With a noise decibel that rivaled the howls of demons, over a hundred orange clad shadow clones launched themselves against the three foreign ninja. Caught by surprise, they were quickly pushed back by the clone army.
"Hana, take point! Shikamaru and Chouji, back her up! Haruto, move Kurenai's team to safety!" Part of the blond's mind bristled in protest. Why was he of all people being forced to play gofer? By all rights, he was the most skilled and cunning fighter there. Sure, Asuma had the edge in experience, but his profile was hardly flattering. Described as "habitually slothful," the jounin's killer resume included several tours of duty as an essentially decorative bodyguard for the Lord of Fire. Luckily for Haruto, the portion of his brain that was commanded by reason promptly prevented his mouth from landing him in trouble for insubordination. He quickly remembered that no one knew about that part of his life. His performance at the academy was only fair and he did skip out on every single meeting and mission since being assigned to Team 10.
"Haruto! Hurry up and get her out of there!" Surely, it was a slip of tongue when the jounin of Team 10 said "her" as opposed to "them," but the message was clear enough. Haruto might be young, but human psychology was required reading for ANBU initiates.
The blond ninja quickly deployed a squadron of clones to the far side of the battlefield and then had them perform body switches with the members of Team 8. A cursory survey told him that they were all still alive, though the Hyuuga was severely wounded and bleeding heavily. Haruto tied off her wound with field dressing and dedicated a clone to keep watch before turning his attention back to the battle.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, the enemy steadily gave ground to the overwhelming number of Haruto clones. For every one clone lost, two took its place on the frontline. Had this continued, the enemy would have been eventually defeated. Alas, it was not to be.
"Doton: Yomi Numa!"
A slight pause in battle gave Tayuya the time needed to complete the complex hand seals needed for the A-rank earth technique. A shockwave engulfed the area, turning the flat forest ground into a massive swampy mess that ensnarled over three quarters of Haruto's clones. Trapped and hindered, the clones became easy targets for successive attacks.
"Raiton: Raigeki no Shuuha!"
From Yugito's outstretched palms, an arc of lightning swept across the landscape, incinerating over two dozen doppelgangers.
"Doton: Retsudo Tenshou!"
Apparently something of a speed demon, the redhead followed with another attack that crushed masses of blonds beneath layers of earth. Haruto cursed colorfully as his clone army was decimated in mere seconds.
The battle, however, was not all one sided. The rest of Team 10 and Hana assailed the remaining foes with considerably better results. The Inuzuka and her canines successfully cornered the lone shinobi long enough for Shikamaru and Chouji to use their clan techniques. The Nara boy easily ensnared the enemy nin with his shadows, setting him up for Chouji's human bullet tank attack. In desperation, the shinobi erected an earth wall, but the B-rank earth defensive technique barely slowed down the Akimichi ball of doom, which all but flattened him. Nearby, Asuma set his sights on the demon beast closest to him. With its master distracted, the Doki summon could not effectively engage the Konoha jounin, who easily demolished its legs with his wind chakra enhanced trench knives.
Not bad. Haruto considered the trade off between a few shadow clones and an enemy shinobi and summon to be a bargain. Hana and all of Team 10 were still standing and the blond genin could easily summon forth another clone army to replace the one lost earlier.
However, at this crucial moment, Haruto chose to pause briefly. The calmness the two fighting kunoichi seemed to radiate piqued his interest. Either the girls were really that unaware of their predicament or they were that confident in their abilities. His instinct guided him towards the latter possibility especially when one of them managed to pull off a non-native A-rank attack like it was child play. Having learned to trust his instinct, the undercover ANBU erred on the side of caution. Haruto created more clones and committed them to battle, but personally remained behind to observe. Eager as he was to end the fight, he had no intention of walking into another trap so soon after the fateful Rain mission. Plus, someone had to have defeated Team 8 and it sure as hell couldn't have been that dumb shinobi.
Ultimately, Haruto's prudence proved to be the better part of valor.
"Demon Cursed Seal: Level One! Unleash!"
Everyone was forced to shield their eyes as a massive explosion of chakra engulfed the area. Many of the nearby Haruto clones were instantly vaporized by the accompanying seismic shocks. Where once stood the figure of a proud and haughty kunoichi, there now appeared the imposing facsimile of a demon with black marks running across her exposed skin. Haruto was still far from being a seals expert, but he recognized a potential forbidden technique when he saw one. This was going to be one of those days. He just knew it.
