Satsuki cursed her redhead dumbass teammate with every vulgar vocabulary she knew of. Her older cousin, Shisui, had taught her most of it, spouted it when he thought she wasn't listening. Only years later did she realize that whatever he said was not meant for her ears.
Back to the problem at hand, Satsuki was still cursing the idiot's heroism attitude. Nuts, he shouldn't charge back to Konoha, leaving them with no communication with their village and the teleportation kunai was useless with no guide (not one of the remaining Genins know how to use it). It still bothered her too, about the Hiraishin Kunai.
Haruto was the Yondaime's son?
Satsuki had seen very little of the Fourth—who also had the shortest reign as Hokage, a pity really—but she dimly recalls that he had unruly red hair spikes and golden eyes and also did stupid heroic stunts as well. Her father had been in the Yondaime's class, and her mother was his teammate, along with this Uzumaki Kushina, their teacher had been Jiraiya the Sannin.
But even her parents had spoken scarcely of him, constantly exchanging strange nervous glances whenever she asked for more info as she had a history lesson to attend to. Haruto had the same looks and attributes, he was strong, Satsuki grudgingly admitted so the chances of Yondaime and Haruto being father and son wasn't too far-fetched after all.
How did she feel? Impressed, shocked, jealous, yes, all rolled in one.
Then Haruto dropped the bomb by saying he was like Gaara, except the thing he was hosting was far stronger than Gaara. Satsuki was flat-out jealous and mad at the unfairness of it all. With the Kyuubi, he was given a straight power-boost and coupled with the fact he was raised by all famed and powerful ninjas? He was stronger than her, whether she liked it or not, and she couldn't accept that. She'd always liked to think that they were on equal grounds, or that he was below her, that they were only an arm's length away from one another.
To know that he was so powerful…
Her inferiority complex kicked in which left her in a severely bad mood. Why, her mind screamed, enraged. Why am I so damn, fucking weak?! What do I have to do to get stronger?! I suffered, I knew pain that Senju hadn't suffered from before so why—
Why am I always the one left behind?
Yet, here she was, racing top speed back to Konoha to save the guy she was currently pissed at. Whenever she thought she had Haruto figured out, he always surprised her and she hated getting the unexpected—where she expected him to be angry, he smiled; when he was supposed to just let it slide, he got mad.
She hated getting taken off guard. Most likely stemmed from the fact that Itachi, who she thought she knew inside out, did the surprising, maddeningly insanely shocking thing and—
Stop, concentrate on your task at hand, her mind chided her, trying to stave away the painfully bloody image.
To distract herself, Satsuki studied the Hiraishin Kunai in her hands, a scowl creasing her brows as she wondered how to activate it. It looked and sounded easy to use. Just throw and she'd be there. What was she supposed to do? Throw it into the sky and hope it lands somewhere close to Konoha? Ridiculous. She wanted the damn kunai to bring her straight to another kunai holder, how does one do that?
Satsuki examined the seal with Sharingan, a very pointless act as her knowledge of fuinjutsu was close to zero. She knew nothing beside the usual seal, which involves sealing items into scrolls. But, from what she could deduce from what Haruto said ("As long as that somewhere has a seal, I can get there."), the Hiraishin sounded completely… double-edged. And that was putting it nicely. She didn't claim to be an expert but she could already see the flaws.
If the special kunai ran out or was destroyed, then what of the technique? She didn't create the Hiraishin, didn't spend days and sleepless nights creating it so she couldn't actually claim the technique was double-edged. She surmised that the Hiraishin was a teleportation jutsu, the key was the seal. The tags on the kunai.
Haruto slapped a tag on his enemy and was able to teleport there. There was a drawback, and it made Satsuki (though she would never admit it) worried. If Haruto was disoriented after he teleported, unsure of his surroundings as he could teleport everywhere (even places he'd never been to before), and couldn't immediately use it after, wouldn't he be exposed if he was outnumbered? Or, if the opponent was hopelessly stronger and faster?
Another fact bothered her: the technique was too tag-reliant. If she ripped it off, Haruto wouldn't have been able to teleport here. So, basically, if he lost his current kunai, he was absolutely helpless and unable to teleport anymore?
The tag had the kanji for summon. Did this mean that the Hiraishin was nothing but a Kuchiyose jutsu? Satsuki inspected the tag, placed her finger on it and felt it thrum with chakra. Haruto's chakra. He'd charged it up beforehand, and from what she could detect, the damn thing required a lot of chakra. The tag was to make up for it, she realized, the chakra needed to perform the technique and rip space open.
