fighting the Lion of fire

When the four shinobi and three clients arrive at the restaurant they decide to make it their base before gathering intel on their enemies the next day. While staying at the restaurant they get treated to the curry of life, curtesy of the owner, an old lady who just gets called grandma Sansho, with only Lee enjoying its taste, while the rest think their mouths will melt from the heat.

Early in the morning two of the clients barge into their room all riled up, telling them that the third member of their group has left to look for his most likely already dead friend.

The four shinobi immediately head out to the village, arriving on a ledge overlooking the mines, where people are in a constant stream of moving in and out of it, carrying rocks to a refinery while men from the Kuzuki clan stand guard.

"I'll go take care of the situation, before the old man gets hurt." Lee informs his teammates, already jumping down to the four Kuzuki clan members standing around an old man who's gathering the rocks he dropped.

"Lee, wait!" Tenten tries to stop him but the green spandex wearing teen already has his mind set on helping the man and quickly knocks out the Kuruzuki member, waving to the others to follow once they are dealt with.

"Are you OK mister?" Lee asks the old man, offering him his hand.

"What did you do? Quick, kick me, punch me anything. If they find out you rescued me I'm done for." The old man says scared.

"What? No." Lee refuses.

"Then I'll do it myself." The man says, punching himself in the face a couple of times, before a gong is heard coming from the mountains above the mine.

"What does that gong mean?" Jiang asks, looking at the building in the distance the sound is coming from.

"It signalizes a burial. Rokusuke was found earlier this morning and will be buried alive as we speak." The man informs them.

"Rokusuke? He's our client." Lee says, looking at his comrades, who nod in agreement to the unasked question, taking off to the grave site, where they take cover behind some graves, before attacking the Kuzuki clan, who is standing around the coffin Rokusuke is in, once Neji checked for traps or an ambush.

Once Neji gives the signal the four Konoha ninja jump out from their cover, Lee storming at a group if three people standing close together and with a shout of "Lotus of Konoha" he quickly knocks them all out with kicks to their faces as he's turning in the air.

At the same time Neji uses his juken on four people who surround him, knocking them out as well. Tenten gets a pair of Tonfa's from her sealing scroll and knocks out three more people.

Jiang on the other hand appeared in between two people, grabbing their faces and electrocutes them, the two falling over dead before they hit the ground.

When he's reaching for the last man, Lee stops him, kicking his arm to the ground, where a fist sized hole forms from Jiang's lightning cloak.

"What are you doing?" Jiang asks, reaching for his trident on his back.

"That is grandma Sansho's grandson. The one she asked us to bring back to a rigeaus path." Lee tells Jiang.

"Lee?" Karashi asks shocked, lying on the ground in an earlier attempt to dodge Jiang's attack.

"Yes Karashi. It's me." Lee answers, pulling him up by his collar and looks him in his eyes, before lecturing him about his life's choices and for affiliating with the Kuzukis.

In the meantime, Neji and Jiang get Rokusuke out of his coffin.

"There is someone else." Jiang says, looking in the direction of Raiga, who is watching them from a mountain ledge, hidden for their eyes.

"Are you sure?" Neji asks, activating his Byakugan, but can't find anyone.

"Yeah. I'm guessing it's Raiga. You should get our client to safety, I'll go deal with him." Jiang suggests.

"No, that's too dangerous. Karashi bring Rokusuke back to the village. You promised to repent for your actions, right? Then that starts here." Neji tells the young man, who nods as if on autopilot.

"Good, come on guys. Our mission isn't over yet." Neji says, running up the mountain with his team, Lee being dragged along by Jiang, since the Taijutsu expert can't use the tree walking technique well enough.

When they reach the platform, Jiang sensed the enemy from the area is covered in mist.

"Guess it isn't called village hidden in the mist for nothing." Jiang says, trying to see any sign of their opponent.

"Come on, let's take cover while I access the situation." Neji orders and the group hides behind some boulders.

Neji quickly locates their enemies with his Byakugan and they disperse, everyone heading for their targets, only for them to turn out to be a rock or a tree, which have their own chakra network however, formed by a powerful illusion apparently.

Over their location Raiga uses a lightning technique, sending a bolt of lightning towards each of them to stun them. For three of the four people distracted by the illusions this works. Jiang however, with his strong affinity for the element uses his lightning cloak, the technique simply getting sucked up by his armor.

