Chapter 57 | Pulse
Taiga sought a simple but efficient plan of infiltration. The first step had been to enter from all directions and that had been done with a cacophony of destruction and black rubble raining down the forceful intrusion. Hashirama, Madara, and Mio had been chosen specifically to amass the most attention by using their more damaging techniques—their intent centered solely on destruction. Taiga, Saori, and Nako had followed in laying out their traps for the sea of enemies that waited to attack them.
Taiga had created half a dozen explosive traps before the shinobi chasing after Madara had noticed, only to realize after one misstep caused the trigger to all. And from the western gate, Mio had been able to see the ignition of said traps—a grey, yellow-red contrast against a still, stark sky. The ashes, flecks of white brimming with light were swept across the rooftops, spinning wildly as if they were about to be drawn into the twist of a tornado when Madara swung his gunbai repelling a dozen of Water Technique users from the southern gates. His attack had ended with a blast of fire from his mouth that left the road to the courtyard decimated.
Saori had dealt with her enemies in silence, webbing her sharp string from road to road, and had trapped them all until a quartet of dark haired shinobi with pale, lilac eyes had intercepted her path. The last Mio had seen of Saori had been of her drawing a shuriken, undaunted by her Hyuuga challengers.
Hashirama had demolished the reinforced eastern gates, erecting giant trees that had trapped several in their moving limbs. He had cleared the path for Nako, who had a group of summoned birds she had coated in stone that slammed into any and all that came close to engage her.
Mio had used up a large amount of her chakra with the destruction of the western gate and had, henceforth, relied on her taijutsu to clear a path to her destination. She had memorized the layout of Nishiki's castle, that had been her duty and it had been easy—a simple, focused look would have burned the map into her memory permanently, but she had no time relying on natural gift alone. She had studied it throughout the trip between strengthening the artifacts and sleeping off the weakness it called in her. So every time she closed her eyes she could see the twists and turns of every street within its black walls and picture the design of every floor going up its castle tower as well as the labyrinth that was the dungeons.
The second part of their infiltration involved partnering in which Nako would be the decoy disguised as Mio would be accompanied by Hashirama, the two sweeping through the dungeons in search of their imprisoned friends. Mio and Taiga would be down there as well, setting traps along every entrance to act as a signal. Madara and Saori had the toughest job, distracting Nishiki long enough for one of them to steal away the Universe Sphere for another decoy mission.
Mio fought the Lightning Country's shinobi determined to see through an end to their numbers. She swung her dagger vertically, feeling the cold, jagged steel slide across the flesh of a man's face where it left a deep red line that burst with blood. A strike came at her from the left and though she spotted it through her periphery, the blow connected with her jaw, the force knocking her several stumbling steps away where others waited to hit. She caught her balance before one had a chance to grab hold of her and she snatched him by the neck. Tightening her grip against his throat she heard him choke before she sent him flying onto two of his clansmen. They sacrificed the opportunity to attack her to catch their comrade, though not long had they done so did they toss him aside like garbage.
She brushed the blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, pain throbbing in her face, and swept past an oncoming group of four. She sprinted through each one, wounding them with her dagger, and ran into a narrow space between two buildings. She heard the sound of their running across the rooftops as red tiles crashed to the ground in pieces. When she reached the end of the narrow walkway, they cut her off in a group of three.
She could not shake them. She had very little stamina remaining as the breaths leaving her came up short and ragged.
They came at her once more, the first with a punch she blocked with her left forearm and she kicked away with as much force as she could muster. The second attacked her with a kunai that dug deep across the flesh of her neck where it would have ruptured her jugular had she been even a second late in moving her head back. She grabbed hold of his arm and broke it before dragging his weight across her back to flip him, slamming him to the ground. The third grabbed her by the face and smashed her body to the ground, the impact crackled through the ground around her.
It left her stunted, robbed of every feeling but the pulse of pain. She managed a long, strangled noise that sounded as though it had been wrung from her throat.
The man prepared a finishing attack, readied to dig his fist into her stomach. She saw it coming, envisioned the speed and power behind it and imagined it crushing her bones and stealing the last bout of oxygen from her lungs, leaving her powerless to the gentle tug of unconsciousness.
His fist collided with the half shield erected by her artifact and the power he had intended for her vibrated past his knuckles and through his arm shattering the bone. He fell back with a terrible scream, holding onto his arm.
Mio blinked up with a wide smile on her face as the sheen of the shield catching the light. It worked, she thought, heart thundering with excitement. The sphere shielded her the instant it knew she was in grave danger and acted offensively when it repelled the shinobi's attack.
She pushed her body onto its side, heaving it up on shaky arms and slowly pulled herself back onto her feet. She searched her surroundings. The three at her feet seemed to be the only ones to have managed to follow her all the way there. It took her a moment to see where she was and another to know what road she needed to take to reach her destination. There was blood flowing from a gash in the back of her head when she reached back to see the damage done.
The shield came down. The shinobi still agonized the pain of the shattered bones and she saw fit to see him put out of his misery. She kicked him swiftly across the face, rendering him unconscious, and limped her way through another narrow passage between buildings.
The fastest way to the dungeons was blasting a hole through the ground. Taiga's explosions were meant to do just that, acting themselves as decoys.
After Mio grew accustomed to the pain, she started running, cutting down any lingering shinobi she encountered by the eastern gate until she reached a large gaping hole in the ground covered by twining trees. She slinked under Hashirama's Mokuton and jumped down into the abysmally dark maze where Hashirama, Taiga, and Nako awaited her.
Of the three Hashirama had retained the less injuries, though he had sustained a few scratches and cuts here and there, his armor had protected him from any terrible injuries. Taiga had a busted lip and a bandaged shoulder with blood seeping through the cloth. Nako had sprained her ankle after tripping down the hole and endured several bruises and scratches from that alone, though she did have a bandaged cut across her abdomen she was particularly proud in showing.
