Chapter 13: Escort Arc

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Minato would've stayed alive cause I have a fangirl crush on him.

Playing the Role of the Byakugan Princess

The Escort Arc

Chapter thirteen

I spin around and dart back towards my team, my heart pounding rapidly. Why? Why? Why is he here? Why have we come across him? He is not scheduled to make an appearance until a few years from now. Did I cause this? Did the original Team Ten actually ever go on any mission above a D-rank in the anime/manga or did I change things because I asked for one? To be honest, I do not recall anything about a team stumbling upon Hidan. Then again, that would have nothing to do with the main series. Plus, that sort of information is not going to be told willy nilly. Besides, we can't fight him. Not while we are Genin and with two clients, one being a child. Asuma originally dies because of this homicidal maniac! Sure, we have the advantage because I still somewhat remember how he fights, but he is dangerous as hell and we are doomed if he gets a single drop of blood from us.

I burst through the trees and halted in front of Asuma, trying to control my panic. Shinobi are supposed to keep their cool in any situation and I am not about to slip up, especially since I am the one that asked for this mission. "There is a potentially dangerous Shinobi heading our way. He will be here in about three minutes," I inform everybody. I quickly describe the scene I had just witnessed. "Based on circumstantial evidence, he is most likely the reason that man is dead."

Asuma nods. "Alright, team!" he barks. "We do not have much time on our hands! Get into Formation C, but with a slight change!"

Sakura squeaks in fear while Shikamaru widens his eyes at the realization of danger they are about to be in. Michi looks up with frightful eyes at her father and opens her mouth to say something, but he gently covers it and shushes her. He appears as cool as a cucumber, but could be just a front to not freak out his daughter. Asuma explains the changes of the formation to comply with the predicament we are in, and the overall plan, to us and we break off. I create two Shadow Clones, one to hide and protect the clients, and the other to take my place in the clearing while I take my position in the trees. Shikamaru leaves back a regular Clone as he goes off while Sakura does not make her presence known at all. As soon as we finish shuffling around and making last minute, arrangements, Hidan comes crashing through the trees. I hold my breathe as he stares at our clones like they were his next meal.

"Yes, can we help you?" Asuma's clone asks in a suspicious tone.

Hidan smirks and extends his hand out. "Hey! Do you three want to join The Way of Jashin?" Well, at least he is polite enough to ask others if they want to join his religion before killing them.

Asuma's clone arches an eyebrow in confusion. "The Way of Jashin?" he repeats.

Hidan nods ecstatically. "Yes!" he declares. "The Way of Jashin!"

My Shadow Clone frowns. "What is that?" she questions.

"You can kill people without being punished and use them as a sacrifice to offer up prayers to Jashin-sama!" Hidan explains proudly. I sense the clones tense up at that response. Heck, I did just now and I even knew that! "It pleases Jashin-sama greatly when we do so."

"I see," Asuma's clone replies, stalling for time. Only just a few more seconds…

"What do you guys say?" Hidan asks as looks over at each one of them. "Isn't that a wonderful teaching? Are you interested in joining?"

Deep down, I know he is hoping they will say no so he can "kill" them. However, my Shadow Clone contains the same mind as I have and we are going to keep him as engaged and distracted as possible before we launch the ambush. "If we join," my clone beings. "Will we be going out as individuals to gather up offerings or as a group?" Or more like as a cult. Plus, I am curious to see if the group that Norio and Michi ran into is actually a cult of Jashin worshipers and Hidan was among them. Though, at the same time, that would not make any sense because they should have not escaped from that many murderous immortal psychos.

Hidan seems slightly surprised, and maybe even a little disappointed, at the question. I guess most people do say no at this point and I know he is eager to "kill" them. "Ah! It is preferred to travel in groups so we can give more offering at once," Hidan answers. That would also cause more attention on them, but they don't care. The goal is to spread awareness of their great *gag* Jashin. "Personally, I go at it alone so I can develop a special connection with Jashin-sama. He has shown me The Way recently and I am thanking him back by giving him as much offerings as he deserves!" He throws his hands up in the air for effect.

