Kurotenshi
As Kurotenshi and Miu traversed the corrupted foothills, an eerie ambiance enveloped the landscape. The air was thick with an otherworldly mist, swirling and dancing amidst twisted trees and gnarled roots that seemed to writhe like serpents. The ground beneath their feet was uneven, covered in jagged rocks and tangled undergrowth, making each step a precarious endeavor.
Well, Miu's steps. Not only was stepping something Kurotenshi could not do, but the ground here was too rugged for his wheelchair, so he had to be indignantly carried by Miu's vines.
Strange, eldritch creatures lurked in the shadows, their forms shrouded in darkness and mystery. Their eyes glowed with an otherworldly gleam, and eerie whispers echoed through the mist, sending shivers down the spines of those who dared to tread in these forsaken lands.
Yuki and Okimi, a silhouette against the haunting backdrop, moved gracefully ahead, their figures shadowed against the towering Monochrome Mountains in the distance. The mountains loomed like silent sentinels, their peaks obscured by thick clouds that seemed to swirl with malevolent intent.
Miu turned To Kurotenshi then and said, "Why don't you ask her to heal your legs, Kurotenshi? You don't still distrust her?"
"No, it's…" He looked down, "It's my fault that she had to cut her arm off. If she can't have her arm back, why should I have my legs?"
"It's not your fault, Kurotenshi. She made her own. Decision. A really stupid decision."
"But if I hadn't been so stubborn, she wouldn't have had to do something so extreme."
"You weren't in the wrong for refusing to eat people, Kurotenshi. I'd been struggling myself for a long time." Miu placed a gentle hand on Kurotenshi's shoulder. "Okimi values you as a teammate and friend. She wouldn't want you to suffer needlessly. Let her heal your legs. It's what she would want."
Kurotenshi sighed, his eyes meeting Miu's. "I know she does. I was so stupid. I should have known that. I just… I couldn't see past the surface." Kurotenshi was trying to blink back the tears now, but nonetheless a stream formed down his cheeks.
Miu wrapped her arms around him and patted his head from behind. After a long silent moment, she said, "Go make it up to her, Kurotenshi. Go show her you trust her and let her heal your legs."
Kurotenshi nodded.
They'd talked and she'd healed his legs.
Now, as Kurotenshi and his friends prepared to make their desperate run down the mountain, the Monochrome Mountains loomed around them, a surreal and unsettling landscape that seemed to defy the very laws of nature. The peaks and valleys were painted in shades of gray, from the darkest charcoal to the palest silver, creating a stark and lifeless vista that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The rock formations were jagged and twisted, their surfaces pitted and scarred as if they had been ravaged by some ancient, unknowable force. The stones themselves seemed to pulse with an otherworldly energy, a subtle vibration that set Kurotenshi's teeth on edge and made his ghostly legs tingle with unease.
The sky above was a featureless expanse of gray, the clouds heavy and oppressive as they swirled in a slow, hypnotic dance. The light that filtered through the clouds was cold and lifeless, casting long, eerie shadows across the mountainside. It was as if the sun had been drained of its warmth and vitality, leaving only a pale, phantom imitation of its former self. How he longed to escape this place and see the true Sun, just within reach.
And there, hanging in the sky like a malevolent god, was the corrupted dragon, its scales shimmering with a sickly, iridescent sheen. Its wings were spread wide, blotting out what little light remained, and its eyes gleamed with a hungry, predatory intelligence.
As he looked to his teammates, Kurotenshi saw the same grim determination etched upon their faces. Okimi's hand was clenched tightly around the hilt of her Kusanagi, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she surveyed the path ahead. Yuki's breath misted in the cold air, her skin peppered with frost. He wasn't sure what the purpose of her technique was, but it was one that targeted her own body.
Miu stood beside him, her hands grasped around the wooden sword they'd sealed part of the One Tails in. It pulsed with vile corrupted chakra.
Kurotenshi took a deep breath, his ghostly legs tensing as he prepared to run. He knew that the odds were stacked against them, could somehow feel that the dragon's power was beyond anything they had ever faced before. But he also knew that they had no choice. They had to escape the Corruption, to return to the world they had left behind and warn others of the horrors that lurked within.
With a final nod to his teammates, Kurotenshi turned his gaze towards the distant exit, the gray landscape blurring as he focused on the task at hand. And then, at Okimi's command, he launched himself down the mountainside, his teammates close behind.
