Tanshu and Howoku rushed one hall back from the main hall where the Kage Summit was taking place. The two ninja looked around witnessing a gruesome sight – the Kirigakure Barrier Corps were nowhere to be seen while their own ninja laid there knocked out without any signs of life. "No blood, no signs of battle… These men were some of my most trusted ones, they also were quite high ranked… They must've been taken down in a sneak attack." The Hokage uttered confirming what both men already knew inside. They were now on their own. There was no more reason looking for their men as the cunning Mizukage had made sure that they'd be all alone. She's thought of everything. It was a good thing that Howoku picked up those extra men from outside the village after leaving and didn't arrive with just the few guards he left with, otherwise those barrier ninja may have caught him and Tanshu unprepared.
Tanshu cursed, "Damn that Misu, didn't he leave the room to make sure that everything's OK with the men? Where the hell did he go off to?" Howoku looked at the Sannin questioningly, "Do you think Misu's out too?" he asked as his tone descended. Tanshu kicked down a chair and flipped a wooden table over just trying to let all of his anger out, "Nah, that bastard's too tough even for Kirigakure sneak attacks, he spent entire year in that pisshole, if there's anyone knowing a Kiri scheme coming, it's him." Howoku turned around looking at the main hall. "We've got to go back, maybe we can still catch Mizukage and have her answer for all of this?" "Too late for that, Haoru probably already caught up to her and he didn't strike me as a guy who would've appreciated the help of ninja, we turned back to find our men, may as well look for Misu or confirm that there are no more surprises coming our way." Tanshu replied. Howoku nodded, "True, Haoru-san is not the kind of man who likes ninja butting into his fights." The two men started moving towards the exit from the temple they entered through.
As they entered the next room the trio saw bunch of Konoha ninja on the ground just like in the last room, this time however their assassins actually were present in the room. Within an instant Tanshu's body instinctively dashed towards one of the barrier ninja driving his elbow into the ninja's gut and then again into his neck. The barrier ninja fell lifeless. "T… This is Red Dog Tanshu… Fall back!" the barrier ninja yelled as several of them fired moving barrier walls at Tanshu as the man tried to strike them down as well, the barriers pushed Tanshu back to the other end of the room. Tanshu made several handseals and charged towards the barrier, thrusting his palms at them as they flamed up, "Fire Style: Red Cerberus Rampage!" Tanshu shouted out as his palms started shooting wildly busting through the barriers near effortlessly with his flaming barrage of blows, the man then proceeded to jump amongst the enemy ranks and take them all out with quick and precise blows and kicks. It only took one blow to their necks for the ninja to fall, it only took mere kicks from Tanshu to break their bodies and cripple them for life or outright kill them. It was quite a while before Tanshu got serious…
"Die, Hokage!" bunch of barrier ninja yelled leaping from a balcony and shooting off some walls of barriers trying to crush Howoku from below, after weaving just a single handseal Howoku's arm lit up with bright light that was his Starlight Release and the man swiped it sideways sending a powerful scythe-like projectile incinerating all of the barrier ninja assailants while cutting right through their barriers as if they weren't even an obstacle. The man fighting now was not the young and hopeful Howoku but the one that followed the belief that all that stepped out of line had to be destroyed and Kirigakure had long since threw rotten fruits at Konoha from over the line. Just about long enough… More Barrier Corps ninja flowed the halls, Tanshu and Howoku leaped at them, carefully dodging their assaults and offensive use of barriers by maneuvering around them and striking all of them down. After the last of the Barrier ninja fell the two once again reunited.
"I think wearing us down is Mizukage's intention, I certainly hope that you're not feeling worn out just yet, Tanshu." Howoku said as Tanshu showed the man his fist, "Not even close, I could beat losers like this around whole day" he replied confidently. As the exchange of lines went the ground rumbled. Deafening quakes echoed all through the temple as the sound of debris and shrieking of some sort of supernatural origin made Tanshu and Howoku cover their ears and fall on their knees, they had to find cover for support as the roof in their room also dropped several fist sized stones. This entire place was very ancient and even more unstable, just what kind of nonsense were the Mizukage and Haoru engaged in? As the sound stopped Tanshu looked at Howoku questioningly and the two took off and dashed back to the main hall. All this time they assumed that Mizukage had already taken off but this sound suggested she may have been closer than they've imagined. If these barrier ninja were all that Misu had to look out for he was safe.
