Sweat dripped off of the medical ninja’s face as Kouta was so forcefully drawn to just collapse on the ground by mother gravity. He channeled all of his feelings, all of his chakra into a single punch and had he not been a medical ninja with extensive training that lasted whole years as to how not to overdo chakra augmentation, a fate similar to that of Mana’s would’ve easily befell his ruptured chakra network. The searing heat of the desert only added to the boy’s exhaustion.
Deafening cracks, similar to large structures of ice cracking reached Kouta’s ears forcing the young man to straighten his back out and prepare to face the consequences of punching his father. A mad laughter came from the side where Kusagoro was punched at, the excited and near crazy sounding laughter that bypassed all the ruins of destroyed buildings that the man was sent through. The boy’s father had such sky-reaching chakra levels that augmenting his body to survive such blows must’ve barely even lowered it…
“You actually punched your father… This is… Almost great. All those times we trained and you were afraid of your own power, of your own destructive Juugo bloodline… Right now I’m almost considering keeping that little magician alive because she may just be a good influence on you, as far as our training is concerned anyways...” Kusagoro’s voice reached Kouta, the man appeared from a cloud of sand and dust pushing barely standing buildings so that they collapsed and got out of his way. The man’s forehead had a small wound that bled a little, several small streams of blood going all the way from the man’s forehead dripped off of his cheek.
“Still, I don’t like you stepping out of line, this isn’t the time to defy your father…” Kusagoro smiled placing his arm forward, in a fraction of a second the arm took a wooden greyish brown coloring and appeared to transform into some manner of cannon-like tube. Soon the man’s second arm followed.
“I know quite well just how distracting women are, your mother did the same to me in my time. That being said, I’d rather not risk it with this one, her insolent behavior might bring both of us trouble if we don’t deal with her. I can see now that you intend to interfere, because of that I’ll take you out. I need you to understand why I’m doing this son, just augment your body to the best of your abilities, this is not an attack that should kill you…” the man explained as glowing blue dust of chakra shot through small pores on the sides of the man’s conjoined two tube cannon that became of his arms.
“Chakra Flashbang!” the man yelled out as the dust concentrated into a colossal bullet-like structure that fired at Kouta in barely conceivable speed. The boy reached forward, he tried to use his chakra augmentation, what little of it that he had to stop this attack, continue hurting his father so that he decided against hurting Mana. This was a mean battle, he needed to fight this like a guerilla war “ hit the larger and stronger enemy until they decide it’s not worth it.
Kouta’s arms changed into large and wide plate structures, they both closed into a buckler shield. Black marks consisting of dots conjoined together into a tattoo of madness appeared on the boy’s face and chakra jets split off from the tendons of his legs shooting wild bursts of chakra, Kouta tried to use his legs like jets to slow father’s attack, he used his arms for protection. Still, even with all of his newly accepted Juugo legacy he was overwhelmed, slowly initially, then at an accelerating rate the attack was pushing the boy back into the Rashomon Gate.
“Hey, hey, come on now, don’t overdo it…” Kusagoro observed the boy’s struggle for a moment before turning away. He knew how this clash would end already “ one attack was all he needed to injure his son beyond the edge where his body could keep going.
A deafening explosion combined with a blinding flash interrupted all of the scuffles transpiring by the entrance to the castle ruins. Kouta’s whited out eyes and open mouth and burnt off to the crisp clothes and wide burns all over his body that was stuck in a crater in the Rashomon Gate informed anyone who would’ve bothered to check that the boy was out. Just one attack, one attack that was meant more as a distraction effort was all these ninja needed. This couldn’t have ever turned out well.
