Naruto turned away from the jerk Musk to snap a look toward the medics carrying Ino out of the room as she screamed, a bitter shiver anger working its way down through his body as he did so.
"Naruto Uzumaki..." Hayate called out
He straightened and then turned about.
"Against Shino Aburame!"
"For real?!" Naruto shouted. "That makes six of us that had to fight other Konoha shinobi. What's the deal?!"
Temari, entering from the medical area with a relieved expression rolled her eyes and turned toward the shout.
"There's more of you, idiot!" she shouted back before walking up toward the balcony.
"Naruto-kun, isn't the entire point to test our strength?" Hinata asked quietly. "Even against each other?"
"But that's not what that was!" Naruto declared.
"No, but they're right," Kakashi said. "That's the intent of this exercise. One other thing, Naruto..."
"Yo, are you coming down here or not?" Hayate called out.
"...you're going to be late," Kakashi said and Naruto knew that he was smiling under that mask.
Grumbling, Naruto leaped down to the arena floor to stand across from Shino, who was already patiently waiting for him.
"Are you ready then?" Hayate asked.
"Yeah, yeah," Naruto said. "Hey, Shino."
"Naruto," Shino said with a nod. "Your patriotism is noted and appreciated, but do not expect me to go easy on you as a result."
"I won't," Naruto said with a smile. "As long as you don't mind the fact I'm going to win here."
"You would be equally well advised not to underestimate me," Shino said.
"Just start the fight," Hayate said, stepping back.
"Hai!" Naruto called out, "let's go."
He nodded at Shino, who returned the look and then Naruto charged forward into a leaping kick. Shino barely ducked under the blow and found himself facing a mule kick as Naruto landed.
The Aburame rose up his hands and pushed out so that the powerful kick only sent him falling backwards and having to roll up to his feet.
Naruto twisted about, looking a bit smug as he followed to press Shino, hoping to keep the Aburame busy from using whatever his family's jutsu depended on.
"I know I've heard you've got some hot stuff," Naruto called out. "But you can't do jutsu if you can't do hand signs."
"That depends on the jutsu," Shino declared with huff as failed to completely block a blow.
Naruto followed up the successful attack, ignoring a sound of buzzing, and Shino broke off contact from the pressing assault. The blonde haired shinobi followed close behind, however.
They moved through the more uneven ground then, kicking up dust around them such that, for a moment after a particular strike into the ground by Naruto that raised a large amount of dust, the two lost sight of each other for just a moment.
"You and Hinata have been slowly improving your Taijutsu the past couple of years," Shino said as he danced away, focusing on defense and staying out of Naruto's easy reach. "And incorporating similar motions."
"Yeah, yeah," Naruto said. "Ryoko-chan spars with her a lot too, nights I think."
"That's what I thought," Shino said. "Her particular st..hmph..style is to invite pursuit and trip up the attacker until they're off balance and she presses the attack on the unbalanced foe."
Naruto paused and considered that thoughtfully.
"Is that what she does?" he said before shaking his head and continuing. "Whatever, why does it matter?"
"It matters because both you and Hinata have become skilled in pressing an attack, and individuals lean towards performing what they are most skilled at," Shino explained.
At that Naruto kicked Shino's legs out from under him and the other boy fell backwards to the ground, exploding into a cloud of insects that swarmed over Naruto.
"Wh...what the hell?!" Naruto demanded.
Some meters away, a stone started to straighten up as a similar swarm of insects peeled away from it to reveal Shino.
"Kikaichu," he said. "Parasitic insects that feed on chakra. I took the opportunity to produce a clone of insects in the moment the dust cut us both off. I'm sorry, Naruto, but this match is..."
And the Naruto covered in the bugs vanished from view just before a kick came in from behind and slammed into the small of Shino's back. Wincing and stumbling forward, collapsing to his knees and then rolling to a standing position, Shino turned to face his attacker in surprise.
"Yeah, I took the same opportunity," Naruto said. "If there's anything sparring Ryoko will tell you, it's that an easy opening is a trap."
Shikamaru and Choji came in from the infirmary in the back with Asuma in time to catch sight of both reversals and froze at the base of the stairs.
"Is that Naruto?" Choji asked.
"Was that a kage bunshin?" Shikamaru wondered. "First Ino and now Naruto. If everybody keeps this up, they're going to make me look bad and force me to take myself seriously. Tsh, how troublesome."
They continued up the stairs, watching the developing fight.
Naruto continued the attack then as Shino retreated back, a cloud of insects separating him from his opponent.
"Your use of clones is not unexpected," Shino noted as Naruto started to move around the swarm. "I did take precautions myself."
One section of the swarm broke off and started making its way further up the arena away from either Shino or Naruto.
Naruto, the Naruto visible, blinked and followed the progress of the swarm with an initial note of confusion and then gasped.
"Hey! Move!" he shouted.
Suddenly, another rock rose up from among the debris and leaped up into air away from the oncoming swarm. A moment later, the clone that had warned Naruto was swarmed and soon popped into a cloud of smoke.
"Damn it!" Naruto shouted. "How the hell did you know I was over here?"
"The female Kikaichu has a subtle smell that the only the male can pick out unerringly," Shino explained as his bugs pressed forward to close in around Naruto. "One such female is somewhere on your person."
"You put a bug on me?" Naruto protested.
"Given what you've witnessed, I think it would be safe to say that is a correct, if imprecise, way of describing my jutsu as a whole," Shino said by way of explanation.
