Starting over

#81 Explosion Squad

Naruto POV

Staring into the trees, we waited for the attackers to get to us. Temari and her squad had felt that we had shifted positions and had halted the group, waiting for a signal from us.

Suddenly a barrage of kunai flew out of the trees, making us scatter. We returned a few kunai in the rough direction from which the attack came, only to hear them hitting wood. I didn't want to risk the lives of my teammates and the group behind us so I channeled chakra into my sword and swung it horizontally. At first nothing happened, but then the trees in front of me started falling, being cut down by a blade of wind, that my sword had released.

The council heard the trees falling and I could hear them cry out in fear, even over the sound of crashing trees. Akira growled slightly, as the trees stopped falling, and the dust slowly settled. There was still a small treeline between the natural clearing where the council and Shiro were and the just formed one, where we stood, waiting for the dust to settle down completely.

But you could see the clearing and that meant that our enemies had just spotted their target.

When the field was finally clear again, we saw eight people standing on top of the fallen wood. There were the two black tengu shinobi, that had lost their comrade to Temari and her team earlier, while the other six had the uniform of Iwa's explosion corpse, consisting of white robes with white masks.

"It seems Suna sent some backup.", the leader of the group said, loud enough for us to hear it. I smiled and sheathed my sword. My team saw the secret hand signs, I did behind my back, telling them about my plan of attack. However I couldn't even start my attack because I had to jump away from a mass of small clay spiders that had crawled to us. They exploded just after we had gotten to safety.

I saw that Temari and her team already had moved the council into another protective barrier while they stood around it, waiting for something to happen. They looked around the clearing, staring into the thin treeline.

I stared our enemies down, waiting for them to start another attack, while Hori was partially hiding behind Gabu, going through a series of one handed hand signs. Waiting patiently with my sword ready I watched as a single gust of wind washed over the battlefield. Me and my team knew immediately what was happening, while the explosion corpse and and the two black tengu shinobi dismissed the seemingly innocent movement of air. The wind almost immediately turned around and formed a small vortex, effectively trapping our enemies. Smiling I and my team had already secured ourselves with chakra on the ground and watched as two of the trapped ninja were lifted of the ground, screaming as they were tossed around in the air.

Their teammates watched in horror, as the two were carried upwards by the winds and got to the 'killing fields' as Hori like to call it, where they were cut to pieces by a big amount of wind blades. Their screams stopped slowly and the others couldn't even move out of the way to avoid all the blood and body parts that were raining down on them, since they couldn't release the chakra on their feet or else they would be also get sucked into the killing fields.

When Hori cancelled the jutsu our enemies jumped quickly to the side to avoid the majority of the remains from their teammates, which had been held up by the vortex. Nonetheless they gave off a horrible image, most of them being almost completely covered in blood, which showed on their once white masks.

After a small pause where the red white masks were just staring at Hori, the four remaining explosion corpse members engaged us in fierce taijutsu duells, while the two black tengu jumped towards Temari and team Shiro. I gave Akira a nod and she jumped of to watch the fight between team Shiro and the Black Tengu, ready to intervene if anything unexpected should happen.

I knew, that the others would be fine, so I pushed my sword forward, catching my opponent off guard, causing him to jump back. His teammates followed him while me and my team regrouped. Paira went up in front, taking out a small sword, while making hand signs behind her back. Hori immediately began to go through another long series of hand signs, making our enemies tense. I took out my predator blade and with the help of my shadow clones I prevented the four shinobi from scattering. They brazed themselves as the air around them began to pick up speed. Sticking to the ground, they did exactly, what we had thought they would do. Hori smiled as she finished the sequence and saw that the explosion squad members had fallen right into our trap. I dispelled my clones and pumped chakra through my sword, making it glow in the setting sun.

I jumped up and flipped into the air canal that Hori's jutsu had made. Our enemies looked at us with wide eyes, as I fell down, in between them, not a scratch on me. Looking at them, I almost laughed out loud as I saw their faces. Hori had intentionally only made the vortex like jutsu without the air blades on top, to allow me to jump in. I quickly disabled my resistance seals, allowing me to move with minimal chakra output in the vortex, and disposed of the four shinobi just as quickly. Hori almost instantly cancelled her jutsu and fell down on one knee. She had spent too much chakra on the two jutsu and the taijutsu fight and was extremely low on chakra. Gabu rushed over to her, catching her as she passed out. "I got her, don't worry.", he said, looking at us. "Stay here, watch out for any other shinobi that may have hung back.", I whispered to Paira, who nodded and jumped away, seemingly towards the still ongoing battle with team Daiku. But I saw her turn around inside the trees and circle around her teammates. I also jumped away, but I really went to the battle.