How's it going, my lovely, lovely readers?!

Hope you're doing fine. Hope you're doing great.

I want to sincerely thank you all for reading up to this point. I appreciate all the feedback I get for each chapter. It helps me grow as a writer and I can better entertain you lot with better writing!

So, thanks for everything :D

Shout out also to my beta reader, DoctorNiklaus. Your scrutiny of each of my chapters is annoying as hell, but I'm thankful for it.

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 10

Yagura wanted world peace.

He wanted an end to violence and death.

He wanted to bring everyone together, safe and content.

Those were his lifelong goals.

It was the why and how of his execution of these goals that were truly malicious.

Yagura beamed, enthralling his crowd with a dramatic lean forward. "And that, kids," he brushed his left index finger down the length of the stitched-up scar running from under his left eye to his chin, "is how I got this scar."

"Ooooooooooh," the children gushed, mouth dropped and eyes alight with delight.

Yagura hummed with a smile, pleased that his audience was impressed by his story. He sat back on his stool and set his hands on his knees, sweeping his eyes over the class of young children, then up to the teachers, guardians and members of the press crowded at the back of the class.

Photographers snapped photos of their Mizukage, regaling children with tales of his past adventures and exploits, and the journalists with them began writing shining, and likely inflated, entries for tomorrow's newspapers. Parents pulled their lips back into slight smiles, while some pursed theirs.

"Mister Yagura, Mister Yagura!" One of the children, a boy with sparkling lime green eyes and dark green hair, shot his hand up, shouting before Yagura could nod for him to speak. He pointed to a girl to his right, making her eyes widen, not unlike a deer in headlights. "Akiko told me you fought a kraken! Is that how you got that scar!"

Red hot from embarrassment and outrage, the girl named Akiko shouted, "Did not!"

"Did too!"

The girl whirled around to her back, eyes prickling with tears and hand pointing at the boy. "Miss Kureha! Shinji's lying!"

Rubbing his nose and hiding his low chuckle, Yagura waved his hands with a wide smile. "Now, kids, it's alright." He reached down to his right ankle and pulled up the end of his pants to his calf, pointing a finger at a circular splotch of green and purple on his inner calf. "This is from a kraken."

Once again, the class ooh'd in astonishment.

The cameras of the photographers snapped rapidly.

Some of the parents frowned, turning their eyes away from the scar.

Yagura smoothed his pant leg, hiding the scar. "I'll have to tell you that story some other day."

He spotted Chojuro lean to the class teacher, Miss Kureha, and whisper to her, prompting her to step out from in front of the teachers and journalists, having to carefully step around them to the side of the room and approach the front, smiling broadly and clapping her hands. "Alright class, Lord Mizukage is just coming back from a very long journey, and he needs to be somewhere else. He's a very busy man." She got to the front of the class, motioning for the children to rise to their feet. "What do you say?"

"Thank you, Mister Yagura!" the class chirped sweetly, leaping off the floor and bouncing on their feet.

Yagura clasped his hands together in appreciation and dipped his head with a smile. "It was nice meeting you all." He chuckled, eyes closed in amusement as he spotted some of the children at the back, jumping and flapping their hands over their heads at him. He waved to the class, walking out. "Goodbye."

He sauntered out of the classroom and Chojuro jogged up to him, walking with simpering steps behind him. He was a shy nineteen-year-old boy that walked with weak shoulders and a furrowed brow, as if constantly wondering why he was the way he was. He had tufty blue hair and black glasses, of which the ends were connected to a pair of ear guards. He wore a long sleeve blue shirt with thin, black vertical lines with a pair of grey and black camouflage pants, folded up to his mid-calf to reveal black tights underneath, running into black shinobi sandals. Hiramekarei, the Great Twin Blades, was attached to his back using a black holster harness he wore, displaying Kiri's forehead at the front of the holster, on his chest. Two hilts jutted out from the end of the same bandaged weapon.

