"You realize that this will not end well for you, right?" Tairunto tilted her head to look Mana straight in the eyes while the trio traversed on a golden roller toward the rumbling battlefield where the Sky Clan had been confronting the awakened Chaser in a desperate attempt to seal him again. "Even if things go according to your plan and the engineers escape, you'll die one way or the other. Whether it will be by the Chaser's hand or ours once the others realize your treachery."
"The engineers… Escape?" Ishikeru swung his head around, switching his stare from Mana to Tairunto in bafflement.
"So, you figured out, huh?" Mana sighed. "Then why let me live this long?"
"I've already told you–you can't hide anything from me. Neither your treachery nor your honesty," Tairunto closed her eyes, acting a bit on the defensive side when Mana directly addressed the tremendous goodwill shown to her from their side. "The right way would be to singe you a little. Punish you accordingly to your deceit, but we would have no use for crippled aid out there."
"I see. It struck me as something odd that you have such need of the Earth Clan engineers and architects. From what I've seen, you already have all the blueprints for your spacecraft and instructions on how to build it from your ancestors. From what Ishikeru-san told me, some of you can manipulate matter itself. Feels like there's no reason they wouldn't be able to assemble the ship with a flick of their fingers," Mana shrugged. Maybe it was just an attempt to downplay her shadow games a bit once they came to light? The truth was that the ninja magician had been wondering about this for a while now.
"You may not have noticed it, but we fancy ourselves above your kind," Tairunto sneered at the very thought. "You are primitive and violent while we are majestic. Your historians might believe that the First People made us both, splitting their image equally between us, but our position is that the split was more of an 80-20 type of deal."
"Well… It's assuring to know where we stand, I suppose," Mana jested to lighten up the extremely bigoted mood in the air. "But it doesn't really answer my question."
"These golden worlds, the dimensions inside them, all of our temples and such, these have all been built by our ancestors. The Moon as you see it now is how we found it and settled on it after the war between our people, Mana-sensei," Ishikeru pointed his thumb behind him even though the rolling golden rings over the traversal mechanisms showcased little of the innards of the hollow Moon.
"The reason behind this is that ordinary, back-breaking labor is beneath us. That is the true extent to which we stooped when we agreed to the terms of our schism, Mana. We've abandoned improvement. We've abandoned our servants and congregation alike. It hurts to look down and see them struggle and suffer without our lead, just as we are suffering without their servitude, but those are the terms we agreed upon. You cannot live in moderation, structure, and in a cultured way and your kind strives for violence and torment while we suffer in stagnation and decay without devotees to build us a new world for both of our kinds to share the spoils of our majesty. Is there any doubt of who came up with the terms for this deal? An Earth Clan pair," Tairunto turned to the shifting golden rings outside the roller as it closed in on the remote golden orb where Mana could sense the oddly subtle chakra signature flaming on in intense combat.
Yet, despite its blaze, it hadn't decreased one bit ever since Mana first got a whiff.
A black and white angel of a tight, white bodysuit spanning her entire body dashed across a ruined world of dark grey moon dust and a corrupted atmosphere of a dark, toxic shroud encompassing it. Black, wing-shaped horns decorated the woman's face, flowing straight out from a growth that served as a living mask of obsidian cartilage. Similar black wings, but much larger, spread out behind her. Segmented blades interconnected with a membrane of ethereal, sky-blue energy connecting the separate sections.
A naked man of ash-colored skin swatted the ax of the angelic kunoichi aside and grabbed her throat. Almost immediately, upon contact, the energy comprising the wings of the angelic woman faded out. The majestic kunoichi of the Sky Clan struggled against the grip of the Chaser but robust wisps of what seemed like her very soul burst from her body and slammed against the Chaser's well-toned body, drilling into him and momentarily lighting up his chakra network with a brilliant glow from inside before vanishing again. It didn't take long for the hand of the Moon kunoichi to slump by her thigh, cold and motionless.
