Tiger bursts through the dust cloud.
"Gate of Limit: OPEN!" Tiger's chakra flares, and he disappears as his kenjutsu technique goes into effect. "This is it!"
...
A thunderous clang echos across the clearing, and Tiger is revealed. He's frozen in a strike, tanto bearing down on Lee's ankle. Lee is somehow holding back the sword with one leg jutting up into the air in a high kick. He isn't even wobbling. Tiger jerks back, and the two of them disappear from sight, appearing on the other side of the clearing a moment later, this time with Tiger holding off a punch from Lee with his sword.
They dance across the clearing, trading blows faster than anything I've ever seen, and I begin to wonder why in the name of the Sage and all six of his paths Lee is still a genin. I'm staring in abject wonder as Lee somehow parries a sword swipe with his leg when Sakura lands next to me with a soft thump.
I tilt my head, giving her a wry smile. "Hey there."
"How's your..." She says, trailing off, her eyes flicking down to my stab wound. I shrug, wincing at the sudden movement. Smooth, Uzumaki.
"No big deal. I can handle it."
She bites her lip, but nods. "I set up the new seal Kakashi-sensei gave me, but... I don't think it's going to do anything with how fast they're moving. Sorry."
"It's fine," I say, waving her off. Lee slams a two-legged kick into Tiger's crossed arms, sending him skidding back. "We've done our part. Lee can take things from here."
"No, he can't."
I turn on Neji, incredulous. "I'm sorry, are we watching the same fight here?" As if to prove my point Lee and Tiger appear off on the side of the clearing Sasuke had been sent flying to, Lee delivering a rising kick from the ground that Tiger only just manages to block. "Look at that! He's got him on the ropes!"
Neji shakes his head. "Lee can not hold this technique for long. The main use for it is that it enables him to perform his most powerful attack, the Reverse Lotus. But as you can see, that shinobi is too quick for him to initiate it."
"Well, how long can he do this before he burns out?" I ask. Maybe if he can-
"His limit is three minutes."
Oh fuck me.
"Okay, so if he doesn't get off his Reverse whatever before three minutes are up we're dead. How long has it been already?" I'm not actually expecting an answer, but Neji gives me one anyway.
"One minute and twenty-three seconds."
"Okay, alright. We can do this. All we need to do is lure them in somehow. We can do this. We can..." I clench my eyes shut. How are we going to do this? None of us have anything that can stun Tiger long enough for Lee to do anything. Neji's Gentle Fist, Sakura's tags, and Sasuke's fire jutsu are all too slow, and I don't even have-
My eyes fly open.
"Sakura. Where did you set up that barrier?"
I explain my plan as quickly as I can. Sakura nods along, a determined glint in her eye, but Neji just frowns at me.
"You're asking me to entrust you with my life with this plan," he says. I stare at him in disbelief, and open my mouth to call him an idiot, when the last person I'd have ever expected does it for me.
"You idiot!" Sakura cries, slapping him over the head. He glares murder at her, which is actually really intimidating with his Byakugan activated, but she just glares right back at him. "He just took a stab wound that would have killed you not even five minutes ago! You owe him your life!"
He scowls and turns his head away. Precious seconds tick by, and then he mutters, "Fine."
I sigh in relief, sending silent thanks to the gods and my pink-haired teammate. "Alright, no time to lose. Let's do it."
Sakura takes off towards the end of the clearing closest to Hatake and Gai's fight, which I still can't see from here. I follow after her as best as I can, and skid to a painful stop when she points down at the ground near a felled tree. I have to admit, she did a fantastic job concealing it. The focal points are barely visible, and would be next to impossible to see moving at the speeds Lee and Tiger are.
"Stand here," she says, and I move to comply. I give her a thumbs up, but she hesitates before taking off to complete her part. She reaches out and squeezes my hand tightly. "Good luck." Then she disappears up into the trees.
I smile softly, before sighing and pulling at the prickling ball of chakra in my stomach. It's starting to burn, just like on my first mission, but I've got no time for chakra exhaustion now. I close my eyes, take a steadying breath, and begin the loop.
In the middle of the clearing, Lee and Tiger are locked in a stalemate once more. But this time, before they can break apart Neji appears a few feet from them set in his Gentle Fist stance. Even from here he looks ragged, several cuts adorning his body, his clothes ripped to tatters. But his eyes are resolute, and his stance is firm.
"Once again," he says, his voice echoing with finality. "You are within range of my divination."
