Ami couldn't see Lee anymore.
One moment he'd been there, ten meters ahead of them, kicking a Stone shinobi into the horizon. The next, a wall of bodies and jutsu and screaming closed between them and the green suit disappeared into the chaos. A surge of Stone-nin pushed through from the east and when Ami turned around to reorient, the three of them were standing in a pocket of enemy shinobi with no sensei and no squad.
"Well, who could've expected this?" Ami remarked as she pulled her chain whip free.
"HELL YEAH!" Fuki cracked her knuckles and her grin was manic. "No sensei watching means no lectures about overdoing it! We can go all out!"
"We should find the others." Kasumi's tonfas were already in her hands, her eyes scanning the smoke.
"We should kill everyone between us and the others, you mean." Fuki corrected.
"That's what she meant..." Ami sighed.
They moved as a team. Lee had drilled it into them until it was instinct. Kasumi took the center. Fuki took the lead with her fists. Ami guarded the rear.
A Stone chunin came at Fuki with a kunai in each hand. Fuki sidestepped the first slash and caught his wrist with her left hand. Her right fist drove into his stomach and as he bent over she grabbed his head on the way down and drove her knee into his face. He dropped.
Two more from the left. Ami's chain whip lashed out and caught the first around the throat. She yanked him off his feet and into the path of the second, and the two of them collided and stumbled. Fuki sent them both flying with a Dynamic Entry.
A Stone shinobi appeared behind Kasumi. His fist swung at the back of her head. Kasumi didn't turn around. She dropped low to the ground with a spinning low kick. The shinobi was taken off his feet and before he could reach the ground, Kasumi shot up and her tonfa caught him in the gut and sent him flying away.
"That's seven!" Fuki called out as she kicked another Stone nin in the chest hard enough to launch him into three of his allies.
"This is serious and you guys are keeping score..." Kasumi said.
"I'm at six." Ami said.
"Now I'm at eight!" Fuki grinned.
"The Power of Youth…" Kasumi muttered as she kept her eyes open for their comrades in this chaotic melee.
They pushed through the chaos as a team. Bodies everywhere. Jutsu flying. The ground torn apart. The smoke made everything gray and orange and the sounds blurred together.
Then a jonin found them.
He came out of the smoke like he'd been waiting. A Stone jonin, tall and broad. It seemed like he was looking for a certain someone else. Because his eyes immediately focused in on Kasumi before they wandered down and he realized that she was a girl.
"You're not Rock Lee." He sounded disappointed.
"I'm not him, no." Kasumi politely apologized as Ami and Fuki got into position.
"Considering you're wearing his outfit, you must be connected to him in some way. And those weapons. He uses a chain whip and tonfa too..." His eyes glanced over to Ami for a brief second. "Perhaps by killing you three, he'll know a portion of the pain we feel." He attacked as he weaved through hand signs.
His palm hit the ground and a spike of hardened earth erupted from beneath Fuki's feet. She jumped it but the spike split into three and the second one caught her across the shin and messed up her recovery. Ami's chain whip lashed at him and he caught it in his fist and yanked her forward off her balance. His free hand formed a sign and the ground beneath Ami turned to quicksand that sucked at her feet.
Kasumi came from his blind side. Her tonfa swung at his ribs. He blocked it with his forearm, barely, and the impact drove him sideways. But he recovered immediately and his backhand caught Kasumi across the face only for her to spin and strike back with twice the force, sending him sliding further away.
Fuki came back in with a roar. Her fist aimed at his jaw. He tilted his head and her fist grazed his cheek. His counter was a rock-coated elbow to Fuki's ribs that cracked something and dropped her to one knee.
Ami ripped her feet free of the softened earth and whipped her chain at his legs. He jumped over it and stomped on the chain mid-air, pinning it to the ground. Ami's grip yanked her forward and his kick caught her in the chest and put her on her back.
He was a bit more cautious attacking Kasumi after that first exchange. After striking her, he immediately continued attacking to prevent her from countering. Kasumi tried to redirect his continuous attacks back at him but he didn't give her the chance. So, she was forced to deflect what she could and tough through what she couldn't. Soft Fist deflected part of his power but not all of it. Eventually, she was hit with a strike and sent sliding away.
The three of them regrouped. Bleeding. Bruised. The jonin seemed happy at the sight of this. Especially the injured Kasumi.
Ami looked at Fuki. Fuki looked at Kasumi. Kasumi looked at both of them and nodded once.
No words. No countdown.
Three First Gates opened simultaneously.
The air pressure spiked around the three girls. Their muscles expanded. Their eyes sharpened. The fatigue from the fighting vanished and what replaced it was the raw unlocked potential that Lee had taught them to unlock.
The jonin's eyes widened at the difference in speed.
They hit him together.