Jiang speeds to the top, where Raiga has his three-pronged swords in the floor because of the technique and kicks him away, making him land against a mountain wall, with the nin almost dropping his sword from the violent impact. As he got kicked away however Raiga lost a bag he carried on his back previously.

"Ouch." A voice comes from the bag, catching Jiang's attention.

"So you are the troublemaker." Jiang says, moving towards the bag, his double trident in hand.

"Ranmaru!" Raiga shouts worried, running at Jiang, who simply twirls his trident over his neck, changing hands and stabs the approaching sword nin in his stomach, speeding over to him before he reached his position.

"You really had bad luck at having me as your opponent." Jiang says, pushing his trident through the man's stomach with a lightning empowered kick to the back of it with the bottom of his shoe and then delivers a roundhouse kick to the man's neck, which crunches under his increased power before the defeated sword nin flies back into the mountain wall, getting buried by rubble with only his swords sticking out from under the pile.

"Now to deal with you." Jiang says, picking up his bloodied trident, swirling it around his wrist with incredible speeds, the blood being flung off, while his lightning cloak dissipates.

"Wait!" Neji stops him, running over to the bag, tsking out a small boy.

"What is it?" Jiang asks.

"He's just a child." Neji says.

"So? At his age I already killed dozens of men." Jiang says, thinking back to his past in his war-torn country.

"We should try to help him instead of executing him. Maybe Raiga coerced him." Tenten says.

"Raiga is my friend. We are the same. We are one person." Ranmaru tells them.

"Let's take him back to grandma Sanshou. Maybe she knows how to help him." Lee suggests.

"Fine, since you all seem to agree on that, I won't fight it. I'm just warning you. His power is not dismissible. If we're not careful he can kill us." Jiang tells them, securing his weapon on his back and walks ahead to the village, with Lee carrying the boy.

"You didn't really want to kill him, did you?" Tenten asks, walking up to him, the other three still a handful of steps behind them.

"I do. On a rescue mission back in my country we rescued a young boy of royalty. He insisted we bring along his friend. A kid we knew nothing about, but we thought nothing of it at the time. The next night I awoke to screaming, but by the time we got to the neighboring tent that small child killed the royal and 10 of my comrades in their sleep. And after my last battle as general I swore to do everything I can, to never lose a comrade again." Jiang explains, leaving Tenten stunned at the story.

"Just what country are you from?" She asks shocked.

"None within elemental nations. It's in a constant state of war, driven by greed of the men in power.

"In one day, the same amount of people die there, that die in Kumogakure over the last 3 years." Jiang answers.

"Sounds pretty bad." Tenten says sympathetically.

"You have moments of joy, friends, comrades but in the end everything can be taken from you in just one day." Jiang says saddend.

"Neji. I sense that something is wrong here. Can you see anyone?" Jiang asks when he stops at the path down to the village with Tenten.

Neji scans the area with his Byakugan and spots 8 men hiding behind some bounders which are held back by wooden poles, to be used as a surprise attack.

"There is an ambush ahead. On that ridge." Neji says, pointing at their opponents hiding spot.

"Let me take care of this." Jiang says, already walking to his target, sticking his feet on the mountain wall, walking along it on its side.

"But we are here as a team." Neji says, disagreeing. He knows Jiang could have done the whole mission on his own, but they are supposed to be a team.

"Let him deal with this. The boy brought up some pretty dark memories." Tenten tells her best friend.

"Fine. I don't like it though." Neji accepts and the three make their way down the path, while Jiang takes position above the 8 enemy ninjas, going through handsigns, before aiming his palms towards the men below him, shouting "Raiton, Dragon bullet." And moments later the 8 men look up in fear as a lightning strike in the shape of a dragon crashes down on them.

Jiang quickly joins the others and they make their way to the village.

"Should we hang him? Or beat him like the Kuzuki did to us every day?" The group hears, seeing the villagers standing around Karashi, who has a busted lip, black eye and several shod prints on his clothes.

"Everyone. I beg of you. Leave him to me. Karashi only got this hungry for power, after seeing how strong I am. I will take responsibility for him and will deal with him if he steps out of line." Lee begs the villagers, kneeling next to Karashi, having handed off Ranmaru to Tenten.

