CHAPTER 13: Pest Control

"You don't seem too worried." Ino said.

"Well, I might not look like it." Naruto shot back, wrapping some armor the old man had given him a long time ago around his forearms. "Plus, you look nervous enough for two."

"Of course I am!" She folded her arms. "It's like you don't know… She's dangerous."

"Yes." He said dryly. "Now… who told you that?"

She looked away. It had been him, of course.

"The Hokage's here anyway. Nothing happened to Shikamaru." He assured her.

"Yes… but still."

"Oh, and there's Kakashi-sensei. I guess." He joked, teasing a short laugh out of her.

He heard an offended "hey" coming from him.

"Congrats on your win by the way, you deserved it." He smiled, easily disarming her.

"Ah… Yes, thank you!" She looked so shy whenever he gave her a compliment.

"Well…" He checked his equipment again, and cracked his neck, to Ino's disgust. "I think I'm as ready as I ever will be, then."

She hesitated. "…Be careful, alright?"

He nodded and jumped into the arena.

"Give her hell!" Toru shouted.

Sasuke said nothing — most likely because his dad was there — but the fire in his eyes told him enough.

Kakashi had his Sharingan eye open, and for some reason, this was enough reassurance that he'd at least survive this fight, should the worst happen.

"Last fight. Begin!" The proctor opened the match.

Fū smiled.

Her wings unfolded behind her, and she flew straight at him.

She's fast.

She hit his chin with a rising elbow and he felt his head snap back.

I hope this didn't give me whiplash.

He parried her left hook, but took her right knee in the belly. She then spun, and kicked with her left leg.

The blow hit him in the temple and he was sent flying.

And she hits like a wagon, too.

He skidded across the floor before he recovered. He wiped the blood that was getting in his eyes, and cycled some chakra through his head to clear the impending dizziness.

She was already almost on him, her two elbows in front of her face, aiming for his chest. He ducked out of the way at the last moment, and managed to land his first hit, a rising kick that combined with her speed, led to her hitting the wall at full speed.

It broke.

Fū came out of the hole laughing, clearing dust and debris off of her.

"That's nice!" Her eyes shone. "Let's take it a bit faster!"

Orange chakra spread around her like a miasma.

Somewhere in the stands, Gaara looked more interested than he had been in a while.

This was somebody like him, he was certain of it.

He would make sure to kill her himself.

And then he would crush Sarutobi. Or maybe in reverse order.

Fū inhaled, and blew towards Naruto.

More of the scale dust came out, hurling towards him at a high speed.

This looks like bad news.

He started spreading chakra through his body, enhancing his speed and reflexes. It didn't seem like he could afford not to fight at his best, even if it drained his stamina faster.

According to Hinata and Kiba, this allowed her to take control of her opponent's limbs.

Better not to get anywhere close to it, until I'm sure how to finish this.

Fū appeared through the scales, dashing with her leg out.

She missed him narrowly, and then rose up toward the ceiling.

What now? He wondered.

She started spinning vertically, gaining speed at each turn. She then folded her wings, and started falling towards him.

Chakra gathered along her leg, so much that Naruto could see it.

With a cry, she finished with a forceful heel kick.

This time, only the Lightning chakra he had been cycling through his body allowed him to dash away, as the floor exploded where he had been one second ago.

Fū rose up again and started spinning once more.

Like hell I'm going to wait.

Naruto threw a smokescreen to the ground.

When the smoke went away, there were six of him. Each of them holding his battle staff.

Fū laughed in delight. "More of you to play with!"

She fell down again, diving for one of the Narutos in sight.

He tried to catch her with the staff but she was too strong.

He dispelled.

The other Narutos held the Snake seal, for Lightning release.

Now was his chance.

"Lightning Release: Flash Step."

For some reason, he said it out loud. He was sure Toru would be proud.

Both the real Naruto and the clones moved at a much higher speed than before towards Fū, who was still stuck in the ground.

Lightning flashed around their feet, and they didn't hesitate when they got in range.

Five staffs blurred through the air and smashed with incredible force against the downed Fū.

She shrieked.

"Nice! I see you taught him how to use Lightning Style!" Gai exclaimed, teeth bright.

Kakashi pretended not to hear it. "…Did you say something?"

Well, this was his chance to finish it quickly. Hopefully that was enough.

Shame he hadn't bothered learning the Raikiri.

Fū let out a high-pitched scream, and the resulting shockwave dispelled all of Naruto's clones.

It also sent him flying back, his ears ringing.

"That hurt!" She wasn't laughing anymore. Her injuries were pretty light, and she was already healing - how? - but something told Naruto she wasn't used to getting wounds that were not self-inflicted.

Instead of showing his worry, he provoked her. "I'll do better next time!"

"There won't be a next time." She said placidly.

"Wait and see." He unsealed an explosive tag, let his chakra englobe it, and created three more Kage Bunshin, who appeared with the same tag in hand.

He put the tag away.

His clones stood between him and Fū, legs wreathed in small amounts of Lightning, ready to intercept her.

They moved, putting distance between themselves and the miasma cloud that was still following them.

She halted.

"She only uses rushdown attacks, besides the cloud thing." Sasuke had noted earlier. "Seems like Naruto picked it up, too."

"Yeah, he's good." Toru smiled. "No wonder he's like the third... fourth best on this Uchiha team.

"I'm not Uchiha." Kakashi corrected.

"Aren't you called Kakashi of the Sharingan?" Toru asked.

"..Yes." He smelled a trap here.

"Itachi has the same nickname. That's as Uchiha as it gets."

"I'll take it." Who could refute this kind of circular logic?

