Multi-reply time again. Hopefully I'll remember to get everything I
want to respond to.
First, as always, my thanks to everyone who's commented.
William Little wrote:
Shinta's hands locked into a final seal. "Inuzuka-Style Rare
Beast Transformation: Hungry Wolf Technique!" There was a blast of
smoke, and when it faded Shinta was gone. In his place stood a large
gray wolf, almost as tall as the boy himself had been.
"A transformation technique?" Sakura muttered in thought.
"That's it?" Tenten asked.
I have to agree with Tenten. I was expecting more after the
foreshadowing for this. I lost a lot of cash on this fight, damn you!
Heh.
To be honest, the whole thing with Shinta's "different techniques"
started because I didn't want to come up with a name for his dog. :)
She took a deep breath, visibly calming herself. "That won't
happen today, though. Today, I'll just beat you and rip out your eyes.
Just like I promised you, no?"
Nice rant. I'd give it a 6.0 (points lost for coherancy, internal logic
and lack of word invention/redefinition)
Hee.
Even though he was facing directly away from her, he could see
Midori's smirk. "Good counting, freak," she said. "Too bad for you
that isn't all the clones I could make." Her hands flickered, then the
circle of clones doubled and redoubled. Twenty clones charged Neji from
all directions.
I'm a little surprised. As I understand it, that's a lot of chakra. I'd
think a water clone costs nearly as much as a Kage-bunshin, and people
were surprised Naruto can manage even a dozen.
As Midori explains a moment later, she can vary the amount of chakra
that goes into each clone so long as she doesn't exceed the maximum (at
which point it essentially turns into one of Saburo's exploding water
clones). These clones have just a bit more chakra than an ordinary
replication; it's still an impressive feat for a genin, but it doesn't
require Naruto-level chakra reserves.
"No," Midori said, "and that's why I'll win." She smiled. "So
proud of your freakish eyes, aren't you? Now that I've confirmed the
field of vision they give you, I can end this fight anytime I want."
Her smile turned vicious. "That time is now. Haruno Ninpou: Gaze of
Torment."
Yet another person who could have benefited from reading the evil
overlord's list. I mean, three violations in one paragraph? (6, 24 and
40, btw, a common combination)
Hmm...
"6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them."
Guilty as charged. :)
"24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and
weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at
least I will never utter the line 'No, this cannot be! I AM
INVINCIBLE!!!' (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)"
While Midori's assessment turned out to be incorrect, I'd argue that
with the knowledge she had available, it was fairly realistic.
Her big mistake was later, when she goes for Neji's eyes and walks into
his trap. If she'd just been cautious and blasted him from range, he'd
have been helpless.
"40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an
unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible
instead of keeping it in reserve."
In this case, Midori is actually playing it safe. She doesn't have the
benefit of a detailed breakdown on the powers of the Byakugan; she's
just heard things along the lines of "the Hyuuga have eyes in the backs
of their heads" and the like. The whole point of the charade with the
water clones is to test Neji's field of vision and make certain that her
"superweapon" will work before she uses it. Presumably, it takes enough
chakra/concentration that it would leave her vulnerable if she tried it
and didn't "hit."
Sakura nodded politely at him. "How did you?" she asked
curiously, and after a moment the slightly older ninja curtly explained
his method. Sakura grimaced to herself. It was just like what her
research on the counter to those chakra threads that Fuuma ninja in Rice
Field Country had used had turned up. Was every counter-technique she
wanted to learn going to require the Byakugan?
Good thing this isn't Suiren, or somebody would be "donating" an eye soon.
If this was Suiren, Sakura would probably be trying to reverse-engineer
the Gaze of Torment instead... :)
The blonde
kunoichi still reacted quickly, flinging her hands up and releasing
several smoke bombs. Sakura darted through the pillars of thick black
smoke, hardly slowed, but Ino used the seconds this bought her to fill
I'd change seconds to moments. Seconds is actually a really long time in
a fight.
