Shikamaru was feverish. He breathed heavily. Cold sweat beaded on his skin, his face slick. He wanted to wipe the clammy moisture, but every move meant the crowd, bound by his technique, would mimic. It cost chakra, and chakra was running out.
Didn't think I'd die this early.
One of the Sound eight smirked at him slyly, and Shikamaru really didn't like that look.
"Useless," a voice from under the mask said. "We know enough about your technique."
The shinobi frowned darkly.
"Guess that's all you're capable of. Your shadow will dissipate soon. Be ready for the consequences."
Muscles cramped from strain.
Can't hold much longer. No way. Damn...
Shikamaru tried not to think what they'd do when chakra ran out and the technique broke. Ten more seconds. No... Twenty. Twenty he'll hold. Or twenty-five.
He tilted his head back and watched clouds the wind swiftly drove across the sky. That same wind, layers lower, chilled his damp skin. How wonderful to lack a body others could poke with sharp things. Better to be a vapor cloud gazing down on human bustle: wars and festivals, tragedies and holidays, all that hassle that never truly interested him. Dissipate and reform. Be everywhere at once, free. Feel wind pierce through...
Shikamaru recalled at last how he wanted to live his life and regretfully realized it hadn't gone as planned.
Mendokuse... Just kill me quick. No pain. No suffering. And please, not the throat. Choking on death rattles... Gasping for air... No.
Ten seconds...
Knees buckled treacherously, but Shikamaru stayed upright.
Or they'll take revenge and torture on purpose. No, don't think that. Think later. But when's later if five seconds... four... three...
Shikamaru felt his soul slip from the shadow detached from his feet.
"Yeah, you're right..." he exhaled quietly. "That's all I'm capable of."
Rustle and a thud sounded from the trees right.
"Hey, come out!" one foe called to his comrade covering from the thickets, adding mockingly, "Leaving the pup's execution to you."
Heart skipped. Something somersaulted in the air and landed right before him. Shikamaru tensed for unimaginable pain and agonizing death, not immediately grasping the red-white fan on the dress before his eyes.
A massive Fireball slammed into the Sound shinobi crowd and engulfed them. Wild screams pierced the receding roar of flames. Burnt meat smelled, just like the BBQ joint Asuma took him and Choji to almost daily, paying the fatty for training help. The Fireball smashed into nearby trees: they ignited instantly.
"S-Sarada..." Shikamaru stammered.
Sound shinobi writhed on the ground. Their clothes blazed, red skin bubbled and charred in places. They screamed, nearly mad with pain. And Sarada seized the moment. Shuriken buzzed through the air and precisely pierced four defenseless throats hidden under tight fabric. Wild screams turned to gurgles.
Shikamaru, frozen in shock, nervously swallowed: that very death he'd feared so much.
However, with her sudden Fire Style technique and shuriken attack, the Uchiha had only taken out half the enemy team. Two more from Sound recoiled and leaped about, trying to extinguish the flames devouring their clothes, while the last two got off lightly—probably standing behind and managing to get out of the way in time.
Kunai flew at Sarada. She deflected them and hurled shurikens at the men trying to put out the flames on their clothes. But her attack was blocked by the other two opponents, who launched kunai to intercept the shurikens.
Shikamaru gradually realized what was happening.
She'd come to help. But damn it, one against four, and none of them weaker than Chunin level. We're done for.
One ninja whom Sarada hadn't managed to hit with a shuriken finally extinguished the flames, grabbed a kunai, and confidently eyed his opponent—but suddenly rolled his eyes and collapsed to the ground. Three enemies left: two unscathed and one burned by Sarada's Katon. One surviving shinobi landed in front of his scorched ally, shielding him, while the other charged into close combat.
Shikamaru trembled nervously.
Do something... I have to... do... something...
But he couldn't even twitch, couldn't think. Only fifteen seconds had passed since the fight began, no more. Shikamaru didn't know Sarada's potential or the Sound ninja's abilities, and he'd expended every last drop of his chakra. Fifteen seconds ago, he should have been dead, but he was still breathing. And there was no guarantee he wouldn't die in the next instant.
Meanwhile, Sarada was fully engaged with the Sound shinobi. Quick and agile, she somehow dodged the man's strikes and even nicked him with her kunai.
"Damn, it's an Uchiha!" the wounded one blurted out, finishing extinguishing himself.
"Finally figured it out," the second grumbled.