"As always, you look worse than all of us put together," Taiga commented.
She imagined she did with drying blood crusting in the back of her head and the contusions peeking through cuts in her clothes. Her knuckles were bruised and bloody, her legs throbbing now that she was standing still.
Nako used a Transformation Technique to take on her appearance and Mio confirmed she indeed looked terrible. The Uzumaki pulled out a small map Mio had drawn up for her and Mio guided her through the path she was supposed to take to reach the beginning of the map. Once she and Hashirama understood where they would start and where they would all convene, they were off to search for their imprisoned guardians.
Mio and Taiga went together to set up traps.
It unfolded before their eyes. The dark spiral towers erupting from the western gate, the wave of trees protruding under the eastern gate demolishing all that stood in the way of their growth, the scorching flames blasting away all shinobi that appeared to challenge by the southern gate. And the silent killers slinked their way through; the Nameless One with his weapons, the Ito girl with string so sharp it could cut through a building if she so willed it, and the Uzumaki summoning a pest of stone animals to support her.
The amount of clans they gathered to go against them did not matter.
Ayuka's impatience grew palpable as she tightened her grasp over the windowsill, but only because she had been unable to execute the three guardians in their possession. They had encountered a minor inconvenience along the way. Mio had done something to the spheres, something he could not undo with the chakra he had implanted in each, in fact, he was certain she had used it against him. He withheld that morsel of information from Ayuka, knowing Mio had made changes would have put Ayuka in a mood Nishiki had no interest in worsening.
The redheaded priestess spun away from their deteriorating kingdom.
"Where are you going?" asked Nishiki.
"I am going to the dungeons to kill the children," Ayuka said ruthlessly. "And you? What will you do? Continue standing there and do nothing as these children threaten our peace?"
"We were always aware they would come," answered Nishiki coolly.
"Yes, but to allow this much destruction!" she snapped, waving at the sight of billowing smoke outside their window. "You can stop them! You have healed yourself using that Kuronuma's blood! Handle them, Nishiki!"
"Do not bring my actions into question, I have my reasons," Nishiki said firmly. "Go about your business and see that it does not end in another disaster."
Ayuka bristled. "Have some—"
Interjecting rather rudely, he added, "And if you encounter the young Shugosha, do not think to harm her." She remained valuable to their cause. "Do what you will with the rest."
His wife stormed out of the doors that opened for her, pretending not to have heard a word he said, kicking at the patterned skirts that fell to her ankles.
The ever-predictable Mio would be heading straight for the dungeons. Her actions were clear from the moment he saw her spiral towers tear through the ground like black geysers, melting all they touched—even weakening that which he had strengthen with his own black water. She slipped through the western gate, challenged those that came her way, no doubt leaving with wounds to tell of her survival. The clan he had defending that particular area hailed from the Lightning Country and its shinobi were powerful taijutsu users. They were relentless in their pursuit and ruthless in their battles. She would be inhuman if she left without a scratch—and thinking it through, Nishiki believed he gave her too much credit as he would be astounded if she had a single breath left in her lungs.
But his brother's words rang in his head like a haunting sound: "Underestimating me was your downfall, Nishiki, do not let that be the reason a weak child kills you next time." The little witch had proven sly and extremely clever, more so that he anticipated giving her credit. She discovered the chakra he imbued into the artifacts when he created their new universe and used it to repel him. She severed the connection between the Time Sphere and the three artifacts in his possession, which put him in a precarious position—a defensive one.
He had known from the instant that she had done it, that he would be defending against her.
If Ayuka had any luck, she would capture her in the dungeons and hopefully it would be after she killed their three prisoners.
Yes, he did underestimate her, but that did not matter.
The pieces had fallen into place.
Beyond the window, a powerful gale carrying swirls of flames torched several rooftops and he could see Uchiha Madara leap onto the courtyard, countering the giant wave of water the Water Country's shinobi conjured with a wave of his gunbai. Producing a towering wall of stone that absorbed its impact, the water coming down along the sides crashed onto the pale ground covered in rubble.
Madara swiped his gloved hand over the handle of his gunbai wiping away something before drawing half a calligraphy brush which he used to paint on the kanji for fire.
Nishiki stepped closed to the window as the young Uchiha swept through his oncoming enemies, eyes glowing red, body spiking with chakra, and a giant battle fan sparking fire with every swing. He cleared the path between himself, though not without signs of exhaustion. He had been fighting for some time now, endlessly—more enemies had lunged themselves at him than they had in any other battle. But he had an upper hand as he suspected of the others.
The Nature Sphere.
Nishiki had fought the Uchiha before, heavily protected by a glowing set of ribs he summoned with that elusive dōjutsu of his. Madara had wielded the power of the Nature Sphere in his gunbai during that power and had challenged Nishiki's Kuronuma technique's with every nature transformation in existence, each he had seen swallowed by the black water—invigorating it to lengths Nishiki did not think possible. And in the course of the battle, Nishiki had seen the Time Sphere around Madara's neck destroying the Nature Sphere until it had snapped in two, its power lost to them forever.
But it worked again.
Nishiki saw him use it and it was a fascinating sight to bear. Ayuka feared Uchiha Mio would reach her potential and put an end to their goals as she had in that journey they had taken decades ago through the Fate Sphere and into the Universe Sphere. The weak child had grown among his clansmen, trained and protected. When she had inherited the sphere, and her artifacts had been threatened, she set out to put an end to it. She had gathered her guardians, men and women she had chosen again, and had hunted them. He and Ayuka had fallen.
A smile curved his lips. The cunning witch brought back an artifact.
He wanted to see the extent of her power.
Madara would be his target. And once dead, Nishiki envisioned prying the restored artifact from his cold, dead hand to see its strength first hand.
A laugh escaped him as he watched Madara as he came together with a woman with chestnut colored hair and the two sprinted forward to Nishiki's tower.
Nishiki walked to the artifacts he had sitting on the table and took the Universe Sphere, the ceramic cup shook as he infused it with his chakra, filling it to the brim.