Unfortunately, seals and sealing techniques weren't covered at the academy and were generally not well understood by most ninja. So neither the other genin nor the chuunin knew what to expect. Hoping to surprise his opponent, Shikamaru surged forward to attack the recently altered kunoichi. He deployed a shuriken screen while simultaneously lashing out with his shadows from the freaky redhead's blind side. For a moment, it looked like the lazy genius succeeded in snagging his foe. But the target suddenly vanished and reappeared right in front of him. The surprised Nara boy barely succeeded in crossing his arms to block the blow when an unbelievably powerful punch flipped him over. He had no idea how a short, wiry girl managed to pack so much power into a punch, but his limbs were completely numb (and perhaps broken) after absorbing that single blow. In pain and powerless to defend himself, Shikamaru could only watch helplessly as the redhead positioned herself for the coup de grace.
As fate would have it, Shikamaru's meeting with the Shinigami was temporarily delayed by the miracle in orange. Tayuya gave an inhuman scream of anger and frustration as a solid wall of Haruto clones intercepted her. As the stunned but alive, pineapple headed boy pulled out of the battle zone, the only thing he could think of was how he owed Haruto his life.
The Konoha ninja, however, had no time to celebrate. After all, one rarely triumphed in battle with just brilliant defense. Haruto gathered another large clone army and charged in a fashion reminiscent of his pre-training days. Yes, it was a standard massed assault but with one important twist. His recent engagement against Rain ninja had taught him the utility of diversifying the makeup and capabilities of his clones. Mixing non-corporeal clones with solid ones had helped sow confusion across the enemy ranks for minimum chakra cost. To an extent, he attempted to do the same here. But this time, he threw a couple of souped up shadow clones into the mix. At an exponential increase in energy spent, these clones had a higher base chakra reserve, were far more intelligent and capable of executing complex maneuvers.
"Go!" Haruto commanded to his army.
The attack began well enough. By having his different clones attack in staggered waves, Haruto forced the redhead to repeatedly switch between an aggressive offensive mode for the weaker and incorporeal clones and a more defensive approach for the stronger ones. Inevitably, the kunoichi floundered and when she did, the blond inserted himself in place of a clone via the handy Kawarimi no Jutsu. Haruto threw a perfect cross punch at the enemy ninja's lower abdomen and heard the satisfying sound of a floating rib fracture.
The red-haired kunoichi didn't so much as twitch.
What the?! As far as Haruto knew, no human with pain receptors could avoid reacting to such a hard blow to his or her vertebral ribs. It was why the eleventh and twelfth ribs, the so-called unanchored ribs, were such popular targets. Just about any full contact hit guaranteed, at the very least, a temporarily stunned opponent. With the enemy being far too competent to be physically overwhelmed and seemingly immune to pain, his carefully orchestrated assault fell apart with he, himself, being laid out on his ass.
Just as with Shikamaru, Haruto's body protested as he strove to regain mobility. He had to spit out mouthfuls of blood and saliva while rolling around on the ground.
The girl hit hard. She hit VERY hard.
Going to be tough like that, huh? So what if his first concerted attack failed. Haruto was far from having emptied his quiver of arrows. If straight-out taijutsu—which was by no means his forte—didn't work, how about a couple of genjutsu phantasms and fire ninjutsu? Or a combination of…
"Haruto, back Hana up!" Haruto's face scrunched up with distaste. The fat and lazy jounin so did not just order him to disengage. Pumping with adrenalin, the blond wanted to protest and to impress upon his sensei that he was the most appropriate person to deal with the redhead. He never got the chance to speak, however, as Asuma and Chouji were already engaging her. Though frustrated, Haruto recognized the logic in the order. Asuma didn't know the extent of his abilities and most likely felt better working in a melee team with Chouji instead.
"Brat, give me a hand," Hana growled with a touch of worry in her voice.
The chuunin and her canine companions were somewhat successful against their kenjutsu opponent. Yugito's clothing was slashed, her body was adorned with multiple cuts and three bloody, parallel marks ran across her otherwise flawless face, indicating an attempt to remove her face by one of the Inuzuka dogs. On the other hand, after launching several brutal assaults, Hana was becoming tired and sloppy. Yugito needed no prompter to take full advantage of her opponent's exhaustion.
