Never would I have expected that.
~Perhaps you should take those words to heart. One S-rank at a time, not a group of nine.~
Oh be quiet they only work in pairs. It'll be two at once wow that sounds way worse than I expected.
"Shut up you idiot." Sasuke rolls his eyes. "Orochimaru has to go if I want to kill Itachi. Plus he did… well... I'm not the only one who lost family."
"True." I finally take up my own combat stance, it's a loose one that leave myself wide open everywhere except my chest. "So how about that spar?"
I don't want talk of Orochimaru to damper the pleasant mood that we're both in.
"Gladly." Sasuke smiles to himself. "It's been a long time since we did this, I've got plenty of new moves. I think I feel a win coming my way."
"You're right, it has been a while." I grin at him predatorily. "Just imagine how many new moves I've come up with. Now tell me which one is scarier?"
"Fair point." Sasuke concedes as he springs forward and in one fluid motion draws his sword and attempts to slash diagonally across my chest. He would have reopened the massive scar that Sureddo gave me on one of its earlier uses but I leapt backwards out of his range. "But you're forgetting that I know your style. I can see through your parlor tricks."
"You and your damn fancy eyes!" I accuse him as I throw six kunai at him at once. I miss my chakra strings, I don't use them nearly as much as I used to. They're my original skill after all.
Sasuke precisely swings his sword and knocks all six of them out of the air with ease. "They're more than just for looks."
"Cheats! Cheats I say!" I playfully shout at him. "And you call me broken?"
"You're way more broken than I am." Sasuke darts in again, attempting to pierce me multiple times as lighting arcs down his blade. He's being serious to start out with that, must really want that win.
"Yeah for now. Give it some time, you'll end up passing me again one day." I intercept one of his thrusts with my own kunai and close the distance between us. While ignoring the sudden jolt from the lightning I swipe my kunai at his legs in an attempt to slow him down, turns out he's faster than I am. Not by much but just enough that I want to remove that advantage.
"I hope so. I'm tired of being second." Sasuke planted the tip of his sword in the ground and used it as an anchor to raise himself up in a hand stand to avoid my swipe.
"Show off." I lob an insult at him as I swipe at the arm holding him upside down.
He pushes off the hilt of his sword to push his body upwards to avoid yet another strike. On his way back down he easily grasps the hilt again and lands back on his feet and leaps away with his sword to put some distance between us again.
"I hate to repeat myself but, show off."
"Told you I had new moves." He cheekily taunts me. "Given that one is really not a good one to try in a real combat situation. I can't really do much while I'm upside down and balancing on a sword handle."
"I guess it's my turn to show off then." I whip out a scroll and Sasuke's eyes widen slightly in fear. He knows that whatever is in there does not bode well for him.
He lunges forward with every intent of severing my wrist and by extension removing the scroll from my posession.
Too bad for him I expected that. One stark white mask sprouts out of my back and arcs over my shoulder and shoots out a gale of wind, buffeting Sasuke so much that he's forced to halt his advance.
"You showed me an impractical move it's only fair that I return the favor." I unfurl the scroll as Sasuke has quit fighting to get through the fierce wind and has opted to put as much distance between us as possible. "Although mine isn't new, it's more of an enhancement. And a whole lot less impractical now that I know how to make seals."
POOF
"Wait that's it?" Sasuke lowers his guard for a moment as he sees what was hidden inside the scroll. "Kuani? Just a bunch of kunai?"
"One hundred twenty seven to be exact." I pleasantly tell him. I'm stalling a bit, this move takes a few seconds to get ready and a whole lot of focus. "Used to be one hundred twenty eight but I lost one and haven't bothered to replace it. I've slowly doubled the amount of kunai I can use for a specific move of mine. I went back to square one and used a single kunai. Then two. Then four. Then eight. And so on you get the idea. Still have no idea where that one went to though."
"You think I can't stop or dodge that many kunai?" Sasuke ask with confidence. "I've been put through dodge training too."
"Yeah but not my dodge training. Plus I'm not throwing them."
In unison all of the kunai lift up off of the floor and float around me in a sphere. They start to rotate, moving faster and faster until they're little more than a mass of spinning blades.
Then I take a step forwards.
"Oh." Sasuke utters out as his face pales. "Shit. You can walk and do that now."
"I present Metal Tornado 2.0." I proudly state.
"Whirling Death is still cooler." Sasuke blurts out.
"Fuck off it's my move so I get to name it!" I wish I could run and do this. Then he'd have no chance. As it is I can barely walk at a civilian pace, good thing he doesn't know that.
"Yeah, yeah." Sasuke rolls his shoulders as I slowly close the gap between us. "Call your stupid move whatever you want."
"You said this was cool once! Don't think I don't remember!" I accuse him as the gap closes even further.
