got a plan."
"Is it a good plan?" Sasuke asked.
"Yeah," Naruto said. "I call it…"
"Get her!" his voice cried from another location before a second clone dropped down behind Orochimaru and dived into an attack only to be dispersed.
It was a signal for clones of Naruto to start pouring out of the woodwork and dropping downward to attack Orochimaru even as Naruto Sasuke was talking to rushed to join them.
Behind Sasuke, the Naruto with Ryoko leaped away from the fight and Sasuke grimaced, certain that one was the original and cursed as he was certain that Naruto had left the fight to him and a bunch of expendable clones. Probably didn't even think about how much of a risk that left Sasuke in.
Orochimaru smiled as he danced and tore through the Naruto clones, though the sheer quantity intrigued him greatly. As did their coordination. True, they each had the same poor basic skills and didn't appear to have any jutsu to brag about past the kage bunshin, but at the very least the amount spoke of vast reserves of stamina and power.
A thought occurred to Orochimaru then as he disrupted another pair of clones and watched the numbers dwindling downward. He took in the features of his opponent and his vast stamina and came to a rather basic conclusion.
The jinchuriki?
Sasuke was teamed with a kishu and the village's jinchuriki.
Interesting friends indeed.
Orochimaru watched the clones carefully and noted in particular two. One that sat back and tossed shuriken forward without advancing, an effective decoy for most people who would assume that the clone user was trying to stay out of risk. However, the second Naruto he saw put the lie to that. Clones did not accumulate bruises and injuries like this one was. They took one serious hit, maybe two or three dependent on how much chakra went into them, and then dispersed, but this one Naruto had the bruises and injuries of multiple attempts to press into the front of the fight.
The snake sannin made as if the pile through the clones to attack the intended decoy and smirked as the target followed in his wake, looking for the knockout blow in the moment of surprise. Only to be surprised himself as Orochimaru came to a dead twisting stop and ripped about to slam his hand, glowing with chakra, into Naruto's gut.
Sasuke watched as a look of shock as clones started vanishing around the Naruto that had been struck until that was the only one left and that one was pushed away from Orochimaru with a casual shove.
"It seems I've broken Konoha's little toy," he said idly as Naruto tumbled in the fall that Ryoko had narrowly avoided earlier.
A kunai knife cut through the air and caught through Naruto's jacket, nailing him to the side of a tree.
Orochimaru's eye trailed to see a pink haired form below. Sasuke followed the gaze and looked downward to see the girl that had so frequently pestered their training.
"Sasuke-kun!" she shouted up. "What's going on! Where are …whe…"
She stopped and started clutching at her head in pain as the figure above her stared downward and seemed to somehow reach out into her soul to push something to start growing.
"Is this how you plan to defeat that man then?" Orochimaru asked with a smile. "Catspaws and 'friends'?"
Sasuke flinched and looked down at where the pink haired girl was screaming.
He thought back to that man's words.
"Run little brother, live your ugly life, flee and live until you can face me."
"No," Sasuke snapped, eyes snapping open into the Sharingan.
Orochimaru smiled as the Uchiha heir charged after him.
"Excellent," he thought.
The first few exchanges were expected as he danced around Sasuke with insane speed, speed enough to make the kishu's performance earlier look slow as a snail. Sasuke watched him carefully darting his looks around with those red eyes.
And then they broke off, facing each other and waiting for the exchange to begin.
Orochimaru failed to note a series of motions as significant. Motions that Sasuke had picked up in watching Kodachi and Mokya in their practices, and from watching Ryoko fight. As of yet there was no substance behind them, but it was a sign of a path that the snake sannin did not expect his target to be walking down.
He let the fight continue, up to when he'd dropped the boy after a basic sequence of Taijutsu.
"The Uchiha name is crying," Orochimaru declared, shaking his head as he crept up behind the seemingly down shinobi. "I should just put you out of your…"
And the trio of small hooked explosives erupted behind the ninja, knocking him off balance as the young Uchiha leaped away lashing out with shuriken and kunai trailing wires which he held tightly.
"Excellent," Orochimaru thought as he was pulled back into the tree by the wires to be held helplessly by the fires washing down them.
Orochimaru let the boy have a few moments of victory and give him a chance to catch his breath. Let the boy think that he'd succeeded in killing this Kusagakure genin.
Three intriguing individuals, he thought to himself, very intriguing. They would be excellent foils for Sasuke to set himself against, to measure himself next to. Little focuses of envy and jealously to stir the hate that he'd place in the boys heart.
Even now, his pink haired decoy was moving forward to see if he was okay, released from the enflaming of the infection he'd placed within her.
