Hiro vs Shino
"Now correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a part of a clan right?" Hiro asks Shino as he goes through various warm up stretches.
"Yes." Shino replies while analyzing his opponent, this is a fantastic opportunity for Shino. Observing what Hiro decides to stretch out the most, be it his legs or his arms, will depict his fighting style.
"The Aburame clan to be more specific." Hiro bends over to touch his toes.
"Correct. That is my clan." Shino curtly responds. He might not talk much, but no one can say he was rude. After all he took the time to reply to these ridiculous questions that were literally answered when the proctor called his name.
"The clan that uses bugs." Hiro rises up from his stretch.
"Beetles." Shino says with emotion for the first time. There's a hint of warning in his tone, no one insults his beetles. "Kikaichu Beetles to be exact."
"Perfect!" An evil grin forms it's way onto the only shinobi from Taki here.
Shino's hands clench slightly, and if I could hazard a guess I'd wager that his eyes are narrowing too.
"Now that you've both gotten the pre-battle banter out of the way, can we start?" Eito gruffly says. "I don't likestanding here like an idiot."
"I am ready." Shino is quick to respond, I can tell that he wants to teach Hiro a lesson in how dangerous insects can be.
"Let's go!" Hiro smacks his fist into his palm. "The quicker this fight is over, the quicker I can go back to Leader-chan!"
Sasuke snickers off to my side, but I ignore him. This fight is important to me because I will face the winner in the next round. It'll either be Hiro or Shino, this is the only chance I'll have left to prepare and get a plan of attack together.
"Begin!" Eito disappears in a swirl of grass clippings and reappears in his chair. That man is addicted to being lazy, I bet Kakashi and him would get along amazingly well.
"How are you feeling, Hiro-san?" Shino asks as he slowly takes a few steps backwards to put extra distance between them.
"I'm great!" Hiro grins happily. "Simply wonderful!"
"... And your chakra levels?" Shino pointedly asks. "How are those doing?"
"Huh?" Hiro scrunches up his face for half a second. "Oh you sneaky bastard! That's playing dirty!"
"We are shinobi, there is no 'playing dirty.'" Shino slightly raises his arms, they look like an upside down V, and a think black smoke bellows out of his sleeves.
Except it's not smoke, it's his hive. He's already got some beetles on Hiro to show him what they're capable of. Now he's going to try to end the fight by catching him with his swarm.
This is a good match up for Shino, from my information gathering I know that Hiro can use earth and wind jutsu, he did tell me himself. Neither earth or wind jutsu are going to be that effective against the swarm. Sure wind will disperse the cloud of insects, but it probably won't kill them. Sure it's feasible to make and earth wall then tip it over onto the swarm, but that's impractical. Just because it might work doesn't mean it will work and Shino has had a lifetime to work with his Hive. Something as simple as those ideas aren't going to work here.
"Oh no!" Hiro blatantly fakes being scared, he's mock cowering while hiding his face behind his arms. "How ever will I go on? There's bugs everywhere!"
Shino twitches minutely, if I wasn't expecting him to react badly and looked specifically for that kind of a reaction I would have missed it.
What's Hiro's plan? What does he gain from taunting Shino like this? All that's going to happen is Shino will attack. Hiro doesn't even have a defense up.
More insects flow out of Shino and join the rapidly growing cloud. There's so many beetles that the buzzing of their wings is becoming audible.
Shino raises up his right arm fully and points at the still fear faking Hiro. "Drain him dry."
The entire swarm comes to life, no longer are they idly standing by near Shino, they're doing as ordered to. They're attacking.
"Oh dear! Whatever shall I do now?" Hiro flamboyantly says. Then a his faces twists into something sinister. "Perhaps this?"
His hands blur as he moves through hand seals at a rapid rate. He takes a deep breath, then shouts "Fire Release: Fire Wave!"
True to it's namesake, a literal wave of pure fire pours out of Hiro's mouth and completely engulfs Shino's swarm. He taunted Shino to get an overwhelming number of insects set at him so that he could capitalize on the only time he could surprise Shino.
...
"What?!" I shout. He shouldn't be able to use fire techniques! He told me himself! Wind and earth! Ikki even commented how weird it was for someone to have both! Hell I saw him use earth, I know he has that one. Did he lie or does he have all three? How could he have all three?
~Host, he has all three now. Back when you two first met he did not lie, he only had earth and wind.~
So he does have all three then. How is it possible for someone to train up an element in such little time? Hell how is it possible he has all three? That's the bigger worry. If Taki discovered a way to unlock multiple affinities easily then their standing in the shinobi hierarchy just skyrocketed. I don't remember that ever happening in cannon and there's no way in hell my presence changed what goes on in Taki of all places. The plot is super fucked up if that's the case. It could change everything.
