Kyofu groaned miserably as she got to her feet, her ribs would be sporting a nasty bruise soon enough. Falling flat from fifteen or twenty feet wouldn't go over well with anyone, Shinobi training or no. "Ohh are we done yet?"
"Nope!" Naruto yelled cheerfully. "But don't worry, I got him on the ropes!"
She turned her eyes, narrowing them. "Fuuton technique." She barked, sucking down a lungful of air as she got to her feet before Naruto did the same, both releasing the blast of fire that, while not quite as big as the one that had been fueled with oil, was nonetheless huge even by Jounin standards, the two elements mixing to form a single powerful blast.
Then a rock shot out of the ground, it was the size of a fist with the force of a bullet and would have taken off the blonds head had he been a foot taller.
It pays to be short! He never thought he'd think those words.
"Run!" Kyofu shouted needlessly as both of them were already darting this way and that way to try and either get out of range or dodge the attacks now exploding from the ground.
Kyofu felt the vertigo hit her a second later. A nausea rising in her gut. She barely had the time to deduce she was under a genjutsu before something smashed into the side of her head with a crunch and a spatter of blood across the dirt as she bled from her head and temple, the world swimming in her eyes as she fell
Then everything went dark when she was encased beneath the walls of an earth dome.
Naruto would have fared little better if the innate nature chakra he had running through his systems hadn't given him a heads up on Kitsuchi's attempt before it took root and helped him dispel the illusion before it could fully affect him.
He turned and sprinted in the man's direction. Once Kitsuchi adapted to the feel of his chakra his illusions were going to be much harder to fight off.
The wind was knocked out of him when something hit him in the stomach with the force of a ram.
He fell onto his back, coughing and gasping for air before something pressed down onto his neck.
He blinked, and the pain of the blow and the difficulty in breathing dispelled the secondary illusion hiding behind the obvious red-herring that was the first.
The blond grit his teeth. Stupid.
He'd fought next to Sasuke for years and he forgot to check for secondary and tertiary genjutsu?
Fucking stupid!
The only real consolation he had was that this wasn't a life or death situation.
Kitsuchi stood over him, burnt arm cradled against his stomach and chest. The other hand in his pocket, his boot pressing down on the gennin's chest and neck, staring down at him with a placid, calm expression.
Naruto chuckled, or tried to. It was difficult to imagine the calm Shinobi was the famously short tempered Kurotsuchi's fa-
"You're done Uzumaki."
And like that the blond was somewhere else.
-0-
Koutou breathed. Two minutes and twenty seconds.
Fourty seconds had just decided the life of one of Konoha's greatest Shinobi.
His mind whirled, gears turning in his head as he tried to think of some angle, some means to get the sannin out of this and could only come up with one.
Kurotsuchi.
'I've done you a kindness. One day I will expect one in return.'
Those had been his words weeks ago. It was now time to cash in the favor and demand that he honor it, even if the life of a ten year old girl didn't necessarily measure up to that of Konoha's most dangerous assassination expert.
The Daimyo sighed. He'd hoped to be able to gain something from this debt between them...but alas breaking even would simply have to do.
Then something caught their eye-
-0-
'You're done Uzumaki.'
The words rang through his skull, echoing in the hollow chamber of buried memories, pulling free the demons of recollection.
Dust choked the air in a foggy, brown haze, the sun beating down on his face as he blinked the blood out of his eyes.
'They were all so hopeful you know.'
He stares up at Kitsuchi's face focusing on the eye hidden behind the spiral painted mask, a palpable fury rising in his chest that twists his features into something bestial.
"So sure that you'd come back like you did before with Nagato. That their hero would come rescue them. Especially that Hyuuga girl. Oh how she screamed."
"I'll kill you." The words are a hiss, a promise that burns the back of his throat with acid as he stares into those cursed eyes!
"You'll try. But you'll fail now just like you failed them"
The Rasengan forms in his hand before he can think swirling and glowing with a palpable light. He see's Tobi recoil, pull away in alarm as he lunges!
-0-
Not even the sannin's ability to hide emotion can fully mask his surprise, taking a step forward as Onoki jumps to his feet, cursing and howling. "I knew it!" He screams! "I goddamn knew it!"
The Iwa Jounin moves, dodging, forcing the attack to hit the ground in an explosion of shattered stone and upturned dust that swallows them both. Before they see Kitsuchi flying out of one side, landing in a crouch.
.
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