Kouta looked around, scanning the area from a bird's point of view in an attempt to find his teammate. It was difficult finding a kunoichi who fought by concealing herself through camouflage or ninjutsu and laid traps for her unsuspecting opponents. If Erumo could just be found like that, she'd be quite bad at what she did. A good support ninja never showed themselves off enough to be chosen as a prime target as they were usually easier to take out as a result of being weaker than their more combat focused teammates.

The floating Juugo clansman observed a small, slate grey skinned man with a head easily half the size of his entire body charged at the central figure of the assassin organization – the dreadful, lantern-helmed specter of the battlefield in the middle. The toddler-shaped man was one of the four ninja doing their best to bring their enemy down, so far their combined efforts appeared to result in a stalemate.

Kouta's eyes ran across the nearest battlefield like through lines of a book he was interested in. The Juugo changed the position of his body, directing his head down and then blasting downward like an arrow, towards the location of the clash. The fight was even. His involvement could have changed that. Erumo likely thought the same…

A moment of doubt smoldered in the young man's mind, was this truly his assessment of his friend's process of thinking or did he merely make it up on the spot to justify involving himself in this brawl? The young man bit his tongue hard enough to squint in pain and then moved his jet-feet closer together to make his descent more streamlined. Like a rocket, he shot right at the ghastly man.

Pain reverberated throughout Kouta's entire body. It felt like multiple daggers had pierced his every limb, stringy, tearing sounds echoed through the young man's body overwhelmed by a deafening pop that then transitioned into weaker cracks somewhere within his inner ear. Even while his body became completely battered by the massive opposing force stopping his reckless rush at the very last moment, out of sheer instinct, Kouta dashed back before even noticing the devastation rampant all over his morphed body parts. All of them were covered with severe cracks, exposing bleak, fleshy bits under them.

"You're not one of the Blood Lagoon and yet you've come here to die regardless?" the lantern-helmed, spectral ninja wondered out loud even though, judging from his tone, the remark was meant more to be kept to himself.

"Well, well… You've dodged Mizoma's kill shot in there. Nice moves, kid." The Blood Lagoon kunoichi in the long, elegant dress, favoring offensive taijutsu style licked her lips.

Kouta did not quite understand what the woman was talking about. He did not see any follow-up attacks… Then again, maybe that was the point? He didn't see them because someone of his level of skill should not have seen it and died rushing at the vastly superior opponent? In that case, Kouta only dodged the enemy's attack due to relying on sheer instinct. It was the way his father fought and tried teaching Kouta to fight – no thought, just the movements one fighter's gut commanded them to make. It may have just saved his life…

"Who's this now?" a feminine-looking man in a frilly undershirt, a leather vest and a crimson, silken cloth that remained firmly held upon the man's back due to a pair of massive, metallic crosses, both of which were connected by their longer, lower parts like crossed blades. "More importantly, why are you helping us?"

The toddler-shaped man giggled just like one. His childish mannerisms creeped Kouta out having in mind the facial features of a seasoned man stuck on the grand cranium of the miniature ninja. "Who in their right minds would help us? He's a Konoha ninja, can't you see? It would make sense for a Konoha ninja to just want to off Mizoma. It's dangerous for one of the Seven Swords to roam the Fire Country…"

"Any threat to the integrity of my head on my shoulders is worth the reward of removing your cancerous existence from this world!" the spectral titan whom the Blood Lagoon ninja referred to as "Mizoma" growled while stepping forward. Kouta took note of the loud and heavy clinging noises coming from the busted up black cape covering Mizoma. Undoubtedly, this man did not share the affinity for strange, gothic or Lolita-styled clothing that bound these Blood Lagoon ninja, although the hatred in the man's voice sounded almost… Personal.

Brown and almost wooden-like growths covered Kouta's lower body. The fist of the young man morphed into a gargantuan club that felt almost too massive to swing around for the Juugo and could only remain fixed in an upright or vertical position. The jets of chakra erupted from the lower part of the Juugo's body sending the newly transformed medical ninja spiraling through the distance between him and his enemy in mere split-seconds.