Fuki came from the front. Her fist, now carrying the First Gate's full output, crashed into his earth-reinforced guard and the earth shattered. His forearms buckled from the impact and his body pitched backward.
Kasumi came from the left. She caught his stumbling retreat with her tonfa, slamming him forward into Ami's chain whip.
Ami's chain wrapped around his throat from the right. She pulled him sideways and off balance and Fuki was already there, her foot connecting with his jaw in a rising kick that lifted him off the ground.
He was airborne for less than a second. Kasumi appeared above him, both tonfas swinging down in an X-strike that caught him across the chest and drove him back to earth. The impact cratered the ground.
He tried to rise. Fuki's fist struck down like lightning, his rib cage absolutely demolished.
The three of them stood over the body. First Gates closed as soon as possible. Breathing hard. The whole exchange had taken less than eight seconds because every second in the Gates was a second they couldn't afford to waste, especially in a battle like this. Devil-sensei's lessons ran deeper than technique.
"Nine." Fuki said, panting.
"That one doesn't count, we all fought him." Kasumi spoke up with shaking legs. She took a deep breath as she focused her chakra inward, the secret technique taught to her and only her by Lee-sensei.
"Aha! You were keeping count like us!" Fuki caught her.
They gathered their breath and kept fighting.
The battlefield was a slaughterhouse and Team 8 was in the middle of it.
Shino's insects were everywhere. They crawled across the churned ground in living carpets, climbed over rubble and corpses and broken weapons, filled the air in clouds that looked like smoke until you got close enough to hear the buzzing. Every Stone shinobi who stepped into his zone found their chakra draining before they understood why. Their jutsu fizzled. Their legs weakened. Their reactions slowed. And by the time they realized something was feeding on them, it was too late.
A Stone shinobi stumbled past Shino, his legs giving out beneath him, his earth jutsu dying half-formed in his hands. Shino didn't even look at him. He was already directing the swarm elsewhere, the insects flowing where he needed them, a living weapon that turned the ground around his team into something no enemy walked out of.
Hinata moved through the chaos like she'd been born for it surprisingly. Her Byakugan was active and she could see everything... Every enemy. Every attack coming before it arrived.
A Stone-nin came at her screaming with a sword raised overhead. Hinata stepped inside the swing before the blade could fall. Her palm struck his chest and the chakra point behind his heart sealed shut. His body locked. The sword fell from his fingers. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Two more from the left. Hinata's body moved in the circular patterns of the Gentle Fist, flowing from one target to the next without stopping. Her fingers struck the first one's arm at the elbow and shoulder, both tenketsu shutting, the arm going dead. Her palm caught his throat. He choked and dropped. The second one tried to grab her from behind and Hinata's open palm caught him in the gut without turning around. His diaphragm locked shut and he crumpled gasping.
"Behind you, Kiba!" Hinata called through the smoke.
Kiba was already turning. He and Akamaru had been tearing through a cluster of Stone shinobi to the right, Akamaru in beast clone form, the two of them spinning through the brawl like twin tornadoes. A Stone shinobi that Shino's bugs had already drained to his knees was trying to crawl away. Kiba caught him by the back of his collar and threw him into two of his allies hard enough to knock all three down.
"Fang Over Fang!" Kiba and Akamaru launched into the tangled pile. The drilling rotation shredded through the three of them and scattered bodies across the dirt.
Kiba came out of the spin with blood on his claws and Akamaru at his side, both of them panting, both of them grinning the wild grin of the Inuzuka in combat.
"I'm definitely gonna be Hokage after this!" Kiba shouted.
Nobody but Shino and Hinata heard him. Hinata decided to keep her opinion to herself. Shino simply shook his head. Sharing his input on the reality on Kiba accomplishing that dream would do nothing. Maybe he would fight better if he really thought he could become Hokage after this.
"It's not impossible." Shino simply said.
Choji was to their left, his arms expanded to three times their normal size, swinging through Stone shinobi like they were made of paper. A partial expansion punch caught a Stone-nin in the chest and the man flew backward through five of his own allies, bowling them over like wooden pins. Choji's other fist came down in a hammer blow that cratered the ground and sent a shockwave through the surrounding combatants.
A Stone kunoichi launched an earth spear at Choji's exposed back. Hinata pulled him out of the way before it could reach while Shino's insects swarmed the kunoichi before she could perform another jutsu, crawling into her sleeves and across her fingers, and her chakra vanished so fast that her eyes rolled back and she collapsed face-first into the mud.
"Thanks, Hinata! Thanks, Shino!" Choji called as he slammed another Stone nin into the dirt with an expanded palm.
Shino nodded at him as his insects flew to Choji and replenished his rapidly diminishing chakra. His hands were in his pockets and he hadn't moved from his position since the fighting started. He didn't need to. His insects were doing more damage than any jutsu could by making every enemy who entered their area weaker, slower, and easier for Hinata, Kiba, and Choji to finish.