"True but then I figured out a weakness to it." Sasuke flies through hand signs and rests on the final sign. "You have to focus a lot to keep that going, any huge unexpected change should shock you enough to lose control of the rotation."
"Good luck with that." I taunt him as I advance further. "I'm prepared for just about anything. You won't startle me enough no matter what you do. I promise there's more weird and fucked up things in my head than yours."
"That's it though, I meant literally." Oh shit. "Lightning Release: Lightning Bullet!"
A super charged sphere of pure electricity surges out of Sasuke's mouth and slams into my rotating kunai sphere. My metal rotating kunai sphere. The lightning arcs to each kunai, jumping from one to the next in an instant. But something else is going on too, the lightning is also arcing to me from all of the one hundred twenty seven kunai that are floating around me.
The sudden influx of voltage makes me twitch and spasm uncontrollably, disrupting my focus exactly like Sasuke said and the once impressive display clatters to the ground in shambles.
"Dammit." I whine out while looking at the mess I'll have to clean up later. "Now I'll never be able to use that against you again."
"Nope!" He springs forward once more with his sword held high above his head, ready to cleave me in two. "So how was your trip? Anything eventful happen?"
"You have no idea." With a single chakra string I pull one of the kunai off the ground and into my hand to parry his blow. I forced the blade to divert off to my left and quickly counter attack by slashing at his hands so he drops the damn pointy stick. "It was the usual for me."
"So total cluster fuck?" Sasuke surrenders his sword in favor of keeping his wrists intact. He then brings his foot up and plants it on the underside of my chin, forcing me to look skyward and back a step to prevent myself from falling on my ass. He doesn't stop there, using his leftover momentum from the kick he does a backwards hand spring to snag a kunai off the ground for himself.
"Dude what's with the acrobatics? You're all over the damn place! But yeah total cluster fuck. Bumped into Kakuzu of all people at a bounty station." I start to hurl all of the kunai on the ground at him in a machine gun inspired fashion. Just because I couldn't keep the Metal Tornado going doesn't mean the kunai are gone forever.
"Really? How'd that go? He didn't try to claim your bounty did he?" Sasuke must have paid attention during dodge training, he's expertly weaving through the barrage of kunai and blocking those that he can't. His fancy red eyes are darting all over the place, resting for the faintest of moments on each projectile before coming up with the best route to slip between them.
"Nope. He actually helped me get a Bingo Book. Turns out you need a sponsor to get one, I thought they just handed them out to whoever asks." I stomp my foot on the ground to raise up two walls of earth to force Sasuke into a hallway so he has less room to maneuver around the barrage of kunai. "Though some dumbass did try to stick an explosive seal on my chest to claim it. I put it on his back instead and gave Kakuzu the bounty on him as a thank you."
"I'm not even surprised." If Sasuke wasn't hyperfocused on dodging he would be sighing in resignation.
Sasuke jumps into the air and lands in a crouch on the left wall. He rests there for less than a second before jumping again, this time landing on the right wall even higher off the ground. With one final jump he barely dives over the ledge of the left wall to escape the restricted space. The jackass even adds in a flip on his way back down to the floor because he can. He doesn't stop there, the instant his feet hit the ground he takes off running. He's sprinting around me in a perfect circle, never adding distance nor closing the gap.
Just because he's highly mobile doesn't mean the barrage of kunai is stopping. It won't stop till I run out and conveniently I can pick them back up as much as I want to. Chakra strings for the win!
"Yeah. It was unexpected. Though the actual destruction of the Kusa base did go off without a hitch. Did exactly what Orochimaru wanted, scorched earth with a handful of survivors to tell the tale. It'll be interesting to see how the other nations react to that. I wasn't subtle at all."
"What did you do?" Sasuke asks as he's making his third lap around me.
"Rained down flaming boulders from the sky. Shock and awe tactics at its finest." I casually say like it is no big deal. "I'm calling it Fire of Heaven."
"You can do that?" He asks in surprise.
"Yep. Takes a couple minutes to set it up and it also falls into the 'impractical' category. Plus there's no way that it won't be added to my Bingo Book page, I'll never be able to use it anywhere near as effectively again."
"Well whatever works." Sasuke skids to a stop and flexes all of his fingers.
Numerous strands of near invisible wire snap taut around me. Some strong cords wrap around my limbs to pin me in place, holding my right arm fully extended while raised thirty degrees above parallel to the ground. My left arm is tightly bound against my torso, trapping it there. Both of my legs have been tied together forcibly, the only reason I am still standing is because the wires are supporting my weight.
Other finer wires cut into my skin, they're wrapped around me in specific places. Places where on anyone else a major blood vessel would be. Sasuke has even managed to get one around my neck, it's biting into the scar that Kisame gave me. He's letting me know that at any moment he can cut me to pieces.
"Hey! Not cool!" I squirm in the mess of wires and the sharp ones dig deeper while the thicker ones tighten my bonds.
