"That's awesome!" I laugh, picturing Hatake challenging the old man to a rap battle. "I wish our sensei had a quirk like that. All he does is read porn in public sometimes."
"Don't even go there. Our sensei-" She pauses, stiffening. "Did you hear that?"
...
I shake my head, brow furrowed, and listen. For a long moment I can only hear the muted sounds of the forest around us, and I open my mouth to tell her so when it hits me. The distant sound of metal on metal. Another fight.
I narrow my eyes after another few seconds of silence. "Is it getting closer?"
Samui digs the stick holding her fish into the ground and stands up. She stretches, jutting her chest out, and throws me an amused smirk when she notices my expression. "Let's take a look."
We take to the treetops, climbing branches until we're up high enough to see most of the tree line while not giving ourselves away. The sun continues its steady descent above us, throwing shadows across our vision, but we manage to spot the mobile battle anyway. It's hard to miss.
They're all little more than specks on the horizon right now, but there's a clear divide between the warring factions. Two genin are running in our direction, trading kunai and shuriken but avoiding direct combat. And just behind them, a mob of nearly two dozen shinobi are pursuing them with extreme prejudice.
I whistle, watching as one of the genin being pursued spins around and hurls a ball of fire at the mob. It doesn't look like it hits any of them. "Wow. Those two are screwed. That's a ton of guys chasing them."
Samui's eyes narrow. "I think that's the Kumo contingent," she says.
"What makes you say that?" I ask, shoving down the sudden nervousness in my gut. We're teammates now. She's done trying to kill me. Teammates.
"Part of our plan was to join together whenever we found ally pairs, so that we could crush individual teams and gather scrolls for each other. Similar to what those Iwa nin that ambushed us were doing, but on a larger scale." She waves a hand at the fight. "That scale."
"That's pretty smart." I watch the group hammer on the fleeing team. "Brutal, though."
"As if that means anything in an exam for shinobi," Samui says, and I tilt my head in acknowledgement.
"Point. So are we going to stick around here and hope they don't notice us, or leave them to it?"
"The latter," she says, and my nerves ease. "I don't think they'll notice us if we're on ground level. We'll let them pass and move on in the morning."
"Sounds good." I push off the trunk I've been leaning against while Samui drops down to a branch below, throwing one last glance up at the fight before I do the same.
A flash of pink catches my eye, and my heart stops. Oh no. No, no, no.
"Naruto?" Samui calls up, but I don't quite register it. I hop up and latch onto a higher branch, swinging myself up.
"That can't be," I mutter. "There's no way."
"What is it?" Samui asks, appearing beside me. "We can't stay here. They're going to be on us in a minute, if that." I wave her off, squinting.
I zero in on one of the two genin running away. Pink hair and a dark green battle dress beneath her cloak. And for the shinobi running alongside her, a similar cloak and a dark blue shirt underneath it, along with a head of spiked black hair. My fists clench. Son of a bitch.
"Those are my teammates," I say between grit teeth. Samui sighs.
"I'm sorry, Naruto-"
"I have to help them."
She looks at me in alarm. "You can't be serious."
One of the Kumo nin lobs a raiton jutsu at Sakura, which Sasuke just manages to dispel with another Great Fireball. I scowl. "I'm dead serious. They're not going to make it if I don't help."
"They aren't going to make it if you do help," she retorts. "There are far too many of them for you to defeat."
"I don't have to defeat them." Sakura lets loose a flurry of kunai tagged with exploding notes, only for them to be drenched in a quick suiton jutsu from one of the pursuers. "I just have to distract them long enough for my teammates to get away."
"And me?" Samui asks. "Am I supposed to risk my life for a couple genin I've never met before?"
I sigh. "No. I'll go by myself, and later on you can join up with them and say you got rid of your partner like you planned." I crouch, preparing to jump and begin another Great Breakthrough to hopefully scatter the Kumo nin, when Samui grabs my hand.
