Desperate Situation

I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

...

'Why do things have to be so troublesome?'

...

"Uhhh..."

"This place is..."

"Really creepy."

Kirito's squad advanced past the giant double doors into a giant room with an asthetic straight out of a Victorian TV show.

However, everything in the room was off, as if devoid of life and color. The once fancy tapestry on the ceiling was worn from years of wear and tear, the red carpet leading to the throne was dirty and raggedy, and the throne itself was chipped at various areas with an especially chilling presence coming off of it.

Kirito scanned the room with a frown noticing just how hard it was too see in here. Perfect for an ambush. He turned to Sakurai giving the pink haired male a subtle nod and in a rare moment of maturity he, wordlessly, began conjuring up his pink colored barriers around himself and the healer.

*Caw!*

*Caw!*

The crow that Itachi gave them cried for the first time after flying silently above them the whole time. It was enough to stratle him but he remained calm.

"Tch! What's up with this bird?"

"It's going crazy for no reason."

"Captain, I'm starting to get really nervous right now."

The last comment was from Sakurai because he knew that the bird's strange behavior wasn't out of nowhere, but rather an instinct that all animals possessed and knew it was its way of warning them.

Kirito proceeded to give each and every one a look before signaling them to stop where they were with the wave of his hand and went to investigate the throne ahead, but he didn't get far before stepping on a pressure plate beneath the red carpet sending a deadly volley of arrows right at himself.

"Kenji!" he cried while he easily leaped over the fast moving arrows. The tanker responded by smashing his mace to the ground forcing the earth beneath to uproot and stop the arrows dead in their tracks.

It wasn't even a single second before goblins dropped from the ceiling catching the group unawares, a similar surprise attack from earlier on. This time however, the visibility was much worse which is how the goblins were able to land fatal blows on 3 damage dealers within the group, cutting their fighting strength to nearly half.

'Dammit! I should've seen this outcome coming a mile away and reacted sooner!' Kirito's gritted his teeth together as he landed and effortlessly sliced through multiple goblins that jumped him from different angles.

He jumped back when another volley of arrows were launched at him. 'It seems like the entire floor is rigged,' he noticed his foot had sunk in a little just before the arrows were shot at him.

He looked back to see how his team was fairing and it was safe to say, not great. It seemed Kenji had just reached the same conclusion he did about the floor and was carefully placing his steps whilst doing his level best in protecting Sakurai from external threats who was maintaining his barriers around Toma, the healer.

The two mages of the group, Gingaku and Chen, were doing their level best to support Kenji from a distance since they knew being up close was to their detriment. Even if the goblins were E-rank monsters too many enemies were enough to overwhelm even high level mages if they didn't have any massive AOE spells, like them.

This fact was made worse by having most of their damage dealers bleeding out on the floor.

Truly a desperate situation.

In one bound he crossed the previous distance separating him from his team and killed a goblin that would have sneaked Kenji.

"Thanks for the assist!" Kenji said gratefully. He swung his mace full force at the head of a goblin and used the momentum to run through two more approaching his right.

Toma ordered Sakurai to expand the range on his barrier around him so that he could safely heal their comrades dying on the floor. The barrier hunter did so without complaints and screamed with effort to increase barrier around Toma to include not only him, but another person. This normally wouldn't be an issue, but with constant attacks on his barriers he had to focus on maintaining their integrity as well as their range.

He ignored the blood leaking from his nose.

However, now that the little demons had lost the element of surprise their numbers were dwindling at an exponential rate until, after a few minutes, everything went quiet and only their tired pants could be heard.

"Good job, Gingaku... Chen. Just stay over there for now we don't want any unnecessary traps to be set off before we can catch our breath," Kirito ordered the mages to remain far off in the corner of the throne room.

"Yes sir!" they both saluted. Kirito smiled lightly at the youthful exuberance of the two young hunters. At least they weren't as skittish as Sakurai was most of the time despite being newer members of the team.