They joined the fight too, but the girl wasn't fazed. The black irises of her eyes flashed red. The Sharingan had awakened. Now Sarada was fighting all three at once. From the outside, it looked spectacular because even together, the men couldn't touch the elusive girl. She anticipated every attack.
However, even the Sharingan wasn't omnipotent. At some point, they managed to catch Sarada off guard: she stumbled, failed to dodge, and a kunai plunged deep into her stomach.
"That's it, Uchiha."
Sarada's eyes widened as she grabbed the hand still pressing the kunai into her stomach, and she paled terribly.
The burned one turned to Shikamaru and raised his hand with shurikens to finish him off at last, but Nara didn't even think to move. He couldn't. His body, numb from shock, wouldn't obey him. Right before his eyes, they were killing the girl who'd been playing shogi with him in the hospital just yesterday, and he just stood and watched. Because he was weak. Because he couldn't do anything. Because not only his muscles, but his thoughts too had frozen in his head and weren't even trying to piece together any decent strategy.
And now they'll kill me too.
But Sarada's body suddenly changed shape and dissolved into a flock of crows.
Shikamaru's heart clenched painfully, paused, and then raced again at a frantic pace. It felt like today it would burst on its own, even without help from foreign guests.
"What the..." someone blurted out in confusion.
The crows cawed and beat their wings. Their black bodies merged into a living whirlwind that shielded the Sound shinobi from Shikamaru.
The shadow clone turned into crows.
These three survivors were particularly resilient. They were smart and skilled enough not to meet her gaze, so genjutsu wouldn't work on them. Sarada, hiding in the tree branches, raised her hand with a kunai bearing an explosive seal, activated her Sharingan, and clearly saw a gap in the writhing flock of birds where she needed to strike. The kunai whistled through the air. A short cry—the blade pierced the heart of the shinobi burned by the Fireball technique. He didn't have a chance to notice the attack, and his comrades didn't immediately realize the kunai had a surprise.
The explosion boomed. It tore off the burned one's arm and shredded part of his chest near the heart. He was dead; no need to worry about him. The blast wave threw the other two in different directions. One jumped right back to his feet and grabbed a kunai, but the other didn't manage: he lay on the ground stunned and couldn't come to his senses. Sarada burst from her cover, dodged the kunai, and charged the stunned man. In training, she usually held back and just knocked the wind out of her opponents; now she had a perfect chance to see what a stronger strike could do to a person, not a wall.
"Shannaro!"
Her fist touched the enemy's solid breastbone, and Sarada felt his bones crack. The force of the blow passed through the man's entire body, knocking the life out of him, transferred to the ground, and the whole clearing cracked, chunks of rock shaking and bouncing into the air, knocking the last Sound shinobi and dazed Shikamaru off their feet.
The roar gradually subsided, the dust settled.
Sarada breathed heavily. The Fireball had paid off, though it took a lot of chakra, but the Sharingan devoured chakra mercilessly. With every second of the fight, she would weaken.
Time to finish it. Just one left.
However, the last Sound shinobi proved not so simple. The explosion hadn't hurt him much, and the Fireball had barely touched him. Plus, he skillfully avoided meeting her gaze and refused to fall for genjutsu. For a moment, Sarada imagined: what if he's a jonin? If she really knew he was a jonin, she'd lose heart and definitely lose. But she didn't know. And believing the remaining opponent was a Chunin—and thus at most her equal—instilled in Sarada a different belief: belief in victory.
"You bastard," a voice grated from under the mask.
Sarada hurled shurikens at him and hit, but the presumed Chunin turned into a log, and in the next instant, kunai flew from the bushes at Shikamaru. Nara sat frozen, staring straight ahead as if he didn't see death approaching from the left. The enemy rightly figured it was easier to take out the defenseless one while he could, and disrupt Sarada's plans for a free counterattack.
She knocked the kunai aside with shurikens.
Damn. Fighting for myself and protecting him—I can't handle this!
Sarada appeared in front of Shikamaru.
"Shikamaru!" she gasped. "Hide!"
The guy behind her flinched and seemed to snap out of it. Trembling, he began crawling backward toward the bushes, but didn't make it. The ground around them came alive, and their legs sank into an earth trap.
Damn!
Her Sharingan detected the enemy technique. From the tree shadows, chakra signatures fired globs of water.
Earth. Now water bullets. Two nature transformations...
