Chapter Text
Sakura headed towards the elevator carrying a roll and some fruit from breakfast. She might have only known Kakashi sensei for a few months but she he seemed like the kind of guy who was so focused on everyone else’s welfare that he didn’t really do the best job of taking care of himself. If he followed his own advice to get a good meal as well as he did his own advice of getting a good night’s sleep, he probably hadn’t eaten since Sai and Yakumo had left for the Arena. So she was heading to the mentors’ room to make sure he ate something.
Being able to move around the fortress freely felt liberating. Without samurai breathing down her neck everywhere she went, Sakura could finally think. Security had laxened significantly once the Games had begun, nobody could really sabotage each other's Candidates now that they were all in the Arena.
The Arena. Sakura hadn’t watched a single moment of the Games so far. Sasuke and her had spent the entire first day of the Games waiting with Naruto in the dungeons after he had been locked up for his escapades the night before. They were supposed to release him as soon as the Games started, but considering the dungeon’s warden was still cleaning orange paint off of his armor, he wasn’t inclined to let her blond teammate out any earlier than he necessarily had to.
By the time the combination of bribes, unconvincing threats and eventual begging finally wore the warden down enough to let Naruto out, night had fallen. Sakura checked the casualty list before collapsing straight into her bed. She did the same when she woke up and was relieved to see both Sai and Yakumo had made it to day 2. She didn’t really want to watch, she never really cared for the Games, and she definitely didn’t want to watch either of them bleed out on an international broadcast. But part of her felt guilty, like she was being a bad teammate, attendant and friend for not watching. It’s not like she could really do anything to help them, only Kakashi sensei could at this point. Maybe that’s why she was bringing her sensei breakfast, making sure he was on top of his game was really the only way she could be helpful.
Finally the elevator arrived at her floor. Sadly it wasn’t empty.
“Hey, I looked for you yesterday at the theater, but I didn’t see you,” smiled Zaku, the Oto attendant.
Sakura mentally groaned. The creep had spent the entire opening feast hitting on her. With all the chaos of the Games’ preparation, and Naruto’s ‘legal’ troubles she had almost forgotten that, but seeing his smarmy smile brought the memories of that night back in full force.
“Yeah, my team and I decided to watch the first day in our own suite,” she lied politely as she entered the elevator, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. It wasn’t.
“Well you guys should all come down to the main theater to watch. It’s fun interacting with all the other attendants,” he said with a wink. “Especially now that all the stiffness and formality of the opening events are over.”
“I think we’ll just keep watching in our suite,” she replied curtly. Even if she had wanted to go to the theater, which she absolutely did not if this guy was going to be there, Naruto was still under suite-arrest for the rest of the day. One final punishment from the very disgruntled samurai.
“Well that’s a shame, but you guys should totally come to the party on the bottom floor tomorrow, the Kiri attendants stole some sake from the kitchens, it’s gonna be a good time.”
“How do you have a party in the dungeons,” Sakura asked, her curiosity outweighing her own sense of unease.
“The dungeons aren’t the bottom floor babe.” Ugh, this elevator couldn’t reach her destination fast enough. “There’s a chamber below that, the Samurai used to use for storage but now it’s empty. Attendants have been using it for parties for years.”
At last the elevator reached the floor of the mentors’ room. Sakura practically rushed out. “Thanks for the invite, but I don’t really think that’s our thing.”
Zaku stepped out of the elevator after her, it seemed that this was his floor too. Damn.
“Come on, it's gonna be a load of fun. Everyone interesting is gonna be there: Kiri, Suna, Kumo, Taki, Kusa.” If Zaku had put a little extra emphasis on that final word, he did so with just enough subtlety for Sakura to not notice. At least not consciously.
Kusa. Naruto was desperate for any info on Karin and he would clearly go to any lengths to get it. Sakura hadn’t seen him this invested in anything other than ramen or his dream of becoming Hokage. She had no doubt that the first chance he got he would be tracking down the Kusa attendants and interrogating them with all the subtlety he was known for. They would be too suspicious that he was looking for a weakness that he could relay to Kakashi sensei to help give Konoha’s Candidates an edge in the Arena.
But at a party with underage drinking, with Sakura or more likely Sasuke asking the questions (he was better at that kind of thing), they might just let something slip. Something that could genuinely help Naruto.
Naruto was her teammate, but more importantly, even if she wouldn’t admit it to Ino, he was her friend. She could tolerate a few hours fending off Zaku’s advances for his sake. Just this once.
She reluctantly sighed. “What time?”
Zaku smirked.
Fu yawned. She had no idea what happened last night, but the constant stream of something roaring had kept her from getting in her sleep. Judging by that and the two gongs that went off, somebody in the arena had gotten into trouble, she just wished they had been a little quieter about it. She also hoped that Nakari was okay. He was nice, and even though he was a little scared of her, he was better about hiding it than most people in the village.
They were looking for him now. Best to have the whole alliance together, that's what she told Kurostuchi. Fu’s best friend seemed a little reluctant at first, but Akatsuchi had convinced her that there was strength in numbers and it’s not like they had anything better to do at the moment. It’s not like they knew where Gaara was and considering how loud last night’s events were, everyone was probably as tired as they were, so they wouldn’t be at a disadvantage.
Kurostuchi had wanted to look for food, but Lord Shibuki had sent them all a very nice breakfast of rice, smoked fish, and a few canteens of water, so they were set for the moment. Plus Akatasuchi mentioned they could look for signs of wildlife while they searched for Nakari.
Meeting the two of them was easily the best part of these Games. Fu hadn’t met anyone as nice as them in her entire life. Kusu was the best, she was so funny! The way she had stood up for her at the Candidates' feast before the Games, well no had ever done that for Fu before. She knew she had made the right choice for her first friend at that moment and what she said last night only confirmed it. She might not have made 100 friends like she planned, but two was a good start. Three if she counted Nakari, four if she counted Lord Shibuki. Maybe she was closer to 100 than she originally thought!
The fact that those friends she had made would have to die if she had any chance of surviving hadn’t even crossed her mind. Denial was a powerful narcotic.
“Let's rest for a second,” Kurostuchi stated from the front of the line.
“Great idea Kusu,” Fu replied enthusiastically. Kurotsuchi seemed to only have good ideas. They weren’t moving too fast, better to move slowly, and they didn’t want to draw attention by making too much noise leaping from tree to tree, plus it would be easier to conserve energy and keep track of their surroundings if they weren’t going full speed. Another great idea from Kurotsuchi.
There was a thick cloud cover, largely blocking the sun, but nonetheless it was a sweltering day and a little water break would go a long way. Hydration, hydration hydration, that was the mantra Lord Shibuki had drilled into her during the Games’ lead up. Actually that was really the only advice he had given her, he wasn’t really that great with words. If it was somebody else, Fu might question their competency as a mentor, but Lord Shibuki was the village’s only living Victor. He had to know what he was doing, so she had hung on his every word, even if there weren’t that many of them.
So the group took a moment to rest in a small clearing. She sat down on a large rock and took a very deep drink from her canteen, with a little bit of water dribbling down her chin.
“Slow down, you're going to waste it,” came Kurotsuchi's irritated voice. “We don’t know when we’ll be able to refill our supply.”