"I. Hate. Dogs. And. Bitches!" the traitorous Kumo kunoichi declared, squinting her feline eyes and forcefully enunciating every word with unbridled hate. After swatting aside two of the canines, she was left in a perfect position to skewer the vulnerable Inuzuka. Too far away, Haruto could only watch as smooth metal met soft flesh. The blonde kunoichi's ninjaken ran through its target's body.
A shocked Hana fell back, clutching in her arms the bleeding body of one of her faithful canine companions. The faithful beast had leapt forward to protect its mistress, intercepting the fatal blow with its own body. After watching her companion take one last agonizing breath, the Konoha chuunin gave a feral roar as she leapt back into battle.
Oh, shit. Haruto and most of his clone army could only wait on the sidelines and watch as the two kunoichi engaged in a frenzied melee. For a moment, he swore he saw not two human females, but rather, two rabid animals aiming for each others' jugulars. Worse yet, the combatants' erratic movements made it very difficult for him to pin down his enemy from his ally.
"Hana, back away." No response. With no other choice, Haruto led his clones into battle. In retrospect, the genius probably should have taken a minute to assess his opponent, though given the combat environment it was understandable why he did not. Had he done so, he would not have been clutching his profusely bleeding arm moments later.
Haruto cursed the high heavens. Had he been fighting alone, he could have ended things a long time ago with a few, high-powered attacks. But under current circumstances, he couldn't, not just because of the whole secrecy issue, but also because he might grievously wound his own allies, who, for some reason, felt the need to go head-to-head against stronger opponents.
"Hana, back the hell away!" Frustration and pain shone through as Haruto accompanied his demand with a brief flash of killing intent. Screw the chain of command, the teenage girl was going to die if she stayed closely engaged with this enemy. Should that happen, not even the Hokage would be able to protect him from Kiba's wrath. Luckily, for whatever reason, Hana heeded his advice and moved to disengage.
Eager to finish off her prey, Yugito followed like a hawk. Posturing rather arrogantly, her hands flashed through a series of hand seals for a devastating lightning strike.
Bingo.
Haruto smiled as he finished his technique first. The blonde kunoichi could only watch in horror as the incoming water attack became charged with the electric power of her own technique before smashing into her. Screaming in agony as she was electrocuted, the Kumo nin was violently thrown into a nearby tree.
The blond cheered. Score one for the home team. In a very intelligent move, Haruto cut his private celebration short to tend to his ally.
"Hey, Hana, you alright? You still with me?"
"Yeah, fine… I'm fine. Go help…" At that point, Hana crumbled to the ground and began foaming blood at the mouth. Haruto quickly instructed several clones to move the chuunin away from the battlefield. Ever loyal, her two remaining canines slowly limped to her side.
She'll live, so at least Kiba won't kill me. The chuunin did well, holding out against her blonde foe for as long as she did. The special ANBU pledged to keep an eye on the teenage Inuzuka. As Haruto finished patching up Hana, a shadow clone jogged up to him.
"Eh, that jounin from Team 8 kept mumbling something about a flute and mirages. She also rattled off a list of genjutsu earlier, or at least I think they were genjutsu. Thought you might want to know." Haruto nodded before sending the clone off. That was strange. What did a flute have anything to do with genjutsu?
A whole lot, as the blond would later find out.
As Haruto turned to the last battle, it was very evident that Sarutobi Asuma was clearly the stronger and faster fighter, yet his redheaded foe seemed to be able to run circles around him. Every now and then, the Konoha jounin would stop or stumble just before delivering a potentially fatal blow. Something really fishy was going on. To top things off, Haruto also saw a meat tank Chouji barrel towards Asuma and partially overrun his teacher. This happened while their redheaded enemy watched from afar in relative safety.
What's going on and what's with the music? Sounds like someone's playing a woodwind. Indeed, a soft, melodic note wafted in the air.
Aw, no way. Had the redhead been a fellow ninja of Konoha, Haruto would have declared the girl a genius. Developing an entire set of genjutsu with a musical instrument was a very impressive achievement and very unorthodox and unexpected. If she could only play her instrument with one hand and wasn't on the other side. Instead, he was now determined to eliminate this very significant threat to Konoha security.
Haruto stealthily backed off and amassed a huge clone army in secret. To his dismay, the effort left him winded. Apparently, he had created a lot more clones than he had originally thought. Still, Konoha's trained prodigy knew that the slight chakra depletion wasn't his biggest worry. His biggest potential concern was the cumulative effect of muscle and mental fatigue. Inevitably his sharp mind would dull far before his chakra reserve became depleted, and Haruto was keen to end the fight before then.
