"Kiba!" Hinata snapped.
Kiba, in mid-lunge, tripped and fell on his face. Did Hinata just snap at me? He looked up at her, disbelief on his face.
"Teamwork, remember?" she asked. Blood was rushing from her face in record quantities, but for all that she looked like she was ready to faint, her stance was stable and her voice was steady.
Naruto stared. He had a pretty good idea of just how shy Hinata was. Damn, she was pretty…he didn't know what she had but he liked it when she was standing up for herself like that.
Hinata saw Naruto staring at her. Their eyes met. Hinata's blood got whiplash as she went from paling to blushing. "I, uh, that is, eep."
"Hinata's right," Sakura snapped. "We're all ninjas of Konohagakure. We shouldn't be fighting eachother. Besides, Sasuke is…"
"Awake," Shino said calmly.
"Eh?" Naruto asked, looking behind him at the less than unconscious ninja.
Sasuke was slowly getting to his feet. Sakura went to his side and put her arms around him supportingly. "Sasuke! You shouldn't try to stand so soon."
Sasuke took a few deep breaths and shoved Sakura away roughly. "Enemies!?" he shouted, looking up. Everyone gasped and took a step back. The curse mark was active, though they didn't understand that. All they saw were black marks swimming on Sasuke's skin like some kind of blight. His Sharingan were active, which had to be a drain on his chakra.
Sasuke didn't give them longer to react. He ran past Naruto and charged Kiba, laughing insanely. "I see you! You're too slow!"
Kiba quickly forgot about teamwork but was pushed to the defensive by Sasuke's assault. Bluster aside, he knew that on a level playing field he was no match for the Rookie of the Year. And whatever was going on with Sasuke, this wasn't a level field. His punches and kicks were heavier, faster. He wasn't holding back an iota. And he was laughing like it was all some kind of game. "What is this?" Kiba muttered. It was all he could do to keep up and he was still getting pummeled; Sasuke was throwing in so many kicks with his punches that Kiba was pretty sure he was hovering or something crazy like that. Then a blow came that Kiba couldn't block or absorb. The punch made the world go all spinny, and somewhere Kiba realized that he was literally spinning like a top around one foot.
Sasuke laughed as Kiba went down and spun to deliver a roundhouse to Hinata.
Naruto was suddenly and simply there between Sasuke and Hinata, his arm up to intercept the kick with the other arm bracing that one. He had a serious expression on his face. "Wake up!" he yelled. Two clones attacked Sasuke from behind, grabbing him around the ankles and knocking him down onto the branch they fought on. "Sasuke!"
Sasuke spun onto his feet, his face a mask of hatred. "Naruto!"
Naruto returned the glare evenly. "I'm not talking to you, teme," he growled. "I don't know what's going on, but you're not Sasuke."
Sasuke ran some handseals and breathed a ball of fire at Naruto. When the flames cleared, Naruto was still there, behind a wall of half-melted ice. And he had been joined by a dozen clones. "Sasuke would never betray the pride we have as shinobi of Konoha!" he yelled. The wall shattered and the clone squad ran forward.
Sasuke didn't have enough awareness to have expectations, but he still knew on some level that clones should disperse after a single solid hit. That in mind, he went into a taijutsu dance that wouldn't strike the same clone twice while still evading their own crude attacks. Had they been shadow clones, it might have actually worked.
Buried under a dozen ice sculptures of Naruto, the small part of Sasuke's brain that was active realized that someone had changed the rules of engagement when he wasn't paying attention.
Naruto walked over to Sasuke and calmly slapped him with his open palm. "Oi! You awake, Sasuke?"
Sasuke's eyes faded back to normal and the black marks receded…slightly. "Naruto?" he asked. His voice was a pained hiss, moreso than it should have been from the damage Naruto had inflicted.
Naruto sighed. "Good." He offered a small smile.
The marks receded…a bit more. "I think I'm out of chakra," he grumbled. "Could you get your attempts at self-expression off me, dobe?"
"He has regained his sensibilities," Shino noted emotionlessly.
Kiba's eyes spun. "No mommy I do not want pancakes for breakfast. I like my skull unflattened."
"But I believe Kiba will need help walking in a straight line," Shino added in the same tone.
"What happened to him?" Sasuke asked with what might have been curiosity.
"Some stranger showed up and beat the crap out of him," Naruto said. "You fought him off and he ran."
"Oh," Sasuke said. That explained where his chakra went. "Hey, dobe."
"Yeah?"
"Why haven't you unburied me yet? This is really quite cold."
"How did you know the tower was this way?" Kiba asked.
Teams Seven and Eight were speeding through the forest at high speed. Hinata's byakugan had found the tower very quickly, but that didn't explain how Naruto and Sakura knew where they were going. Or how Sasuke didn't.
"Uh," Naruto stumbled. He wasn't good at the whole lying deception ninja thing.
"The nin we took down," sakura explained. "He…they knew where it was already."
"And they told you?" Shino asked blandly.
Sakura belatedly realized Team Eight was an information specialist team. "They sketched a map."
"We burned it," Naruto added.
"Right, we burned it so no one else could use it," Sakura agreed.
"That makes sense," Hinata mumbled. After all, Naruto wouldn't lie to her just after saving her. At least, not if it wasn't important. They were ninja; sometimes knowing when to look underneath the underneath wasn't as important as knowing when to stop. "The tower should be in sight now," she said hopefully.
Naruto landed on a branch and made a particularly high jump that left a pair of icy footprints behind. "There it is!" he confirmed.
"I bet we're the first teams done," Kiba bragged.
"What do you mean a team beat us!?" Kiba yelled.
Iruka shrugged and looked over the unusual sight of two teams with completed scrolls on only the second day. Rookie teams. How many months had it been since they were his students? "That team from Suna came in yesterday," he said calmly, pointing to a small lounge. Three Suna genin stood there, scowling, not taking advantage of any of the "weak Konoha creature comforts" provided. The redhead in particular looked rather evil.
"Er, hi," Naruto offered with a wave. They ignored him, and he turned back to Iruka. "Ne ne, what now? Are we chunin yet?"
"Easy, Naruto," Iruka said with a laugh. "There's still a third test. But you've all done incredibly well just getting this far so quickly. But you do get a bit of a reward. This tower. You've got a whole suite, both of you teams, catered room service, the lot. There's also a big arena for exercise and sparring. Only catch is, you can't leave until the week is up. Once all the teams are in, we'll all learn what the next step is together."
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(Posted Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:10)
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