Fu choked on her water and coughed up a good mouthful as if to illustrate Kurostuchi’s point. As she regained control of herself Fu looked up towards her with an apologetic smile, but Kurotsuchi merely glared. Tough crowd. That’s fine, Kusu might have a hard surface like a rock, but Fu knew she was a kind caring person underneath the surface. It would be her job to help bring that person out so that everyone else could see it too, after all friends were supposed to bring out the best in each other. At least that’s what the book she had read said.
“You don’t have to do everything with 100% enthusiasm, you know,” Kuortuschi continued as she leaned back against a tree. “It’s a waste of energy.”
See there was Kurotsuchi doing her part to bring out the best in Fu. A good friendship leads to mutual growth, that was another thing the book had said. She and Kurostuchi were clearly taking the next step in their friendship, oh Kami this was so exciting!
Conserving energy would certainly make her a more effective kunoichi but best not to be too agreeable though. The book had said that a little bit of conflict could make a relationship stronger in the longer run. But she didn’t want to fight with Kusu! So maybe just a little pushback, just an eensy, tiny, little bit.
“I don’t know, I was always told you should put your best effort into everything.” There, that was perfect!
“That’s fine for like training and fighting and everything, but maybe just tone it down a little bit with everything else.”
‘Tone it down’, for some reason that phrase seemed to bother Fu. But personal growth was supposed to be a little uncomfortable. Growing pains as the book had phrased it. It was all part of the process, and the more she grew as a person the more friends she would make.
“Sure, I’ll give it my best effort,” Fu replied with one of her trademark beaming smiles.
That didn’t really seem to get the ideal reaction out of Kurotsuchi, who threw her hands into the air and sighed, before turning around. “You two rest for another few minutes, I’ll scout ahead.”
“Great idea Kusu, I’ll go with you,” Fu said, as she prepared to get up.
“No, no,” she replied, maybe a little more hurriedly than she intended. “I’ll do it myself.”
“But I’m a really great scout” she pleaded, attempting to give Kurotsuchi what had been described to her as puppy dog eyes.
“Let her go, Fu,” Akatsuchi chimed in. “Sometimes Kurotsuchi just needs a moment to walk by herself and think.”
Oh personal space, the book had mentioned that too. A good friend needed to respect boundaries. Fu didn’t really fully get that part, people back in Taki gave her nothing but space to herself and she didn’t really like that. But friends were different people with different needs and she would have to respect that Kusu might like different things to her.
In this personal thought process, Fu missed Kurotsuchi, sending Akatsuchi a grateful look.
“Well, okay then,” Fu’s look of contemplation changed to her standard smile. “Good luck, we’ll catch up to you in a few minutes.”
Kurotushci quickly left the hearing, her voice calling out behind her “no hurry, take your time,” before she was gone, completely out of sight.
Fu sighed. She handled that well she thought, though part of her knew she probably could’ve done better.
Akatsuchi turned to her. “Don’t worry about Kurotsuchi, she’s used to being a bit of a loner. She’s not always great around other people.”
“Well then wouldn’t she want to be around other people more,” Fu asked innocently, genuinely not knowing the answer.
“I think part of her does, but she just doesn’t know it yet, there’s a lot of pressure on her back in the village to succeed and I think that sometimes distracts her from personal relationships, if she ever seems standoffish it’s not personal, that’s just the way she is.”
“Good to know, though I don’t really think she’s that standoffish,” she replied.
Akatsuchi chuckled. “You might be the first person I’ve met who’s thought that.”
“I just think she’s incredible.”
Akatsuchi's chuckle turned into a much larger, wholesome laugh. “On that point I think we’re in agreement.”
Laughter was contagious and Flu quickly found herself releasing a few cackles of her own. She was really so lucky to have met them both, especially Kurotsuchi.
That girl hates you.
Fu’s laughter died, as she shifted from an outward conversation towards an inward one.
‘No she doesn’t, she’s my friend.’
That girl hates you, you can see it in her eyes.
‘What would you know, you stupid bug.’
I know hate and so do you. I don’t know why you can’t see it this time.
‘She doesn’t hate me, she and Akatsuchi are my friends.’
You can’t trust them, or that bumbling fool you call ‘lord’. All of them would cut you to pieces without a second thought if given the chance.
‘They wouldn’t do that.’
They would. Don’t forget little Fu, I’m the only one you can trust. I’m your only friend.
‘You’re wrong this time.’
When have I ever been wrong before?
That caused Fu to pause. In all the time she had been host to the Nanabi, the beetle had never once been wrong. It had warned her of danger, steered her away from disaster and identified liars without fail. But this time it was wrong, Fu was sure of that. Besides Kurotsuchi wasn’t afraid of her, she was the first person Fu had ever met who wasn’t afraid of her.
That’s because she doesn’t know the truth.
‘SHUT UP!’
The Bug was wrong. It was wrong, it was wrong, it was wrong. It had to be wrong. It just had to.
The Nanabi stayed silent. It had made its point, it didn’t feel the need to press it any further, So Fu and an oblivious Akatsuchi drinking his water sat in silence for several minutes as Fu was too self absorbed in her own fears and anxieties to notice anything.
But even a person closed off to the world notices when the ground starts shaking. Fu gasped, afraid that the Nanabi’s chakra was leaking. But it only took a second to realize that she wasn’t the source of the tremble. A resounding boom coming from the west was the obvious source of the sudden minor quake.
West. The exact direction Kurostuchi went to scout ahead.
Any self doubt was immediately banished from Fu’s mind, replaced by fear for the girl that Fu knew was her friend no matter what that idiotic beetle said. To the gasps of Akatsuchi (who himself was hurriedly standing up, arriving at the same conclusion as her), Fu sprouted a set of long green beetle wings from her back, taking flight without even bothering to look back.
She flew west as fast as she ever had in her life, not even bothering to dodge trees, practically breaking through branches without even realizing they were there. She picked up a few scratches and bruises as a result, but they were nothing that a jinchuriki wouldn’t heal from within a few minutes.
She wouldn’t have noticed if she was being pelted with kunai, the only thought in her head was to move forward. Her throat tightened, her stomach twisted into knots, she could barely will herself to breath. Yet even that failed to slow her down, as she soared through the air not like a bird or a fluttering insect, but as a relentless unyielding missile with no regard for whatever was in her way.
At such a speed with such little regard for her own safety, it took Fu very little time to make her way smash her way through the trees to a large grass field. It was a truly open space, there were trees on the outskirts but for the most part, it was smooth even ground. Well, except for the giant earth wall, that a visibly sweating Kurotsuchi was standing a few meters behind.
Fu couldn’t quite see what was over the wall when she first broke through the tree line, but as she emerged onto the field, a large metal ball about the size of a grapefruit, smashed through the earth barrier from the opposite side heading directly for Kurotsuchi.
Fu dived from the air, straight towards her friends with all the speed she could muster. But she was too far, her reaction to the projectile too slow. She had less than an instant to cover that distance, even if she had been fully prepared for it, she would have never made it in time.
But Kurotsuchi wasn’t the kind of person who needed saving. She was prepared, her senses finely tuned to the battlefield. The moment the projectile made contact with the earth wall, she was manuerving her torso and as it pierced through the rock heading towards her with the full intention of reducing her intestines into a bloody paste, she gracefully bent herself out of the deadly weapon’s way, without it even grazing her.
