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Chapter 60 - Arc 4 - Brawling in the Streets: Sudden Ends are always Awkward
🕑 Added 2024-07-19 21:04:56 +0000 UTCThis one's a little brutal, Sakura loses her head, as she's done several times before.
As always I don't go into graphic detail, but humans have imagination, and any detail can be a bit much. If you're feeling squeamish today, skim through part 2 and 3.
There's 4 parts here.
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Trading blows with a sword isn’t Neji’s idea of a good time, but he’s used to it. Tenten uses a sword all the time, she uses hammers, axes, and kunai, and sometimes even bombs. He’s very used to someone trying to kill him in a gentle spar, so he’s used to putting his foot forward and meeting the enemy’s blows head on no matter how terrifying they can be. It’s a common mistake when fighting a weapon user, to try and put some distance between yourselves and avoid getting cut or stabbed or torn in half is only natural.
That’s a good way to get killed, a weapon gives the enemy reach. In a battle with a Hyuuga, where his touch is as deadly as a sword, the best move he can ever make is towards his enemy. To give in and let fear dictate his movements would give this guy a massive advantage that he could use to treat her just like he did Sakura. Unlike her, it’s unlikely he’d be fine in the morning if he lost a limb or part of one. A weapon is an extension of your hands, so he closes in to control his opponents movements and take advantage of just how extended his opponents field of lethality is. This guy can’t even stab at him because he doesn’t have the room, and his deflections are on point and send his opponent aside. Sakura lost because he is strong, but they’re stuck in a fight with a Hyuuga without a ranged option. “You are in the range of my Divination.”
There’s a lot of his moves he hasn’t tried against Tenten, because he doesn’t hate her. He plans to use them against the mainline some day, but today, he can flicker forward and create a sphere of carnage against his opponent one tap at a time. It’s untested against a weapon, but he’ll push in and believe in himself, his confidence is all he has in this world and it’s all he ever will if the bastards above him have their say. He’ll charge until he loses his legs, and then he’ll crawl until they take his arms, and then he’ll bite until they muzzle him.
He moves so fast he gets a dozen hits off before they’ve even reacted. It’s all he can do to smirk, up until his opponent turns into Sakura’s sword. “Oh no.” He stops mid movement, knowing damn well that means the bastard is down there with her. He darts to the edge of the roof, wondering how he even pulled off that substitution without him noticing. Are they facing an old jonin? He hopes not, they’re dead if they are, but then her objectives said chunin and Fierro and this doesn’t seem like a freaking necromancer.
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“It works, holy crap!” Watching her hand reconnect as the spray works its magic makes her so giddy, next is her shoulder, then her face again, then her whole body. She does a little dance under the spray, feeling her HP restore back to full. Then she sees it.
Her sword disappears- And her foot imbeds itself in that asshole’s face before she can even realize what’s happening. Her skill taking charge, and giving her initiative in a fight she didn’t start. He rolls back from the force, but she’s already on him.
She runs along the wall of the two buildings she’s between, kicking off at last second just as she catches up to him and he manages to get to his knees, and spin kicks him so hard his face smashes right into the second wall before he can even blink his awareness back. He goes half way through it, and she’s on him, pulling his sword from the dirt where its landed from the scuffle, and stabbing-
Again-
And again-
And again-
She doesn’t stop, he’s a threat to both of them and he could be pretending, she won’t let him get back up and hurt her, or Neji, or Tenten, or anyone!
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It’s somewhat relieving to see Sakura stab the corpse below. They got him, even if it was luck, and circumstance, and her happening to reflexively react. That’s all a battle is sometimes, a lot of being outplayed until you get lucky, or vice versa. His arrogance was his downfall. It’s easy to say, but for Neji it’s something meaningful. It’s an internalization of something horrific. His Byakugan gives him a close up on something that makes his gut flop, even when he hides his head behind the wall.
She’s still going. The first made sense, the second and third was pushing it, each a lethal strike on its own but theoretically needing a finisher to seal the deal.
The next ten stabs into his flesh, rending and tearing and turning his corpse into a pincushion? Every second there’s another wet slash, another meaty stab, the ground and wall and everything including her - it looks much worse than even clearing the zombies did. Back then they were coagulated, they didn’t spray blood, they didn’t make that much of a mess, they didn’t tear apart and crunch and break and- They were gross, but they were largely destroyed and moved on.
He’s never seen any stand over a body and just-
Half of their enemy slumps to the ground, severed from the top half still embedded in the wall. She’s stabbed so many times he’s been cut in half and she’s… she’s still going. An Uchiha would be permanently scarred, and for the first time in his life he’s felt bad for another clan. Because for all the incredible close up detail his powerful chakra infused eyes give him, at least he can try to forget this. Someone with the Sharingan has her on his team, and he’s sure she was worse the first few times she had a problem.
