Storm clouds smother the twin moon's residual scarlet hue. The thunderstorm strengthens; gradual rainfall becomes a thick drizzle descending upon the rooftops. Jimi crawls from underneath the roof's rocky surface, writhing with both hands on his face.
"Arrgh! Uchihas, man, I swear!" Lightning strikes a nearby antenna, capsizing the metal structure. Jim rolls away, preventing the twisted metal from crushing him. He sits against the tower's raised ledge, 'Ow, my head hurts... my mouth. It's so sore, I-I taste... iron?' The fugitive uses the rain to wash the blood obstructing his vision, then steals a glance over the ledge, 'I can't keep this up much longer. Where are they!? What's taking so long!?' Jim's face pales as a thirst for blood looms, invisible beyond the dust yet ominous and overbearing.
After consuming a military rations pill, Crane shuffles back to his feet, groaning in pain, angry and ever more ferocious. The numbness in his limbs subsides; he scans the rooftops yet maintains a vigilant eye on the scrap metal. The tall shinobi clutches the hilt of his rattling sword while drawing a kunai. Apprehensive of what lies ahead, he prepares for combat, awaiting orders to advance; however, Raven has yet to stand.
The Uchiha's long, dark purple hair conceals her face as she stares at the reinforced mask lying on the ground. 'I felt it again… t-they use the same techniques; that chakra signature—I-it's so familiar. I-I don't need my Sharingan to know those moves… they are the same as his.' The Anbu captain's shoulders tremble as she stutters with each breath, 'Malkhaz's lips even feel the same as his against mine! I-It's like I'm fighting my husband's ghost or something!'
Crane gasps, catching a glimpse of Raven's eyes as she stands, worrying the Juinjutsu (Cursed Seal Techniques) that keeps her mental illness in check is weakening. He curses the Hokage's decision to release her from the psychiatric hospital, 'She's earned her husband's former codename and mask. But using them to mourn is proving counterproductive to her therapy.' The unique pattern in Raven's eyes relapses to the usual three-tomoe design as she places the mask back on her face.
The dust around the metal debris settles; the Marine Contra's silhouette materializes. Doll-like gilded eyes, lifeless, cold, and calculating, bare down upon the Anbu, analyzing their every move. The gash on Jim's head forces him to wear a Durag as a bandage. Raven and Crane sneer as the war criminal assumes a combat-ready stance: a symbol of defiance and insurrection against every daimyō in the Great Shinobi Nations. An antithesis of everything it means to be a shinobi or samurai—a callous disregard for tradition and honor. Jim's expressions and body language are unreadable, appearing predatory and inhuman, almost robotic.
The Contra's injuries render his self-inflicted genjutsu inactive. Now vulnerable to the Uchiha's visual prowess, Jim avoids eye contact until he can subject the irksome procedure to automatization via genjutsu. Jim ambushes the Anbu without hesitation using Teleportation Jutsu; his foot impacts Raven's chin, lifting the kunoichi off the floor. He dispatches a solid roundhouse kick to her chest, spins midair, and slams his heel onto Crane's head. Both assassins tumble across the rooftops but are back on their feet, releasing smoke bombs and genjutsu to camouflage their movements. Yet, he continues appearing before them like a phantom.
Raven uses the Body Flicker Technique to evade; however, he snatches her arm, redirects, and snap-kicks her. The war criminal teleports behind Crane, seizing the tall shinobi's ankles mid-jump. He flips the Medical-nin like a pancake before heel-kicking the airborne shinobi, sending both Anbu crashing into each other.
"Barrier Ninjutsu: Five-Seal Pentagram Genesis!" Jim's sealing tags along the stone tower's edges activate. Luminous spheres of electricity materialize, encompassing the rooftops; both assassins halt a hairsbreadth away from the boundary. Raven's knuckle grazes its surface; she flinches, hissing in pain while shaking her hand to relieve the searing sensation. "It's a unilateral seal that requires external deactivation. Those who enter cannot escape. Resistance is futile!"
Crane turns around, glaring at Jim, "Assuming your hypothesis is mutual, neither will you!"
Jim chuckles, "Perhaps, but let's face reality. We're trapped together here, and you're in more hot water than a main-house Hyūga at the Hidden Cloud Village after midnight!"
Raven shifts into her taijutsu stance, "But are we trapped here with you, or are you trapped here with us?"
"Be that as it may, my time on this Earth is already fleeting. Either I kill you, or you kill me. It makes no difference; nothing leaves the quarantine zone. I can't allow it!"
"What're you planning to do? Talk us to death?" Crane says.
A devious grin slithers across Jim's face as he connives at the Anbu's weaknesses, "Actually, I thought I'd BEAT you—to death," He bolts after the Anbu, aiming a Butterfly Kick at Crane. "That shoulder injury is a bite wound..." the mass murderer says, though more of a statement than a question. The shinobi braces himself, but Raven detects genjutsu, layering a basic Clone Technique (Clone/Bunshin no Jutsu)—the afterimage phases past Crane's counterattack. "The infection's spreading. You should save me the trouble and kill your comrade now," he frowns, "that is… while it's still possible."