He smiled sheepishly, a small glimmer of his sharp teeth.

With each crisp step through the empty corridors of the newly restored civilian school, Yagura's smile dimmed, till the previous light in his eyes died and the corners of his lips were neutral.

School was in session, and the students were prevented from poking their heads out of the class to glimpse at their benevolent leader by their teachers, allowing Yagura to restfully slip off his genial exterior in favour of a blank, hollow look.

The journalists and photographers stayed a good twenty feet from the Mizukage, kept at bay by Yagura's other guards, coming out of the woodworks to give him his privacy, or at least until his next publicity event.

Chojuro ran ahead and held one of the double doors of the school open, lowering his eyes as Yagura walked past him.

Yagura had been campaigning around Water country in an effort to reaffirm public opinion on his reign, because, even though he was undisputedly the strongest person in the country and therefore people still bent to his will, it would be detrimental to his ambitions if a disgruntled non-bloodline holder found a way to leak Kiri secrets out of Water country.

His shinobi across the length and breadth of Water country's chain of islands were wholly subservient to him, but it was the civilians that he needed to reinvigorate; civilians made up most of his labour force and there was only so much he could get from them if he forced them to work, as opposed to them working at their own free will and toward the prosperity of the country.

He wasn't worried about the bloodline holders and bloodline holding clans, though.

"Anything from Haku?" Yagura asked. The two of them were passing the school grounds, stopping when they were some yards from the Civilian Academy. A perimeter of ninjas quickly formed around them, stopping a flash mob of people from rushing towards him; he was widely popular; after all, his twenty year crusades had eventually united all of Water country. They cheered and chanted, baying to be graced with a look from their Kage, as if the civil war had never happened and the atrocities committed by him, and the people that eagerly followed him, was a thing of the distant past.

Chojuro fumbled for a proper reply, hesitantly saying, "Well…" he nervously pressed his fingers together and said, "he's found Tsunade's apprentice but," he teetered back and forth on the spot, eventually continuing by saying, "your people in Konoha have reported that the Hokage also sent a team to retrieve Tsunade and Shizune Kota." Yagura turned to him with an impatiently raised brow. "The Konoha team, Yugao Uzuki, Sai Shimura, and Mikoto Namikaze–"

At the mention of the last name, a shadow passed over Yagura's face. Chojuro looked as if he saw it, saying with an uncomfortable cough, "–Already found Tsunade Senju and Shizune Kato, and are trying to convince her to return to Konoha."

Yagura turned from him, arms crossed and a pleasant smirk lifted at the corner of his lips, merely for the sake of maintaining the guise of a normal human being in front of his people.

Behind him, Chojuro shuddered, a flickering frown breaking through his hypnosis.

Yagura knew he wasn't human anymore.

He gave up his humanity a long time ago.

"Tell him to hold his position and wait for them to leave Zyouki. When they're outside, he'll find support to retrieve Kato. If possible, eliminate the Namikaze girl."

One less Namikaze genius in the world was always a plus for Yagura, and he had just the right person to do that.

Yagura had underestimated the Namikaze-Uzumaki family twice before, scoffing at Minato's genius and Kushina's peerless grit. And after hearing the manner of high-praising intelligence he had gathered on Minato's last born, speaking greatly of her genius and her skill, he wasn't going to risk underestimating Mikoto Namikaze, like he did to Minato and Kushina.

Not again.

Not anymore.

"Stay on that spy Mei marked. The Konoha spy with one eye," Yagura added as an afterthought. "He's still in the country. Find him, and whoever he's with, and bring them to me."

He left, heading toward the village's retirement home for a scheduled visit.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Chojuro was left by himself, his head looking down. His subconscious self—the real Chojuro—made a futile attempt to escape the hypnosis he was under..

Inside Chojuro's mind and peering out of his eyes, the real Chojuro pulled his knees to his chest and curled into himself, trapped in a excruciating small mental prison made of blood, seals and chemicals.