Kusagoro looked around, his eyes tried to find Mana because ultimately she was the one he needed. Her head was the only thing that could’ve possibly pleased the middle aged woman in the fancy hat enough to unsuspend his license, he was just handed an opportunity to have fun on Black Ops missions again without waiting for the license suspension to expire. He wasn’t about to let that chance slip…
*****
Shimo dashed around a black mass that was emitting some strange screeching sound, almost like backs of millions of insects with intensely hard shells were rubbing against each other. No. It was exactly that. Not only was the swordsman fast enough to evade each mass that the strange Hispanic looking Aburame gentleman sent his way but he also had enough time to push Mana out of their way too. To Mana this entire battle was looking beyond terrified “ she couldn’t perceive any of it but Shimo just managed to place her on different locations just out of harm’s way. Finally feeling sick of evading the young man attempted an attack stabbing at forty different lethal spots within just a mere seconds. A heart stopping shriek and an immense shock sent Shimo on his back, rolling away.
“What the…” he wondered before seeing the masses of insects crawling all over their master. Finally the insects slowed down somewhat to make their species more identifiable.
“What’s the matter, young gent, have you never seen a ninja cockroach with a nearly impenetrable shell before?” the butler Hyuuga lady continued to observe the battle and despite of her early unsuccessful attempts to land a couple of blows taunting her opponent.
“You know, for a moment I thought that this Aburame guy was a kindred soul, he appeared to be quite a lady-lover like me back in the Land of Fire forests… He also looks like a pretty desperate bachelor, maybe that’s why swarms of cockroaches all over his body look very much out of place, especially on that hairy bare chest that probably makes middle-aged ladies go wild…” Shimo grinned despite realizing how screwed he was. These were two opponents in front of him, both on the level far beyond his abilities and on top of that he still had to watch over Mana.
“Huh? Gokibure makes ladies go wild? You’re quite the comedian, Yuki. He has never had a lady stay around him for more than a second after seeing a roach crawl on his face, not because of lack of trying, though, I must admit…” the polite Hyuuga woman mocked her teammate.
“Stay silent, Remashi, I just haven’t met the right cockroach loving lady yet!” the man yelled out playfully stroking his black hair and putting a strand of it behind his ear.
“That’s because such don’t exist, you twit” the woman taunted her friend again.
“They totally do! Remember when we once faced badgers that were rigged with explosive seals? I refuse to believe that cockroach loving women do not exist in the world where kamikaze badgers are a reality! Either way, I’ll find a wife before you actually dine on human flesh…” the strange looking lovelace tried to bite back at his comrade.
“Wait, what?” Shimo asked confused, while he had no idea what the two were rambling about he could appreciate this brief quarrel between them because it gave him a chance to catch his breath.
“That’s right, the woman claims to be a cannibal yet she’s never done more than licked some blood off of a wall…” the roach-man pointed at her friend feeling somewhat warmed up to the Yuki swordsman now that he had found an ally in this verbal showdown.
“That’s because I feel bad for those people and I can’t take a good bite! It doesn’t mean I’m not a cannibal, I’m just really sympathetic!” the woman suddenly lost her cool shoving her fist up to her comrade’s face.
“Sorry to break it to you, ma’am, but a person who feels bad for another person they’re trying to eat and so doesn’t end up eating that person… Isn’t really a cannibal…I mean, I feel bad for other people and so I don’t eat them, so I’m quite sure I’m not a cannibal” Shimo shrugged in confusion. He was almost ashamed that this squad of weirdos was so incredibly strong.
“Right? That’s what I tell her…” Gokibure smiled and pulled out a rose from his back pocket and sniffed it to distract him from the terrible desert heat.
“Boy, you have greatly offended me. For speaking thusly I require you to come at me so that I could kill you for my satisfaction…” the Hyuuga lady growled angrily pushing her teammate out of the way. Shimo dashed back and formed a couple of hand seals.
“Ice Style: Eternal Frost Jutsu!” he yelled out as powerful gusts of wind scurried forward covering both of his opponents. This was the most efficient of Shimo’s ice techniques, it was supposed to cover them in so much ice that it literally froze his opponents solid in large blocks of ice. Obviously the potency of the technique would be severely hindered in such scorching heat but it should’ve still disabled both of his opponents. That, of course, was a glorious theory, but only a theory. It didn’t help that this desert air was so very dry and difficult to find any humidity to make ice out of…
The Yuki felt a strong grab that lifted his wrist into the air and then an overwhelming painful shock breaking his arm right at the middle. Shimo couldn’t help it, he screamed from the bottom of his lungs as he had never been in so much pain. Only then he saw the afterimage of the infernal Hyuuga butler appear in front of him, only after the pain had already reached his brain did his own blood splatter all over his face and the boy was able to start thinking of a counterattack.
