NA - Chapter 69: A Hard-Earned Victory

Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its characters belong to Shueisha and Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I create.

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

-Author notes-

Chapter 69: A Hard-Earned Victory

Now that Ino understood the dangers of approaching her opponent, she began to formulate another plan.

She wasn’t as clever as her teammate, Shikamaru, but her head wasn’t empty either.

Zaku grunted.

“Damn it…” Now he had revealed his strongest weapon and was even more injured than before, making it harder for him to move.

His ‘air cannon’ was deadly at close range, but it quickly lost power as it traveled further away. Now that his opponent had seen this, she would likely try to defeat him from afar.

“Take this!” Ino shouted.

As Zaku had predicted, she began to throw shuriken at him while moving around the room, keeping a good distance away.

Zaku used his own kunai to deflect her attacks, but each move he made brought him excruciating pain. He knew he wasn’t going to last long enough for the girl to run out of things to throw at him.

‘I have to do something…’ If she wasn’t going to approach him again, he would have to be the one to move.

Running in his current state was impossible… but there was another way.

Zaku waited for the opportune moment while deflecting as many attacks as he could. Still, several shuriken had embedded themselves in his body.

He ignored the pain as much as he could and continued to hold out patiently, until…

“Tsk!” Ino went to grab more shuriken, only to realize they were the last ones she had.

She threw them out, and one of them almost hit Zaku right in the face, but he managed to move at the last second, only receiving a nasty cut on his cheek.

‘Almost had it!... Wait, I still have plenty of kunai.’ Ino calmed herself.

She adjusted her belt to have easier access to them, but this left a small gap in her flurry of attacks.

And this was exactly what Zaku had been waiting for.

He moved his hands behind his back and used his air cannon at full power.

“Ahh!”

He felt his bones creak and begin to shatter as his body was propelled like a bullet, directly towards his target.

Ino’s eyes widened.

“No!!” She couldn’t move out of the way in time.

Zaku collided with her and gripped Ino by the shoulder, sending them both tumbling on the ground.

They screamed in agony as their bodies continued to hit the hard ground. Zaku had taken the most damage due to all the shuriken embedded in his body. The tumbling made those blades rip his flesh apart more with each bounce.

His body was cut, bruised, broken, and more… but despite all of this, he was now exactly where he wanted to be.

No matter how much it hurt him, he never let go of Ino, and now he was lying on the ground right next to her.

“Urgg…” Ino grunted in pain and made an attempt to stand up and assess the situation.

Just then, Zaku turned around and pushed his body on top of hers.

“Hey! What are you…?” She watched in horror as Zaku lifted himself slightly, keeping his left arm on her shoulder and pressing her body down while his other arm hovered over her head. She didn’t need to ask what he was planning to do next.

Ino couldn’t escape from her current position with brute force, but her hands were free at least, so she made some hand signs and used the only jutsu she could think of.

“Yin Release: Mind Body Switch!”

A flash of light came out of her and hit Zaku on the chest.

Then… they both collapsed.

The audience watched with rapt attention as Ino and Zaku lay on the floor.

A short moment later, Zaku opened his eyes and began to stand up.

Hayate was watching closely. He had a good understanding of how the Yamanaka jutsu worked. Now, all that was left was to see if it had succeeded.

Out of nowhere, Zaku began to scream, taking everyone by surprise.

“What’s wrong with him?! Did Ino’s jutsu fail?” Sakura exclaimed.

“Did she go inside his mind?” Naruto asked. He had seen this before when her father used a similar jutsu on him.

That one was a bit different, as the Yamanaka Patriarch wasn’t trying to control his body, just taking a peek into his mind.

“Yes, that is the Yamanaka specialty,” Kakashi answered.

“But she didn’t take into account how badly damaged that body was and how much pain she was going to experience once inside… That boy had a lot of mental fortitude to be able to continue under those circumstances.”

“Come on, Ino! You can’t stop now!” Sakura shouted.

"Ino, you can do it!" Choji pushed away his shines and shouted.

"Ino...you got too far to lose now. " Shikamaru muttered.

Zaku gritted his teeth and barely managed to stand on his shaky legs.

“I… I…” He lifted his arm.

“I… surrender…”

Once Ino forced the words out of Zaku’s mouth, she immediately cut the connection and everything went dark.

She opened her eyes back on her own body and with a lot of effort, she was able to put herself in a sitting position.

Zaku’s body collapsed again and did not stand back up.

“Winner, Yamanaka Ino!” Hayate announced.

"I...won..." She was so exhausted that as soon as the referee announced it, she felt her heavy lids close again and fell back on the ground.