Wait. Just hold on a second, Hiro is from Taki. I already know of something from Taki that grants multiple affinities, one could say that I'm intimately familiar with it. But they shouldn't have it. Kakuzu took it and Taki has never been able to re-create it since. Or have they? Could it be that they've never been able to find a host without knowing Kakuzu's bonding process? Could it be that Hiro got lucky, like I did?
Does he have the Jiongu?
~It's possible, no matter how improbable. It would also explain why he feels familiar to me and his strange fixation on you. Could it be that he feels the same familiarity and is misinterpreting it?~
"Fuck me." The words escape my lips. Whoops, probably shouldn't have let that slip.
"What's going on?" Sasuke asks. "Something wrong?"
"Sort of." Should I tell Sasuke? Can I reveal it to him with everyone present? Well, he's not the one that might be fighting Hiro, I am. He technically doesn't need to know. "If Hiro wins my next fight got a lot more interesting."
"Should I be concerned?"
"Nah. Now back to the fight."
...
"So bug boy," Hiro idly dusts his hands off. "now what's your plan? How many bugs you got left after that? And how many more are you willing to sacrifice?"
Shino's hand twitches. Hiro pushed one of the most sensitive buttons Shino has, he is belittling his beetles. "I still have enough. Burrow."
"Burrow?" Hiro tentatively looks at the ground. "You have some beneath me- OW!"
Hiro smacks a hand onto his thigh, as if he swatted a pesky mosquito.
"OW!" This time he smacks his chest. "OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! DUDE! Bug bites aren't going to win you the fight! They're just annoying!"
"They aren't biting you." Shino helpfully informs his prey. "They're doing what I commanded, burrowing. They're going into your body and finding your weak points. Your most vulnerable targets, most major organs, nerve clusters, large veins and arteries, even places on you spinal cord. Once they're in position, a simple command from me will have them slowly start biting it. At first it will only feel like a needle prick, then the pain will grow. Eventually you will bleed out and become paralyzed and then you will die."
Hiro quits swatting at random places on his body to look Shino dead in the eyes. "Dude. That's gross. How do they even know where to go?"
"They live inside me, they have first hand knowledge of the inter-workings of the human body." Shino calmly explains. "Now, will you surrender? Or will you force my hand? If you surrender, I will withdraw all of my beetles without damaging you further."
"Hmm... tempting offer." Hiro idly taps his chin in thought, then something happens to him. Tendrils of something shift under his skin, it looks eerily like his veins bulged and came alive for a few seconds.
Most everyone missed it, I didn't. Judging by the gasps from Hinata and the sharp inhale from Neji, they didn't miss it either.
"Interesting." Neither did Orochimaru.
"What was that?" Shino asks. "You did something."
"Yep! I killed all of your bugs that were inside me." He shivers. "Oh gross does that mean there's squashed bug guts in me now?"
"... So it would seem." Shino turns to the proctor. "Eito-san, I surrender. I am not equipped to fight against him. Any more combat would further harm my hive and I lack the tools I need to defeat him."
"Winner by forfeit, Hiro of Takigakure!" Eito bellows out. "Talk about an underwhelming fight. At least the last one was flashy."
He's not wrong. Lee and my fight was very aesthetically pleasing, we were flashy and loud and very showy. Hiro and Shino's fight was how most shinobi battles will happen, quietly, decisively and as quickly as possible. Prolonged combat is a bad idea for shinobi, the longer your opponent is alive the more time they have to come up with a plan to defeat or even kill you.
Unless, of course, the power gap between opponents is ridiculous. Take my run in with Kisame for example, he toyed with me. He could have ended that fight quickly, but he didn't have to. He knew that even if I had weeks, months to prepare he'd still win. So he figured why rush?
"Leader-chan!" Hiro sweetly calls out as he cheerfully trots back to our table. "Did you see that? Was it cool or what!"
"Oh she's practically smitten with you!" Sasuke answers before I could. "She was so worried for you the entire time!"
"He's lying." I growl out. "I couldn't care less."
A pleased smile forms on Hiro's face. "Leader-chan, you don't have to hide your feelings!"
"NO!" Lee suddenly shouts out. "She is supposed to be my beautiful budding orchid!"
"Yeah you tell him Lee!" Tenten eggs him on.
"She's clearly taken by me." Hiro does a quick once over on Lee. "Clearly I'm the superior specimen."
"Will both of you please just SHUT UP!" I shout out, drowning out all other conversation. "Hiro!" I whirl on him. "I don't like you. Get it through your thick skull, it's not changing. EVER. Lee!" I whirl on him. "I don't like you either! I'm not your damn tulip or whatever the hell you call me! Now leave me the fuck alone!"
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :
p atreon.com/CarriePoppins