A shiver went down my spine. He just discovered about Jashin? I wonder how recently he is talking about? A nagging feeling in the back of mind is telling me I should be remembering something, but I don't know what! That's not a good sign. "How interesting," my clone tells him. "Do you-"

Hidan narrows his eyes. "Well, are you guys going to answer me? Do you want to join The Way of Jashin or not?" he snaps, interrupting the clone. Crap, he is getting impatient. He shifts his eyes over towards Shikamaru's clone. "And, what's your problem? You haven't said anything, or moved, this whole time. Are you-"

Asuma's Shadow Clone casually sticks one finger out as Hidan rants on. There's the signal! I fling a kunai attached to some wire towards him. It struck his shoulder and he grasps his hissing in pain. In that same instant, I notice Sakura dropping a Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Jutsu on the area, contorting Hidan's surroundings, as Shikamaru's shadow shoots out of the bush below me. It travels underneath my wire for length and connects to Hidan. If Sakura's genjutsu was done properly, which she just learned so I am crossing my fingers, then Hidan should not have seen the shadow creeping up on him. There is no need to attack him just yet. This is just an interrogating moment to get some answers, even though I already know them.

Our clones continue to stand there as Hidan reaches to remove the kunai, but noticed he cannot. "W-what the fuck?!" he yells. "I'm stuck! Why can't I move?!"

I can see his body slightly trembling as he attempts to lift an arm, but fails. I know Shikamaru won't be able to hold him for too long and Hidan will be able to see through Sakura's genjutsu any moment now. Asuma's clone takes a couple of steps towards Hidan as he glares at said clone. "Did you kill the man up ahead?" the Shadow Clone asks.

"Did you do this to me?" Hidan asks back through gritted teeth. "Let me go! I'm going to fucking kill you!"

"You're not going anywhere if you don't comply," Asuma's clone replies cooly. "I suggest you answer the question."

"How do you know about him anyways?" Hidan growls. Then, he smirks. "Heh, no matter. Yeah, I did. So, what? It was an offering for Jashin-sama and you three are next!" He starts struggling again for emphasis.

"I assume you are not going to answer any of my questions?" Asuma's clone tries again.

"Hell, no!" Hidan spats back as he slightly shifts his body over to the right. Crap, he's resisting Shikamaru's jutsu!

"Very well," Asuma's clone sighs, nodding towards my clone.

My Shadow Clone springs forward and begins to disable his chakra pathways. Hidan tenses up his body from the pain as my clone goes in for her third strike. Hidan roars and extends his arms out, breaking out of the shadow's grasp. He backhands the clone to the side, causing her to go up in smoke, and he pulls out his scythe. In a blink of an eye, he whips the weapon around his head and slings it towards the other two clones. It makes contact with Shikamaru's clone, but Asuma's jumps out of the way. Without breaking a sweat, Hidan easily movenurs the scythe the opposite way, targeting Asuma's clone. The scythe sinks into his back and he instantly disappears.

Hidan scowls. "All three of you were nothing but a bunch of damn clones?" he exclaims, retracting the scythe to his side. "You guys are really starting to piss me off!"

The real Asuma hops down from his position and lands in front of his opponent. "I guess you aren't going to back down, are you?" he asks, clenching his hands around two sharp chakra blades.

"I know there are more of ya!" Hidan shouts, ignoring Asuma's question and looking from side to side. "Stop hiding and come out and play! You'll make great offerings to-"

"Don't worry about them," Asuma interrupts, jabbing a thumb at himself. "I'm the one you should be focusing on."

Hidan smirks. "Eager to die first, huh?" He pulls out a black pike and throws his arms up. "Jashin-sama! Please allow this one to be a good kill!"