He had an adequate surprise for these intruders.
The ceiling rippled with shockwaves and the dank maze's foundation gave a shrill cry, followed by the desperation of its prisoners echoing through the twisting paths. Mio found the far side entrance once the tremors subsided and the dust drizzling from the ceiling settled along the damp floor. She slapped explosive tags along the staircase leading down the entrance and set up Saori's string over the surface of the steps to trigger them. She finished swiftly and moved along to meet Taiga, who would be doing the same in the secondary entryway.
When the ceiling rattled a second time and the metal bars sealing each individual prison screeched, Mio took cover, feeling tiny stones bouncing off her arms and rolling onto the ground where they vibrated with the rest of the maze around her. She lifted her head slightly as the tremors subsided, pulling her arms away from her head, and rose on shaky legs to sprint across several lanes. She considered releasing the people from within their cells, seeing most peer out from behind the bars with a pleading curiosity and hearing many shout across paths asking for her help. Many of them were weak, bloody, and agonizing while nursing fractures that were starting to heal incorrectly. She thought of it considerably to the point she almost had pulled apart the black metal bars securing them within a square of filth, malnourishment, and blood, but setting them free would put them at a higher risk of dying.
Mio turned into the second lane to her right.
"M-Mio!"
She stopped abruptly, whirling around as she searched for the voice's source. She turned away from the path she had entered and stalked back into the connecting lane.
"Hashirama!"
"Mio!"
Mio's heart jumped into her throat and she ran into the direction of the voices, skidding down the slippery ground as she made a hasty turn into a dead end filled with prisons. A wave of heat hit her, the temperature seemed to have spiked the instant she entered the new lane and it seemed to have to do with the back part of the area, which was covered in a cloud of pale steam. She stumbled forward, righting herself before sprinting into the hot mist.
"Mio!"
The two voices overlapped. Clear enough to distinguish without the echo. Tobirama and Yayoi were both standing behind scorching black bars; the white-haired Senju directly in front of her and the priestess to her left. She searched for Takuto, relieved after seeing them.
"Takuto is here!" Yayoi waved a hand covered up the forearm in red gashes and horrible blisters towards the cell beside her. "They've been draining him of blood! You have to get him out! You have to help him!"
Mio turned back, cupping a hand over the side of her mouth. "Taiga!" she called, raising her voice enough for the echo to carry. "Taiga! Hashirama! Nako!" She heard the sound of her voice reverberating across the maze, bouncing off the walls until it faded into nothingness.
She went straight to Takuto's cell, reaching for the bars only to jerk her hands away instantly. She stared at her palms and they were a violent red, steam rising from them. The black water solidified into these bars had been pure like the rivers in Mt. Hyōga. Touching it burned away her nerve endings.
Takuto was lying weakly on his side, barely awake, barely breathing.
Mio reached for them a second time, biting back her body's instinctive need to recoil, and pushed past the pain. She sucked in a deep breath and held it in as she gathered her strength into her hands. She gave the bars a hard yank, one that made the hinges squeak in protest and scrape against the walls around it. The heat seared away the flesh of her palms, bringing the pain back in pulses and wringing a cry from her throat.
She wrenched at the bars a second time and felt the strengthened steel bend underneath her grasp. She pulled down repeatedly, each time more and more forcefully, until she broke the bars apart.
Mio ran to his side, sinking to her knees, when the others rounded the corner. Taiga went to her while Hashirama and Nako rushed towards Tobirama's cell.
"Don't touch the bars!" she shouted in warning, gathering Takuto in her arms. Blood ran down the length of her forearms. "They're made from black water. Use explosive tags."
"Didn't you think of that?" Taiga asked snappishly.
"I used them all!"
Taiga asked Yayoi and Tobirama to stand back as he slapped a few explosive tags along the corners of the bars.
Mio quietly pushed the matted blond hair from Takuto's face with the back of her hands, feeling pained by the state of him. "Takuto," she whispered numbly. He was sickly pale and dying. She hugged him to her body, rocking gently with him in her arms. "You'll be okay. I promise you'll be okay."
Taiga, Hashirama, and Nako sprinted into Takuto's cell with her when the explosives went off. Two walls of metal walls fell to the ground with a thundering sound.
Yayoi came scrambling into the cell, falling to her knees before making it to Mio's side. She picked herself up long enough to make it and sank into a seat. Mio opened her arms for her to settle into them and felt Yayoi's arms wind around her as a startling sob ripped through her throat.
Taiga approached her, reaching down to put a hand atop Yayoi's dark head as she started to cry and looking at Mio, he said, "We did it, Mio."
Mio rested her cheek against Yayoi's head, feeling a rogue tear fall from her eyes, and nodded. They saved them. Lifting her eyes, she made eye contact with Tobirama who offered her a respectful nod.
She patted Yayoi's arm. "We have to get you out of the castle."
Yayoi stared up at her, wide-eyed and frightened. "No, I have to stay and help you!"
"No," she said firmly. "You conserve your energy and make sure Takuto stays alive." She turned to Hashirama, pleading. "Hashirama, can you…?"
Hashirama nodded, walking to her. With little help, he hoisted Takuto onto his back.
"Tobirama will stay in my place," he told her. "He can still fight."
"Thank you, Tobirama," she told him.
Yayoi ripped at her skirts, taking Mio's damaged hands and using the strips to bandage them. "I promise to keep him alive. I'll do everything in my power to do it. But you have to stay alive." She glimpsed at Taiga. "All of you need to stay alive." She made eye contact with Nako, and then Tobirama. "You too, you klutz. Don't think I left you out or anything. So don't come back dead, any of you. Stay alive."
"We will," Mio assured her, watching her cover her blistering hands with a strange fascination in realizing the throbbing in her stomach overshadowed the pain of her burns. She imagined it was her anxiety manifesting into a dull ache. "Thank you."