A group of Stone shinobi, five of them moving together, tried to rush through the insects toward Shino directly. They'd figured out he was the one controlling the bugs and decided that killing him would shut them down. Smart thinking. Wrong decision.
The first one made it three steps before his legs gave out from chakra drain. The second tripped over the first. The third pushed past both of them and got within arm's reach of Shino before Hinata appeared in front of him. Her Eight Trigrams struck his body in a sequence so fast her hands blurred. Sixteen hits in two seconds. Every major tenketsu in his torso sealed shut. He was unconscious before he fell.
The fourth and fifth saw what happened to the third and tried to turn back. Kiba hit one from the side with a claw across the throat. Akamaru caught the other in a similar manner.
Shino adjusted his glasses.
"We stay back with our allies." Shino told them. "Why? Because if we go forward, we become a target. Stay within my range and the insects will keep weakening anyone who approaches."
"Just say 'stick together,' Shino. No need for a whole speech, dude." Kiba muttered as he wiped blood off his face.
"Stick together." Shino obliged.
Four genin in the middle of their first war, staying alive the only way they know, through teamwork.
The jonin leading Tenten's squad took an earth spear through the lung.
It happened fast. An Earth Style jutsu from a Stone shinobi buried in rubble, a spear of hardened rock that punched through the jonin's flak jacket and out his back. He went down clutching his chest and the squad froze.
Seven shinobi standing in the middle of a battlefield without a leader. Two chunin and four genin staring at their commander choking on his own blood, and the Stone shinobi who had hit him were already pressing toward the gap.
"Move him to the medics!" Tenten's voice cut through the paralysis.
Nobody moved.
"NOW!"
Two of the genin grabbed the jonin under his arms and started dragging him toward the rear. The two chunin were looking at Tenten with the expression of people who wanted someone to tell them what to do.
"You two, with me. Everyone else, cover the retreat." Tenten pulled her main scroll from her back. "I'll handle the rest."
She stepped forward. Twenty Stone shinobi were pushing through the gap her squad's collapse had created. If they got through, they'd ambush their allies behind them from an angle they weren't supposed to.
"Heavenly Chain Disaster!"
She hurled the scroll skyward. It unrolled above the advancing Stone shinobi and weapons rained down. Hundreds. Kunai, senbon, swords, axes, weighted chains, all of them falling with enough force to impale anyone they hit and crater the ground around anyone they missed. The weapons shot out so fast they appeared as white streaks against the gray sky.
The Stone formation scattered. Those who were fast enough dove for cover. Those who weren't became pincushions. The rain of steel killed eight in the first volley and wounded four more.
"She's alone!" A Stone chunin rallied the survivors. "One kunoichi! Rush her!"
Eight Stone shinobi charged.
Tenten unsealed the Gigantic Iron Ball. The massive spiked sphere, connected to her hand by wire strings, materialized from her scroll already swinging. She whipped it overhead like it weighed nothing and brought it down on the lead charger. The impact cratered the earth and the man beneath the spike ball ceased to exist. The two behind him were caught in the blast of debris and stone and knocked off their feet.
Tenten reversed the swing. The iron ball came back around horizontally, chest height, and swept three more off their feet. Bones shattered on contact. Bodies flew.
The remaining two skidded to a halt and tried to turn and run.
"Manipulated Tools: Blade Kick!"
Tenten released several weapons connected together by strings and leapt into the air, reeling them together to stack on top of each other beneath her foot. She stood on the top weapon on one foot and twirled backward, the rotation sending ninja tools firing at the fleeing shinobi in a stream so rapid they could barely react. The two runners were shredded before they could take three steps.
A second wave was forming. More Stone shinobi converging on the gap, thirty at least, drawn by the sound of the fighting and the sight of a single kunoichi holding a position alone.
Tenten landed and unsealed another scroll. The Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu combined with the Twin Rising Dragons. Two scrolls spiraled upward, she leaped between them, and this time every weapon she threw multiplied as she weaved through hand signs. One shuriken became a hundred. One kunai became fifty. The air above the Stone formation turned black with steel.
The carnage was unbelievable. The Shadow Clone weapons saturated the area so thoroughly that dodging one meant catching three. Stone shinobi dropped across the field in waves. Blood and steel and screaming.
When it was over, Tenten landed in the center of the destruction. Her hair had come partially loose from her buns. Her scroll was half depleted. And the battlefield was filled with bodies and embedded weapons.
The two chunin from her squad stared at her. They looked at the field of dead and dying Stone shinobi. They looked at Tenten, who was already gathering her weapons back into her scrolls because Tenten never left behind her weapons unless she couldn't help it.
