"Fight For The Family"

"Who said anything about fleeing?"

Shikuro slightly thumped his fist onto Kyo's chest, and the chest gradually started to become grey at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"I just didn't want my shinobi to die in vain, so I told them to move away but I already had countermeasures in place if you wanted to pull something like this."

"What the—"

Kyo tried to use his chakra but found out that his chakra was getting consumed by insects at an alarming rate; unbearable pain stemmed from his chest, he was seething, unable to resist.

"Rinkaichu, these bugs destroy their enemies' cells, causing excruciating pain in the process. Unlike the standard kikaichu, which can act independently of the user, these nano-sized insects can seemingly only be transferred onto a victim's body by direct physical contact. These insects will now slowly eat away your cells and the chakra stored within them, so you won't be able to use your chakra anymore; you'll have a very slow and painful death, Yagami san.''

"You bastard!"

Kyo screamed in agony, not because of the pain he felt from the insect eating away his cells but from the reality of how futile his last attempt at clutching the straw was.

Shikuro's eyes got suddenly enlarged as if he found something. He quickly looked towards the remaining five shinobis and nodded towards them and all of them started to move away.

"We have already found your wife and child, so we gotta go. Don't worry, they're, the insects I mean, are exceptionally fast hence you'll die before you know it."

Shikuro used body flicker to disappear along with the Nara shinobi beside him.

THUD!

Freed from the grasp of the thick and vile shadow, Kyo's limp body fell onto the floor but to him, it felt like he was condemned to the very depth of the abyss.

In the end, he could make no difference, the only thing he could do now was to pray, pray so that his family may survive the impending doom.

Present,

"H-How?"

"How was I undetected by your sensing ability? You husband and wife sure are a handful. C'mon, we're ninjas I knew you were going to pull up a stunt like sending the carriage in a different route, no need to be shocked.

"As for dodging your sensory ability, I knew that one of you possessed one when your husband was able to detect us before the ambush. So, as a precaution against it, I just coated my body with my dear insects—making myself appear as undetected in your chakra sensing ability. It makes me appear undetected in any type of sensing ability since there are no fluctuations in my chakra for you to sense."

Shikuro finished as five more ninjas appeared beside him, each with different masks.

"What happened to Kyo?"

"Oh, well he is probably dead by now."

'What? Father's dead? No! He said 'probably'; it means father is still alive. We have to save him somehow.'

Karna took out his sun sword and stood at the branch of the tree, ready to jump at the anbus any moment.

"Karna, RUN!"

Kazuya urged Karna as she formed various hand seals, crouched down and smashed her palm into the ground.

[Fuinjutsu: sealing trap]

A large formation made up of complicated sealing formulas appeared beneath the feet of the root anbus.

[Explosion]

Upon her verbal affirmation, several explosions started to occur within the sealing formation. The anbus sensing the explosions were quick and moved away but it was still enough to wound several of them.

Boom! Boom!

"Shit! When did she do that? I thought they were simply paper bombs." Shikuro voiced out while dodging the explosions rapidly.

The silent night was lightened with destructive explosions that wanted to decimate anything on their way.

The anbus kept dodging the explosions with great difficulty whereas Kazuya started to form hand seals again.

The anbus are extremely proficient in working as a team; their combination work, as well as their knowledge about their teammates, is what makes them truly fearful.

But once you break their coordination, they'll eventually break too. Kazuya's previous attack did just that, she first made them scatter, and now, they'll have to look for their backs by themselves.

[Eath release: mud spore]

When the explosions stopped the anbus made themselves stable but it wasn't for long as an ever-expanding swamp made up of mud suddenly engulfed their legs, starting from their knees.

Kazuya noticing all the anbus trapped and took out a scroll using unsealing jutsu and threw it at the air.

"No! Dodge"

Shikuro cried out and tried to free himself but the mud was as equally resilient as his resistance.

[Weapons control: Heavenly chain disaster]

Kazuya muttered as she performed a kai hand sign, which unsealed the scroll in the air and unleashed a barrage of hundreds of kunai and shurikens attached with paper bombs.

Upon seeing the weapons going in the right direction she looked back and grabbed the shoulders of Hisui.

"Karna kun, please, run away! Momma will always love you, but you need to go away for now. I'll buy you enough time; the Subaku town isn't that far, so go there and hide for momma and dad. Please!"

Kazuya urged Karna but He was lost in his incongruous thoughts—the thoughts that made him look back into the life he has led, up until now.

'In my past life, I acquiesced when my family committed atrocious acts in the name of ruling, I accepted remarks of people calling me a demon, but when my own family took away the only thing that kept my sanity within that den of iniquity, It infuriated me. And just like the "mad king", I went on a rampage. I let out all the anguish, all the pain and grudge that I had saved up.

'I ruthlessly murdered everyone related to that incident, and in the midst of them were my own parents. I took away the lives of my parents and brought down the empire that I forged myself. So, I could never connect with my new parents. The concept of 'family' became so convoluted to me that I never again wanted to have it.

'But even after my repeated reluctance to accept them, they did their utmost to love and protect me. And just like my last life, I'm again losing the thing most precious to me. Should I do nothing and run away, and live a life full of revenge and guilt afterwards? No! I won't let history repeat itself. Even if I am to die today, I'll still fight beside my mother.'

'Yes, I might just make their sacrifices pointless but I've never asked for this life, in the first place. I just can't live another culpable life. I'm tired and if I'm going to start a new journey, I'll start it with my new family.'

Karna resolved himself and looked ahead at the anxious woman, who even after knowing about her inevitable death was concerned about him. He took her hands in his and spoke.

"I'll stay here and fight with you mother."

"What are you talking about, Karna kun? If you don't leave everything will become meaningless. You have to go right now!"

"No! I don't want to, Mom. I'm not going to leave. I'll stay here and fight for my family. Those anbus caught up with us so easily in such a short time; can you be sure that they won't be able to do the same when it comes to me? Whereas if we fight together our chances at survival will increase."

"I don't want to argue with you, Karna. Now, I want you to go away."

Kazuya was adamant about what she had decided and in no way would she let Karna die in here.

But before she could force him to run away, an irregular chakra fluctuation from the trapped anbus caught her attention.

She glared at them, all while her callous expression remained unchanged.

In her mind, she was preparing for all eventualities, weighing up her cards, but the next occurrence, even for her, was an utter surprise.