"What?" I snap, shaking off her hand. "Is that not good enough for you? I don't have time for this, they're going to be here any second!"
"Do you really think you can stall them long enough for your teammates to get away?"
"Yes." I have to.
Samui purses her lips. "Okay." She reaches up and slides my tanto out of its sheath, and exhales slowly. "I'm under a genjutsu, correct?"
Amidst the sea of tension, a part of me relaxes. "Thanks, Samui."
"You'll be welcome when we're through this task," she says, voice dry. "And don't think I'll be doing any lasting damage to my own allies. I'll give them a distraction, and that's all." And with that said she leaps up to the top of the tree line.
"Hang on, guys," I whisper, starting up a new loop and ignoring the unpleasant tingle in my gut. "We're coming."
At this point Sakura and Sasuke are clearly visible amidst the trees and enemy shinobi. One of Sasuke's arms is held up against his chest, soaked in blood, and Sakura's movements are tinged with the jerkiness inherent to raiton muscle damage. Every couple seconds one of them spins around to hurl some sort of attack at the mob behind them, which never seems to connect but at least keeps the foreign genin from catching them outright.
Taunts from their pursuers fill the air, and Sasuke spins around mid-jump and spews a round of tiny fireballs at them. Their formation breaks apart to dodge, but the fireballs suddenly all veer off into different directions, striking at least five shinobi and knocking them right out of the air.
A howl of protest goes up from the crowd, and Sasuke stumbles as he turns back around and lands on another branch. Sakura is there in the next instant, shoving herself underneath his good arm and kicking the both of them off again. The pace is slower now, though, and the foreign genin race forward to capitalize on it.
I land on a branch between them and clap my hands together.
The Great Breakthrough knocks almost a dozen of them off their feet, sending them careening backwards into the forest. Several manage to avoid the worst of it, but their focus is now on me. I rock back on my feet as the jutsu dies down, panting and craning my head to make sure none of them broke off to continue the chase.
"Naruto!?"
I turn on my heel and see Sakura and Sasuke stopped not even a hundred yards away, and my heart jumps up into my throat.
"Go!" I shout, jabbing my finger north. "We've got this!"
"What about you?" Sakura cries. As if on cue one of the shinobi that avoided my jutsu breaks out of their confusion and lunges at me, sword poised to stab me through the heart.
Samui bursts out of a dense tangle of branches to my right and slams a kick into kick into the side of his head, sending him plummeting to the ground below. I jab at my teammates harder. "Don't worry about me! I'll be fine!" Sakura hesitates, but I see Sasuke pull on her and turn them around. They take off towards the finish line once more, and my heart starts beating again.
I turn back around to meet the enemy, just in time to get a full body tackle to the ribs.
I gasp, my breath leaving me all at once, and find myself in freefall. I thrash against the unyielding arms wrapped around my torso, squeezing so hard that I wouldn't even be able to breathe if I hadn't gotten the wind knocked out of me. A loud thud echoes in my ears and pain erupts in my back as I'm rammed into something hard and unforgiving, following by a crack and more freefall.
I snarl through the rushing wind and sink my teeth into my attacker's shoulder. He grunts in pain, letting one arm go to grab me by the hair and yank me away. It's enough. Right when he tears me off I swing my freed arm around and sink my fist into his solar plexus, detonating an extra strong pressure burst of wind.
His hand falls from my head and his other arm goes limp around me. I twist around, planting my feet against his chest and kicking off. The forest swims around me as I reach out for some sort of purchase, and I shove as much wind as I can beneath me to slow my fall down.
I catch upon a branch, and despite my slowed momentum it still bends and groans and almost breaks beneath me. It holds, though, and I let myself hang on it with one hand while I regain my bearings.
A dull thud prompts me to look down, and I see the genin that had tackled me crumpled on the forest floor. The forest floor which really isn't that far down from here.
...
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