Second Chance

Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Heedless of What's in it's Path
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"The last match of the first round will be Sabaku no Gaara vs Higurashi TenTen. Both fighters ready? Good. Begin." As soon as Genma finished his Sentence TenTen jumped back trying to put as much distance between her and Gaara as possible. She knew that it was not an effective strategy but she needed time and the further the sand had to travel the more time she had. Taking a calming breath she withdrew two scrolls and placed them beside her flying through a chain of handseals. As the scrolls rose from the ground she followed them up and gritted her teeth. She had no room for error.

"Soshoryu!" She yelled and began to release a hail of sharpened kunai. She had spent part of the month ensuring that this technique was perfect. Releasing the stored kunai in the scrolls she watched carefully as each headed straight for their mark. Gaara merely looked on impassively as the weapons came near and his sand rose to shield him. At first it was just a hail of kunai, then there were shuriken, maces, swords, tantos and spiked clubs. Weapons of all kinds and hailed down on him from the girl above and yet, none of them connected with the red haired boy.

As the scrolls fully emptied TenTen wasted no time as she landed and immediately released the shuriken she had sealed in the arm bands she had worn that day. Dashing around the boy she continued releasing shuriken after shuriken without break. None passed the sand barrier and all of them clattered to the ground. As the last shuriken was thrown she quickly replaced further away and watched as the log that had taken her place was mercilessly crushed.

"What is TenTen doing?!" Sasuke snapped turning to look at Naruto who was quiet watching the battle with a critical eye. "She's going to get herself killed!"

"Calm down Sasuke. She knows what she's doing. Look at her eyes. She expected the outcome. I know that she wouldn't have gone through with the fight without a plan."

"What plan?" He hissed. "She's just using a more complicated strategy then the one that she used against Temari the first time that they fought." Naruto turned to look at his friend and placed his hand on his shoulder.

"You have to calm down and have faith in her, Teme." He whispered making Sasuke's eyes widen. "In our time she didn't have the training she has now. She won't make the same mistakes. She knows what she's up against. I know that your worried and that you don't want to see her die again. I don't either."

"Sorry..." Sasuke whispered. The memory of the last time she had used the technique was still a sore point for the two time travelers. She had stayed behind to give her team time to escape and call for back up. Sasuke and Naruto had been the ones sent to deal with the reported forces and they had arrived just in time to see her attack backfire. The Kumo nins had used the trail of metal weaponry as a lightning rod. When the attack connected with TenTen, they had still been to far away to save her. One single second more was all they had needed. Needless to stay they had hated the attack ever since.

Cursing, TenTen was forced to halt whatever she had planned next in favor of performing several replacements to escape the sand that was now pursuing her. Gaara had gotten tired of waiting. Jumping immediately after replacing, TenTen landed on the stadium wall in order to take a breather. She couldn't keep wasting her chakra.

'Just one more component. I'm always ready.' She thought looking down at the jinchuriki. She knew that she had no chance at winning. However, that wasn't the point of this. The point was to remove Gaara from the invasion altogether so that Naruto could focus on Orochimaru. She hoped that her fight combined with Naruto's would be enough to do that. Reaching towards the second set of seals she nodded to herself and unsealed the item within. It was about the same length as a wakizashi and was modeled after the Nuibari. However, where the nuibari was a choto, hers was shorter and lighter as it was meant to be a distance weapon. Once more she jumped in the air directly above the jinchuriki and launched several of the swords at him. Only there was one difference.