True; good catch.
As Lee and Arata left the field, Tsunade smiled to herself. She
really was looking forward to this next fight.
***********************************************************************
Sakura was really not looking forward to this fight.
Nice juxtaposition.
It pretty much wrote itself. :)
Even Lee himself had never bested Neji in a straight taijutsu
match,
Uhm, is this true? I suppose it depends if you consider the more
advanced uses of the Byakugan pure taijutsu. In any case, it works fine
even if it's just Sakura being pessimistic.
The Gentle Fist and its related techniques are classified as taijutsu.
I think the Kaiten might be classified as ninjutsu, though.
In any case, I'll probably reword slightly anyway. Probably to
something along the lines of "with straight taijutsu."
Once more she charged, but this time she stopped before Neji
struck, darting to his side and almost managed to land a blow before he
sent her flying with two Gentle Fist strikes. This time, though, she'd
managed to shield her tenketsu, and she smiled as she landed near where
she'd been standing when the match had begun. All the pieces were in
place.
I swear she's a masochist. There had to be a less damaging way to drop
those tags, and I have no idea why Neji didn't see her doing it.
Eimii has probably done a better job than I could defending this bit.
Based on your comments, I'm definitely considering reworking it some,
though.
Also, her method of dropping the tags has the secondary goals of luring
Neji into a false sense of security and figuring out how to time her use
of the genjutsu shuriken for maximum effect. It's still highly risky
behavior, but Neji is a superior opponent; Sakura doesn't have a chance
to win if she plays it safe.
As for why Neji doesn't see her drop the tags, working on the assumption
that while Neji can fairly trivially see through the genjutsu, it _does_
impede his vision to some degree, so that he doesn't automatically pick
up on it.
As I said, I definitely am considering some reworking based on your
comments, though.
Neji flew away from her but Sakura only snarled, "I'm not done
yet," thrusting one arm toward him. Repressing a shudder at the
crawling sensation under her arm, she shouted, "Hidden Snake Hands!"
This really should have been the first thing she did after exploding the
tags. Strike two of closing prematurely.
Besides the "flight time" issue Eimii mentioned, the reason she goes for
Leaf Shadow Dance first is because that sets her up for more attacks
while opening with Hidden Snake Hands doesn't do so as well. She's
engineered a hole in Neji's defenses, and she wants to exploit it all
she can before he recovers.
The poison is a hedge against her combo not taking Neji out of the
fight; it gives her a second chance to win if she can hold off Neji
going all out long enough for the poison to degrade his fighting
effectiveness enough that she can finish him off.
burnt log Neji had used a moment before. "Too slow," he declared as he
pivoted in place to meet Sakura's counter-attack from above and below.
"Four strikes!"
Strike three. Sakura had no reason not to force Neji to play tag across
the arena. Her situation could only improve with some time.
The first counter-attack is worth trying, I think; it certainly could
have worked if Sakura was a bit faster or Neji a bit more affected by
her poison.
Beyond that, while it didn't make it into the writing, my intention was
that Sakura lacked the chakra/preparation time necessary to get away
clean with the Replacement Technique. She's stuck in Neji's range
(turning and running being suicide) so she might as well try to get in a
blow. I'm going to try and work that in without ruining the flow.
Also, some political negatives.
- Known to have been favored by the Hokage and examiner.
The question is, who would raise a fuss about it? Asuma and Gai are the
main people who know about it and could complain, but they aren't likely
to; Anko didn't really make any questionable calls in Sakura's favor and
they've both got sympathy for Sakura anyway.
- Is wanted by the Hokage for training, which will be less conveniant
for a Chuunin with Chuunin duties.
We've seen that the Hokage has some chuunin flunkies as her
gophers/bodyguards/whatever. It'd be easy enough for Tsunade to assign
Sakura that job, thus freeing up a more experienced chuunin for "real"
missions.
Moving along...