It’s a good thing she did.The ball breezed by her before colliding into the ground a few meters later, the force of the impact spraying a massive amount of direct and rock into the air, tearing up the crass and creating a fairly audible ‘boom’ on contact. A mini crater had formed where the ball had come to a rest, with a large earthy trail stretching to the point where it first made contact with the ground.
A fast high powered attack. Fu did not want to see what that would do to a human body. A bit more in control of herself and a bit more aware of the battlefield, Fu noticed three more identical trails and carters in the area of ground behind Kurotsuchi, and three more holes in the wall that she had obviously created to shield herself. Judging by the rock crumblings down from the wall, it seemed to be on the verge of collapsing altogether.
Despite this, there was no sign of panic in Kurotsuchi’s eyes. She was calm and in control, her breathing was steady, she was even smirking. By her demeanor nobody would ever guess that she was cornered. She looked towards her failing shield with determination as she brought her right hand towards her mouth.
Even from a distance Fu’s keen eyes could see Kurostuchi’s diaphragm move as she took in a large breath, for a moment her cheeks seemed to expand, before she ultimately exhaled, unleashing absolute hell in the process.
From her mouth Kurotuschi shot out a massive dark ball of what Fu could only describe as ash. Yet it seemed to be almost solid in a way as if it was a massive boulder launched at high speed from a catapult. It collided straight into the very wall Kurotsuchi herself had constructed, but rather than bursting apart on impact, it practically punched straight through the obstacles as if it wasn’t even there.
The wall itself completely shattered, blasting a volley of black, burning, ash-covered debris towards whoever had been dumb enough to attack Kurotsuchi in the first place. The ash ball itself collided into the ground, creating a far larger bang than the metal projectiles her opponents’ had been firing at her mere moments before. This time the ball did burst as it landed covering the whole opposite side of the field in burning hot ash.
Within a few seconds, Kurtosuchi had reduced half of the once green lush field into a black smoldering landscape. Smoke covered the area of impact. That combined with the ash flung into the air made it impossible for even Fu’s eyes to make out any movement in the blast zone. Not that she was really looking for as she at last landed on the ground, wings still outstretched, right behind her ally. No, her eyes were on Kurotsuchi alone.
The Iwa Candidate hadn’t yet realized that Fu was now standing behind here. No she was too focused on portraying an image that she knew the entire continent was witnessing. She stood proud with perfect posture, displaying the confidence expected from the Tsuchikage’s granddaughter. She might have a few sweat stains, her clothes were a little ruffled and her sandals were covered in dirt, but regardless of all that she was the sole focus of Fu’s mind; the perfect embodiment of a kunoichi.
She was tough, but she was kind, no matter what the Bug said Fu had seen enough of her friend to know that was true. She was powerful, but graceful, blunt, but precise. Watching her in action was almost like watching a Princess Gale movie. The book said that friends made each other stronger and in that moment Fu felt stronger than she ever had in her entire life, which was saying something considering how physically strong she actually was. She truly believed with all her heart that together, she and Kurotsuchi could accomplish anything.
Fu inadvertently shivered. It took her a second or two to realize that, that wasn’t a result of her glowing admiration for her friend, but that the actual temperature around her had dropped several degrees. It had been a blazing hot day, and Kurotsuchi had just covered half of the field in volcanic ash. Yet as she exhaled, Fu could see the condensation in her breath. Goosebumps popped up all over her exposed areas of skin. The grass around their feet began to frost over. This wasn’t just some cool breeze, against all laws of logic and nature it had suddenly become cold, very cold.
Well that wasn’t good.
“Be on your guard Kusu, it’s not over yet,” Fu softly spoke to Kurotsuchi. She almost stuttered from the cold, her open toes felt particularly frozen. Her mind suddenly flashbacked to a particularly bad blizzard from when she was little, where she had lost her left boot in the middle of a snowbank. That had been a particularly miserable day.
The Iwa girl showed no sign of being startled by Fu’s presence, she must have noticed her without Fu realizing. “You don’t need to tell me that, I've got this under control. I don’t need any help, just watch out for yourself and stay out of my way,” she sternly replied. Fu barely heard the mumbled words “Doton: Kengan no Justu '' before witnessing a layer of stone encasing Kurotscuchi’s first. The Iwa kunoichi was ready to take on whoever was hiding in that ash cloud head on, that much was clear.
Well it was nice to know Kurotsuchi cared about Fu’s wellbeing (‘see you stupid bug’) but there was no need for her to be so overprotective. Fu was her friend, ally and teammate, it was her job to help out situations just like this one. “How many of them are there?”
Before Kurotsuchi could respond, three figures burst from the ash cloud, inadvertently answering Fu’s question. She steeled herself for the fight. The thought flashed across her mind that this would be her first real battle. After all this mission was the first time she had ever left the village so her only combat ‘experience’ came from training spars. Sure those could get pretty heated sometimes and she always won them, but her instructors consistently told her that a real fight would be different, that she couldn’t know what to expect. Still all that training and practice was designed to prepare exactly for this. She might not know for sure if she was ready or not, but she believed she was. No she definitely was.
With newfound determination, she spread her wings to take off, ready to charge right at the enemy, only to find resistance as a strong force kept her pinned to the ground. A quick look down revealed that both her and Kurotuschi’s feet had been frozen to the ground, almost completely encased in frost. In fact their entire side of the field was now covered in a thin sheet of ice.
One of the figures, a boy, had lept directly into the air, a metal sphere forming in each of his hands. With alarming speed, he hurled the projectiles straight towards both Kurotsuchi and Fu’s heads.
It was a shinobi’s natural instinct to dodge. After all it was a profession that emphasized agility and nimbleness. Evasion was one of the first skills a jounin sensei would drill into their students, more so than any other skill, it would give them the best chance of surviving long enough to grow and adapt into capable ninja. However, every shinobi who stuck around the profession long enough, would inevitably reach a scenario where dodging would be impossible and death would be imminent. How a young ninja reacts in that inevitable scenario is what separates the chunin and jounin of tomorrow from the tragic young prodigies who are cut down far too soon.
Fu didn’t have that instinct, she didn’t have a normal upbringing or training. She didn’t need it. So when faced with a high speed metal object shot with the sole intention of decapitating her and trapped to the earth with no possible means of evasion, she defaulted into the only instincts she actually had developed; to meet whatever threat was coming at her head on.
So that is what she not quite literally did. Infusing chakra into her hands she braced herself, reached her arms out forward preparing to catch the ball in a move that would’ve been borderline suicidal for any other Candidate. The ball smacked into her hands, with brutal force, continuing to spin forward, nearly tearing the skin off her palms in process. Her elbows bent back, as the projectile inched closer and closer to her face., but her hands remained firmly grasped around the metal ball, willing it to a stop, before it could make contact with her head. Her hands felt like shad just run them over sandpaper, and if she had taken the time to examine them she would have noticed they’d been rubbed into a conearning red color. It didn’t matter, the Bug would heal it in time. She could worry about her hands later now was the time to counter.
Fu transferred the ball to right hand, reached back, and with all her strength, and unleashed the ball right back at the stunned Genin, who could barely fathom that his ultimate technique had simply been caught like a common ball. Luckily for him, Fu hadn’t quite been able to throw it quite as hard as his jutsu had launched it, otherwise that moment of hesitation would certainly have resulted in his own head being reduced to a smashed pulpy mess. Intestead he just managed to regain his bearing quick enough to duck the throw.
