As the purple thunderstorm raged on and the dark clouds continued to encircle the Box of Ultimate Bliss, making what used to be a paradise island coloured with unique gloom and grit, the ninja, the civilian and a pirate alike managed to ignore the picking up gusts of wind. Being the one most sensitive to environmental factors Mana wrapped her hands around herself and tried warming herself up. The insane battle transpiring in front of her, of which she could rarely perceive anything at all, seemed to slow down. This gave the magician a chance to analyse both combatants.
“Your father looks wounded. His uniform is busted up and some of his open wounds aren’t looking too good. I thought he said he was too strong for Francho…” Mana spoke out loud only for Kouta to notice her concern and try hugging her for warmth but after the medical ninja saw the uneasiness and sadness in Mana’s eyes he decided to just gently place his hand on her shoulder and try calming her down.
“Father is keeping a lot back, maybe he thinks he can win like this, I’m not sure…” the Jugo mumbled out uneasily. It appeared that Kusagoro’s lacking attitude towards this fight worried him somewhat as well.
“What do you mean by holding back? Wouldn’t his body instinctually use as much chakra as needed to withstand that damage? Doesn’t the fact that he’s taking more damage than dishing out suggest his shortcoming?” Mana worried.
“Don’t worry, Jugo clan folk have a pretty nasty secret weapon up their sleeve. I’m assuming that Kouta’s father is keeping it there because he doesn’t want to lose control of himself but he can kick it up a whole lot of notches” Shimo revealed while coldly continuing to observe Kusagoro and Francho exchange blows. The Pirate Lord took a lot more blows than he even tried dish out, in terms of technical martial arts proficiency he was a guppy in an ocean fighting a leviathan. Still, whenever Francho did land an occasional hit it looked like it broke Kusagoro’s whole combinations and forced the jounin to back up and catch his breath.
“What does that mean?” Mana shook her head. “Just how much power is your father holding back?”
Kouta closed his eyes as if he was admitting something he wasn’t overly proud of, “Back there while we were fighting Read… We got into a pinch, I was forced to use something I thought I’d never use. You see, Jugo can absorb natural chakra, the chakra present in the environment around them. They can then use that chakra to morph not only their limbs but their entire body. Usually such natural chakra would be unusable but our modified over generations DNA shifts our own chakra to better accommodate the natural making us primal and enraged but also powerful. There isn’t an actual name for it, this transformation but to me it sounds like a curse. A Curse Mode if you will…”
“It raises too many questions but just answer this, how much more powerful does this Curse Mode make a Jugo?” Mana relented, the historian and lore buff inside her wished to question her friend excessively until she knew everything there was to know. The ability to tap into the power of the nature around one, to be one with the world around you sounded amazing! Still, the situation at hand was too dire for research and legends, she needed to know if Kusagoro could use that to beat his opponent if need be or if she needed to work on a backup plan.
“Well… I’d say the first stage would make father at least more than twice his original chakra level. The first stage just prepares one’s body for the unnatural transformation. He’d have to replace at least half of his resources with natural chakra” Kouta admitted.
“First stage? More than twice stronger?” Mana shook both due to the cold chills of the air around her as well as awe in the amazing bloodline power up that a clan ninja had over common ones like her.
“You have to understand, tapping into the fundamental forces of nature makes a person unstable, primal and enraged beyond control. The first stage is just the beginning, however it is the easiest to work with, the user still retains some control over their actions but those violent urges become really powerful. I would never risk going beyond the first stage…” Kouta explained as he saw Mana being under the illusion that it was a power up to be thrown around left and right. “Father must keep it hidden because he values control and style over raw physicality. Even a brawler like him feels that way…”
“You seem to really dislike that awakening of power, I’m sorry you had to use it” Mana apologized as she was de facto giving orders and had the definitive say in the team. She couldn’t help but feel responsible.
“Back in Konoha I hated my father’s clan heritage. That much is true. I saw how kind my mother was and how bitter she felt about father’s life choices. I saw how much good being a medical ninja could do and so I ignored that part of me. But out here, throughout this journey I’ve come to realize that, just like you, by ignoring that part of my identity and overcompensating on others I was incomplete. That was why I was so weak both as a warrior of the Jugo clan and as a medical ninja. I hate that power, sometimes I dislike my father’s words or actions but… It’s a part of me, I need that power to protect people just like I need my skills as a medical ninja to do the same. It’s because of this journey and this mission that I’ve learned to appreciate it and tapped into it, it’s because of this journey that my identity was mended, as was Shimo’s. All of us have reasons to feel grateful, Mana, grateful to you” Kouta bravely admitted just standing and trying to tell what was going on in that mad flurry of punches ahead.
“Shut up…” Shimo mumbled out pouting his lips as if his brave façade was threatened. “Be ready to help your father out whenever you find an opening. We are so weak in this battlefield that it’s completely inconsequential but our skillsets may yet serve some use” the swordsman ordered.
