The dirty shinobi clicked his tongue, side-eyeing his partner. Despite what the Blonde's behavior looked like on the outside, he was notoriously impatient, but that didn't mean that anyone could predict that this bastard would blast a full-powered wind arrow at an enemy with five yards of themselves. The blonde, Yako, had developed a very interesting jutsu. By making the wind seal with one hand, Yako could produce a bow of wind Chakra. He used that same bow to launch arrows at speeds that could rival even the most proficient wind-release user. And its destructive power? The dirty ninja made a seal and felt his lungs expand unnaturally as oxygen and Wind-nature chakra infused them. "Wind Style: Breakthrough." The dirty man's lips pursed as he blew out a burst of wind.
The wind blew away the dust and debris that Yako's arrow had caused, revealing the earth, scored with a single large groove. The rest of the field was rather unpeterbed. "Ah! Did you blow him away without a trace?" The dirty shinobi ran his hands through his hair, scratching frantically. "Maybe he escaped? Well, it doesn't matter. Let's just lea-," but the words didn't have the opportunity to leave his mouth, the dirty shinobi dodged to his left, rolling to his feet as Kunai thunked where he had been. He didn't even have the luxury to think because in that instant, he knew his life was in danger. Miniature fireballs filled his vision as he jumped back one more time. He felt the heat that the Jutsu produced, and he gave an internal sigh of relief before becoming enraged.
"Yako! Get your head out of your ass and help me!" The shinobi shouted. But the response was less than ideal.
"Busy, Isuki," Grunted Yako. He had ducked under another slash from the kid ninja from before. Isuki had been attacked at range, while the kid had chosen to blitz Yako completely. Probably in an attempt to prevent an arrow from being launched. A valid strategy, but only if the other ninja is not as proficient in Taijutsu. The kid swung wide, but Yako was waiting. He blocked the kid's wrist, pivoting with the intent to send a knee into the child's ribs, but a glint of metal caused Yako to rear his head back instead. The child had launched his weapon from his hand using the abrupt stop of his wrist as a type of catapult. The blade of the Kama just barely bit into Yako's nose. The hand that blocked the child's wrist instinctively reached up to defend his face. The unintentional blind spot caused by the raising of Yako's hand prevented him from seeing the thrown Kama hook onto its pair that the kid shinobi still held. Swinging the weapon back at Yako, only instinct allowed him to barely duck under the follow-up blow before jumping back, creating space.
Yako's breath was ragged. He hadn't expected such a hard assault, nor the child's battle sense. Reaching into his basket, Yako asked, "What's your name, boy?" His voice was like the arrows he shot, piercing and direct. Yako expected this child to be some specially trained ninja that was kept out of the public eye and would have an alias. However, as the child's mouth flapped open and closed, Yako took matters into his own hands. The wind seal had already been made, and the winds around Yako grew wild. "Well, I'll name you myself, Mantis, because just like an insect-" Yako tossed arrows into the air, smiling slightly as the arrows fell into orbit around him, "you will be crushed underfoot"
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I ducked behind a tree as an arrow whistled past me, grazing just past my right thigh. I watched resentfully as the arrow pierced through several trees before finally stopping, embedded into a boulder. My plan had already begun to fall apart. How was I supposed to know this guy could rapid-fire arrows? What kind of unfair cheat is that? Dashing in between the trees, I felt the air currents around me shift for a moment. Pausing, an arrow whizzed past my face, before I kept up my hide and seek game with my unwilling participant.
"What are you, a cat? Do you have whiskers too?" The archer's (Yako, was it?) eyes had narrowed, watching the shadows to catch me. Unluckily for me, I wasn't skilled enough to move with complete silence yet. But that didn't matter. I glanced over to the shadow clones that had been keeping the dirty shinobi, Isuki, at bay with kunai and ninjutsu. Frustrated, Isuki had begun to launch Earth Shuriken into the trees in a fit of rage, which hadn't been anywhere close to successful. But soon, those clones would run out of Chakra, and this 1v1 would quickly turn into a 1v2, making it even harder than it already was.
Sucking in a breath, I bent down, closing my eyes. I needed to act quickly, but one mistake could be the end. It wouldn't matter if I blocked one of those arrows with one of my Kamas. It would shatter the instant they collide. Letting the breath out, I felt out where the Yako was standing. I could feel his Chakra charging as he knocked another arrow into his bow. Opening my eyes, I chuckled, putting my fingers together in the Ram handseal. From the winds, I made a wind clone. His eyes reflected my mischievousness as well. Nodding to each other, we took off in opposite directions. After a couple of steps, a deafening boom sounded from behind me. Quickly, I started running up the nearest tree. In the few seconds that I had used to scale the tree, my wind clone had gotten himself cornered. Pushing off the tree, I jumped high into the air. I arced over the Yako, my arms ready to slice into him.
