Some part of me recognized Jiraya letting me go, and I detachedly watched my own body as it belonged to someone else moving into the arena and reaching Hana.
I was a competent field med nin, but even Tsunade could do nothing to a hole in the chest of a normal person.
I stared at her, she was already no longer breathing. I looked into her eyes but they were already staring unblinkingly at the sky.
I felt... hollow, somewhat. She was gone, I spoke to her less than twenty minutes before, and managed to fuck up even that interaction. She went into the fight distracted by my behavior and...
No. I stopped myself. She was dead because Yugito had killed her. In a more wide sense, everything that was happening that did not perfectly match Kishimoto's storyline was my fault. Butterfly effect and whatnot.
I knew that in the story she grew up to be somewhat human, mentality wise. But how many would she butcher in the meantime?
In that moment I choose. Fuck the storyline.
My rage wasn't burning, it didn't throw me into a mindless frenzy. Even when the med nins brought away Hana's body I didn't acknowledge my wrath as anything but a slight roughness that permeated my chakra. I smoothed it down, breathing deeply and slowly.
I wanted to lash out at something. At Jiraya, who had prevented me from interfering. At the Hokage, who had likely ordered him to do so. At Hana's mother, who didn't intervene. At Guy, who most certainly lost the privilege of being called sensei.
I wanted to lash out at everything, because everyone was bred and raised to accept the utter bullshit that the shinobi system was.
I wanted to lash out at the bijus for letting themselves get captured, making sure that no matter what, the practice of children raised as soldiers would stay a must in every hidden village worth its name.
I realized, no, I already knew, that people raised to be zealots could hardly be blamed for their actions, but they still needed to be stopped. I even pitied them.
I was disgusted by the whole situation. I even understood Jiraya's actions. The chunin exams, while rigged, must uphold the pretense of being fair. Jumping into the fray would have been a useful excuse.
For Kumo to get offended by Konoha stopping them from showing off their jinchuriki, and for Iwa to confirm under the eyes of the world that Konoha was an oath breaker of some kind.
Neither would be true, but ninjas existed for war, and every occasion was good to start one.
I didn't know about Iwa, but Kumo had been pumping their own numbers for some time and even attempted to steal a Byakugan knowing that they could go to war in case of failure.
Konoha had been too weak so soon after the Kyubi attack and as such the village had to sacrifice Hizashi to prevent the fourth ninja war.
I had never shared mankind's common belief that one evil rectifies another. Or in that case, in murdering the murderer. So I wouldn't be killing Yugito because of Hana's death.
I would kill her because she was smiling while killing Hana. And that world didn't need a sadist with the power of a biju.
I knew that in the manga Sasuke had managed to fend off two tails of the Kyubi thanks to the sharingan and the cursed seal. But Naruto had been around 13 years old at the time, so his body was not really that powerful.
And he only held half of the kyubi, so I really had no idea of what kind of strength the Kumo's jinchuriki possessed.
Pointless. It was pointless reasoning. I wanted her dead. So I didn't have any further consideration to do. I would go all out. Period.
I walked to the center of the arena, taking in the several craters and splatters of blood on the ground.
Jiraya didn't let me see the match, but it went on for a while, and the tracks painted something far from reassuring. And from the way my opponent was licking her lips, it was clear that she had toyed with Hana.
I unlatched the strap that held the big scroll on my back and started calling forth my chakra.
The referee gave the start and jumped back.
I brought my hands forward in a cross-shaped seal: "Kage bunshin no jutsu." I said, and without waiting and threw myself forward with all my considerable speed, a kunai held in each hand.
I knew that my face was blank and my breath even. I knew because I could see my reflection in the Jinchuriki widening pupils while my first slash embedded a kunai in her left shoulder.
Without stopping, I stomped on her left foot with my right one, latching on it with my chakra like I was going to walk on walls.
My left knee rose sharply, raising her right arm and breaking down her defenses.
My second kunai was embedded up to the hilt in her stomach a split second later, my raised left leg now fully extended turning into an axe kick that slammed on her right clavicle gifted us a sharp crack that signaled a broken bone.
With my arms, I started hitting in a flurry that couldn't be stopped now that the only libs she had in working condition were her legs, and I was keeping her left leg pinned.
She wisely dropped her head protecting her vulnerable throat, and my uppercut broke her nose, I followed with an elbow to her temple.
I raised the leg which had been pinning her down and kicked her with a wide movement when she was swaying.
I wasn't using any technique, so I had no necessity to call out the names of my moves. Manipulating chakra had a lot to do with emotions and what one could feel of himself. Calling the name of the technique helped greatly keeping the mind focused on the intended result.
While one day I would be able to do a lot of things with suiton without needing to call out the techniques, the same couldn't be said for the elements I wasn't naturally suited for. A brief flare of Katon to lit a cigarette? Sure, a fireball? No chance in hell.
Even the Konoha Senpuu was something I would need to call out loud because it made my chakra flow into a pattern that favored my movements. But I wasn't there yet with Yugito.
Every punch and elbow I threw at her hadn't been part of a whole technique, simply taking advantage of weaknesses.
I reduced her a mess with a mesh of hits that had nothing to do one with another.
I watched her impassively as she straightened up after being flung away. Her chakra was already changing.
The relatively normal presence of the kunoichi was swallowed by a heavier, older, more feral one.
The miasmatic red chakra pulsed out of her skin carrying a bloodlust that wasn't human and that gave me pause for a moment. But the cheering of the crowd made me focus like nothing before. It was a show for them.
It didn't matter that I was fifteen, that I had dreams and hopes, that I had just lost a teammate. They were having fun after all.
I didn't let her settle and charged again a flurry of senbon and a kunai tagged with a paper bomb gave me an opening.
Or they should have, the senbons fell at my opponent's feet, and she spat towards me a fireball that set off the paper bomb wrapped around the handle of my kunai, engulfed the explosion and came in my direction with a vengeance.
I threw myself on the side, my hand laced with chakra digging on the ground redirecting my momentum and changing my trajectory.
I reached her on the side, her clawed hand slashing at my eyes ground against the chakra scalpel I had formed from my fingertips.
She was starting to sprout her first tail, and we were locked into a melee, my chakra scalpels wobbling and occasionally failing since her miasmatic chakra disrupted the necessary delicate control I had to exercise to keep them up.
My kunais were getting broken very fast, and in less than a minute, I was left with only a handful of them.
"Konoha Senpuu." And I was everywhere she wasn't, hitting with kicks, and punches, every single one heavy as a warhammer. I had to dodge or redirect every single one of her attacks, but I was managing it.
Then her first tail fully manifested and swiped at me, dragging with it rocks it had somehow dug out of the ground. I ran away and kept my distance for a couple of seconds, taking in her changed form.
She was hunched forward, her reddish chakra tail moving erratically from the base of her back, her claws digging into the rocky ground. Where I had plunged my kunais, there were only holes in her clothes.
I watched around and noticed that the before the negligible trickle of water had become a respectable stream and that there was a quickly growing pond on the side of the arena.
My Kage bunshin had successfully unsealed the tons of liters of water I had sealed in the scroll. The only downside was that it took a while for them to leave the pocket dimension they were into.
But I could keep distracting the jinchuriki for a while. Even if she was no longer taking damage, she could barely keep up with my offensive.
I distractedly noticed seals glowing on the walls of the arena and a barrier developing to protect the crowd.
Wise move.
...
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