The priestess rose, following Hashirama out of the cell when Taiga grabbed hold of her wrist. He dragged her to him, his right hand cupping her face before he dipped his head and stole a kiss. Nako immediately covered Tobirama's eyes with a sharp, "Don't see this!"
Mio lowered her eyes to the ground awkwardly. That she did not expect.
Taiga pulled away from Yayoi with a smirk and the priestess stared up at him, the world having dissolved into nothing. "Stay alive, priestess."
Nodding dumbly, Yayoi walked into Hashirama and snapped out of it. She ran after Hashirama as soon as he sprinted away. Not long after they had gone, an echo of Yayoi shouting, "Shut up!"
Tobirama pried Nako's hands from his face with an irritated look and barked at her to remain focused. She responded by straightening out with a deep frown that seemed strange to Mio seeing on her own face.
Taiga helped Mio back onto her feet as she gave him a quizzical glance. "Jealous?" he teased.
She smiled. "Absolutely not."
Another shockwave rippled across the roof and dust rained down on them.
Mio moved forward to give a new set of orders when the entire underground quaked violently. She was forced to the ground by Taiga, who covered her with his body from the chunks of ceiling slamming to the ground. She sealed her eyes shut, tightened her hands into aching fists, and waited for the shaking to end. Her heart was hammering in her head, her blood boiling. Literally.
"What was that?" she whispered harshly.
"Those were my explosives," Taiga remarked.
She did not think they would be that strong.
Tobirama's voice drifted to her from behind two giant boulders sitting by the entrance of the cell. "It's Ayuka."
Mio jumped to her feet and called out to the others to follow. They would need to put some distance between themselves and Ayuka. They moved through the maze with her in the lead, directing them towards the gaping hole underneath the tangle of trees, while Taiga and Nako set traps along the way.
Tobirama matched her pace. "What are your plans?"
"Evade Ayuka until Saori gets the Universe Sphere," she responded, stealing a glance at the light bruising on his face mingling with the dirt. "And then…" She trailed off, facing forward. There wasn't much of an answer after then.
It had nothing to do with not having planned it completely, she had given Taiga her plans, but with her qualms about the artifact. Nishiki had made changes over a steady course of time completely possible with the little strength he had when he activated the sphere. She had thought his decision to activate the artifact had been a rash decision to stop her from killing him by the nature of Kiyohime's laws.
Mio realized it too late. He had not been strong enough to create his perfect utopia, but he had anticipated his weakness and molded the new world into becoming everything he needed to see all his endeavors fulfilled as well as his own victory realized. She had had a terrible feeling burning in the pit of her stomach, pulsing through her like the dull ache in her ankle, and understood she had not seen the end of Nishiki's trickery since she had discovered his chakra within the artifacts.
There was more.
There was something bigger.
Rising.
Building.
A dreadful thing.
Simply lingering like stagnant water. Foul. And rising.
Mio climbed out of the hidden opening, crouching down, one hand pressed to the mass of trees, as the others slid out from the dungeons.
The ground trembled as they rose to their feet, using the twisting limbs as cover from the shinobi roaming in search of them.
"Have they gotten far?" Mio asked quietly.
"Yes," Tobirama answered. "Far from this place."
Taiga urged them forward into a narrow space along remaining buildings. Behind them a surge of energy burst forth from the ground and Mio's eyes went straight to the violent geyser shooting up from the depths of the dungeon, the dark water falling came crashing down to the ground, the poison water Ayuka had tampered with splashing across the courtyard, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake.
They jumped to the rooftops and saw that which was reinforced with black water had remained standing and it included the few connected buildings. Mio stopped abruptly, stumbling a few steps across a few broken roof tiles. Ayuka had not spotted them yet, but she was walking across the ashen courtyard searching for a hint of them, the poison water pouring from her flowing sleeves filling the area in a black murk that resembled the dead forest in the Sun Country.
A hand seized her upper arm, startling her. Taiga had returned to drag her along, the others further ahead, leaping from the rooftop of a stout edifice out of her view.
"What are you doing?" he asked lowly.
"I have a bad feeling," she said absently, observing Ayuka's movements ahead. The way her skirts dragged along the floor wetly, sagging as if weighed down by water. She had swept her long, red hair onto a high ponytail that swung side to side with every languorous step she took forward.
Rising. Rising.
Like bile in her throat it was rising.
The frightening feeling.
"We are going," Taiga stated, pulling her in the direction the others had gone.
Ayuka's eyes swept towards them, locking in on their location, and a smile spread across her red lips.
Rising.
The air rippled.
Ayuka was upon them, drawing the sword.
Mio felt the stab of the sharp end before it dug its way through the skin and muscle of her shoulder to scrape bone, but it had been a moment. The length of a blink. The explosion of pain she anticipated never came because Senju Tobirama was quick, faster than her eyes could follow, and his attack took the priestess by surprise, sending her crashing into the shallow poison she had been spreading.
Tobirama landed before her, eyes narrowed in scrutiny. "What are you doing?"
She swallowed thickly, repeating the only words she found herself capable of uttering, "I have a bad feeling."
Taiga wrapped an arm around her waist and carried her off as she watched the three floors of the castle tower being swept away by a powerful wind. The clearing cloud of dust enabled her to see the tall shadowed figure to be revealed as Kuronuma Nishiki, powerful and unmoving.
Ayuka appeared again, leaping across rooftops, and she held her hands together in a hand sign that made Mio pry off Taiga's arm to release herself. Tobirama passed her by, turning at the same instant as Taiga did when he tried to reach for her. Mio drew the dagger at her back and hurled it at the priestess before another of her geysers would obliterate the buildings and her companions.
"Stay away!" she shouted to her guardians. "I'll find you!"
The dagger sank deep into Ayuka's chest, blood spurting from around the wound. She barely flinched, but she did lower her hands. The priestess brought her sword up and Mio saw the blade slide through the black cord around her neck.