Mizoma put up his hand, he was arrogant to think that such a feeble defense would protect him against Kouta's rage. The endless rage of a Juugo that spanned for generations, had no reason, no definitive beginning or end in sight, not until the very last of the murderous, unstable warriors were put down like rabid dogs. With a thunderous clang, Kouta's misshapen fist hit the gauntlet of the one of the Seven Swords. Something was wrong… Kouta was not moving – the vain and almost effortless defense of his opponent proved insanely effective but… How?

Kouta's fist greatly diminished in size, as a medical ninja, the young Juugo possessed a remarkable talent in controlling himself in the early stages of his transformation that not even his father – a prodigious Juugo in his own right, did not possess. The sight that Kouta saw made him both fascinated, excited, and about to barf at the same time – Mizoma's left arm was bloated and buffed up, it was like the muscular structure of the Kirigakure ninja had multiplied greatly but the change was not purely cosmetic – he had the unquantifiable physical might to back it up too.

The limited rays of light that managed to bust through the constant gloom of blood red that lingered in the Valley of Hell reflected off of the three blades on the side of Mizoma's gauntlet. It was a grim prophecy of the swift end that Kouta would soon meet at this man's hand, however, Kouta was a firm believer in changes in history that well-timed and read prophecies could originate.

The Juugo's hand morphed once more, creating cannon-like tubes at the back ends of his elbow. Streams of chakra jets flared out from them, not only matching but greatly surpassing the intensity present in Kouta's foot-jets when his body undergone this transformation to gain the ability of flight. With this newly gained acceleration and might, the Juugo roared out as he moved all of his strength through his halted fist, managing to lift his opponent off the ground and after a few signs of Mizoma giving in – send the ninja swordsman flying and crashing through mountains of stone that comprised the valley.

Kouta's right arm hung limp and waved like a lifeless pendulum. It felt like it weighed like it was made of lead. The Juugo let his eyes run down his twitching limb. The medical ninja inside him saw the cries of desperation and calls for reason that his own body let out, the son of a crazed warrior and a man he wanted to be more like chose to ignore all of those things. None of them were helpful to him at the moment.

"Wow, you pack a pretty mean wallop!" another Lolita-styled young lady with streaks of azure hair sticking out from under a dark hood, crossed over by belts all over it and few patches of snow-pale skin beaming through the shades hiding her. It was tough to say if this scythe-wielder possessed the creepy, red eyes of her peers as she wore a leather face mask that only let limited chunks of skin see the grace of sunlight. For someone appearing this edgy and grim, the woman's voice sure sounded annoying and whiny, even while she was complimenting Kouta.

"My girlfriend really dislikes people who want other people dead just because. She hates people who want other people dead in general so this one's particularly scornful to her eye and what pisses Mana off pisses me off." Kouta replied with a confident smile while raising and slowly stretching out his punching arm a little just to see if he regained all of the lost movement and feeling in it.

Even as he spoke that, Kouta doubted if the verbal sparrows he set free vocally truly reflected his feelings. Was he truly adamant to fight Mizoma because of the type of man he was and how strong he conflicted with Mana's ideals which the young man swore to himself to defend and protect or did he just punch one of the Seven Swords of the Mist through a handful of mountains because he really wanted to fight him and for that reason alone?

A roaring upward shower washed away the devastated debris from the mountains that one of the Seven Swords has busted on his impressive flight. Like mouths of a dragon, the aquatic calamity coiled and yet still powered through, finding the inner strength within it to rise even higher in the end. It became impossible to spot where exactly the liquid streams had disappeared to, for all one could have known – they may have left the orbit.

