~Soutarou POV, scene continues~
Soutarou began to despair, 'Damn… Is this the end?'
Soutarou's gaze turned misty and somewhat hazy as his short renewed life began flashing before his gaze hardened.
'If I'm going to die I'll take you with me!'
Just as he was about to throw himself at the man then use his chakra to blow up his body. He felt a subtle chakra fluctuation. Internally he lit up, but externally he maintained his grim expression.
'Naori…?'
As the electrified water became nonexistent, Soutarou tumbled onto the ground and purposefully sent a large amount of dust flying trying to create a momentary smoke screen as a shadow clone with beyond half of Soutarou's remaining chakra shot off of him and he flickered away towards Naori. He halted his flickers and began running towards Naori's hiding spot all while spending a good chunk of the remainder of his chakra to heal his bleeding and injured hand before ripping out bandages from his ninja pouch and wrapping it up as well as he could while on the run.
As for his shadow clone, it feigned exhaustion and falling to the ground.
'I'm not sure if this will work… But… If it does… This battle is over!'
Soutarou's shadow clone's body lit up with chakra as if hid its hand behind its back and remained breathing heavily and kneeling on the ground with one of his eyes half-lidded. Tetsuro dropped down and maintained distance, smirking deeply and saying, "Finally giving up kid? I'll be honest I've never thought that a kid could escape death from me for so long. A pity you have to die here… If we were the same age- No if you were even ten years older, I imagine I'd be the one panting from exhaustion and half way into my grave… Unfortunately for you… That's just not how things went. As a sign of respect, I won't go looking for the girl. Give in, brat."
Soutarou's shadow clone gritted and spat out, "Go to hell!"
Soutarou's clone shot towards the man and he smiled, his arm coated with earth and the two engaged for a moment before the man punched out and Soutarou slid under his guard and grabbed the man's arm and his chakra lit up and bursted the clone in a booming explosion.
The memories of the shadow clone hit Soutarou and he grinned, "Like I said… Go to hell!"
Just as Soutarou's guard dropped for a moment a hand shot out of the ground and nearly grabbed his leg.
'Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu!'
Soutarou backed away weakly as his balance was off from the initial surprise and jutsu itself.
'WHAT? HOW-'
The man came out of the ground and smirked and said, "A good tactic kid… A very good tactic… You even hid your chakra well… If I didn't notice the girl's chakra you'd have succeeded. Whatever explosion jutsu you used… That shows you're too dangerous to be left alive. Making jutsu at your age. Most impressive. You have my earnest respect. Unfortunately this really is the end kid. Give up and I can still make it painless. As for the girl… That depends on whether or not you give up."
Soutarou darkly and grimly said, "Be honest… You wouldn't let her go regardless."
The man shrugged and said, "I was just trying to comfort you kid, you would've died in peace thinking you saved your comrade. That's just how this world works. We're shinobi. Not samurai. The value of our word is the same as nothing. Everything is a tool, a means to an end to get stronger or to kill your opponent. Take that as a lesson, and in the next life maybe you'll have better luck."
The man pulled out a kunai and tossed it right in front of Soutarou saying, "Even if we fought any longer… Do you think you'll seriously win? As for reinforcements… Like I said… In the eyes of the village you're still safely at home. We even sent a decoy there. This attack was not some arbitrary attack. So kid, give up. It'll be easier for the both of us."
Soutarou grimly stared before toothily smiling and saying, "You're right, reinforcements from outside might not come here… But who said anything about outside help?"
The man's eyes hardened for a second before a large fireball landed right where he was. The man's eyes narrowed as he flicked out of the range of the jutsu and a newly awakened and combat-able Naori with three spinning tomoe was revealed by Soutarou's side.
The man's eyes widened and he stared at Naori in horror as Soutarou smirked and said, "Thanks to you making me stab myself… Naori got a power up… I was just stalling until she was completely stabilized. Now then… Give up… Old man."
Soutarou kept spouting nonsense as he formed handsigns behind himself with one of his hands and he got Naori to do the same.
With Naori chiming in and adding on trying to stall for more time, "You chakra must be running out. By now… That earth clone Soutarou exploded had enough chakra for Soutarou to trade off… After Soutarou woke me up… How much longer can you even fight us?"
The man chuckled and warily smiled, "You got me… Or was that what you thought I was going to say?"
The man just clipped his Ninja tool pouch open and popped a pill into his mouth and said, "Here's lesson kids… The winner isn't decided only by the quality of their abilities… But on their ability to-"
Interrupting the man's attempt at breaking Soutarou's and Naori's morale, Naori's head craned back and a hand shot up as she spat out a massive column of fire.
'Fire Style: Fire Dragon Bullet'
With Soutarou following it up with the last bit of his usable chakra with a massive whirl of wind.
'Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!'
The two jutsu combined creating a massive fire maelstrom. All while they were forming their combined jutsu Soutarou had tossed his Ninja pouch over to Naori who tossed hers to Soutarou. Before she then fiddled with the metal wire and the few kunai and shuriken the pair had and sent them flying inside the whirlpool of fire straight at the man.