Mio witnessed that moment as an opportunity to grab hold of Ayuka, but just before her hand grabbed hold of the priestess's fisted hand, she heard the sound of the blade slicing through the cord. And then, she watched the Time Sphere fall and bounce off the rooftop, though she tried to reach it, she missed.
She heard the tiny splash as the poison water swallowed it whole, and she knew she had lost her only protection in this world.
Ayuka's free hand grasped her by the neck and hurled her across the tiled roof. Her back shattered several on impact before she rolled down the slanted tiles. She grasped hold of the tiles, fearing her body's contact with the black water underneath. Several tiles cracked, providing her little aid, but she grabbed several, pressing down with her feet until everything stopped moving. She felt every bump becoming another bruise on her body; her arms trembled as she hoisted herself up, her legs dangling over the ledge.
Mio picked herself up.
The priestess removed the blade from her chest and threw it back at Mio, who caught it.
"Give up, you little beast," Ayuka spat, wiping the blood from her mouth. "You will not win in this world."
"What you are doing is abusing Kiyohime's legacy," Mio responded. "You are slandering the purpose of these artifacts by doing what you will with them. You cannot expect me to do nothing."
"Do not speak of what you do not understand!" the priestess yelled. "Kiyohime was a fool—"
Mio attacked Ayuka with her dagger, swiping her across the face. Ayuka took a step back, narrowly escaping her first strike. She kicked her across the stomach sending her stumbling back and over a ledge.
Ayuka fell and Mio fled as the clouds above were gathering and darkening.
Uchiha Madara showed himself by swinging his gunbai and commanding a gale that ripped through the three floors above his ceiling, leaving the sitting room completely bare under the storm gathering sky. The girl accompanying him coiled string along his arm, unusually sharp and biting into his flesh, and her identity came to mind: Ito Saori. He recognized the techniques having encountered an Ito shinobi under precarious circumstances in his youth. A properly trained Ito was true to their myth—an Ito shinobi could kill a person a thousand different ways before said person realized they were dead.
He smiled. This would have been an interesting fight had he the time to fight it.
"Should you be here?" he asked leisurely, noting a look pass between the two. "Ayuka has gone after your companions?"
Nishiki molded black water, allowing it to spill with the blood oozing from the thin injuries the Ito girl inflicted on him. The string snapped, releasing him. He used his own blood to cauterize the wounds, preferring not to bleed out.
The boy did not speak; he activated his Sharingan—for protection, as he knew better than to use it any other way—and lunged at him with his fan. Nishiki caught hold of the gunbai, breaking a whole chunk of it with a meager tightening of his grip, and smashed his fist into the boy's face, sending him barreling back in time to grasp one of the Ito girl's strings as it came whipping towards him. It cut into his hand as he wound it around his fist, jerking the girl towards him and kicking her aside.
Nishiki felt something wrap around his leg and almost laughed, his eyes meeting the girl's as she crashed into the wall and sent a current of electricity that succeeded in reaching him. It barely stung. He drew his dagger to slice the string in half in time to block one of Madara's attacks. His focus shifted to the boy, who looked very determined to see him distracted.
Ah.
They came for the artifacts.
Of course.
"You should not have come to this place," Nishiki said, deflecting several of Madara's attacks. "Had you remained ignorant, you might have lived longer."
He elbowed him in the face and as the boy registered the pain of the broken nose he had been awarded, Nishiki jumped, kicking him across the head. When he whirled around, he caught the Ito girl skulking. He lurched forward to attack her, but he ducked away at the last minute from a great ball of fire that gave the girl ample time to slither out of his grasp.
Nishiki held a single hand up in a sign before running his bloodied hand across the floor activating a technique that sent a ripple through the air. Long, black lines ran jaggedly across the floor searing through the wooden floorboards, reaching where both his enemy stood and breaking the ground beneath them. The two fell under where a trap awaited them, a boiling swamp.
Quick as lightning, Saori netted her string to cushion their fall far above the boiling swamp below and as her back hit the tightly layered string, she threw a volley of long needles. Nishiki jumped back, evading them to see the strings attached to the ends unwind and shoot in all directions faster than he had time to anticipate the technique. The string multiplied, attaching itself in every surface available, ensnaring him in her trap.
Smart one.
Nishiki had encountered the technique before and cut through the web when his eye caught sight of an explosive tag attached to one particular string that served as a trigger. He reached for the string before it slacked, but his action had the opposite effect. The note detonated, the blast engulfing the entire floor, obliterating it. He took cover in a shield of black water, activating the technique at the last minute, but the force of the blast sent him flying off the ground and into the battlefield below. He molded double the amount of chakra and black water to stretch the shield around his entire body so he fell into Ayuka's poison water fully protected from its effects.
He landed, waved the technique off and jumped onto the nearest roof, where he did the hand signs quickly, his eyes catching sight of the two guardians within the castle tower. He pressed his bloodied hands to the roof tiles and sensed the surge of black water rising from the ground beneath the tower. Everything shook as the dark water spiraled and broke through the surface, slithering through the floors of his tower, as two other spiral turrets stabbed their way through the sides of it. The building fell apart around them, the wood and metal of which it had been built melted away into the currents of his technique.
Madara and Saori shot out of the tower surrounded by his Sharingan's peculiar defense, a ribcage emanating blue energy. He had seen it manifest further in their first battle, but it had not provided much protection once he was able to find its weakness. The two separated after landing safely on a rooftop across him. The expanse of the courtyard sat between them and the remains of the buildings Ayuka had destroyed with her butchered version of the Kuronuma techniques.
Nishiki could not sense Ayuka from where he stood. He fixed his gaze onto the guardians, who were staring back at him, eyebrows drawn in determination, and smiled.
Madara undid his defense. He had lost his battle fan and the skin of his forearm was blistering from the steam Nishiki's techniques radiated. His breathing was a little labored, Nishiki presumed it had been from his undone technique, as it seemed to drain much of his chakra, and in it, he saw an opening for ending this silly infiltration of theirs.