"Fine. You deserve our thanks Konoha ninja. And Karashi never harmed us directly, he was just hanging around with them." A villager says, with the others nodding in agreement.

The group if now 6 people then head back to the curry shop. Where they hear of a storm heading their way and Sansho's need for help to prepare the building for the coming storm.

They quickly agree to help secure the building the next day, having to stay there anyways so they don't get caught in the storm on the open road.

That afternoon however Ranmaru and Karashi are left alone in the shop while everyone else is helping gather enough wood to secure the restaurant.

After a few hours of chopping down trees and into planks Tenten volunteers to go check on Ranmaru and Karashi.

Another hour later the storm's black clouds are already visible to them.

Seeing the ominous thunder from where they last saw Raiga, Jiang asks "Hey, where is Tenten?"

"She went to check on Ranmaru while you were bringing trees. She should've been back by now." Neji tells him, also wondering what's taking his teammate so long.

"I'll go search for her. I have a bad feeling about that thunder. It's not normal." Jiang tells Neji and Lee.

"OK, we'll finish here and then head back, we'll probably meet back at the restaurant then." Neji agrees.

"Let's hope so. Summoning jutsu." Jiang says, summoning the same lion he summoned during their break the other day.

"Jiang? What are you doing? You know my father will punish you for summoning me before winning the duel." Kumatachi tells Jiang confused as to why he'd risk summoning him.

"Earlier when you met Tenten. You left your scent on her am I right?" Jiang asks, getting a nod positive from the massive summon.

"Good. Track it." Jiang says, jumping on his back.

"Alright." Kumatachi says sniffing the air and runs off through the forest at incredible speed.

"Why would you risk summoning me? You know how he gets." Kumatachi asks his summoner while tracking Tenten via his scent.

"You're the only one who can locate her. Even if I asked another summon in this rain if they don't have a specific scent to follow it'd take forever to find her and I have a bad feeling about that thunder." Jiang informs his summon.

"Alright. Just be aware there will be repercussions." Kumatachi says.

"I know." Jiang says.

After about 5 minutes the two arrive at the spot where Raiga's body was, seeing the man standing in front of a unmoving Ranmaru and Karashi, facing Tenten, who is backed up against a rock, a cut on her left leg and many of her weapons littering the floor around her and Raiga.

"Get her out of here. Bring her to the curry shop at the base of the mountains." Jiang tells Kumatachi, activating his lightning cloak and reappears in front of Tenten, blocking Raiga, who swung both his swords down at the girl with his trident, behind his back.

"You'll be fine now." Jiang says, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, his lightning cloak dispersing to not hit her accidentally and he jumps back to Kumatachi, lifting her on top of the summon, which immediately takes off, with Tenten complaining about leaving him behind.

"You know, you should have used your newfound life to take your friend and never appear again. Too bad you missed that chance." Jiang tells Raiga darkly, his lightning cloak forming around him again.

"Ranmaru is dead and you are to blame. You Konoha ninjas." Raiga curses angrily, lightning striking down on him, covering him in the element while the same happens to Jiang.

"He isn't dead. He's weak but he will life." Jiang tells Raiga, readying his double trident in front of him.

"Raaagh." Raiga yells, storming towards Jiang with his blades at the ready. Jiang stands his ground, waiting for Raiga to close in and blocks Raiga's wild downward swing with both his blade with the middle of his trident. He pushes back against the man, throwing him away a few meters and dashes after him, reappearing next to him while he's still flying backwards and slashes down at him, cutting him deep into his stomach, lightning crushing the ground where he just hit.

"Ack. You are even better than I thought. Where did you learn that jutsu?" Raiga compliments him, holding his bleeding stomach.

"From the Raikage of Kumogakure." Jiang answers, his anger still flaring at nearly loosing a teammate and lightning thrashes all around him.

"Shall we end this in one blow?" Raiga asks.

"Fine with me." Jiang says, stabbing his trident in the ground, leaving a large scorch mark around it when lightning strikes down on it.

"Can you do me one favor if you win? Can you take care of..." Raiga asks.

"No." Jiang cuts him off, only his arm enveloped in lightning chakra, a continuous lightning bolt from the skies above them hitting his arm while he has his four-finger spear technique active, but instead of the usual few centimeters of lightning in front of his fingers there is a 30 centimeter long lightning blade in front of them.