It took a blast this intense to free the pissed Kirigakure swordsman. The raging waters, after having released their more unstable cyclones had settled down and focused into a humanoid shape that then became riddled with sharp shapes. More and more resembling the deadly swordsman from before. In an almost miraculous looking act, the walking avatar of the unruly water turned to flesh, cloth, and steel that looked as sharp as the teeth of a shark and as cold as the abyssal depths. Flares, completely white and ethereal gleamed from under the helmet from within the few spaces of the man's face where the blackness tied over his head did not obscure them.

The feminine-looking man with the crosses connected behind his back reached back with his hand, gently pressing his finger against the sumptuous tips of the metallic accessory hanging on his back. Kouta noticed a striking drool of blood-red hanging from his finger where the man had purposefully pricked it on his own back. A familiar set of hand seals followed, sealing glyphs appeared on the palms of the Blood Lagoon ninja as he extended them in front of him after completing the set of hand seals.

"Multi-Summoning Jutsu!" he declared. Somber tendrils of shadowy smoke coiled out from under the man's leather gloves but no matter how much of it came out, the smoke could not overpower the shine of the glyphs present on the man's palms. It was tough to say if the glyphs formed over the man's gloves or if their gleam was intense enough to burn a hole through them.

From within the climbing and creeping smoke, a colony of onyx, eyeless bats appeared, flapping their wings in a coordinated manner like all of them surrendered to some sort of hypnosis or were controlled by a singular, hive mind. Due to the fact that the little critters had no eyes, the most of their furry heads were covered by a macabre grin and their wings appeared to be comprised of long, crooked, fingers of pitch-black skin, interconnected by an almost silky looking, half-transparent membrane.

As the bats swarmed the slowly but relentlessly walking forward swordsman, Kouta noticed strings of red, as thin as a needle but liquid in consistency, extending from the whirling swarm and forming a single, liquid sphere in the extended hand of the master of these uncanny and grotesque flying rodents. The sphere continued to expand in size before it erupted into crimson flames and burnt out right before everybody's eyes while the bats disappeared in the shroud of dark smoke that gave them birth in the first place.

Mizoma walked on, his helmet was slightly bent and opened wider, just in the place where a bat must have squirmed and just barely squeezed into to dig into the man's face, the man's clothes and cape were torn in places where the dreadful vermin got too wild in biting into their target. Even the pieces of Mizoma's armor comprised of nothing but steel and blades were bent up even if it did not look like the bats managed to dig their way through them.

"Enjoyed your drink, Lagoon scum?" Mizoma growled. The man's tone and fearless stance were completely different from before. Kouta noticed his thighs shaking and his feet slowly attempting to force him to take a step backward as the swordsman was coming closer to the group of four.

"You know all too well that us Hozuki aren't too delightful to squeeze dry." The bat-summoner replied, looking far braver than Kouta, whether it was because he could not sense the absolute death behind Mizoma of the Seven Swords of the Mist or because he could, yet remained unimpressed for whatever reason was yet unclear. "Nothing but water and no substance."

"You'll pay dearly for every tiny drop you've taken. And for comparing yourselves to us…" Mizoma raised his gauntlet up, letting his three short wrist blades shift places a pair of times before a sword appeared in the extended hand. Kouta still had enough control and thought in his noggin to realize that this ninja used a method of hand seals that were not made with his hands, but instead through different configurations of movements from his wrist blades.

It was an easy conclusion to make after seeing a blade of such size and caliber be unsealed through no other action than his wrist blades trading places a pair of times. Yet the simplicity through which the method of combat was deduced in no way reduced how impressive it was and how much dedication and training it would have required to master.

"Wait… Drop? You mean that thing those bats were streaming out was actually his blood? What are you guys exactly?" Kouta turned at his temporary allies for the duration of this brawl after putting a few things together.

"This really is not the time for that…" the macabre baby-man shook his head. Due to the massively unbalanced sized of the man's head, the sweat that ran down his forehead was similarly out of proportion.

