152. 2 Down

(Gimme some power stones)

Hanabi noticed that his body expanded slightly and his muscles were more prominent.

She flickered with the guy hot on her tail.

'His speed has decreased,' Hanabi noted the slight difference; it would not have been prominent without the Byakugan.

She sent some air shells at him, and he tried dodging them; however, some of them did hit the mark and he was bleeding.

'So, that should have increased his strength but decreased his speed, or is he acting for me to let down my guard?' Hanabi still considered the possibility that the guy was intentionally acting slow to catch her off guard.

"My bad, I guess I should not have done this." The guy paused and his breathing changed again; Hanabi didn't miss the opportunity and sent more air shells at him which would make him bleed more.

Hanabi's eyes widened; she quickly initiated rotation.

A kick met the rotating dome.

This time Hanabi's rotation was not half-assed, but still it got pushed back.

Not pushed back would be the wrong word; it was more like she was thrown backward with a bolt.

However, even while being mid-air, the guy suddenly appeared in the air above her and did an axe kick down on the rotating dome.

Hanabi crashed down on the ground but still kept rotation active.

The guy again appeared on the side and bombarded the rotation with kicks which were still powerful but this time aimed such that Hanabi wasn't thrust backward but rather driven more into the ground.

'Fuck this hurts, I would not be able to maintain rotation for long,' Hanabi was calm despite the perilous situation.

She then quickly devised a plan. 'I have only one chance, otherwise, I am dead.'

While Hanabi was being suppressed on the other side of the battlefield, Kiba was seen bullying the guy in the earth with so many canals present in the ground.

Soon, the guy went deeper in the ground, so Kiba stopped.

He sometimes did Fang Passing Fang when Akamaru felt like the guy was surfacing, but other than that, they were at a stalemate as Kiba didn't have any other way to defeat the guy.

He still was able to get up to the surface or more like the canals Kiba and Akamaru had dug connecting to the surface for air.

He suddenly looked at Shino.

His opponent was waiting for Shino's statement of how he would deal with him when he had put on insect-repelling cream on his body.

"The rational move in this scenario would be to strategically retreat," with that Shino bolted away towards Kiba.

"You-" The guy threw some kunai with explosive tags at Shino, but Kiba intercepted them as he was doing a Fang Over Fang while coming towards the kenjutsu guy.

The explosive tags exploded, but Kiba was still rotating in the air and coming towards the guy.

The guy took out his katana and did a vertical swing with his full might.

Sword met man-beast drill.

Due to the explosive tag, the rotating speed of Fang Over Fang had decreased significantly and was now at a stalemate with the katana.

So, it stopped.

However, while the guy was expecting to see some blood, Kiba had put his hand on the sword.

More specifically, nails on the sword which were elongated and were chakra enhanced.

Due to being in air, the katana moved downward, so did Kiba until Kiba's legs reached the ground.

The sword stopped with Kiba's both hands stopping the katana.

"You do know that I have 2 hands," the guy smirked and took out a kunai.

However, Akamaru had also landed on the ground and did a Passing Fang (Fang Over Fang, but alone).

The guy was caught off guard but was barely able to react by summoning a giant wind fan which wasn't able to stop Akamaru but acted as a barrier between the beast drill and him as he was thrown back.

He quickly used the drill to launch himself into the sky.

But, to his horror, Kiba was drilling towards him while he was mid-air.

He quickly threw a lot of explosive tags in front of him and summoned another big fan.

The explosive tags exploded point blank, but it did throw him along with the fan away in the sky.

He grimaced as he saw Akamaru looking at him and then coming at him with another Passing Fang.

He was being jumped by a dog and a beast.

Meanwhile, Shino came to the spot where the earth guy was supposed to be.

He then looked at the ground and jumped away as an earth spear came out of the ground.

"You don't have a way to keep me in check."

"Indeed I don't," Shino nodded.

"So, it would be rational for me to retreat." With that Shino bolted again with the earth guy speechless for a second but following him underground.

Shino exchanged positions with Ino as the latter was a better sensor, so she could sense the earth guy's position.

Ino jumped as earth spears shot from the ground, but this time an explosive tag was left on the ground.

"Fuck," the guy said. Luckily he was probing the girl's skills, so he had already retreated while using that jutsu.

Otherwise, he would have been cooked.

"Jeez, you really like to hide inside, right? Let's see how you will come to the surface." Ino smirked and threw explosive tags around the entire ground.

The guy wasn't able to understand what she said, so he tried sending some earth spears, but nothing happened, so he sent an earth clone as he was paranoid enough.

The earth clone reached the surface and exploded.

The guy did make some more earth clones and tried to send them above the ground at different positions but all met the same fate.

'I could always go away by a large margin...' The guy's eyes widened as he realized that this desert still has traps that haven't been explored.

He didn't even know if there were some traps underground, so he had been on the part which wasn't that far away from Konoha team's tent and was in a safe range, at least a range which seemed safe.

He grimaced as he realized what her plan was.

But luckily for him, the dog boy had burrowed a lot of holes in the ground, so he didn't have to immediately go up to the ground.

'How many explosive tags does she have?' The guy hadn't ever seen this way an earth user was suppressed.

He couldn't really go out of the ground and help anybody due to the above area being set up with many explosive tags, so others would avoid this area, and he couldn't just suddenly appear in other people's battles as he or his earth clones might just become casualties, especially in the battle between that Hyuga kid and the weirdo.

So, he would have to be in this depressing hole for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, the wind girl summoned a fan and used a wind jutsu along with it to deter the Hyuga on her tail; it did help a bit and slowed the former's momentum as she had to flicker in a different direction.

However, some water senbon came at her with pinpoint accuracy which made her stop her flicker and change its direction.

It was a game of cat and mouse happening as neither side was able to close or increase the distance significantly.

This game was going through the boundary of all battlefields.

The girl cursed and flickered in another direction. 'Maybe I should go through in between some batt-' the girl's eyes widened and she felt something weird.

She suddenly stopped her flicker and turned back with one hand making a peace sign.

"Got it," she said and in the next instant Hinata closed her chakra points.

Yup, it was none other than Ino.

More precisely her shadow clone which was hiding.

She formed one when the first explosive tag exploded, so the earth guy was unaware, otherwise he wouldn't have let her maintain a shadow clone one way or another.

Anyway, the shadow clone had released the mind possession just as Hinata's first palm strike was close to wind girl's body.

It would have been painful otherwise.

Choji was chasing after the fire girl while rolling.

Numerous times he had stopped due to the fire girl's jutsu, but he continued doing this as it was keeping the girl on her toes.

"I will ki-" the fire girl jumped back as a water senbon was aimed at her.

She still got one minute cut.

"She got caught?" Fire girl cursed while making hand signs for body flicker as she saw another water senbon forming around the Hyuga and Choji closing in on her.

However, midway she stopped and her eyes went blank.

She also made a peace sign with her right hand and then Ino's shadow clone dispelled the jutsu just as Choji crashed into the poor girl.

2 Down.

Shino could be seen trying to get his insects inside the puppeteer girl, but they met their end as the girl incinerated them, but this did keep her at bay as he dodged.

He was buying time while waiting for one opportunity to just get one of his insects inside.

Things would be easy from there.

***

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