6 Fists of Seasickness

“Hey! You!” Guy barked. “I’m not happy here, you know!”

Rahyo looked him over.

“Might Guy here knows only toooo well how you’re feeling. No matter how hard you work, someone always comes along from the side and snatches up the juicy bits. And on top of that, the guy who does it ends up being called a genius.” Guy glanced at Kakashi meaningfully, and further insisted, “But look at me! I can only use one leg, but I don’t go to pieces over a thing like that! You keep trying and work hard to develop the skills you can, you’ll be able to stand up on your own two feet again like me. And then one day those stinking geniuses’ll come to me looking for help. This guy here’s a great example!” He snapped a finger out at Kakashi.

“You, seriously… At a time like this, what—”

“Now, Rahyo, my friend, you need to stop all this right away. You can’t keep adding crime to crime. Don’t hate the world. You can’t hate—” Guy getting drunk on his own words was the same old same old, but even in a tense time like this, he managed to get carried away, and hot tears poured endlessly down his face. “No, tell me about your hate. Might Guy here will stop it for you with the Full Power of Youth!”

The passengers were already fleeing to one corner.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have you stop it then.” Crouching, Rahyo quickly wove a sign. “Ice Style! Ice-Breaking Sledgehammer!”

“Guy, this is no time for you to be drunk on yourself!” Kakashi shouted. “It’s coming!”

Instantly closing the distance between them, Rahyo’s fist plunged right into the guts of Guy, who wasn’t quite fast enough.

His eyes flew open.

The corner of Rahyo’s mouth pulled up into a sneer.

But the next instant, Guy’s body, supposedly pierced by the enemy’s fist, flickered like a mirage and disappeared. Guy’s real body was already launching a roundhouse kick from behind.

“Konoha Whirlwind!”

“What?!” Rahyo immediately yanked his body back and launched his next punch. “Ice-Breaking Fist!”

Guy’s kick and Rahyo’s iron fist slammed up against each other.

Crack!

A light flared up at the collision, and the walls of the cabin shook fiercely. The pair leapt back at the same time.

Kakashi held his breath and watched the battle.

“Aaah! Owowowow!” Guy bounced around, clutching the leg in the cast. “Ngh ngh ngh! W-why, something so trivial… Nothing is impossible with the power of youth!”

“You know,” said Rahyo. “That leg looks pretty bad.”

“Even if my leg is broken, my spirit is not.”

“In that case, I’ll snap that spirit of yours in half as well.”

“T-talk all you want, but it’s futile.” Guy steeled himself, even as cold sweat poured down his face from the pain in his leg. “Now! Come!”

“You can’t stop us!” Rahyo yelled. “I’ll take this one out.”

Rahyo’s arms, now the color of lead, had already turned to steel. Even from where Kakashi was, he could feel the incredible amount of chakra collected in those arms—an ice-breaking hammer that would crush a block of ice. If he took a hit from those, even Guy would be helplessly knocked down.

Guy waved his own arms, and almost by magic the Twin Fangs—Guy’s specialized nunchaku—appeared. “No one’s ever managed to slip past the Twin Fangs here and land a blow.” As if to prove it, he began to spin the Twin Fangs so quickly they could no longer be seen.

The pair of humming nunchaku coiled about Guy’s body as they sliced through the air. They were almost a living creature, almost a part of Guy’s own body. Shf! Shf! Shf! Shf! Guy easily made them dance around him, cutting along his sides, wrapping his head and torso, while Rahyo gazed upon the sight.

All right! You can do it! Kakashi thought. Rahyo was hesitating in the face of the speed of the Twin Fangs and of Guy’s ability to manipulate them so effortlessly.

But no matter how easy he made it look, Guy was still Guy after all. He abruptly froze in place and stayed there.

A furrow rose up between Rahyo’s brows. As did one on Kakashi’s brow.

The lounge fell back into silence, and the next instant, vomit gushed endlessly from Guy’s mouth. “Unnnh… Kakashi.” Tears of anguish poured from Guy’s eyes as he fixed them on Kakashi. “I-I feel terrible. And my leg hurts…”

He’s getting it from all sides! Kakashi was dumbfounded. He probably looked at the Twin Fangs he was spinning around and made his motion sickness even worse!

“Nngggrah!” A vein popped up on Rahyo’s forehead. “Playing the fool…” He took a firm step forward and threw a kick at Guy’s bad leg.

Guy’s face twisted up in pain.

Rahyo pounded forward, his ice-breaking fist aimed squarely at Guy’s head. “Die!”

But luck was still on Guy’s side, after all. His feet got tangled up because of the motion sickness, and the right leg that sprang up as he bent his body backward—the leg with the big, heavy cast—somehow caught Rahyo on the chin.