"What they are is an unholy abomination that needs to be eradicated." Mizoma swung his newly unsealed sword around in his right hand before taking it up in both of his hands. It was an impressive weapon of an onyx handle, encrusted with gold-colored accessories and a hieroglyph that said "Three" right in the middle of the guard from both sides of the sword and in the middle of the blade where the golden enhancements crawled up the blade's backside and extended forward with a handful of golden spikes to add some shredding and hooking properties to the frightening lethality of the weapon.

"Also, a part of your own clan…" the elegant taijutsu-using kunoichi winked at the advancing threat. "Or maybe that's the reason why you want us dead so badly because we're a reflection of the Hozuki's own backyard."

"Don't you even dare sully that name with your mongrel mouths!" Mizoma completely lost it, charging at all four ninja with all of his aggression and swiftness. Kouta's feet finally got what they asked for – as the young man failed to identify any openings in his opponent's stance, lingering on this fruitless quest until it was all but too late to even attempt to avoid his attack, his body finally overcame the willpower that kept it adamant and began trembling back.

Mizoma's blade blurred and moved in a unique manner where it either moved so fast or used some other trick to achieve this effect, that it appeared to be in multiple places at once. It was simultaneously at the beginning of its swinging trajectory, halfway through it and had completed it all at the same time, judging from the multiple available locations of the blade. This visual confusion, added to the uncanny speed and skill in wielding a sword that Mizoma possessed, was quick to shed blood and stain the cerulean dress and its white ribbons that the woman wore to battle with vernal red.

The armored gauntlet of the member of the Seven Swords of the Mist reached out through the atmosphere of unmatched horror he had created with his ferocious attack to grab the belfry of the confused by the swiftness of her own demise Blood Lagoon kunoichi. Before it could drive his entire sword through her, the toddler-shinobi rammed his massive head into the side of the towering, armored ninja and sent him stumbling to the side a little, while the shock was nowhere near substantial to throw Mizoma off his feet, it certainly forced the lantern-helm to release his target from his deadly grasp.

"I won't let you hurt Utaretta-san!" the tiny man with a grand head declared while weaving his hand seals dangerously close to his opponent. Even to someone who often got lost in the excitement of battle like Kouta, this seemed reckless. Then again, perhaps this risky attack was the point, the Konoha ninja noticed that while Mizoma's unbridled fury was focused on the baby-man of the Blood Lagoon, the scythe-wielder had moved his injured ally away from the reach of Mizoma's terrifying blade.

"Genjutsu: Blood Moon!" the toddler chanted out, Kouta found it rather pointless to create a genjutsu that required its classification to be in the actual chant of the technique's name, from what he had noticed, Mana tended not to use such illusions until she had polished them to only require the lesser and more obscure parts of their name to be chanted upon use.

Mizoma grit his teeth and began stumbling back as if he had seen something especially panic-inspiring in the baby-man's display. The curious part that particularly stroke Kouta's fancy was how the white gleam in Mizoma's eyes turned blood-red while the illusion surrounded the swordsman of the mist and held it tightly within its clutches. It was tough to say what horrifying effects the man underwent inside the illusion, from what Kouta could tell, the man was scratching his own body as if attempting to tear his own helmet off, shaking and stumbling around like drunk or… Craving for a drink in the most severe and life-threatening of ways.

In a flash, Mizoma swung his arm to the side, his blade still clutched firmly within the man's arm. As seconds passed, the white matching the brightness of the stars in the night's sky, had anyone been able to see them to compare in the eternal, rusted gloom of the Valley of Hell, returned to Mizoma's eyes, the frozen trio of the Blood Lagoon wondered if the enemy had hurt their baby-man companion with that desperate swing.

Their worst fears were answered when with a fleshy, tearing sound, the titanic, compared to the proportions of the shinobi's body, attic lifted up, torn by the neck, and gently slid off of the short but thick neck that once supported it. The face of the beheaded ninja stayed permanently frozen in the expression of shock and agony as the pain of his demise only managed to hit his brain at the very final moments.

It was at that moment that Kouta realized that it was entirely possible that even united together, all they could have done against one of the Seven Swords of the Mist was color his sword with their own blood.