That action had led to a momentary pause in the battle as every Candidate on the field stared at Fu with a mix of wonder and fear (meanwhile all their mentors countless miles away were screaming with no practical hope of being heard at their idiot Genin through their screens for not taking the opportunity to press the attack). Even Kurotsuchi, who had managed to barely duck her own projectile, and had used her rock clad fist to smash the ice imprisoning her feet, couldn’t take her eyes off of Fu.
Those attacks had managed to break through stone like it was paper and she didn’t dogged it, she didn’t deflect, she didn’t activate a jutsu to form a barrier or try and counter it. No, she just simply caught it. Between that and the wings, the 10 rating was beginning to make a bit more sense to the Candidates who had been unfortunate enough, or dumb enough, to enter this fight.
Having the free moment to take in her surroundings, Fu sighed in relief seeing that Kurotsuchi was okay. She followed her friend’s example and smashed the ice at her feet, but unlike Kurotsuchi, Fu used her bare fist to break through the frozen trap. She didn’t notice it, but the Shimo Candidate who had cast the jutsu, flinched at the sight of the ice she had so carefully crafted, crumbling so easily.
None of their opponents really wanted to make the next move after seeing Fu’s displays of physical strength. That gave Fu the opportunity to finally get a good look at exactly who she and Kurtotushci were fighting. Fu had memorized the names and faces of every single Candidate in the Games. How else was she supposed to get to know them after all? People didn’t like it if you couldn’t remember their names, she had learned that very quickly.
There was Metoro the male Candidate from Ishi who had been responsible for the metal projectiles. He was dangerous that much was clear, but she was sure she could handle it. If she had caught his jutsu once, she could catch it again. Then there was Isa, a small girl with snow white hair from Shimo. She was surely responsible for the area’s sudden drop in temperature and the ensuing icy ground. Finally there was Dosu, the last remaining Candidate from Oto. There was something about him that unnerved Fu, and she still had no idea what his jutsu was. She once again shivered, though she didn’t know if that came from the cold or his uneasy demeanor.
Metoro and Dosu were also sporting some rather nasty burns, across Metoro’s neck and on Dosu’s left arm, the one that wasn’t covered by metal. It seemed they hadn’t been able to escape Kurotsuchi’s previous attack unscathed. Judging by the lack of burns on Isa, it was likely her ice based techniques had been responsible for them avoiding the worst of the blast.
But there was something else off about the trio. There were bags under their eyes, their posture and stances were uneven, they even seemed to be breathing harder than they realistically should have been considering the short length of time this battle had been going on for. Without a doubt they were exhausted. Fu might’ve been a little tired from the lack of sleep she had the night before, but this was different. It was almost like their enemies had already fought an entire battle before this one.
Isa’s heavy white winter jacket, seemed to be torn notably with three large slash marks around her stomach. It seemed the girl had narrowly avoided being disemboweled by…something. Considering Kurotsuchi only carried two kunai, there was no way she was responsible for that. Clearly these three had run into whatever had made all that noise the night before. Fu was glad that she, Kurostuchi and Aktasuchi hadn’t faced whatever was capable of making slash marks that big.
However, that exhaustion showed that these three weren’t capable of winning a long drawn out battle. Maybe they could’ve pulled something off when they still had the element of surprise or if they were able to maintain their 3-1 advantage. But now that Fu was here to back up Kurotsuchi, and both of them now had a half decent grasp on where their opponents were and what they were capable of, this battle wouldn’t last much longer.
But if the outcome was assured, then what was the point?
Metoro created another projectile in his palm, and once again used his chakra to launch it towards Fu with all the velocity he could. But something was different about this one compared to his earlier attacks. It was still fast, but to Fu’s eyes it seemed to be moving slower somehow, as she could track its movement towards her perfectly. There was no sense of panic, her senses didn't scream danger this time. She didn’t know if she had just adjusted to the technique or if Metoro’s depleting chakra reserves had cost him some of the serious power that had made his jutsu so dangerous in the first place.
Either way this time as the projectile made contact with Fu’s outstretched hands, she had very little issue catching it, bringing it to a firm stop without her body being pushed an inch. Simultaneously to her right she felt a sudden jet of wind, as Kurotuschi lept from Fu’s side, speeding away with a sudden boost of chakra. By the sound of a metallic ‘klang’ that could only come from two kunai clashing, it was pretty easy to deduce that she had decided to press the attack, engaging one of their foes in hand to hand combat.
A brief glance to her side allowed her to catch sight of the exchange as Isa attempted to create distance between herself and the relentless Kurotsuchi by retreating towards the treeline. But Kurostuchi refused to allow the Shimo Candidate that distance, pursuing her opponent with her kunai barred. So that was one opponent who would likely be taken care of in short order, Kurotsuchi wouldn’t lose, certainly not in a one on one fight. Which meant the other two Candidates were Fu’s responsibility.
Fu was in a battle, but she hadn’t actually done much fighting, she couldn’t leave all the offense to Kurotsuchi, friends were supposed to share each other's burdens after all. So with newfound determination, moving much more like a hawk diving headfirst on its prey than the beatle whose wings she bore, she flew straight towards a frightened Metoro, his own metal projectile clutched in her right hand as she prepared to strike him with his own creation. She never reached him.
In her narrow determined view, she had forgotten about Dosu. As she had launched herself at Metoro, the Oto candidate had himself lunged towards Fu, his metal arm outstretched, attempting to strike her in her side. Between her speed and lack of awareness of her surroundings, she couldn’t divert her path, yet either Dosu had misjudged the angle to intercept her or had underestimated her speed, as he went flying past her, with no physical contact being made during their ‘exchange’.
However, something about the near miss threw her off. She had always loved flying, it was honestly the best part about having the Bug with her, and despite some of the warnings her predecessor had left her, she had never gotten motion sickness. But as she passed Dosu, the back of her throat felt like it was closing up and her vision suddenly blurred. Her wings, which in flight had always felt as natural to her as her own legs running, seemed to lose all sense of control. As if she had somehow tripped over a root in midair, she lost her balance, and rather than colliding straight into Metoro as she had intended, she crashed into the ground next to, which was still frozen from the earlier frosting over, tumbingling heads over heal for a few inadvertent somersaults behind him, eventually landing flat on her back. That was gonna leave a few scrapes.
As she struggled to sit up, a renewed confident Metoro prepared to launch his jutsu one final time, putting all of the little chakra he had left into finishing off the sheer tank of a person who was his opponent. A new projectile forming in his hand, he let the ball fly straight towards his prone victim.
At such a close distance, in such a vulnerable state, Fu couldn’t dodge (not that she would have chosen to if that was the option), block or catch the ball this time. As she was about halfway towards sitting up, the ball collided with her abdomen, immediately knocking the breath straight out of her lungs. Her arms outstretched, the force of the attack didn’t quite send her flying, her legs were still dragging against the iced over ground, carrying her over to the portion of the field that Kurotsuchi had covered in volcanic ash.
At last Fu’s ‘flight’ was ended when her back collided with a tree at the edge of the field. For the briefest of moments her vision went black, before the world came back into semi-focus. If she had taken the time to look at her stomach she would’ve noticed a very large and very ugly black blue bruise. Had there been a medic on site she’d have been quickly diagnosed with 2 or 3 broken ribs.