'Is...that it?' Sakurai thought momentarily dropping the focus he had on strengthen his barriers. He wiped the blood from his nose and surveyed the goblin corpses all around the room. Once all this was over it would certainly be a good payday, but one question surfaced to forefront of his mind. And that was...

'Where the heck is the boss?'

It wasn't more than a few moments before a giant figure obscured by shadows appeared behind Toma, as if summoned by Sakurai's thoughts. Toma was fully focused on healing his long time teammate with the safety net of Sakurai's barrier around the both of them, he didn't have to worry about watching his back, knowing only a B-rank monster could break through the forcefield.

Sakurai and the others could barely cry out a warning before the gigantic figure shattered through the pink barrier and smashed Toma's head in causing his brain matter to splatter all across the floor.

"A Hobogoblin!?" Kirito widened his eyes in shock. He jumped to get Sakurai out the way of the monsters next swing by tackling him to the ground. Unfortunately, however their contact with the ground triggered another pressure plate forcing a volley of arrows to come crashing down upon them at high speeds.

Seeing this Kenji quickly ordered the two mages either side of him to divert the arrows away from Sakurai and the captain. They did so by simultaneously firing energy blasts from their palms.

Kenji caught the huge fist descending down aiming to crush the two with both of his hands. The Hobogoblin crashed its other fist onto Kenji's hands and repeated this process with the previous one until the tank's feet went ankle deep into the floor.

*Caw!*

*Caw!*

*Caw!*

Kirito widened his eyes when he saw the crow doing its level best to become a nuisance to the Hobogoblin by pecking at its face and eyes, but he knew it was ultimately futile against such a beast, nothing more than a sacrificial play on the crow's part.

The boss grade monster ended up swatting the bird away killing it upon contact. The crow's death was enough of a distraction to allow Kirito and Sakurai to pull Kenji out of harms way.

"You two! Don't start gawking the enemy is right in front of you! Fire!!" Kirito's yelled at the two inexperienced mages that stood there with their mouths agape. They were their only reprie from the Hobogoblin's relentless aggression and couldn't have them just spectating.

Snapping into focus, they fired off several energy spells to shake the monster off the captain's tail and drawing it towards them.

It worked and the giant goblin changed its course to confront the two mages. They then split off in two different directions around the goblin, all the while irritating it with constant barrages of magic charged blasts.

However, all they could do was irritated and distract it, they were nothing but pests and the monster treated them as such by increasing its speed and crushing the first mage under its foot.

"Gingaku!!" Chen cried out desperately before he, too, was splated against the wall by the hobogoblin's massive fist.

'Shit!' Kirito panicked with visible distress on his face. He desperately crawled to the double doors with Sakurai—on his back— and Kenji in tow.

The hobogoblin almost mockingly walked them down, easily catching up to them in just a few big strides. Raising its fist in the air before descending downward aiming to end the group for good.

Sakurai tired to raise a barrier, but it was futile as he knew wasn't strong enough to stop the inevitable even if he was at full power.

He closed his eyes waiting for the end, hoping it to be swift.

In that same moment, the double doors, suddenly, flew right off their hinges and caused a lot of smoke and debris to from their impact with the ground.

Sakurai peeked one of his green eyes open when he realized he could still hear his raging heartbeat reverberating throughout his body.

"Apologies for being late," he heard the voice of Uchiha Itachi call out. He had his back to him, but that wasn't the strangest thing. He had this firey reddish-orange aura around his body in the form of an astral ribcage. Sakurai continued gazing in astonishment noticing a firey skeletal arm holding back the Hobogoblin's fist with little strain on Itachi's part.

"If you three can still move then get out of here. The path is clear, you did a good job."

Itachi ordered in a no nonsense tone that Sakurai and the rest could only nod to dumbly before retreating from the boss room.

There was a part of his mind that question him leaving a comrade alone to face the terror of such a monster alone, but for some reason he got no indication that Itachi would lose.

He was strong, stronger than anyone he's ever encountered. He'd win, for sure.