They had come to take the artifacts from him, but the Fate Sphere had gone with Ayuka, and the Universe Sphere and Reflection Sphere were on his persona. Unconsciously he had reached to touch the two artifacts sitting inside the bag he carried to find it shredded, while the Reflective Sphere remained tangled inside the it, the Universe Sphere was gone. His eyes snapped back to the rooftop across the courtyard and only found Madara. He searched past him and caught sight of Saori escaping towards the southern gate.
Nishiki leapt onto the next cluster of rooftops after her, but Madara intercepted his path. He engaged him in battle, taking his dagger from its sheath to stop the swing of the guardian's sword. With his free arm, Nishiki reached back to elbow him across the face, but Madara caught his arm.
"You and Mio have a surprisingly similar style," Madara told him, sounding arrogant. "Your taijutsu will not work on me."
Hmph. A similar style was inevitable. He taught Shinya to fight as he taught Mio.
"Well enough," Nishiki answered, slamming his foot over the rooftop, breaking through it. "Taijutsu was never my specialty."
Madara lost his footing, but still tried to block Nishiki's next attack, when the entire castle started to rattle.
Nishiki summoned another spiral tower that burst through the area where Madara had been standing, though the brat managed to avoid its dangerous effects by encasing his body in that defense of his. Madara's sudden movements send him barreling towards the sea of poison water below and Nishiki pinpointed Saori, running after her.
Madara was at his back again, narrowly saving himself, sending weapons cutting through the air. Nishiki evaded them until he noticed the strings connected to the handles, which he used to guide them everywhere he moved until they were close enough to him that they exploded into flames. As one kunai caught fire near his face, he spotted the kanji for fire written upon them.
He took the hit directly, the fire lapped at the side of his face, but it was nothing like the fire that burned deep in the core of the black water rivers running through Mt. Hyōga. Fire alone could redden his skin, but it did not hurt. He whirled around quickly, imbued his dagger with chakra and sent it flying at Madara. It reached him, lightning fast, stabbing him in the stomach.
Madara crashed over a rooftop, reaching for the handle of the blade to draw it from his body.
Nishiki halted several feet away using another Kuronuma technique that sent shockwaves throughout his castle and left the Uchiha lying on his back as a wave of black water rose to swallow his castle whole.
He reached the southern gate, pausing to feel the weakened pulse of his artifact moving through the surrounding mountain ranges surrounding his castle and making up the Earth Country. She would not get far. He knew the ranges better than anyone.
Nishiki moved, but a hard tug in the center of his chest paralyzed him. The Senju was fighting for control.
Mio's legs were throbbing as she sprang across the mountain ranges in the Earth Country, her lungs blazing after running for what felt like hours with Ayuka hounding her. The priestess had caught up several times and attacked her and she had narrowly escaped each time with fresh wounds. Ayuka did not care if she dragged her back half-dead and she had made that clear to Mio.
She ran with the fear that things might have gone terribly wrong. That every time Ayuka tracked her and pinned her to the ground for even a split second, their once ingenious strategy had been buried under poison, chakra-sucking black water and rattling shockwaves that promoted rockslides to block every exit she could think of on the run. She had lost the Time Sphere to the depths of Ayuka's technique. Reaching for it would have cost her an arm or worse, her life. She had no desire to sacrifice either. She had persisted onward, determined to reach Tobirama while Madara and Saori got their hands on the Universe Sphere.
She had no need for it. The Universe Sphere was a trap.
Mio rushed because she needed to reach Tobirama and guide him through repossessing the Universe Sphere. She had given Taiga instruction prior to the infiltration; though he had only stared at her strangely and she worried she failed to make things clear.
She made a sharp turn and bumped into Taiga. He seized her by the shoulders, righting her before she fell backward, and found every contusion and wound on her. He looked past her and urged her forward. She ran behind him, following him up small cliff sides that took them to long bridges connecting to adjoining mountain ranges.
"I asked him to do as you said," Taiga told her, reaching back to help her climb a particularly steep slope. He glimpsed at her neck. "Will you be able to do this without the sphere?"
Mio nodded. "I only need Tobirama."
"So, what is this bad feeling of yours?" Taiga asked, glancing over his shoulder to gauge her expression.
"You have been acting strangely," Mio said, changing the subject. She imagined it was a nervous tick, but Taiga had not been himself for quite some time and it bothered her to think there was something going on inside his head hindering his peace of mind. But he had not been at peace for some time. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
"I believe we already had our heart-to-heart," Taiga said dismissively. "What more do you need from me? I gave you my loyalty. Don't tell me you distrust me now?"
"No, I trust you," she said seriously. "You have been a great help, but I feel you overworked yourself."
"Is that not what a guardian needs to do for their Shugosha?" he asked, turning fully after pausing in the middle of a narrow path along a mountainside. "Devote oneself to the protection to their Shugosha, sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the collective? You are the Shugosha I choose, despite the fact that I would have never become a guardian had it not been for Madara's stupidity. I respect you. Him, not so much."
She smiled weakly. They continued to walk in silence.
"Taiga, promise you won't break Yayoi's heart after this," she said suddenly. "I don't want her to be hurt."
Taiga grinned, stopping to look at her strangely. "You truly care about everyone but yourself, don't you?" He scratched the back of his head. "Were the other Shugosha like that?"
She could not answer that completely. Musashi was. He cared about his clan to the point he sacrificed himself for them. For the two Shugosha, she only had stories.
The older Uchiha laughed a bit. "Before I take any vows, you have to promise me something."
She nodded quickly.
"Sako and Minako," he started, and her heart seized. "You keep taking care of them when I can't. We have to be on rotation with them. You take the evenings and I'll take the mornings. And if Yayoi gets jealous, you set her straight. Make sure she knows I came all this way to rescue her."
"I promise."