She coughed, a few drops of blood coming out of her mouth in the process. Her legs were bloody, burned and covered in ash. Even her wings twitched in pain. Her clothes were in a complete mess, with several tears and stains.
This shouldn’t be happening. She was stronger than they were, she knew that. And they were tired, she was in much better condition for this fight. Yet she was the one with her back against the wall. Well, back against the tree. In mere moments the entire balance of the fight had shifted, a single mistake, a single failed attack had left her in this state.
She had been too reckless, too indifferent to her surroundings, too…
“Enthusiastic,” Fu inadvertently thought out loud.
Her eyes widened with clarity. This is what Kurotsuchi was talking about! She needed to be less enthusiastic in battle, more calm, more focused, more collected, more aware of her own surroundings. Yes this was it! This was what the book had promised! Personal growth through friendship!
The fact that Fu may have been looking a little too deeply at Kurotsuchi’s words or the fact that some of her conclusions essentially amounted to the same thing, was something that the Nanabi decided not to bring up at that moment. If Fu learned a lesson that bettered both of their chances of making it through this insane death tournament, then it wasn’t going to question her methods for arriving at the right results. After all, getting sealed into a new host was always a pain.
Achoo
“Are you alright my lord?”
“Yes, just a sneeze. Someone must be thinking of me.”
“Does that…you know hurt with all the nose piercings?”
It was time for a new approach, yet that was easier said than done. What would Kurotsuchi do? Probably start a giant earthquake to knock them off balance and follow up by burning them all alive. Yeah no that wasn’t something Fu could do, and even if could , that didn’t quite feel like the right approach. She loved her friend but that didn’t mean she had to be exactly like her. So what was the right approach? Kami, if only Lord Shibuki was here. Someone experienced who could just give her the right answer.
Distract them.
Oh right, the Bug. It might have been wrong earlier (very, very, very wrong) but considering it had never been wrong before today, it still had a near perfect track record. So odds were it was probably right about this. Probably.
Okay distraction, distraction, distraction…ever notice how when you think about a word over and over again it starts to lose all meaning, wait no can’t get distracted gotta think of a distraction. Calm Down, Focus. This wasn’t really her forte, but she had one idea. Yeah that would work.
To the surprise of her two opponent who surely thought she was down for the count, (in their defense pretty much anyone else in the Games would have been in her situation) Fu pulled herself to her feet, with renewed confidence, a small smile, not the trademark gaping grin that she had already become internationally famous for, on her face, dusting herself off in the process.
Despite half a field separating them from Fu, both Dosu and Metoro inadvertently took a step back at the sight. Even from such a distance they could see that smile. She was covered in blood and ash, she took what should have been a lethal blow, and yet there she was standing and smiling. No viewers watching the Games could blame the two boys for being a little unsettled. Hell, back at the fortress even their mentors were unsettled at the sight. Well one of their mentors was anyway. The other actually had a far more eerie smile of his own, but with all the other mentors in the room focused on the main feed, no one actually noticed.
Perhaps that unease would explain why the two boys weren’t a little quicker on the uptake for what happened next.
Now standing firmly, Fu began running (not flying, running) straight towards Dosu and Metoro, covering the soles of her feet in chakra in an effort separate her already worn sandals from the ash covered ground, simultaneously weaving hand signs for a jutsu her predecessor had created, one that she never truly felt that comfortable with herself, but that she had nevertheless learned even if she hadn’t quite mastered it. It just wasn’t a jutsu that ever really felt like it was her own, honestly most techniques that didn’t involve flight or punching something as hard as she possibly could didn’t feel quite right. But Fu was convinced now was the time to use it.
As she closed the distance between them, right before making it onto the iced over portion of the field, Fu took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth as she completed her hand signs. Dosu and Metoro took defensive stances preparing perhaps for a fire ball, a jet stream of water or maybe even something like Kurotsuchi’s ash bomb from earlier, all techniques that would have fit with the willful mint haired powerhouse that appeared to be charging them head first. But for once, pure attacking power wasn’t what Fu had in mind.
As she exhaled, instead of unleashing some blazing inferno (not that she could do that in the first place), Fu breathed out hundreds, if not thousands of tiny, no larger than dust, bright flashing scales. They weren’t quite bright enough to blind a person, afterall she hadn’t fully mastered the jutsu, but with her chakra levels she could create a lot of them in one go, enough to create what essentially amounted to a flashing smokescreen.
They were bright enough however to leave anyone who looked directly at them seeing colors, even if they looked at them a second too long. Dosu and Metoro who had been expecting a heavy attack worthy of an insane smiling, seemingly indestructible girl took just that extra second too long to divert their eyes, their vision blurring in the process. Which in turn left them just a little too disoriented to evade this dust cloud of scales which soon enveloped both of them.
The scales weren’t sharp, they didn’t cut the skin on contact. They weren’t poisonous, breathing them in wouldn’t really do more damage to a person than forcing them to cough once or twice. A person could stand in that cloud for hours with no serious risks to their physical health. But for a disoriented Oto Genin, stuck in a death match, against an opponent who had received a perfect 10 in training, surrounded by a cloud of clearly chakra infused dust, one could understand why his first reaction would be to try and dispel that cloud by any means necessary, regardless of the consequences.
So Dosu closed his eyes, stretched forward his metallic arm, and unleashed the most powerful sound wave his weapon was capable of emitting. The vibrations moved through the cloud, successfully pushing the scales away. But they weren’t the only thing affected by this defensive minded outburst. For in this moment of slight panic Dosu had forgotten about his ally. Metoro, who had blindly been attempting to navigate his way out of the cloud, and had only been standing a couple meters away, took the full force of the sonic wave, the vibrations shaking him to his core, rattling his bones and bursting his ear drums in the process.
By some miracle the boy stayed on his feet, however between the scales and the sound wave he had temporarily lost perhaps the two most vital senses a shinobi needed in battle. Senses that he would have desperately needed in that exact moment.
The second after casting the justu Fu had taken straight to the skies, flying as high as she could as quickly as she could, her eyes still on the ground waiting for just one of her opponents to flee the scales. She was still in her ascent when the cloud was dispelled, preventing her from getting a precise look at her target. But this was her moment. As quickly as she could, she somersaulted in the air, and dived at an angle, fist pulled back, straight towards whichever figure she could just barely make out.
With gravity’s aid, she moved far faster than she did before. This time no one jumped in her way, or dodged or tied to counter. No this time Fu’s powerful fist made contact with its intended target, poor Metoro’s unprotected face. As his head went down, the force of the blow lifted his feet off the ground and for the shortest of milliseconds, too brief for anyone without a trained eye to notice, his entire body was in the air, before he was slammed head first into the earth, leaving a few notable cracks in the cold hard ground. By some small mercy he had lost consciousness before actually hitting the ground. A very small mercy indeed.
Deep within the landscape of Fu’s mind, the Nanabi sighed, not quite loud enough for their host to hear. Fu finally takes a change in approach, but only as a way to set up her tried and true strategy of punching something as hard as she could. Well progress, even small progress, was progress.
As for Fu, she found herself kneeling on top of Metoro’s barely moving chest, her clenched fist still resting on top of his shattered jaw. Okay one down.