Eimii wrote:
Hmm... in this case, i would say it's more a matter of wanting closure
with Ino almost as much as she wants to win. They both this to be a
fight where they give it their all, and the easiest way they can express
that with their bodies is a direct confrontation; they're essentially
having a 'Naruto' moment ^_^;...
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Sakura deliberately wants to replay the
final moves of her last fight with Ino (of course, with a different ending).
It's an unnecessary risk, but an understandable one from her position.
Hmm... Sakura's enhanced speed might make closing to striking distance
faster than the 'draw time' on the Hidden Snake Hands; one _does_ get
the impression that she is now possibly the second-fastest genin in the
leaf, with how she's described as moving right here...
It depends on who you count in the list, I suppose, and under what
circumstances. Naruto when he starts sprouting tails could probably
come close to Lee, and Sasuke is pretty fast too if you want to count
him. Neji's also up there; while Sakura is a bit faster than him over
the short run, his endurance is better.
Back to William Little:
Oh, Sakura would totally own Lee. He'd give her every opening, and she'd
exploit them all viciously.
It might go that way at first, but Sakura is quite capable of getting
frustrated and demanding that Lee stop holding back, and there's a
decent shot that Lee just might comply if she words it right.
He'd still be handicapping himself by trying to hurt her as little as
possible, but Lee might still be able to pull off the win.
The idea of running being faster than handsigns bothers me on a basic
level. I concede, however, that it IS in genre.
If I'm remembering what we see in canon correctly, Hidden Snake Hands
doesn't appear to have any handsigns, incidentally.
Or rather, I envision the handsigns as being performed when you prepare
the technique by summoning some specialized snake spirits and inviting
them to take up residence in your arm.
Both Lee and Neji have a big honkin' item in their plus column called
"Can beat the shit out of most Chuunin."
Indeed.
While Eimii is right in that chuunin rank is described as a command
position, that doesn't mean that all chuunin immediately go into command
positions. We've seen chuunin operating in squads under jounin command
(indeed, that's where our characters seem to wind up post-timeskip) or
other specialized roles.
Promotion to chuunin does require a certain minimal level of competence
for a command role, so that the chuunin can fill that role if needed.
Beyond that I'd think that extreme competence in other areas could make
up for deficiencies there, particularly given the situation Konoha is in
at the moment.
Eimii again:
The Claw of the Fire Dragon probably _would_ have landed too, perhaps
ending
the fight in her favor, if she hadn't retracted the snakes first, thus
allowing him a moment to perform the kawarimi.
While I don't explicitly go into to it in the writing, I envision
maintaining the snakes in full physical form to be a continual, fairly
heavy chakra drain. Sakura couldn't channel enough chakra at once to
perform Claw of the Fire Dragon without retracting the summons.
Also, I do envision that Sakura needed to close the range with Neji some
to pull off the Claw, and retracting the snakes was the easiest method.
Glazius Falconer wrote:
I'm also wondering if there's strictly a reason to carry around an antidote
for a poison on a summon. The risk of it being turned against you is a lot
less, right?
In this case, politeness. Sakura doesn't have anything personal against
Neji, and regardless of who wins if she doesn't have the antidote on
hand she's only inconveniencing the medics.
In a real combat situation, the one time you need the antidote (the
snakes being turned on you somehow, friendly fire, you need to get your
enemy on his feet again for some reason, or whatever) you're _really_
going to need it.
DB Sommer wrote:
> Heh. Flimsy hopes ofttimes are the ones that come through when it
comes to Naruto. Of course, that tends to be true of most genres. If it
seems the good guys have the advatange all the time, it tend to make for
poor tension and suspense.
Indeed.
Shoot. All this Naruto talk makes me want to do a Naruto Azumanga
fusion. See Sasuke and Chiyo fight for the number one spot in the genin
ranks, while Tomo and Naruto fight to see who will end up dead last.
Do it! :)
Okay, I think that's more or less everything. Thanks again to everyone
for all the comments!
Now I just need to find the time to do the actual revisions... ;)