"All right," Naruto said, standing up. "I guess I'm next."
"That's right, Naruto, go ahead and step forward," Kurenai said. "Let's see, Neji can you continue to monitor things with your byakugan, I'd like to get your opinions after this."
Neji nodded, keeping his face impassive. That was a very polite of saying it would be useless to send him against one of these two, assuming Naruto had the same sort of defensive measure.
"Go ahead, Neji," Gai-sensei said.
"Right," Neji said with his perpetual frown.
His useless cousin had apparently found a method to get around her lack of talent in the jyuken. That supposed hour she was gone, during which she'd aged two years and come back as a ranked expert in a foreign system of chakra-use that made jyuken much less of an advantage than it once had been.
"How did you do that?" Ino asked. "Those were chunin Hyuga!"
The gorgon had returned to her human disguise.
"I'll explain later," Hinata said and then blinked. "Ino-chan, I doubt I can get you a device such as Kleinhoffen, but I think Naruto and I can find a device for maintaining a simple henge for you."
"Stop calling me Ino-ch...Really!??" Ino asked in a terribly pleased tone of voice.
"I do not think it would be a problem," Hinata said.
"Oh that would be awesome!" Ino declared.
Anko frowned thoughtfully at that, such an item would be remarkably useful.
"We should watch," Hinata said quietly.
"Eh, Naruto?" the gorgon said doubtfully. "You're not just saying that because it's you watching Naruto?"
"Huh," Hinata responded flushing brightly. "No, no. I...Naruto is...uh..."
"Hey look, they're out on the field," Anko said, drawing Hinata's attention that way.
"Let us make this a wonderful expression of our youthful heart!" the boy in the green jumpsuit said. "I am Rock Lee, Konoha's Green Beast and I shall prove a great opponent for you."
"All right," Naruto said with a smile. "Let's get to it, Mjolnir!"
[Set-Up. Barrier Jacket. Rumble Mode]
Neji watched as a bright enveloped Naruto and chakra started flowing through him into the device and out to form the same sort of protective effect Hinata had used as well as growing the amulet to the size of a full war hammer.
The uniform was predictably spectacular given Naruto's personality. His Konoha headband was still proudly around his brow. It looked something like a long trench coat that buttoned up to a high neck and which flared out near his waist. It looked like a bright orange version of a popular movie from his Takamachi-sensei's home town. Something about a world where everybody lived in a giant genjutsu being used as chakra batteries for some sort of machine thing.
Naruto had thought it was pretty cool and had watched shortly before helping design his Barrier Jacket's first form.
"Begin!" Kurenai called out.
"All right," Naruto said. "Let's get this started. Shadow Clone!"
The burst of smoke that covered the field faded away to reveal five Naruto's standing there across from Lee and holding their hammers readily before they charged forward to meet Lee.
Lee smiled and ducked and weaved through the Narutos that came at him. One swung it's hammer in high as the next swung low, looking to catch him in the middle between the two. Lee slipped out of that easily with a forward flip, listening as the two clones passed by each other behind him. A third came and twisted into a roundhouse which Lee dodged under before returning with a swift and more successful roundhouse smashed through this opponent. The last two came in then as the first also joined in.
From the sidelines, Neji watched with his Byakugan and frowned as he took in the clones assaulting his team member. And they were all clones, that was one disadvantage Naruto's Barrier Jacket and device had. To those that could see chakra, it was clear which was the clone and which real.
For one thing, Naruto was currently twenty feet above the battle field and watching the fight between his clones and Lee. Two wings of orange light were formed at his feet and crackling obviously to Neji's byakugan.
"This is it?" Ino asked. "He just throws numbers at people? Sounds like one of Naruto's plans."
"Nah," Anko said, looking around for where the real Naruto was. "This is analysis."
Her eyes wandered upward and the special-jonin's eyes widened in surprise before chuckling.
"Well, that's not something you see everyday," Anko said.
Ino blinked and followed the woman's gaze before flinching.
"Can you do that?" Ino asked.
"Yes, but it wasn't of use in my fight," Hinata said.
"How is flying not of use?" the gorgon demanded.
"I'm a close range fighter primarily," Hinata reminded her.
Gai frowned and nodded as he also realized what Naruto was doing and watched as the last clone in battle with Lee was popped.
"Ehh, Naruto? Where are you?" the boy wondered.
"Up here, Bushy Brow!" Naruto shouted calling Lee's attention. "Now that we're warmed up..."
He smirked as he swung his hammer around above his head.
"Uzumaki Shower!" He shouted, sending a burst of orange energy burst out of the head of the hammer and rained down on the field below in explosive bursts.
"That's...not the best name," Ino said as Anko snickered and Hinata blushed.
Lee jumped around the blasts and the explosions a little bit frantically, at least to the uninformed eye, but he came out of it more or less untouched.
As to Naruto The guy was so clearly holding back, everything about him reminded Naruto of Fate-sensei when she wasn't in Sonic Form. The reflexes were so much higher than the body's speed it was almost ridiculous.
The guy had to be a lot faster than this.
"Gai, ask Tenten to go ahead and join in," Kurenai said. "Looks like Naruto wants to play with range."
"Right, Tenten," Gai said.
"Wait..." Naruto said.
"Hey, I can play to," Anko noted loudly. "And isn't fair that the boyfriend get's just as much opposition as the girlfriend?"