BONGGGG
The sound of the gong ringing throughout the Arena, startled Fu into jumping off of Metoro’s. Was he dead? Did she kill him? She never killed anyone before. Sure she knew going into the arena that there would be death involved, she was a shinobi, what training she had received had been designed around teaching her to kill. But what was conceptually inevitable felt radically different from reality.
Wait no, he couldn’t be dead. There was no seal activation, no flash of light, no body sinking into the earth. Even now she could make out the small rising and falling of Metoro’s chest, proof that he was still barely breathing. So he wasn’t dead. Okay, good. Good? Good. But then the gong had to be for someone else.
Fu held her breath. She hadn’t seen any sign of Kurotsuchi or Isa since the two carried their fight over into the forest. No earthquakes, no loud explosions, nothing. None of the sounds that would’ve indicated Kusu was winning her fight. No, there’s no way she lost. She was too strong to lose a one on one fight. Wasn’t she?
Fu started breathing again, but far too rapidly and far louder than most people would consider healthy. The thoughts of restraint and composure that previously dominated Fu mind were now completely abandoned. No Kusu couldn’t be dead, she just absolutely could not be. She won that fight, she must have won that fight, that was the only reasonable explanation. Everything Was Okay, Kurotsuchi Was Okay.
An emotionless shinobi, one heavily trained to wipe away all semblance of fear might have taken advantage of this little episode to attack, but anyone without a keenly developed sense of fear didn’t survive long in Oto. Every instinct in Dosu’s body, the instincts that had allowed him to rise under his lord’s watch, that allowed him to avoid his lord’s wrath, was screaming danger about this girl. She was distracted. This was his chance to land a finishing blow, he should take it. But his mind kept showering him with images of Fu tearing him in half with her bare hand if he ‘awakened’ her from her trance.
Was it time to activate ‘that’ technique? No, he couldn’t control it, and his lord had made it very clear it was supposed to be a last resort, one that should be saved only for the very end of the Games. Only to be used against Gaara. If he used it in any other circ*mstance his lord had made it very clear that if he survived the Games, he’d have wished he hadn’t.
Metoro wasn’t getting up, he was done that much was clear. The sound of the gong surely meant Isa was dead, the girl from Shimo was strong (by minor village standards anyways) but not strong enough to beat the Tsuchikage’s granddaughter by herself. That Iwa bitch who had started this fight would be back soon, and if Fu hadn’t torn him apart by then, then she certainly would. Retreat was the only option.
No, he had a very small chance to win this fight, to remove one of the most dangerous pieces on the board. He had to take it. His lord wouldn’t accept anything less. If she snapped out of her stupor before he reached her, or more likely she just endured his attack, he’d be dead, but it was a risk he had to take.
He pulled his metallic arm back, ready to lunge forth for his all or nothing strike, only to be met with resistance. Stunned, he turned his uncovered eye to see a large rock clad hand gripping his arm.
The sound of metal crunching and bone breaking brought Fu’s attention back to the real world. As she looked up she saw Dosu staggered backwards, failing to hold in a scream as he clutched his arm, his signature metal contraption now notably having a giant crack going down the middle. A tall boy looked down on him, with a stern expression Fu had not seen in the brief time she had known him. Akatsuchi had at last arrived on the battlefield.
The large Iwa Genin had rushed after Fu as soon as she’d flown off, but he wasn’t the fasted Genin in the world, and certainly not fast enough to keep up with a flying jinchuriki who covered a distance that would take an average candidate several minutes to traverse in seconds. The battle may have felt like an eternity to Fu, but in reality not much time had passed since she arrived at the field.
“Where’s Kurotsuchi,” Akatsuchi said with a simultaneously calm yet intimidating anger, not removing his eyes from Dosu.
“I’m fine Akatsuchi,” came a distant voice.
Akatsuchi and Fu both turned to their left, relief flooding into their eyes, as Kurostuchi calmly walked out of the treeline onto the field, looking relatively unharmed. The kunai she held at her side had a fairly notable splash of red. Fu chose not to think too hard about that. Kurotsuchi was safe, that was the most important thing.
A much calmer, but still Akatuschi now glanced back towards Fu, his agner replaced by concern. “Are you alright Fu?”
He had good reason to be concerned, her clothes were torn, she was covered in blood and ash. However, her appearance was much worse than her actual condition. Most of her injuries were already in the process of healing, her ribs would be sore for a few days, and the skin on her legs might feel a little raw, but jinchurkis had a tendency to shake off most non-life threatening damage. She’d be fine.
Even if she didn’t necessarily need it, seeing Akatsuchi’s concern for her was nice in a way. It gave her a new feeling, one that she enjoyed. Seeing him and Kurotsuchi just made her want to smile. So that’s exactly what she did.
Taking this as confirmation that his ally wasn’t going to just keel over and collapse to the ground, Akatsuchi returned her smile, “I was so worried, I’m just glad you're both alright”.
That feeling that Fu could not quite describe, something akin to joy, but that wasn’t quite right, grew even more in her. She nodded towards him before he turned back towards the wounded Dosu. The Oto Candidate's weapon was completely inoperable, he couldn’t move his arm, his allies were unconscious or dead, but he was still standing, muttering desperately to himself, as he tried to slowly back away from a battle that seemed all but over.
They had him outnumbered 3-1 now, a complete reversal from the start of the battle. Both Akatsuchi and Kurotsuchi gradually walked solemnly towards him. Part of Fu wanted to look away, but she knew that she couldn’t, she couldn’t be a good teammate if she shied away from what needed to be done. With each step forward they took, he took a step back, his mumbling got louder and louder. Not quite loud enough for Fu and the others to make out, but if they had they would have been privy to an internal debate between a well ingrained almost impossible to defy terror and the will to survive.
The will to survive won out.
To the surprise of everyone, Dosu yelled out in pain. This wasn’t like his shout when Akatsuchi broke his arm, no this was more primal, guttural. It reminded Fu of the roars she had heard echoing out across the arena the previous night, and every hair on her body was standing up. Kurotsuchi and Aktasuchi halted their advance, their own instincts screaming at them not to take another step towards this wounded animal they had cornered.
Dosu’s body thrashed around, as his limbs convulsed and twitched. Despite the erratic nature of his movements, Fu was able to catch a sight of his uncovered eye. There had never been anything noteworthy about Dosu’s eye before, while Fu couldn’t remember what color it was, if she had been pressed she would’ve just said it was’ normal’, certainly nothing like her own rather unique orange eyes. But now it was as if the eye had inverted its coloring, turning into a pure dark black, with only a small white pupil offering variety in color.
As he thrashed, in a brief, perhaps final moment of clarity, he brought his remaining functioning arm up towards him, and violently ripped off the bandages that had been covering three quarters of his face, revealing three black as ink crooked lines running along his face. Struggling to maintain the grasp on his own mind, he yelled out the only words present in his consciousness: “Stage Two”.
Suddenly the black lines changed to a fiery red color before quickly spreading across Dosu’s face and body. As they did the boy seemed to grow larger until he stood even over Akatsuch, completely tearing through his clothes and remaining bandages in the process. The cracked metal device on his arm now completely broke into two, the pieces falling to the ground as new misshapen muscles seemed to take form. His hands morphed, his thumbs and pinky fingers seeming retracted into his body as his three remaining fingers grew long and sharp as talons. Two news limbs almost as large as the rest of his body started to protrude out of his back.