Tiger tears away from Lee, but before he can use his kenjutsu technique again, Neji is in his face. He's moving with the same enhanced speed as he did against that mud clone, driving the ANBU operative away from Lee. Lee clenches his fists, bracing for another attack, until Sakura comes hurtling in from the trees, skidding to a stop in front of him.
"Lee, wait!" Lee looks at her, confused, but complies. She gets in as close as she can with the cyclone of chakra whirling around the veteran genin, and relays the plan to him. He straightens up, looking over at me, and nods. Then he disappears amidst the trees still standing.
He'll stay away from the fight until it's time. I don't know if standing still will allow him to hold that form of his for any longer, but it's worth a shot.
I begin to spin the loop faster, and the tickle disappears as it condenses enough not to touch the wall of my throat. I relax just a bit, and breathe in slowly through my nose. I'm treated to the strange sensation of feeling the breath go down my throat through the swirling chakra construct, but aside from that there's no disruption. Good. I spin it even faster.
Out on the field, Neji is steadily herding Tiger my way, with the help of some liberal use of throwing weapons and explosive notes on Sakura's part. I feel a surge of hope as the Iwa shinobi continues to move towards me. It looks like they've taken the bait, then- the bait being that this is our final assault, and not just Neji and Sakura nudging him towards it.
"Thirty-two palms!" Neji calls, driving Tiger back even further and jabbing at least a dozen strikes into his sword, getting faster and faster with every one. "Sixty-four palms!" His arms are a blur as he rains blows down on the foreign ANBU. It's all the masked man can do to keep blocking them.
Then Neji staggers and falls to one knee, spent. My stomach drops.
That was his whole technique, and Tiger is still at least a dozen feet outside the barrier's range.
I shouldn't have sent Lee away. What was I thinking? That a few extra seconds of his gates were worth more than his ability to put Tiger on the backfoot? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Tiger straightens up from his crouched, defensive stance. His chakra flares again.
And then a ball of fire comes hurtling down from the treetops behind me at him, and he's forced to break it as he dodges to the side. Sasuke lands in front of Neji in a crouch, a fierce scowl on his face. He stands up and makes to pursue the man, but pauses as Neji's lips move rapidly, relaying the plan to him I hope.
Sasuke nods and turns back to Tiger, who's currently dancing around a flurry of shuriken courtesy of Sakura, and leaps at him with a kunai clenched in both hands. The difference between Sasuke's assault and Neji's is immediately apparent, as Sasuke is moving far slower than Neji's insanely fast Sixty-Four Palm technique.
He makes up for it, though, by working in tandem with Sakura. Because even though they haven't been teammates nearly as long as he and I have been fighting together, they've still learned a thing or two from each other. And it shows. Though Sasuke is taking far more hits than Neji did, he's still leading him back to me, pulling him rather than pushing him.
I smile, breathing a sigh of relief through my nose. The plan isn't ruined. We can still do this.
The loop of chakra shifts, skimming my throat.
I jerk forward, choking on blood as my throat is torn open from the inside. I bite down as hard as I can, screaming through my teeth. A spray of blood erupts through the cracks, and I hunch over, bearing desperately down on the loop. It becomes smaller, withdrawing from the flesh of my throat, spinning faster. I pant through clenched teeth, as my nose is now clogged with blood.
The loop begins to wobble, and my breath freezes in my mangled throat. The loop calms.
I slowly straighten up, holding my breath, and survey the battlefield.
Sasuke is almost within range of the barrier, which is good. What is not good is that he's taking a monstrous beating. Whatever was holding back Tiger at the start of the fight is gone now, and after a few seconds I realize that Sasuke isn't getting help from Sakura anymore either. She must have run out of weapons. Not good.
Tiger drives Sasuke back another step, slashing at his chest. Sasuke bats it aside, but takes the following punch to the face full on. He hastily pulls another kunai out of his pouch, blocking the strike from the sword aimed at his throat. He skids backwards within a couple feet of the barrier. So close. Tiger knocks the kunai out of his hand and lunges at his throat.
Sasuke reaches out, and catches his wrist.
What.
Sasuke stares up at Tiger with wide eyes. Wide, crimson eyes. "I can see you," he says in wonder. The foreign shinobi tears his arm out of his grip and kicks at his head, but he ducks under it, and drifts away when he tries to stab him. "I can see you," he repeats.
The loop spins faster and faster in my throat. My lungs moan in pain, begging for a breath of air, but I just focus on the loop. I've never gone this fast before, but I know it isn't enough. Not even close.
