With a loud thundering roar of battle Roe charged at Kiyomi, this was a completely different approach coming from the Nekomata. The hunter was now treating this fight less like a hunt and more like an actual duel, he didn’t want to simply plunge his knife into the Yamanaka’s heart, he wanted for fate to determine the more worthy heir to lead each of their clans. It may have seemed odd that Roe was so determined to best an heir of a clan completely different from his own but this Roe guy seemed to be all about pride.
After leaning back to avoid Roe’s quick swipe Kiyomi threw a quick jab at the man’s jaw, she was terrified to see that the jab barely even fazed him at all and the cat-hobo continued to throw knife swipes at her. First, his knife holding hand moved back, trying to rip out a good chunk of the girl’s flesh but Kiyomi’s arm was already back on the defensive and she managed to duck under his swipe, throwing a combination of blows at the man’s gut, all of them were absorbed by his powerful body. Suddenly the man bolted back like he had seen his own death or something.
For the first couple of moments Kiyomi had no idea as to what exactly may have scared the man but then she noticed strands of her blonde hair slipping carelessly onto the ground like petals of a flower hit by a strong spring breeze. The Yamanaka smiled, now she’ll have some of her hair on the ground ready to unleash her secret clan technique. All she needed was to catch this man unprepared… The bad news were that Roe also seemed to be quite familiar with this technique since it was used on him previously.
One thing Kiyomi wasn’t a fan of was their environment, they were located in a steel basement which completely disabled any of her attempts to use Earth Release techniques. She couldn’t submerge underground, she couldn’t even fling boulders at the big guy which proved to be so successful the last time. Kiyomi gently giggled, “Punching you hurts me more than it seems to hurt you, I thought after hitting you with a boulder I’d have softened you up a bit…” she tried to taunt the man.
“If I fail this assignment Yellow will have my sister’s head. As a good sibling I must protect her!” Roe charged forward swiping with his gigantic knife. That explanation of Roe’s determination stunned Kiyomi, she dodged the first swipe but then the man’s knee dug deep into her nose. While the girl managed to augment her abilities so that her skull wasn’t crushed with that single kick she was still thrown back, just barely did Kiyomi manage to roll around and pick her body back up off the ground.
“This guy is just like Kenji… He’s just trying to protect his little sister… Shit… I need to get my mind into it, I’m having a hard enough time as it is!” the blonde started scolding herself and trying desperately to get over the realization that she may have been fighting a representation of what her most beloved and admired person in the world may have been like. “If I kill him, will I then be just like those thugs that killed Kenji? Will I make life as tough for his sister as those rogues made it for me?!” she wondered without noticing that Roe was already behind her and with a powerful horizontal kick to the girl’s back he sent Kiyomi tumbling forward.
The Yamanaka coughed, she stood up all shaking and afraid to fight. Was it always like this for Mana? When one viewed all of your opponents as someone one didn’t want to fight? When you want none of this violence, when all of it brings back this sickening feeling inside you that you’d want to puke if you landed another punch? Poor girl… No. She wasn’t poor, she was stupid, she wasn’t fit for battle, no one feeling like this was fitting for battle.
Kiyomi’s hands went through a bunch of handseals, she just barely made them go correctly, just barely she managed to not mess them up. Her chakra had already taken a huge hit after protecting her from instant death that each of Roe’s crushing blows would’ve delivered. Kiyomi had no more chakra to waste.
“Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!” Kiyomi yelled out shooting a powerful and invisible blast of wind at Roe. The man’s body flickered, he then appeared right before Kiyomi holding his knife up and ready to impale her on it when the wall of wind hit the man head on and sent him crashing into a bunch of boxes.
The blonde staggered back and placed her back right at the ladder to the upper floor, taking a moment to look up. How was Mana doing? Was she OK? Of all places Kiyomi wanted to be there the least. Fighting someone who reminded her of Kenji so much was so difficult that she was almost ready and more willing to die than cause more harm to this man who was a living memory of her brother.
“Let’s stop this, there’s no use in fighting further for the two of us, you just want to protect your sister and I can help you with that…” Kiyomi yelled, then a strong smell of flowers caught her nose, the girl tried to move out of where she was but a strong elbow slam pinned her to the steel wall and lifted her in the air, trying to smother the life out of her. Roe was just so fast! The man growled with his cat-like fangs right up in Kiyomi’s face.
“It is true that my sister is the reason why Yellow even got me serving him, but the real reason I’m fighting you is because you hurt my pride, the pride of an undefeated Nekomata heir. My sister’s life will be saved by the same action that will satisfy my pride “ your death and your head on my belt.” Roe almost whispered right into Kiyomi’s face.
“Normally I’d say… Ewww for your breath… But… Is that tulips I smell? Did you get perfume spilt on you?” Kiyomi taunted the cat-hobo who was covered with some strange purple goo from those boxes and hat shards of glass all over his muscular frame. The Yamanaka then lifted her feet and kicked at two shards digging them deeper into the cat-man’s chest making him let her go and roar out loud in pain. The heiress took a couple of seconds to roll to the side and catch her breath.