Hopeless.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The corners of Naruto's lips turned down.

Orochimaru had been involved with Yagura for the past twenty years, throughout the civil war, supplying Yagura chemicals, poisons, and information in exchange for resources, anonymity during his travels across the continent, and living bloodline holders to experiment on.

There were pictures, too. Old black and white pictures, excavated from a deserted Hidden Sound base in Water country. Images that Orochimaru intended to use as blackmail against Yagura if their mutual agreement turned sour.

All contained in a withered journal in that same isolated base.

There were documents that Orochimaru inevitably wanted to use as leverage–shipping invoices, wire transfers, and the identifications of those unfortunate bloodline users marched into Orochimaru's operating room.

Yagura reached an agreement with Orochimaru to work on two projects for him. The first and most important project was mixing a mind-altering concoction to essentially hypnotize whoever the chemical was introduced into, changing their allegiance to that of the Mizukage.

The second project, something Orochimaru would have enjoyed more than the first, was formulating a poison capable of downing even the mightiest of chakra giants. Faded photocopies of correspondences detailed that Yagura and Orochimaru's alliance was strictly formal, but that Orochimaru constantly stepped on Yagura's toes by driving up his demand for healthy bloodline holders or demeaning Yagura's youthful countenance, even though the Mizukage was his elder in age. Orochimaru cracked the code and engineered both the hypnosis chemical and the fatal poison three years ago, and Yagura used these items to slowly turn the tide of the war in his favor.

That was the bare summary of the two-inch updated report.

Naruto leaned back and hummed, concluding that Orochimaru had started his partnership with Yagura at the endpoint of the Third Great War, when his laboratory in the Forest of Death was discovered and the frequent kidnappings in Fire country was linked back to him.

"Orochimaru's blackmail made up most of my report," Shisui admitted with an easy shrug. "He's a sadistic narcissist. He loves being in control, and when he isn't, he'll make moves toward taking it. The people he loves controlling are the rich and powerful, and for the past twenty years, since the very first day Yagura reached out to Orochimaru, he has been neatly documenting and compiling all of their dealings and meetings."

Rin spoke slowly, guessing aloud, "So when you found out about the hypnosis…"

"All I needed to do was pull that thread and find where Orochimaru hid. It wasn't easy, given my present state, but I found it. And it's not far from here." He pointed over his shoulder. "There's a tiny island occupied by walrus and seagulls not too far from here. Take a hard right for five miles or so, and you'll get to Orochimaru's Hidden Sound base in Water country."

Managing his expression so that Shisui would not know that the nameless island of walrus and seagulls was where he and Rin were temporarily hiding in.

"The base was so easy to pick out, I still hate myself for finding it so late."

"It happens to the best of us," Rin consoled Shisui, and the Uchiha snorted, a wavering smile shining from his solitary eye. She leaned to her brother and collected the updated report, asking, "You also wrote something about Orochimaru being part of a secret organization of S rank ninjas." She and Naruto shared a look, turning to Crow's Feet and saying, "By any chance, does this organization wear black cloaks with red clouds on them? Do they have a membership ring? Are they based in Hidden Rain?"

Shisui's eye steadily narrowed, ticking off everything Rin had asked. "Right…" he shifted his weight on the wooden crate. "Akatsuki, is what they're called. Led by a guy that has the rinnegan. Y'know, those eyes we used to hear about from Jiraiya. Their goal is to gather all nine of the tailed beasts and, I don't know, point it at the world as a deterrent? That last part is unclear."

Naruto spoke first, "We have reason to believe that Yagura has already started using his poison outside of Kiri." He motioned to Rin. "You never even asked about the sword."

"I…I thought it was a replica…" Shisui wondered, a cold dread settling on his shoulders. "You don't mean—"

Naruto nodded.