"Haoru, one of the four God Sword Jutsu wielders… I thought he had an advantage against any ninja, he usually cut the enemy down before they could weave a single handseal." Howoku grunted as he was genuinely worried about what exactly had transpired in the main hall. Tanshu coughed up as clouds of dust cleared up, "Not necessarily, a very skilled barrier ninja could excel at keeping a distance or protecting themselves as the enemy tried to take them out with their half-baked attempts to intercept their seals." Either way, these were just speculations, finally the main hall was in sight. As the two men entered the destroyed landscape they couldn't stop themselves from looking around in awe – the entire room was disassembled and it appeared like all of that part of the building had centered and piled up on one place – the center. "That's… Like… God-Eyes' power…" Tanshu grunted, he had already seen Oni Mask that day, was it possible that God-Eyes was also alive?! "No, that cannot be, we've all seen him disintegrate after being hit by my Starlight Release jutsu, he cannot possibly be alive nor can there be another Rinnegan user. Someone did this without Rinnegan and that is possibly even more scary…"
At that moment the gigantic pile of rubble shook and rumbled, loud muffled grunts came from under and then a great gale of wind gusts blew all of the destroyed hall off of the central area where it had formed a crushing sphere. "DON'T BURY ME YET, DAMN IT!" Haoru shouted as he burst from the rubble. His kimono and trousers were torn up and covered with his own blood, his body was covered with bruises and injuries and his hair was set loose and was flowing wildly as some superhuman chakra pulsing off of him floated it in the air. Haoru pulled cuts of his kimono from under the rubble and tied his hair back into the ponytail, he then started wildly throwing the smaller rocks aside while pushing the larger ones with his unnatural strength. Howoku and Tanshu were both astounded and couldn't believe. "You were… Under that pile?" Howoku spoke first. Haoru looked back at the man for a brief moment and showed him a thumb up before continuing to dig around for something. "This is nothing, I've fought in several wars, a moment of larger than life injury cannot bring down a man who has been cut up by swords for entire days on end…" he grunted as with a powerful push he flipped over what looked like a rumbled pillar that held the roof. "There you are, honey!" he shrieked like a little girl and pulled his sheathed sword from under the rubble, checking on it for damage and then tying it up to his belt.
"Well, I'm set to go! Let's get that woman!" he energetically raised his fist into the sky. Tanshu scratched his head, "Wait a moment, old timer, first you should tell us what the hell happened here, I think we need to know just what kind of ability this woman used because we're sure if we'd get hit by something strong enough to do this – we'd die instantly…" Haoru laughed up and then comically grabbed his injured ribs, they must've been broken but it didn't seem to bother the man except the occasional fits of pain. "Well, she can make pretty tough barriers, she can also multiply them seemingly infinitely to where they weigh enough to rip holes in reality leaving a dent in it that causes everything in that place to be sucked into the rip. Luckily I used my Hurricane Draw jutsu to not get made into a spaghetti and keep myself far away from the tear by giving him my wind to eat up instead of me. All I had to do was survive the hall crushing me into a big pancake!" the man laughed at it as if it was something funny.
Howoku sighed as he looked on ahead, the spring breeze picked up and rustled his hair. "If Mizukage can use that kind of jutsu it's troubling, I've never heard of a ninja who could legitimately kick your butt, Haoru-san. Still, to make a barrier so heavy it'd tear away reality surely sounds like a tiring concept, she must've used her barrier multiplication technique many times in rapid succession and that's something that tires a person out. Good to know we are not the only ones to get chips on our armor…" Howoku said. Tanshu curiously stared Haoru down, "Can you go on ahead, old timer?" he asked, "Sure, I may have bunch of my bones broken but when you've been battered, burnt and zapped as many times as I have it stops bothering you until you die. I may move slower but I'm sure I'll still beat you shadow humpers…" Howoko smiled, "If you can still make fun of ninja you'll be fine, let's catch Mizukage and take her out." The three men dashed with all of their speed onward, entering through a hole left in the temple when the main hall was disassembled and mushed up on one place.
As the three were rushing past the corridor Howoku pouted and turned his head at Haoru, "Haoru-san, did Mizukage tell you what her actual plan is? I mean she told us that she's planning to crush all the Kage and take everything over, that much is for certain, she believes that she's the only competent enough person to control the entire ninja population, that being said, what was her plan here?" Haoru grinned, "She planned to leave the building and then use a larger scale of that thing she used against me on the whole building killing everyone inside. I think now she's unable to do so, if pulling those glowing cubes came easy to her she'd just have done so from the start, it was more of a last resort to her so now she'll try to take you guys by other means. I'm wondering just how well her effort to hold the other Kage off with her military is going, surely Kage is a ninja much stronger than any number of usual ninja?" Tanshu nodded, "True, at some point, when talking about Sannin and Kage, the number of opponents is irrelevant, someone like the Mizukage could take out an entire army by just using that reality tearing jutsu on them. The highest ranked ninja need to be taken out by equally high ranking ninja, no number of chuunin or genin can outmatch them…"
The three ninja dashed out of the overly drawn out short corridor into a cage-like hall. The structure had rotating staircase with countless openings where windows were supposed to be, instead of glass there were bars for protection. This location must've been built way before glass was even a thing. "Where to now?" Howoku wondered, Haoru pointed right in front at a door that must've lead onwards. "If we are to assume that she still wants to leave, there, that way is the straightest path outside while the staircases lead to various other corridors to other halls." Two figures landed right in front of the trio – both of the men looked very similar yet each looked also different from the other. "Water Temple monks." Haoru smiled as he drew his blade, "What did that lady do to make you guys sell out and join her pack?" he taunted the duo. One of the monks got visibly annoyed and outraged, he almost charged at the swordsman when the smaller one held him. Both men were wearing the typical black and white rag monk attire, they each had some strange face paintings, the larger one was bald and the smaller one had excessive dark facial hair and wore a bandana which barely helped contain his long hair.
