They aren't anywhere near as idle as I'm hoping, cursing and rolling to the side as soon as I let go. I shove myself to the side along with him in a hasty burst of wind, and fall down right on top of him. He jerks, another curse on his lips, and braces his legs underneath him to jump up and headbutt me. I stab my kunai into his temple, and he crumples.
Two down… More to go.
...
The next guard, a Kumo nin again, is facing the clearing. I move out from behind my cover, another chokehold in mind, and then catch sight of my target and her captor on their ledge.
At this range I can see that neither of them are actually asleep. Isamu is standing up and leaning against the cliff wall while Samui sits in front of him, legs folded beneath her. The spear is gone, at least. With any luck, by the time the next task starts she'll be able to use her leg again.
Satisfied that she hasn't been further maimed by one of the Iwa nin yet, I turn my attention back to the guard and exit my cover the rest of the way. I drift across the ground, wind cut off, already planning my assault on the next guard. Then the shinobi twitches and turns their head, locking eyes with me.
They gasp and I surge forward, smacking aside their hasty punch and planting a spinning kick right between their eyes. Pain flashes across their face, and they erupt in a cloud of chakra smoke.
What.
I stare at the space where the shinobi just was. No log, no branch, no nothing. That wasn't a Body Replacement. What in the-
"Konoha nin! He just took out my clone!"
I hate the Chunin Exams.
The wind howls around me as I throw stealth to the wind and sprint towards the ledge Samui is on. An Iwa kunoichi bursts out from the trees beside me, a warhammer of all things held above her head, and brings it down on me with monstrous force. I juke to the side, throwing a hand out and buffeting her with wind. She slides back a step and I leap up, planting my feet on her face and kicking off into the air.
I sail over the gap between the edge of the forest and the ledge, landing in a heavy crouch on the opposite end from Samui and Isamu. The large Kumo shinobi stands poised for a fight, in a loose stance with a tanto held out in front of him. My tanto. My eyes narrow.
"You've got a lot of nerve trying to ambush us all by yourself, brat," Isamu says, amusement and anger clashing in his voice.
"And you've got a helluva lot of nerve trying to use my own sword against me," I retort, palming a kunai. Behind me shouts continue to rise above the noise of the waterfall, closing in on us fast. He grins.
"Let's see if I can do it justice."
We meet in the middle of the outcropping of rock, my kunai against his (my) sword. He immediately puts me on the back foot, pushing me back with his superior strength and superior weapon. I duck under a swipe at my neck and try to sweep his legs out from under him, but he forces me to dodge instead when he abruptly changes direction and stabs at my face. I juke another blow and try to knock the sword out of his hands, but instead focus on diverting the roundhouse kick he sends at my ribs.
He's a close combat specialist just like Samui, and I don't have the time to whittle him down and wait for a mistake to capitalize on. I growl in frustration, taking a slash to my left arm and lunging forward, stabbing at his neck. Somehow he brings his tanto around in time to parry it and jumps back, putting space between us that will take me precious seconds to cover.
And then alarm appears on his face and he's pulled back down to the ground, landing flat on his back, and revealing Samui with her wire-bound arms looped around his right leg.
"You bitch!" He shouts, kicking her hard in the face and scrambling back to his feet.
I slam my clasped fists down on his head, sending him stumbling back. He slices at my head but I've already spun underneath it, punching him in the stomach hard enough to curl him around my fist. I dance back as he tries to grapple me from his hunched over position, and send a wave of wind at him.
He's forced back even farther, to the edge of the outcropping, and I dart forward before he can regain his bearings. I stab my kunai into his wrist and reclaim my tanto the same way I first got it. Then I pivot and kick him in the chest, sending him flying over the edge.
The sounds of encroaching shinobi assault me, and I rush back over to Samui, cutting the shinobi wires wrapped around her wrists and ankles and sheathing my tanto. She's clutching her nose, bleeding from Isamu's kick, and struggling to get to her feet. I skid to a stop in front of her and crouch down.
"Get on my back. We need to get the hell out of here." She hesitates for a moment that seems to last an eternity, and then I feel soft flesh press up against my back. I reach down and prop her thighs up, furiously beating down thoughts of anything and everything that isn't the horde of enemy shinobi currently closing in on us, and stand up.
"Alright, hold on tight. This is going to get rough."
Her breath tickles my ear. "Why are you doing this? I won't be able to compete in the next task with my leg as it is, so you're still going to fail."
I peer at her from the corner of my eye, flashing my teeth in a smile. "Why did you help my teammates?" She doesn't have an answer for that, and I decide to let her think on it while I try to make something out of this situation. I crouch, shoving wind through my chakra coils towards my feet.
The Iwa kunoichi whose head I had spring boarded off of charges the gap between the ledge and the top of the cliff, apparently having recovered from the blow to her head. I push even more chakra to my feet, hanging back, until the girl jumps the gap. I let the chakra go all at once and rush forward while she hangs in midair, easily dodging her haphazard hammer swing and blowing past her into the forest.
Yes, okay. This can work. It's going to require a monstrous amount of chakra on my part, and more than a little luck, but it can work. I just have to be prepared to dodge for every last bit I'm worth, and run harder than I ever have in my entire life. No big deal.
A Kumo nin erupts from the trees to my left and swings their tanto down at my neck. I dodge to the side, forced to push even more wind into the movement now that my weight has been effectively doubled. I twist in midair, looking for a tree to kick off from, only to see another Kumo nin bearing down on me with a spear coated in lightning chakra crackling in their hands.
I curse, channeling a wave of wind to knock me in a different direction, away from the shinobi, only to find myself moving a split second too slow due to the weight on my back. They bring the spear down and I brace for the pain.
Samui pulls my tanto free from my back and slams it into the side of the spear, cutting it neatly in two and jerking the shinobi away from us.
My attempt at a redirection finally kicks in, and I resist the instinct to turn my fall into a roll, instead landing and skidding across the ground for a few feet before springing back up. I sprint forward again, allowing Samui to deflect the second sword swipe from the feint genin. She shoves him off and I waste no time putting some space between us and them while the first recovers and the second gets another spear or something.
"Good idea with the sword," I say when I'm sure there aren't any more genin about to jump us in the immediate vicinity. "Probably should have done that as soon as I freed up your arms."
"How do you plan to do this?" She murmurs into my ear. Wow. That's really distracting.
"I'm going to run fast enough that they can't catch us, and then we're going to win the task."
"I'm serious."
I sigh. "Yeah, me too."
...
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