A loud booming sound combined with a deafening shockwave instantly demanded the youths’ full attention. Francho’s hulking frame was awkwardly twisted as his neck extended well over its intended length after Kusagoro’s focused right hook dug deep into the man’s jaw. The Pirate Lord rocketed into the oceans beside and crashed into another island decimating it and crushing it to such extent that the poor landmark was beginning to slowly submerge underwater.
“Don’t!” Kusagoro shouted out, “Don’t get in my way and make yourselves targets!” he ordered. Usually the man carried an aura of levity in all of his violent and often terrifying approach to things but this yell was totally serious. The warrior of the Leaf village was after his mission objective to bring as many of the youths home as possible.
“Human Boulder Yo-Yo!” the Pirate Lord yelled out triumphantly as his oversized frame shaped itself into a human ball and rolled at his opponent at immense speeds fast enough to cover the distance between the island he was sent to and the one he was sent there from in moments.
The first strike knocked the wind out of Kusagoro lifting him high up in the air while the still rolling “human boulder” leaped in the air and began bouncing off rocks, trees and even the Box for continuously assault his opponent in the air. After landing a hit or two the user of this peculiar rolling technique just rolled aside or bounced right off any surface and rushed at the opponent again and again. The finishing attack was a downwards dive of the oversized human ball that crushed Kusagoro into the ground and began seriously damaging the island.
As the young ninja fleeted the slowly disappearing island Kouta grabbed Mana in his arms and ran up the Box’s surface. For a moment the magician was worried that with the ninja scaling the mystical artifact the chakra used for wall scaling would activate the Box but it wasn’t so. The summoner of the Box’s mystical powers must’ve required a conscious effort to unseal its legendary properties.
This time the Pirate Lord kept track of Kusagoro who was slowly drifting underneath and sinking to the bottom of this seemingly abyssal ocean covering the distance between the mainland continent and the Archipelago of islands as well as Kirigakure.
Right after Kusagoro surfaced, Francho opened his military coat’s inner pockets revealing hidden sealing glyphs which began to glow in the feint blueish glow. Kusagoro wiped the blood coming from his broken nose and his busted open mouth, the man looked pissed and despite the Pirate Lord’s overwhelming assault Mana was beginning to realize that all Francho was doing right now was pulling the moustache of a sleeping titan about to wake.
Francho’s hands unsealed a bunch of cannonballs from the storage seals and instantaneously reloaded his handcannons pointing them at Kusagoro. The Pirate Lord began firing unleashing literal hell but Kouta’s father simply lowered his head and forced himself through, with a powerful battle cry that only a pissed ruthless warrior could exclaim Kusagoro’s fist clenched and morphed into a cannon of the typical primal Jugo skin texture which the warrior slammed right into Francho’s face running right through the man’s barrage of destructive shells.
“Chakra Shotgun!” Kusagoro roared out firing a blast right in Francho’s face. Mana could hear her friends scream in joy! An attack that completely disintegrated a captain level pirate, fired off from point blank range by a pissed Kusagoro. An attack of such magnitude surely must’ve succeeded! Mana realized that she was cheering and shouting together with her friends. She didn’t like or trust that man, she had her reason and wasn’t unjustified in her lack of trust “ the man attacked her more than once and almost killed her a couple of times. Hardly a suitable future father-in-law material and yet…
Francho stumbled back appearing from the cloud of smoke. Kusagoro slid back gripping his own shoulder and painfully breathing trying to control the pain of the damage that the attack inflicted back on him.
“How on Earth did you take that standing?” the Jugo bruiser huffed out looking at smoked up and bruised but smiling, if a little toothless, face of his opponent. “Your hands were in your coat’s pockets, you couldn’t have blocked that…”
“They were in the pockets alright…” Francho laughed up removing his hands out from his pockets and revealing a pill case to his opponent. “My clan’s ancestors tried teaching me their ninja arts but they were unsuccessful. There was too little time and I was never good with that technical side of the ninja arts. Instead they gave me these pills and said to ingest them when I need my clan’s blessing, despite my ineptitude they are what can win me any battle!”
“So you flicked a pill and cracked it at the very last second…” Kusagoro smiled, he spent some chakra on that attack and wasn’t too excited about that overly durable approach of the Pirate Lord.
“That’s right, the dark green “ Spinach Pill which multiplied my power ten times for just a brief moment allowing me to augment my body with ten times the usual chakra augmentation. Two planets could’ve been smashed together with me in between and it’d have felt like an autumn leaf falling on my face!” the Pirate laughed out frantically before suddenly freezing in place and shaking in pain.
Kusagoro began laughing at his opponents discomfort, he raised his still morphed hand and aimed it at the suffering Pirate Lord. “What’s the matter, didn’t your clan elders tell you all power ups come with a cost?” the Jugo mocked the pirate before grinding his teeth angrily. “Your shells blasted away the tie of my friend. One that meant the world to me and whose memento I carried tied around my arm. I will never forgive you for that!”