Sasuke didn't bother to look over at Sakura, his eyes fixed on the figure of the man he had just defeated.
And then watching as that form stirred and broke free before laying out a paralysis jutsu that bent both the shinobi and the medical apprentice to their knees, though it didn't come with the same crippling fear that had accompanied his leaking blood lust.
"Excellent," Orochimaru called out, abandoning the stolen voice of the woman he appeared as . "Very excellent. You are truly a member of the Uchiha clan, I did not think you would be so skilled at this early age. I am called Orochimaru, if you wish to see me again, race to the top of this test, defeat the Otogakure ninja that I have sent here to face you and come to the Village Hidden in the Sound that I control. Bring Sakura-chan with you, if she survives as she is that long."
"Wh..what are you saying," Sakura asked. "We don't want to be anywhere close to you."
"Well, that won't do," Orochimaru said with a smile as he formed a hand sign and his neck stretched out eerily to cross the many yards until he could sink his teeth into Sasuke's neck.
Sakura cried out from where she was and struggled against the paralysis as the awakened primal part of her struggled to strike out against the freak in front of her.
"He will come to me because he wants power," Orochimaru said as he walked away, leaving a crumpling Sasuke alone with Sakura and releasing the paralysis.
Instantly, the pink-haired girl was charging for him an angry shriek only to be caught by Orochimaru and slammed hard against the tree.
The violent primal part of her that had torn apart three genin and driven her forward to attack at the first opportunity now withered away and fled inside herself at the touch of the creature before her and she was left with just herself.
And pain that crawled up through her body and into her mind.
"You have not yet reached your expiration date, Sakura-chan," he said in a mockingly comforting tone. "Nor the end of your usefulness. Don't make yourself more trouble than your worth. Hide these children for me, and then run and run and kill until you wear yourself out. Lead them on a merry little chase."
Then he let her drop in a shivering mass, pain slowly filling her head as he turned about to walk away and vanish in a nimbus of purple flame. Her headache receded as he left.
"Wh..what is going on?" she wondered.
"All right," Kiba said. "Luckily we have our scrolls. Now."
He looked across towards the tower and considered.
"How far are we from the tower?" he asked.
"Five kilometers, maybe less," Shino said. "And we have barely started the test."
"Eh, Hinata," he said. "Did you catch sight of where Ryoko-chan and Naruto are assigned."
"Hmm?" Hinata asked, flinching. "I…wouldn't. I mean it is hidden…"
"Yeah, but did you see where they went?" Kiba asked.
"H..hai," Hinata said. "They're…they're all the way on the other side."
Kiba cursed under his breath.
"Damn it, too far," he muttered, sharing a look with Hinata. "It might take the whole five days to find them in all this. Even for us."
"It is illogical," Shino agreed. "Whatever concerns you have for the girl can wait until we see their team again."
He left out his consideration that there was a high chance that Sasuke and his team would be eliminated most permanently in this competition.
"As we agreed," Neji said, looking around at his team. "This is the time to attack when the other teams are settling down. We've secured food and water for ourselves. Whatever happens, we return here at the appointed time."
"Right, Neji," Tenten said.
"Yosh," Lee agreed.
"Then," Neji said. "Scatter."
Ryoko came up awake slowly, finding herself lying practically out in the open no where like the place she last remembered. Slowly, she pulled herself to her feet and slowly pushed herself into proper posture despite the protests of her nerves and muscles.
"Ano…Uzumaki-san?" she called out. "Uchiha-san?"
When she received no answer she took a long breath and started practicing her hand signs, trying to hit the right one to stir her chakra coils enough to let her see the chi flows properly. Hopefully that way she'd be able to find a trace of her teammates chi and follow that.
It was five minutes of ignoring pain before she stumbled on a hand sign that seemed to work, giving her a flash of the chi around her.
But then it was gone despite her holding the sign solid. She backed up to try the sign she'd been using before that and had no response.
Then she combined them.
After that she combined the last several signs looking for the right combination. Frowning, she focused solidly on setting her chakra coils to spinning the way they had before and tried the various signs again. Slowly, she shifted her attempts toward focusing on the chi flowing through her changed as she managed the hand signs.
Analyzing and adapting, the hallmarks of her family. Eventually, she was able to manage an effect on her chakra that let more chi flow to her mind. A faded and weak image of the surrounding chi came to her and she recognized a thread of corrupted chi filtering itself out, being cleaned and balanced.
Ryoko bit her lip as she realized that she herself had been the source of that corruption and then she slowly started to walk in that direction, letting the chi flow through her to soothe and ease her pains and injuries, encouraging them to heal.