"Shorike, no!" a cloaked Sky Clan ninja with interconnected horns over his head cried out in despair as the grey-skinned monster of frighteningly humanoid appearance released the bold kunoichi from the Moon to plummet lifeless from his grip. Before she hit the ground, while the monster experimented with his unparalleled strength, he punched right through the dead body and swung it around like a rag doll over his head before forcing the fingers of his other hand into the ribcage and ripping it apart. The Chaser grimaced with cruelty while bathing in a black shower of Sky Clan blood.
"No one else approaches the Chaser!" Seikuwo ordered the lessening ranks of the Moon Clan opposing the awakened monster. "Not even if you wield a weapon. Our weapons may have been able to draw his blood once, but that time has passed. If we survive today, we'll do so by sealing him away, not by ending his life!"
"Sealing him away? That has never worked for long! He is just an Earth Clan peasant. We, gods to the likes of them, shouldn't stoop so low as to flee from one of them like cowards! Gods flee from no man!" a pale-skinned Sky Clan ninja stepped from the side of his superior, wielding a massive bow of scarlet energy that formed out from a gauntlet over his left hand. The draconic, horn-like growth had covered up half of this shinobi's face while a blazing eye gleamed like an infernal pearl where his eye would have been underneath that horn mask.
Seikuwo raised his arms, shaping the very world that the gods of the Moon faced their extinction on and entrapping their foe in a stony prison of moon dust. A gale of cosmic storms lifted the Chaser into the air, dangling weightlessly as whirlwind ranging well into the billions of kilometers an hour in speed would have rent any lesser being flat in no time at all. Despite that awe-inspiring power, the influx of moon dust forming a round mausoleum prison around the Chaser was Seikuwo's true intent.
It was to no end as an arm burst forth from the wall of moondust so compressed that they should have hardened tougher than diamond. Not a bruise on it. The palm of the emerging hand pushed against the surface and pulled the upper half of the Chaser's entire body. The dark hair of the monstrous man flapped freely in the background of cosmic gales, his eyes shined with the cerulean light that it had snuffed out from Shorike and devoured while a chilling, psychotic smile colored the Chaser's face.
The monster reveled in the powerlessness of his prey to prevent what he brought about.
"I… Don't understand…" a Moon kunoichi of pale skin decorated with black lines, matching the pattern of her revealing armor that greatly contrasted the furs and chitin shells of super-sized, cosmic insects that the Sky Clan ninja had stripped to assemble this armor muttered. A white Bailong howled beside her. A majestic dragon-beast of which the Earth Clan only spun legends about that made nests out of asteroids and cosmic junk in the sweet spot between the atmospheres of the Earth and the Moon. "Why doesn't Seikuwo destroy this vile creature? Disassemble him or turn his very atoms to moon dust to compensate for that which it had laid waste to?"
"This is your first time fighting the Chaser, isn't it Fuyumara?" the archer Moon ninja with the half-concealed face turned to the baffled Sky Clan kunoichi that had tamed a Bailong and rode it to battle against lesser foes. "The Chaser is an abominable beast that absorbs all chakra on contact. If something is made of chakra–it offers no resistance against his might nor does it hurt him at all. Also, the Chaser can kill most creatures that use chakra with just a single blow, if he wants to. The first time that Seikuwo had attempted to mold his atoms into dust, the leech absorbed Seikuwo's power as his own and became mightier than any of us. With just one mistake, we lost twelve hundred that day, during the first contact."
The emerged Chaser glared at the gods, etched to the surface of what Seikuwo had attempted to make his new grave as if challenging him with his dangling extremities before flexing his body and howling out a battle cry of absolute bloodthirst. In a single bound, the parasite of chakra threatened to cover the whole distance between the ranks of the Moon ninja and himself, powering straight through the cosmic storm that the Sky Clan had created to restrain him as if it had been a gentle breeze of no consequence to him.
That was until a buzzing scythe dug into the right peck of the human-parasite, stopping him in the air as its blade etched its tip into the Chaser. The Chaser's facial expression switched to painful confusion as he plummeted down below and writhed for a few moments before ripping the blade out of his flesh and standing up. Despite the scythe being somewhat effective means against him, it only cut through the shallow layers of the monster's flesh, showcasing the limited effectiveness of such a method for attack.
