Chapter 53: The Bonds of a Team
Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyūga Hinata. The three familiar figures appeared on the hillside, their arrival shifting the momentum and pulling Aizen back from what appeared to be the brink of disaster.
The sudden appearance of Team 8 took the Sound ninja completely by surprise.
Zaku lowered his arms, the mechanisms in his palms whirring down as he frowned deeply. He had been moments away from unleashing a full-power Decapitating Airwaves to finish Aizen off. The interruption was an unwelcome complication.
"Great! We finally found you, Aizen!" Kiba exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across his face as he dropped down from the rise and landed solidly beside his teammate. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Aizen. "Good thing we showed up when we did. It looked like you were in a tight spot with these creeps."
Kiba's enhanced senses had easily picked up on Aizen's disheveled state. While there were no visible wounds, his clothes were dusty and his breathing was slightly labored—clear signs, to Kiba, of someone who had been on the defensive and thoroughly overwhelmed.
"Oh, it's you guys," Aizen said, his voice feigning relief as if he'd just grabbed a lifeline. He let out a heavy, exhausted sigh, the picture of a spent fighter.
"Hey, it's not just me," Kiba said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Hinata and Shino are here, too."
Aizen looked up to see Hinata watching him silently from the hill. Her pale eyes, clear and luminous, held a complex mix of worry and relief.
After easily dispatching another team using their well-practiced trap tactics, Team 8 had acquired their needed scroll. But instead of heading for the tower, they had chosen to search for their former teammate, driven by the lesson Kurenai had drilled into them from the very beginning: the most important thing for a ninja was the bond between comrades. To trust each other, to protect each other's backs, and to never abandon one another—that was the true essence of a team.
Unbeknownst to them, Aizen had sensed their chakra signatures long before they arrived. Every moment of this encounter, from his restrained display of power to his feigned desperation, had been meticulously calculated. He was carefully crafting the impression that Aizen Sōsuke was a genin with exceptional speed but lacking in sustained combat power, perfectly maintaining his disguise.
Swish! Swish!
Aburame Shino and Hinata flickered down to stand beside Aizen. Now, all four stood united—the complete, if unofficially reassembled, Team 8 of Konoha.
"How fortunate for you," Dosu's muffled voice dripped with sarcasm. "Your little friends arrived to save you. But..." His visible eye narrowed into a venomous slit. "Do you really think a few extra shrimp will change your fate? How naive."
He glanced at Kin and Zaku. "No more games. Use your full power. Eliminate them all quickly, before this gets any more troublesome."
"Decapitating Airwaves!" Zaku roared.
"Demon Flute: Hell-Melody!" Kin cried, raising her flute.
"Resonating Echo Drill!" Dosu shouted, his arm device humming to life.
A devastating combination of visible and invisible attacks launched toward the Konoha genin—scything blades of air pressure, disorienting sound waves, and piercing sonic drills layered over one another, creating a maelstrom of destruction.
"They're strong," Kiba muttered, his expression turning serious. He exchanged a quick, knowing look with his teammates, a confident grin returning to his face. "Alright! Just like we practiced!"
"I'll draw their fire!" Aizen announced, taking the initiative. His hands formed the seals. "Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!" The massive fireball shot forth, not to defeat them, but to serve as a brilliant, distracting beacon, forcing the Sound ninja to acknowledge the threat.
Simultaneously, Kiba and Shino burst into motion, flanking to the left and right.
"Beast Mimicry: Double Wolf Fang!" Kiba yelled. A puff of white smoke erupted, and the small Akamaru on his head transformed into a perfect replica of Kiba himself. The two figures became indistinguishable.
"Secret Technique: Insect Jamming!" Shino commanded, his voice calm. A black, buzzing cloud of kikaichū beetles poured from his sleeves, swarming toward the Sound trio in an overwhelming wave.
Aizen's frontal fire assault, Shino's swarming insects, and Kiba's pincer movement attacked the Sound ninja from three distinct angles, splitting their focus and disrupting their coordinated attack.
The trio's initial wave of air pressure and sound, however, continued its path straight toward Hinata, who had remained in the center.
But Hinata was ready. She rose onto the balls of her feet, her body adopting the fluid, defensive stances of the Hyūga clan's Gentle Fist.
In a movement as light as a drifting leaf, she leaped, twisted, and spun, her body contorting in impossible ways to let the deadly sonic waves and compressed air slip harmlessly past her.
And then she pressed the attack.
"Gentle Fist!" she called out, her voice firm.
She landed amidst the disrupted Sound ninja, her palms glowing with concentrated chakra. She struck not to maim, but to disrupt, her hands a blur as she aimed for the tenketsu points on the three opponents who were now desperately trying to fend off fire, insects, and fangs from all sides.
In an instant, the tables had turned. The hunted had become the hunters.