CH_7.47 (265)

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Yu was in tatters from the two shinobi armies battling it out for control of the city. Black smoke rose from the southern section of the city, the epicentre of battles, blotting the sky. The sounds of explosions, metal against metal, and voices of victory, defeat, desperation, and aggression made up the backdrop of the invasion.

Excess chakra saturated the environment from over a couple of hundred shinobi using and pumping out chakra. For civilians who didn't live in shinobi-dense areas like the Hidden Villages, they would feel the effect through the food and water tasting ever so slightly different, their skin would be more sensitive, and they would find it a bit more difficult to fall asleep at night among other side effects.

In the conflict zone, there were spots of inactivity that all genin and most chunin avoided. No one wanted to get caught between the two jonin and die a meaningless death because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. One such spot of death was occupied by Ebi and Shirakumo fighting alongside on a long main street. The buildings on either side of the uprooted concrete street were in varying levels of damage, from huge chunks missing to shattered windows and stripped paint.

Ebi's twin kunai shrieked and sparked against Shirakumo's thin katana as the blades clashed at blinding speeds. The two moved together as though performing an intricate fight choreography they had practised thousands of times—but in reality, they were locked in a deadly battle of anticipating and countering each other's next two moves.

The concrete under Ebi's feet cracked as he pushed Shirakumo away from him while leaping back. He released the two kunai in his hands to weave hand seals. He caught both kunai before they fell below his waist and charged forward. His feet glowed blue, and water splashed with every step as though it was running on water.

Shirakumo loaded chakra into his sword and released a slanted wind blade. It was the one jutsu he could perform without hand seals. Kenjutsu—or any bukijutsu—were known for their low number of hand seals as they were simple in nature, and the weapons were often enhanced with fuinjutsu, which made them quicker to cast. It was an advantage when a shinobi could complete bukijutsu seals before the enemy could complete his ninjutsu seals. Shirakumo understood that advantage and took it to another level, training his wind blade to the point where he no longer needed the hand seals and could release them instantly.

The slanted wind blade rend through the road as it screeched toward Ebi, who dropped to his knees and slid under the cutter before skipping back to his feet. The two jonin clashed again, and Ebi swung his glowing foot at Shirakumo's head, who put his arm up to block. A huge wave of water erupted at the point of contact and hit Shirakumo with an intense force.

He shot to the side like a cannonball and crashed through three buildings. Ebi didn't stop and kicked several more times, releasing massive flying waves of water after Shirakumo, and then took a few steps back before resting his hands on his knees and stared ahead. His battered body was sapping his stamina; he had taken one too many hits to his body and bones. The nearby sounds of battle reminded him that he had to end the fight quickly and go support his men.

Ebi straightened up with a silent groan as Shirakumo walked out of the wreckage. The Leaf jonin, dressed in Steam colours, looked worse than before as he stabbed his katana into the sword and then weaved hand seals. Ebi followed suit and weaved hand seals for a defensive jutsu. He would bear whatever jutsu Shirakumo and then launch a final attack.

His chakra began to rise several dozen feet up in the air, creating a wide and long pillar around him. It was a particularly heavy B-rank jutsu in terms of its chakra requirement—but it was his best defensive ninjutsu, and the cost was more than worth it.

Opposite him, Shirakumo finished his hand seals with the snake hand seal, surprising Ebi as the snake seal was normally associated with the Earth Release, whereas Shirakumo was clearly a Wind Release user. He thought perhaps Shirakumo was going to use an Earth ninjutsu and prepared for it as he completed his jutsu too.

The ground didn't move, and instead, Ebi felt two opposing breezes brush his face before two ferocious surging tempest winds slammed toward him from either side, aiming to crush him in between. Before the tempest winds could touch him, the chakra around him turned into a pillar of water, completely encasing him within. The water was like an immovable wall that kept the killer winds out. However, Ebi felt the power of winds seeping through the water. The jutsu remained stable, but the pressure from both sides made it so that he physically couldn't move around and was being clamped in between. The sounds of screaming winds pierced through the water and announced their intentions of wanting to rip him apart.

All of a sudden, the pressure from the winds partially lifted. Ebi felt the burden lessen and quickly thought about his next move when he heard a voice,

"It's too early to relax..."

The water agitated by the winds blocked his vision, but he could see a glow of green through the bubbly and turbulent. While he couldn't see it properly, he could feel the dangerous presence of concentrated chakra a few metres away from him.

The pressure had decreased because Shirakumo had moved on to his next attack. All other sounds were drowned as the sound of a wind blade, but several times louder. The sharpened wind hit the water pillar and ferociously tried to cut through the water defence. The wind blade was thrice as thick as the normal one and slowly cut through the water pillar, slowly carving it out.

