Royal Road
Arc XII Chapter 16
Arc XII Chapter 16
XII
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Arc XII Chapter 16
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“Attack!!!” Chiyo ordered her inanimate soldiers, her fingers their strings. Her puppets, they moved, their assault directed at her. Swords. Blades. Axes. Spears. Needles. Explosives. Poison. Their arsenal was impressive. Their attacks coordinated, almost perfectly timed. Always in motion. Always retreating. Always repositioning. Always exploiting opportunities when they presented themselves. All of them united in a single purpose, a testament to the exceptional skill of their master. Chiyo’s experience showed. Unfortunately, her patterns proved to be far too predictable, far too schematic.
Asami dodged. Evaded. Sidestepped. Chiyo’s attacks hardly presented a challenge, but they were nothing but a mere diversion. Her senses monitored the enemy. They were planning something. Temari already readied her fan, only waiting for her chance. Kakashi moved, circling her. So did Naruto with his private army of shadow clones. They had learned from before. They intended to pincer, flanking her from both sides. Sakura held her position, being kept in the reserve. For now.
Chiyo retracted her puppets. “Now go, Temari!”
“Understood.” Temari obeyed, immediately grabbing her giant war fan, unfurling it behind her shoulder for a full swing. The girl accumulated her chakra, much more than before. Fuuton. Wind element. The gales of wind surrounded her figure, her chakra blazing brightly in the sun. This was going to be an all out attack. “Argh!!!AAAAAAARGGGHHHHHH!!!”
Her war fan sliced through the air and a true furor of wind blades followed to bombard her position indiscriminately. Her blades saturated the ground, exploding all around her in a wild, unrestrained torrent. Dirt, grass, earth, rocks flying in all directions. Unsurprisingly, their accuracy was abysmal, which possibly reflected Temari’s volatile temperament. The vast majority missed her by a long shot, kicking up nothing but loads of dust in the process. But they served their purpose, restraining her movement, limiting her mobility. It was their signal to attack.
Kakashi and Naruto increased their speed. Her instincts sensed their presence. Their signatures grew ever stronger. They had invaded her perimeter. Their chakra stood out like a shining beacon in the darkness. It was hard to miss them. They moved in, closing the distance under the cover of the dust. Kakashi darted from the right. Naruto from the left. Their attacks converging on her position ...
Asami raised her umbrella to block another frontal attack, knocking aside another sweeping wind blade. Temari pressed her attack, completely uncaring of collateral damage and potential friendly fire. Temari knew that she wouldn't move from her spot, a fact that the violent girl was eager to exploit.
The stream of green chakra crashed against her purple shield. Obviously, her barrier prevailed. Despite the strength behind her attack, the wind blade dissipated upon contact, her feeble chakra unable to maintain cohesion in the face of serious resistance. Her jutsu disintegrated, but this was the moment of distraction that the enemy needed. They put her in zugzwang, forcing her to defend herself exactly where they wanted her.
“...” Asami mustered an amused giggle, mumbling to herself. “Crafty ones, aren’t they?” Unfortunately, they were far too slow. Far too predictable.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGHHHHHH!!! RASENGAN!!!” Naruto appeared from the dust, his cry reaching far and wide. He charged her without the slightest hint of constraint, his shining blue rasengan resting in his palm.
“...” Kakashi followed suit, finally revealing himself. He approached rapidly. Taciturn and silent as ever, his eyes narrowed at her, his lips twisting behind his mask. Only the chirping of his chidori betrayed his presence, a blade of gleaming lightning at his command. Crackling electric currents made the air dance, vibrate, oscillate.
“...” Asami smirked. This time, they would strike almost simultaneously. Her friends ... They were finally learning. Unfortunately, not fast enough.
Naruto and Kakashi converged and struck, head on, with full force. The ground shook, and the earth trembled upon impact. A potent shock wave rushed across the open plain, dispensing with all the surrounding dust in the air.
“Yes!!! Take this, bitch!” Temari retracted her fan, her arm raised, and her fist closed with a wide victorious grin stretching across her face. “We got her !! ...” Her declaration of victory, her optimism turned out to be ... premature.
The dust settled and there Asami stood, untouched, unyielding, immovable, unperturbed, uncaring, her umbrella in her right hand and a purple spinning sphere in her left, blocking both of their attacks, holding both of them at bay at the same time. Her umbrella faced Kakashi. Her sphere Naruto.
Her umbrella diverted Kakashi’s lightning, his chidori failing to pierce her barrier. Though he breached her chakra, he didn't succeed in penetrating.
Her sphere, meanwhile, stopped Naruto dead in his tracks, easily counteracting his rasengan with a negligible amount of force. His jutsu lacked sufficient focus. Lacked sharpness. His chakra was a blunt instrument, merely suited to bludgeon an enemy. And it showed.
“What?” Naruto’s eyes widened, his rasengan still swirling in his palm, although it had lost much of its potency. He finally noticed her sphere, one so strikingly similar to the precious jutsu of his father, Naruto was dumbfounded before realisation did not escape him. Shock was written all over his face, leaving him speechless. “...”
Asami’s lips formed a dark smirk, her voice laced with a sense of superiority. “Now, now, surprised, aren’t we, Naruto-kun?”
“Gggrhhhh!” Naruto gritted his teeth, desperately struggling to maintain his rasengan despite his limited capabilities. He injected more and more chakra, yet his efforts proved to be in vain. His rasengan, its form, its chakra, it wavered. He was unable to properly control his jutsu. “How ... How do ...”
“How do I know the rasengan?” Asami smiled, exploiting the moment to give him a little lecture with all the calm of the world. After all, she hadn’t been an ANBU lecturer for nothing, even when they accused her of being disparaging. And it wasn't exactly as if she was pressed by two enemies breathing down her neck. “Well, once seen, once learned. I would go as far as to say that it is not a particularly difficult jutsu to grasp. A sphere of concentrated chakra variable both in terms of size and density. An extreme case admittedly, but otherwise a most classic example of shape manipulation. Not without its hurdles, but overall hardly a challenge. Usually, something you pick up along the way.”
“...” Naruto glared at her with a mixture of humiliation, of inadequacy, of inferiority, of self loath, but primarily a feeling of anger, of hatred. The look in his eyes. The anger directed at her and himself at the same time. Naruto detested her. He detested her arrogance, her very being, yet he also detested his own inadequacy. Naruto ... He remained the weak boy she remembered.
Unperturbed, Asami continued with her lecture, “Then apply a horizontal rotation along the vertical axis in order to stabilise, or rather maintain, angular momentum. A tad more complicated, but doable, I would say. Combine both, and voilà, there you have your rasengan. Not the most complicated thing in the world, right, Naruto-kun~. Granted, it might take some skill and maybe a bit of practice here and there, but all in all, quite a manageable affair ...”
“Let’s see how manageable is this!!!” Sakura rushed her, jumping at her from above, her arm drawn back behind her shoulder. An aura of wild green chakra invigorated her entire body, coating her forearm. Her eyes flared up with excitement. “AAAAAAARRRRRGHHH!!!”
...
... ...
... ... ...
“...” Asami raised her eyes. This was slightly problematic.
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