A crushing kick to the side of his knee broke his leg too. Shimo shouted out and collapsed onto the sand. He saw blood accumulating from the open fractures on his arm and leg.
“I’d stop your heart right now by closing your central chakra node but I choose to leave you to suffer instead, killing you wouldn’t feel right after you dared call me not a cannibal…” the woman placed her palm right up to Shimo’s exposed chest as a warming blue flame of chakra lit up around her palms. The Hyuuga clan was known for their ability to see the chakra nodes and being able to see those vital weakspots of every ninja and close them temporarily by striking them with precise blows. With a powerful kick right to Shimo’s face that easily broke his nose and his jaw the boy was knocked out cold.
The block of ice that Gokibure was enveloped in cracked, cracked again after a brief moment and then broke as a colossal pillar of cockroaches appeared from it, the infinite masses of cockroaches then all scurried back inside the man’s body or beneath his revealing purple shirt and behind his tight leather pants or even inside his pompous hairdo. Within an instant what appeared to be a structure made entirely out of ninja cockroaches ended up being just a man he was before.
“Oh… You’re alive…” the Hyuuga woman exclaimed more as a meaningless statement of a face rather than a sign of her relief.
“Of course, the ninja cockroaches are the most indestructible species of ninja insects used by the Aburame clan. Remember that time Kusagoro flung me into the stratosphere and I survived not only that but also re-entry back to Earth enveloped in cockroaches?” the man bragged.
“I try to forget, the sight of that insectoid orb was rather unsettling…” the Hyuuga woman complained. “Well then, perhaps you could kindly finish off the young lady, I’ve heard your cockroaches work almost like insectoid disassembler “ devouring all they see in their way. It would be useful to keep the young lady’s head for the Hokage though… I believe such is the protocol of capturing rogues and traitors?” the woman suddenly remembered her butleresque manners.
“I have no desire to hurt a young woman, not until she blooms to make a decision to love my roaches or reject me…” Gokibure pouted and locked his arms around his chest.
“That being said… Where is she?” Remashi Hyuuga finally noticed that Mana was nowhere to be found in the nearest vicinity.
*****
Meiko kept on swinging her wild fists, grabbing hold of the steel plates and tearing them off the armor of her opponent using her own bare hands. The man’s shoulder cannons aimed at where the girl was and fired a burst of wild flames but Meiko leapt on top of the cannons avoiding the flamed and smashed them with her fists.
“Look at me, I’m a blacksmith” she yelled out playfully as she swung her fists in a manner reminding a hammer from the top downwards, smashing them as the man’s armor and leaving him without it.
The large man angrily thrust his foot forward but Meiko managed to block it, the force of the kick forced her to roll backwards getting sand all over her hair and her face that the young woman had to spit out.
“Why is your armor so shit?” the redhead complained, “I don’t want it anymore, I could make a higher quality one when I was a toddler…Even though it looked kind of awesome” she pouted.
“That is because it is cheap, I didn’t sell enough damage for the merchant…” the man explained biting his finger and making a bunch of handseals. He then slammed his arms at the sand from where a bunch of seal hieroglyphs shot out in lines diagonally to the man’s palm and a powerful sandstorm picked up. Once the Summoning Jutsu was complete the disruption of sand settled down again.
The man whom his friends called Mardith, the follower of Jashin, stood in front of Meiko covered in strange wooden armor which was covered with odd engravings and his helmet had even weirder ear wings whilst the entire helmet was shaped as a head of some ancient divinity.
“Wood? I thought Summoning Jutsu summons your contract ninja animal…” Meiko wondered examining the visual aspect of the armor that the man summoned.
