Inheritance

A C-Rank Mission - Conclusion

"Naruto. Look at their legs."

The words were short. To the point. But they were enough to penetrate the whirlwind of thoughts that was Naruto's mind as he simultaneously tried to keep his own cool in the face of quite frankly ridiculous enemy he and Shikamaru now faced, and figure out exactly how he intended to save his comrades. In the shinobi world, words were cheap. Meaningless. Telling himself he wouldn't let his comrades die was a different matter to actually preventing it from happening. Not that he ever thought he couldn't of course, he would rather die than break the promise he had made, partially to himself, and partially to his current - and future - friends.

As it was, the words muttered under Shikamaru's breath were all that it took to focus Naruto's mind on the task ahead, and calm him down too. Trust the Nara to be ice cool under pressure.

He examined the legs of the stone statues closer. They were cracked, crumbling under the strain of having jumped. Apparently, whatever jutsu that had brought them to life was unable to bypass the irrefutable fact that these were in fact, made out of rigid and brittle stone. Sandstone to be exact, of a peculiar reddish hue, definitely different to the sandstone of the canyon walls, which Naruto hadn't noticed beforehand. Regardless, Shikamaru was right to draw attention to their legs. The were weakened by the stress of their jump, and appeared to weaken even further with every movement.

Filled with vigour at this development, even as the foremost of the statues took a step forward and raised it's weapon menacingly, Naruto grinned and step forward to meet it.

"Shikamaru, you run interference whilst I deal with the heavy hitting, until we win or you come up with a better plan, okay?"

The Nara grunted in approval, not taking his eyes off of the enemy. 'Interference' as Naruto had put it was definitely his speciality, and what he would have suggested had he been with Choji. He had been hesitant to nominate Naruto in that role knowing as little as he did about his actual techniques or abilities, as he was no where near naïve enough to believe that Naruto hadn't seriously improved since their days in the Academy. The way he spoke, and genuinely understood things he never would have before told Shikamaru all he needed to know.

If Naruto said he could play the role of 'heavy hitter' Shikamaru would take his word for it. Of course, the dozen or so Naruto's that had sprung into life around them did wonders for his confidence in the blonde.

Naruto himself was not quite as happy with his use of the Kage Bunshin as his comrade was. He had made a decision not to use them 'en masse'. It didn't fit in with his current philosophy on how they should be used. The situation however, necessitated differently, as Naruto needed to find a way to even up the playing fields. Although, as the first of the statues came within striking distance of him, he didn't feel that they were in anyway even, regardless of whether he's actually admit it or not.

"Well here goes nothing!" And with that the blonde leapt back, the stone behemoth striking the ground where he had just stood with it's weapon, and began racing through now-familiar hand-seals.

"Fuuton: Goukuuhou no Jutsu!" The blonde's words came in tandem with the closest two Bunshin, each firing a buzzing sphere of air towards the statue that had struck. Each made contact with the statues left leg, the one Naruto had judged to have been the most weakened of the two; the wind infused chakra spinning and grinding against the stone, boring into it and splintering it at the thigh, causing the statue to tumble onto it's left side.

Almost immediately, a separate pair of leapt above the fallen statue, struggling to stand without it's left leg, the animated rock apparently not having realised it's leg had been sheared at the thigh.

"Fuuton: Daitoppa!" This time Naruto would admit his technique wasn't perfect, it was the most recent one he had managed to learn, and by far the most difficult of the two Fuuton jutsu he knew. Regardless, the technique did it's job. The blonde had reduced the overall area of the wind infused chakra he expelled, but as a result had increased the density and ferocity of the attack; the two Bunshin's jutsu tearing into the statues torso, grinding it down, almost entirely into granules of sand.