Sarada instantly formed seals and exhaled flames. The water slammed into the fire with a hiss. Fortunately, there wasn't much of it.
Noticing the technique had stopped and the chakra source had moved, Sarada struck the ground. Rock fragments in the cracks shifted again, and she barely freed her legs from the trap. But the Sharingan saw incoming shurikens, and in this position, Sarada couldn't dodge or deflect them. She shielded herself with her arms.
There was a clang, and one kunai sank deep into her left arm.
Only one.
The rest of the weapons lay on the cracked ground. Sarada whipped around. Behind her, hunched over, stood Shikamaru. He could barely stay on his feet, but he'd apparently recovered a bit from the shock and managed to block the attack somehow.
Thanks.
But Sarada was weakening. She saw the enemy's chakra flickering in the bushes.
I can maintain the Sharingan for another minute without techniques, just hand-to-hand.
However, nothing could stop Sarada now. Having killed eight grown men, she'd gotten into the groove, and her perfectionism wouldn't let the ninth go.
I see you.
Sarada yanked the deeply embedded kunai from her arm, deflected new ones with it, and retreated into the tree shadows. She had little chakra left. Sarada frantically thought about what to do: deactivate the Sharingan and conserve chakra—risk missing a surprise attack or the enemy's movement; keep the Sharingan—exhaust all her strength now and have nothing left when the enemy strikes.
What to do. Damn... What should I do?!
Sarada chose the first option.
You get used to the good stuff fast. Without the heightened perception of the Sharingan, she felt blind. For an ordinary person, seeing the familiar green of a summer forest was enough, but not for a shinobi. Now Sarada couldn't pinpoint where the invisible enemy was hiding.
The Sound shinobi realized her chakra was gone. He appeared from behind and struck with a kunai. At the last moment, Sarada parried his attack with her own kunai, gripped in her good hand. Without the Sharingan and at her limit, she couldn't fight an adult man anymore.
Try genjutsu?
But she didn't have time to decide whether to spend her last drops of chakra on the Sharingan. She was still holding back the enemy's kunai and one of his arms, but the man punched her face with his free hand. Sarada fell to the ground. Her glasses slipped off and flew into the grass. Her head rang. In the blurry green world, she saw a gray shadow with human outlines inexorably approaching. Memory obligingly supplied the horrific moment of death at the hands of that Uchiha in the orange mask.
Dying again...
The man's silhouette became clearer up close. Sarada could already distinctly see his facial features, but the opponent suddenly stopped approaching and froze right over her.
"Sarada, now!" Shikamaru yelled in a voice not his own.
She jumped to her feet and charged the enemy with a wild yell, slamming her fist into him.
"Shannaro-o!"
Bones crunched, and the terrible blow sent the man flying back. The Sound shinobi, receding, became a blurry gray shadow again, slammed his back and head against a tree trunk, went limp, and collapsed into the grass.
Sarada, losing her balance, fell to her knees. Her head still rang, her cheek throbbed. Warm, sticky blood trickled down her arm.
Gotta find my glasses.
But she had no strength to get up and search.
"Eight. There was a ninth!" Shikamaru exclaimed excitedly.
"I killed him first."
He sighed in relief. He crouched beside her and carefully put her glasses back on. The cold frames touched her cheeks, slid behind her ears. The world distorted slightly and became clear again. Sarada looked into Shikamaru's face as he stared at her in fright.
"It worked..." he said in a trembling voice. "We did it..."
Sarada had saved him, and Shikamaru had saved her, no matter how small each contribution to the victory. Nara, whom everyone had already written off, had squeezed out the last remnants of chakra at the critical moment and immobilized the enemy with his Shadow Imitation.
"I thought you had no chakra left," Sarada admitted, hearing her own voice tremble too.
"I thought so too."
Shikamaru wiped the sweat from his forehead and cheeks.
"But it appeared out of nowhere when I saw... and realized..."
He faltered. His tongue was getting tangled, and he no longer understood what he was saying. Shikamaru glanced at Sarada's arm, pulled out a medkit, and began treating the wound.
"Where are Naruto and Sakura?"
"They went ahead."
Shikamaru nervously licked his lips and tied the bandage tightly.
"Thanks."
Sarada blinked, trying to clear the ringing in her head. She looked at the defeated enemy—he lay under the tree in an unnatural pose, eyes bulging blankly.
"You're something else, Uchiha," Shikamaru said, shaking his head and sitting beside her, leaning his back against the tree trunk.