Jim reappears behind the Anbu captain; she dodges, then redirects his rapid combo strikes. Crane tags in with a flurry of quick jabs; his extensive reach keeps the Contra beyond arm's length. As the tall Anbu sustains the pressure, Raven assaults the fugitive from behind. Jim shifts the ground with a hand seal to divert the kunoichi's incoming attack. He blocks Crane's near-pinpoint Haymaker, but the shinobi lunges forward and grabs him.
"You should know better than anyone—Dr. Kuriarare. Weren't you a military virologist? How long ago were you bitten?" The shinobi thrusts his knee at Jim's face. He blocks, twists away from Crane's grasp, avoids Raven's spinning roundhouse kick, and deflects the Medical-nin's hopping side-kick.
Crane feints a kick to Jim's ribs, sweeping the war criminal's knee instead. "If it comes down to that, you better believe I'm taking you out with me!"
Jim falls backward, using the momentum to spin on his palms and assault the Anbu with a torrent of upside-down revolving heel kicks. The Anbu block the whirling barrage, yet the continuous blows stumble them. Raven blitzes Jim, targeting his groin with a frontal assault. He transitions his centrifugal onslaught into an evasive maneuver, implementing a back-walkover (Macaco em Pé) to dodge the kunoichi's turning side-kick. He swings one leg after the other beneath his torso; Raven cork flips away. Crane aims a swift 360° ax kick at the mass murderer's skull.
Jim smirks, sidestepping, then sweeping the Medical-nin's supporting leg (Banda de Costa). "Confidence—a fool's substitute for intelligence."
Crane twists his body, trapping Jim with a scissors takedown and Rear-Naked Choke, "Told you I'd wring that pretty little neck, didn't I?" The Medical-nin tries snapping Jim's neck as he struggles and squirms. The fugitive forces an opening, enhancing his elbow with chakra before shoving it into the tall shinobi's floating rip, then seizing his arm.
"At any moment, your body will begin moving independently. You'll endanger your comrades, try infecting them and probably succeed."
The nociceptors within Crane's forearm erupt all at once, triggering a white-hot searing sensation, "AARGH! I can't hold her much longer! Hurry up and gut this commie whore!"
"You'll be conscious through the ordeal; your nervous system reanimates!" Jim strengthens his elbow, siphoning more of Crane's chakra before ramming it into the shinobi's kidney, causing him to cough up a red gelatinous substance. "You'll feel and recall everything! It's a fate worse than death!" Raven lands on the Marine Contra with a kunai, attempting to plunge it into his abdomen. He diverts the kunoichi's wrist before kicking her in the chin. Crane screams in agony as Jim drains his chakra; the Anbu captain tries disemboweling the mass murderer, forcing him to release the Medical-nin's arm and deal with the impending threat. He stops her kunai centimeters away from his stomach.
Crane strangles Jim with even greater force, causing his face to turn red. "So t-this is what those madmen were up to all along! Project: Red Falcon was the bioweapon you maniacs developed, wasn't it!?"
"Project: Red Falcon? Why have I never heard of this, Crane?" the Anbu captain demands. Jim raises an eyebrow at the accusation. He slams his elbow into Crane's kidney again, then stuns Raven with a left hook. The shinobi's grasp loosens, allowing the war criminal to steal precious oxygen and remain conscious.
"What in the Sam Hill are you on about?" Jim drives his elbow into Crane's kidney. His grip slackens, preventing him from snapping the Contra's neck, "Ninja Art: Don't Tase Me, Bro, Jutsu!" Raven shrieks in anguish as volts of electricity surge across her body, causing the kunoichi to drop her kunai. Jim kicks the blade away, then tases Raven while absorbing her chakra. She rams her knee into his abdomen, stopping the current, yet he tightens his stomach and punches her.
Crane strangles Jim with his forearm, "Stop playing dumb, Malkhaz! You know what I'm talking about!" He drives his elbow into Crane's kidney before tasing the shinobi
'Good. I've at least piqued the enemy's curiosity. Now, if I can stall a bit longer.' Jim frees his neck from the tall Anbu's grasp, "Red Falcon is but a cryptonym for The Red Zetsu Scourge," he says with a knowing sigh before kicking Raven in her groin. The Uchiha's Sharingan eyes bulge as she falls onto him, crying and writhing in pain. He adjusts his glasses, "This contagion is not of the prior regime's creation nor terrestrial origin." Raven constricts Jim's arms; however, he shimmies free. "Granted, the socialists are responsible for many of the mutagenic horrors unleashed upon the ASF, but humanity's extinction was never our objective."
Jim electrifies his fingers, then jams and wiggles them on her ribs, "Electric Boogaloo No-Jutsu! Tickle-tickle-tickle-tickle-tickle!" Crane and Raven scream, tussle, and tumble on the ground, unable to subdue the fugitive or deliver a killing blow. "Red Falcon was unlike anything we'd ever encountered before. It was sentient, self-aware, it had ambition: the assimilation of all organic matter on the planet; a truly communist society in its purest form." He says with blatant sarcasm.