Thhwk!

Taking a hard kick that sent him flying, Rahyo simply blinked rapidly, unable to understand what had just happened.

But the person most surprised appeared to be Guy himself.

“D-did you see that… G-gotta name it…” He thought about as he hopped around on one foot. “Umm. A name. F-F-Fists of Seasickness!”

You do whatever you want, Kakashi couldn’t help but think.

“E-enough messing around.” Rahyo gritted his teeth hard and launched an attack like a conflagration.

Although Guy had indeed just come up with a new technique, the truth was he was in no condition to fight. On top of not being able to use one leg, his intense motion sickness was distorting the world before his eyes. The floor was twisted up like ribbon candy, and it was all he could do to stand. Occasionally, he crouched down and threw up.

So Kakashi thought it was simply coincidence that Guy dodged the next attack as it grazed his face.

But what happened twice happened thrice. In fact, it also happened four and then five times. Rahyo couldn’t land a single blow on Guy—staggering, crouching, barfing, wobbling, eyes wide open, swaying, twisting his body.

This guy! Kakashi was surprised all over again. He’s really mastered the Fists of Seasickness!

“You…just never stop.” The attacks of the enraged Rahyo gradually grew erratic. Still, one out of every three times, his ice-breaking fist managed to graze Guy.

“Hey, Kakashi!”

The small voice called out just as Rahyo’s fist mowed down the bar. Bottles fell to the floor and smashed.

Kakashi looked down and found that at some point, Pakkun had appeared by his side.

“We got all the explosive tags,” Pakkun said. “I’m going to chew through your ropes now.”

Even as Pakkun was struggling with the ropes binding Kakashi’s hands, the battle between Guy and Rahyo continued.

Foot slipping on the spilled alcohol, Guy fell over rather spectacularly, and Rahyo brought his ice-breaking fist down on him without mercy. Guy rolled away, and Rahyo’s fist, having lost its target, punched a hole in the floor.

Jumping back up, Guy tossed off a counterattack, but not only was his haphazardly thrown haymaker dodged completely, he accidentally ended up throwing himself into the arms of his enemy.

“It ends here!” Rahyo’s eyes, sunk into their sockets, glittered sharply. “Ice-Breaking Fist!”

The iron punch caught Guy in the stomach.

Whud! The dull sound echoed through the room, and Guy’s body floated up into the air. His eyes bulged and the air in his body shot out all at once.

Assured of victory, Rahyo grinned.

But it wasn’t just air that came out of Guy’s body.

“Urp!”

Before he knew it, the substance jetting forcefully from Guy’s mouth was making direct contact with Rahyo’s face.

“Aah! Sorry, sorry,” Guy said, timidly. “I got a bit of that on you…looks like?”

“I-I’ll kill you!” Rahyo howled, the sour stuff dripping from his face. “Ngaaaaah!”

A storm of blows in succession assaulted Guy. Kick, thrust, palm strike, elbow, knee, fist—almost as if it would not be enough unless he used every single technique he could to cause his opponent pain, Rahyo struck. And struck and struck.

“Guy!” Kakashi yanked hard to rip apart the ropes already nearly cut by Pakkun’s teeth.

“Is our business here done, Kakashi?!”

“Thanks, Pakkun. Next time, I’ll treat you all to some tasty meat!”

Grinning, Pakkun—poof!—was enveloped in white smoke and disappeared.

Kakashi kicked at the floor and flew up, while his chakra poured into his hands to release a crackling stroke of purple lightning. Fierce pain raced along his broken fingers, but that didn’t matter.

Noticing something amiss, Rahyo turned bloodshot eyes toward Kakashi. “You?! How on earth—”

Kakashi leapt out from the shadow of the collapsing Guy. “Violet Bolt!”

His enemy couldn’t react in time.

But he ended up not being able to strike with the whole might of his purple lightning.

Shrrf!

At the sound ripping through the air, he reflexively dodged. A kunai shining with silver light tore open Kakashi’s cheek.

The moment he landed, he fled with a backward somersault.

Thk! Thk! Thk! The kunai that came after him pierced the floor. The instant they plunged through the wood, they melted away and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Those aren’t kunai. Keeping low, Kakashi glared at the newcomer. These are the same ice fangs that came after us in the air ducts!

“Kahyo!” Rahyo shouted. “What are you doing?! You’re not supposed to let yourself be seen!”

“If I hadn’t launched those ice swords, he would have done you in, brother.” The newcomer, in a white ninja costume and a mask with a hook pattern, turned back toward Kakashi. “It’d be a shame to kill you right away. Hatake Kakashi, you fight me now.”