As this monstrous transformation continued, one among the Candidates witnessing the horror had the presence of mind to realize the danger they all were in and struck. With pinpoint accuracy, Kurotsuchi let her kunaii fly, aiming straight for where Dosu’s heart would have been. But it was already too late, for even though she hit her target, the Oto Candidates skin had grown too thick for the blade to penetrate to his vitals organ, merely sticking out of his chest just like a dart on a board.
Dosu, if he could still be called Dosu that is, didn’t even notice. What was a little prick in comparison to the pain of his bone and muscles being reshaped. At last his fiery red skin turned to a light ashen gray, and the metamorphosis was complete. Standing nearly twice as tall as he did before, his hands transformed into claws, his ears and nose completely covered by a thick layer of gray skin, his eyes shrunken into little more than small black specks, mishappend with disproportionate legs and arms, and large leathery wings coming out of his back, no one would have believed what stood on that field was human if the whole continent hadn’t witnessed the transformation unfold.
This…thing robbed most of Its senses, writhing in pain, did the only natural thing It could: It screamed.
That fool. How dare such an insect defy his direct orders. The arrogance of one whose life was so fragile. Oh he knew giving Dosu the curse mark was a risk, he wasn’t as avid a gambler as his old teammate, though he enjoyed the occasional roll of the dice just for the potential chaos it could bring. And the prizes! The prizes were just so tantalizing, he already had devised countless ideas for experiments. It has been worth the gamble, He usually had better luck at the dice table than the old slug, but oh well, nothing he could do now.
Besides, no one outside of his employ had witnessed the effects of stage two before. This might draw some unwanted attention to his little Oto project, but no one, not even Danzo or Pain, would be able to directly link him with this, at least not yet. Even if he was uncovered, it would be worth it in the end if he got what he wanted. While the jackpot of the Games was certainly enticing, it was nothing compared to the prize that was still within his grasps.
Let the children play their game in the Arena. Regardless of the outcome, as always, he would be the real winner in the end.
It screamed, far louder than anything Fu had ever heard before. Even the roars of the previous night paled in comparison to this. Worse than that, Its scream seemed unending. Fu found herself brought to her knees, struggling to cover her ears with her hands in a desperate effort to block out the wail. Her hands felt wet, as they slowly started to be covered with a small trickle of blood. She could feel the vibrations moving through the ground, as the wail seemed to shake the Earth itself.
Had Fu been able to look up she would’ve noticed Kurotsuchi and Akatatuchi in a similar state. Even now Kurotsuchi was attempting to mold chakra in an effort to create another earth wall or spike, or fire some lava. Anything to kill It, or even to just make It stop screaming. But despite It lacking any direction or focus, Its wail seemed to be a more delicately crafted attack than it appeared on the surface. The vibrations were disrupting all of their chakra networks. A Jounin with finely crafted chakra control would likely be able to respond, but Genin, even prodigies like Kurotsuchi, Akatsuchi and Fu were unable to cast any justu at all in this situation. They’d have to wait for It to stop screaming before they could respond. If they survived that long.
The good news was that despite having long claws and a hulking mass, It seemed nearly incapable of doing anything else while it was screaming. Otherwise the three of them would have likely been torn to shreds by now. The bad news was that even a minute later It wouldn’t stop screaming. With a seemingly endless supply of oxygen, It continued to wail uninterrupted with no end in sight, The sound waves washed over Fu, Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi like tidal waves, rocking and attempting to drown them in a flood of noise.
Fu could feel her bones rattling. She could endure just about any physical attack an enemy threw at her. But this? She wasn’t prepared, she didn’t have any defense for this. Even now as she struggled to keep her eyes open, the edges of her vision seemed to darken. She struggled to stay conscious, but part of her wanted to give in to sleep, to do anything that would stop her from having to endure this for a moment longer.
STAND UP GIRL.
Even Its wail could not drown the voice of the Bug within Fu’s mind. When the Nanabi wanted to be heard, the Bug was heard.
I SAID STAND UP.
Fu wanted to respond, but she was so overwhelmed that even in her own mental landscape she could not form the words.
You will fall unconscious and once that thing finally stops screaming it will kill you, if you don’t STAND UP RIGHT NOW.
I can’t. I just can’t.
That girl who hates you, she is going to die too.
Ku…Kusu?
She is going to die if you don’t STAND UP.
Fu could not ignore the sound, she could not ignore the pain. But she could’ve had the entirety of Takigakure on her back and that would not have stopped her from picking herself up and standing. As she stood, her legs started to shake but within a couple seconds, they steadied and she suddenly found it easier to stand. She didn’t notice it, but wisps of orange chakra began to rise from her body, and three gray vertical lines took shape in each of her eyes, seemingly dividing her orange irises into 4.
But everyone in the audience watching the broadcast did notice, confirming what every leader on the continent already suspected but had privately wished wasn’t true.
But for Fu the thoughts of international turmoil, of plots, and plans for war being crafted in far off dark rooms were nonexistent. No, the only thing she knew was that this thing was hurting the people she cared about. For that and that alone she was going to kill It.
Wings once again unfurled, she covered the distance between herself and It nearly instantaneously. Unable to focus on anything other than the wail, It didn’t even notice her approach. She landed a heavy uppercut, forcing Its mouth closed and at last ending the horrible sound of the wail. It was a sturdy creature, designed to withstand powerful attacks, but not even It could withstand the full force of an angry jinchurki. As the blow lift It off Its feet, sending it flying back several meters before it crashed to the ground with a loud thud.
The sudden end of the wail wasn’t quite enough to knock Kurotuschi and Aktasuchi out of their daze, but it was there was an immediate degree of relief. Kurotuschi was able to regain her senses a little bit quicker, as she’d been waiting for the precise moment It stopped screaming to strike, but she took no action, too stunned by the sight of an orange Fu hovering over the creature.
It did not stay down long, its eye locked onto the fluttering insect above It. It was no longer capable of truly intelligent thought, but thoughts of revenge and hurting whatever had hurt It were within the creature’s grasp. It lashed out, standing up in the process, Its long arms extending out. It struck far quicker than something of Its size should, but It did not quite have the speed Dosu had before he transformed into what he was now. It was also incapable of masking Its intentions allowing Fu to easily dodge the strike by hovering higher into the air outside of her enemy’s reach.
But she wasn’t the only one with wings and she had gained the creature’s undivided attention. It aggressively flapped Its leathery wings struggling to force itself into the air. By Its struggles one might think the creature to be incapable of flight, but It ultimately lumbered into the air, requiring great force with every flap in order to stay in the air.
There was nothing aerodynamic about this creature, but nonetheless it rose further into the air, gaining more strength, more stability each second it was afloat, as It adjusted to this new environment. However, unlike the creature, which was experiencing flight for the first time in Its existence, Fu had been flying ever since she could manipulate chakra. The sky was her domain and anything that thought they could match her in her territory would be shown just how idiotic they were.
Anyone who had even the slightest insight to Fu’s personality, which was a lot of people considering she was one of the biggest stars of an internationally broadcasted event, would’ve predicted her to charge straight at the creature in that moment, in a furious attempt to knock It out of the sky. Instead she did the opposite, shooting herself straight up into the sky. The creature screamed, not the chakra infused overwhelming wail that had brought everyone to their knees, but a more ‘normal’ animalistic scream, as it too flew higher into the air after her.