“No. He’s nothing like Kenji, Kenji only cared about his village and his family, he never let personal feelings get involved in it all. This man is all about pride, he is a lot of things but Kenji he is not! I’ll just have to try not to kill him, I don’t need this sibling vendetta on my consciousness…” the girl thought to herself coughing out and standing back straight.
Roe slammed his arms together, “Nekomata Clan Secret Technique: Roar of the Prideland!”
Kiyomi was blown back almost instantly by some invisible force, it was like the man’s voice got multiplied a thousand times and made into some strange ring of pure force that grinded and threw objects around. Once again Kiyomi felt her chakra taking a huge dip. She’s been abusing chakra augmentation but there was no other choice here “ any single of these blows would’ve killed not only a normal person but it’d have been enough to level a mountain. As the shockwave of Roe’s roar passed through casual objects it completely grinded them to dust, not even a single shard of wood remained “ the shockwave completely disintegrated everything by its intensity.
Kiyomi felt warm drips of blood running down her ears, she got back on her knees and then back on her feet. The girl looked around “ the entire room was demolished, there were absolutely no objects to substitute with, even the steel was completely wrecked, the whole room was bent up and just barely holding together “ the shockwave must’ve ran out of its own range, otherwise it’d have demolished the entire room and buried both of them beneath the upper floor. This Roe guy was a madman, he was ready to destroy everything just because he felt prideful.
Kiyomi’s arms went through a bunch of handseals, she noticed that Roe slipped into the shadows again trying to hunt her down again but this time she’d be ready. This time the cat-hobo was all covered in perfume, this time Kiyomi knew of his abilities and she’d be ready for him. With a tap of her knuckle the Yamanaka set off a genjutsu, Roe leaped at her but his body stopped suddenly, he then just fell down on the floor straight, the girl went through even more handseals but then her jutsu failed, no, the blonde stopped it in time “ she was running out of chakra slowly, she needed a breather.
“You changed the appearance of the room using your genjutsu, making me believe that I was charging at a steel wall when actually it was just you… Stop postponing the inevitable, either fight me or die proud!” he shouted out reaching for the loops of some wires. The cat-man pulled on them setting off an excessive trap. Kiyomi did her best to move backwards, to try and navigate so that she didn’t get caught but it appeared like this whole place was set up to become some sort of intricate spider web when those two loops were pulled.
The girl felt tight steel wire wrapping around her wrists, her elbows and her shoulders, her body, thighs and the lower leg all the way to her feet. Just barely the Yamanaka heiress managed to avoid having one loop tie around her neck, if it did, this man could’ve beheaded her with a single pull on the right strings.
“Remember? Last time you caught me in a trap just like this, I prepared this specifically for you.” Roe’s fangs grinded together angrily and his peculiar whiskers moved up and down as he exclaimed what he thought was his victory speech.
“Awww, you shouldn’t have.” Kiyomi tried to keep the talk going so that she found at least one way to escape this tight spot without losing any limbs or dying.
“Normally I’d just stab you through the heart and end this, maybe bite through your neck but… You beat me, you crushed me and insulted my pride!” Roe charged forward bashing into Kiyomi’s body with his shoulder. The girl screamed out from the depths of her lungs as the steel wire dug deeper into her body. She heard the horrible sound of steel being pulled from its sheathe but this fool had already made his mistake “ he messed with his own trap by bashing Kiyomi in it, he may have opened a bunch of wounds bursting with blood but… That was what Kiyomi was trying to avoid, now that he did it she was ready to just struggle a bit and pull out from there.
Roe’s fists flew freely, he kept punching at Kiyomi’s side and the girl kept augmenting her chakra to keep herself alive. A single free punch could’ve destroyed her, a single punch would just killed her instantly and sent a shockwave through her body strong enough to grind her bones to dust. This man wasn’t playing around. Kiyomi kept on screaming and taking all of his punches but then it happened “ one of her hands got free, the steel tore off a nasty chunk of her flesh and opened a pretty bad wound but it let Kiyomi pull out her knife and swipe at the man. With a click of his fangs he broke the kunai into shards of steel. Kiyomi didn’t stop, she roared in pain and pulled her legs and the remaining arm out getting cut up and injured and swept at the man’s legs after landing taking him down for a moment while she ran to the corner to examine the extent of her wounds.
Kiyomi disappeared in the same shadows where Roe used to hide. She was hiding, trembling and just barely restraining her weeping from how much her whole body hurt from that nasty trap. The worst part was that Quack was tired out, he won’t be able to heal all this… Darn it, Kiyomi needed to win this, she needed to win this fast and go help Mana, the hatchling depended on her, she looked up to Kiyomi and the blonde needed to live up to that trust.
