245. Hinata vs Akatsuki
245. Hinata vs Akatsuki
First, danger recognition. Hinata looked towards her enemies with a barely visible frown. Out of the four enemies one is an unknown, if that wasn’t the case then Hinata could say with full confidence that the highest threat would be Hidan.
One drop of blood would be all it would take for Hidan to make her life miserable. Obito, while bothersome, is simply not an issue, same with Kakuzu. The problem, once again, is the unknown. What jutsus did they possess, were any of them as troublesome as Hidan’s? For now Hinata would need to be on the defensive. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t take any opportunity given to take her foes out.
All those thoughts came in the blink of an eye as she moved. Although she expected to be on the defensive, that didn’t mean she would let them make the first move. At twenty times relative time Hinata moved to incapacitate Hidan. What she didn’t expect was for her masked foe to keep up with her.
Said foe got in her way ready to intercept her. However she still noticed something interesting. Although her foe could keep up with her he was still slower than her by quite a bit. With the rest of her enemies being inactive due to the difference in relative time she engaged the masked foe.
For now she wanted to know more about this enemy. Seeing as said enemy didn’t shy away from CQC she could guess that they had been chosen precisely to deal with her speed. Keeping her tied up at her sandevistan speed burning away it's time until she was forced to stop its usage, a sound strategy.
She began with an open palm strike aimed at her foe’s center mass. One that, as she expected, was easily deflected away. What she didn’t expect was for her foe to answer with an eerily familiar palm strike of their own. This one, aimed at her right shoulder, easily dodged as she followed with a powerful kick.
Her style of combat had developed into a combination of the gentle fist and the hard fist. Switching from one type of attack to the other depending on what was needed. It was precisely because of this that her kick couldn’t be easily blocked. Something, her enemy learned first hand as his block resulted in them being sent away.
Time came back to its normal flow, Hinata having to turn off her sandevistan or risking overheating the thing. Tomoka might be a genius amongst geniuses but even her tech had limitations. It didn’t matter though, at least not now as she needed to focus on her fight.
Now that time had gone back to normal her other foes reacted. Black wires came flying her way from Kakuzu as his other hearts separated from the man taking the shape of the weird masked puppets she had seen in Tomoka’s memory.
Along with said black wires came shuriken and kunai from Obito as well as Hidan’s ridiculous triple bladed scythe. A three pronged attack, one that would be successful should a single drop of blood be drawn from her. Not like any of them would have a chance to, with a stomp thick earthen walls came up from the ground easily blocking the attack as well as her foes’ sight.
‘Earth release: Unrelenting tremors’ Hinata spoke in her mind as she molded her next jutsu. The result was a jutsu of her own creation, one she was rather proud of.
As soon as the jutsu was released, tremor after tremor occurred around Hinata with herself as the epicenter. Each strong beat of her heart used as a conduit for her chakra as it got directed through her legs and into the ground. The result being a tremor for each heart beat.
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It took only two of said tremors for her earthen walls to collapse as the ground cracked apart. Her foes had a hard time keeping their balance as each tremor disrupted their footing. Out of the four, Kakuzu was the one that recovered first, using his own chakra to stabilize the ground he stood on. Even so, the disruption gave Hinata enough time to release her next jutsu.
‘Earth release: Spike forest’ The same jutsu she had used during her academy days. Unlike those days this jutsu too had been modified and perfected. Instead of a singular release of spikes growing out of the ground being a singular meter tall. Monstrous spikes of tens of meters grew out of the ground, while smaller spikes grew out of those in turn. To make matters even worse, the spikes would retract and regrow in different angles, different positions, lengths and girths.
The combination of unrelenting tremor and spike forest resulted in mayhem as the battlefield constantly changed in a deathly yet mesmerizing dance of creation and destruction. The only reason Hinata could pull this off was thanks to Tomoka’s phantom feeding her an almost unlimited amount of chakra.
The only problem with her set of jutsu was that she needed to keep contact with the ground. Although losing said contact wouldn’t cancel the jutsus it would halt them until she regained contact. Not like it mattered as she watched her foes dealing with the chaos she had unleashed on them.
Obito used his intangibility to let the spikes go through him, something she expected. Hidan looked like a pincushion as he cursed while trying to dodge. Kakuzu used his own chakra to hald her jutsu taking control of the earth in his immediate surroundings. Although she could overpower him, doing so wouldn’t be the best for a couple of reasons. Lastly the masked man dodged and destroyed the spikes with strikes that once again looked eerily familiar.
‘Earth release: dust cloud’ The final jutsu of a set of three she had trained relentlessly. Although dust cloud was usually used for escapes it fit her perfectly, afterall, she had the byakugan. With all three jutsus working in tandem she had firmly set the battlefield as her own. As Tomoka liked to call it, Hinata had established her domain.
With her sandevistan having had enough time to cool down Hinata got moving again. Once again, she aimed for Hidan, the one that could easily go through her defenses should he get access to a single drop of her blood. Unfortunately for her, the mask man was once again able to intercept her.