His pike suddenly lengthens in size and Hidan slashes at his own side, causing a gash. Everyone widens their eyes in surprise as Hidan seems to be enjoying the pain he is causing to himself. The blood flows down to the ground and he begins to smear a circle with his foot. I hold up a kunai. He is already drawing Jashin's symbol to use for his sacrificial ritual. Damnit! I instantly jump out of my position, revealing myself. I cannot allow him to complete that symbol! Hidan gives me a mildly startled glance as I charge after him. I fling the kunai towards him and he easily dodges it. I pull out another and push off the ground and leap forward. He stops moving his foot and pulls out his scythe once more and slings it. I duck down and roll to the side, hurling my kunai. He defends himself with his scythe and the kunai bounces off. I begin to pursuit him with a barrage of strikes as he continues to evade him, not moving from his spot.

Asuma takes the time to join me. "Hinata! What are you doing?!" he asks in disbelief.

"We cannot allow him to complete whatever symbol he was about to create with his blood!" I explain. I backflip out of the way as the scythe sticks to the ground below me. Hidan swings it upward, but I lift up a finger as it makes contact with me. I find myself a few feet away as a log gets cut in half where I was just at. "It is laced with chakra!" Okay, strangely it is not, and maybe I am telling a little white lie. But, nobody is going to argue with someone who possesses the Byakugan.

Hidan snarls as he retracts his scythe in front of him to block one of Asuma's chakra blades. "Damn brat," he mumbles.

"You can't fight alongside of me!" Asuma tells me, hopping to the side. "He is way out of your league!"

"I know that. I was just giving you a heads up." Boy, Hidan's weapon of choice is super annoying! I cannot get anywhere close to him without worrying about getting pricked.

Asuma nods gratefully. "Thank you. Now, go back!"

I hurl two more kunai at Hidan to distract him and give Asuma a slight opening before obeying him and retreating back into the trees. "Oh no you don't!" I hear Hidan shout behind me.

I hear clunking sounds from my kunai and the noise of his scythe chasing after me. I spin around to use Substitution again, but Asuma rushes over to me with impossible speeds and blocks the attack. "I told you that I was the one you should be focusing on," he reminds Hidan.

I take the opportunity and pick up the pace again, all the while making a few signs in our team's sign language with my right hand. I sense Sakura drop another genjutsu on the area as I slip into the trees, hoping that it came into effect quick enough for Hidan not to notice which way I went. I swiftly make my way over to Shikamaru to grab him and group up with Sakura to come up with a plan. It may not have been the brightest idea for me to just come out and charge towards Hidan head on, but I needed to quickly stop Hidan from making his symbol. This is why I am dragging Shikamaru so he can come up with the ideas this time while I give them the knowledge that I know about the murderous maniac through suggestions. Great teamwork!

"What are you doing?" Shikamaru whispers as I urge him to follow me. "You are breaking formation."

"I am modifying it," I reply as we come across Sakura. She holds up her kunai as a reflex from our sudden appearance before relaxing, slightly, when she realizes it is just us. At least that proves we are getting better at masking our chakra and staying within the shadows. We should be Anbu… kidding. Just kidding.

"What's going on?" Sakura asks, alarmed.

"We are going to help out Asuma-sensei," I explain. He only told me to not fight with him, not to ever assist him. At the mentioning of his name, I concentrate my vision on him for a moment. For now, he seems to be doing fine with keeping Hidan on his toes. Asuma is using mainly taijutsu at the moment while Hidan is using his scythe. But, he is not able to restrain him and Asuma cannot play tag forever. The difference between him and Hidan is that one is human with a limited amount of chakra while the other is immortal with an unlimited amount.

"Wouldn't that be dangerous? Shouldn't we just-"

"Yes, it is going to be dangerous," I tell her. I give her a reassuring smile. "But, we are Shinobi. It is kind of our job to find ourselves in these type of situations." I sigh. "Okay, here is what I am thinking. That guy is trying to draw some sort of symbol, with his blood, on the ground. It seems like some jutsu will activate if he completes it. We cannot allow that to happen, especially since we do not have a run down of his skills. Asuma is, momentarily, preventing that from happening. But, this guy seems to be quicker and has a lot more chakra then sensei so the guy will outlast him. This is where our team's specialty comes in! We are going to create a diversion.