"Kisame's dead…" Shisui breathed, suddenly winded. His pale mask didn't hide the shock from his posture or the slow dread of his muffled words. "Kisame's…dead…"

"We'll need to confirm first." Rin reintroduced herself into the conversation, closing the report. "But there's a chance the other S ranks in Akatsuki have been poisoned or killed. Or both."

"Or worse," Naruto murmured. "Yagura tested the poison on a…grander scale."

"The report says Orochimaru was a member of Akatsuki for a few years—while still in a partnership with Yagura—and he left when he had a falling out with one of the members. "Konan," Naruto said. There was more to Orochimaru's compiled blackmail that he didn't bother adding, like the chance that a presumably dead student of their father, Obito Uchiha, was also a member of Akatsuki. The mission was branching out into curious angles, and Rin had to tap his knee with hers, reeling his mind back to his body. "We need to get this back to Konoha-"

Naruto stopped, his head thrumming.

"They've found us," Rin spat a curse. "We were careful. Swear."

"Shit…" Shisui's head lolled back, too calm for the situation. "My sharingan."

Using a doujutsu unconsciously and uncontrollably released a small pulse of chakra detectable chakra. This could be suppressed but not erased, as the spark of chakra was needed to activate a doujutsu.

Shisui could at least take comfort in the fact that he had been able to pass on his report before he was discovered, Naruto concluded.

Then the workshop the three of them were huddling inside exploded.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Chojuro looked at Mei, worried.

Her elbows had horrifically popped out of their joints and fired that warhead at the workshop, and the explosion was catastrophic.

The shockwave was devastating.

Nearby houses were uprooted and shredded to pieces, and the area the missile had struck home was now a massive crater of fire and chakra.

Merely five days after getting a rinnegan implanted into her left eye, it was remarkable that she had been able to pull this feat out of the hat of tricks that was the sole rinnegan eye, but he could see the toll it took on her.

Mei hunched forward, panting through grit teeth and bleeding from her elbows, snapping her forearms back and returning the joints back together with a grisly click. A thick cobweb of veins bulged on the left side of her face, spreading out from her eye and reaching out to her left ear and chin.

The smile he had vowed to protect was gone.

Inner Chojuro—the real Chojuro—wept.

She hissed with her right eye closed, wheezing with a triumphant grin, painfully rolling her elbows to test that they were popped back correctly.

"Lord Mizukage wanted us to retrieve them alive." Chojuro mumbled, stammering. He peered down the roof of the shop he and Mei was balanced on, fixing their feet on the corrugated roof and wincing at the confused and dismayed state of the people, fleeing for their lives or hurriedly disregarding their safety to dig into the collapsed butcher's shop. Limbs laid motionless from underneath rubble and weak calls for help sounded from the destroyed shops in the surrounding areas. Chojuro—both him and is inner self—felt their mood fall at the devastation. "Was this really necessary?"

"They'll recover." Mei smirked, talking about the scattering of humanity below her. Her ringed eye stuck on the smokey, burning pit she directed her missiles to, her lips flickered down with a grunt. "And they're not dead. Crow's Feet is with…" her teeth gnashed, harder. "Ghost Flash."

"Ghost Flash?" Chojuro repeated, speaking under his breath, "Ghost…Flash…"

"The Hokage's kids," Mei added. "The twins."

Chojuro immediately called for reinforcements.

Meanwhile, Mei's rinnegan pushed past the dust and the smoke, finding a dim glow of red chakra inside the destroyed workshop.

A sweeping gust of wind cleared the smoke away, and she saw that the three Konoha ninjas—Crow's Feet and Ghost Flash—were encased in a glowing red thorax, the middle region of an insect.

Her rinnegan eye clashed against Naruto's Mangekyo, blocking an illusion.

Deflecting another.

Deflecting a third.

Mei beamed, muttering, "That's not going to work, Namikaze…"

Biting a sneer, Naruto devolved his eye, and Mei winning smirk lifted higher. She saw him whisper something to his sister, who pulled off a large, bandaged bundle from her back and narrowed her stare up to her and Chojuro. The three Konoha ninjas exchanged a quick agreement, muffling their lips so that Mei couldn't accurately tell what they were saying.

