Naruto : Path of Wind

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.

...

I dance around the field, jump and ducking and redirecting with my chakra where I can, looking for an opening to exploit, hoping for reinforcements to come. He rips a slab of wood from a wrecked plow and swings it at me.

I stop on a dime and throw my weight into a punch, shattering the slab and spinning around him when he tries to grab me. He slides into a crouch and sweeps at my feet, but instead of jumping to avoid it I throw out my hands and buffet him with wind, knocking him off balance.

With every dodged punch his eyebrows furrow deeper. After every redirected kick his jaw clenches a little tighter. And every time I smother his element with my own, his breath grows a little more ragged. Finally he stops his pursuit, glaring hatefully at me.

"I bet you think you're real slick," he snarls. "Think you've got me all figured out. You don't, though, and you're not. You're dead!" His hands flash through handseals. I hurriedly grab a ring of shuriken from my pouch and let loose, only for them to hit the corpse of one of the bandits. Kawarimi. I whirl around, but the nukenin is already locking his hands into the horse seal.

"Electro Blitz!" Blue chakra flares around him and he before I can do anything he slams into me, sending me sprawling. I claw my way to my feet, fighting through the numbness left behind by his body slam. His chakra flares again.

"Electro Blitz!" I'm diving away before the first syllable is out of his mouth, but he still clips me, snapping my arm back. I manage to roll up into a crouch, rubbing forcefully at my stinging appendage. He passes at me again, knocking me senseless.

He turns to me, one hand clenched into a fist, the other held in a half horse seal. "Like that?" He taunts. "Lifted the idea from the Raikage himself!" He flashes forward again, but this time I'm prepared. I juke desperately to the right, watch him shoot by. My eyes narrow. He makes a few more passes, but now I know his game, and I dodge every one. I smile. I've found the chink.

"Must be frustrating, having to move in a straight line," I call tauntingly after yet another failed attempt. "I bet the Raikage doesn't have to do that." It's a pretty pitiful attempt at riling him up, all things considered, but it does the trick anyway.

"You brat!" I shift to the side again as he flashes forward, but this time he stops just short of me. He belts out three more seals, finishing once more with the horse seal. "Electro Grapple." His hands pull apart, still held in half horse seals, and in the space between them a strand of electricity forms, grows taught and snaps.

The writhing strands of chakra wrap around his hands, growing, growing, until two half horse seals are floating in front of his hands, connected to them by razor thin strands of chakra. His hands clench into fists, and the two electric hands do the same.

You have got to be kidding me.

"My sensei always used to tell me that a few inches of reach in close combat can be the difference between dodging a punch and getting dropped like a sack of bricks." He smirks darkly. "What do you think?"

He closes the distance between us. The first swipe I leap back from. The second I bat aside after coating my arm in wind, but the electric fist punches right through my chakra film and my arm seizes, sending lances of pain arching up into my shoulder. I lurch away, hissing through clenched teeth as I shove more and more chakra through my appendage. This time, however, the trick doesn't work and my arm stays unresponsive.

"Looks like your wind didn't cut it that time," the nukenin observes gleefully. "Getting tired?"

"Getting tired of listening to your voice," I say, but the strain in my own gives me away. He presses his advantage enthusiastically, aiming again and again for my useable arm and attempting to grab hold of me via my bum one whenever it comes flapping within reach. Finally I don't put enough distance between us with my dancing and he punches me in the gut, electric fist and all.

I fall for the hundredth time, try to wrap my arms around my stomach, and realize that I can't move my arms. I pull and pull and pull on what's left of my chakra, desperately trying to counter the raiton jutsu wreaking havoc on my muscles, and nearly scream at the feel of a thousand senbon being shoved into my arms and legs and stomach over and over.

"I have to admit, kid," My opponents says. "That wasn't half bad. Especially for your first mission. Not bad at all." A sizzling sound drifts through the air. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say you've earned an honorable death." He chuckles. "No need to thank me."

I redouble my efforts to stand, and the sharp pain in my stomach intensifies. I see more than feel one arm, the one scorched by the nukenin's jutsu, twitch, but not quite rise. Damn it, move. I push harder, somehow shift my other hand underneath me. I turn my head, hock, and spit out a glob of vomit-blood.