As I fell closer, faster, towards the archer, the prickling sense of danger at my side caused me to cross my Kamas to guard instinctively. A blow rocketed me out of the air, slamming into a tree. The bark splintered against my body, and my bones creaked in protest, struggling to remain intact. Fortunately for the tree, it remained strong. Its dense branches are barely shaking amidst the impact. Unfortunately for me, the tree was so thick that it felt as if I had landed against stone. Falling to my knees on the tree's very broad branch, I choked on my empty lungs. Gasping for breath, I looked up as both Yako and Isuki landed on the branch I was on, a couple of lengths away. Both had injuries. The Archer, while looking the best, had many cuts and bruises as a result of the first assault that I made on him. He looked much more disheveled than he had at the beginning of the fight. Isuki, however, was covered in burns. Parts of his hair had been singed away, and worst of all, the ninja's flesh from the left side of his face to his neck was charred, a mix between various states of bleeding and oozing.
The dirty Shinobi didn't speak above a whisper, and yet it felt as if I heard the words echoed in my ear canals. "I'm going to pulverize you so thoroughly that they won't be able to recognize your body." But what surprised me, what surprised the ninja right in front of me, was not the fact that I stood back up, wobbly but certain, nor was it me tossing the shattered Kamas that had protected me from the dirty shinobi's strike. It was the smile I wore with bloodied teeth. Chakra coursed through my body, shifting the air in front of me.
I unclasped my bladed nunchaku from my back. Swinging it behind my back, and once again the Yako struck first, but this time I expected it. I had grasped his arrow's speed and its constant, straight, and unyielding trajectory. Unprepared, I would seldom be able to counterattack, but straight at me? I swung the nunchaku down against the arrow, shattering it with the blunt side of my weapon. My eyes were still blurry, and I still struggled to breathe, but I forced my body to move. One step at a time. The dirty shinobi dash towards me, closing the distance in a mere moment. He swung his arm at me, wild, unrefined, A strike that Kenzo would have punished with ease. My knees buckled, letting me duck under the swing before my foot drove into the tree. My Chakra flared even more. The world blurred as I flickered in front of the archer. Both he and I were surprised at my sudden maneuver, but the adrenaline took over my body. I swung at the Yako with my fist, connecting a blow that rocked his head back. Taking advantage, I kicked his knee to the side, causing him to lose his balance and fall to his knees.
"Don't get cocky!" Screamed a voice from behind me. The scent of Ozone wafted through the air as I smelled burning wood. "Lightning release: Lightning, Dual Serpents!" As soon as the words left Isuki's mouth, I took to the air again, but this time not nearly fast enough. A cyan blue snake crackling with energy launched itself beside me, narrowly missing my leg. The second snake, however, was quick enough to bite my ankle. Flashes of light littered my sight along with intense pain that stiffened my body. The paralysis caused me to miss my footing. I plummeted down like a freshly shot bird. My body broke the weaker branches, but none of them broke my fall. I couldn't feel my legs. The electricity had made them completely numb, and despite the stars still in my eyes, I could still see the ground rapidly approaching.
Time slowed as I remembered Kioka's promise to me, her promise to keep me safe. For a moment, I relaxed. She would save me even if I lost. Looking towards the branch where the two enemy ninja stood. The dirty, burned ninja watched me in dark glee as I fell. Looking over to the Archer, his eyes fell onto me. The cold, unenthused look awakened something inside me. A whirlwind began to stir in my heart. The whirlwind grew into a twister as it carved my defiance into my Chakra. The only way I would let Kioka help me is by healing me after I win or burying me when I lose.
My body, my Chakra, and my weapon agreed; the state of focus that I felt when I performed flourishes and Katas filled my mind with a serene peace. My head tilted back as I tucked my knees into a somersault. Swinging my bladed nunchaku out, I finally felt it, the drain of my Chakra. The chain of my now chained kamas extended high, curling snugly around a branch. I swung through the air, landing on a nearby tree. As soon as I landed, I shook the chain, untangling it from the branch and pulling the blade to me. Dashing up the tree and catching the Kama, the satisfaction of success tugged at my lips as I jumped between branches. Quietly and quickly, I leapt high in the air, above my enemies, throwing my Kama at the archer, the chain extending towards the now shocked man's face.