"I believe that's my win!" Sasuke boasts with a laugh. "Shouldn't have let me set that up."
"You're stealing my style!" I glare at him. "I'm the string guy! Me! Not you! You gotta ask about these things before you go and do it!"
My fingers on my right hand twitch as I extend out a wind whip to cut Sasuke's stupid wires.
"No you don't!" Sasuke sends lightning shooting through the wires he's holding. The sudden unnecessarily large voltage courses through my body making me twitch involuntarily and lose control of the wind whip. "Can't be having you worm your way out of this one. You should just admit defeat."
"OW!" I shout out as the spasms finally die down. "Did I piss you off or something? That was one hell of a jolt."
"Not recently. I'm just making sure you stay put until you acknowledge that I'm the victor." Sasuke smugly smiles at me. "Whenever you're ready is good for me. Though I do prefer sooner rather than later."
"You and your damn chakra seeing eyes. If you were anyone else I would have been out of this already." I narrow my eyes at him, he sees too happy. "This is because of the butler thing, isn't it?"
"Why I would never!" Sasuke's smile grows wider and suddenly looks more vindictive than smug. "Getting vengeance because someone forced me into a penguin suit twice? That doesn't sound like me at all. This is just a friendly spar, I would never bring something else into that."
"Yes you would." I bluntly accuse him.
"Oh yeah. Definitely would." He readily agrees.
"So have you had your fun? Do you feel better now?"
ZAP
"OW!"
"Much better, thanks for asking."
"Good." I smirk at him as black threads slowly sprout from the ground behind Sasuke. They extend high and higher until they're behind his neck. Then they dart forward and clamp around it, effectively collaring him with something more threatening that wires. "Cuz playtime is over."
"What?!" His eyes dart around the field looking for any telltale signs of a monster.
Except there isn't any. That's because I didn't use a monster for this. "Out of your feet."
"You got it! I had to avoid your fancy eyes somehow so I did something that they simply couldn't see!" I merrily flash him a brilliant smile. "I'd give you a thumbs up too but I'm slightly indisposed at the moment. I hope you're happy, I ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes for this."
"We're at a stalemate. We both have each other dead to rights." There's a glint of excitement in Sasuke's eyes, he's having a load of fun. "I don't know about you but I don't want to settle for a tie."
"Mutual release of the other's bonds on three?" I offer a compromise. I don't want to settle for a tie either. Neither of us have begun to scratch the surface of what we're truly capable of.
"One." Sasuke starts to count. "Unless you're enjoying this. I know you have that weird bondage thing."
"Go fuck yourself. You know that was all an act. Two." I continue as we both slacken the bonds on the other.
"Sure. Keep telling yourself that. Three." He finishes as the Jiongu releases him and snaps back to me and the wires holding me fall slack to the ground.
Neither of us waste time, we both move in sudden bursts of speed to put distance between us and move away from the spot we were just trapped at. Neither of us are above retrapping the other with the exact same tools and method moments after the release.
"You weren't kidding when you said you have new tricks." I praise him. "Also I'm honored to be your source material. Mimicry is the greatest form of flattery."
"I used wires before you learned chakra strings." Sasuke points out. "That means you're copying me."
"Okay yeah but when we ask someone outside of the two of us which one is the string/wire guy they're going to always say me. I guarantee it."
"I hate it when you're right." Sasuke grunts out in displeasure.
"I love it so it's okay, we balance out." I test out my limbs as we talk, rolling my shoulders, bending my elbows and stretching out my legs. There's no real need for me to do this and Sasuke knows it.
But it's also pissing him off a little bit so I'm going to keep going. Small victories.
"So you stopped a prison break while I was gone?" I ask him as I bend over to touch my toes.
"Yeah. It sounds way cooler than it really was." Sasuke must have thrown a kunai as I'm bent over because there's one stuck in me. It's pinning my right hand to my right foot. I casually straighten up, ripping the kunai out of my foot but leaving it embedded in my hand. "Twenty or so made it outside, Orochimaru had Karin track them down and me take them down. Those who didn't return willingly didn't survive."
"What are the chances it'll happen again?" I rip the kunai out of my palm and throw it off to the side. "I want to stop a prison break. Or is it break out of a prison? Both. Definitely both. I did sorta break out of one already but that wasn't a prison."
"Uh… what?" Sasuke asks in genuine curiosity. "Who managed to capture you? You're a slimy bastard, always wiggling out of every tight situation you get caught up in."
"I didn't get captured, I surrendered. Doto was going to kill someone I needed alive if I didn't. I broke out within ten minutes, he had terrible security. Plus his torturer didn't know what she was doing and she was weird. Like really weird and I'm saying that."
"Okay how about you start from the beginning?" Sasuke bites his thumb and slams his hand on the ground.