“Yeah, yeah, I got it, stab the bird fucker, hear the lamentations of his women, yadda yadda yadda. It’s always exactly the same thing with you, Scaly-tama.” Ui grinned inwardly at the wave of killing intent that washed out from the gigantic pangolin. It might mean his death one of these days, but what was the point of living if you couldn’t have a little fun while you did it?

“Just get it done, whelp,” Pantsaa ordered.

“Yessir, boss!” Ui called behind him, already heading out the door.

-o-​

“No way in any of the Paths are those all ninja,” Ui asserted as he peered across the field at Sen’s encampment. “Did this dumbass really think armed civilians would make a difference?”

“They’re to hide the ninja and provide substitution targets, obviously,” Pander sniffed dismissively. “Not that that will be much help against you, master.”

“If they don’t matter, you don’t mind if I have fun with them later, right?” interjected Pantone, tongue flicking out excitedly.

Ui snorted. “As long as you don’t get yourself popped by one of your toys. Again.”

“Shut up! If that sneaky bitch hadn’t had her bullshit suicide technique, I’d have been fine!”

“Excuses from the weakling, how totally unexpected,” Panseer jeered.

“Listen here beak-face--”

“Can it,” Ui ordered, hopping onto Pander’s back and tightening the straps on his claws. “You messed up when you assumed an enemy who wasn’t dead yet wasn’t a threat. Pandora, take us down.”

The hulking Earth specialist clacked his claws excitedly. “Aaaah, it is finally time for me to shine! Behold, ye sullied and imperfect world, the beauty of my Artistic Pangolin Tunnelling Technique!” With a ripping gesture, a tunnel bored itself into the earth below him, and he dropped down. The rest of the party followed in deadly silence, most definitely not all rolling their eyes in synchrony

...​

The only warning sign was a slight rumbling before most of the field under the encampment collapsed into six gigantic sinkholes.

“Ah-haaa!” Pandora shouted over the screams of half-buried men from atop a pillar slowly in the midst of the chaos, as his companions leapt from their positions to begin wreaking their own special brands of havoc . “Behold, foolish mortals, the beauty of my architectural genius! Ahahahahaha--” He cut off mid-cackle as an explosion shattered the base of his pillar. “Artistic Pangolin Earth Armor Technique!” he shrieked just before colliding with the ground. Sheets of stone folded up around him as he landed, and the now even bulkier pangolin immediately whipped his tail around to intercept a barrage of weapons from the kunoichi who had brought him down to ground level.

“BARBARIAN! YOU WILL SUFFER FOR INTERRUPTING MY PERFORMANCE! LET’S KILL HER, BROTHER!” Pandora shrieked, and then charged.

“Yes, brother!” chirped a much smaller pangolin, leaping over the lip of the sinkhole. “Pangolin Bullet Rainstorm Technique!” he shouted, manifesting dozens of fist-sized globes of water that began hurtling themselves with bone-shattering speed at the shinobi.

She did not last long.

...​

“AAAAUUUGH!” the half-buried man screamed.

“No, no, I was going for more of an ‘aaaiiii’. What about here?” pondered Pantone, stabbing another spot curiously.

“AAAAAAAAAH!”

“Ugh, worthless,” Pantone spat, and crushed the man’s head.

“Can you please save your useless games for when we’ve killed all the ninja?!” yelled Panel in a moment’s respite between holding off three enemies with blades of wind.

“Ugh. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing everything in this relationship.”

“Not the time!”

“Fiiiiine. Pangolin Flash Technique!” Lightning chakra surged through Pantone’s veins and skimmed along his scales, and the world slowed around him. He took a moment to revel in the high, and then assessed the situation. He could see one tag-laden kunai flying toward his mate, slipping through her technique’s guard. He contemplated doing nothing about it, but that would probably get him a talking-to later, and those were always so troublesome.

So instead of doing nothing, he sprinted forward, wrapping his tongue around the kunai’s handle, on the way, and drove it into the face of the man who had thrown it. There were some intermediate steps of shattering the hapless fool’s guard as well as his arm bones, but they didn’t matter over much.

Pantone leapt back toward Panel as the technique wore off and the world returned to its less interesting speed. The tag went off, forcing the new corpse’s teammates to dodge to either side and giving the pair of pangolins a moment’s respite.

“Aaaw, sweetie, you do care!” she teased.

“You’re free to think that. Let’s kill some more people before I get bored.”

“I thought you’d never ask. Pangolin Wind-Blade Technique!”

...​

“Pangolin Firebolt Technique!” screamed a deeply frustrated Panseer. This one didn’t do anything more than the previous ones - the condors Sen had summoned simply avoided it. He snarled. He couldn’t hit the flying fuckers, and couldn’t hit Sen while the beakface was in such close proximity to Ui. What good was an artillery specialist who couldn’t hit anything?!

Oblivious to his summons’ existential crisis, Ui danced through the wall of shuriken Sen was weaving, trying to force him to actually engage rather than constantly throw his toys around with his bullshit bloodline. This entire fight had been a frustrating clusterfuck on both sides - between himself, Pander, and Panseer, Sen’s summons had been either popped or driven off before their summoner could hop on them and escape like the pussy he was, but now Panseer was being a useless lump, and Pander had gotten popped by a stray kunai to the eye like a chump.

“Fight me for real, you weakling!” Ui yelled, frantically dashing forward to try to break through a weakness in the swarm of iron keeping him just out of reach of Sen, chakra pounding through his muscles with every heartbeat. An instant later he swapped himself with a small boulder behind his opponent and whirled to bring one of his claws to bear.

His strike was blocked by a long knife Sen pulled from a leg sheath, but at this point Ui knew the fight was all but over. He grinned ferociously, bringing his other claw around and under Sen’s guard, aiming to gut the other man.

He shattered the boulder that Sen had just replaced himself with.

“Connie, I summon you!” Ui heard from behind him. He spun to see Sen on the back of a condor already flapping its wings to take to the skies.

Ui flung a pair of kunai reflexively, only for them to be batted away by Sen’s cloud of shuriken. “Panseer, take him out!” Ui ordered. A wave of fire washed over Ui’s head, only to be batted aside by the condor’s wingbeats. “Dammit, you stupid useless excuse for a--” he began as Sen rose higher.

“Shut up, I’m trying to focus!” Panseer interrupted him, staring fixedly up at the flying pair. “Pangolin Discombobulation Technique!”

The condor’s ascent went from being smooth and assured to being haphazard, and then it became a free-fall as the summon lost the ability to coordinate its movements.

“Since when do you know genjutsu?” Ui called behind him as he dashed to position himself beneath his rapidly descending foe, not really caring to hear an answer. “No kawarimi for you now, eh, bitch?” he cackled, preparing to drive a spiked claw through Sen as he hit the ground.

Sen was barely a couple meters away when Ui noticed the wad of explosive tags his enemy had pulled from within his armor.

Ui Isas’ last thought in this life was that if there was a next one, that crazy bastard Pantone was never going to let him hear the end of this.