"Thank you, Yushikara," Seikuwo acknowledged an excellent toss from the side of a trusted ninja under his employ from his right. An ethereal presence underneath a white, hooded cloak with black patterns decorating it and gleaming, emerald eyes from underneath it as well as crooked, fiendish horns sticking out from down under it, hissed. The haunting presence of sheer energy donning the cloak and hood of a Moon ninja extended its empty sleeve and called its weapon back to its hand. Skeletal fingers emerged from down under the sleeve to grab it though they weren't attached to a forearm and formed on the fly to hold the weapon when needed.
"The plan is to keep the parasite at bay! Force him to spend the energy and life force he sucked out from our kind and once he hungers–we seal him again!" Seikuwo instructed the vanguard of would-be ninja gods as eager as they were anxious to prove their worth for a better and more luxurious place inside the hollow Moon, closer to Seikuwo's own quarters and the exalted temple of the Sky Clan ninja in the core.
"With all due respect, Seikuwo, the last time we put that plan to work, it took us forty months for the beast to tire and spend the energy of just one of us," Tairunto called out to her leader, announcing the arrival of Mana and her grand companions.
"Tairunto? Ishikeru? And… An Earth Clan woman?" Seikuwo muttered in disbelief as the Bailong under Fuyumara's command snarled, preparing to lunge and devour Mana whole.
"Is that… A Bailong?" Mana gasped. "An actual Bailong!? Zairyo-san would kill to see this."
"I'll offer you a better look while you melt away inside its stomach, you dirt-lubber!" Fuyumara clenched her fist before commanding the Bailong to take charge. Had Ishikeru not stepped in and shoved its stony fist down the white dragon's throat to force it to belch and let go, Mana may have very well ended up as dragon-chow.
"Ishikeru, you dare? Abandoning your post. Coming here with an Earth woman and then defending her life? Explain yourselves at once!" Seikuwo demanded.
"It doesn't look like you have the time for that," Mana objected, even though she could feel the animosity oozing from all sides. These ninja that tangled on a divine level far beyond that which Mana had ever even dreamed of reaching all wanted her dead just as much as the monster that had slain and devoured so many of them before. It would have been a lie to admit that Mana didn't feel the least bit offended by that level of hatred.
"The Earth Clan is right," Tairunto nodded. "The Chaser requires stopping. I have met this Earth woman and I can vouch for her intentions to help us deal with the Chaser. I have gazed into her heart and come to realize that she truly believes that the Earth Clan has had nothing to do with this monster and its quest to wipe us out. This was not an intentional, heinous attack at us."
"Surely you can't believe that," the archer of the Sky Clan pleaded with Seikuwo's reason. "This monster came directly from Earth, riding a wave of golden sand. It started its rampage immediately, slaying our own left and right with reckless abandon. Reaping through our ranks like a bear through a hive. This is just a pitiful attempt at avoiding just retribution."
A radiant gleam engulfed the Sky Clan archer whole, submerging him into a surge of light that rendered Mana blind in just a blink. Had it not been for the benevolent aura irradiating from Tairunto, the ninja magician would have lost the light of her eyes permanently. The archer from the Moon stumbled, smoking with bruises and shallow burns, tensed up in torment while coughing smoke from deep within his own lungs.
"You dare…?" Tairunto hissed. "Accuse me of lying?"
"Enough," Seikuwo calmed his clan with a clenched fist while the Chaser recovered and prepared for another attack.
An ethereal, white flame with humanoid shape and skeletal, black patterns helping it stay remotely solid raised its hands, ripping a violet wisp away from the Chaser's chest and directing it toward the ground underneath. The static nude body of the remorseless killer slumped on his knees while his head sank down. Staves of black energy burst from underground, each carrying a skull at their tip, surrounded by clanging rings carrying bells on them. The skull-tipped staves launched beams of violet energy at the slumped body, interconnecting at the center to keep the monster down for a bit longer.
"It appears that he cannot drain our chakra while I separate his soul from his body, Seikuwo," the curious Moon ninja spoke with a bony rattle as if nothing prevented his skull and jaw from chattering when he moved them.
