Kiyomi kept creeping around through the dark edges of the room. Her mind was all over the place, jumping from her own bleeding arm back to one floor above, wondering how Mana was doing. More and more the Yamanaka started wandering off. Maybe it was a genuine worry about the youngling’s well-being or perhaps more her wish to not confront a young man that resembled her brother a little. While the realization that Roe was more prideful than protective did help Kiyomi look the man in the eyes, she still had several bonds that needed to be severed.
“My friend down there, the one facing your sister is a cruel and violent killer. She’ll kill your sister and she’ll do it very slowly and very gruesomely. It’d be for the best if you left and went there to save her.” Kiyomi grunted out, her voice still sounded a tiny bit whiny over the pain and losing all that blood. Roe leaped out from behind Kiyomi, his feet kicked off of the wall giving the young woman some time to react properly and roll out of the way, clenching her tied bleeding arm.
“Cony can handle herself and if she cannot she isn’t worth my clan’s legacy. She is of royal leading bloodline, she has no right to die against a filthy Yoruma and if she did that’d be on her. I love Cony but it’d be her wish that I killed you and rebuilt the pyramid of my pride which you’ve toppled and made myself whole again” the man shouted out angrily. Trying to step back into the light when loud clangs and sparks of shuriken being deflected by his knife lit the area up for some time while Kiyomi moved into the light.
That was it “ that severed all of the bonds, all of the similarities between Kiyomi’s late brother and this man. Her brother was a little bit arrogant but more in a confident kind of way, he’d have never allowed his pride get in the way of his family. He even gave up his life, his promised dream of being the next greatest Yamanaka shinobi to ever come from that bloodline by fighting multiple opponents whom he had no hope of beating. He trampled on his own pride by choosing to lose, by choosing to risk it all for his little sister and his family. Now Kiyomi could fight this man at her full power without holding anything back!
“Multi-Shuriken Jutsu!” Kiyomi yelled by firing off a continuous barrage of shuriken that multiplied from the ones that she had already tossed, it was a simple C-Rank technique that most genin learned right after the Academy, one that didn’t clone the user but cloned the tools they used to be used in larger quantities. Roe continued to deflect the shuriken, skipping just a couple. Kiyomi’s chakra was large, larger than most genin in the village so she was able to fire off a much larger barrage than most users of this simple technique.
The cat-man pulled several ninja stars out of his shoulder and chest, the small spikes of the shuriken left small wounds but it didn’t appear to reach beyond his muscles and cut any blood vessels which was unfortunate. Kiyomi hoped to sever one by hitting Roe in the shoulder’s soft spot but she didn’t hit it deep enough it seemed… The Yamanaka slapped her hands together channeling chakra through the hair she had cut previously, just in time she rolled to the side to avoid Roe’s throwing knife that he tossed right at the center of her skull to intercept her technique.
Having faced off against the Yamanaka once already, Roe knew that she couldn’t just pull her techniques off quickly and easily. Kiyomi needed a moment for her chakra to reach the hair and then connect the channel to her opponent, she needed time to fire off her clunky soul-like hollow figure when she used her clan techniques and missing it left her wide open. If Kiyomi only used those clan’s hidden techniques she’d have never survived this long, it was only due to her physical prowess equal to if not surpassing that of her fellow genin that she managed to excel.
The girl grabbed a kunai in her other arm, holding the bleeding and injured one carefully in a cast-like position and lunged at Roe. He was injured and bleeding now, the girl needed to press that advantage and make him lose more speed, then when the cat-hobo is tired and bleeding out she could hit him with a clan technique and it’d all be over once she did. Roe’s knife clashed with Kiyomi’s the two clashed several more times in the darkness. The shadows of the room were occasionally lit up by the lethal dance of knives of the two ninja, now that Roe was injured Kiyomi could somewhat manage to not let up to him up close. Kunai style of knife-fighting only used one arm anyways so Kiyomi’s injury didn’t hold her back that much.
Roe leaped back “ there it was again, the same trick twice. Just like the last time the cat-man let Kiyomi believe she could contest with him up close wishing to make her confident before he speared her gut. This time the Yamanaka leaped to the side and the spear got stuck in the steel piercing halfway through the floor and getting stuck in it. Seeing the spear tear through solid steel halfway in made Kiyomi shutter remembering that pain from before, it was a good thing that the three met Quack in this mission or it’d have been all over for the three of them ages ago.