"And another thing," he continued. "That boy everyone is so eager to steal. It's Madara's, isn't it?" At her expression, he added. "Sate my curiosity for once. I know you know. Who will I tell? I have no friendships to speak of?"
He sounded eager and looked at her expectantly.
"I'm your friend, Taiga," Mio said, evading the question.
"See? And would I need to tell you again?" he asked playfully.
She felt a sudden tug at the corners of her mouth as she answered, "Yes. He is."
The knowledge came to her with the factual notion that it would not work any other way and she had accepted this fate for herself. She did not have the nerve to tell anyone else. Especially Madara.
"Drat," he said playfully. "I should have known that stupid grandfather of yours swindled me into this bet."
Rising.
"But you can't tell anyone!" she snapped, her face burning with embarrassment. "And what do you mean bet?"
"Don't sound so angry, us older gentlemen were only having fun. That Musashi bet you would choose duty over love and wed the Senju like he wanted you to with whom you would have that rumored firstborn. Shinya said it'd be Madara, though you hated each other, because it didn't work any other way. I bet Izuna. I always thought he'd have a chance because you'd be too stubborn to accept you were in love with his brother." He laughed and pointed at her. "Your ears are red."
"Please, stop talking!"
"Don't you want to know where to find the prize to the bet?" Taiga asked. "Your grandfather isn't here anymore, so he'll have no use for it. I feel he would have given it to you anyways. He had no use for it from the start."
She was curious. "What did you bet?"
"When we get out of here, take a trip back to your cottage. It's where everything was hidden."
Taiga took a step forward when he stopped suddenly, his attention snapping towards the sudden explosion of geysers erupting from the ground. Ayuka came into view, leaping from place to place reaching them faster than they had time to escape.
They had no choice but to engage her.
Nishiki trapped Saori in one of the Earth Country's dangerous mountain ranges and attacked her carelessly. His only interest was in having his sphere returned. Without it he could not stay connected with the others and he did not want to jeopardize his claim on the artifacts when that annoying Senju was determined to take the Universe Sphere from him. This had Mio written all over. He did not understand how she managed it when it had taken him activating the Universe Sphere to relieve the Senju of his guardianship, yet there he was, like an insufferable insect buzzing around his head taunting him.
Saori came at him with an arsenal of weapons, each sharper than the last. He was through her attack. Another method of ensnarement. Quick, silent, and deadly. This child had fair training, he gave her that, but she was young. Too young to think to challenge him and see victory.
Ah.
Nishiki swept through the torrent of attacks, slicing through fine silk-like string. Weapons rained down around him, some clattering, others stabbing into the ground, and the Ito string fluttered like long tendrils of seaweed with the passing wind. He saw emotion flit across her expression, a hint of astonishment, that she quickly masked with a cool mien. She would not be giving up, no matter how frightened or desperate. She had steeled her resolve.
It irritated him to see someone so determined to prevent something they did not comprehend. Not that he pretended Ayuka's motives were heroic, she had her reasons to rebel and he offered his support because he could not understand her methods. He had been the balance. Though to say he had innocently followed her ideals out of love for her would be a misconception as he had his own motivations driving him. Those were for love.
Saori would sacrifice herself, else she would not be standing before him. And he hoped that when death came for her that she had no regrets for dying for a lost cause.
Nishiki did not hold his strength back when he attacked her. The girl had plenty of fire, but it had not taken him long to extinguish it. She had fought bravely, but had learned in her struggle against him that it was not enough. She consistently weaved traps, but he never allowed her to complete any.
Once the light left her eyes, Nishiki straightened his robes and tugged free the Reflective Sphere. He dropped it atop her body like a parting gift and leapt onto the road off the side of the mountain.
Ayuka was near. He considered aiding her, sensing Mio with her. She was torturing her. He did not doubt it. No matter how many times he told her not to hurt Mio, she would not listen. It would be a good thing for her to do. Kill the girl so it might kill the artifacts for good. Let the legacy die with her.
Nishiki decided not to go to his wife. He tried to pinpoint the Senju boy instead...except he couldn't.
He pressed a hand to his chest. Had the girl succeeded in poisoning him?
Nishiki coughed into his hand, drawing it from his mouth he saw it covered in blood. She did. As though realizing it was the trigger, the immediate symptoms assaulted him and he collapsed on the hard ground unable to see past the black sheet that fell before his eyes. The agony that followed set his blood on fire, the feeling reminding him of the black water that had swallowed him whole and he remembered his brother.
"What are the rivers like?" Shinya had asked, his image surfaced in Nishiki's mind alongside the memory. A boy, not yet twelve, had always stared upon him expectantly, wondrously. With admiration.
"They say Kiyohime-sama's blood could melt the meat off bones," Nishiki had answered, smiling and full of youth, "And that when she died, she willed her blood to protect her descendants and it abandoned her, melting into the ground to create a bed to serve as its new home."
Even then he had known only one of them could live and he sorely wished Shinya would have.
Mio took a shuddering breath as she drew her dagger, exchanging a passing glance with Taiga, who unsealed a sword from a scroll and pulled it free of its scabbard.
Rising in her throat like bile, the feeling came clawing.
Together they leapt to meet her. If they kept her from flooding the mountain range with her poison water, they would be fortunate. They were two and she was one, Mio told herself. It would be easier to find opportunity to defeat her.
Taiga blocked a swing of Ayuka's sword with his own and the blade of hers suddenly lost its silver shine, taking the form of a dark blade that cut his weapon in half. She brought her sword down across his chest and there was a splatter of blood across her face before Mio watched his body fall into a narrow bridge below.
Mio was not strong enough to defeat her with jutsu or without it, but she believed she could distract her long enough for Taiga to rejoin her. She saw him move, far below her, and it had ebbed away the worry she had had the instant she saw the blood.
She swung a punch at Ayuka, who deflected it with her arm, and surprised her by crushing her fist into her face. She did not recover when the priestess kneed her in the stomach and kicked her into the nearest mountain.
