Takuma felt the resistance from the chunin's arms against his grip fade, and relief filled him. The last half hour had been more stressful than any raid he had conducted in the past eight months; they didn't usually ambush chunin like this. Moreover, this time around, he had Nenro and Masaaki along with him— Takuma couldn't bear to lose the people closest to him on a mission he had invited them on.

"Akimichi, help me restrain him. Yamanaka, seal his chakra," Takuma called out. Yamanaka was a novice fuinjutsu user; he couldn't completely stop the flow of the chunin's chakra, but he could restrict the flow considerably, making chakra challenging to use.

Akimichi stepped forward with a chain in her hands while Yamanaka dropped down from the trees while rubbing his forehead; it seemed the Mind Body Switch Jutsu had strained him.

"Masaaki, Yuhi, go assist Inuzuku and Minoru," Takuma continued. "Gouki, check up on the situation with the chunin; see if they're finished."

The team was about to mobilize when the chunin before Takuma began laughing.

"Dead, me?" the chunin said to Takuma. "You're not going to touch me if I don't want you to. And the dead one will be you, but unlike me, your head isn't worth anything."

The next moment, the man turned into a humanoid made from solid earth. The now earthen wrist broke under Takuma's grip a moment before the entire figure crumbled to the ground.

It was an Earth Clone.

Takuma's heartbeat spiked as his eyes, only for a moment, went to the others; they looked as shocked as he was feeling. However, that single moment was a moment too much. By the time Takuma's mind ordered him to look for the real chunin, it was already too late.

A hand shot out of the soil behind Takuma's and grabbed onto his leg, and before he could do anything, Takuma found himself being dragged underground. He slipped right in without any resistance because the nature of the soil had changed, but the moment Takuma was underneath, the earth solidified in the blink of an eye, trapping him in a steel grip.

Behind Takuma, the chunin emerged from the ground. He had a kunai in his hand, and he was looking down at Takuma with a nasty grin on his face. He swung down the kunai for Takuma's head, but it never reached as Masaaki crashed his body into the chunin at full force.

"Fuck…"

———

.

It happened before he could think. He saw the chunin with a kunai looming over Takuma, and without conscious thought, Masaaki leaped for the chunin before he could harm one of his best friends. It was pure instinct, and Masaaki was thankful for them.

They rolled on the floor. Masaaki's knuckle duster glowed as he dug a punch into the chunin's chest. The chunin grunted as he kicked Masaaki off of him. The shinobi immediately got up and faced each other, watching each other's every twitch.

"You are a strong boy, aren't you, lad," the chunin smirked. He patted his chest, and the breastplate underneath the clothes clinked. "Parents must've fed you right. Are they still kicking? I might pay them a visit for the family secrets."

Masaaki frowned.

"You can come with me… or at least, your head can," the chunin finished.

Masaaki pumped chakra into his knuckle dusters and darted for the chunin. They began exchanging blows, with Masaaki turning up the aggression every moment, pushing the chunin, who had a smile plastered on his face the entire time as though unbothered by Masaaki.

"Boy, do you know the problem with bukijutsu?" said the chunin as he dodged a punch from Masaaki. "The weapon becomes the focal point of the combat style. A weapon can give you additional firepower, and that's not a bad thing, not at all— but more often than not, a weapon becomes a liability. Skilled shinobi don't allow it to become a problem, but amateurs…."

The chunin side-stepped the glowing fist, grabbed his wrist, and dug a palm strike into Masaaki's elbow.

"… let their style skew around the weapon, and once an opponent learns how to bypass it, they can dismantle you at leisure."

Masaaki felt a sharp pain jolt through his arm. It was enough to stun him for a moment which was all the chunin needed to launch an all-out assault on Masaaki's body. Blow after blow, hard strikes wrecked his body.

"You are a strong boy, lad… but I'm stronger," the chunin raised his hand for the final strike. But the strike never came down as he looked up to see Akimichi dropping down at him, a vicious look on her face and her prized bo-staff in her hands.

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The chunin jumped back immediately, and Masaaki stumbled away just before the bo-staff slammed against the ground, spreading cracks out from the point of impact.

"Good thing, he's not alone."

The chunin looked back just in time to see a lightning bolt of Lightning Release: Shock slam into his body and Nenro standing in the distance.

The chunin clenched, and his muscles tensed as the current wrecked its way through him. He groaned as the current disrupted their natural rhythm of contraction and relaxation. But that only lasted a few moments as the D-rank jutsu passed out from his body. He took a jittery step towards Nenro and then a normal step, and then he was running.

*Shing*

A Fuma shuriken flew out of the trees and landed before the chunin, stopping him in his tracks. And the moment he did, his back felt a heat. He turned back, and a fireball was rolling toward him.

"Kids…"

The chunin sighed before he began to weave hand seals.

———

.