"Since I am our team's designated decoy, I will be the target that our enemy focuses on. I will not be pursuing him head on; more like running around him like an annoying bug. I will be tying ninja wire from various tree branches and attaching a kunai to the end of it. I will be throwing kunais in different places from above, allowing it to stick to another tree. This should allow Shikamaru's shadow to expand and move without ease so you should not have to worry about a limit, distance wise. While I am doing this, I am relying on Asuma's pursuit on him to distract him from seeing what I am doing. At some point, I will obviously be caught. This is when I will act like I am coming down to attack him and then do some fancy acrobatics moves and retreat. I will hide with you, Shikamaru, at the edge of the forest and use my eyes to guide your shadow since we are going to be hidden.

"Sakura, you will stay with my Shadow Clone to protect our clients. She will have her Byakugan activated and watching. If she senses that our opponent is going out of bounds, she will tell you. This is when you will create two illusionary clones to block his path and force him back into range with your explosion of cherry blossoms. Um, does that sound like a decent plan?" I know I said that I will let Shikamaru come up with the plan, but I know about Hidan's advantages and disadvantages so I should take the spotlight just this once.

"Instead of just using an illusionary explosion as a distraction, maybe we can attach explosive tags to the clones?" Shikamaru suggests. "It can be an offensive attack and a distraction."

Exploding clones? Shit, that is brilliant! That is a new tactic we need to bring up to Asuma later if we are still alive.

"I will have to borrow some from you, Shikamaru," Sakura admits.

He nods. "Not a problem."

"Wow, we came up with this plan in about forty-five seconds," I realize. "Asuma-sensei is going to be proud when he hears that!"

"He will probably still say we took to long," Sakura remarks. Hey, I'm just being nice and giving you credit that you helped out so you don't come across as useless. No need for comments like that!

"I calculated the best positions to where you should aim your kunai to get the best angle that will allow my shadow to-" Shikamaru beings.

Out of the corner of my vision, I sense Hidan's scythe coming in our direction. "Duck!" I shout as I dive forward, pushing their bodies down.

Damn! I didn't know his weapon stretched out this far! The scythe barely misses us and continues on, right towards our clients! I see my Shadow Clone jump in front of the crouched down clients to protect them. She raises her kunai to bat the scythe away, but it overwhelms her and ends up slicing right through her. The clone disappears into a cloud of smoke. At that same moment, the scythe whips back around to attack Norio and Michi. They quickly roll out of the way… off the branch and begin to plummet towards the ground. Shit.

I grit my teeth. "Shikamaru! Grab Norio!"

He doesn't question me as he quickly pinpoints Norio's location and heads out for him. I jump down between trees, perform a front flip, and catch Michi in ample time. I stick myself to another tree and push myself upwards, landing back in our original spots. Michi is crying and shaking in fear at this point as I do my best to comfort her. I see Shikamaru attempt to grab Norio, but the man bounces off a trees and jumps upwards, grabbing ahold of a branch. Well, it does look like he still has some of his Shinobi reflexes instilled in his muscle memory. Shikamaru grabs ahold of the hanging man and meets back up with us.

"Well, that just made things even more inconvenient," Shikamaru complained as he let's go of Norio. Michi breaks out of my arms and buries herself into her father. "We need to get these two further-"

"Get down!" I shout again as we all throw ourselves to the ground.

The scythe makes its appearance again as it slices through the air and cuts through a tree. We are not going anywhere if he keeps this up. I expand my vision and see that Asuma has been knocked back towards a tree, giving Hidan the moment to try and attack us. With Sakura's genjutsu dropped and being more focused now on his surroundings, I am assuming he has sensed all five of us. Suddenly, as the scythe heads towards us again, the air is filled with chakra-infused gunpowder. The smokescreen begins to spread across the area and I shut my eyes to shield them from getting anything inside of them. In that split second, I hear the noise of fire igniting followed by a scream of terror. Ignoring the gunpowder, I snap my eyes open and widen them at the sight I am seeing. Shikamaru has fallen from the trees to the ground. He is half burnt with a small gash on his right shoulder.

