"All right, Shikamaru!" Ino declared. "That was a little boring, but at least you won!"
Asuma leaned over and spoke to the blonde mind-ninja then, tapping his cigarette out.
"Now's probably not the time to be calling a match boring," he noted laughingly as he pointed toward a board.
Ino looked and saw her name matched up against Thyme, the other of those perverted outsiders. She grimaced and nodded.
Asuma stood back up and wondered at the kunoichi's seriousness as she moved down toward the arena floor. He'd have half expected her to be scared stiff as she was chosen to face another of these chi-users pretending to be shinobi.
Instead, she'd firmed up her jaw and headed downstairs to face her match thoughtfully.
"Isn't that a bit out of character for her?" Asuma wondered out loud.
"Ino's been like that since we captured Sakura," Choji noted.
"Captured," Shino noted, looking toward the other two members of Team Ten.
He'd heard bits and pieces of what had happened with the stubborn pink-haired girl since the other team had arrived. None of it added up to anything good, but this was the first time he'd heard of a capture.
He narrowed his eyes under his classes and looked toward the two jonin exchanging an uncomfortable look.
"Sakura and Ino have been close a long time," Kiba noted casually. "Friends and then rivals, even I know that. If something bad happened to my sister, I know I'd be angry, even if she is annoying."
Thyme watched the slight blonde coming down to face him and didn't expect too much trouble. The old Musk theories were odd for misogynists. They didn't deny that women could be strong, in fact it was the basis of much of their culture to seek out and capture strong women to add their strength to the Dynasty. Or else curse powerful men or monsters and lock them with the ladle to do the same.
It seemed kind of counter that women should be prized for intelligence and strength and power, but denied any rights so that their gifts were tied down and handicapped. Not even to be used as weapons, they were just to be used as bearers of sons.
Herb, and three emperors before her, had tried to change that, though they remained highly bigoted themselves until Herb was cursed and returned with that strange woman as a queen in the wake of the Anything Goes war. The peasantry had been getting out of hand in response, so the traditionalists had finally stepped in to fix matters.
Still, he didn't think this loud girl was worth anything.
The sickly man proctoring the fights, and Thyme wondered how he expected to enforce his decisions, called it to begin and the fight was on.
Gaara watched Ino take the field and stand ready, watching the cast of her face. It was very close to what she'd shown when he confronted her before.
He wondered what sort of strength she'd show here to backup her determination. To define herself by stopping "bastards like him."
He glanced over toward the other opponent and found nothing there interest there. The badger-like man's face was broad and his eyes were stupidly fixed.
There was no loneliness there.
This was someone who had never known true suffering, he was just a thug with an elevated self-worth. There was no fire in his eye to match what the blonde girl had shown him earlier either.
"There's a lot of these brats in this..." Temari started to say.
"Quiet," Gaara snapped coolly. He thought for a moment and added, "Go see if that fool has permanently injured himself."
"Right," Temari said, heading for where the medics had taken Kankuro.
She spared her youngest brother a cautious glance as she left.
Ino remembered the discussion of the previous match with one of these "Tanigakure" people and went on the offensive immediately, darting around the man's first punch out at her, and only barely avoiding being creamed.
She slashed out with a kunai at him, only to feel it scratch against her opponent's skin with a sound like drawing it across stone and barely drawing any blood at all.
"Hmph," the man said. "You think you're going to hurt me with that little toy?"
Ino dodged again and then slammed a kick up into her opponent, the short badger-like man intercepted her blow with a painful block and then his other hand flashed out to smack into Ino's head with a dismissive slap that none the less rocked her painfully back on her feet.
"You don't have the strength to stall me up and separate me from the chi, girl," he said pushing forward and bringing a knee up into her stomach.
The kunai in Ino's hand was tossed aside as she doubled over only to be lifted up by her opponent, the man not much taller than himself, by the throat.
"I have the strength and toughness of the fiercest badgers of the Jusenkyo Valley," he boasted. "And harnessed by a Chi Gung that is second only to the Breaking Point technique of..."
And then the girl in his hand puffed into smoke to reveal the same kunai that she had dropped, the handle wrapped up in some sort of paper that started sizzling in his hand a moment before exploding in his face.
Shikamaru leaned forward, eyes wide in surprise. Choji and Asuma beside him both moving to the edge of the field as well.
"What the hell?" Shikamaru said.
"Is... is that Ino?" Choji asked.
