Border Patrol [Hana and Karyoku]

Karyoku wasn't going to muck about. The moment Sakano started walking towards the pair, Karyoku bet it all. Immediately, he started open as many of the eight gates as he could, watching closely as Takao charged forward to intercept this orange haored attacker.
With a klang, Takao deflected the oddly shaped kunai, only for Sakano to seemingly disappear and then reappear where the kunai was. With a quick twirl, the oranged haired attacker sent his blade spinning and made a slash at Takao, the blade effortlessly slicing through his flesh as it arked it's way back to Karyoku.

Karyoku smiled and took a step forward and seemingly vanished.

With the power of the gate of limit coursing through his body, Karyoku would become like a blur to most people, or even straight up disappearing to the untrained eye. While the reality was much simpler. Karyoku dropped down as low as he could, as fast as he could, in an attempt to avoid the on-coming blade that was aimed for his neck. Then, with a sudden burst of speed, he would attempt to tackle Sakano with a flying knee, jumping towards the oranged hair attacker while he hoped Takao was jumping in with him to capitalize on this opening.

Jutsu Used: eight gates: 5th Gate: Gate of Limit

Sakano hadn’t expected the use of the gates, it made things a little more difficult. Though not overwhelmingly so, as fast as the boy was now it hadn’t bridged the gulf of strength between them. He shifted again at the first sign of counterattack. He reappeared as Karyoku flew past, taking a moment to reorient and plant his feet to lunge right back in, kunai in hand ready to bury it in his ribs.

Fortunately, Takao hadn’t been staggered for long by his wound and despite having lost his weapons he was far from helpless. With the excess speed of Karyoku’s attack, their foe didn’t have the time to consider all of his surroundings. He was good, that was certain, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t slip up. He had closed the distance, body flickering to close the distance to strike with the signature Hyuuga style.

In short order, Sakano had taken a few hits. All too familiar with the feeling of his tenketsu being shut off while training with Seiryu, he was able to respond after a short flurry to bat away the strikes and disrupt the Hyuuga’s flow. Only to respond with a combination of his own, slippery strikes that danced between the swift jabs from Takao. Who in turn seemed capable of keeping track of the off-angled attacks and swipes thanks to the all-encompassing view the byakugan provided. Though the cuts started to slip through, it was a battle of attrition he couldn't win.

Their little duel left another blindspot, an opening for Karyoku to exploit. In a fight like this, these chances didn't come often.

"DAMN!!" Karyoku thought as his flying knee whizzed past Sakano. At the very least, his attack had made an opening for Takao, but at the moment, he had other problems to deal with. He had sailed past the oranged haired attacker and thus left himself open, something that Sakano had clearly moved to capitalize on. Karyoku hit the ground and tried to fall into a tumble as Sakanos looked to find purchase. Fabric tore as Sakanos kunai slashed across the boy's jumper and would have become far worse if it wasn't for Takao.

Takao had indeed managed to move and make his first strike against the unknown assailant, or Karyoku would think it was unknown, and stagger him with the might and prowess the Hyuuga weilded. Now, it was Karyoku's turn to make a move.

Recovering swiftly, the Flame of the Hidden Leaf launched himself to the trees and readied his own kunai. In Karyoku's mind, the two of them could feasibly treat Sakano like a ping pong ball and just tag each other in repeatedly, so long as they could keep pressure on Sakano, and so long as karyoku's body could hold the gates formation.

With phenomenal speed, and a bit of a mind to hopefully stop this soon, a Red blur came crashing out from above the scuffle as a green cloaked ankle would look to connect with the oranged haired attackers skull and launched the blades down at him, in an attempt to try to disable his shoulders before his mind raced and strung together a quick series of seals, just incase he was too late.

Karyoku's body screamed in pain as the toll of using the eight gates came to collect, but he couldn't just end it all here. Karyoku clentched his hands tighter and grit his teeth.

Sakano was caught off-guard, at least so far in that Karyoku felt his foot make solid contact. Unfortunately, he proved quick enough to bring an arm in the way to block the strike and move away in time to try and minimize the damage. He felt bone start to fracture with even this glancing blow, his mind was shaken but rapidly recovering, enough to lash out at the incoming attacker and fend him off, a wild but rapidly executed swing.