"Gahhh!" The muffled scream of Yako was music to my ears as my Kama hit squarely onto his head. In a single motion, the chain moved like a living metal serpent, wrapping tightly around the archer. My Chakra flooded my muscles as I pulled the chain, man and all, into the air before using our combined momentum to send him hurtling to the ground.
"Yako!" The dirty shinobi called out hopelessly. Using the other Kama to pull me, I dove down to the forest floor, putting a thick branch between us. Ceasing my flow of Chakra into the Kamas, the chains stopped flowing out of the weapons' seal. The abrupt stop caused the chain around the Yako's body to loosen, letting the chains slip up to the archer's neck, the kama blade settling snugly. Yako could only glance at his partner before the chain's slack disappeared, and like a guillotine, he was decapitated. The chain recoiled back into the seal, bringing the bloodied Kama back into my hand.
I heard a howl that made me shudder. Looking up, I only had enough time to narrowly dive out of the way before the ground beneath me exploded in soil and stone. Out of the debris, Isuki rushed towards me. I tried to dive back, but my muscles refused, and I stumbled. Then the ninja was on me. Throwing out a wild combination, I dodged a punch to my head with a duck before having to roll to the side to dodge a knee. Somersaulting forward, I dodged a stop that made the ground crack beneath us. "I need distance", I thought to myself, but I knew that any straightforward attack wasn't gonna cut it. Then a flash of red from my blade gave me an idea. The ferocious ninja swiped at my legs, giving me the space to throw a kick at Isuki's chest. Pushing off of him, my hands flowed into the signs I used for the only offensive Jutsu that I knew, "Fire style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" Three miniature fireballs left my mouth all on a direct course for an already burned ninja. The dirty ninja jumped backward, dodging each fireball nimbly, but that was only the distraction. I threw a kunai laced with a paper bomb further up the dirty ninja's path. I didn't wait to see if I hit the bastard.
I soared through the trees, my Chained Kama now safely holstered. As I ran, I threw a kunai that had a wire full of explosive tags. I threw more Kunai with wire all about the forest, creating a hazard you couldn't run through without caution. Content, I quieted my heart, and like a ghost, I disappeared in the brush, now haunting the fresh new grave that I had dug. I didn't have to wait long for its new inhabitant to show up. The dirty ninja stumbled onto the few branches that happened to be just before my wired paper bombs. I could see from his jerky movements that he was agitated. But still, I closed my eyes and exhaled a breath. Letting go of all the tenseness, all the insecurity, all the intent, and then I fell. From directly above, gravity took me towards my target feet first, my Kamas already arcing in an X towards the dirty ninja's body. A plan so foolproof that the only thing that could stop its completion is something completely outside the realm of normal. Something like a slight gust of wind that would never naturally occur in the forest. The same wind that wafted and clashed my Kama's chains together.
Tink
The dirty ninja's head whipped up to meet my eyes, but my Kamas never stopped moving. Rushing in, the shinobi thrusted his hand towards my throat. A move made in confidence with the obvious opening my attack would give. With the man's strength, one grab would certainly be the end of me with my 12-year-old strength, and the man knew it. However, I also knew that a grab would be fatal, and my plan was based around that very fact. As the dirty ninja's hand barely touched my neck, a puff of smoke caught the ninja off guard, his eyes widening in surprise. My weapon still hung in the air as I grabbed it, my arms crossed. I was standing on my enemy's outstretched arm, already uncrossing my arms into a slash across his neck. Unfortunately, the man was also quick and strong. He dodged back just barely enough to only get a slight cut on that man's neck. It wasn't, however, far enough to avoid the onslaught that ensued.
As the dirty ninja dodged backward, I used my chakra to grip onto the man's arm, pushing myself into a twisting flip. I let one of my Kamas slip out of my hands, gripping the chain. With the rotation of my body, that chained scythe was much faster and much more dangerous than it had been before. It was a move that could only be done because of my immense practice with the Kusarigama and my intense focus. Well, that's what I thought anyway. The ninja didn't even see the blade as it sliced his neck. Landing on my feet, the blade hung at my side, dripping with blood. I heard the body hit the branch with a thump, followed by another, much lighter, wetter sound. I turned, and my eyes fell on the corpse. The ninja's headless body was still twitching as the blood dripped from the sides of the large branch that we, well, I, still stood on. As if in a final act of defiance, the ninja's head bumped against my foot. I jumped as I looked at it; the eye's empty gaze stared straight ahead. Past me, I was sure, but it felt as if the dead man stared directly into me. The sweet smell of the blood that finally met my nose was the final nail, and I turned to the side of the branch and puked.