“It can be used to summon a great lot of things: weapons, reinforcements of living people, also… Totems” the man explained as he removed a dagger that appeared more like the ritualistic daggers than ones used in actual combat.
“What’s a Totem?” Meiko asked still quite captivated by the ancient and breathtaking engravings and craftsmanship of the armor that the man had summoned.
“Ancient objects, as old as the First People, each of them can be used as a summoning contract all by themselves. Each of them requires proof of one’s abilities just like a ninja animal would, these ancient legendary structures have a mind of their own and each of them have different abilities sealed inside them by the First People. They are living relics of that time, almost like beacons meant for us to discover and explore by our ancestors” the man explained before taking a praying position, he stood tall while placing his hands together and against his chest while he closed his eyes and lowered his head.
“Seems a bit of an overkill to use to kill a blacksmith genin from Konoha…” Meiko smiled before taking a fighting stance herself.
“No. Using my true ability would be an overkill. I have no desire to kill you, our target is your friend. However I am a follower of a religion that demands utter and complete slaughter when its abilities are used. I am a follower of Jashin however Lord Jashin only demands death when his gifts are used in battle, that is why to beat you I do not plan to use any of Lord Jashin’s Curse Ninjutsu, that forces my hand to use my Totem” the man answered leaping forward and winding up for a strike.
“Hmph, I can’t let you kill Mana but… Thrashing such a gorgeous armor feels really wasteful…” the blacksmith complained trying to punch the armor but them she noticed that the man stopped in mid track and his knife stabbed right through the wood into his own thigh. Blood squirted out hitting the sands below and dyeing them crimson red.
“What the? Are you insane!?” Meiko yelled out but then a blue fist made out of pure chakra materialized out of thin air and backhand slapped her right in the jaw sending Meiko crashing into the buildings to the side. The crushing force of the armor blacked the girl out momentarily and demolished what little remained of the small shanty town, now the castle ruin was the only standing thing in the whole courtyard.
“This Totem is known as Merchant of Blood. Instead of my chakra it feeds on my injury and suffering, to put it into words you can understand “ I “sell” any damage I take to it to manifest that energy it absorbs into living armor. In its sealed form it can only shape up something as cheap as that armor you peeled to shreds before, now that I actually summoned it… You stand no chance for you face the power of an artifact of the First People” the man spoke to Meiko’s unconscious body that was lying somewhere in the ruins of the shanty town under piles of rubble. Had the man suspected that the young woman would’ve temporarily have blacked out he’d have spared himself the trouble of explaining his ability.
“Everyone! Listen to me! Please, run away! Flee into the castle!!!” Mana’s desperate and tear ridden voice screamed out from atop of a small wall of a fallen building. Her fingernails bled profusely from her attempts to scale those walls the usual human way and her hands were completely dyed crimson and in the process of bleeding the girl dry. She had almost scratched her eyes out from sorrow of seeing her friends being one by one picked off by opponents vastly superior to them. She decided to take matters into her own hands.
“Run! Find the box! I have faith that you can do it! Ruuuuun…” Mana’s plead was silenced by Kusagoro’s elbow digging into her face breaking her face almost instantly even when the man completely diminished his chakra level and did his best to reduce his physical power to nothing. The man just appeared in front of her moving instantly through the entire battlefield, the blow to her face lifted the magician’s body off the ground but she could still feel every tiniest ounce of the pain. Kusagoro’s hand locked on a torn rag of clothes on her shoulder and pulled her up so that her body didn’t fall down to where she could’ve slipped away.
“Your voice is annoying…” he quietly uttered so that only he and Mana could’ve heard it from way up the busted building. Mana kicked off of the man’s chest, tearing the shoulder strap of her top off and leaped back, she landed on her knees down below busting both of them open as blood poured from her wounds. The magician pulled off her kunai firing weapon and aimed it at Kusagoro, the man leaped down and slowly started walking up to her.
“We know you can’t mold chakra, what do you think this toy can do to hurt me?” the angered man shouted out.