Every bone in her body screamed in protest. As she expelled a breath, a searing blade slid through her lower abdomen. The explosion of pain succeeded in relieving any urge she had to breathe and drew from her a screeching cry of utter agony.
Ayuka smiled, sweetly as she remembered.
Mio did not bother with the hand seals, relying completely on her Black Sphere, and felt a build-up in her chest before she activated the technique, sending a torrent of black water that hit Ayuka in the chest from her mouth. The force behind it sent her flying into the mountain below where her body created a crater and the residual water flowed from her in thin rivulets, searing through the rock.
Mio drew Ayuka's sword from her stomach and threw it aside, hearing it bounce off several surfaces until it fell, not making a sound into a place she did not want to think of in fear of whatever death trap lay beneath the ranges. She jumped onto a slope to reach the road after shooting a skeptical glance at Ayuka's body, hoping she did not stand up as quickly as her resistance to the Kuronuma techniques would allow. She reached the slant, but slid, unable to stand due to the throbbing of her wounds, grappling for the protruding stones on her way down. She hoisted herself up onto the road and walked it towards the bridge where she had seen Taiga land.
Taiga was sitting, holding a hand to the diagonal wound across his chest that bled profusely, and she ran to him. "I'll take you to Hashirama," she said, alarmed. "I can sense him. He's not too far."
"I'm fine," he said. "Help me up." She offered him her hand and he clasped his own over her wrist. "We're almost to the others."
She tugged him onto his feet and he walked on ahead, sluggishly. She followed him to the end of the bridge where he turned to her, taking a look at her condition once more and then away, over her shoulder.
"It's okay," she told him. "You don't have to lead me there, I can still sense Nako's pulse. I can find them. Let me take you to Hashi—"
Taiga grabbed hold of her, switching their places and shoving her aside. She hit the ground hard on another wound; the pain of the impact, which blinded her because of it, left her a little disoriented. She slowly came to, hearing the sound of shuffling or simply a muffled noise her ears could not distinguished followed by a sound she could. Blood falling and splattering across a hard surface.
Mio blinked away the spots in her vision as she turned and saw two figures standing over her. She lifted her eyes as Ayuka pulled a sword from the base of Taiga's neck. Mio's body moved on its own, rushing to catch his body before it fell.
Ayuka breathed an irritated sigh as she cleaned the blade of her sword with a handkerchief. "There," she stated, speaking like a livid parent would to a naughty child. "Have you had your fun? Will you come peacefully now or do I need to drag you by the hair. I care not what choice you make, but that you make it now."
She stared up at the priestess horrified, incapable of movement because the weight of Taiga's body on hers was much heavier than she could carry. It was not a physical weight. An emotional one. Too much chaos in her mind. Too much ache in her chest.
She was stunned.
It made her wonder why she had to carry the weights of so many dying.
Mio felt something cold against her hand, the hilt of a blade. Taiga put it there before she found his grip on her other hand
He was not dead.
He would not die. Not if she hurried. He would make it.
"I'll go," she uttered, choking back a sob. Taiga's grip tightened around her hand. "I'll go with you."
Carefully, she set Taiga aside and rose to her feet, heart pulsing in her head. She hid the short sword behind her back.
"Good," Ayuka said. "Let's go."
Mio attacked her in the split instant she dropped her guard and thrust the sword deep into her torso, blood spluttering across her face. Ayuka screamed and grabbed a hold of her face, slamming her head against her forehead. But Mio took the full brunt of the hit, and she did what she had dreamt of doing since the torture she had endured in the Sun Country, kicked Ayuka over the ledge of a mountain.
Ayuka's scream echoed throughout the Earth Country as she fell into a fog of uncertainty below where soon her voice was but a whisper in her ears.
Taiga had lost consciousness when she reached to pull him onto her back with tears in her eyes, making promises of life. She pinpointed Nako's artifact and went rushing to her side. She could not allow Saori to put herself in any more danger when she was so frightened to admit her connection to the Time Sphere had weakened with their separation. The pulse of the artifacts was so weak. She could no longer sense Madara or Saori, and Taiga was but a tiny beat in her head.
Mio traveled as quickly as her tired limbs allowed until she reached Tobirama and Nako hidden within a large crevice in a mountain beneath the primary road. Nako ran to her and helped take Taiga off her back, while Tobirama remained seated cross-legged and in deep concentration. Nako looked down at Taiga with a gasp and then turned her attention to Mio.
"Find a way to stop the bleeding," she said urgently. "If we can hurry, he'll be fine."
"But Mio, he—"
"We need to hurry!"
Nako remained crouched at Taiga's side as Mio went to Tobirama, dropping down into a seat. She grasped his hands. He flinched, but he did not break his mediation.
"I can only spare a little chakra," she told him. "I'm giving it to you so that we can finally end this."
Finally, her words were true.
She transferred the bit of chakra she could spare and felt the pulse of his claim on the Universe Sphere grow stronger. Her body slackened, her hold on his hands loosened, but he seized them and held on tightly, surprising her. She tightened her grip on his hands to steady herself because she sensed the build-up of chakra.
"You have to will the artifact to go back to the world it used to be," she spoke. "Imagine all you remember about it. The sphere will do the rest. Just send all the chakra you can to it."
And his hands crushed her aching ones in his iron grip, alerting her of every step he took towards reclaiming the sphere.
She sensed it through their touch. It was time.
"Activate it," she ordered.
And the world sank into darkness.
xl note: Is this a bad time to tell you my computer did not want to start up? It is, isn't it. One chapter left and all. Anyway, I edited this entire chapter on my tablet and it was a pain with all the rewrites, so I'm just not going to say much...other than I apologize for any mistakes (I promise to fix them when I have my laptop back in function). I will continue writing, on my tablet if I must, but I'll do it! You will get your final chapter next Friday if it's the last thing I do!
Thank you to these lovelies for reviewing: Loteva and Anime93.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this one! You'll have answers next chapter. I promise to post a preview when I can.