“Chakra Shell Barrage!” Kusagoro shouted out as his morphed arm lit up with chakra being channelled inside.
A combination of chakra waves fired off from the cannon rushing at the paralyzed and injured target like bullets. The blasts spread off widely and continued to blast various parts of Francho’s body, it was fortunate that the man was such a tremendously large target. Even as the blasts continued to assault the pirate, Francho stood on top of the water surface maintaining the Art of Walking on Water technique even as his body was bombarded with intense chakra blasts. Each single blast of this endless wave was as powerful as a single “Chakra Pistol” technique used by Kusagoro before.
After the technique concluded the Pirate Lord was standing but he didn’t look that conscious or willing to keep going. His coat was ruined beyond the point where the seals in the inner pockets could’ve been used. His whole body was covered with burns and bruises where concentrated pure chakra blasted him.
“It’s a stalemate now… Kouta’s father may have taken a lot of damage before but he dishes it all back with benefits. Even without this Curse Mode he can still win” Shimo briefly smiled as seeing Francho withstand Kusagoro’s “Chakra Shotgun” attack scared the youth in the beginning.
“Yeah, but Francho showed five pills of which he had only ingested one” Mana reminded her friend.
“That’s right, that fatso can still pull off miraculous crap like he did before with those things!” Meiko shouted out in surprise.
“Not just that, I’ve read about the Akimichi clan and they are only known for using three pills during dangerous situations. It is even said that the final pill actually kills the user by forcing the body to burn itself out. There’s no telling what those other two unaccounted pills are or what they do exactly. I am quite glad that Kusagoro-san still has hidden aces because this is a dangerous situation” Mana explained her point.
“I don’t think the Curse Form is very reliable at the moment…” Kouta looked Mana in the eyes seriously. “It dawned to me why father may not be using it even if it means an easy victory. The form unleashes violent urges, the rampant desire to kill, something my father feels even in his normal shape. I think he may be afraid he’d hurt you, Mana, you or the others, maybe even me. That is why he’s holding back and grasps to maintain full control over himself…”
“Wow, you’re just having a bad day, huh?” Meiko tried to lighten Mana’s mood after the supposed theory that her presence may have been the reason why Kusagoro held himself back. After all, the guy just didn’t overall like her to begin with due to the fact that she was closer to his son than he ever was. That was why the man never felt too shy about beating her up near to death even when he was fully restraining himself.
“Kusagoro-san! Please don’t mind me, I don’t care if you kill me, just win and bring everyone home!” Mana shouted out to the huffing Jugo warrior who was gathering his strength for the following inevitable clash between him and the Pirate Lord.
“Don’t flatter yourself, brat. If I think Curse Form is necessary to win, I’ll use it without hesitation. I don’t have to bring all of you home anyways, just some. Plus if I do end up killing you I do have some interesting things to tell the Boss Lady about you and your intent of using the Box against her orders, not like it’ll trouble me at the slightest…” Kusagoro responded.
Francho stumbled around finally regaining something resembling semblance back to his shaking and temporary paralyzed body. Just after the pirate’s consciousness kicked itself back into it the large man tumbled and fell on his knees before his shaking hands proved too weak to maintain the man’s balance and lead to the man just face-planting into the water just barely maintaining the focus to keep him on the surface.
“You’re lucky the Box fucking floats… If I had to use that thing from the depths… I’d have asked it to bring you back so I could kill you again!” Francho roughed out as he picked himself up and put himself on his feet again.
It was only then that the young ninja noticed that the Box was perfectly floating on the surface despite being tough enough to withstand all those shocks and nearby battle explosions without any damage whatsoever. It must’ve been emitting some sort of permanent chakra pulse which kept it afloat just as if it was using the Art of Walking on Water technique.
Kouta tried calming Mana down, “Don’t worry, father will definitely win and he didn’t mean harm. That’s just the way he talks to people. No need to feel bad about yourself…”
“I’m not…” Mana admitted, “Well, OK, I am but it’s a lot of different things that I will most likely never get over. Right now I’m just really interested in this Box. I wonder if it floats permanently and can never appear underwater or inside mountains or under snow, maybe it has a set dimensional height as a part of the coordinates?”
“I thought you’re a magician, not a scientist…” Kouta softly laughed out feeling lightly amused by Mana’s enthusiasm through all those dark and sad feelings she had.
“Well… Stage magicians need to understand the world around them better than most, they use their great knowledge and skills to fool others for their own amusement, remember?” Mana replied with her cheekbones bending in a somewhat smiling shape if only a little bit, first time in quite a while.
Francho shouted out loud unleashing a powerful aura of emanating chakra being molded inside his body. “Finally, that paralysis and cramps are gone! Now to kill all of you!” he laughed out as the usual red returned to his cheeks and his almost toothless mouth twisted into a mad yet jolly smile.
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