My heart drops. No, no, no. I find Hidan and I tense up. His whole body has turned black with white markings in random spots, making him look like a skeleton. He is standing on top of a completed Jashin symbol and seems to have taken on Asuma's fire attack head on. Whatever happened in that second I closed my eyes changes everything. Shikamaru somehow got struck by the scythe and now is on the receiving end of the jutsu by getting burnt. Hidan's pain is his pain. Hidan somehow was able to complete his symbol and begin his ritual. Asuma seems worn out and frustrated. This is all going downhill. At least Sakura, Norio, and Michi are alright and have hidden themselves in a further position, out of reach of Hidan's weapon. I jump down to Shikamaru's side as the smoke clears up. I see Asuma appear stunned at the sight of Hidan. Hidan uncovers his face with his hands and starts screaming something about pain and Jashin to him, probably explaining what just happened. Everyone seems to like to do that in the Naruto universe. I focus my attention on my teammate.

"Are you alright?" I ask, raising up his head. That part of him is, at least, not burnt.

He coughs and glances up weakly at me. "I'll live," he replies.

"What happened?" I demand. "I close my eyes for a few seconds and all hell breaks loose!"

"As the smoke began to gather, I notice the outline of that guy's weapon heading back towards our clients. I jump in the way to try to deflect it with a kunai. As I did so, it grazes my shoulder and suddenly retracts back. I thought it was weird since the guy has been continuously attacking us and just decides to stop. Before I could even think more of it, I felt an overwhelming burning sensation and immediately fell down in pain," Shikamaru explains and gives me a half smile. "Heh, how troublesome. This is the thanks I get for playing hero."

"The one time you decide to move," I tease halfheartedly as my mind begins to wonder.

Well, this is great. What do we do now? Shikamaru is a major part of the plan to restrain Hidan before the bastard decided to ruin it by nicking him with his stupid scythe. I guess it is time to release some information and hope he doesn't questions where I came up with it all of a sudden.

"I think I have a hunch as to why your body was suddenly burnt," I admit to him.

His ears perk up. "So, you thought of that, too?"

"Wait, what?"

"Were you going to say that it has something to do with the guy pricking my shoulder?" Shikamaru asks.

I'm glad Shikamaru is a genius. "Yes!" I say, probably a little to loud. "I mean, you said that you thought it was weird that he suddenly pulls back his weapon after finally making contact with one of us. He drew his symbol in his blood for a reason. Maybe he needs the blood of another person to be able to inflict pain onto them?"

Shikamaru shrugs and then winces from the movement. "It makes sense. As soon as the guy got burnt from Asuma's jutsu, I got burnt. The questions is, why would the guy take the risk of harming himself?"

"He could be immortal," I tell him, phrasing it as a joke.

Shikamaru frowns. "Let's hope not." He struggles to get up. "We need to hurry and tell Asuma about this and-Argh!"

He instantly drops back to the ground as he rushes both of his hands to his left side. Blood suddenly appears through his shirt and flows into the grass. I narrow my eyebrows. I am not dealing with this shit. He is not going to die in front of me. I pick up Shikamaru bridal style and hurry over towards the battlefield to join Asuma. I have no way, or time, to heal Shikamaru so I just set him down and will seek for medical attention later. I notice that Asuma is standing just a few feet away from Asuma with a conflicted expression resting on his face. I believe he was charging after Hidan when Hidan stabbed himself and then explained to Asuma what happened. That is the only reason I can think of for him to have such a look on his face.

Asuma senses our presence and jumps back to join us. "Are you okay, Shikamaru?" I can tell that Asuma is trying to remain calm, but I hear the concern in his voice. Shikamaru gives him a thumbs up in response and cringes.

"Do I even need to tell you what happened?" I ask.

Asuma shakes his head. "He told me everything." So, I was right. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect anything like this to happen on a C-ranked mission. I would've denied it in a heartbeat if I did."

I wave my hand, hinting to that we do not need an apology. "I mean, C's stand for catastrophe so at least we will be prepared for next time!" Even though I am just trying to lighten the mood, it does seem like the C-ranked missions I know contain catastrophe. Naruto's mission. This mission. I wonder if Team Eight will go through a similar experience?