What surprised her was the stance he took, one she was too familiar with for her to ignore. The Hyuga clan’s prised eight trigrams sixty four palms. By pure instinct Hinata took the same stance. No words were needed as they engaged palm strikes and finger strikes being redirected over and over as they looked to seal each other’s tenketsu points. With each moment that passed Hinata felt her anger boiling from within.
The style, the movement, everything of this one moment brough bad memories. Not to mention that her foe’s use of the skill reminded her strongly of someone. It was then that Hinata decided to go all out, she was pissed.
The exchange of rigid yet flowing strikes came to a sudden halt as Hinata engaged her cybernetic enhancements to their fullest. Her gorilla arms hissing as the pistons within worked with the relentless power of a machine. Her sub dermal armor came to life as the impact dampeners activated at full power. One moment, that is all it took as Hinata slammed her first as hard as she could on her foe's mask as the latter struck her abdomen with an open palm.
Time went back to its normal flow as Hinata stood rooted in place observing through her byakugan the face of her opponent as the ceramic mask broke. A face she recognized, she had a hunch that it was that very same face that hid behind the mask. She had thought she would feel anger seeing it here. Instead, Hinata felt a primal sense of excitement.
Neji had escaped her during the chunin exam. She had cripled the little shit yet that hadn’t been enough to satiate her need for revenge. It had been enough to keep her content but now that flame that had turned into smoldering embers roared back to life. Forget Hidan, Kakuzu and Obito, her main objective now is her cousin.
Not wasting a single moment she dashed after her cousin through the dust and spikes. She was thankful for Neji being competent enough to not be skewered by her jutsu as that would have been a thoroughly dissatisfying end for the little shit.
Busy as Neji was fending off the attacks of the spikes, not to mention disoriented from the punch, he couldn’t protect himself from Hinata. Grabbing Neji by his left leg Hinata used her strength to slam him against any surface without spikes around her in quick succession.
Over and over Neji was slammed against hard stone, disorienting him further and further. It shouldn’t have gone like this, he was stronger now, powerful not to mention the rest of his team. Yet here he was being tossed around like a plush toy in the hands of a child mid tantrum.
Neji’s salvation came in the form of Hidan, who despite looking like a very mangled corpse managed to throw his unwieldy scythe forcing Hinata to dodge. As she did, a pair of hands came out of the ground attached to black strings grabbing her ankles. An annoyance at best, one that would take less than a moment to fix as spikes shredded the hands. Unfortunately that was enough to keep her still long enough for Obito to barrage her with kunais and shurikens. Nothing too hard to dodge, yet troublesome enough that Obito closed the gap, nicking her cheek with one final kunai drawing a single drop of blood.
Hinata’s pupils contracted seeing the crimson fluid on the kunai as she felt the sting on her cheek. The blade hadn’t cut through her subdermal yet her skin unprotected by it still held blood within. Before she could try and stop Obito the man disappeared quickly reappearing next to Hidan, handing him the bloodied blade.
Sandevistan once again up and running, Hinata dashed towards Hidan. She couldn’t allow him to complete his ritual. Unfortunately, Neji, beaten and bloodied, stood in her path. Not only that but Kakuzu’s weird puppets threw themselves at her with wild abandon. Slow as they were, they would still be a problem.
With no time to waste Hinata engaged her cousin. A deflected punch and kick later she got the opportunity she needed slamming her fist against his chest while pulling the trigger on ember celica. She watched for a moment with grim fascination as her cousin’s chest exploded in a shower of gore.
Sandevistan having run its course once again, Hinata dropped back to normal time now having to deal with Kakuzu’s puppets as Hidan worked to complete his ritual. The fire puppet and wind poppet worked together to send a barrage of flames her way, one she ignored by covering herself in earthen armor. Although heavy she didn't slow her down as her fists connected with the creature’s mask shattering them with the combined force of her punch and her weapons discharge of lead.
Next came the water and lightning puppets. The first shot a jet of super compressed water easily cutting through the stone spikes growing around. Abandoning her stone armor Hinata used her eyes instead. Forcing the water to change direction abruptly aiming towards Hidan.
It was Kakuzu who came to the rescue creating multiple earthen walls protecting Hindan from the water. Seeing this Hinata redirected the stream towards the lightning puppet as it released a ball of electricity in her direction, one she redirected towards the water puppet. A moment later, mutual destruction of the puppets ensued.
Not wasting a moment Hinata dashed towards the earthen walls pushing them into smithereens that rained around her. In an instant her eyes landed on Hidan, standing on a completed ritual, skin black with white markings, black stake on hand.
“This’ gonna hurt!”
She didn’t get to move or say anything as she felt her heart stop. Hidan, had completed his ritual, stake through his own immortal flesh inflicting the same damage to his victim, Hinata’s heart had been destroyed.