Rin Namikaze took a strange stance, especially given the weight and size of Samehada; she bent her right knee, low and deep, extending her left leg to the side. Her right arm gripped the Kiri blade, setting the massive sword on her shoulder and touching the tips of her left hand on the ground.

The masked man at Naruto's left nodded curtly and leaped away.

Chojuro bound off the roof after him, only to ground his teeth with a stifled curse, drawing Hiramekarei, one handle in each hand, and crossing it on front of his body just in time, blocking Rin as she flickered to his side in a shower of yellow lights, striking him with Samehada and sending him away in a thudding burst of wind.

Midair, the girl vanished in another flicker of light.

Naruto fell into his own stance, different from his sister's flexible kenjutsu stance; he shifted his right foot back two steps and planted his left foot in place, bending his knees and lifting his left pal out and holding his right fist close to his lower right side, elbows bent and jutting back.

Mei wouldn't have blamed anyone if they confused Naruto's fractured Uchiha taijutsu positioning for the Hummingbird fighting stance, but she wasn't tricked; her one rinnegan read the speedster like a children's book.

Naruto's narrowed his eyes, stoic, spinning his sharingan anticlockwise.

Mei grinned, muttering in contemplation, "This is different…" Uchiha sharingan didn't turn anticlockwise; it confused her rinnegan eye, and that pleased her somehow. She wondered what effect this would have, beckoning for the young man to come with one hand, arranging herself into a perfect Strong Fist taijutsu stance. She chirped, her rinnegan thrumming, "You're with me, pretty boy."

Naruto took off, bursting into red mist as his feet left the ground.

She deftly diverted his fist to her left, visibly shocking Naruto that his split-second attack didn't meet its mark, and drove her other fist into Naruto's cheek.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"You swing that sword like a club," Chojuro chided his opponent, bearing both hands of his swords in his hands and blocking a decapitating slash. He pushed her back, sweeping aside as a shower of yellow lights zipped past his right side, blocking a clubbing blow to his shoulder with the sharp side of his bandaged sword, putting effort into swinging Samehada aside and planting a firm kick into Rin's stomach, snapping irritably. "No skill. No finesse. Nothing."

Rin's back skipped twice on the water, rolling back on her third and shooting chakra to her feet, keeping her solidly balanced on the water.

Her mouth curled up in a wild grin, lowering again into that deep, odd kenjutsu stance.

Chojuro pointed at her, biting, "All you have is power, like a clumsy gorilla." He flicked Hiramekarei to his right, holding it with one hand. "You disgrace the people that had held that sacred sword." His left hand found the other handle of his sword, snapping his twin blades apart and summarily tearing apart the bandages wound around his large twin blades; he blades glowed with a light sheen of blue chakra, wide, flat and curved, the two holes at the ends of each of his blades even resembling the eyes.

His opponent's purple eyes widened, gleeful. He didn't share the same sentiment.

She looked younger than him, so he took her elated expression as a blatant show of disrespect to the living legacy she held so carelessly in her hand.

The water they were balancing on was a considerable distance from the island they located Crow's Feet on, so Chojuro wasn't above acknowledging the girl's strength in that regard.

Either way, reinforcements from Kiri were on their way.

"You'll have to excuse me, Kiri ninja," Rin said, her eyes fixed on Chojuro in that deep stance of hers. "This is my first time using him. I'm more used to using blunt objects. My brother's the blade expert." She shrugged her left shoulder. "But honestly, Samehada's not that different from a club."

Samehada, in its flattened, bandaged form, shuddered.

Rin rolled her eyes at the swords chittering, replying with a snarky, "Oh, you know I'm right."

Chojuro clenched his serrated teeth, speaking to himself, "I just might take your legs for that."

