"Fire Tail," declared Kurama, turning a chakra-tail into flame and swiping through eight of them before they could completely unfurl.
The remaining one finished unfurling. A large cloud of chakra smoke marked the summoning going off.
A nasty looking scorpion puppet and a glossy-looking magazine hit the ground.
"Oh," said Sasori, looking at the magazine. "That's where that went."
"You might want to keep an index of scrolls," offered Tenten. "I try to keep that updated and then group objects for specific needs together."
"Keep your advice to yourself, little girl," wheezed Sasori. "I know tricks of the trade you haven't even dreamed of. You're not even worthy of becoming a human puppet after the fight."
"What?" asked Naruto, who had suddenly appeared behind the scorpion puppet and sliced through the tail section with his hand.
"'Human puppet'?" asked Tenten, readying a javelin with multiple explosive tags. All she needed was a decent opening.
"That just puts you within range," said Sasori, twitching one finger. The rest of the scorpion exploded into a whirlwind of poisoned shrapnel. "One down."
PUMF! went the Naruto standing there in the whirlwind, turning into smoke as the shrapnel went through him.
Naruto nodded from where the original was still standing. "Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!"
BA-DAMF!
"Over nine thousand to go!" shouted the crowd of Naruto.
Sasori growled something that was NOT PG-13.
Soun Tendo was fairly emotive. When he reacted to something, it was usually with a great upswelling of whatever emotion he was feeling at the time. This was, in fact, a major part of his martial arts philosophy and style - as extreme emotion could empower his attacks.
On finding that the son of his old friend was far younger than predicted, he was left unsure of what exactly to do and how to handle the situation. There were too many deviations from his planned script to simply pick up and carry on.
First off, his partner in suffering and the Art was not present. What Ranma had told him, that Genma had run up a big restaurant bill and then failed to escape when the bill had come up, was entirely too plausible. Genma might show up tomorrow, next week, or several months from now, depending on how bad such a situation actually was. Particularly if any others likewise stolen from managed to catch up.
There had been a similar occasion training under the dreaded Master (who could not even be named in his own thoughts lest it somehow revive and summon that plague on humanity) where things had gone that badly and they'd spent an unlovely two months in a small village while creditors had begun showing up to demand some form of payment.
Second, there was the youth factor. Twelve was entirely too young to force a marriage between one of his girls and Genma's son. Akane was sixteen, four years older. Which might not be a problem when both parties were in their mid-twenties, but when the difference was a full third of the years one of the two had experienced? A bit much. Nabiki at seventeen and Kasumi at nineteen were even worse choices.
Third, this student of Ranma's. There was something unusual about her, and her body language seemed off somehow. Though she seemed pleasant enough sitting there in what he recognized as a set of Kasumi's clothes (though it was a poor fit considering the size of the pale girl's chest) - there was something not quite right about her.
"Mister Tendo?" asked Ranma.
"Father?" asked Kasumi.
"Ah, sorry, I sort of got lost in thought," admitted Soun. "Of course the son of my old friend Genma should stay here for awhile. Where are you going to school?"
"Well, Pops always said public education wasn't that important," said Ranma, making a face. The thought of being forced to go back to middle school or something was a real pain. You could never get a decent nap there.
"Well, that'll never do," said Soun, apparently stern but inwardly gloating. This would be a perfect way to tie the boy down for awhile and figure out how best to set up the engagement. Maybe in a couple of years, he'd be fourteen and Akane would be eighteen... Well, he'd work on that later.
Akane looked between the two. "So... you practice martial arts?"
"Yeah, you could say that," said Ranma.
"We've got a dojo, how a little spar?" asked Akane.
"Uhm, I really don't think..." began Ranma, remembering how things had gone rather poorly not too long after the last time that had happened.
"That's a good idea," said Soun, seizing on the idea. "I'd also like to see how much of the Art Genma has been able to teach you."
"Well, he wasn't exactly my only teacher," hedged Ranma.
"All the more reason to evaluate you," Soun assured him.
"I can't believe I'm having to use this," said Sasori. He also couldn't believe that it wouldn't be enough to win this fight, but the plan at this point wasn't so much winning as escaping.
Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets was out. Most of his scrolls were unavailable and the ones he did have remaining were damaged. He was in his Hiruko scorpion puppet, but that was pretty heavily damaged. He could jettison that, fighting in his true form - but that corrosive tentacle attack was worrisome in that regard.
Which left this trump card.
"That is the Third Kazekage," noted Kakashi, shutting his bingo book as the puppet formed.
"You mean a puppet of the Third Kazekage?" asked Gai.
"No, the scarecrow has it right," acknowledged Sasori. "I have a process which can make a puppet of a human. An eternal artform which can utilize the kekkei genkai and chakra of the original. This is my prize weapon, the Third Kazekage. Iron Sand!"
Neji activated his Byakugan as the new puppet began vomiting out what looked like a black fog. "Those are iron particles coated in poison and controlled by chakra. Don't let it touch you."
"This is your doom," said Sasori. "None can escape the cloud. Though I admit I may take a couple of you and make human puppets from the corpses. You do seem to have some useful abilities."
"KAME-" said nine thousand Naruto, gathering power between their hands.
"KAME-" tried Lee, watching and trying to emulate the attack.
"Interesting idea," said Gai. "Kame-"
"Wind Barrier," said Kurama, holding both hands up and concentrating. Dust whipped up in a circle around Sasori and his iron fog.
"HAME-" said nine thousand Naruto, Rock Lee, Gai, and Kakashi. Kakashi didn't think this would work, but at the very least he expected it to unnerve the puppet-user.
"This won't hold me," declared Sasori, vanishing within his own cloud and sending a tendril of it towards the wall of wind.
"HA!" finished nine thousand Naruto, Lee, Gai, and Kakashi.
Tenten threw her javelin. Not that she thought it was needed, but damnit she wanted to contribute too.
Nine thousand Naruto popped after sending a short burst. Lee produced a brief flicker of something, which he decided was encouraging but something to work on. Gai opened several gates and sent a Daytime Tiger at the puppet user before shutting them all down again. Kakashi blinked as he realized he'd copied it with a Sharingan and was now sending a small ball of white chakra at the target.
Kurama strained even further with the containment, reinforcing the tornado's walls.
Energy escaped in the one direction not blocked, which was straight up. A pillar of light that stretched from the new crater to beyond Neji's sight.
They found a few pieces of the Hiruko armor later, scattered over a wide area.
Heh, it worked, realized Sasori in his puppet form. Which had a few new cracks, a number of inoperable weapons, sections which were completely missing, but was still mostly intact. The plan to sacrifice the rest of Hiruko and my Third Kazekage puppet to escape succeeded. Next time we meet, I will be better prepared for those two. Especially that jinchuriki. Who the hell was that anyway? Not one we knew about.
Sasori considered his position, looking at the planet rotating underneath him. Now. How the hell do I get back?
Ranma stood at one end of the dojo. Akane at the other.
"Are you ready?" asked Akane cheerfully, adjusting her gi a bit. He's just a kid, so I'll have to take it easy on him.
"Uhh, yeah," said Ranma, not getting into a stance.
"Why aren't you in a stance?" asked Akane, frowning a bit.
"Stances are all well and good, but you shouldn't require them," said Ranma, remembering Jiraiya explaining something about his fighting style to Naruto. No reason not to steal a good line. "In a real fight though, you don't always have warning or time to get prepared. You have to be ready for a fight all the time, and be able to respond to combat without getting set into a stance."
"Oh," said Akane. "Well then, here I come!"
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(Posted Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:05)
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