Fu never bothered to look back. There was no need. The wind on her face, the sting of the cold air, the sound of the wind rushing through her ears, this is what she knew. This is what she was best at. Thanks to years of spending every moment she could in the sky, her lungs had long adjusted to dealing with the thinner air. Even as she flew higher and higher, she only seemed to be moving faster as she built more speed. The creature couldn’t keep up; it was a novice attempting to keep pace with a world class professional.
As the two flew, the distance between them grew. She only had one goal now, flying as high as she possibly could, and the single thought creature could only focus on following her. That was becoming a more difficult task with every second. The creature struggled to keep sight of Its prey, but at last lost it as Fu broke through the cloud coverage. That did not discourage the creature, if anything it motivated It further. Pumping Its wings, the creature poured on a sudden burst of speed as It too entered the clouds.
Attempting to navigate through a cloud for something that has never flown was essentially impossible. The effect wasn’t all too dissimilar from a Genin fresh out of the academy trying to stumble their way through a fairly heavy mist jutsu. The cold moisture seemed to cling to the creature’s skin. There was no way of knowing which direction Fu had gone, no way of knowing if she was still even in the clouds. Its skin crawling, with no clue where the prey had gone, the creature wasted no time attempting to find a new direction. It continued Its course, flying straight up, anxious to get out of the cloud, anxious to find the one who had hurt It.
With that single minded determination, the creature broke through the clouds, staring straight up into the directly overhead midday sun. It did the only thing anyone would in Its situation, it closed Its small beady eyes in pain, using what was left of Its human instinct to attempt to cover Its eyes with Its claws, shutting off the remaining sense that could give the creature even barest understanding of Its surroundings. For a certain mint harried jinchuriki, floating just a few meters behind the creature, her head just poking up slightly above the cloud, it was the exact moment she was waiting for.
Fu would not waste that precious opportunity. For one final time, she launched herself towards the creature. However this time she did not have her fist raised, no this time she had zero intention of striking her opponent. Instead she landed as gracefully as she was capable of onto the creatures’ back. Between the creature’s thick skin and the literally blinding pain in Its’ eyes, It didn’t notice the presence of the ‘beetle’ on its back shoulders. Which meant It gave Fu zero resistance as she grabbed hold of the base of each of the creature’s wings, and with all the strength she could muster, pulled the two wings together. With its wings, a bird was a majestic creature in flight. But if it could no longer control those wings, then it would be little more than a falling stone.
And fall the creature did. It dropped through the clouds, Fu hanging on, digging her knees into Its back and refusing to let go of the wings no matter how violently the creature thrashed. It could not strike her, from that angle she was out of Its long claws reach. It attempted to scream Its chakra infused wail, but the overwhelming sound of their freefall weakened Its effects, and with the Nanabi’s chakra flowing through her, Fu would not loosen her grip.
3000 meters, 2500 meters, 2000 meters. For a moment as they fell, Fu took in the site of the arena. The gray of the mountain, the green of tree tops and fields, the blue reflections of the streams and lakes. It was a beautiful site and she appreciated the pretty things. On occasion. They didn’t compare to the feeling of moving through the air. No more seconds could be wasted on pretty scenery, no her orange eyes were focused on only one thing now. The creature’s eyesight hadn’t recovered to the point where It could see the cold hard inevitable truth of the ground they were plummeting towards, but Its instincts were enough to make It panic.
1800 meters, 1500 meters, 1200 meters. Fu always knew exactly how far off the ground she was. With all those years in the sky, how could she not develop a sense for it?
1000 meters, 800 meters, 500 meters, only a few seconds left now.
The arena didn’t have any cameras that could see above the clouds, so the audience had lost sight of Fu and the creature towards the end of their chase in the air. But as they fell now, at high speed, with the orange chakra of her Bijuu surrounding them, the viewers still could not make out the features of Fu or the creature. What they could see resembled more so the sight of a flaming meteorite about to impact the Earth.
200 meters, 100 meters, 50 meters.
Fu was ready. Her own wings unfurled, she let go of the creature and using all of her strength from her legs to push herself off Its back., Both her own chakara and the Bug’s following through her wings, she put out a large burst of chakra, enough to create a powerful gust of air to slow her descent. Her wings outstretched catching the wind, she expertly managed to turn her dive into a glide, allowing her to maneuver towards a mostly controlled landing, with only one or two tumbles on the now muddy surface of the very field where their battle had begun.
The creature was not as skilled, It did not even notice It had regained control over Its own wings. Even if It had, this was the first time It had ever flown. It did not have the training nor the natural born instincts to stop itself at that speed. So It crashed, front first into the hard earth, creating a small crater, shaking the nearby ground in the process. Two certain Iwa Candidates may have been in danger if they had stayed in the spots they were in when Fu and the creature had first taken to the sky, but they had the common sense and speed necessary to move out of the way of a giant falling object.
What was formerly known as Dosu twitched on the ground for a second or two before becoming completely still. A bright light flashed over It and the sound of the gong rang throughout the arena, though at this point Fu’s ears were still ringing too loudly to hear it.
As she picked herself up off the ground for hopefully the final time that day, the Bug’s chakra subsided. She was banged up, bruised and burned, but with her constion she’d recovered from worse.But she didn’t care about the ringing in her ears or the soreness that seemed to echo through every single muscle and bone, nor of Metoro, whose fate that she didn't know had been decisively decided by her compatriots while she was in the sky. No, all she cared about were the two people rushing towards her. One of whom seemed to be screaming pretty loudly at her.
She couldn’t make out the words, not yet, but once they were in range Fu smiled, wrapping both Kurostuchi and Akatsuchi in a strong embrace. She had protected her friends, they were safe, that was the only thing that mattered. Kurotushci eventually managed to wriggle her way out of Fu grip (the battle must have taken a bigger toll on Fu than she thought), ready to launch herself into a series of obscenities, before she was distracted by the sight of an eagle swooping in from the sky. All of them watched as it dropped a cloth package right at their feet with Taki’s insignia printed on its side. A reward maybe for fighting a well she had? Maybe Lord Shibuki had sent her the red bean mochis she loved. Ooh maybe they could all share them.
As Fu returned to her normal distracted state of mind with the adrenaline of the battle wearing off, Kurotsuchi bent down and started to open the package, tearring off the cloth rather than carefully untying the string holding it together. To Fu’s confusion and disappointment, rather than sugary sweets, the contents held a new outfit, nearly identical to her current one.
That’s weird, what would Lord Shibuki be sending her new clothes for? She was even more surprised when Kursotsuchi practically thrust the package into her hands, barely making out the word “change”. Well that’s something, her hearing was coming back at the very least. Still Fu merely gave Kurotsuchi a look of confusion before the Iwa kunoichi sighed and pointed down.
Her eyes following Kurotuschi’s finger, Fu finally got a look at the state of her clothes. They were muddy, burnt and in absolute tatters. It would be practically impossible to recognize them from the outfit she was wearing at the beginning of the Games. Any more strain and they probably fall apart on her completely.. Yeah, changing was probably a good idea.
And a bath
Yeah that was probably a good idea too. How far were they from that stream she saw?
