Naruto screams himself into consciousness, Choji having helpfully applied blunt trauma to wake him up. Everybody's picking up the pieces from the last few episodes' brutality, and Naruto hilariously assumes they're under attack and starts low-crawling. He's spent only two seconds awake and he's already irritating everybody (particularly Shikamaru, but I don't think you can count that). Our hero notices Sakura's new hairstyle, and flips out. He's baffled by the new look, and also why the other squads are doing here. Tenten shows up to look after Rock Lee, and does so in the caring, compassionate manner we'd expect from Guy-sensei's students - by throttling him senseless. Lee's suprised Sasuke was able to drive off the Sound Villagers, and Tenten thinks if he wasn't fighting to protect Sakura, he could've taken Dosu's crew all by himself. She calls him stupid, and Lee, in no fit state, can't help but agree. Naruto bounds over to make fun of Lee, but Sakura comes rocket punches him away. Naruto wonders just what on earth happened while he was out. Amusingly, Shikamaru and Choji comment on how there's no way he'd be the hero in anybody's story.
Sakura humbly thanks Lee for helping her realize that she needed to get stronger, and Lee immediately gets harsh on himself for not being able to do more against the Sound Villagers. Sasuke's amazed they beat Lee up, leading me to wonder how much of Sasuke's around when he's Curse Marked. Lee vows that the next time the Hidden Leaf Lotus blooms, he will have become a stronger man! Sakura's "Um, okay" reply is great. Ino calls Sakura over to fix the latter's hair, and Sakura briefly suspects a trap, but consents. Ino's steaming over Sakura's new closeness with Sasuke (at least, for the thirty or so seconds it happened), but Sakura fires back with the Uchina dish being first-come, first-served, girlfriend. I also think I picked out Sakura calling her 'Ino-pig-chan,' which I find way funnier than it should be.
Hey! Squad Eight! It's not a high point we see them at, either. Poor little Akamaru doesn't look well at all, and he's apparently been like this for half a day. We cut back to earlier, with Kiba being braggy over how they punked the other ninja squad from earlier and took their scroll. Shino cautions against this, using homespun bug-related wisdom. Hinata tries to support Shino, but I don't think Kiba pays much attention. Sidebar: I love how Akamaru can do the ninja tree-leaping. When Akamaru (and Kiba?) picks up a scent, Kiba calls for Squad Ten to come to a halt, and has Hinata bust out the sight Jutsu she and her cousin Neji share - Byakugan. From a kilometer away, she spots somebody - Gaara. Shino puts his ear to the tree and says there's six other ninja out there. Kiba wants their scrolls, too, despite already having the two his squad needs. Both Hinata and Shino are really against this, but Kiba says if it looks too serious, they won't do anything. Eight comes to a halt again, this time because Akamaru's scared. The little pooch can sniff out Chakra, and this is the first time he's ever gotten the willies over it.
Squad Eight watches a squad from the Rain Village facing off against the Sand Villagers. Kankarou tries to point out they may not even need to fight, but Gaara's ready to kill them just because the Rainers met his eyes. This freaks both his teammates AND Squad Eight out. The head Rain Villager is up for a scrap, hurling a bunch of parasols into the air (and of course that's what the Rain Village would use) and uses Ninja Art: Senbon Rainstorm. It's raining needles around Gaara, who looks distinctly unimpressed. All his needles hit a sand shield Gaara calls up, to the Rain Villager's disbelief. Guy wants to make it rain, Gaara says he'll make it rain blood. GAH. Kiba and Squad Ten's really impressed, also terrified, and Kiba can smell the blood on the sand. Kankarou helpfully explains Gaara uses his Chakra to mess with the sand in the giant gourd on his back into an impenetrable shield, and it's not even Gaara who's doing it. Dang. This ticks the head Rainer off and he charges at Gaara. Gaara throws out a Jutsu called Sand Coffin, aptly named since it buries the Rainer in sand. Gaara then lifts the sand coffin up into the air while holding the Rainer's parasol (which makes the whole thing even creepier), and then we see why he did. After you put somebody in a coffin, then it's time for a burial. Sand Burial. Gaara explodes the hapless Rainer and goes on like a ghoul for a bit. The other Rainers desperately throw him the scroll, but they just get the same treatment. It's the scroll the Sanders needed, but Gaara still wants sand and blood. Kankarou (and Temari) are siblings, and they are not a happy family. Temari begs Gaara not to off his own brother, and it looks like he might off him anyway and Squad Ten besides, he relents. Good heavens.
Squad Eight's now well and duly terrified, but they make it to the tower right before the Sand Ninjas do. Gaara's crew just gives Kiba and crew this most evil of looks, but they don't kill the Leaf Genin out of hand. Outside the forest, Anko and the Anbu are talking about the test, with Anko saying they can't halt the test no matter how much a clusterfrag it's becoming. One of the Proctors heads in with a video tape (ha ha!) with the visual report on a team that's busted the test's record wide open, which is unsuprisingly Gaara, who does one of those creepy 'look up into the hidden camera' glares. There's no way they should've been able to make it this fast, and what freaks out Anko the most is Gaara not even hurt. His clothes aren't even dirty. One of the others comments that somebody interesting is in the test, it's just too bad he is a child born of evil sand.
Next Episode: Naruto really wants to open the scroll. Hijinks!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment