Hanabi stopped her rotation just as a kick, which was supposed to clash with her rotation, now missed her head by a few inches.
She flickered backwards and then jumped.
In the next instant, the guy appeared on the spot where she had jumped.
Hanabi could see with her Byakugan that the guy's leg muscles were tense, meaning that he would jump.
Hanabi summoned water from her bracers.
The guy thought that she was going to do a water jutsu, just as he jumped.
'It won't matter anyway, I would kick her before she's able to weave hand seals.'
He kicked through the water and made a solid hit.
'Wind?' The guy noticed through the opening in the water layer that Hanabi wasn't in the exact position that he thought she had been in previously.
'Fuck,' he noticed that a lot of chakra was being concentrated in her palm, which was a few inches away from his leg.
He then calmed down. 'At most, I would probably get my chakra blocked there; I still would have the advantage over her by a large margin.'
However, he was disproved a second later as the hand made contact with his leg.
'FUCK, it hurts,' the guy noticed that he wasn't able to feel his right leg.
He, on instinct, tilted his body as a vacuum shell passed through the spot where his right side was a moment later.
He then made a cross-guard with both of his hands as multiple air shells were aimed at him.
He was bleeding a lot by the time he landed on the ground.
The bleeding was from the cuts on his hands and he noticed that his muscles had been destroyed in his right leg internally.
"You should for-" Hanabi instantly used Rotation just as she neared the ground.
The guy's left leg clashed with her rotation, and this time they were evenly matched.
'This guy... what a madman,' Hanabi was internally shocked.
The rotation finally was able to push the guy's left leg away.
She immediately dashed towards him and used 32 Palms, but to her horror, the guy had landed on the ground using his palms and was in a kind of handstand position, but despite that, he dodged each of her moves.
And what was shocking was that he wasn't even looking.
'This guy... has done some crazy instinct training,' Hanabi knew about some ways to train her instincts due to being in the clan, which could be arguably called the best in taijutsu, and due to Sora, who likes to do such stuff.
Brainless stuff.
Hanabi tilted her head slightly as the guy's leg came dangerously close to her head.
She then ducked as the guy was moving his leg after that strike.
She used the gap she got from the guy's missed hit to close up on him, but he bolted forward using his current position as a springboard.
Craters were formed where his hand was used to jump away.
'What the fuck,' Hanabi was speechless at the sight in front of her.
She, however, didn't let the chance to escape and fired more vacuum shells, which found their mark on his body, making him lose more blood and reducing his combat capabilities.
If he wanted to play the game of who would last longer, then she didn't mind.
As the guy's breathing technique was making his body only overwork, a long game would be in favor of Hanabi.
Meanwhile, Kiba and Akamaru were dominating-no, playing "hit the mole" again.
This time, it was mostly in the air, unlike previously playing on the ground or underground specifically.
The mole had also changed, so it was fun, at least for them.
The mole, however, was running for his poor life.
"I will kill you, jus-" He again used another explosive tag to change his orientation and launch himself away from the doggo coming at him.
Well, he didn't know who Akamaru was or who Kiba was because Akamaru was using Beast Clone.
He again prepared to do a similar manoeuvre when his eyes got blank.
And the rest is history.
Sad for him that he wasn't focusing much on the other battles.
Or, he might have had a chance to not get possessed.
Then again, in that case, he would have been jumped by 5 people.
This was a good outcome for him.
He was barely able to hang on when 2 people were ganging him.
He wouldn't have lasted long in that case anyway, so he was saved from the mental anguish of trying to escape.
Anyway, Shino's battle was the only one which wasn't been concluded as of now, but as Shino was expecting, one of his bugs was able to infiltrate, and that ended in their favour.
The other 5 were now looking at Hanabi's battle or where it was supposed to be taking place.
Hanabi was looking at them with a deadpan, and her opponent was nowhere to be seen.
Hinata activated her Byakugan, which was off till now due to resting it as she was in a battle-no, a chase till now.
She noticed that out of their 6 opponents, only 3 of them were present, and the other three, including Hanabi's opponent, were missing.
She focused on one direction and realized that the guy was running-no, more like hopping with his one leg, and two of them, girls, were over his shoulders, carrying them like a potato sack.
It seems that they were his teammates, and he had decided that he could only save them, so he prioritized them over the members of the other team, which comprised the puppeteer, the weapon guy, and the earth guy who was still in the earth, not knowing what was happening.
"Are you not going after them?" Kiba asked Hanabi, who just shrugged.
She was heavily breathing. "I am too tired, plus who knows what else he has up his sleeves; I would like to avoid fighting a cornered animal if possible."
During times of survival, animals or, in this context, humans tend to do anything to maintain their survival, a most basic primal instinct that has priority over hunger and sexual tendencies of any species.
At least most of the species.
There could always be exceptions.
Back to the scene, Ino decided to increase the explosive tags around where the guy was located and even throughout the explored area in this whole battlefield; she even put the other two in a round circle with so many traps that it would be annoying to escape even if they woke up.
They left the area.
"I feel like somebody was watching us, and I am waiting for us to get ambushed," Hanabi said with her hand on her mouth; she said this just after she "yawned," to make it look natural and the other party not get notified that their existence was being discovered.
"I also felt that," Hinata said while her head was down, "removing" some dust from her clothes.
"My bugs were restless throughout the battle," Shino indirectly told about his suspicion.
"Hmm, I don't know, it was hard to tell, maybe yes, maybe not, that sort of feeling," Ino said.
"I am hungry," Choji also gave his own opinion.
Nobody was able to deduce his answer of whether he felt like he was watched or not.
Even the readers are confused.
"Wait, really?" Kiba was the only clueless one in all the desert.
Akamaru was resting inside his hood as he was tired with so much playing with the "mole."
"Let's make a camp and be cautious," Shino said, and they went in another direction carefully to not get caught up in the desert's already existing traps.
Back to the sky where the observers were watching this battle.
"You should take him out of the battle and heal that guy; it would be hard to heal him as time passes," one person said to another.
"Yeah, I ordered their Jounin Sensei to take them out and heal him; it would be a huge loss to Suna if Shira falls," Gaara said.
The other party was none other than Sora.
The proctor who preached gender and age equality.
"Still, it's fun to fly on the sand; you can even go against the Tsuchikage and do an aerial battle, that would be so awesome," Sora said.
"I don't think I would be able to dodge his Particle Style while being in the air; it would be better to be on the ground, I guess," Gaara shook his head.
One can't be too careful.
"Also, I haven't been in any aerial battles yet...hmm, maybe with my father, but I don't know if that could be considered a battle."
"Oh... I see, still flying is amazing," Sora controlled his mouth.
He almost said 'I have also fought your father and even an aerial battle.'
Sora doesn't want to find the answer to how Gaara would react if he knew that Sora had fought his reanimated father.
Also, the fact that Orochimaru had not only killed the poor guy but also revived him.
Well, it would be interesting to see his reaction.
Sora also recalled the memories of an unknown shadow clone he got, which somehow was able to weave fire-style jutsu with one hand.
That incident was bizarre, to say the least.
***
A/N - And the story ends here GG.
Okay, Just kidding, Imma have an idea of the few arcs(technically sagas), before ending this story.
I would say that it's halfway there, hopefully, longer.
But I don't know if it will continue, depends on the support.
Still, It feels like yesterday that I ended the First Mission saga and now We are somehow done with the arc too.
Okay, checked the date, it's been just 4 weeks lol.
Hmm, I feel emotional for some reason, anyway, the next arc would be FIRE, I need to plan this properly.
***
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