"Mizukage-sama did nothing, we've joined her cause by our own choosing, the Water Temple agrees with her ideas, each temples worship different divinities, they each are lead by different ideals and the world needs not such confusion. There must be one temple, one ninja establishment so that there is no conflict to be made. Such eternal lasting peace and prosperity justifies one giant slaughter to end all slaughters" the smaller one replied as he moved his hand away from his bigger friend's chest and took a fighting stance. Howoku turned to the side and looked at Haoru. "Haoru-san, please remain uninvolved. You need to gather your strength and let your body recover somewhat, we cannot afford letting you die in a middle of battle unaware of how critical your condition is, even if you have overcome your bodily limits, that does not make you immortal." Haoru was very visibly not pleased with this suggestion but he stepped back and sat down to the wall. "Fine, don't like killing monks anyways, would much rather cut down ninja…" he grumped out crossing his arms on his chest. Tanshu tossed him a small bag, "Take care of your bruises and injuries while we fight, these men are pretty tough if they are monks but it shouldn't take too long…" he confidently declared. He then jumped up grabbing onto the second floor staircase and pulled his body up, dashing madly to the upper floors, the larger monk followed. Tanshu's goal was to separate the two monks, it was likely that the monks were trained to work together and while they normally could've both ganged up on Howoku their goal to keep the two away from Mizukage made it difficult to ignore Tanshu's movement.
The monk appeared right in front of Tanshu, dashing several floors up and then making a mad rush downstairs, throwing a wild punch at Tanshu's face. The Sannin ducked under it only to receive a kick into his chest that sent him tumbling one floor down before he pushed his body up with his hand and backflipped into a balanced stance. Tanshu was impressed by the speed, strength and precision of the man's moves – he was very clearly a taijutsu user so he may have been troublesome to someone who specialized in negating opponent's ninjutsu and genjutsu, either way it made no difference, whatever the playing field was - Sannin surpassed all ninja.
The smaller monk dashed and threw a punch at Howoku as well, the Hokage leaned his head to the side and tried throwing a punch of his own only for the man's other hand to catch it, the two kicked their knees forward at the same time only for them to clash, the two exchanged several blows and then dashed back to get some distance. At this point they were just checking each other out but Howoku was feeling the pain where he clashed or blocked the monk's blows but it didn't look like it bothered the monk that much – his face remained stone cold. Howoku clenched his fist as it lit up with Starlight Release chakra, the Hokage leaped forward throwing a fist charged up with enough chakra to disintegrate the area it connected to, the monk leaned out of its way as the punch dispersed, the heat from the punch did seem to bother him as he lost his footing for a moment. Howoku tried to throw a combination of blows to the man's abdomen and his face but the monk managed to respond in time by blocking all of the blows and tapping his foot at Howoku's chest and pushing his own body away instead of using it to kick. The Hokage had never seen such strange taijutsu moves before, it made a lot of sense – the monks had very secretive and amazing taijutsu styles of their own with each temple developing their techniques incredibly differently from the other.
Many floors higher Tanshu's fist finally connected to the larger monk's face, the large man stumbled back, tripping on the stairs and having to use one hand for support, as Tanshu prepared to exploit this opening the man shifted his balance using the hand as balance point and pushing his body into the air while kicking the air wildly using his long legs. Tanshu leaped into the air and stuck to the wall just in time to not get kicked down the stairs again. The Red Dog quickly made some handseals breathing in deep and then releasing all of that air at once – "Fire Style: Red Dog Bark!" he shouted spitting out a mass of flames at the monk who just covered up as they devoured his body. The technique wasn't lethal as it sacrificed density and power for speed and versatility but any damage he could land could still quickly establish his dominance. As the monk moved his smoking and damaged by slight burns hands to the side his monk attire was scorched off and his whole body was smoking and covered with small patches of burns. He cursed loud as the monk got up from the staircase and finally got on his feet, taking a fighting stance and readied himself to keep fighting. He needed to hold this man here for as long as he could, every second he struggled Mizukage regained her strength and the Water Temple monks were not the kind to let down the Mizukage!
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