Having enough of Jim using her as an electrical conductor, the Anbu captain dazes him with two solid right hooks before kneeing his abdomen. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down..." Raven says, reciprocating her palms in a halting gesture, "Are we talking about—space aliens here?"
Jim rolls his eyes, "We live in a world full of magic ninjas, demons, ghosts, talking animals, and mother fuckers with reality-bending supernatural abilities that defy every law of physics and thermodynamics, yet talk of space aliens is what's hustlin' you, darlin'!?" Raven's patience wears thin; after trapping his forearms under her knees, she claws at Jim's face, trying to pry open his eyes. "Alright, alright! Look—I'm not saying it was space aliens, okay. But it goes without saying—that it was fucking space aliens!"
The irate kunoichi nudges the Anbu mask above her mouth, then tries biting off Jim's eyelids. He dislodges his arm from under Raven's knee, then unsteadies her with two teeth rattling left hooks before elbowing Crane's kidney again. The hyperventilating shinobi squeezes with all his strength, struggling to restrain the mass murderer.
A sad chuckle escapes Jim, "This extraterrestrial lifeform… this parasitic organism was centuries beyond anything we could even engineer or control. It was scary stuff, radically advanced. It gave us ideas and took us in new directions we never thought possible!" He throws another punch at Raven, but she snatches his hand, horrifying him, 'Is this nut-job trying to bite me!?'
Raven bites and snaps at Jim, inching closer to his fingers, 'All... I need. Is to. Ingest—one drop of—Blood—and it's. All. Over!' He reaches for her discarded kunai on the ground with his other arm, bit by bit, dragging it closer,
"Yet it came from a meteorite that wiped away most of our already war-ravaged population like excrement from a boot." Jim frees his hand, elbowing Crane for the umpteenth time. "There were survivors here and there, though whatever was within that infernal space rock is what finished us off." He shoves the Anbu captain's head, preventing her from biting his neck; instead, she chomps Jim's shoulder. He screams, punching in desperation to shake off the rabid kunoichi, but to no avail. Nevertheless, the thick material composing Jim's fatigues prevents her from drawing his blood. He grabs the kunai and plunges it into Raven's buttock; her eyes widen.
"Lightning Release: Jolting Jigawatt Jutsu!" Jim surges electricity inside Raven and Crane's bodies, locking up their muscles. "We were so foolish and desperate, never comprehending the true nature of this otherworldly being!" In a last-ditch effort to free himself, the Marine Contra reaches behind the flailing kunoichi, grabbing and pulling whatever he can with all his might. "Red Falcon eradicated cancer and eliminated AIDS, any mental or genetic disorder, or conceivable ailment to humanity; a treatment or cure was under development." He thrusts back, slamming the back of his head into Crane's face as Raven screams bloody murder
"AAARGH! MY CRACK!" the Uchiha shrieks in agony as her body and limbs shake without control.
"Yes! How about them undies wedged RIGHT the fuck up that pasty white posterior!" Jim breaks free of Crane's rear-naked choke, then yanks Raven's thong like a lawnmower cord, lifting her lower body in the air with every reverse bicep curl, all while bombarding his elbow onto Crane's head ad nauseam. "It was an unprecedented medical breakthrough like none other!" Raven's g-string snaps, pulling her forward; Jim left hooks the kunoichi off himself, "suck some fist, dirtbag!" then teleports away. "However, that thing turned on us once it understood enough about the human genome to view our species as nothing more than nourishment."
Crane tackles Jim to the ground before putting him in a full Nelson. The fugitive concentrates chakra into his legs and lunges backward with a sudden burst of power. The Medical-nin collides with the Five-Seal Barrier; lightning surges into Crane's body, weakening his limbs and sphincter. "Millions perished soon after; the only problem was that they didn't stay dead." He pivots, sending the tall shinobi over his body with a hip throw (Uchi Mata); once Crane impacts the ground, Jim strangles him with Raven's ruined lingerie. "For years, we were hunted down and fed upon by those abominations—those Red Zetsus, Mutants, Nosferatu, or what have you!"
"As our weapons failed, our hiding places diminished, and they drew nearer. We had turned to hope, but hope fled long ago—just one bite or scratch, and well. I'm sure we're all familiar with the results," Jim says, pressing his knee upon Crane's back, torturing the shinobi against the electric barrier, "no more prorogation. I'm going to kill you now, then the rest of..." Before he can bestow upon Crane the coup de grâce, Raven tackles the mass murderer, screaming while stabbing him several times with a kunai. However, he vanishes, substituting himself with a log.
A thin, conductive wire lassoes Raven's neck, pulling her against the barrier. Electricity restrains the Anbu captain's limbs as the cable compresses her arteries; darkness encroaches upon her vision. Crane throws a shuriken, cutting the kunoichi from the excruciating ensnarement. Another cord entangles the Medical-nin's ankle, yanking Crane into the air, galvanizing him as his back bounces on the seal wall. Coughing and gasping for air, Raven throws her kunai, cutting the wire from a stone pillar protruding inside the barrier. The shinobi hits the ground like a ton of bricks, twitching and convulsing from the current coursing within his body.