"See you in hell," he jeers. Too soon. I still can't move. It's too soon. "Electro-!" He stops abruptly. I hear a muffled thump, a cry of pain.

A snarl reaches my ears as I struggle up onto my hands and knees, and when I lift my head I see the dog that had tried to pull me away from Kakashi's water dragons wrestling with the nukenin, jaw clamped over the bloody wound in his shoulder that the mastiff had left behind. I force myself to one knee. Electricity dances along the nukenin's biceps, and he reaches around and wraps a muscled arm around the dog's neck. I stagger to my feet.

A sickening crunch and a pained yelp both erupt from the dog, and it disappears in a cloud of smoke. The nukenin slumps, panting heavily and reeling from the surprise attack. Blood flows faster and stronger from his shoulder, covering his chest and arm in a dark red sheet and staining his chunin vest. He sways woozily, clutching his head.

There's a window if I ever saw one.

My feet move arduously forward, one after the other, slowly at first. As I wrest the last of my chakra free, however, I move into a slow jog. The nukenin looks up, locks eyes with me. Rage twists his features into something less than human.

"You think you can beat me!? You think you and your sensei's stupid dogs can win? I'll kill you!" He slaps his hands together, forming clumsy handseals. I pick up speed, feeling the stabbing pain in my arms and legs give way to a mere uncomfortable ache. The distance between us closes to twenty feet. Ten feet. The nukenin from Kumo's flits through his last seal and clasps his hands together. A screeching blade springs to life between them.

I reach into my weapons pouch and pull out my last kunai. Five feet. He raises the blade above his head. My vision narrows down to his bared throat. One shot.

My foot slips.

The mud slides my right foot sharply to the side, and I find myself too close to recoverd. It's too late to dart in and stab him. I don't have time to think as he swings down. I grab hold of all my chakra, digging past the clenching pain and seeming emptiness, and twist. Wind explodes around me, slamming into my side and sending me spinning. I spin once, twice, three times. A shining blue blur appears in my vision.

"Electro Axe!"

I lunge upward. The jutsu hits the cyclone of wind surrounding me like a raging Bijuu, and almost stops me in my tracks. Almost.

The wind roars in my ears, and I follow through.

Stray sparks of electricity dribble feebly from his limp hands, mingling with the moaning remnants of my chakra. The nukenin stares at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. He opens his mouth, but only blood comes out of it. I let go of my kunai, and he falls back, sinking into the mud with a squelch. Bright crimson blood from his throat and his shoulder pool together, staining the already ruined soil.

I stand there and watch it all drain out of him. The color from his cheeks, the blood from his body, the life from his eyes. When he's gone, I reach down and slide his eyelids shut. Why, I can't say.

A door crashes open, and I see Sasuke storm out of it dragging a skeleton of a teenager along with him by the hair. I watch as the teen begs and pleads and sobs in a high, reedy voice. I watch as Sasuke stops in a particularly muddy patch of soil and wraps a hand around the back of the teen's throat. And I watch as he shoves the rogue shinobi's face into the mud and holds it there, until he stops thrashing and his body goes limp.

"Naruto?" Someone calls, far away. "Naruto?" They call again, equally distant. But when I turn I Sakura is right there. Her breath hitches. "What happened?" She asks.

"He shocked me," I croak. It hurts to talk, I realize. "A lot." I wince, placing a hand on my stomach. The stabbing pain is still there, and it's growing worse. "My stomach hurts," I mumble.

"I-I'll go get Kakashi-sensei," she says hurriedly. "Just wait here. He-He'll know what to do." And just like that she takes off. I consider following her, despite her words, but after the first step I decide it's far too much effort. Instead I focus on Sasuke, who's staring right back at me with something like concern in his eye.

"Hey, Sasuke." I say hoarsely. He raises an eyebrow. "Told you I could take him." He snorts, opening his mouth to retort, and freezes. His eyes fly open wide, fixing on something over my shoulder.

"Naruto!"

A hand grips the collar of my shirt, cold leather brushes against the back of my neck, and I'm yanked off my feet. An orange, swirling mask and a crimson red eye fill my vision, and then my world is swallowed up in darkness.

...

 PS : don't forget to write a review and throw power stones for the story :)

...

if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :

 p atreon.com/CarriePoppins