As the dragon turned in the sky, he felt its gaze upon him, a palpable weight that made his skin crawl and his heart pound with a primal, instinctive fear. He knew that the beast was waiting for them, anticipating their every move with a cruel, calculating patience.
"Split up. Yuki and I will draw its attention. You two make for the exit," Okimi said.
And so they split up. Now Okimi's path was straight beneath the dragon, while Kurotenshi and Miu diverted to the side, a longer but safer route… or so they thought.
The dragon hovered in the lifeless sky, biding its time as the two groups got further and further apart. Then it dove. It dove straight for Kurotenshi and Miu, ignoring Okimi and Yuki.
From its mouth, came forth destruction. Black flames. Pitch black flames. Even in this place with no color, they shouldn't be black. Kurotenshi immediately understood. It was the same transformed chakra nature as his clan used. Amaterasu.
Miu held up her sword to block. It surged with malevolent chakra. It wouldn't hold up. Even with a Biju it wouldn't hold up. And she didn't know. She didn't know what this attack was.
Kurotenshi pushed her, diving down towards the dragon, but out of the path of the flames. Sure enough as he glanced behind him, the landscape was on fire despite being all stone.
"Keep going, Miu! I will have to be the diversion," Kurotenshi said.
"But you—" Miu started.
"No time. Go."
"You're not sacrificing yourself are you?"
"No. I know this fire. Go!"
Miu gave a crisp nod, then ran.
With an ominous reverberation of earth, the dragon made landfall in front of Kurotenshi. Its eyes held something he could have sworn was amusement. Was it daring him to attack it?
He activated his sharingan, gazing into its eyes.
Within his illusionary world, the fake Kurotenshi ran towards the dragon, a kunai drawn.
The dragon's nostrils flared as it sniffed at the air, then looked straight at the real Kurotenshi. It was like looking into an endless abyss. It was the sense that there was nothing he could do, that this dragon could counter anything he did. He was helpless. He was always so damn helpless.
The illusion was shattered and the dragon swung its mighty tail. It dragged across the land, shattering boulders and uprooting trees as it barreled towards him. It was too high to jump over, too fast to land out without being pummeled.
He had to get out of the way. He couldn't get out of the way. He had to block this. He couldn't survive this. He couldn't run. He couldn't—he couldn't
He felt a force like a strong wind as the tail passed through him harmlessly. When he looked down, his entire body was glowing white and transparent like his legs.
"I have ghost powers!" he shouted.
A smile returned to his face. Maybe there was a chance.
But as soon as he thought that, his body returned to its solid state. What's more, his thighs were also solid now, just normal human thighs as he could tell. So, his ghost powers had a limited number of uses.
A tuft of white hair flowing in the breeze.
Okimi slashed at the Dragon's hind quarters with her Kusanagi. She said, "It didn't cut all the way through the scales. This is going to be a nightmare."
Okimi had used that sword many times in their travels, and Kurotenshi had never seen something that it couldn't cut through. This was going to be a nightmare.
Yuki leapt up next to Okimi and punched the same spot as she landed. Frost formed on the scales as she struck, over and over. "You made some leeway. We just have to keep going," She said.
The dragon turned its head and snapped at them both, but it was an awkward angle. Okimi and Yuki easily dodged.
Kurotenshi leapt onto the dragon's side and began climbing, his hands searching for a weakness in its scales, some chink where he might get through. The dragon bucked and writhed, trying to shake him off, but Kurotenshi held on with grim determination. He channeled his chakra into his feet, using it to adhere to the dragon's hide.
The dragon roared in fury, its wings spreading wide as it took to the air. Kurotenshi clung to its back, his heart pounding in his chest. The wind whipped at his face, and the ground below became a distant blur.
His eyes found Miu, 20 meters from the border, where the mountains of the corruption met the toasted brown sands that could only be the Wind Country. 10 meters. 5.
And she was out! She'd made it to the safety. The rest of them, though…
He spotted Okimi, falling towards the ground. The dragon opened its mouth and released the black flames.
There was nowhere for her to dodge! And Kurotenshi hadn't warned them about Amaterasu. "The fire will kill you!" He tried to shout, but all he could hear was the roar of wind.
Kurotenshi saw Okimi, enveloped in the flames.
His heart dropped to his stomach. No. They'd made it so far together, no. Just like that? When they were so close.