He can’t hold it back, he falls back onto the roof on all fours. His heart beats in his ears, but he can’t look away. Their shitty lunch hits the rooftop, his stomach convulsing but he barely pays it any mind as a thought races through his head, that could have been him. He’d pissed her off earlier, he arrogantly assumed she was nothing, just like their opponent had, and yet given just one opportunity, one flickering moment of weakness anyone could have, she’s drained his form of blood like a vampire does a girl out on her own at night.
She’s not stopping, he can still hear it over the rooftop. He looks to her real sword, discarded to the side, and he suddenly understands Tenten’s fear of the blonde girl. She doesn’t need a demon sword to be that brutal, what would have happened to him if Lee hadn’t gotten in the way of her when she had the possessed blade?
Gai said it was harmless to them in her hands. How drunk was he when he came up with that idea? “Tenten’s still fighting.” He surmises to himself, justifies getting up from his place and getting out of his own head.
Another wet thump as another part of the man down there is severed by stabs alone, it’s all he can do to hold back powerful retching and a whirling mind. “I need to get to Tenten, Sakura’ll be fine.” He doesn’t touch the demon sword with his bare skin, he kicks it off the ledge back down there for her, she’ll need it, maybe, if she meets another strong opponent.
He gets it, she’s terrified, it’s her first time losing a limb or facing death in such a real way, maybe her second at the absolute worst, most people don’t do that multiple times and survive, let alone have limbs left after multiple severings.
But fear is all it takes for her to lose her cool like that?
Would it be enough for him to do the same?
No more thoughts, Tenten probably needs him. He’ll say that at least, he needs to not be here.
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Sitting against the wall, gasping for air, Sakura can’t help but look away from the carnage she caused. She destroyed his mantle, that much sucks, it was probably high quality gear.
Looking over his body, what’s left of it, she finds some higher quality kunai, some money, some nice ninja wire, nothing of note.
That mantle looks so damn nice, she decides to put what she can get out of it into her pack, and see if someone back home can make something out of it. It’d look great on Haku if she could get it fully repaired.
Far more importantly is the sword she used to butcher him. It shimmers in the light, even drenched in its master’s blood. It's far more powerful looking than any normal swords she’s found in recent times. She can’t feel any odd effects from it either, nothing deep inside her that swirls to life or enchants her. It’s magic, maybe, it’s probably a drop from a dungeon, but it’s not special in the kind of way she’s used to a sword being.
Picking up Hunger, and putting it in its Thirsty sheath - she’s okay with the mix-up now, she likes Thirsty a little more anyway, who came up with Hunger? What a hack.
She wields the blade, and takes a real look at it.
[Noblesse Oblige
Weapon
Rare
Sharpens itself and strikes conceptually based on the power of the user’s Ideals, especially noble ones.]
Why is Hunger Epic but that’s Rare, that’s fucking awesome? It’s probably the demon sword thing.
Problem is, she doesn’t have ideals… She should change that, she has so much to work for, but currently she just wants to survive and make it and maybe not get so freaked she does that shit again. Looking at the carnage she caused, she’s sure Neji’s going to judge her like her team did.
No, forget that, he’s going to judge her so much harder than they ever did.
On the bright side, “I bet Sasuke’ll love this.” She swipes the blade to the side as hard as she can, ridding it of grim tidings, and looking at its shimmery shine. Sasuke’s the only person she knows that has ideals, but his ideals are very strong, and she considers avenging his clan as pretty freaking noble.
She contemplates giving it to Tenten, as she’d probably appreciate it too. One does not forge a massive hammer, then forge a second one just in case, and forge bombs for fun, if they do not love cool magical sword nonsense, but Sasuke’s the better pick in the end. She’ll have to get it a nice clean sheath and wrapping and maybe get it engraved for him.
She’s distracting herself, she knows she is. The reality is that what she just did was beyond reasonable.
The enemy died, that’s all that matters, is what she’d like to tell herself.
But that’s not true is it? What if someone had snuck up on her while she did that?
And she didn’t even have Hunger to blame it on. She has problems.
She needs to talk to Kakashi. “When I get home.” She swears to herself, picking up and readying herself for the next battle.
[3/20 Genin killed]
[1/10 Chunin killed]
Her system’s partially to blame. There’s no ambiguity there, no defeat, no incapacity, kill.
It wants her to strike them all down and bathe in the bloodshed as a master of dark demise.
And who is she to deny it, when she wants much the same?
“Just for now, I’ll talk to Sasuke’s guy or Kakashi or someone, when I get home.”
This was probably what Kakashi was trying to show her, when he sent her to this team.
Comments
Christopher Cummins
Kakashi: Things have a way of just, working out.
Mest450
Kakashi was not even thinking anything close to that. lol
Dopplerdee
Sakura is so sweet, thinking that was the lesson to learn here.