He backtracked a step when Rin flashed in front him, bending backwards and barely dodging a concussive whack for his head, letting himself sink into the water when Rin closely followed the dodged strike with a roundhouse, using the momentum of the swing to propel her into a side flip, nearly tagged by glowing blue shards of fishbones that erupted from the water, skidding to the left when Chojuro erupted from the water and slamming Samehada against Hiramekarei.

The water sizzled as both fighters pushed apart, charging back with another resounding strike.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Naruto crashed into a wooden hut.

Splinters ate into the back of his Jounin vest, fallen straight through a dining table and apparently disrupting a family lunch.

The children screamed, their tempo deafening as Naruto wheezed upright, rubbing his stinging cheek and wincing at the soreness of his back.

"Kami, I'll feel that in the morning."

"W-Who the hell are you?!" someone yelled. Male, Naruto deduced, turning his briefly hazy sharingan to the masculine voice and blinking twice, confused at the puffing man that bellowed at him. The man was clearly afraid, standing in front of his wife and five children, pointing a kitchen knife at the man that had so rudely crash landed into their home. Naruto gave the man a quick once over, groaning to his feet. "I-I said-"

"I apologize," Naruto conceded, nodding to them. His backwards spinning doujutsu thrummed as he commanded them, "Sleep."

The family crumpled to their knees, eyes shut and bodies weak.

Naruto groused over the rice staining his pants.

"Is this really the time, pretty boy?" Mei trilled, standing on the roof and smiling beauteously to the ninja she hoped she had rearranged his jawline.

Naruto, ever expressionless, yet his droning voice was deep and audibly whining. "I liked these pants." He peered up at her, his eyes half lidded with tiredness, rubbing his cheek. "Back in Konoha, shinobi don't get drycleaning discounts."

Mei could relate, saying, "And you just know they know exactly how to get that one blood stain out of your clothes."

Naruto gawked, an odd face given that he was still deadpan. "I know!"

Mei chortled, placing a hand on her hip and cocking an eyebrow. "As scintillating as this chat is, aren't we going to fight?"

The boy smirked, breaking his emotionless mask. "Aren't we already fighting?"

Mei beamed, impressed. "Oho!"

The house underneath her fizzled away into nothing.

The world was plunged into darkness.

Mei fell, alone in the dark and chuckling, "What's this? Another genjutsu?"

Naruto's voice echoed, omniscient in the genjutsu, "You're slipping, Mei Terumi."

"Am I?" Mei clapped her hands together, powering chakra into her rinnegan eye. "Kai."

The blackened world splintered, breaking like a rock hitting a glass window, and Mei had been that rock, plummeting through the bottom of the blackness and smashing down hard on a concrete floor.

"Oof."

A pair of hands surged out of the ground, breaking the concrete, and grabbed her neck, squeezing and pulling her into the hard soil underneath the shattered concrete.

There was stillness in the village.

Static stillness.

The people in the Town Council Hall had been evacuated to the other side of the village, so there was only one other spectator to what happened next.

Yagura saw firsthand the power of a single rinnegan eye in the hands of an inexperienced person.

The ground exhaled.

A beam of pure blue energy screamed out from below, swallowing up half of the island as the beam scraped the boundaries of space.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

One of the first things Shisui did when his cover had been blown and his chakra had been successfully tracked by Mei was to rip off the damned tracker seal; since the only way to remove it was by overloading it with chakra, Shisui consoled himself by finally freeing himself of the tracker.

Shisui whipped around, and his eye widened at the blue pillar of light and heat that bellowed from the earth.

Quick on his feet, he clapped his hands together into a ram seal and he raised a rock barrier against the turbulent shockwaves of the beam of light, covering the front side of the cave housing his faint charges. They had been knocked out, a precaution in case they resisted rescue, and had been laid out in the cave by Shisui and his water clones.

