Searing grains of crushed gravel ran through Kouta's fingers. The heat only woke him up and snapped him out sooner. Almost instantly after regaining some semblance of control over his body, the Juugo grumbled and coughed, throwing up clamps of iron dust that were stuck together by the remnants of his own blood freed by his multiple injuries.
What happened? Somewhere down the line, he must have lost control. He needed too much power, called out for it with too much passion and let it come far too easily. He placed no floodgates, didn't try to understand his own condition and try to make accurate judgments over how much power was enough. Like a young man, desperate to show everyone how much he could drink, eager to display his youthful vigor in a most meaningless contest that only served to make a fool of everybody involved, he got pass-out drunk. Power was his poison, in this case…
There was no time to wallow in self-loathing, even while his hands didn't listen to him, Kouta wriggled like a worm and managed to flip on his side and throw the gunk of iron and clotted blood accumulating in his airways. The young man then directed his attention at the enemy, doing his best to work through his mangled state. At least losing all semblance of control and nearly slipping into Level Two paid its dividends – Kouta could vaguely remember punching Mizoma's face a whole lot and at the moment the blood spraying from the busted up, swollen and then shredded by the remains of his own helmet attic was the main thing keeping Mizoma from resuming his rampage.
Kouta rammed his head against the ground, hearing the sizzling noise of his own skin pressing against a surface that was hot enough to charcoal him in an instant and arced his body sideways high enough for him to shove his right hand down and support his weight long enough for a shift of balance on his knees. Just like that, the Juugo changed from an honorable position of having fallen in battle to a far less dignified one of kneeling in front of one's advancing doom.
Doom it must have been. Kouta had no doubts about that. The Juugo was the closest to the swordsman of the Mist, in fact, some of the Blood Lagoon members were no longer there at all. The androgynous shinobi had disappeared completely from view and judging by the sight of bursting streams of magma all around where Kouta last recalled the man being, Omochi may have taken a fatal dip.
One thing that Kouta could not quite understand was… How was it that he lost. It was the most important thing. His father treasured the knowledge of such experiences and if nothing of value was gained from a loss, the loss itself was useless on top of its natural bitterness. Mizoma charged onward, he had just gathered enough strength for a lunge. There was still strength in Kouta's body, which was why he was so confused about the nature of his loss. The young man summoned that strength and attempted to charge aside. He committed the cardinal sin of combat – turned his back to his opponent and lost any ability to track the specter with his eyes or protect himself in any meaningful way. That was the only way to get away fast enough…
A deafening clang sent Kouta tumbling forward, a loss of balance that required a roll to be settled. The youth turned at his back to see Mizoma much closer than he had thought the man would be in his current condition. The eyes of the swordsman were moonlight-white and contrasted the sinking in his own blood face of the man quite morbidly.
The reason why Kouta was still alive and not chopped up by the two-handed terror in Mizoma's hands was the pair of Blood Lagoon kunoichi crossing up in front of Mizoma. The raven-haired taijutsu user – Utaretta with her palms placed in a crooked finger position reminding most of a lion's paw, chakra flowing freely through the young lady's arms and cloaking her forearms which must have allowed her limbs to remain intact after contacting the dreaded weapon of a legendary swordsman. Her companion, the greatly covered up in leather young lady with a giant scythe aided Utaretta in the campaign to block Mizoma's strike.
Just as the rush of a successful defense began flooding Kouta's lungs and a smile was halfway done forming on his face, blood sprayed from both of the young women and they collapsed into puddles of blood. They reformed around the Juugo with signs of hyperventilation. If Utaretta was the fair judge of the covered-up kunoichi's condition as well, they appeared to suffer from some sort of condition similar to blood loss in combination with the symptoms of dehydration present in them: the choking up with the struggle of breathing through dried out airways, the dried out lips and hyperventilation, the profuse sweating from a paled-out skin as well. Such drastic array of symptoms was unnatural even in ninja.
"What happened? How did you get hit?" Kouta flipped out, seeing no other option but to observe the still lingering enemy gather his strength for another charge.
"I… I don't know…" the leather-clad Blood Lagoon kunoichi grumbled on one knee, grasping at her back but failing to reach anything but the edges of the grisly looking cut that split her cape as well as her leather bodysuit. For whatever reason, the young woman felt desperate to cover up the irrelevant patch of skin that was left exposed by the damaged piece of clothing. "We clearly block his strikes but… It's like it doesn't matter. What about you? What happened? Why didn't you grab the sword?"
"I…" Kouta froze up. "I couldn't think of it. I lost too much control. I couldn't think straight, everything I saw was red and I wanted to see more of it."
"That thing you did was pretty cool. I almost started feeling a bit hopeful we'd make it out. Any chance of pulling it off again?" Utaretta smiled as if her final moments were not being counted down by Mizoma's easing breaths and the vigor rushing back into his shutting down body.