"H-How..." one of them stammered.
"A lot of hard work and youth, I guess." Tenten stuck her tongue out playfully.
"That's the Hokage's student for sure…" The other muttered.
"Isn't that the late Third Hokage's ninjutsu? That weapon shadow clone technique?"
"It is. To think she mastered it at such a young age and with such prowess… She's a one-man-army all on her own!"
A Stone squad hit the medical area from the treeline.
Forty shinobi. They'd circled around the main battle and come at the makeshift hospital from behind, knowing that if they destroyed Konoha's ability to heal and recycle wounded shinobi back to the front, the battle would tip permanently in Stone's favor.
The hospital was a cleared section of forest half a kilometer behind the main fighting. Tents with red crosses, medical-nin working over bodies, the groans of the wounded mixing with the distant sounds of combat. The injured were laid out in rows. Medics moved between them with glowing hands and grim faces. There were no walls. No fortifications.
There was a squad of thirteen shinobi standing between the treeline and the tents.
They didn't look like much. A mix of shinobi, most of them wearing standard Konoha vests with no clan markings, no famous names, no distinctive features. Warm bodies to pad numbers.
The Stone squad leader assessed the defense and made his decision quickly. Forty against thirteen. His shinobi were fresh. The defenders had probably been standing guard for hours. Simple.
"Take them out. Fast." The leader signaled and forty Stone shinobi burst from the treeline.
Kotetsu was the first to move.
He stepped forward from the line of defenders, reached behind his back, and unsealed the Conch Shell Mace from its scroll. The massive weapon materialized in his hand, spiked and heavy, and Kotetsu held it one-handed like it weighed nothing.
"Here they come!" Kotetsu shouted.
Izumo was already forming signs beside him. From his mouth came a flood of liquid.
"Water Style: Syrup Trap!"
A wave of viscous, sticky water spread across the ground between the defenders and the charging Stone shinobi. The front of the charge hit the syrup at full sprint. Their feet stuck. Their momentum pitched them forward. Bodies piled up as the shinobi behind couldn't stop in time and ran into the ones who were already trapped.
Fifteen Stone shinobi caught in the first four seconds.
Kotetsu vaulted over Izumo's syrup field and his mace came down on the first trapped shinobi. The spike punched through the man's guard and his chest simultaneously. Kotetsu ripped the mace free and swung horizontally, catching two more across their torsos and sending them flying.
But forty was still forty. The Stone shinobi who hadn't hit the syrup field came around the sides, attacking the defenders.
The rest of the squad stepped forward.
One of them, a broad-shouldered man with wrapped fists and no weapons, planted his feet and his muscles expanded as the First Gate opened.
A second defender opened the Second Gate. Then a third.
Five of the thirteen defenders were seen utilizing the Eight Inner Gates, their bodies running stronger and faster than they should. The remaining eight moved to defensive positions around the hospital tents.
The Stone squad leader saw five Gate users standing in a line and his stomach dropped. He'd read the intelligence reports. He knew about Rock Lee and his Gates. He heard about their Hokage. But five? Five Eight Inner Gate users in one squad, defending a hospital?
The five Gate users charged.
The first one, the broad-shouldered man, hit the Stone flank like a wrecking ball. His fists carried the First Gate's power behind them and every punch broke something. A jaw. An arm. A ribcage.
Kotetsu opened the Third Gate. His skin went red. The mace in his hands became something catastrophic. He swung it in wide arcs that cleared five-meter swaths of enemy shinobi with every rotation. A Stone jonin tried to raise an earth wall and Kotetsu's mace went through it and through the man behind it.
Izumo stayed back. His water jutsu continued to control the ground, creating patches of syrup that trapped anyone who stepped on them, allowing the Gate users easier ways to kill them.
The Stone squad leader screamed for a retreat. His forty-man squad was getting annihilated by thirteen defenders, five of whom were using a technique that turned ordinary shinobi into nightmares. His shinobi were being broken by ninjas that moved too fast and hit too hard and the bodies were piling up around the hospital area like a wall.
Kotetsu put his mace through the squad leader's earth armor and the fight was over.
The medical area was untouched. Not a single wounded shinobi had been harmed. Not a single medic had been interrupted.
Kotetsu sealed his mace and wiped blood from his face. Izumo released his water jutsu and walked over to stand beside him. The other Gate users closed their Gates and they stood in a line of thirteen ordinary-looking shinobi, breathing hard, surrounded by the remnants of a forty-man assault team that no longer existed.
A medical-nin poked her head out of the nearest tent. She looked at all the carnage and destruction before looking at Kotetsu.
"Is it over?" She asked.
"It's over." Kotetsu nodded. "Come heal us please if you have extra medical-nin on hand."
"Yes sir!" She squeaked in fear.