Naruto landed some distance away amongst some debris and cursed as several of the rocks around him melted away into further swarms of insects that started to swarm up his legs.
"Itai!" Naruto shouted.
"A distraction only works if it cannot be distinguished as such," Shino noted.
The sound of dispelling henges behind Shino turned his attention around as two other Narutos appeared out of the rocks around him and first one and then the other struck him.
At one time, Naruto's skill with Taijutsu had been weaker than Shino's, but that had passed some time ago, and with two Naruto's pushing in on him, he had little choice but to call most of his insects in to swarm between him and the attacking clones.
Naruto himself brushed off the bugs that still pressed him, feeling the drain on his chakra as they fed off of him. As most of the bugs pulled off to return to and defend Shino from his clones, however, and he was able to brush off the majority of the remaining bugs such that the ones left were not a big drain on his stamina.
He set down to catch his breath as two more of his clones erupted into smoke and he had a sudden burst of imagination of what it must feel like to be eaten alive by insects.
However, he could see that Shino was favoring one side heavily and breathing tightly. His clones had done some damage before they were eliminated.
Grimacing, he stood up and went through the hand signs again to summon more clones.
Shino's eyebrows widened as another five clones came into existence around his tired opponent. His estimations of Naruto's stamina were far, far off the mark it seemed, if he was still able to create so many clones this far into the fight.
"All right, Shino," the Narutos shouted. "Are you ready?"
"Of course," Shino said, straightening himself as the five hordes came in towards him.
At the edge of the swarms, two Narutos leaped out as one other paused to serve as a spring board for the next two. He'd launched the fourth Naruto forward just as the bugs swarmed over the clone and dissipated him into smoke.
The clones that had leaped on their own landed in the midst of Shino's bugs, but lasted long enough to catch and hurl the next two further on. Then they were devoured by the bugs, bursting into insubstantial smoke.
The last two clones hurled out a pair of shuriken which Shino felt scrape along his skin as he failed to completely dodge them, then they landed just behind Shino's swarm, almost within reach of Shino himself.
"Got you now!" both of them shouted as they came in.
Shino narrowed his eyes and flung out his hands, unleashing the last of his swarms outward at the two Narutos and he watched them burst into clouds of smoke.
Surprised, the bug user spread his hands to send his swarms looking for the female bug that he'd placed on Naruto, hoping that it had escaped Uzumaki's purge in the last exchange.
All the bugs swarmed out across the arena then as Shino scanned the area, glancing down as two more groups of insects came up from behind him and hung close about, responding to a desire fore having a defense close by he assumed.
The insects spread out, scouring the field and roaming further afield as Shino scanned with his own eyes, guarded by only the swarms that had stayed with him as his allies spread themselves out thinner and thinner.
His eyes scanned backwards then and confirmed that there was nothing behind him that could be a henged clone. He was about to turn back when he realized that there were also no shuriken behind him.
Arching an eyebrow he glanced down at the swarms at his feet more closely, but before he could see that the supposed swarms were actually two whole entities, they each burst into smoke to reveal copies of Uzumaki Naruto.
And this time his allies were farther out and more scattered than before, and he was already worn from the last such surprise attack.
He had a moment to be embarrassed at being so deceived before he was thrown back unconscious.
"Well," a second Kakashi said as he appeared out of a burst of smoke. "This is the original prankster."
The Kakashi that had been watching the entire time laughed in response and dispersed into smoke itself.
"Wai!" Ryoko called out. "Congratulations Uzumaki-san! Wai! Wai!"
She beamed with desire for the next time they sparred, recognizing that some of the stratagems had been made to counter her.
"Naruto-kun," Hinata said quietly.
Farther down the balcony, Team Ten and Kiba watched with their senseis.
"That's clearly not that Naruto anymore," Shikamaru said, shaking his head.
"That's very surprising," Choji agreed as he ate his snacks.
"He's getting as dangerous as anybody else," Kiba noted.
Kurenai shook her head in surprise.
"To think that Naruto should advance so far," she noted, shaking her head.
"Winner!" Hayate called as he tried to avoid the bugs retreating back to Shino's unconscious form. "Naruto Uzumaki."
"Yes!" Naruto shouted happily. "Haha!"
Hayate watched and shook his head with a smirk.
He climbed up the steps with enthusiasm, meeting Hinata as she was on her way down.
"Congratulations, Naruto-kun," she said.
"Thanks, Hinata-chan," Naruto said and then blushed a bit. "Umm, sorry that I beat up your teammate."
"Oh," Hinata said nervously, looking down toward where Shino was being gingerly looked over by a pair of medics who looked like they might be insectophobes. "I'm sure he would have done the same, Naruto-kun."
"Umm, yeah, I think he actually tried," Naruto said nervously, scratching the back of his head.
"I...I should go see if he's fine," Hinata said, blushing and starting to walk past Naruto, but stopping and turning to offer Naruto a jar of medicinal herbs.
"Oh, thank you, Hinata-chan," he said. "Your medicine is great stuff by the way. Have you ever thought about being a medical ninja?"
"Umm, no," Hinata said.
"I'd bet you'd be great," Naruto said.
Hinata blushed and ducked her head briefly before continuing down the stairs towards where Shino was being looked over.
Naruto frowned briefly at the reaction, wondering what he'd said and then walked up the stairs the rest of the way, trying to puzzle it out.
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(Posted Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:44)
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