Kiyomi pulled out a scroll from her belt, she opened it and slammed it onto the ground. The girl made the handseals and bit her finger until it drew blood dragging it across the scroll’s surface leaving a bloody mark. Roe wanted to intercept but he had never seen that scroll or what was inside it, he was worried that his reaction was just what Kiyomi wanted when in fact it was the opposite. The Yamanaka predicted such a line of thought and had no defenses against that counterattack, that was why she simply played the right psychological game and got a little bit lucky to unseal what was inside that scroll.
“Lightning Style: Proximity Mine!” Kiyomi yelled out unsealing a technique she asked her friend seal into the scroll before she left on the mission. It was one used by her Inuzuka friend from before and it was one of his early favorite techniques. Having jutsu of both of her past teammates sealed in the scroll felt like they were always there for her, almost like they watched her back. Such thoughts were poisonous, those two goofballs were gone! Kiyomi now had a different team, it may have been just a temporary team but she’ll be given a real one until the Chuunin Exams. While the young woman got rid of the toxic bond with her brother, finally being able to let go of his memory, she may as well have spilt it all out.
The lightning style sphere flew slowly at Roe, waiting for Kiyomi’s order to dissolve into a larger storm of small shocking bolts that’d have been both a pain for the cat-man but also briefly stunned him giving Kiyomi an opening for a wounding close range attack. Roe jumped into the air tossing another spear to the ground finally ridding his body of those long and dangerous weapons. Kiyomi activated her teammate’s technique but the spear acted like a lightning rod and absorbed the bolts inside of it burning up and dissolving into black dust and the tip playfully clanged as it got torn off of the steel floor and spun around from the force of the explosion. Just like that one of her teammate’s memory was let go of!
Kiyomi dragged her finger across the scroll again letting her blood touch another symbol on it. Suddenly violent shocks erupted through the steel starting to tear it apart leaving large fractures and fissures “ only the Earth Style of her sensei could’ve able to rip through steel. This was just Hanasaku’s last memento for her student “ a powerful A-Rank technique to pull her favorite student from a sticky situation when she’d need it.
“Earth Style: Tearing Fissure!” Kiyomi shouted when the fissure exploded from the pressure built inside the steel tearing large chunks of the floor and firing it off at Roe who was still in the air, descending. The cat-hobo covered his chest and head so that one of the sharp chunks didn’t dig into his skull or heart. Toughening his body, augmenting it as much as he could so that the explosion of pressure on the floor didn’t kill him, the shrapnel all hit the man but none of them drew blood, they all just made him yell in pain and leave sharp looking blunt force trauma all over but none of them impaled him like they should’ve “ must’ve cost a lot of chakra. Once Roe’s feet touched the ground the powerful force that was tearing the floor apart finally hit his body too. The lion-man lifted off from the ground yelling madly as his body contorted in the strangest of shapes, it genuinely looked as if the force would just rip him in two like a strongman ripped phonebooks.
Sadly the aftershock of the technique was not enough “ Hanasaku’s memento was also let go off. With the third stroke on her scroll Kiyomi sent the third technique “ a large fireball, the signature “Great Fireball” technique of the Uchiha clan. Roe covered his body and took it all. The raging flames weren’t that powerful, they were just an overflowing tongue of flames wrapping into a circle shape, not yet on the higher ranks where it formed a powerful projectile of a wrecking ball that exploded in a violent firestorm upon impact. A powerful dissolution of flames appeared to eat Roe up but once they cleared up it became apparent that they didn’t.
The man continued to stand with his hair and his beard completely singed with the short remains of the hair still being in the process of it. His body was covered with burns from heated up steel tools that he carried around his body pressing against his skin once they’ve been heated up but the man’s chakra augmentation protected him from getting third degree burns all over his body. Still, the injuries he took were huge, he also augmented his body multiple times as evidenced by his hyperventilation after the technique dissolved. Even after the flames had ceased Roe stood there with an X shaped block to protect his vital parts, slowly his twitching and smoking arms were pushed back and he took a fighting position again.
With a powerful fling Roe tossed a couple of throwing knives, Kiyomi was too tired, she only had the option of making sure they didn’t poke her brain or heart out as she let them get stuck in the least-vital areas she had the time to pick for the projectiles to hit. The girl screamed out in pain and stumbled back. Roe’s body blurred and flashed up to her, his kick aimed to hit Kiyomi in the side of her head knocking her out or outright killing her but the Yamanaka leaned under the kick avoiding it.