Sakura watched as a squirrel wandered about the edge of the small camp she'd found and felt a chill working up her spine.
Her first thought upon seeing that squirrel had been to consider how cute it was.
It was immediately followed up with an urge to kill it and feel its hot blood over her hands and down her throat.
She tossed out the kunai at the creature as it seemed to consider heading her way, and watched as it fled with a hint of sadness.
She stared down at her hands and watched them shake.
"Wh…what happened to me?" she asked meekly to her two unconscious charges.
Her thoughts shifted as she looked up and saw forms in the weaker shadows, apparently unable to tell the difference between the deepest shadows and the shallow ones.
Why had she been denied graduation if she could tell such basic things better than any of these so-called genin?
She swallowed nervously, and felt the stirring of her second spirit. Again it was more intrusive in its aggressiveness than it had ever been in the past, and she could feel it stirring her muscles to action.
"I'll kill them now and be done with it, Cha!" it seemed to scream in the back of her head.
Sakura shook out her head, shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping the newly bloodthirsty part of her in check.
In the shadows, the Otogakure ninja watching her smiled darkly.
"Look at her shaking in fear at shadows," Zaku said. "Do you think she saw the paper bomb on that squirrel?"
"It looked more like she was panicking like it was a rat," Kin said. "Spoiled little girls like her are delicate."
"I'm not sure that's it," Dosu said, frowning. "Perhaps we'll find out when we go closer."
Lee paused in his patrol as he took in the form twenty falling leaves.
"This is it!" he thought to himself. "If I can catch all twenty of these leaves. I will be able to defeat Neji! If I cannot even catch one, however, I will forever be a hopeless loser."
He dived forward, lunging out at the leaves until all but when were in his grasp.
And then he turned at the last moment as he caught sight of a squirrel rolling about in pain as a fire worked up its back.
Sakura took a deep breath and tensed as the watchers came out of the shadows and she could read their headband protectors and see the Otogakure mark.
These were the ninja that Orochimaru was talking about then?
Her shoulders shook painfully as she tried to hold herself in.
"I can see you there," she called out. "Stay back. I don't want to hurt you."
"She doesn't want to hurt us," the taller man with spiky hair said. "What a brat."
"Just wake up Sasuke there," Dosu said with a laugh. "We want to fight him."
"Well he's not waking up!" Sakura shouted. "I know you're hear for that Orochimaru person, but you're going to have to wait."
The three otogakure flinched at the name that Sakura dropped.
"What's that bruise on Sasuke's neck?" she demanded. "Why are you foreign freaks after Sasuke?"
"What is he thinking, I wonder," Dosu said to his companions.
"What do I care," Zaku asked, shrugging. "I'm going to kill her and this Sasuke right now."
"Hold a moment," Dosu said, glancing toward the kunai Sakura had just tossed, embedded in one of the trees surrounding the clearing.
The one-eyed ninja then looked down toward the ground and looked for any sign of the traps he feared might be there. He found it in the form of freshly turned soil and transplanted grass. Looking up toward Sakura he smiled under his bandages.
"The point of a trap is for it not to be discovered," he said drawing a shiver from Sakura.
"How pathetic," Zaku said as the three ninja leaped forward to clear the suspect earth, and Sakura smirked as she drew kunai and cut the wire behind her.
A log swung down from where it hung slashing through the air toward the three.
"A log!" Zaku shouted.
"A second trap?" Dosu asked. "Watch out! Just kidding!"
He reached out with his gauntleted arm and shattered the log.
"You clearly have no talent!" he declared. "Someone like you should make more of an…"
He cut off his speech as the wires that had been holding the log on its path retracted backwards so fast that he could only barely track their passage and a cascade of kunai and shuriken rained down on the attacking ninja, cutting short their leap as they came down on the ground nursing several cuts.
The girl with the long black hair landed closest and Sakura felt herself surge to her feet at the sight of the older girl's blood.
Eyes wide opened in spite of her lack of desire to watch what she was about to do, Sakura charged forward and slashed upward with her kunai. Kin managed to dodge a lethal blow, but the kunai drew a long slash up her cheek and through one eye, sending the female ninja falling back with a scream.
Sakura was already twisting about to finish the assault when she was blown off of her feet and sent sprawling across the clearing back into the tree she'd hidden Naruto and Sasuke in.
"Little bitch!" Kin shouted. "My eye!"
The pink-haired ninja moved through a short series of hand signs as the ninjas came in to finish the job, letting a log replace her as she shifted in space, taking the risk of leaving the way open to Naruto and Sasuke.
"Where'd she," Zaku demanded before the pink-haired girl fell out of the sky onto his back and slammed her kunai down, missing his spine only do to a last second shove by the sound ninja.
