Naruto : Path of Wind

Oh, awesome. I jump back, focusing on pushing chakra through my arm, praying for elemental superiority to come through for me. A moment later it does, when my arm erupts into a painfully tingling mess. It moves, though, and not a moment too soon.

The chunin bears down upon me, hands clasped overhead in a hammerblow. I throw my hands out and blast him with chakra. The electricity on his arms flickers and dies, but he struggles through the wind and brings fists down on my head.

My knees give out underneath me, and it's all I can do to roll out of the way of the stomp that would have finished the job on my head.

I see two of him rushing towards me, decide it doesn't really matter if one is a bunshin or a hallucination, and pick one and throw up a cross block in front of his strike. I block it solidly, but the impact drives me up to my ankles in the loose earth. I duck another hit and loose my kunai.

At point blank range I can't exactly miss, but in my dazed state I try my best. One lodges itself in the ultra thick fabric of his chunin vest and the other cuts a deep line through the bandages on his left bicep and goes flying off, leaving a pitiful cut to show for my efforts. He rushes forward and nails me in the jaw while I'm struggling to get out of the ground. Why is it always the head?

I stare fuzzily up at the cloudless blue sky, pondering the ringing in my ears. A scarred face and gray, close-cropped hair obscures my vision.

"That's a nice trick you've got with your wind," he says appreciatively. "But it's a far, far cry from-"

He pauses, cocking his head. The dull roar of rushing water drifts from deeper into the village, and soil made sticky with blood clings to my check when I turn my head to see its source. Three enormous water dragons crash through buildings and wash over plots, heading straight for us. My opponent hums bemusedly, flitting through the seals for the kawarimi. The ground shifts underneath me.

"Looks like it's drowning for you, kid. Sorry about that." He throws me a smirk, locking his hands into the serpent handseal.

And then a brown mastiff bigger than I am sporting a Konoha headband lunges up out of the dirt and tackles him, clamping its slobbering jaw down on his shoulder. The nukenin falls, howling curses, and I struggle to get back on my feet. I fail. The sound of the approaching water dragons grows deafening. I try again, and fail.

Another dog, this one smaller and sleeker with an identical headband, nudges at my shoulder. I stare blearily at it, and it shoves its head under my arm. I manage to gain my feet this time, and we todder away while the nukenin and the mastiff wrestle in the soil. I'm just beginning to achieve a steady gait when one of the dragons clips me.

The dog's jaw clamps down on my pant leg, and for a second holds, but then the orange fabric tears and I'm washed away with the suiton jutsu. The first thing that occurs to me is that it's freezing. During our training sessions Kakashi's water dragons and bullets and whips were always lukewarm, but this washes away the fuzziness in my head instantly in its chill. A pounding headache immediately takes its place, but it's a small price to pay for coherency.

Having come to my senses, I grasp blindly amidst the chaos of the jutsu, uncomfortably aware of what will happen if I don't stop myself soon. Splat, right against the wall.

I catch on something hard and smooth. It jerks, and I feel something connected to it pop and almost tear, but it holds. I duck my head, clutch whatever it is, and wait for the dragons to pass.

They finally do when my lungs are about to burst and my grip has slipped to three fingers, their pressure disappearing all at once from around me. I collapse onto something large and muscled and reeking. I consider the pointed white horn in my hand, and the snapped neck of the ox corpse.

"That was almost really painful," I grunt, pushing off the dead beast. Another jutsu shakes the earth beneath my feet, and I whirl around in time to see a shinobi dressed in browns and yellows go rocketing past me towards and through the stone wall of the fortress. Ouch.

"Stupid mutt!" A furious voice roars. "Electro Choke!"

A particularly large mound of mud suddenly comes alive with electric white chakra, and I cringe at the piercing yelp that follows. Something pops, and chakra smoke drifts up from the mound. Then it shifts, and the Kumo nukenin staggers up, the arm sporting his headband covered in mud and scarlet blood from the wound in his shoulder. He's covered head to toe in smaller scratches, and his pants have been torn near to shreds. He locks wrathful green eyes with me.

"It's a shame," he growls, stalking forward. "I was going to give you a chance, see if you could hold on through the water." He bears his teeth in a nasty smile. "Now, though. I think I'm mad enough just to kill you."

He hurtles forward, dodging the shuriken I send whistling towards him with ease and making yet another bid for my face. I jerk to the side, feel my cheek tingle painfully as the screeching lightning chakra brushes past it, and nail him in the gut. He slides back a step, but is otherwise unharmed. I press for an opening, calling wind to my fingertips and slamming into his guard. I dip into my weapons pouch, pull out a double ended kunai, and stab it forward.

He catches my wrist and squeezes it painfully. Electricity dances around his bicep, and I hurriedly channel chakra down my own arm. The two elements clash briefly, and his subsides. He scowls. "Gotta admit," he says, taking a step forward. I yank on my arm in vain, try to jab at his throat, but he catches that hand in his own as well. "That wind is getting reallyannoying." Another step.

I push harder, harder, and harder still, but it's no use. I can't get any tractions in the muck of the field. My sandals begin to sink into the ground again. Step, step, step. His hand tightens around my wrist.

"Naruto! Lightning Release: Lightning Beast!" And just like that he lets me go, leaping back with a panicked shout. A breath later a hound as big as the mastiff made of crackling blue electricity flashes through the spot he'd just been, crashing into the mud and dissipating. I trace the rapidly deteriorating strand of chakra connected to the beast back to Kakashi, perched atop a guard tower.

"What do you think you're doing?" He shouts. "You can't go head to head in Taijutsu with someone like that all by yourself!"

"Well what am I supposed to do?" I holler back, just before a veritable hail of fireballs come hurtling from further down the wall towards the jounin. He drops off the wall, pressing his hands into the ground as soon as he lands and raising a slab of damp earth to absorb an incoming deluge of kunai and shuriken.

"Use your wind. Dodge!" He says. Then he disappears in a swirl of leaves.

"What'd I tell you?" The chunin laughs, climbing to his feet. "Poor Copy Cat can't even take a few seconds to help his student out." He practically saunters over to me, his savage grin enhanced by the electricity surrounding him. "He's going to die, that green freak is going to die, your kunoichi are going to die-" He breaks off, flashing forward. "But you're gonna die first!"

He swings, and I slide back a step. His fist goes crackling past. He pivots, throwing roundhouse kick at my face. I duck. He makes for an uppercut at my gut, but I blow it to the side with a burst of wind. He scowls.

"Cute. Let's see how long you can keep that up," he says, lunging.

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