Takao had taken the chance for Karyoku’s attack to slip by, earning them a slight reprieve when the Sound shinobi backed off. He was off balance, caught failing for just a moment where the Hyuuga opted to employ his newly mastered technique. In the moments Sakano had been guarding, Takao dropped into a low stance, envisioning his target to take note of every tenketsu point he could.
In an instant he moved to close the distance to unleash a flurry of blows. Multiplying groups of strikes in mere moments. For a second, they even seemed to have done it, their aggressive teamwork had paid off.

If only Takao had noticed the kunai left behind of course, though part of the 128 series of strikes had slipped through, it wasn’t fast enough to stop the flying thunder god technique. Drawn to safety, Sakano moved in for real.

He was done toying with them, and the Hyuuga boy was first. Sakano launched the kunai to strike the boy in the back, piercing his shoulder before being tugged swiftly backwards only to meet a spinning kick the launched him from his feet. Takao landed roughly, tumbling across the forest floor to crash directly into an adjacent tree, unmoving.

“Just you and me then.” Sakano spat out a mouthful of blood, igniting the chains in an ethereal blue flame as he worked each kunai into a deadly dance. Things weren’t looking good.

Well fuck. Karyoku didn't have time for a drawn out fight. Not like this. Already the Eight Gates technique was rapidly pushing his body to the limit, with every fiber of his body screaming with such agony, that his mind wasn't registering any new sensations but the overwhelming pain. Still, The Flame of the Leaf grit his teeth and stood tall.

Takao was down, no telling for how long or if he was even alive still. This Red head had the ability to teleport, but to what extent? Sakano was weaving a deadly dance of burning chains, more than likely looking to keep Karyoku at range to avoid any tricky business. He sighed and shook his head.

"I'm guessing going home is out of the question?"
He asked, knowing damn sure what the answer was, but for now, he needed time and distance. And by God, talking was gonna take some time. The Flame of the leaf seemingly disappeared, employing the use of the body flicker technique to safely reach the trees and weave a series of seals and stop just shy of completing it before launching himself towards Sakano, the idea being, he would counter with lethal aim and try to end this fight and that's when Karyoku would strike.

Sakano grinned as the boy retreated, seems the Leaf shinobi weren't all that brave when they were alone. The clone sneered as he followed along without a second thought, closing the gap rapidly even without his teleportation. He launched both kunai out before actually reaching him, missing entirely only to suddenly pull. Using the kunai as anchor points he launched forward to face whatever the boy had directly. The blades slipped back into his hands just before the clash, tightly gripped and ready to strike. As prepared as he was, Sakano's focus being trained directly on his foe would make for a difficult counter, but it would be his last chance.

There was, however, a subtle rumbling in the ground. Something was approaching but it wasn't clear just yet what it might be. The only thing that either consious shinobi could really be certain of is that it was large and heading directly for them. This rumbling wasn't coming from a specific direction, rather from the forest itself to provide no hint on which village it hailed from, if any.

Karyoku's window was closing. He saw two possible options and neither one was the best. Either Sakano would throw one of his kunai and teleport away, or eat an jutsu. In either case, the out come was the same, Karyoku would then grab Takao and run as fast and far as he could, teleporting gingers be damned. That was his plan.

So, when Sakano launched himself at Karyoku, ready for anything, Karyoku gave him something. The Flame of the leaf balled his fist and leapt towards the incoming Sakano, throwing his left fist forwards in an attempt to collide with his new found "pal" before trying to complete the final seal and launch a huge fireball directly at the teleporting menace, landing on the ground next to Takao and trying to wake him up before an unknown rumbling echoed through the forest.



Jutsu Used'
Jutsu Name: Cherry Blossom Impact
Jutsu Type: N/A
Jutsu Element: Taijutsu
Jutsu Rank: C
Jutsu Clan: N/A
Jutsu Description: Although it may appear to be a simple case of superhuman strength, this is actually an application of the precise chakra control that is used in medical ninjutsu. The user gathers a dense concentration of chakra in their fist that they release on contact with a target. The resulting damage is enough to seriously damage living targets and will likely also do some collateral damage to the surroundings. Ground that is affected by this jutsu fractures and sends small, flower petal-size particles into the air, hence the name.