Raiga drops his weapons stunned, just as Jiang swings his hand while dashing towards him, the mountain top to Jiang's right having deep carves from lightning randomly shooting off his arm, before the attack takes over Raiga's entire body, leaving nothing of him behind when Jiangs attack hits him, the only sign of Raiga's existence being two metallic bangs coming from his blades dropping to the floor in front of Jiang.

"I will not lose a comrade again." Jiang says, falling to his knee exhausted from the large amount of chakra he used and sits down cross-legged, storing the blades in one of his scrolls.

"Jiang. I knew you would deal with that punk easily." Kumatachi says, arriving behind him.

"How's Tenten?" Jiang asks.

"She's fine. Her leg won't take longer than a few days to heal." Kumatachi reports.

"Good. Can you do me one more favor?" Jiang asks.

"What is it?" The lion replies.

"Take those two back as well and tell the other to stay away from this mountain. They can leave without me if I'm not back by tomorrow's sundown." Jiang says, seeing the sun going down faintly, through the thick clouds.

"Alright. And good luck, you're summoning my dad, right?" The lion asks, getting a nod positive.

"If I don't it'd hurt both our prides and what is a lion and his summoner without pride huh?" Jiang says with a slight grin, though his worry can be seen underneath.

"Don't die. I just got to taste fresh air you know." Kumatachi tells Jiang, leaving with the two unconscious boys.

"Phew. Alright, let's do this. Summoning jutsu." Jiang says after a minute or two, biting his thumb and summons the head of the wildcat fire element, a Lion who's the same height as Shukaku and just as wide as the sand racoon but four times as long, his mane burning in a dark red flame, with a black flame burning at the tip of his tail.

"Greetings Pyro-sama." Jiang greets the enormous lion with a respectful bow.

"Jiang. I had such high hopes for you. But you know my rules. Before summoning one of my kin you have to earn my allegiance." The Lion says in its dark booming voice.

"I am aware, but circumstances required your sons help. I am prepared to accept whatever punishment you see fit." Jiang tells him, sitting down on his knees in front of the lion, his trident lying next to him.

"At least you still have honor it seems. Fine I will overlook your actions with two conditions. First the duel will take place immediately and second, you have to receive one blow before we start." Pyro says.

"As you wish." Jiang says, looking at the large summon, who swings his tail, a puff of smoke appearing with a lioness, of normal size appearing next to Pyro.

"Pyro-sama, why have you called me?" The lioness asks, bowing its head to the mountain of a lion.

"I need you to strike our summoner with one hit as punishment for his ignorance of our rules before our duel can start." Pyro says.

"As you wish." The lioness says, walking over to Jiang.

"I have only heard good things about you from my mate. I hold no ill will towards you, but I have to follow my leader's orders." The lioness says.

"You are part of Kumatachi's harem I take it?" Jiang says.

"Harem? Kuma barely managed to get me around to be his mate." The lioness says laughing softly.

She then stops in front of him, slashing him across his chest, leaving four gashes over his left peck which bleed harshly.

"I don't want people to say I fought dirty." Pyro then says while the lioness disappears and the large lion licks over his wound with Jiang grunting in pain, the lion using his control over fire to sear the wound shut, stopping Jiang from losing any more blood.

"Now, Prepare yourself." Pyro tells him.

Jiang gets up, his feet buckling once, before he rights himself and grabs his trident tightly.

"I'm ready." Jiang tells the lion and the summon tries to crush him beneath his paw. Jiang is barely able to dodge to the side, the forcewave of the hit still sending him flying into a mountain wall. Pyro's eyes follow him and he jumps at Jiang moments after he crashes into the mountain.

Jiang raises his trident in time, stopping one of Pyro's huge claws from piercing right through him.

"You are giving me a way harder time than Abyss did." Jiang chuckles under his breath.

"Well, if you learned some katon jutsu you wouldn't be struggling like this would you?" The Lion remarks with a smirk on its face.

"I doubt shooting you with fire would even singe your fur." Jiang says.

"Oh, how very true. But maybe I'd be going easier on you, knowing you respect my element." The lion tells him confidently, swinging at him with his other paw, kicking up a massive cloud of dust when his claws rake through the mountain, with Jiang managing to slide underneath the attack and uses the dust as cover, reaching to his legs and pulls off the training weights Gai gave him over a week ago, throwing the heavy training equipment at the Lion's nose, making it take a step back in reflex.