“There you are!” Roe’s thundering voice echoed as his figure leaped out from the darkness, Kiyomi had sensed him coming, he still couldn’t get rid of the smell, the area was so dark that the Yamanaka was only able to barely distinguish the hunter once he got very close up to her. Then again, it was quite likely that it was the same with the Nekomata member. That gave the blonde an idea, she avoided the swipe of Roe’s knife by observing the steel as it reflected the feint rays of light emanating from the other side of the room, Kiyomi rolled under Roe’s feet and then disappeared again.
“Stop hiding! Darkness is my weapon!” Roe roared out. Two punches into his lower legs sent him on his knees, two swipes from Kiyomi’s kunai left gashes on his back. A flip over his head followed by a double kick right to his face made the man roar in anger. Kiyomi couldn’t believe this was working, she was tired and in the process of bleeding out yet she somehow managed to find out that the man’s greatest strength was also his greatest weakness, after all “ who hunts the hunter? Finding out stealthy opponents was really not his strongest suite.
Suddenly an iron grip locked around Kiyomi’s throat just before she could knock Roe out with the back of her knife. The man’s face remained looking somewhere else, it was just his arm working completely independently yet so incredibly precisely! Kiyomi moaned pathetically as her body was effortlessly lifted up in the air and she felt air starting to leave her body, she tried to jerk around, struggle, kick the man a couple of times but it didn’t work.
“Did you really think that I couldn’t see in the dark? I fucking fight in the dark you stupid bitch! Which part of “cat-like physiology” was so hard for your little brain so hard to understand?” Roe roared moving Kiyomi’s face, still gasping for at least a little breath of air closer to his own. He then laughed out.
“No, not like this, you’ll suffer more, you injured my pride, you won’t die enjoying yourself like this!” Roe shouted out tossing the blonde aside into the light.
“We’ll play the same game we played last time! You look around, desperately try to find me and fail! My knife plunges one organ after another until you give up and die!” Roe’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness. “Last time was just a fluke, I’ll prove it to you, I am the world’s strongest hunter! No one can find me when I don’t want to be found!” the man’s voice kept echoing.
Kiyomi coughed up and stood back up, she saw blood dripping from various wounds all over her body from that stupid trap. This was so close! She was just about to stab his eye out! The blonde still clenched that kunai in her hand, she got caught completely unprepared but she managed to get her kunai ready to poke the cat-man’s eye out before he decided to kill her differently… If only he behaved in a logical manner and proceeded to try and choke her out. His illogical behavior was making it pretty hard to plan all of this.
There it was! The dreaded smell of tulips, Kiyomi turned around and flipped back to avoid the knife. Silence once again took over the room, she knew this game “ he’ll tire her out, either that or she’ll bleed out. No part of this game was going her way so she had to change the rules. Kiyomi felt up her own chakra, tried getting the general feeling of just how much she had in her, just how much more fighting she could take. It wasn’t that much, she had it for several more techniques, maybe a couple of augmentations too but that would be pushing it… She’d need to conserve some chakra on that augmentation, maybe augment a little bit less, it was a really big risk but it was a necessary one.
Kiyomi staggered back avoiding another slash. The man’s body flickered and disappeared again, he moved much faster than the girl’s perceptive ninja eye could see. He must’ve been one of the most amazing ninja the girl had ever seen and yet Hanasaku could’ve taken care of this joker so easily.
“Just do it how Hanasaku would, take the hit “ hit him back harder… I’ll just augment my body, just in case…” Kiyomi thought to herself right before the figure of the cat-hobo appeared from the darkness charging in with his knife up and ready to cut through the Yamanaka. Kiyomi felt chakra bursting, surging through her creating an invisible armor to protect her from things that’d kill her normally and she raised her arm like a shield, with a little luck the man’s stab would pass right through the augmented arm and hit the floor opening him up for a finishing blow, a stab to the neck should do it!
A loud flesh piercing sound echoed and a burst of blood shot out all over Kiyomi’s face. For a moment the girl just stood there and looked at the gruesome sight of her hand being easily penetrated by her assailant’s knife. It was then that the overwhelming pain hit her and Kiyomi screamed in an inhuman-like voice throwing a mad kick to get the cat-man further away from her. The pierced arm shook wildly, blood was squirting from it and Kiyomi didn’t care about standing there and fighting, she was bolting, retreating into the darkness to tie something around that arm.
Roe stabbed so hard he cut through her chakra augmentation! How could’ve she been so stupid!? Reserving chakra on something as integral as toughening her arm up… Right as Kiyomi tore the shoulder off of her top and started wrapping it around her arm she begged whatever forces there may have been overseeing this battle that this mistake would not be her final one.
“Yeah, that’s right, run. Run. Run, little lamb!” Roe’s annoying voice echoed all through the darker parts of the room once again, Kiyomi knew he was coming for her soon and she had to be ready for him, she had to get ready for him!
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