Hey guys, here is the new chapter hope you will liked and read thru everything.
If we hit 200 PW I post a extra chapter.
Don't forget to leave your power stones along with your comment if you have any ideas or opinions that could help me, as well as a review to continue showing your support.
Enjoy the chapter!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Between the cracks of a rocky formation sheltered by the shadow of a massive canyon, Konoha's Team 8 was trying to catch their breath.
Resting on a flat stone were the two rewards of their grueling effort: the gold key and the silver key.
Kiba Inuzuka sat with his back pressed against the clay wall, sharing a canteen of water with Akamaru, who rested his head on Kiba's lap.
Beside him, Hinata Hyūga finished bandaging a scratch on her right arm while keeping her eyes fixed on the two keys. A few paces away, Shino Aburame stood motionless, allowing his Kikaichū bugs to slowly crawl back into his sleeves after completing their scouting rounds.
"We finally have both keys," Kiba said, letting out a sigh of relief as he scratched Akamaru behind the ears.
"It was pure hell getting the second one, but we're fully set. We just need to rest a bit, stay hidden, and head for the gate at dawn."
"We must not lower our guard, Kiba," Shino warned in his usual monotone yet cautious voice. "The noise and chakra activity we generated in our last battle may have drawn other teams. Now that we have both keys is precisely when we must be most careful."
"Shino is right," Hinata added, tightening the knot on her bandage. "There are still dangerous teams in this area of the desert. We should rotate shifts. We were lucky Team 10 was with us during our first fight, and even though the second team wasn't as strong, they still gave us trouble. None of us are at one hundred percent."
"I know, Hinata. Akamaru is exhausted, though he can keep going. That's why I suggested leaving in the morning. Who's taking the first watch?" Kiba asked.
Hinata and Shino exchanged a silent glance without a word, merely nodding before turning their eyes back to Kiba, who looked back at them in confusion.
"Uh, why are you two looking at me like that?" Kiba asked.
In response, his two teammates simply chuckled and began settling down to get as much rest as they could.
Kiba just stared at them, trying to figure out what was happening, until it finally clicked in his head: he was on first watch.
With both of them lying down, Kiba stood up and peer through the crack in their hideout.
The desert was colder at night than Konoha was in winter, and he had to thank Akamaru his fur was the perfect blanket against the chill.
Everything was pitch black and dead silent, which only made Kiba pull an amused, bored expression while stroking Akamaru.
However, before Kiba could relax, Akamaru's fur bristled along his spine, and he let out a low, menacing growl. At the exact same moment, Kiba's nose twitched violently.
"Damn it! Guys, wake up! We've got company!" Kiba shouted, leaping to his feet as he drew a kunai. "And they smell like someone we ran into not long ago!"
Both Hinata and Shino sprang up instantly, ready for battle. Hinata activated her Byakugan while Shino dispatched his insects to identify the intruders.
From the top of the rocks surrounding Team 8's hideout, three figures emerged against the twilight sky. There was no emotion on their faces only a cold, serious focus on their mission to secure the keys.
Sunagakure's Team B Kimimaro, Temari, and Kankurō had tracked them meticulously, knowing Team 8 possessed the two keys required to guarantee their passage to the next phase of the exams.
Furthermore, having noticed traces of prior combat, they knew Konoha's squad wouldn't be at full strength, making the conquest all the easier.
"Look at them. There they are," Temari said, resting her massive fan against her back. "Just as you said, Kimimaro both keys served on a silver platter by Konoha's trackers."
"They saved us all the search work," Kankurō remarked, cracking his knuckles as subtle threads of chakra glinted in the air. "Last time they had backup, but I doubt it today. So get ready, because I'm not holding back."
Kimimaro stepped forward to the edge of the cliff, glaring down at the three Konoha genin. His gaze was serene, devoid of a single trace of doubt.
"We know every one of your techniques," Kimimaro declared, his voice crisp and deep, echoing inside the rocky shelter.
"We know how you fight, we know your range, and we know exactly how to neutralize you. Hand over the keys, or I'll have to take them by force and it won't be pleasant."
"Not a chance, bonehead!" Kiba roared, his pupils narrowing into razor-thin slits. "Akamaru, let's show them what we're made of! I held back last time!"
"Jūjin Bunshin: Rōga Heikō (Human Beast Clone: Parallel Wolf Fang)"
In a puff of smoke, Akamaru transformed into an identical copy of Kiba. Without hesitation, both vaulted upward toward Kimimaro in a tight spiral, spinning at a destructive speed that sliced through the air like a circular saw.
The twin whirlwinds of fangs and claws bore down on Kimimaro. Yet Suna had already anticipated every single move Team 8 could make.
Kimimaro didn't even bother dodging the attack. He knew Kiba's technique relied entirely on linear kinetic force and lacked the piercing power to breach high-density structures.
Taking a firm step forward, Kimimaro extended his arms. In an instant, thick spurs of ultra-dense bone sprouted from his shoulders, elbows, and forearms through his Kekkei Genkai, the Shikotsumyaku.
"CLANG! CLANG!"
The collision between Kiba and Akamaru's claws and Kimimaro's bone armor produced a dry metallic screech, sending sparks flying in all directions.
The rotation and momentum of the Tsūga ground to a sudden halt. Kiba's claws shattered against the bone surface which was harder than steel and the painful shockwave traveled all the way up the Inuzuka's arms to his shoulders.
Before Kiba could react and cancel the technique, Kimimaro struck with terrifying precision.
Extending his right hand, he caught Kiba by the throat mid-air, killing his momentum instantly. At the same time, he delivered a bone-reinforced side kick to Akamaru's stomach, sending the dog crashing violently into the stone cliff face.
