| [Jun. 3rd, 2009|10:51 pm] |
There were three attackers and a half-dozen clones. But the clones were easy to snare in the genjutsu--a weakness Ginta was grateful for. He clung to his branch and mustered his chakra, conserving it carefully, while his own clone shimmied down the tree under the cover of that same space-distorting jutsu to retrieve a handful of thrown iron. Three shuriken, a kunai, and a clump of dirt was all it managed to grab before it was noticed. It made it back to Ginta, throwing the weapons towards him, and the rocky soil into its pursuer's face. The man swore, sending a lightning bolt of chakra racing up the trunk of the tree.
Ginta flinched, shielding his eyes on instinct, waiting for the sizzle and burn to hit, but the clone took the blow; it burst into a cloud of vapor, releasing chakra in a blinding flash. The tree shook, and the enemy ninja screamed as Kakashi's dogs pulled him to the ground. There was a sickening, snapping sound, when canine teeth crushed his jugular.
No more clone, but Ginta had weapons now. And some chakra still at his disposal. He fed it into the genjutsu, watching enemy clones lost in the fire's glow below him. There was a shift in the wind, and suddenly another ninja was facing him. This one was small--a woman or a child, maybe. The wind became a knife's edge under her control. Ginta blocked with his kunai, and felt the weapon torn from his fingers by the jutsu's icy blast. He didn't trust his legs, but it was move or die: bringing bloodied fingers up to his chest, he kawarimi'd away, catching at a lower branch with his hands, and hanging below the cyprus tree's needles for a heart-stopping moment, scanning for the next attack.
She came leaping down from above. He swung himself around the branch, flipped over it, and waited until she was almost on top of him to hurl his stolen shuriken at her face. Her air-blade batted one away, but the other raked across her eye. Adrenaline rendered the fight in terrible slow motion for Ginta. He saw the spinning shuriken tear into her skin, shredding the eyelid in a fountain of blood. She screamed and thrust her blade towards his unprotected abdomen.
His body reacted without thought. He curled forward over the branch, reaching for her bloodied face to hook a finger in her eye socket, and shoved chakra into the blow. Bone cracked under his hand. Her head jerked back, and for a second her momentum nearly carried Ginta, but he pulled his hand free.
The woman's scream died. Her blade seared across Ginta's shoulder. She fell gracelessly, already dead. |
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