The blond clone army struck in concert with Asuma's ferocious attack. Eager to avenge his defeated students, the wind empowered jounin charged, aiming for the younger girl's vitals. Tayuya dodged, barely, but she could not avoid the masses of yellow and orange. Her flute slipped from her fingers and was instantly dog piled by a dozen blonds. Haruto, himself, moved forward with the retrieval.
"Fool!" Triumph filled the girl's dark eyes as she threw the bodies off like they were paper dolls.
"Doton: Yomi Numa!"
Screaming bloody murder, the so-called genius of Konoha sank into the muddy earth along with every single one of his clones. The demoness smirked with the superiority of someone who knew with absolute certainty that she had won. Tayuya picked up her discarded instrument and turned to face Asuma, who was charging from the far side of the artificial swamp after a narrow escape. Unmolested by pesky colorful clones and with time on her side, she tapped into the power of the cursed seal to weave one of her strongest techniques, the Illusion Tune Chains.
The Konoha jounin faltered as he careened to a stop just meters away from his target. The enemy kunoichi gave a demonic grin. These Konoha ninja were tricky, but ultimately easy to dispatch, like all trash. Open and proud, she walked forward to end the life of her hapless foe and last remaining obstacle. Shame that ally of hers had to get herself knocked out. No doubt, Tayuya would happily note Yugito's lackluster performance in the aftermath mission report.
Such impotent fools. In retrospect, the redhead's characterization of her enemy should have been directed at herself.
The sophisticated genjutsu she wove collapsed like a house of cards, and out of it came the angry, determined visage of Asuma Sarutobi. Only Tayuya's cursed seal enhanced dexterity saved her pretty head from being cleaved down the middle. Asuma's knife thrust technically missed, but as the redhead learned all too well, a close shave was just as bad in some situations. The unseen wind chakra at the edge of the blade cut her skin like a hot knife through butter.
Tayuya's vision instantly blurred with red as she howled in shock and pain. The blow might not have been fatal, but the overconfident kunoichi was momentarily blinded and completely vulnerable. Two things saved her life. One was that Asuma hesitated to perform the killing blow. And two, contrary to what she thought, Yugito had not been knocked out. A series of lightning attacks massacred the majority of the trapped Haruto clones and forced Asuma, a close combat specialist, to seek cover.
"We need to leave!" Tayuya snarled at her ally and savior in anger. She reached for her flute only to make a shocking discovery. Across on the other side, a blond boy smiled sinisterly back at her. In his hand rested a small, slender object, which glimmered in the moonlight. The little prick stole her flute, her most prized possession! Even as blood bubbled out from her facial wound, badly affecting her vision, every iota of her being cried out for revenge.
The cursed seal, yes… she needed to go to level two of the cursed seal and…
"Tayuya, control yourself. I'm telling you we need to leave, NOW! A Konoha task force is coming up on us!" Only the harsh feral undertone in the blond's voice made the redhead pause. To the redhead, it looked like her ally was channeling the Nibi, which was never a good thing.
Tayuya cleared her head, suppressed the urge to transform, and took a cold, calculating look at the kid with her flute. Sure, she would love to get it back, about as much as she would love to draw and quarter the little upstart. But the pesky blond did steal the flute while masterfully covering himself with several complex layer of genjutsu; genjutsu, which had her, an illusion specialist, completely fooled. Tayuya tossed the piece of twig, a mock imitation of her instrument, away in disgust. If the genin was able to pull this off, then what else could he do? She would love to find out, but time was not on her side.
"Don't think this is over! I'll be back to take care of you Konoha trash!" The young fiery kunoichi leapt away before Asuma could close in on her again. Tayuya stopped briefly by her fallen shinobi's side before disappearing into the night.
"You were lucky this time." Yugito kept the wary wind jounin at the edge of her vision, but the bulk of her attention was focused on the fellow blond on the other side. Their eyes locked onto each other as if possessed by an exchange of eternal enmity. The kunoichi's distinctively feline eyes squinted in a very unfriendly manner, as if sizing up prey. Then the moment passed and the blonde kunoichi disappeared into the trees like her compatriot.
"Haruto, are you alright?" Turning to his concerned sensei, the genin finally released a breath he did not realize he was holding and nodded.
"Good. Now, if you are up to it, give me a hand with the others."
Not long after, Konoha's relief force stumbled upon the wounded, weary, but still alive members of the two genin teams.