"In that case, let's see how he feels when someone else devours him!" Fuyumara turned to her Bailong, which quickly recovered from belching up air and coiled around its mistress in preparation to eat the Chaser's body whole to make it as difficult as possible for his soul to emerge from underground eventually and come back to its body.
"No! It's been forty years since one of us has tamed a Bailong. Let's not risk feeding it to the Chaser by permitting it to come close. Even for an attack," Seikuwo disagreed. Mana could see that the leader of the Moon ninja had been frightened and haltering, even though the power he wielded was immense. He wasn't so afraid that he had lost his mind, but he'd hesitate before acting decisively in this state.
"Seikuwo-san," Mana spoke up, stepping out from Ishikeru's shade and into clear view of the Sky Clan leader. "What Tairunto-san said was true. Most of the Earth Clan ninja don't even know that you exist. They're too preoccupied with their own petty squabbles over territory and political disputes. They would have never targeted you for an attack. I am here to help though."
"And why is that?" the burnt-up archer ninja hissed. "Why would an Earth Clan ninja help us? If you don't know that we live here, how come you're here? What do you possibly stand to gain from helping us kill the Chaser?"
"You shouldn't have brought this up…" Ishikeru scratched his rocky head in distress.
"First, I don't plan to kill the Chaser, just make it so he's no longer a threat to the Moon Clan. I am a member of a group of ninja from Earth called the Allied Ninja. We align with no village and no clan. We have no political aspirations for power over the other villages. Those engineers and architects you've kidnapped were under our care. If I don't bring them back–there'll be an all-out war against our group back on Earth. The reason I agreed to help you is so that you no longer have a quarrel with Earth that requires them to work for you. Also… I guess… I just feel responsible for what has happened to your people to some degree," Mana pressed her hand to her chest, pleading her loyalty to her words. Seikuwo looked up at Tairunto, who just nodded to confirm Mana's honesty with slight reluctance.
"Very well, look there then, Earth Clan. How do you propose we stop this thing?" Seikuwo raised his finger to point at a body to which a violet wisp emerging from underground had returned. In its return, the Chaser's soul surrounded the chakra parasite with a violet aura while his body overpowered the converging beams and led to him swatting and thrashing the station of black staves aside.
"W-Wait… That man…" Mana scratched her chin after getting a good long look at the towering shape of muscle and flowing hair down below. "He came from Earth… You say… Riding a wave of golden sand?"
"Do you know who he is, Mana?" Tairunto demanded to know with an authoritative tone. "Don't lie to me! I'll see through it, you know that! If you had anything to do with…"
"Tairunto…" Seikuwo calmed his fellow Sky Clan ninja down with a show of his palm. "Mana, what did you recall about this man?"
"I've… I've met him once before. No. Kouta, Meiko, and Shimo told me about him. He was there when we sought for the Box of Ultimate Bliss in the Wind Country. Regalia-san dispatched of him and… We thought that was it," Mana grabbed hold of her forehead and rubbed it to procure the memories from a deep corner of her mind. She had heard multiple of her attackers that day that beat her to an inch of her life speak of this man and the danger he represented, the relentless chase that he gave to its targets, and the mercilessness he brought about. Yet she hadn't seen him. Until today.
"So he is from Earth and he ended up here in an accident?" Ishikeru hammered his open palm with the lower side of his fist, producing a rocky thud.
"This changes only one thing–it gives me another reason to confront this man. To make sure that Regalia-san's memory is honored and that her last act alive isn't rendered useless. I must make sure that Regalia-san's sacrifice means something. She gave her life to bury this man so I must make sure he stays buried and cannot hurt anyone anymore," Mana looked down right at the recovering Chaser, ready to assist the Moon Clan with dealing with him.
Author's Note: To anyone that's interested, the events referenced in this chapter come from all the way back in Chapter 142.
Also, I'm just a few weeks short of sorting out my business that's been keeping the update schedule so infrequent. Once I'm done with that, the update schedule should pick up again and I should be able to produce at least two chapters per week and, eventually, maybe even three. I'll also have something else to show for all this downtime. I really hate the current pacing too and picking it back up feels exactly like what I need. Just a couple more weeks now.