Jutsu Name: Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique
Jutsu Type: N/A
Jutsu Element: Fire
Jutsu Rank: C
Jutsu Clan: N/A
Jutsu Description: A technique where chakra kneaded inside the body is converted into fire and expelled from the mouth either as a massive orb of roaring flame or as a continuous flame-thrower. The scope of the attack is altered by controlling the volume of chakra that is mustered. The released flames will engulf their target, and leave a crater in the ground's surface.

Sakano had been far too overconfident during the fight, all the way to the very end. The punch was unexpectedly powerful and even if he managed to block the blow, he felt the entirety of his wrist simply shatter on impact as he was sent hurtling back through the forest. Cleaving a path through the old trees to leave a trail of destruction in his wake. The fireball hit nearby, but wasn’t enough to catch the enraged Sound shinobi from teleporting out of it’s radius. The smoking patch of cloth he swiftly patted out showing it was still a close call.

He had been launched away for some distance, enough time for Takao to be roused, albeit somewhat incorherent for the moment. “I’m awake!” The Hyuuga brushed his hands away. “Give me a second.” As if they weren’t in the middle of a battlefield.

Sakano was on the move, visible from a distance thanks to his annoying orange hair, and moving in swiftly. But the rumbling was worse still, until the shape above eclipsed the sun. An enormous snake, mottled dark green, armoured scales shimmering reflected light. The summoner of this creature landed moments before the Sound shinobi returned, a familiar face and a friendly one at that.

Takashi had arrived just in time, adjusting his glasses as he peered back to the two leaf chuunin. “Either of you broken?” He raised a brow, apparently ignoring the incoming foe. He didn’t unsheathe the katana on his hip. Though there was an odd sense of power about him, with strange dark purple markings dotted across his features.

Sakano was unconcerned really, more future corpses meant nothing to him. He lobbed a kunai at the newcomer, expecting to surprise him with his technique only to teleport forward directly into a perfectly timed round-house kick to the torso, practically sending the Sound ninja back to where he had come from.

The Sannin had lashed out without warning, snapping their attacker away to give them a little more time to discuss. It was uncanny really. “What’s going on here?”

*Crack* went a series of bones in karyoku's body. Keeping the 5th Gate up was now starting to weigh increasingly heavily on the young Genin. With a wince, Karyoku pulled Takao up and gave him a soft shake on the shoulder to try and pull him the rest the way out of his stupor.
"That's great and all, we gotta get out of here. I don't know how much longer we can afford to stay around and fight this Orange guy."

Karyoku glanced up and readied himself to rip Takao out of the way of an oncoming strike from the very clearly angered Sakano, only to suddenly be dwarfed by a large, molted green snake. Karyoku grabbed Takao and under the body flicker technique to get to the top of the summoned snake and fill in Takashi.

"Not broken yet. Takao has only just revived from being incapacitated by our teleporting-"
Karyoku didn't even have time to react before the Sannin had slammed his leg into the oncoming foe and launched him back to the depths of the forest. This amazed Karyoku and even brought a smile to his face, before looking at Takao.

Takashi peered back to the chuunin as they stood atop Yato. Slitted pupil regarding their injuries before coming to a swift conclusion. “Very well. You’ll both need to return to the village. Yato knows the way, I’ve sent word back. Rest up.” The jounin nodded, he wasn’t sure Karyoku was going to be in fighting shape any time soon, the eight gates caused tremendous strain. “You both did well, let me handle it from here.” With a motion of his hand, the sword of Kusanagi came to life and levitated from its sheath as he leapt to the forest floor.

Yato was off before his summoner had hit the ground, with the great serpent taking off through the forest with the young Leaf Ninja secure on his head. Even if Sakano wanted to catch up now, it seemed unlikely he’d catch the beast.

Takao managed to gather some of his consciousness back as they escaped. “Ugh, stupid… orange.” His shoulder looked to be in rough shape, and he clearly hit his head but the Hyuuga boy was alright. “Who was that? Did we win?” They weren’t dead, but they were on a giant snake… Something wasn’t quite right.

Before the pair were escorted out of view, Takashi summoned a second creature to his aid. Bigger than Yato even. It only took a brief interaction to see the strength that even one member of the Sannin team held. Sakano was likely in for quite the fight.