Asuma ignores my lame joke, though he would have smiled in a normal situation. He opens his mouth to say something, but I decide to just cut to the chase. We need to end this fight now. I turn and look at Hidan. "How can you absorb and inflict pain on yourself like that?" I ask, appearing curious. "Are you immortal or something?"

I purposely phrased my question along those lines to get him to admit to it. Which, he does. "I mean, shouldn't it be obvious to you guys by now?" Hidan snorted. "Pretty generous gift that Jashin-sama has given me, isn't it? What do you think? Helps you understand the suffering of others a little more."

Asuma grits his teeth as I inhaled. This guy is psycho. "We need to stop him," Shikamaru mumbles. We both look down at him. "I can man up and handle any minor injuries if necessary as long as we can get this guy out of his circle. We need to take on the caster in order to stop his jutsu."

"It won't be easy," Asuma mumbles back as Hidan rambles on about his god. "He has a weapon that is suitable for all ranges that can be used both offensively and defensively to prevent him from moving so much. He can easily and quickly cause pain to himself without repercussions."

"We actually came up with-" I start.

"Whatever you three are planning is useless!" Hidan yells. "All the planning in the world will not stop me or the wrath of a god!" He raises up his pike. "Repent now and maybe Jashin-sama won't send you to the deepest parts of hell!"

"Hidan!" I hear Norio call out behind me. He runs over to us and stands in our way. W-what is he doing?!

Hidan pauses and lowers his arm. "Oh, it's you."

Asuma jumps in front of Norio and nudges him back towards us. "Where is Sakura? She's supposed to be-"

"I slipped away despite her arguments," Norio cuts in. He narrows his eyes behind his glasses. "I know this young man."

"And, you decide now to tell us that?" Shikamaru snaps.

"Shikamaru, calm down," Asuma says. Well, Shikamaru does have a reason to be annoyed. He is not in the best condition right now. Asuma stares at Norio. "How do you two know one another?"

"He has always been an acquaintance that I knew," Norio tells us. "He is from Yugakure and we live in the same neighborhood. He was an orphan growing up and I was one of the few people that didn't shun him. He was always seeking attention in negative ways and is known for his love of killing as a Shinobi. He often target practices on animals for "thrills". He wasn't too happy when Yugakure turned into a tourist village and I last remember him complaining, rather loudly, about it in the streets before Michi and I left."

Hidan steps into the conversation. "The only reason they converted into a tourist village is so they can gain more income. Who gives two fucks how much money they receive from their hotsprings?! That is showing nothing but greed and just proved to me that the village deserved to experience the Way of Jashin!" He smirks. "Which, they did. It is a good thing you and your brat left, actually."

Norio freezes up. "Why is that?" he asks, cautiously.

"The day after you did, I decided to give Jashin-sama his first batch of offerings from me and slaughtered our whole neighborhood!" Hidan proudly states. He begins to laugh maniacally and it sends chills down my spine as everyone stares at him in shock and despair. So, this is the nagging feeling that I was experiencing earlier! I remember now, which is a little too late. Shortly before defacing from Yugakure, Hidan did go on a massive killing spree. Since it was so recent, I wonder if the village is searching for him just yet?

"E-everyone? The whole entire neighborhood?" Norio asks in disbelief, but Hidan seems to not have heard him over his laughter. Poor guy. I hope he didn't have any family or friends living nearby.

"Was this guy part of the group of bandits that attacked you?" I ask him. Maybe in Hidan's early days, he ran around with a cult or something. It would be a good heads up if there are more like him running around.

Hidan seems to have selective hearing as he responds to my question. "Oh, them? Pssh. They were my second batch of offerings to Jashin-sama. They were very disrespectful to my god and I do not handle such blasphemy. Killing them was actually very pleasing!" Of course it was. You get off to pain you masochistic bastard. He shrugs. "But, I think I'm going to enjoy killing you guys even more. I like a challenge." He raises his pike up once more and we all tense up and became onguard. "Now, enough talking. Jashin-sama is growing very impatient with me! It is time for you to die!" He brings the pike down towards his heart as Asuma and I rush forward to stop him.