"Too straight. No variation," Kimimaro said coldly, exerting a crushing grip on Kiba's throat before slamming him brutally into the hard clay ground.
The impact fractured the earth and knocked the breath out of Kiba, two of his ribs snapping with a dull crunch. Kiba spat blood, completely unable to break free from the Suna shinobi's titanium grip.
Seeing Kiba taken out in seconds, Shino Aburame reacted instantly.
Extending his arms, he released a black swarm of thousands of Kikaichū bugs, directing them to surround the enemy team and drain their chakra.
"A swarm of bugs is useless against my wind!" Temari shouted.
Knowing Shino's insects consumed chakra, she adjusted her strategy: instead of a simple chakra-infused gust, she opted for a wide-scale, high-pressure storm. With a single fluid motion, Temari snapped open her giant fan, revealing all three purple moons.
"Fūton: Daitatsu no Mai!"
A devastating gale of slicing, high-pressure wind erupted from the fan. The blast didn't just break the Kikaichū formation in mid-air pulverizing thousands of bugs in a fraction of a second the shockwave slammed straight into Shino.
The Shino that took the brunt of the slash dissolved into sliced insects; it was a bug clone. Temari smirked, realizing her opponent wasn't completely helpless.
However, that changed nothing. Revealing another moon on her fan, she began channeling her chakra.
In a instant, a cloud of smoke erupted as a white scythe-weasel appeared perched atop her fan.
Without needing a single word, summon and master unleashed a storm of blades together.
"Kuchiyose: Kirikiri Mai!"
Under Temari's onslaught, every bug, rock, and speck of sand in the area was shredded and blown away.
Shino, who had used Substitution combined with a Genjutsu taught by Kurenai-sensei, tried to run from the zone of destruction. But it was impossible the area of effect was far too massive. That was when the blades caught him.
The attack shredded Shino's coat to ribbons, inflicting deep, bleeding lacerations across his arms, chest, and the rest of his body. The sheer pressure lifted him off the ground and hurled him violently against the rocks at the base of the canyon, leaving him slumped in his own pool of blood, unsure if he was already dead or soon would be from blood loss.
Kimimaro, watching the scene unfold, gave a single nod. He recognized how dangerous those insects could be and that eliminating such a threat quickly was essential though he silently noted that Temari might have gone a bit overboard.
Hinata Hyūga, witnessing both of her teammates crushed, pushed her Byakugan past its limits. The veins around her eyes bulged as she dropped into the Gentle Fist stance.
She knew Kankurō relied on puppets and that their theoretical weakness was the chakra threads controlling them.
"I won't let you hurt them anymore!" Hinata cried out, charging at top speed toward Kankurō to sever his threads with her chakra strikes.
"You walked right into the trap, Hyūga girl!" Kankurō sneered.
Kankurō anticipated the exact strategy any Byakugan user would attempt. Rather than maintaining his threads in a conventional line, he flicked his fingers, detaching the individual parts of his puppet, Karasu, in mid-air. The limbs and torso separated, deploying a barrage of hidden blades coated in a paralyzing poison.
Hinata dodged the incoming blades, deflecting what she could with her hands, but she knew she couldn't sustain it forever.
In her condition, defeating the entire enemy team was impossible, but she was determined to take Kankurō down with her.
Leaping to avoid a slash, Hinata tried to rotate mid-air to dodge the remaining fragments, but Kankurō had already laid his snare.
As Hinata crossed his line of attack, Kankurō flicked a finger, snagging her foot with a stray chakra thread and throwing her completely off balance.
Smirking as his plan unfolded, Kankurō wasted no time. Kuroari, his second puppet, burst from the ground directly in her blind spot.
Kuroari's metallic tail struck Hinata hard in the side, staggering her just as Karasu fired a point-blank volley of poisoned needles.
Two needles buried themselves into Hinata's shoulder and thigh. The toxin took effect almost instantly, dulling her nervous system. She dropped to her knees, unable to control her body as it felt a thousand times heavier and numbness spread through her limbs.
In under three minutes, the battle was over. Konoha's Team 8 lay broken on the dirt: Kiba and Akamaru severely injured and unable to stand, Shino bleeding out against the stone wall likely dead without immediate medical care and Hinata paralyzed by poison in the middle of the clearing.
Kankurō strolled over to the flat rock where the two keys lay, picking them up and stowing them into his tactical pouch with a satisfied grin.
"Both keys are ours," Kankurō said, looking down at the defeated Konoha genin. "What do we do with them, Kimimaro?"
Kimimaro walked over slowly and inspected Team 8's battered bodies, confirming they were still breathing.
"Leave them," Kimimaro replied, retracting the bone spurs back beneath his skin flawlessly. "They aren't a threat. Kankurō's poison will lose its lethal edge in a few hours, and if they don't get help, their own bodies will give out. Our objective is accomplished."
Temari snapped her fan shut with a sharp clack and strapped it back onto her shoulders.
"That was a quick win, but we have no time to waste. We need to reach the gate before nightfall."
Without another word, Sunagakure's Team B vanished into the shadows of the canyon rocks at terrifying speed, leaving the defeated Team 8 behind in the heavy silence of the desert.
Kiba, racked with pain throughout his ribs and body, let out a groan of pure agony and frustration. "Damn it... Why am I so weak...? They completely destroyed us..."
As for Shino, he lay completely still. Blood continued to seep from his wounds, while his surviving insects worked desperately to keep their host alive.
Hinata, feeling the paralyzing poison take over almost her entire body, closed her eyes in silence. She prayed that if there were any rescue squads out there, they would locate their position before total darkness descended upon the Demon Desert.
End of Chapter