Naruto summoned more clones.

His chakra was starting to dwindle, but he had no better option.

They were made with smaller amounts of chakra, as their armbands attested.

That was the whole point, keeping as much as he could, while throwing in distractions for Fū.

He did the same signs as his clones did.

"Lightning Style: Lightning Clone Technique."

The C-ranked version of the A-Rank Lightning Shadow Clone Technique might prove its worth today.

The clones the technique created were more basic. They could think on a very rudimentary level, and carry out attacks.

Jutsus, on the other hand, were something they couldn't do.

Fū, deciding they were of no real danger, compared to the Shadow Clones, decided to dash through one of them.

It dispelled, shocking her with a spark of electricity.

The nearest clone used this opportunity to smash her face with his staff, putting all of his weight in it.

When she fell down, another was already upon her.

She dispelled both, but in the meantime, Naruto had summoned more of them.

She floated to the ceiling.

Naruto hesitated, but then nodded to his clones. He created even more Shadow clones, who stayed on the ground.

The others focused some chakra in their legs, and jumped up to the ceiling, hanging upside down.

The lightning clones were waiting down.

Naruto was starting to be a bit lightheaded, and he wasn't sure if it was from the chakra he was spending… or hanging upside down.

Probably both.

He made a sign to his clones, and they started pulling out wires.

The D-ranked Lightning Style: Static Wire technique was applied to them, and he attached them to kunai.

He handed some of them to his Lightning Clones as well.

Whenever Fū came close to any of them, they would use the wires to deliver smaller electric shocks onto her.

And as she had only one pair of eyes, she couldn't keep track of the constantly moving wires, held by the clones running both on the ceiling and the ground.

If this wasn't annoying enough, they managed to sneak in a few staff hits whenever one of them could.

And they abused the Starlight technique to blind her as often as possible.

The Kakashi Method: Annoy Them Until They Make A Mistake.

Kakashi mimed wiping a proud tear from his eye.

Fū was starting to get frustrated.

No, scratch that. She was mad as shit.

This game of cat was not fun anymore.

She wanted to kill him.

Fū was fast, she knew it.

But the shitty Konoha monkey was pretty fast himself.

She had hoped he'd get tired soon, as she could see him getting winded.

But then he popped a soldier pill, shouting he could " keep it up all day long if needed ".

And then he started using bladed weapons as well.

The feeling of steel biting her ankles, and one that narrowly missed her eye was already too much.

This annoying, weak little ant…

She didn't know any jutsu, as nobody in the village would risk teaching her until she had "proved her loyalty".

What kind of stupid bullshit was this?!

She hated the village, of course she could not pretend to be loyal!

Had she been thinking clearly, she probably would just have chosen to expand Chōmei's Scale Breath technique until it covered the whole arena.

But one of the clones slapped a Lightning Palm against her eye.

She saw red.

One moment the fight was going decently.

Well, semi-decently, maybe. She didn't seem to get any tired, and there were only so many soldier pills he could swallow before overdosing on them.

The fact she was getting angrier and sloppier had seemed like good news, at first.

But the more it went, the more chakra seemed to gather around her.

He tried not to think too much of it. No ninja actually got more chakra because of their emotions, that made no sense. Sure, you could use more of it, but it would just fry you quicker.

He held back a laugh when a clone hit her with the Lightning Palm. He knew how bad this shit hurt.

He stopped laughing when a malevolent aura of orange-green chakra exploded from her, nuking his clones and making him fall from the ceiling.

As he fell, a huge — around three meters large — insectoid shape, with human-ish skin that looked like it had been set on fire was upon him.

Kinda looks like a rhinoceros beetle…

Multiple blades of wind raged around the creature as it let out a high-pitched shriek.

What felt like a thousand cuts opened all over his body, before a high pressure scale blast hit him straight on.

He smashed against the two-finger statue and drifted in and out of consciousness as he fell.

Kakashi leaped, full speed ahead, a pair of seals in his left hand.

The Hokage had already caught Naruto.

Gai distracted the Seven-Tails with a more overt attack, the kind that you could not afford to ignore.

The seals were applied, and just as quickly as she had entered her version two mode, Fū reverted to normal.

Asuma caught her, making sure to keep one wind-enhanced trench knife on her jugular.

The Waterfall jōnin said nothing. He already knew Fū was unstable. He just hoped the consequences for himself and his two students would not be too dire.

If it were up to him, he would have gotten rid of the little monster a long time ago.

The match was over.

Fū was left alone with the Hokage, a stern looking man with burning eyes that belied his composure.

The rush of battle had long left her body.

"This is against every treaty we have in place." The Hokage said simply.

Fū bit her lip. This much, she knew.

"As you know, this leaves me no other option but to disqualify you."

"No!"

"These are the rules." The Fifth said, stonily. "You pushed your luck too far."

"I beg you, please, not this!" I don't want to get back to my team went unsaid.

The Hokage was already walking away.

She felt a pulse of hot, burning rage within her.

She forced it down when she felt his hard red eyes on her again.

This was the leader of a village, he was way stronger than her, she could tell.

And… her inability to ignore her impulses had led her to this situation in the first place, didn't it?

Instead, she did the thing she had promised herself not to do anymore.

She melted, and started crying hot, ugly tears of frustration and disappointment.

In the arena, the proctor announced the result.

"Winner: Sarutobi Naruto"

His body bleeding and hurting from almost every angle, Naruto heard the verdict.

Ino was running towards him, followed by his team. He felt a bit warm, but could not move without a wince, so he let them come.

Damn, but this is definitely my shittiest victory yet. The old man would definitely be proud.

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