A Growing Affection

Chapter 96: Useless No More

'That tasted disgusting,' Ni-ne finished licking her teeth clean, 'nothing like a garter snake.'

'Sorry,' Hinata did not take her eyes off Kabuto as she sent the thought to the cat, 'But thank you.'

'It was kind of fun,' the demon deflected, 'Maybe I'll look for snakes at the Uchiha estate. Can you turn me back now?'

Hinata  nodded, and reversed the chakra flow in the amulet, returning the  Two-Tails to her house cat size. Kabuto frowned, but could not keep the  relief from his face. But it was quickly replaced by suspicion.

"Why  did you do that?" he asked carefully, considering the new options open  to him. Hinata tried to think of a reasonable excuse, but could not  think of anything she felt would convince the canny renegade. So she  settled for remaining silent, and calm. She dropped back into the Gentle  Fist stance, and waited for him to make his move.

'She is faster  than me,' he thought, 'and has countered every move I've made. I  probably have the edge in strength, but that is not my fighting style.  If I can just keep her hands away from me long enough, I can use my  chakra scalpels to immobilize her. Or I could just destroy her organs  and convince Orochimaru it was the only choice. The snake will have to  settle for examining her eyes. I only need to lengthen my scalpels and  exploit my greater reach. I just have to make sure I don't let her  disrupt my chakra network first. I will only have one shot at this.'

He  stepped forward, forming three of the energy razors in each hand. He  kept the medical jutsu at its standard length, knowing that she could  see the normally transparent blades. He stabbed shallowly at Hinata, but  jerked his hand back as her fingertips slid towards his wrist. The  rogue took a half step back, putting him outside the range of her deadly  digits, and swiped at her face. The young woman leaned back, while  angling her right hand towards his elbow. Kabuto twitched again,  narrowly missing her eyes and saving his arm.

'As I thought,' Orochimaru's lieutenant affirmed his expectations, 'Now try this.'

He  dismissed the blades in his left hand, and stepped back into her range,  throwing a hard left cross at her nose. Hinata's fingers darted up,  sealing the chakra points in his forearm and scoring minor cut in the  accompanying muscle, but that didn't slow his punch. The pale beauty  recognized the fact as well, and crossed her arms under his wrist, using  both of her limbs to push his attack over her head.

'Now,' Kabuto  tripled the length of the blades in his right hand, and aimed them at  her heart. He knew her arms were to far out of position to stop him, nor  could she use a leg block in time. He look up at her face, wanting to  relish her fear as she realized it was over. But there was no such look  in her eyes.

"Rotation," Hinata incanted, chakra spilling out of  her body as she spun. The dome of energy struck Kabuto mere moments  before his blades would have met her shozoku. The Eight Trigrams Palms  Heavenly Spin lifted him slightly into the air, and cast him away from  the girl.

"Right," Kabuto grunted as he picked himself up, his  left temple bleeding slightly from where it struck the rocky ground, "I  didn't think she use that so fast or so close..."

Hinata did not wait for him to recover or plan this time. She drew up her power, signing rapidly to give it form.

"Ushi,  I, Inu, U, Hitsuji, Byakugan Art: Primordial Chakra Jutsu!" she slammed  her right fist into the rocky ground, joining her chakra with the  natural energy in the stones. It raced across the distance between them,  and exploded into Kabuto's body. The chakra surged through his network,  blasting back out of his weakest tenketsu. The combined ki surged free,  taking some of his own power with it. In the end, she saw that  sixty-seven of his chakra points were disabled, mostly in his  extremities, but also three critical junctions in his stomach.