30 [30] Guarding The Outpost (2)

Chapter 30: Guarding The Outpost (2)

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"You shouldn't think too much," Akio muttered. He savagely pulled the kunai out of his head.

Instead of staying put — relaxing for even a minute — his immediate thought was about his teammates. He turned around to look at their situation. To his dismay, both of them were still struggling. They were chunins after all.

"Urgh," Tsume grunted. She tried to dodge the incoming attack — only by hair's breadth did she dodge – making the opponent whiff.

Another attack came. The kunai swiped through the

air, aiming straight for her. It went in a sideways motion, allowing her to arch her back. In this small gap of time, her ninken jumped the enemy, holding the opponent's hand with his teeth.

The dog was just stuck on his arm, sinking its teeth in which caused the enemy to wince and wave his arm around.

Tsume smirked. She raised her head, looking straight at her opponent before dashing towards him. However, something happened — the opponent grabbed the ninken with his bare hands and clasped it on to its neck.

The dog whimpered; Tsume was livid. Now, the opponent smirked and he said, "Make another step and this dog gets it."

His grip squeezed even tighter, causing Tsume to come at an immediate halt. Her resolve wavered at the situation in front of her.

"W-wait," she stuttered. "Stop!"

She spoke carefully still inrage whilst he looked at her with a sadistic expression.

"I told you, take it another step further… and this dog gets it," he ordered. "Now, put your kunai down and stay put."

Without a second thought, she listened to his demand and squatted down in a careful way — not once taking her eye off the dog.

She had grown up with Kuromaru all her life. When she was only a toddler, her parents gifted her this ninken and ever since, she never had seen him like this.

She could never bear to put her mission over her dog. This was just too much for her to bear.

"Good," he muttered whilst looking at his surroundings. His brows furrowed when he noticed something missing. His teammates and the other genin were fighting but… where was his leader?

Something felt off to him as he immediately asked, "Where's that other teammate of yours, hurry up. Tell me now."

Her body trembled as she shakingly said, "I d-don't know. I don't know… where he is. How could I know her?"

She was startled by his panicking behaviour. Her opponent started getting jittery as he looked all over the place. It was like a paranoia had set in.

Why would he ask her such a stupid question?

For some reason – over this little thing – the guy kept turning his head. Like his senses were telling him something… his heartbeat unsettled. A gloomy feeling permitted his back, right over his neck.

"I'm right here," a voice whispered in his ears.

At the next moment, blood squirted out of his neck. The bone still sticking out whilst the pale body limply fell on the floor.

"W-what." Tsume just blew out the biggest breath. Her pale face suddenly changed – a certain colour was brought back.

Akio smiled whilst he took out Kuromaru. The ninken rapidly licked him on the face.

"Okay, okay," Akio chuckled as his eyes were nearly shut from the constant wetness.

"Come on, go comfort Tsume." He looked at her puzzled state. She was currently weakly trembling on her knees. A sudden emotion enveloped her.

"She needs it."

He walked up to Tsume and put his hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, no harm came to Kuromaru. You need to get your head back into the game."

He spoke some words of encouragement. She was currently in a traumatised situation but also felt a lot of relief.

Her dog could have just died at that moment and she was powerless…There was nothing she could do.

"Thank you, Akio. Thank you, " her constant gratitude loomed in his ears.

Although, he wanted to take a break… he still had another job to do.

[Fire Release: Fireball]

Arise made some hand seals as he puffed out his chest. In the next moment, a massive fireball came out that glided across the air, aiming straight for his opponent.

The chunin simply stared at the scorching, orange hue it created. He looked indifferent to the jutsu as he made some hand seals of his own.

[Water Release: Windmill Shuriken]

A sudden rush of water came out of the ground, forming a large shuriken which twirled continuously in a clockwise motion. The speed of it is getting faster and faster until rotated forward, clashing head on with the fireball.

Arise already had a taken aback expression. It was a water jutsu; it was much stronger.

Just like his expectation, the water shuriken easily swept through. The large fireball was watered away without any difficulty and headed straight for Arise.

He clenched his fists; he grinded his teeth. Arise hated this feeling. The feeling of being overpowered.

To the jutsu, he flanked around the tree and evaded it long before it reached him.

With no other option, Arise dashed straight for his opponent — who was currently beaming a large grin from ear to ear. He stood ready for Arise's speed.

As Arise was just a few metres away, the chunin made another set of hand seals and a few water pellets came out.

"Tch," Arise grunted.

This was just a simple annoyance to stop his momentum.

Just as he was about to stop and go in another direction, the ground rumbled and shook rapidly. This gained a furrow from Arise's opponent and a sceptical look from Arise.

Whilst they were wondering what was going on, a part of the ground — next to the chunin was slowly turning into a sort of liquid. The contents of the soil were changing into mud… then from mud to a liquid state.

This spanned over a larger scale in a quick amount of time, catching the chunin off guard.

The chunins eyes widened at who he saw in front of him whilst Ariza's eyes gleamed with relief.

***

A/N: Sorry for such a short chap. Anyways, what were the previous fight scenes like from this and previous chapter?

Better, worse or same.