He had needed to use Kotoametsukami to wipe away his existence from her mind, replacing those glaring holes with convenient memories, like an unquenchable urge to vacate the island and move further away from Hidden Mist, using the large sum of money a distant relative had sent to her to find a nursing job elsewhere and live a good, comfortable life for the remainder of her days.

Shisui wanted Ami to be happy.

More than anything, he wanted her to be safe.

By erasing himself from her mind, she was less at risk of being the focus of an extensive interrogation.

His tattered cloaks curled in the violent winds and his masked face was turned up, focused on keeping his barrier rigid, but he still marveled at the monstrosity lighting up all of Water country. It had punched through the clouds and pierced into the ozone layer.

Between the sea storm of a battle between Rin and Chojuro, and the apocalyptic feuding between Mei and Naruto, Shisui was divided on which to watch.

He shook away his amazement, recalling the promise the twins had made to him and his new mission in Kiri.

Naruto and Rin assured him they weren't going to kill Mei and Chojuro.

Shisui swore to begin sawing at the roots of Yagura's growing empire. The twins were covering his exit.

He was one of Konoha's three best spymasters—now two, given his father's death three years ago—. Now more than ever, Konoha wanted him to stand in the way of danger.

And damn it, Shisui Uchiha, Crow's Feet II, was going to do exactly that.

He went from the island, and as he faded into Water country, his existence disappeared too.

If Shisui was a religious man, he would have been praying.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Neither of the fighters on the water paid the sky beam any mind.

Rin pushed Samehada's tip into the water and swiped upward, sending a volley of water sharks to Chojuro, who pelted laterally from the attack, blurring in a slight semicircle and colliding his right foot against Samehada, crossed in front of Rin.

Chojuro hopped up, using the block as a springboard and bringing his twin swords together.

"Hiramekarei Hammer."

The blue chakra ebbing from the swords shaped into a large hammer shaped, and five water clones rose from around Rin and held her in place.

Chojuro brought the hammer down with all his might on Rin.

Rin exploded into the water, blindsided and dispersing into water.

Chojuro grunted, releasing the jutsu on his swords. "Water Clone-"

"Water style: Water Fang Bullet."

Chojuro batted the large, blistering bullet upward, and he realized his mistake when he did that, wide open with his right arm flung up and his left was held away from his body.

Rin blindsided him, running his right leg through with Samehada.

"How's that for a club?"

To her amazement, Chojuro, bleeding heavily from the wound in his leg, gave a mighty heave and released his swords, grabbing her shoulders and yanking closer to Samehada's hilt, rearing his other leg back.

Rin saw the low blow coming.

She couldn't move though, and his left foot connected against her crotch with a blood curdling crunch.

"Hoooo–" Rin's whimper was broken by a hard headbutt to the bridge of her nose. Blood leaked from her broken nose and Chojuro cackled, teeth painted with his blood and pleased with his retaliation.

Seeing red and aching badly, Rin tore Samehada sideways, ripping Chojuro's muscle and flesh on the way in a spray of sinewy chunks. He only laughed, grunting a hard exhale when Rin planted her foot deep into his chest.

"My nose!" she screamed, nearly decapitating Chojuro with a clothesline. Chojuro ducked under the attack, winding around and delivering a haymaker to the back of Rin's head, angering the girl all the more. She wound around, capillaries thudding in her purple eyes. "You broke my fucking nose!"

She buried her left fist into Chojuro's gut, gritting her teeth when he used the closeness to smack his right elbow across her jaw, spinning once on his good leg and delivering a second elbow to the side of her temple, wincing when she used the momentum to whirl around and crack a heel against his own temple.

He held her leg.

She released concentration of her water treading and the two of them sank under the waves.

Thudding blows were traded underwater.

Meanwhile, when the sky beam cleared and the screech of the laser had ceased, Naruto and Mei locked horns inside the charred, molten pit.

Authors note

So, what do you think?

Expect the next chapter this Sunday.

Are you ready?

Tell me what you think, would you so kindly. Stay happy and stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.