Arisu watched the fire from Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu hit the chunin and engulfed the man. Gouki was an Uchiha; if the clan could claim one jutsu, it would be this one. The fire burned bright and hot, surrounding the chunin in its entirety. The chunin would be lucky to leave behind an unburnt patch of skin.

"We got him," she whispered with a sigh.

For a moment, it got really close. The moment they lost sight of the chunin, replaced by his clone, they were in grave danger. The real body could've been anywhere, but the chunin ended that worry by popping behind Takuma, which in itself was a scare if Takuma's friend hadn't rescued him at the last moment.

She pulled on the string attached to the ring of her favorite baby and pulled; she didn't want heat and fire to damage the metal. The shuriken didn't budge. She frowned. It must've dug into the ground a bit too deep. She tugged hard, but yet again, the shuriken didn't budge.

Arisu squinted her eyes from atop a tree branch. Her shuriken was engulfed in fires, blocking a direct view of it. As the fire flickered, she saw a shadow of something move. It couldn't have been a chunin; he would've been a crisp by now.

But then it hit her. Something was missing.

"There are no screams."

The chunin hadn't screamed a squeak the entire while he was inside the fire.

The chunin wasn't dead.

"Guys, he isn't dead!" she shouted.

Then the shadow moved. Out of the fire came what could only be described as a rock monster. The entire figure was covered in hard grey rock in a scaley pattern. With every move, the rocks on the body also moved to accommodate movement. The chest was wide, waist narrow, the forearms below the elbow were shaped like spiked-clubs of sizes suitable for clubs, and the legs, too, grew wider until they were an elephant's flat stompers near the feet. And the head was shaped as an inverted triangle like a spiked crown was placed on the head, leaving only the nose and eyes visible.

The monster (the chunin) rushed out of the flames and smacked Gouki with its spiked-club arms. It took one hit to send the Uchiha crashing through several trees, snapping the several tree trunks in the process. The monster then turned to Nenro and rushed toward him. Akimichi arrived in between them with her bo-staff in between them. She struck the monster with her staff, but it did nothing. The monster even stopped and let Akimichi rain down strikes on him, but it did nothing. The monster raised his hand, and with one swing, Akimichi was send flying away.

With the path clear, the monster continued after Nenro, who shot a lightning bolt. The lightning bolt crashed on the club-like arms and exploded the rock, leaving a dent, but that was it. The monster continued forward. Nenro jumped away, but the monster caught him— the rocks moved to reveal a hand that gripped Nenro's leg— and dragged him back and slammed him to the ground. He raised his other clubbed hand and proceeded to pummel Nenro into the dirt.

"Let fucking go of my friend!"

Masaaki jumped on the monster with his fist, which was glowing in a blinding light. Masaaki's strike created a crater in the monster's back and then got in another strike which made the monster cry. The monster took Masaaki off his back and slammed him into the ground before stomping him down with his legs.

Masaaki shrieked as he got stomped on.

The monster suddenly grabbed his head and stumbled away.

Arisu, who was sitting on the tree, saw her chance. One look and she could tell it was Yuhi working her genjutsu and that it wouldn't last long. Arisu jumped down, and even though she wanted to target the chunin, she remembered the words.

'—If we don't support each other, at least some of us will be dead—'

If they were going to survive this, they needed to cover each other's back. Clearing Nenro and Masaaki was a higher priority than getting a blow on the chunin. And… well, Takuma told her she was on the 'Support' team.

Arisu rushed to Masaaki's side and put him on the shoulder. She moved towards Nenro, who was a few meters away. But as she was putting the second man over her shoulders, the situation turned once again.

Yuhi's genjutsu only lasted so long against the chunin, and he snapped out of it.

Arisu immediately threw an explosive tag to get her some time, but the explosion was blocked by the thick arm, and it barely did any damage. She made a note of using a higher grade of explosive tag next time.

"You're not going anywhere, girlie," said the monster.

He stomped the ground, and Arisu, who was about to jump away, had her balance disrupted away, and while the two guys on her shoulders weren't a heavy burden for a shinobi like her, they did contribute to her slipping.

"Three's the charm."

She could hear the snark in his voice. Her heart was pounding, she was close to death; she could feel it. The chunin wasn't something they could face on their own. They had thrown a lot at the man, but he had thrown them around while they had failed to injure him in any significant way. Nenro and Masaaki were literally thrashed into the ground, and while they could still fight, the team was weaker than before.

So, knowing that, in the moment, she replied with the words which she felt the appropriate.

"Fuck off," she spat.

And unexpectedly, that's what happened.

A large quantity of water slammed into the back of the monster, blasting him away. The next moment, Arisu barely caught the figure of Takuma flying by as he planted a kick into the rock-covered chunin, slamming him to the ground and creating a rather large crater around them.

"I knew you would need a jutsu to get hard," said Takuma.