“It’s called automated explosive kunai firing mode…” Mana replied pulling a small switch with her ring finger that unleashed a flurry of kunai at the man, each of them bounced off his chest and then exploded in a moment after impact, one by one the endless barrage of explosions continued as the smoke cloud expanded to beyond even where Mana was standing. A strong arm grip locked around the girl’s throat as the arm appeared from the smoke and lifted her up beginning to choke Mana out in seconds. Kusagoro didn’t even take a scratch, he effortlessly broke the tool with his other free arm, still holding the girl the man leaped back onto the tall wreckage so that his comrades could hear him properly.
“Don’t let them escape! She may have brainwashed those idiots into using the B.U.B. but that doesn’t mean they can…” Kusagoro opened his mouth to order his folks around
“Sorry, dude, they’re already gone… I think the blacksmith may have come around to her senses and stealthily dragged them to the castle by now…” Mardith’s low pitched and shallow tone informed the squad leader.
“Fuck!” Kusagoro cussed and punched Mana in the gut and then dropping her body down on the rocks below.
“It would be beneficial if we didn’t rough up the young lady’s head any more than we did, lest the Hokage will fail to recognize her…” the Hyuuga informed the rest of her squad.
“I know, I know…” Kusagoro yelled out in rage as he suppressed all of his chakra again just so Mana’s body didn’t blow up into tiniest bits upon his punch. Angrily he dropped down to where she had fallen and started kicking her covering body until his fury ceased. Had he captured every single member of her team his odds of being reinstated back to his duties would’ve been greater, also he hated this girl on the most fundamental level for messing his son’s head up so that he also was in all of this mess.
“You may want to just pull her head off and try catching up to that redhead in the castle…” Mardith yelled out, whether it was because of mercy for Mana’s beaten and miserable state or because he actually only thought of capturing all the genin still remained a mystery.
“I would appreciate if we honored the last will of the young lady and spared her friends, I mean they were held hostage by their client’s will, correct? We can just tell Hokage that she threatened them to bite off her tongue off if they didn’t follow her lead and abused her position as a client they had to protect and ordered them to use the B.U.B. for themselves…” Gokibure complained, he was quite visibly feeling bad for how ruthlessly his leader had beaten up the kid.
“Ugh… She doesn’t deserve it…” Kusagoro yelled out kicking the girl with less restraint sending her weightless body so that it hit another rocky wall of a collapsed building.
Mardith took his ritual blade and slit his wrists with it, a shining and flaming with blue flames sword made out of pure energy materialized in the air right above Mana’s head. Mana grunted out, so weakly and so silently that only she could hear her own pitiful moans of pain. Was this the end? Her body felt so light and so weightless, it was like it didn’t even belong to her, it was almost like she was but an apparition looking at her beaten and bruised bleeding body from above. She had some medical rations she took from the raider camp in her backpack, if only her body wasn’t completely broken and she could’ve… The chakra sword swung down, a loud flesh cutting sound echoed through the plains as Mana closed her eyes ready to accept her demise.
A sound of a heavy head rolling on the rocks alerted everyone to the north, Kusagoro, Gokibure and Remashi both jumped in surprise to see that their comrade was now missing a head, Mardith’s bald head was rolling down the shanty town ruins. The chakra sword he made vaporized into thin air as well as the Totem on his body. A rag wearing man stood behind him with a curved raider-style sword placed on his shoulder that was dripping with blood, the man had messy shoulder length black hair and only one working eye, the other being covered by a blood covered patch, the working eye was glowing red with strange black tomoe symbols on the eye “ the infernal Sharingan of the Uchiha. Behind the man stood two women: a gorgeous looking woman in a white desert attire and a huge gourd on her back, her knee long black hair flowed freely in the desert wind unrestrained, and a little teenager girl with twin sheathed swords on her back and both functioning Sharingan eyes. Had it not been for the lack of the facial hair the young teen would’ve reminded a lot of the one-eyed man suggesting a blood bond of some sort.
“I’ve no fucking idea what’s going on here but… I’ll be having that Box of Ultimate Bliss now” the one-eyed Uchiha roughed out with a tired and serious tone.
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