Rolling forward off of her most recent target, Sakura shivered as the blood covering her hands thickened. The pleasure of it still sent her stomach roiling in disgust and she wondered just how it was possible to be both disgusted and pleased by an act.
In any case she was coming slowly to her feet as Dosu charged for her, only to stop cold as she turned to face him. His one visible eye widened heavily as he took in her face, getting his first up close look at it.
Sakura saw the expression and flinched, one hand rising to her face.
And then Lee jumped in to kick the man away.
"I'm not going to allow you to harm this woman," Lee declared proudly, taking a stance.
"Damn Konoha worms," Zaku declared reaching up toward his injured shoulder as he pulled himself upwards. "I'll kill you and the girl."
"No!" Dosu declared. "We're going!"
He eyed the girl and watched her eyes following his every movement with a frown. She had a predator's fixation.
"Take our scroll," he said holding it out toward Lee, but eyeing Sakura nervously.
Slowly, he watched the eagerness behind her face fall away until there was just the shivering girl left.
"Oh, certainly," Lee said, a bit confused. "But this would be hers."
He turned to face Sakura and the pink-haired girl turned swiftly about to prevent him seeing her face.
"Oh…give it to Sasuke-kun," she said, reaching up towards her eyes and feeling around them.
He would normally have no question about taking the girl, but given her eyes, he could no longer be certain. And even if he could take her, his team was not in a position to take her and the green-jump suited ninja, especially in the likelihood that this meant at least two other shinobi were nearby.
"What is Orochimaru doing?" he wondered to himself as he watched Sakura still.
"What the hell are you…" Zaku started to say.
Dosu grabbed him and shoved him about.
"We're going, help Kin," Dosu said. "We'll come at Sasuke later, but not right now."
Lee, confused watched them walk away and then turned toward Sakura again to give her the scroll only to find her gone.
Neji blinked at what he saw as Ryoko Saotome walked toward him with a stride and posture that would have implied that she was perfectly healthy and attending some sort of outdoor society function for the aristocracy. There shouldn't have been much way for her to sit up, much less stand or walk. Pain messages should have been flooding through her given the number of muscle tears and minute cuts he could see in her body.
At his side, even Tenten winced as she took in the blisters she could see covering the girl. Had they seen before she'd started accelerating the healing, they would probably have both been more impressed.
And yet, she walked straight and proper, though very slowly, right up to where he stood before moving to sit into seiza and bowing, which brought a wince from Tenten and an arched eyebrow from Neji, who was noting that, technically, such a bow was only to be directed at one of the main branch of the Hyuuga family.
"Ano…Hyuuga-sama," she said quietly. "M…might I ask you…if you have seen Uchiha-san or Uzumaki-san..I…I f..fear that I may have become…separated somehow."
"We've also been separated from one of our team members," Neji noted.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Tenten asked.
Ryoko swallowed nervously and nodded.
"H…hai," she said with a pleasant smile. "B..but I..I must be appropriately respectful."
"What would you do if you were seeing the Fire Lord?" Tenten asked under her breath.
Sasuke watched across the scene of his parents dead bodies to see his younger self staring there.
"I had no power, so could only watch. If I'd had the power, I could have stopped it."
"If I had had the power."
Ryoko slowly reached out toward the sticks in her hand as Lee explained the scene he had stumbled on and the pink-haired girl he'd found there as well. It didn't take much more than thinking about the fact that she hadn't been around to protect them for an orange flame to spark in her hand and curl up the stick.
She let the now burning stick down into the fire and watched as the corrupt fire burned out and was replaced with regular fire that caught onto the rest of the firewood.
That was too easy.
She couldn't let those fits come so easy. Especially with what she remembered from the fight and how hard it had been to think of anything but direct force. Like a woman flailing about with a broom to kill a rat. There was no strategy to it and it was easily deceived…as she had been.
She drew out a kettle from…somewhere and set it out to boil as she prepared a tray and several cups.
Tenten glanced over and saw the teakettle, provoking a double take as she tried to figure out where the kettle and tea set had come from. Not to mention that it looked like the injured girl was planning to serve them tea and sitting close to a fire despite the sort of pain someone with burns had from being near high heat.
"This…this girl is like Lee," she said quietly. "Or Guy-sensei."
Sakura stopped as she found a calm pool of water and bent down look into the reflection formed on the surface.
Her hand started shaking again as she reached up toward her face and touched one of the purplish colorations lying along the underside of her eyebrows. Below them were her eyes, still green, but now slitted like that man's.
Like that creature.
"What did he do to me?" she asked.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:23)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.