“Just go down already!” she grunted in pain throwing a strong uppercut under the man’s raised legs straight into his groin. She needed to resolve to cheap shots, she needed to target his eyes, groin, any weak spot she could’ve found. She was stabbed by those throwing knives that while pretty short and slim still left their mark and would bleed her out in minutes if pulled out, she had multiple pretty deadly injuries and her chakra was approaching its limits.
Roe screamed out like Kiyomi had never before heard men scream. It was a similar scream to a wild cat being dragged across the pavement held by her tail. The man tried to toss several desperation counter blows but Kiyomi carefully dodged them, every time she twisted her belly or sides that had those knives in they burned like Hell itself but the Yamanaka persevered and kept on swinging. Several punches hit the man’s face sending him stumbling back, then a finishing large punch to knock him out! Sadly the blonde lacked the physical strength to do so, even with slight augmentation she only sent Roe stumbling back even more where she intended to knock him down. The cat-hobo leaped back, Kiyomi stepped forward but something was wrong, she looked down and realized how lucky she was to have noticed the slower and almost alluring speed decrease of her opponent.
On the ground in front of her laid makibishi “ small spikes used by ninja to pierce through their opponent’s feet and either ruin the hooves of a mounted opponent or disable their opponents feet by making walking a living hell. Roe kicked off the ceiling after his leap, doubling his speed after realizing that his opponent saw through his clever trap, swinging his knife at Kiyomi. This wasn’t good, the girl pulled out her own kunai, she couldn’t move around much because she could’ve missed some of those pesky spikes “ she couldn’t move around as much as she wanted and was forced to just slug it out with a physically superior opponent. The knives of the two clashed, they were both extremely worn out “ Kiyomi had a bleeding arm that she could only use for handseals and several knives stuck in her body, she was slowly losing chakra and blood and had more bruises than she could remember. Roe was also beaten up but also had severe internal bleeding from Hanasaku’s sealed technique and was quite worn out by tanking that fireball with his body, something that also left numerous burns all over his body.
Kiyomi pulled out three kunai and tossed them forward. Roe leaned to the side avoiding all of them and letting them get stuck somewhere further in the wall behind him. Kiyomi pulled on the string making the string tied to the three kunai attached to the string in the blonde’s hand tie a painful loop around Roe’s foot. The girl then tied the string in her hand up to another kunai and tossed it to the ceiling getting it stuck in the wiring of some lights. Avoiding another desperate blow from her tired opponent and using the last of her willpower Kiyomi tied the wire with her final string pulling it hard while augmenting her arms so that the tearing and cutting steel wire didn’t cut into her hands.
The result was her opponent hanging helplessly tied to the hanging trap on his one foot. The man tried to reach up and cut it loose but Kiyomi’s punch knocked several of his fangs out and made him lose his large knife. Roe closed his eyes and made a calm expression.
“Your willpower succeeded. Kill me, your clan is found to be superior by fate, you’ve been selected as the victor.”
Kiyomi turned around. “No. I don’t want to, it’d probably be a good idea having in mind that I could pass out at any moment but…” the girl stumbled to a wall and slid down onto the floor leaving a bloody trail on the steel wall. “A greater punishment for you is to hang here until you regain your physical strength needed to tear the steel wire apart, you’ll live the rest of your life knowing that I beat you fair and square twice. Maybe then you’ll lose this stupid idea of pride and being the strongest and finally spend some time with your sister, I’m sure that she loves you and cares about you a great deal. Don’t waste either of your lives with this bullshit, it’s too short in this world of ours.”
Roe relaxed before a wild burst of tension and his final powerful burst of chakra, that outburst of rage caused a powerful gust within the room that made Kiyomi cover her face and look aside. Once the rage burnt out the cat-hobo passed out and finally the prey had overcome the hunter. Kiyomi sadly grunted having realized that her enemy probably had learned nothing in the end from this encounter. The blonde closed her eyes and let the pleasant release of sleep take her over. Was this just her losing it or was it death? In her current state of mind the Yamanaka couldn’t know or care.
“Shit…” she heard a familiar voice. “I think we’re losing blondie here, I’ll see what I can do but I may need to wake her up…” it was Quack’s voice. Wait. Wake her up!? The Yamanaka heiress suddenly remembered the method used by this quirky Quack to wake his allies up and her eyes shot wide up, “I’m awake, I swear, I’m awake!” she yelled out.