You're compressing your chakra into an extremely small area, so if you want it to have any sort of impact when you release it you're going to have to spin it just as extremely fast.
Fed up with Sasuke's dodging, Tiger hops back and holds his sword out. "Piercing Hunter's Dance." But before he can initiate his new technique, Sasuke is suddenly inside hs guard. He ducks a punch, maneuvering around him until his back is facing me, and then stabs at him with another kunai.
He jumps back, avoiding it, and lands just inside the barrier.
"Naruto!" Sakura cries out, appearing behind me and slamming her hands into the ground. A pyramid of crimson red energy erupts from the ground, snapping into place around me and the ANBU. His mask swivels left and right, then settles on me. He lunges forward.
I slap my hands together, and the loop shots up towards my mouth.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!
The wind roars.
The jutsu fills the barrier in an instant, slamming Tiger back into the vibrant red walls. I skid back, digging furrows in the dirt with my sandals. The loop hovers just behind my lips, unleashing more and more wind until the barrier cracks, splinters, and gives way.
Tiger rockets up into the air, the Great Breakthrough propelling him higher and higher, until a green blur appears above him. Lee hangs poised in midair for one frozen moment, and then drops down on the Iwa nin. The loops of chakra in my throat finally dissipates, and I slump, coughing up blood.
"Reverse Lotus!"
I look up in awe as Lee's attack unfolds, his form becoming little more than a blur as he bounces around from tree to tree, landing one devastating attack after another so fast that the Iwa shinobi looks like he's hanging in midair.
Lee appears above him, crouched in the high branches of a tree, and kicks off. Tiger somehow musters the strength to cross his arms in a block, but it does nothing to stop the simultaneous kick and open-handed strike that Lee hits him with. He hits the ground with a thunderous boom, throwing up dust. Lee lands a few feet away from me, wobbling on his feet, and the vortex of chakra surrounding him fades, along with the red in his skin and the white in his eyes.
"You're scary, Lee," I say, the words raspy and near unintelligible due to my throat. Lee seems to get my meaning, as he throws me a tired smile and a shaky thumbs up.
The dust cloud begins to settle, and I start plodding forward. Sasuke falls into step beside me, eyeing me in concern, the twin tomoe in each of his Sharingan spinning slowly. I give him a thumbs up of my own.
The dust settles, and Sasuke breathes in sharply.
Tiger stands in the middle of a crater, earth sloughing off of his body in sheets. His sword rests in his left hand, his right having been bent at an odd angle. An earth jutsu, I realize. He used an earth jutsu to protect himself. That's what he was doing when he crossed his arms.
I stare at him, and somehow I get the feeling he stares back at me. Then, without another word, he turns tail and runs.
I snarl, hot, seething rage erupting inside me. He expects to just run away, after all this? Like hell!
I draw a kunai. My stomach is positively on fire at this point, but I couldn't care less. I tear at the core of my chakra, bringing more and more to bear until it feels like I'll burst. Then I surge forward.
Neji cries out somewhere behind me, but I've only got eyes for the Iwa ANBU's retreating form. I catch him at the edge of the clearing. He spins around, hacking at my neck, but I duck under it. His leg shoots up, kicking at my side, but I spin around it. He's sloppy now. He's using his sword with his off hand, defending his injured one, and earth jutsu or not, Lee's Reverse Lotus has rattled him.
He swings wildly, and I stab him in the wrist. His hand spasms open, and I snatch the tanto out of the air.
I spin once, and bury it in his heart.
I almost can't believe it when he drops to the ground, dead. I'm almost afraid he'll reveal yet another secret ability that allows him to survive a punctured heart, but seconds pass and he remain still. I stand over him, panting, blood dripping from my mouth.
I take hold of the tanto's handle, jutting up into the air, and pull it out. I flick it, cleaning it of the Iwa shinobi's blood.
I'm halfway through unstrapping the sheathe from his back when a shadow falls over me. With one final jerk I pull it free and stand up, meeting Hatake's gaze. Aside from the blood coating his left arm, he doesn't look too bad. His headband has been pushed up, though, revealing a familiar crimson red eye. Huh.
"Naruto," he says quietly. I glance past him, Sakura and Sasuke hovering just behind, watching me.
I smile, flashing bloody teeth up at him. "Hey."
He places a gentle hand on my shoulder, the clean one, and tilts his head back towards where he'd had his fight with Gai and the rest of the ANBU. "Come on," he says. "Let's go home. You did good."
...
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