Crow's feathers - Naruto fanfiction

Chapter 37 Forever

Taryn stared at the boy that walked into the arena, waiting for her to come down. Of all people, it had to be Uchiha she had to fight. He hadn’t changed much since she had last seen him a year ago, but she knew he was strong.

They were the youngest people here and the last two standing. The crowd had gone wild and were eager to see this last battle in the Chuunin Exams.

She glanced at the box where her father was seated. His eyes were cold as usual and fixed on her. He expected her to win.

A hand fell on her shoulder. She looked up and met Kodan’s grinning eyes. He was already out of the contest. “Go get him,” he said.

Taryn didn’t answer, but turned back to Itachi. She knew his moves. She had watched him closely during his earlier battles. He was strong. A long-range fighter like her. He used genjutsu, but that wasn’t a problem to her. She could take him.

She smirked and walked down to meet him. She took a casual stance and looked at him. He gave her a cocky smile.. For some reason it irritated her and she glared at him, making him chuckle.

The proctor looked at the both of them. “Ready? Battle!”

Immediately Taryn felt a wave of genjutsu roll her way. She grinned, broke the jutsu and sent a fierce wind attack towards Itachi, which he dodged.

He was fast, but so was she. She activated Byakugan and wheeled around, blocking a direct hit from him with a kunai dagger.

He smirked at her. “Impressive.”

“Save your breath,” she told him, “you’ll need it.” She slammed her flat hand against his chest.

He gasped. Coming from Konoha, he knew a little about the Gentle Fist style of Hyuuga. He just hadn’t experienced it yet.

Taryn smirked and pushed him off.

He regained himself quickly and threw a fireball jutsu at her. She rolled out of the way and sent a handful of shuriken at him. He countered them with a set of his own, but Taryn had the next set ready and a few of them found their mark.

She looked at his cuts, but before she had time to gloat she was being grabbed from behind by a clone. The real Itachi smirked and walked over to her while pressing his hand against a large cut on his forearm.

Taryn was smirking too, but hid it from him. She was calculating his steps. Three more… two… one… she leaned back and used the clone as leverage. Then she kicked at Itachi’s shoulder.

The short disruption of chakra was enough to make the clone disappear.

Taryn fell to the ground and rolled out of the way. Quickly she crawled to her feet and threw a kunai dagger at him.

It missed.

Itachi sent another fire based jutsu towards her and it scorched her skin lightly when she couldn’t get out of the way in time. She hissed and directed a wind attack at the ground. The earth split and forced Itachi to relocate. This time when he used a fire style jutsu, she used Kaiten to break through it. Regular wind attacks would only make the fire grow, but Kaiten would protect her from the flames. Weapons flew everywhere as they were cast aside by Kaiten.

When Taryn came to a halt, Itachi was nowhere in sight, but with Byakugan it didn’t take her long to find him. She landed a series of blows on him, cutting off his chakra stream, but he managed to fight her off. She landed on the ground and was hit by several kunai daggers before she could get up. The two children stood across from each other. Both were panting heavily.