Mana, all beaten and covered in wounds, having torn her cloak and standing there in her tattered remains of what remained of her uniform and some weird mechanisms that held decks of cards in them and were attached to her fingers that were now exposed. She must’ve won, even though it didn’t look like it happened easily.
“Alright, though no way you’re moving anywhere, blondie, I’m keeping you here and alive. With a couple Sanguine Pills and stitches you’ll be up on your feet in a minute or thirty” Quack sighed with a shade of annoyance in his voice.
“Wait, how did it go, Mana?” Kiyomi looked at the girl, she was the one with the least experience facing off against the hardest odds as the man she fought was supposed to completely crush the magician’s style of fighting.
“It’s fine, I knocked Noji-san out and let his dog carry him back home. The dog needs Konoha’s help with some medicine so it won’t run away. I’m going on forward to help Hisako-san, the dog said there’s something really important I had to know but I didn’t speak dog… Whatever that language is called, if whatever it said was so important Hisako might need help, you stay put for now while Eiju-san patches you up” the magician explained with a worried and friendly voice.
“What did it sound like? The dog’s message?” Kiyomi asked, her teammate was an Inuzuka, after spending so much time around the two she picked a couple of things from the two. When she linked herself with the two of them on the mental link she could compare the thoughts to the words they said to each other which helped her grasp the basics of the Inuzuka communication. Dogs had a system of howling, barking and growling that formed words, they were responded with normal human language which they understood. Kiyomi knew the basics of the Inuzuka dog language, she hoped that maybe she could’ve helped.
Mana tried to repeat the message with the best of her effort. Kiyomi slapped her face making Eiju who was stitching her up look at the Yamanaka angrily.
“The underwear is what!? I don’t think you said it right, try again…” Kiyomi growled angrily at her friend. Mana apologized and tried again.
“Okay this isn’t even… You didn’t even get a single word, none of those are words dogs say…” Kiyomi grunted again.
Mana concentrated harder. Repeating the growls and barks and howls perfectly.
“Yellow is hospice?” Kiyomi wondered repeating the message out loud. Mana’s eyes then shot open instantly. She jumped onto her feet and rushed to the lift, bashing at the button that was supposed to activate the mechanism to murder the hostage. Kiyomi tried to jump up and yelled at Mana but then a hidden door opened at the center of the wall with light emanating from below leading to the deepest underground floor.
“What does this mean? Why would the hostage killing button do this?” Kiyomi asked Mana who turned back at her friend with horrified eyes.
“It’s not “Yellow is hospice”, it’s “Yellow is the hostage”…” Mana explained, “If he tries something on Hisako-san she’ll freak out and when Hisako-san gets freaky she gets murdery, she’ll kill our hostage. Even if he is this “Yellow” guy, we need him alive, our mission is to bring him back alive!”
Kiyomi tried to stand up but as her wounds and her stitches burst more blood shot out making the blonde dizzy. “You can’t go there. If Hisako does indeed go mad… You’ll be getting in her way “ she’ll kill you.”
Mana looked at Kiyomi and then at the staircase. “She won’t. I saw her fight, I know her moves, she’ll be tired and I am no longer the Mana whom she faced back in that forest. I need to save the life of the horrible bastard that manipulated us all so I absolutely won’t lose.”
Just like that Mana ran off, her body disappeared in the confusing downwards spiral of the staircase leading down.
“Well… Magician’s dead… Too bad, she was kind of cute, may have tried something with her in a couple of years.” Quack gruffed out in an ironic tone making Kiyomi squint at him angrily and then grunt in desperation “ she had to be there. She had to help Mana. No matter where she’ll end up “ facing Yellow or Hisako, either two of them were bad endings…
“I thought dark haired girls weren’t your taste…” Kiyomi angrily shot back at the medical rogue fixing her wounds, right now he was her only hope of getting back at her feet and helping Mana solve this nonsense once and for all.
“Are you mental, lovely, all girls are of my taste, I must’ve been high when I told you that, or I’m high now, could be either one really…” the Quack replied in his weird dull and annoyed tone while he stitched Kiyomi’s stab wounds.
“Is there any use complaining about your work ethics now?” Kiyomi asked ironically.
“None. I’m too poisoned and drunk to remember it in the morning, in my defense, you made me wait your fights out until I saw that dog. It was cold…” Quack replied finishing another stitch.
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