Kurenai wanted to comment something about Anko acting like a school child yelling "pick me" for a game of ninja, but just shrugged it off and waved the woman in.
Tenten nodded and jumped in summoning up a swirling chain from one of her scrolls and lashing it upwards to wrap around one of Naruto's feet.
"What the...?" Naruto managed to say just before he was pulled down.
He flashed through a series of signs just as a line of senbon stabbed into him, then the appearance of his body popped into smoke revealing a log and his opponents to turned to look where he was materializing.
Lee charged forward as he caught sight of Naruto again, moving at the best speed he could without the weights, and smiled as another cloud of smoke ripped up revealing a new batch of clones.
One of the Narutos leaped back, not bothering to take to the air where both Anko and Tenten had an open line to him. He looked and noted four of his clones focusing only on blocking Lee, somewhat, and three others stringing out in front of him to watching for the attacks coming from Tenten and Anko.
"He's not even trying to disguise which is him right now?" Kurenai asked.
Tenten tossed out a small salvo of shuriken which embedded into one of Naruto's clones dissipating it as another was grabbed by four snakes and pulled in toward the grinning Anko to be dissipated by a kunai.
Naruto turned to fire singular blasts of orange chakra at both ranged specialists watching as they dodged away, but relieved that it was at least keeping them a little too busy to take out his third clone.
"Running fight!" he called out.
"All right!" one of the other clones declared.
"Think it, idiot!" a second noted.
"Think it?" Kurenai said with a interested look to her face.
The two remaining clones fighting Lee backed off then as Naruto did, moving defensively as Naruto himself held off firing small blasts again to swing his hammer about for several seconds before lashing it forward.
"Uzumaki Hurricane!" he shouted as a wide burst of wind washed over the battlefield ahead of him.
Ino from the sidelines felt herself start to be thrown back until Hinata reached out an arm to catch her and pull her closer in. The gorgon looked up to see why Hinata wasn't being blown away and found themselves surrounded by a small circle of energy that seemed to cancel out all the wind.
"What's this?" Ino asked.
"It's for when Naruto does that," Hinata said with a smile.
As for the others, Tenten landed out of a flip twenty feet behind were either of the other two girls in her age were sitting. Anko had landed against a tree and held their smirking as the wind died down. Lee planted his feet and dug a furrow as he stubbornly held against the spell's force
On the sidelines Kurenai, Gai and Neji, even on the outside of the effect, felt themselves pushed back. Neji and Kurenai found themselves taking several steps away from the wind storm while it died down to reveal Naruto standing alone in the middle of the wind cleared patch of land.
Immediately, Tenten, Anko and Lee were charging forward again.
"Wind Scythe!" Naruto shouted slashing his hammer forward.
A wide sickle shape washed across the field then as the three testing Naruto found themselves forced to leap over it and putting them into the air away from anchors.
Grimacing as he failed to strike any of opponents, Naruto swung Mjolnir straight up into the sky.
"Evening Wind!" he shouted as the hammer flew up into the air above him and he brought his hands together in another sign. "Shadow Clone!"
"'Evening Wind' was not a technique," Neji noted to Kurenai.
"Really, what was that then?" the jonin wondered.
Anko and Tenten stopped well away from Naruto and his newest army of six clones as Lee dived into the mix. Without the hammer he was more used to using, Naruto and his copies were surpassed by Lee's jutsu. And the flood of highly accurate shuriken and senbon was hard to deal with too. The clones were making heavy use of the substitution jutsu to avoid being dissipated as long as possible.
It was beginning to be easy to spot the real Naruto from the lot as his Barrier Jacket sustained damage and the clones scattered around, trying to resist the attempts to herd them back into position to be easily dealt with. Until the last of the clones popped into smoke beside him.
On one side, Lee was staring at him, looking slightly the worse for the wear and Tenten on the other smirking at him while wielding a pair of hook swords. Behind them Anko was humming and casually moving through some hand signs as if practicing a new jutsu or something.
"Well, looks like we have this one, Naruto," Tenten said with a smirk.
Naruto pointed up.
Lee and Tenten frowned and looked in the direction in time to see the hammer falling down toward their direction, just as Naruto popped into a log.
[Downburst], Mjolnir sounded almost bored.
And the blast of wind following the hammer slammed Tenten and Lee straight down into the ground as the wind pushed a gouge into the ground around them.
A moment later the hammer rose up from the two downed ninja and zipped straight to Naruto's hands.
"Ha, looks like this one's mine," Naruto said with a satisfied laugh.
Which was when the snake appeared and bit down through the layer of chakra that was his barrier jacket into his shoulder.
"Or maybe not," Anko said as she pulled the snake back into her sleeve and Naruto's eyes closed and he fell over. "Don't worry, he's just unconscious, I mostly do captures remember. Dead captures aren't useful."
That last was in response to the sudden approach of Hinata at Naruto's drop.
"You didn't bring that to an early end," Gai noted to Kurenai quietly.
"I can trust these guys just to have fun," Kurenai responded. "It's clear how they're used to operating."
"Hmm, Hinata intercepts and blocks while Naruto attacks from a distance and supports with his clones," Gai said.
"The weapon can't be effectively cloned," Neji noted.
"So any power he needs the hammer for, only the real him can use," Kurenai said, nodding. "We'll have to see if he knows when to risk being revealed and when not to. So, let's go wake them up."
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(Posted Sat, 21 May 2011 10:02)
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