"She's seriously fired up," Asuma thought to himself.
Ino coughed out, clearing her throat as she saw her opponent stumble backwards off his feet, blood streaming from several small cuts that the shrapnel and explosion had sliced into him, but he was clearly not down.
The man reached his feet quickly and came after her. He was much slower than his partner, but Ino herself was no speed freak like either Kiba or even Sasuke. She was faster than he was, in hand and foot speed, but only marginally. And she was sure he could outrun her.
He didn't seem to be all that bright either, but if she were honest, she hadn't made the best use of her brains in the past. Though she did have a great example of brains on her team if she just stopped to think about it.
Using the Mind Switch was her only real hope of beating him, she thought bitterly. Perhaps it was just her fixating on her one skill, but whatever the case, it was what she had determined. Even with the explosive tags she still had, "borrowed" from Shikamaru over the last couple of days, she didn't think she could wear him down enough.
All she had were the basics: basic clones, transformations and substitutions. With her Mind Switch and Chakra Rope jutsu in addition to that.
In the meantime, she had to stay out of the man's grasp, backing away desperately. His taijutsu was a lot better than hers, and added to her pathetic strength and his monstrous stamina.
She had no chance in close combat.
"So what would Shikamaru do in this case?" she wondered. "What would Asuma-sensei do?"
As the man put on a burst of speed and threatened to catch up to her, she performed the substitution jutsu again, letting a large chunk of debris be pulverized in her place.
Thyme turned about to face her and virtually growled in frustration.
"Is running away all you're going to do?" he wondered irritably. "Hardly worth the trouble."
"Quiet!" Ino shouted, laughing sharply. "There's no way I'm letting myself be upstaged by that smelly dog-boy!"
"Smelly...?" Kiba said, blinking.
He bent over to try to get a whiff of his own sent and frowned before turning toward Shino.
"Am I sm...."
"Hai," the bug user noted simply.
Shino winced and grumbled before turning back toward the fight as Ino threw out three shurikan at the charging Musk, her back to the wall.
Ino watched her shuriken diverted easily to the wind and winced as the badger man's punch moved to slam into her face again. For the third time, her body vanished in puff of smoke and Thyme was punching a shuriken into the wall.
His own strength pushed the sharp blades of the shuriken deep into his hand between his middle and ring fingers, almost driving a split down the middle of his hand.
"OWWWW!!!" he growled. "You'll pay for that!"
He leaped upward into the air again and slammed down behind the image of Ino where she appeared elsewhere in the arena. The blonde shrunk in nervously as the man swung a kick through her.
And passed straight through the clone.
"Phantom?!" he declared, before feeling a trace of intent from behind.
Ryoko watched the man fighting and grimaced. He was still only using yang, but he paced himself better. He pushed most of his yang into his skin and body. The yang desiring to push every outward repelling attacks and seeming to harden his skin and enhance his muscles.
His speed was good but nothing terrible, and he could stay in the flows of yang much longer than the other. He lost momentum when he changed directions, but his pace was so mild that he'd hardly notice the loss.
Ryoko couldn't figure out whether he was clever for someone who only understood half the Tao, or if he was just so stupid undeveloped that he didn't notice the loss when he changed directions.
Either way, she didn't like Ino's chances, and that made her more than a little worried.
"Whoa!" Naruto called out beside her. "Go, Ino! Go! You've got him on the ropes!"
"Ano..." Ryoko said as she and Hinata looked toward Naruto and exchanged glances.
"Are you watching the same battle?" Neji wondered idly.
"She can do it!" Naruto declared, before turning toward the others on the balcony with him. "You can do it, Ino!"
"Oh!" Gai shouted. "Do you see that, Lee?!"
"Hai, sensei!" Lee declared. "She certainly burns with the fires of youth!"
"Even Asuma's jonin have taken up the true path," Gai declared loudly.
"Those idiots are going to ruin my concentration," Ino muttered from her position amongst the debris.
Thyme turned about to see a rock vanish into a puff of smoke and three separate blonde girls run in three separate directions as they each launched a tag-wrapped explosive at him.
Thyme grimaced dangerously and swung his arm through an arc to intercept all three kunai and divert them. The solid arch of chi trailing his hand turned visible as he tried to push yang through yin.
Two of the kunai were unaffected and his hand passed through them without affecting their path. The third, the middle arched upward and exploded above him washing fire over his body but not doing more than singing his tunic.