"None… I'm not sure how I lost it in the first place. It is a form sustained through battle. The more fight you get, the hotter it burns…" something odd poked the eye of the medical ninja. With how much Mizoma was losing blood, he should have been dead just moments after his gruesome disfigurement. And yet… Something about his blood seemed really odd, it was spraying and flooding like… Water. That was the titan's secret – even in his current state, he still had enough awareness to mix up the blood leaving his body with water to lose both hydration and blood at a more balanced rate. That may have bought Mizoma a handful of extra minutes, time that none of them really had to spare!
"Your seal… It vanished when you got hit with the sword, right?" the scythe-wielding kunoichi of the Blood Lagoon asked. After Kouta's confirmation, she just processed something internally for a brief while. It was tough to say if she refused to voice her theories because she was not sure enough to gamble on them or because she physically would have had trouble speaking in her state of weary.
Mizoma rushed onward like a madman. Kouta pointed his arm forward, letting it undergo partial transformation into a cannon-like shape. Minuscule, bright dust scurried inside the cannon from which an enticing glow gleamed.
"Chakra Pistol!" Kouta growled out while unleashing whatever chakra he managed to channel in the brief time he had to respond to his enemy's lightning-fast attack. Mizoma attacked in bursts but when he finally gathered the strength needed for another attack, even in his current, half-dead state, the Swordsman of the Mist managed to race laps around the level of anyone around.
Mizoma yelled out after the beam hit him in the upper chest head-on and proceeded to riot-on in an effort to blast the legendary swordsman away but with his face shifted into that of a cornered animal and his eyes completely whited out, Mizoma walked through the momentary discomfort of Kouta's blast and continued his attack.
Utaretta locked her iron-grip hands around Mizoma's wrists and turned them in a way that would apply pressure to them. With a bestial roar, the swordsman let go of his treasured tool but instead of continuing to fight for it, he dived the other way – charging right at the scythe-wielding kunoichi who was finished swinging her large weapon in order to place it into a proper scythe-fighting stance.
The leathery kunoichi became surrounded in crimson blitzes, flashes and blurs while her blade danced in crescent-shaped swings as well as wide-reaching, circular swipes. It was a terrifyingly efficient style against a large group of opponents but its efficiency against a single, remarkably skilled opponent was put into question when Mizoma raised his arm up, allowing the scythe to penetrate through his iron gauntlet and even stick through his hand.
Happening in perfect synchrony, Mizoma's arm shot out and clutched the young woman's neck while his right eye exploded into a shower of water with hints of his blood in it to balance the loss of both fluids somewhat. Forcing his way through the pain of having just lost an eye to an invisible slash, not unlike ones he himself employed, Mizoma raised the young woman up and swatted Utaretta aside with her own comrade's body used as a meat sack.
Kouta charged onward, too afraid to use his signature Juugo ninjutsu against the opponent, the young man spiraled onward like a rushing arrow in an attempt at a taijutsu attack, now that the suffocating young kunoichi of the Blood Lagoon had managed to grievously injure the arm of her opponent and blind him in his right side. Pain and darkness… The bitterness and taste of iron made Kouta force his face off the dirt only to receive a direct kick to the face that sent him flying back and made the young man's heart shake from the panic of blood from his broken nose gushing upward and back into his own airway.
The Juugo rolled back and got on his feet almost instantly, taking a preparation stance for another charge. He noticed Mizoma's sword in Utaretta's hands. If it was truly some mysterious quality of this blade that prevented Kouta from sustaining his transformation, he may have finished this fight then and there by going all out again… But… What if he lost control again?
Mizoma manhandled the struggling Blood Lagoon kunoichi by headbutting her with his pin-cushion-like head as well as delivering some up-close and personal knee strikes and some punches from his free arm. He was still struggling with keeping control over her. Now was the time for decisions, does Kouta let his Cursed Seal loose again or does he try again the way he is?
The hood of the leathery kunoichi slipped off from the kickback after one of those nasty headbutts. The strips of leather covering up her eyes and her face tore open a bit. The young woman began screaming bloody murder the moment most of her face became exposed. One of her eyes remained concealed under a half-torn strap but the left one turned to pitch white and began wrinkling as if it was being boiled.
"Chisilla can't get exposed to sunlight! Stop him!" Utaretta's usually somewhat laid back and indifferent face turned worried as she charged onward in her bloodied and torn up dress. Swiping her lion-paw style attacks but being forced to stop every time because, being one of the world's most skilled swordsmen, Mizoma employed the method of human-shield swordsmanship quite exquisitely and offered young Chisilla's slowly boiling body as a defensive barrier that the de facto leader of the Blood Lagoon group was unwilling to attack.
With a sadistic grin, totally unlike the professional and greatly pissed off style that Mizoma employed before, the spectral titan of the battlefield played around with Chisilla's body as if it was mere nunchaku in his hand. All that Utaretta got back for her effort to rescue her comrade and the mercy she showed the young woman was a vicious head-to-head smash that sent her flying back. At this point, the weakened and disarmed scythe-user had no more strength to oppose and she merely grunted mildly from the pain that the smack summoned from within. Compared to the pain of her boiling, exposed to the sunlight and swelling face, the ache of being used as a human-nunchaku was almost a relief.