~Five minutes prior, Soutarou POV~
Creating a cloud of dust and leaving a shadow clone behind Soutarou thought, 'If this works… I should win…! But just in case…'
Another clone shot off of Soutarou with minimal chakra and it hid its chakra even better and headed straight to Naori unlike Soutarou's main body that was zigzagging towards her.
Once the clone got there it immediately dug the half-awake Naori and quickly explained the situation to her and helped her up, before throwing open her ninja pouch and feeding her a soldier pill before putting the other in her hand….
~Back at the actual battle, Soutarou POV~
Soutarou crunched down on the soldier pill and said, "He's in the ground again. Naori I'll take on the taijutsu role… You deal with long range. We need to force him off the ground."
Soutarou's leg lit up with chakra and Naori jumped onto a tree as Soutarou stomped with crazy strength and forced Tetsuro to surface amidst the blazing air, only for a dozen kunai and shuriken to flick towards him.
'Uchiha Style: Manipulated Kunai & Shuriken!'
The red glowing kunai yanked backwards right at the man who blocked the first six before five grazed him, and another clanged against his red vest.
Just as Tetsuro began gritting his teeth, Soutarou's glowing blue fist appeared. Tetsuro dodged, only for Soutarou's other hand to jab forwards with a similarly blue glowing kunai to slash his lumbar region as he tried to twist away from the attack. Before a fireball rained down on his location forcing him up onto a tree where the wired Kunai once again aimed for his legs. As he dodged and avoided the blow Soutarou appeared behind him and targeted his head once more, just as he dodged down Naori followed it up with her continuously reused kunai.
Tetsuro sighed and grunted, before beginning to form handsigns while diving downwards. Just as he tried to reach the ground, Soutarou jabbed his chakra coated kunai towards him again, with no choice Tetsuro twisted and allowed the kunai to graze him, before he kicked and sent Soutarou stumbling away from him. All before Tetsuro landed and slammed his hands onto the ground.
'Earth Style: Moving Earth Core'
Immediately a massive carter was formed,
Soutarou and Naori moved away and Soutarou's eyes glinted and he formed hand signs rapidly. All while inside of the carter Tetsuro formed hand signs again and massive spikes formed on the edges of the carter forcing Soutarou
'Earth Style: Earth Flow Spears'
Soutarou and Naori who had already moved away from the crater and towards the tree line. Before Soutarou craned his head back and spat out a massive column of water again trying to drown Tetsuro in his crater.
'Water Style: Water Colliding Wave.'
Before the water hit, Tetsuro formed a massive dome of earth, 'Earth Style: Earth Dome Prison.'
The massive wave just dumped water on top of the Iwa shinobi effectively trapping him there or so it seemed.
Soutarou just gritted his teeth and thought, 'This damn rat!'
Soutarou shouted out, "Naori, twenty feet on your six a clock side!"
Naori turned around and flung a kunai before forming a few handsigns and spitting out a flame, hitting Tetsuro only for it to turn into crumbling rock.
Soutarou gritted his teeth and said, "Back to back."
Soutarou and Naori pressed against each other and watched the ground as they stared at the ground on the tree branch they were on before Soutarou tapped her fist and pointed downwards.
Naori, who had more chakra left and was regenerating chakra faster, created two shadow clones with minimal chakra before sending them to the ground as Soutarou and hid her chakra only for spikes to jut out of the ground immediately.
Soutarou muttered, "He's getting serious… Naori keep your sharingan open as long as you can."
Naori groaned softly and said, "I can't hold on much longer… My chakra's still a mess…"
Soutarou whispered back, "I know just hold out for a bit longer… I can feel that Kakashi and Tekuno managed to take down one of the chakra signatures they were fighting… Just a little longer and they'll break through."
Naori weakly replied, "Ok… Just promise me you won't…"
Soutarou said, "Well… On the upside if I do die… Maybe you'll awaken your Mangekyo… you can just get vengeance for me-"
Naori rasped, "NO!"
Soutarou lightly tapped her and said, "Focus… We're going to lose at this rate…"
Soutarou continued with narrowed and grim eyes, "This guy's a top tier jonin… The fact that even managed to hurt him as much as we did is just luck combined with him not taking us seriously… Now he's turtled up-..."
Naori and Soutarou jumped up as a spike jutted out of the ground, before they landed and it happened again.
Soutarou's eyes widened and he questioned, "How can he do it back to back…? No hand sign time-"
Soutarou jumped again as him and Naori began what could effectively be called a game of whack a mole, but they were the ones being whacked.
Soutarou's eyes turned grimmer and grimmer by the second, 'How can he have this much chakra?!?!'
Naori on the other hand had closed her sharingan. And small tears of blood formed on the edges of her eyes making Soutarou grit his teeth and say, "Don't use your sharingan… and if we make it out of this… Don't use them for a while afterwards… or at least not until I tell you too…"
Naori wearily nodded before leaning onto Soutarou who then moved in front of her and grabbed her arms over his shoulders and whispered for her to jump on….
'Damn we're back to square one…'
Soutarou glanced back as he continued to jump around with Naori now on his back…