"I have you," he said, darting forward and ignoring the two images that had tossed the fake kunai.
He landed just behind her as she ran, trying to reposition. He sneered and reached to grab hold of her long pony tail and pulled back, satisfied at the solid feel of what he was holding.
The Musk expected her to replace herself with something again, instead, she reached back with another kunai and sliced through the base of ponytail and darted aside again.
Tossing the bundle of hair in his hand away, Thyme whipped about and lifted a chunk of debris to toss at her.
Ino winced as the stone struck her in the side and sent her rolling and nursing a bruised side.
She kicked herself back up to her hands and knees at the far extent of where the Musk had tossed her hair and put her hands down as if she were drained and out of endurance.
"Not a bad show," Thyme said as he stepped forward, and, on the third step felt his foot refuse to come up.
"This is the end," Ino said firmly, straightening her posture and stepping one of her feet on the trail of chakra running through her hair to wrap about Thyme's ankle.
"What do you think this will solve?" Thyme demanded as he shifted about his bound foot and watched Ino.
"No, no," Shikamaru shouted, watching the fight below. "You only caught one foot, Ino! Don't try it!"
"What can he do with one foot?" Ino wondered as she drew up her hands into the sign. "Mind Body Sw..."
Ino called out with a victorious tone of voice.
Thyme lifted up the one unbound foot and slammed it down into the ground shouting himself.
"Eight Horse Stomp!" he shouted, impacting the ground just ahead of Ino finishing her jutsu.
A tremor rippled out through the arena outward just barely more than thirty meters, causing some of the spectators to firm up their grip on the bars or even tumble to their feet.
...itch," Ino finished.
She was unable to stop the activation of the jutsu and watching hopelessly as her aim was thrown off and her spirit was released outward into the open air. Her own body fell back limp and unresponsive.
Thyme walked up to her, confused as he tapped her body.
"Eh," he wondered. "Some sort of seizure?"
Then he punched down into her chest, receiving no response. He moved on to pressing his weight down on her right hand until he heard cracks.
"Hey," Hayate said. "That's enough! This fight is..."
Thyme pulled his leg back and kicked it forward, propelling Ino outward to the wall like a rubber ball, where she struck and bounced to the ground, leaving a wet red spot on the stone.
Thyme shrugged and moved forward to kick her again, as Hayate worked over his shock to make a move. The short, thick man's foot cut through the air for Ino's head.
She'd be a lot more properly manageable with maybe a snapped spine or scrambled brains.
And found his foot stopped solid by a growing wall of clutching sand.
He glanced around for the murderous intent driving the sand and looked to see the fierce eyes of another brat glaring down at him from the balconies.
In the next moment, the sand was gone and s pair of knives were placed at Thyme's throat, who was pressed down to the ground. Above him, Asuma was cooling glaring down into the young Musk's face.
"The match has been called," he said firmly.
"Gaara...intervened on behalf of that girl?" Baki wondered, flinching. "Why would he do that?"
"She's not for you," Gaara whispered to the open air. "She claims to exist for others, like a fool. I'll test that existence myself."
He narrowed his eyes as the sand quietly returned to his gourd.
A spirit still floating in the air and separate from her physically wracked body, listened and would have shivered if she could have. Then Ino thought of what this snake-freak had done to Sakura and steeled herself again before floating back to her body.
As soon as she reattached, she practically screamed at the sudden awareness of intense pain.
"She's back in her body!" one of the medics called out. "Give her a sedative.
She was vaguely aware of Team Ten coming to the side of her stretcher before the sedation jutsu and drugs started to work on her.
Was Shikamaru actually running to her side? That had to be a hallucination.
Naruto glared across as the fake shinobi, now free of the proctors and Asuma, he took a position with the others on the other side of the arena. He looked bored from where Naruto stood.
"Ino-san," Hinata said with a gasp.
Ryoko watched the musk as well.
"Ano..." she said quietly. "That...that is a terrible lack of respect for a w...worthy opponent."
"That was close," the Hokage said. "If she hadn't underestimated the danger at the end there."
"She's certainly surpassed the records we have of her performance," Ibiki noted.
"She's part of the team that captured the Haruno girl?" Hiruzen Sarutobi asked.
"Apparently a long time acquaintance of the same girl," the interrogator agreed. "Tragedy has been the motive for improvement in the past."
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(Posted Wed, 22 Sep 2010 04:44)
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