"Hatake Kakashi," The ANBU murmurs. "Copy Cat nin of Konoha. Maito Gai, Konoha's Green Beast." A vague memory of the nukenin I'd fought on my first mission resurfaces in my mind. I hadn't even registered it at the time, but he'd called Hatake by that title too. I've never heard of any Green Beast of Konoha, though.
It'd be hilarious if anyone else had said it.
...
The ANBU pauses again, and Hatake tenses up. "And... an Uchiha."
"Naruto, go," Kakashi says, dropping our target on the ground with a dull thud. "Take Sakura and Sasuke and leave. Now."
"Wha-" I stagger back a step as one of the ANBU stands up from their crouch, drawing a tanto from behind their back.
"Go with them, you two," Gai orders, flicking a hand at Lee and falling into a taijutsu stance.
"Our objective has changed," Cat says, his own hand reaching for something at his waist. "Capture the Uchiha. Eliminate the rest." In one swift motion the four crouching ANBU all explode forward. Hatake's hand flashes towards his headband, Gai bellows something about a gate, and everything erupts into chaos.
"Alright, come on!" I grab the front of Sasuke's shirt start hauling him along down the path, before he can get any ideas. It stings worse than I can put into words to run away from a fight, especially one as dangerous as this, but for once in my life I have to acknowledge there's nothing I can do.
ANBU are the elite. Iruka and the old man and just about every adult shinobi I've ever met has made this very, very clear. They come in all shapes and sizes, sort themselves into all kinds of fancy subdivisions, but every single one of them is at least an accomplished chunin. Up and coming Academy students are taught to respect them, because they are the protectors of the village. That's how good they are.
There are only two ranks higher than ANBU. One of them is Hokage. The other belongs to Hatake and Gai. So if anyone can handle a full squad of ANBU by themselves, it's those two.
And on top of all this, I've been given an order by my jonin sensei. Even if I don't enjoy acknowledging him as such, that's what he is. And you don't go against your sensei's orders. Depending on the situation, it can be considered treason. And if there ever was a situation that warranted being locked up in prison for the rest of my life, it would be ignoring Hatake's orders and getting someone else killed trying to throw down with ANBU.
So really, it isn't my fault. I don't have a choice in the matter. I have to run.
… God damn it.
I chance a glance behind me as we run, and watch as Hatake lobs an enormous ball of fire at one of the ANBU, who raises a wall of water to block it, which Gai bursts through with a spinning kick, only to have to pull out of his attack to block a sword strike from a different ANBU. All in the span of a couple 're moving so fast I can hardly keep track, and throwing around enough advanced ninjutsu to drive an Uchiha into a diabetic fit.
My gaze shifts away from the battle, and falls on Neji and Lee, rooted to the same spot they'd been in when the ANBU arrived.
I skid to a stop, and after a few paces Sakura and Sasuke do too.
"Change your mind, idiot?" Sasuke asks, but the edge of sarcasm is brittle. I shake my head, pointing. He curses.
"What the hell are you guys doing!?" I shout, even as a part of me urges to run back to them. "We need to go!"
And then, upon closer inspection, I realize that they're not rooted to the ground in fear. They're rooted to the ground by Neji who is holding Lee back from jumping into the fight.
I grit my teeth. "And they say we're the rookies."
I start sprinting down the path, gesturing for Sakura and Sasuke to go on without me, only to skid to a stop again when something appears in front of Lee and Neji. Something tall, with a sword and a porcelain tiger mask.
You've got to be kidding me.
Tiger moves forward, finally prompting the two veteran genin to break off their struggle and turn to face him.
Neji darts forward in a wild attempt to put the foreign shinobi down before he has a chance to get going, but he simply brings his sword down, and when Neji pulls back he backhand him with his free hand. Lee charges in with a cry of outrage, and after a brief flurry of punches and kicks is put on the defensive by Tigers's blade.
I glance back at Sakura and Sasuke, hovering a few feet away. If I jump into the fray there's no way Sasuke will keep running, and he'll need all the space he can get if he wants to outrun that ANBU. It's not my fault Lee went against his sensei's orders. There's nothing I can do.
"Nothing I can do," I murmur, turning away.
Come on, Uzumaki.
"To hell with that."
Lee staggers back, clutching a bleeding gash in his arm, and Neji appears in front of him. He jabs another finger at Tiger, but this time instead of drifting back when the ANBU swipes at him he spins under it, spinning and spinning until the Revolving Heaven explodes into being around him and throws Tiger back into a tree. A plume of smoke erupts around him, revealing a shattered slab of wood in his place.
For a second Neji looks confused. Then panic appears in his eyes and he spins around. Tiger's sword is already swinging down, too close to dodge, too fast to spin.
I hurtle from the spot I'd climbed to up in the trees and slam my clasped hands down on his head. I can't see through his mask, but something tell me he's unimpressed. Still, it disrupts his attack enough for Neji to dodge, and before the foreign shinobi can react the veins surrounding his eyes bulge even more and he falls into the Gentle Fist stance.
"You are within range of my divination," he says, and blurs forward.
I jump back as Neji is suddenly in front of the ANBU, effortlessly dodging around sword swipes and lashing out with his fingers. He jabs tenketsu after tenketsu, doubling the amount with each exclamation, until he hits sixty-four and the ANBU falls to the ground, dead or paralyzed.
Huh. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
The body turns to mud.
"Mud clone?" Neji nods, grimacing. "So where-" Oh shit. Sasuke!
I pivot, just in time to see Sasuke take a sword swipe across the face. Lee throws a spinning roundhouse at the real Tiger's head, but he catches it and slams him down to the ground with it. I sprint forward, leaping up into the air again and clasping my hands together, gathering twice as much chakra as before around them. Tiger sees me just as I'm coming down and raises his sword to block me and likely sever my hands from my wrists.
I channel as much chakra as I can and bring my hands down.
For a second I think his arm will hold, and I'll fall on his blade like the worst kind of moron, but after a frozen moment of struggle it buckles under the force of my strike on the blade. He slides back, half from the blow and half from the resulting release of the condensed wind chakra.
Tiger stares at me through those eerie holes in his mask. I fall into my taijutsu stance.
His first strike comes so fast I almost don't notice it, right for the side of my neck. I duck under it without an inch to spare, and juke around another swipe. I don't have time to even think of mounting an attack as blow after blow rains down upon me. It's all I can do to dodge the handful of swings I can predict and knock the others into less vital areas with my chakra.
An eternity later, or maybe just a few seconds, Neji slides in. Emboldened by his success against the Tiger mud clone, he goes on the offensive, parrying the ANBU's blade and pushing viciously for a tenketsu strike on his sword-handling arm. I stumble away, bleeding from more than a couple cuts. Lee blows past me, back into the thick of it, and I kneel down next to Sasuke.
"You alright?" I ask, a lot more shaky than I'd like to admit. He has both of his hands covering his face, and for a horrible second I'm afraid the sword has blinded him. He nods, though, and I breathe a sigh of relief. He holds a hand out, revealing a long cut spanning from underneath his left eye to the right side of his forehead. It's pretty shallow, actually. A lot more shallow than my cuts.
"What the hell is going on here?" I hiss, more to myself than him as I hoist him up. "Why are they suddenly gunning for you? This is an act of war for god sake."
"Not if we aren't alive to report it," Sasuke grunts, wiping the blood in his eyes off on the arm of his shirt.
"Good point. So what are we doing here?"
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