With a bloodshot eye, completely drowning in blood and swollen, purple face, teeth that were sharp and equal parts of dried blood and yellow rot, Mizoma lifted the powerless young woman up and displayed her in his hand at Kouta. He must have relished this, having broken any hints of resistance not only in those two that he wanted to kill but also in the good Samaritan that just tried to help out.
Mizoma's free, injured hand slipped down, grabbing Chisilla's clothes by the collar. A mixture of blood and seawater burst from the Mist Swordsman's wound when he closed his clutch. Whatever wounds Chisilla's peculiar scythe-fighting style left in the man, whatever pain it caused was not enough to reach slumbering true Mizoma who was sheltering deep inside his own consciousness, letting only the bloodthirsty, adrenaline-fueled rage monster out who was mischievous enough to torture the light-sensitive woman and see for how long her sensitivity to sunlight would take to kill the leather-clad young lady.
"Why are you just standing here? Didn't you come here to help!?" Utaretta pleaded looking at Kouta who felt about as pitiful as he must have looked. At that moment he did not feel a single violent urge in his entire being. It was not even the petrifying fear that took over the heat of battle, fear called for a certain fight or flight response that was violent in its very nature. The bemused nature that plagued the Juugo and drained his entire body of any semblance of feeling except absolute apathy that was left in its place made reaching his Cursed Seal power absolutely impossible.
Thousands of Juugo would have killed for this feeling – freedom from the darkness inside them. The total purge of any violence or killing intent…
"Worse…" Kouta mumbled. "I came here for a fight…"
The apathetic Juugo could see Mizoma's arm muscles tense, he could see it from the water and blood being forced out through his wounds while his limb began slowly moving down in an attempt to tear every single leathery string and piece of black cloth concealing the vulnerable skin of Chisilla from a gruesome demise. Made even more gruesome in this Valley of Hell – a place of limited sunlight passing through the ever-present iron dust. It would be half as agonizing as being exposed to true sunlight but take ten times as long for the nightmare to end.
A sound of snapping, similar to a dozen whips working their bloody magic at the same time. Chisilla's scream filled the air as the gruesome effects that befell the face and eye of the Blood Lagoon ninja spread all over her exposed body, save for the few wraps of leather that remained dangling on the sides of the young woman, torn but not yet removed completely.
"It's your own fault…" Mizoma's voice grumbled. His iris and a pupil looked down from the heights it had been rolled up to, returning together with the man's own consciousness, woken up by the scream of his agonized enemy as that of any supporter of the Bloody Mist would be. "It's because of your impure blood that you've come to be afflicted by this disease. All of you are diseased, even if your brothers and sisters don't share your affliction."
Mizoma was about to toss the young woman aside. Then, the most curious thing happened. He froze. Every muscle in his body remained as tensed as they were at the peak of his lobbing motion, his eyes, even his breathing remained completely halted. A blitz comprised of streaks of dark violet, blue and green together closed in, turned more intense before finishing the formation into the complete shape of Aozora Yushijin. The young man let his sword work, swiftly and ruthlessly, just like the blade of an enemy would have worked on him. Completing the combination of heavy sword strikes with a backflip, using the weight of his claymore to the advantage of the complicated acrobatics he was performing, the young man sheathed his sword and began working on hand seals at the same time.
"Fire Style: Flame Bomb!" Yushijin yelled out, breathing out a fiery shape of a perfect orb that blasted against the still frozen in time enemy and exploded with enough force to throw even the user himself sliding back and with enough force to almost make him topple over himself. It was self-evident that even a perfectionist like Yushijin just used a combo he had not completely worked out and polished yet.
The blaze of glory that Yushijin's ninjutsu technique created was quickly put out by the water and blood that it blew up. A barely visible smirk appeared at the side of the young chuunin's face as he recognized the fact that his enemy could no longer properly control the relationship of his own blood and the water he created whenever he liquefied his body to escape harm. Now even his pure generated water had the man's own blood leaking into it which was a bad sign altogether for the Swordsman of the Mist.
"It was bloody impressive of you to get here faster than us…" Chison grumbled, dragging his hand across his chin in evident amazement at Yushijin's abilities.
Chiya who landed not too far away from her hulking companion quickly removed her own leather jacket and used it to cover up the whimpering and writhing in pain sister of hers. The young woman then glared at the reshaping form of one of the Seven Swords with a look that completely threw any hints of pity out the window and only was looking on to cause as much pain to this vile man as possible.
"Cut the heroic act, if I couldn't beat him, you sure won't." Utaretta cheeked at her sister with a relieved and almost cheerful face. The intervention of the other part of the Konoha party as well as the other Blood Lagoon members that managed to win their battles was just the factor that they needed to survive.
Chiya's eyes glared with blood-red and her pupil grew into an orb reminiscing of an obsidian moon in the bloody sky. A single streak of dark, purple shine gleamed throughout the visual technique that had manifested in the eyes of the Blood Lagoon swordswoman momentarily.
"You've done everything you can. Rest now. I'll take it over from here…" she replied to Utaretta without letting her gruesome and dread-inducing glare to ever turn to her blood kin. These eyes were meant solely for the man that Chiya wished to destroy.