Ebi immediately understood that the water pillar was going to collapse, and he had to get out of its way. And that's when it hit him. He was trapped. The wind on either side constricted him from dodging to either side, creating a narrow corridor into which Shirakumo launched a greater wind blade—there was literally no place to dodge—he couldn't even move back as the wind would be faster than him.

As the thought hit him, a second greater wind blade hit the first one from behind. The two wind blades merged, gaining greater power, and cleaved clean through the water pillar and went halfway through a building along the line.

The water pillar collapsed and drenched the street, creating pockets of water in the gaps of the uprooted gravel. As water flowed, it drew blood along with itself; the red colour stayed in the tiny streams without diluting away. Ebi was no longer standing but was all over the street—blood stained the road, a part of his arm here, a toe there, a chunk of brain sitting in a small plate made from his skull.

A jonin was dead.

A drenched Shirakumo took in the scene and shook his head. He had overdone it. He closed his eyes and took a silent moment to pray for Ebi's soul, hoping that he would find peace and contentment in the afterlife.

The moment of quiet was shattered when Shirakumo felt a heat wave sweep through him. Looking back, he saw trails of orange flame rising up the buildings on several streets. He raised his hands as waves over waves of heat spread out, bringing the tropical to the cool city. He immediately knew it was Toridasu's doing.

Shirakumo listened to the sounds of battle. They had quietened down since the start, as they should have. The battle to recapture Yu was coming to an end.

———

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It had nearly been two hours since Daiki and Kameko returned to the factory base with the ROOT agent, who they had drowned him in drugs to keep him down. Iori wasn't with them to paint prisoner seals. She hid near the city walls with a radio to be as close as she could be to the main forces on their arrival; Takuma had taught her the basics, and putting her close to the wall eliminated range-related communication.

Even though their job was done, they hadn't been able to calm themselves. Their nerves were just as taut as they were during combat. Kameko couldn't sit still and was pacing around the unconscious ROOT agent while Daiki had permanently positioned near the factory's entrance so he could see the others arrive a few seconds earlier.

"They should be here by now!" Daiki yelled from the entrance.

Kameko didn't reply and continued to pace in a line with her head down as she stared at the floor. She kept telling herself that the three of them had left the manor house and were hiding somewhere in the house to avoid getting caught in the conflict inside the city. Nothing helped, and the miserable possibility that something had happened.

"Kameko, I think we should go check!"

She stopped. The idea sounded good. Why suffer while doing nothing when they could just go have a look? Perhaps their team needed them, and they could be of much-needed help. She was about to respond but closed her mouth as she gazed at the ROOT agent. Even though he was drugged to his nips with no chance of waking up, the slight possibility of otherwise couldn't be subtracted. The mission's objective was to capture a ROOT agent, and if the agent somehow escaped while they were away, everything would be ruined.

She sighed, knowing that they couldn't leave and was about to respond when Daiki yelled again, louder than before.

"They are here! Kameko, they are here! Kameko!"

His words imbibed a new energy in her, and she rushed across the dusty factory to greet them. Her heart beat faster as she could finally put her fears to rest. She was about to reach the gates when she heard Daiki's voice.

"No... no-no-no-no. NO!"

Even before she could see, his tone made her heart sink. She stepped out into the back alley behind the factory they used as entrance and found her heart drop as she saw a body in Anko's arms. It was covered in what looked to be the curtains from the manor house. Her world shattered when she saw Takuma standing beside Anko; he looked like he would fall over any second and had no colour on his face and no light in his eyes—but Kameko didn't see any of that because if the two of them were alive, then she knew who was inside the curtain.

Kameko felt as though someone had pumped thick sludge into her heart and body as a weight settled into her body. Her legs gave out, and she squatted with her body curling into itself. Her fingers slipped into her hair as she grabbed her head—the scene of Rikku running back to the manor house replayed in her head over and over again—and all she could think that she could've prevented, but she didn't, and it was all her fault.

"I... I should've stopped her," she moaned in pain as guilt and anguish flooded her mind and body. The memories of the girl she had spent just a few months short of a year spun chaos in her mind. The time they had spent together, all the times they had laughed and fought, the long silences where they were content to sit together without a hint of awkwardness—everything that she should've cherished more because she would never get to experience them with Rikku.

As the cheers of victory spread through the city, four members of Anko's team stood in the abandoned, dreary alleyway coming to terms with the fact that their occupation—regardless of how much power it brought them—was cruel, cold, and merciless.

It made them question if any of it was worth it.

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