But, Haruto was the Kyuubi-container, had an amount of chakra so absurd it was impossible, why would he need the tag? If he knew the handseals needed for the technique, he could teleport anywhere without relying on the kunai!
The creator probably used the tag just because he didn't have enough chakra to teleport himself. But Haruto had more than enough.
Did the idiot realize that?
Considering that idiot, she doubted it. Her heart clenched. If he knew, he'd just get that much stronger. How was she to compete with a shinobi who could appear behind you in the blink of an eye?
She analyzed the Hiraishin (or what she knew of the technique anyway) critically, scrapping for a weak point. She came across one: if she simply became faster, she would still be able to defeat Haruto.
The Hiraishin was not a speed-technique. It was the summoning sort, and if the opponent had the Byakugan (which could see the chakra flow) or the Sharingan (though not as efficient at seeing chakra flows, she knew it would suffice) and could see where he'd teleport to, they would be able to get away with superior speed. And that is to say, they were fast enough, if Haruto was still faster though, his opponents were screwed.
And if he still insisted on using tags (no way was she telling the dope about her breakthrough), she could just place another 'disable' seal on the seal, rip it off if it was a tag or become fast enough to stop him once he teleported.
There was nothing to be worried about. The Hiraishin wasn't flawless and unstoppable. With the special kunais, Haruto would have to rely on how fast and far they would go. If they didn't hit its intended target, he wouldn't get there, the same applies for the place-and-seal. She had nothing to worry about but improving her speed.
Confidence flowed through her again. She could—
"Guys, we're here!" It was unnecessary for Kiba to shout it out but for Satsuki who had been distracted, she thought it was useful and later, pointless as the sounds of battle were still going on. "We've got to lend a hand!"
"Jump right into danger?" Choji squeaked, terror and nervousness in his eyes, he wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt as the walls within Konoha shook with the sheer force of battle. "Should we?"
Satsuki's lips curled at the blatant display of cowardliness.
"If we join the fight, we will be faced with the threat of killing people and getting killed," started Ino abruptly, her fists clenched by her side as determination burned in her eyes. Her new found bravery surprised Satsuki a little but the Uchiha didn't comment on it, merely silent and watching. "We'll watch as our comrades fall and die regardless of how hard we fight. If any of you are prepared to face all that, we can all join."
"Rather inspiring," remarked Shino calmly. "I'm in."
"Troublesome," grumbled Shikamaru, shoving his hands into his pocket. "But this is our village after all."
"I-I'm ready to d-do a-anything to protect my home!"
Sakura stared at her ex-friend, stunned, when did Ino mature? She swallowed, she wouldn't let her rival in everything get ahead of her. "I'm ready too!"
"Anything for the village, we'll show those bastards that we Inuzukas don't back down when our territory is threatened!" A bark followed in encouragement and agreement.
Tenten mustered a shaky smile. "It won't be my first time seeing blood spilled."
Eventually, everyone's eyes riveted to Choji who stood, trembling. The Akimichi heir had been brief about this, had been reminded countless times that Konoha was perpetually under the threat of attack and might fall someday. He was told to fight, trained to do so, in order to protect his village, and he'd listened, vowed to the night he was crowned heir. But when reality faced him, he found it hard to actually… do it.
He swallowed. "I… I—"
"We have no time to lose," interrupted Satsuki, looking mildly disgusted. It was cruel to do so to such an innocent boy who still hold onto his childhood innocence and dreams, but she wasn't ready to lose everything for one loser's hesitance. "You can stay or evacuate the civilians if you like, I have no time for this." And with that said, she was gone.
Ino hesitated, patting her teammate's shoulder once before she darted after the raven-haired nin. The others followed soon after, with little words of encouragement and gentle pats on his shoulders before the Konoha nins were swallowed by the sounds of battle and smoke screen.
Choji stared blankly after them. He had actually eavesdropped on Haruto's and Ino's conversation, and he admired the red haired boy. Haruto… he felt remorse for what he did yet he knew he couldn't stop, he continued to do so. He wanted to be a hero like the redhead and his father (the Yondaime was Haruto's dad, his mind screeched like a rabid fan-boy, but the shock was taking a far too long time to register) too, regardless of whatever stupid stunts the Senju had pulled when he was a child.
To take the life of another just to protect another… it was cruel but it was the life of a ninja. What would his own father say if he saw Choji hesitating like a coward he actually was? Yes, he knew he was a coward, timid and was scared of almost everything but what terrified him even more was that he'd lose everything and everyone if Konoha ever fell.
And, for once, he wanted to be the hero.
Staying where he was was no longer an option, with that grim thought in mind, he wiped away the tears and sweat and leaped after his friends.