Bisuke landed softly on the ground nearby and surveyed them with a satisfied squint. Sarada jumped up.
"You!" she blurted out in a breaking voice. "Why didn't you help?! You're a ninja dog!"
Bisuke tucked his tail and backed up a bit.
"Everything was under control, kiddo. I already lifted my leg to piss in his eye, but your buddy beat me to it."
"'Piss'?" Shikamaru echoed dumbly.
"I'm a dog," Bisuke replied indignantly.
Shikamaru winced. Then Sarada remembered:
"Sensei! Right."
She still had a little chakra for summoning. She dipped her right thumb into the congealing blood on her palm and formed seals. Nara edged away slightly from the large crow that appeared out of nowhere and nearly smacked him in the face with its wing.
Drosha, Shisui's favorite summon.
The messenger bird with a deep scratch on its beak was special. Drosha the crow never appeared with the others, only on a personal call. According to Shisui, he'd known him since he was a fledgling, and the bird understood human speech perfectly. The crow perched on Sarada's shoulder.
"Fly to Kakashi-sensei. He's at the main arena."
The bird flapped its wings noisily, pushed off her shoulder with clawed feet, and soared into the sky.
Kakashi deftly caught the Sound shinobi's arm, struck his face several times, and ducked. Another enemy flew over him, grazing Kakashi's back with his stomach, and smashed his head into the arena railing. The stunned foe got up and tried to charge again, but Asuma appeared out of nowhere and killed him with one powerful strike. The dead body, losing balance, tumbled over the railing onto the arena.
"Kakashi!" Asuma exclaimed.
Kakashi killed his opponent and ended up back-to-back with the Third's son.
"Pursuit behind them. How many?"
"Nine."
"Who'd you send for backup?"
"An Uchiha."
"But Sasuke..."
"Not Sasuke."
They leaped apart, spotting opponents. After dealing with the new wave of attackers, they ended up side by side again.
"Who, Kakashi?" Asuma gritted out tensely, cigarette still in his teeth. "That girl who caused a stir with her return?"
"Yes."
"You're insane! I'll go after her."
"No. You're needed here."
"She's a genin, Kakashi! I saw her file. They'll all die! A genin girl can't take nine Chunin-level men!"
"She's an Uchiha."
"Doesn't matter!"
"It does, damn it! You're not the judge here, Asuma. I trained her and know what she can and can't do. Do your job."
"Shikamaru is my student..."
"And Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sarada are mine. Do your work, Asuma!" Kakashi was starting to lose patience.
"You..."
"Wait..."
Kakashi narrowed his eyes. A crow dove from the arena center toward the stands. It fluttered under the awning, flapping its wings, and landed on his outstretched hand. The bird tilted its head and looked at him. Slicked feathers stuck up on its neck. Kakashi silently nodded to the crow. It took to the air and flew out from under the stand awning.
"Everything's fine, Asuma."
He frowned questioningly.
"Crow from Sarada. They handled the pursuit."
Asuma just exhaled smoke and gripped his weapon tighter.
"Fine then..." he said curtly and, without finishing, charged into battle.
Kakashi dispatched enemies while tensely watching what was happening beyond the purple barrier. The Kage box roof had undergone astonishing changes. The space inside the barrier now contained earthen walls and ancient trees.
What the hell is going on in there?
"Look!" Gai exclaimed.
Kakashi squinted. A familiar figure appeared near the ANBU lurking by the barrier: high collar sweater, brown tantō harness.
"Uchiha Shisui."
After exchanging a few words with the ANBU squad leader, Shisui leaped to the roof edge, and green chakra suddenly enveloped his body. Kakashi stared unblinking at what was happening on the Kage box roof.
"Incredible..." Gai muttered in shock. "You can see the chakra... just like that... plain as day..."
In the green blaze of chakra, a translucent giant skeleton with a massive skull formed around Shisui. The guy leaped into the air, and a bony chakra fist slammed into the barrier. A horrific screech tore across the arena, rupturing eardrums. At the impact point, fire flared, and a solar flare of flame wrapped the green arm of the translucent demon. The barrier held. Shisui recoiled and shifted to the adjacent roof.
"What is that kid doing?!" Kakashi exclaimed.
The green giant was changing. Fibers of muscle wove around the skeleton. Skin stretched over them, then armor manifested. Yellow eyes ignited.
"Gods..." Gai said in a hollow voice.