Jiang speeds underneath one of his front paws and pushes against it hard, sending the lion crashing on his side.

"You think that will help you?" Pyro asks, his tail swinging at Jiang, who blocks the strike with his trident, using the force of the hit to his advantage however, slashing the lion over the bridge of his nose while he comes flying past its face, leaving a large gash on the nose.

"Lucky hit. But now I'll be taking you serious." The lion says amused, getting back on all fours and his cheeks swell up, before he releases a seemingly unending stream of flames while turning, creating a ring of fire around them.

The two then continue to fight for about three hours, with Pyro only having small cuts on his legs and some scratches on his back while most of Jiang's face is swollen, his left leg is broken and his torso is singed red in some places from his fire attacks, the warriors clothes now being only a pair of burnt shorts, that once used to be long cargo pants.

"You are a formidable opponent. I have been fighting you seriously for a while now and you are actually still alive. My next attack you won't survive though." The lion says, baring his human sized teeth at his summoner.

"Bring it on." Jiang says, his mind racing, before coming up with one last attempt to beat the summon.

'What did Gai say again? The first Gate removes all feelings of pain and fatigue from the body, enabling someone to use 100% of his bodies power.' Jiang thinks back, recalling how his teacher explained, how to open the gate.

Closing his eyes, Jiang concentrates for a moment, with Pyro starting to run towards Jiang.

Jiang manages to open his first gate, his body feeling as though he could fly and as though he could carry the mountain they are standing on, unknowingly absorbing Nature chakra from around him.

Sensing Pyro within reach of his hand Jiang's eyes snap open and he disappears from view, reappearing next to the Lion's head, its maw wide open to swallow him whole and he punches the lion's neck with all he has, causing a loud boom to sound throughout the area, when his fist connects with the lion, who skids backwards at the mountain, stunned and unable to get back up.

Jiang falls to the floor, landing next to a spear from Tenten's fight with Raiga, it having been one of the weapons she chucked at him and grips the weapon, sending it flying into the mountain, through the lions thick mane just under Pyro's throat, managing to say "if we have to fight again, I will aim for your throat." before passing out, the only movement on the battlefield being a slight shaking from Pyro, who then breaks out in loud laughter, his whole body moving because of it.

After a couple of minutes the lion recovers from Jiang's attack, which made him vulnerable and stands back up, wrapping his tail around Jiang and lifts him onto his back, making his way down the mountain, following the scent his son left behind earlier when he carried away Ranmaru and Karashi.

"What is that noise?" Grandma Sanshou asks, stepping out of her restaurant with her son, Ranmaru, who recovered after eating her curry of life and team 9.

"Woooow." Lee shouts excitedly, everyone seeing Pyro make his way towards them, his frame hulking over the trees, many of which he crushes simply walking over them, every step being heard as though someone is stomping right beside them.

"Who of you is Tenten?" The lion asks in his booming voice, the cutlery in the restaurant clattering quietly.

"I, I am." Tenten says, raising her hand cautiously.

The lion's tail then moves towards them slowly, unfurling on the way and deposits Jiang at the girl's feet while the three Genin are on guard.

"Tell him he passed." The lion says, before it disappears in a burst of smoke, leaving only Jiang and a trail of destruction from its massive paw prints, having created a path in the forest.

"Oh my god. What happened to him?" Tenten says worried, seeing the badly hurt form of Jiang.

"This doesn't look good. We need to get him to Tsunade quickly." Neji says.

"I will take that job. I will have him to Konoha within the next hour." Lee says, saluting, with his weights dropped into the ground, creating two massive craters.

"Yes. I think that's a good idea. We will be just behind you." Neji says, helping secure Jiang onto Lee's back after which the Taijutsu expert takes off, being out of sight after two seconds.

"Say, what do you think happened to him?" Tenten asks concerned.

"I don't know. Based on that lion talking about a test I guess he fought his summon." Neji says.

"But why would he do that? He said he wanted to fight it after the mission and I don't think he meant that soon after." Tenten tells him.

"I don't know. The smaller lion said something about a punishment for summoning it, maybe that has something to do with it, but you'll have to ask Jiang about that." Neji says.

"Right. I hope Lee makes it in time." Tenten says worried.

"If anyone can make it it's him." Neji says confidentially, picking up the pace while supporting Tenten's leg.