Two shurikens zoom out ouf the trees and hits the pike, knocking it off course. The pike, instead, stops inches away from Hidan's shoulder. He scowls in confusion as he look up to his left and we all follow his gaze. Two illusionary clones from Sakura spring out and heads towards Hidan. He boredly turns his attention back towards us and ignores the clones as they set upon him, ready to take on any pain. The first clone bursts into an explosion of cherry blossoms, which grabs his attention again since he is suspecting an actual attack. The second clone explodes after that in an actual explosion, mixing the smoke in with the cheery blossoms to impair his vision even more. All of us take the distraction as an opportunity to strike. I start to charge up my chakra scalpels and I run through the smoke. I navigate through with my Byakugan and find Hidan. Instead of attacking his, I raise my palm and slice through his pike, snapping it in two.

I toss the pieces aside and hop out of the way just as Asuma rushes head on and tackles Hidan with nothing but brute strength. They slightly move backwards before Hidan plants his feet firmly onto the ground to stop himself. They begin to struggle with one another as Asuma tries to push Hidan out of the circle while Hidan plans on staying. Hidan slowly starts to overpower our sensei and takes a couple of steps forward. He instantly stops moving, freezing on the spot as Shikamaru's shadow overtakes his body. Shikamaru forces Hidan to take a few steps back, closing in to the outer edges of the symbol. Almost there! My hope fades when Hidan breaks the connection, but replenishes when Asuma takes that brief moment to tackle his enemy once more and completely knocking him out of the symbol. Yes!

Asuma punches Hidan in the face and sweeps around to kick him, but he quickly backflips out of the way. He lands on the ground, with a pissed off look on his face, and reaches for his scythe to attack with. Unexpectedly, two hands rise above the ground underneath him and pulls him under, only allowing Hidan's head to be shown. I stop moving and blink in confusion for a second before I shake my head and activate my chakra scalpels once more. I charge towards him, drop down, and cleanly slice his head right off. Blood squirts on me as his head tumbles off to the side and stops a few feet away. Everybody grows silence as they probably didn't expect me to do that just now. Hey, that's the only way to stop him. Swiftly realizing what I had just done, and noticing Hidan's blood all over me, I promptly turn my head to the side and begin to vomit. God, this is such a disgusting sight.

Norio breaks the silence as he emerges from underground and walks over to check on me. "You okay?" he asks.

I wipe my mouth and nod. "That was a pretty neat jutsu you just did."

He scratches the back of his head. "Heh, well I never said that the jutsus I knew were meant for attacking. That is how my daughter and I got away from our bandits in the first place so I decided to see if it would work in this situation."

I am about to laugh, but more vomit comes out instead. Smoothe. Norio pretends to not notice as Asuma makes his way over to Hidan's head to make sure he's really dead. I ponder whether to tell him he is or not, but Hidan beats me to it. "Ow! Damn you, bitch!" Hidan yells at the top of his lungs, causing Asuma to hop back from being startled. "Fuck! This hurts like a son of a bitch!"

If anyone ever asks me what is the weirdest thing I have ever experienced, I will answer that a head without a body spoke to me once. We all look at each other in disbelief as Hidan continues to throw profanities at us. From far behind, I swear I hear a soft thud of a poor Sakura passing out at the sight of a talking bodiless Hidan. Nobody is ever going to believe this.

Author's Note: This chapter was a struggle for me to write for some reason. In my opinion, I do not write fighting scenes very well but I hope you all think otherwise! It may seem that Asuma didn't do a lot in this chapter, but he performed most of his badassery when Hinata, Shikamaru, and Sakura was coming up with their plan. I believe Team Ten would have had a much harder time with Hidan if Hinata didn't have the prior knowledge on him and charged in to attack without waiting around. Thank you everyone for getting his stories to over 500 followers! I never expected for it to get this much attention. I hope you all continue to stick around for the long run!

Question: For the upcoming Chunin Exams, who would you all like to see face off and make it through in the second and third round matches?

I have a layout already planned, but would like to read your thoughts and opinions. Chunin Exams, in my opinion, are really fun to read in a fanfic.