The flames cleared from the air and there was in fact, something still there: A wall of interlocking Kusanagi blades, now enveloped in Amaterasu. Beneath them, Okimi continued to fall, waving her arms, guiding her blades as they spread apart and flew at the dragon from every direction with blinding speed. There must have been at least a hundred of them.
The Kusanagi swords connected, embedding themselves in the dragon's scales. The dragon flailed, and the swords were sent skyward. But her attack wasn't over. The black flames spread onto the dragon's scales. They could.. Actually win. They were going to win! They were going to survive! To leave this place!
The dragon roared out in pain. Then something unexpected happened.
Every scale on the dragon lifted, exposing the white virgin scales beneath. Kurotenshi reached out and touched one. It was soft. If only they'd been able to reach these earlier.
And every scale on the dragon launched itself away from its body.
The blunt side of a scale pounded Kurotenshi right in the gut, while another slammed into his face.
For a moment, everything was a blur and all he could hear was the ringing in his ears.
Then he realized he was falling.
Clouds of ashes fell with him, the remnants of the Kusanagi blades and the dragon scales.
The dragon locked its two reptilian eyes, full of malice and madness onto Kurotenshi.
The corrupted dragon's maw opened wide, its jaws unhinging like a grotesque serpent. The stench of decay and rotting flesh wafted from the beast's gullet, a miasma of putrefaction that made Kurotenshi's stomach churn and his eyes water.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the dragon's teeth closed around him, each fang longer than a man and dripping with viscous, black saliva. The sticky liquid clung to Kurotenshi's skin, burning like acid wherever it touched. He could feel the heat of the dragon's breath, a fetid wind that reeked of sulfur and brimstone.
The world went dark as the dragon's jaws snapped shut, engulfing Kurotenshi in a claustrophobic nightmare of pulsating flesh and slick, slimy muscle. The walls of the beast's throat convulsed around him, the ridges and folds of its esophagus rippling like some obscene, living tunnel.
Kurotenshi was battered and crushed by the relentless contractions of the dragon's gullet, he heard a bone snap and felt an impaling pain in his ribcage as he was inexorably drawn deeper into the creature's bowels. The pain was beyond anything he had ever experienced, a searing, all-consuming agony that obliterated thought and reason.
He could feel the dragon's corrupted essence seeping into his wounds, a vile, oily substance that seemed to writhe and squirm with a life of its own. It burrowed into his flesh, worming its way through his veins and arteries, a creeping, insidious invasion that made his skin crawl and his mind reel with revulsion.
The stench was overwhelming now, a choking miasma of bile and stomach acid that burned his lungs and made his eyes stream with tears. He could feel the heat of the dragon's body, a searing, oppressive warmth that seemed to leach the very life from his bones.
He could hear nothing but the sound of acid dissolving his skin and a low rumble that vibrated his body.
He felt the dragon's flesh become like water, but he knew it was himself that had become intangible as he slipped through what must have been its stomach and… solidified once again. Damn! He didn't have control over his technique yet. He tried focusing on it again, but to no avail. And he couldn't breathe. There was nothing but flesh here.
But that sound was overwhelming now and shook his whole body. Ba-dum! Badum!
Its heart! He had to get to its heart.
He pulled out a Kunai. He ripped, teared and chewed his way through that flesh, closer and closer. Now his body was demanding oxygen. If only he could use jutsu, but they only worked inside of his own body.
Wait, he was inside of a body! He made a few hand-signs, but no luck. His chakra was different from the dragon's, so it would be canceled out.
But there was something else now.. A foreign presence in his chakra that reeked of corruption. He reached out to it, channeling it into his jutsu.
He threw a shuriken and made the hand-signs. Cloned shuriken appeared all around it, spraying out towards the heart.
He heard the beat become more erratic. But it was still going. Not enough!
He ripped through the opening created by his shurikens. Now the vibrations of the dragon's heart were downright painful, but he was already in so much pain from the acid burns and what he was sure was a broken rib. What was a little more? He was more desperate for air. He felt his head going fuzzy.
He repeated his shuriken shadow clone technique.
This time the palpitations stopped. Just before Kurotenshi blacked out.
Kurotenshi's eyes fluttered open, his vision blurry and unfocused as he struggled to make sense of his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the absence of the dragon's oppressive presence, the suffocating darkness and the stench of decay that had engulfed him mere moments ago.
As his senses slowly returned, he realized that he was lying on the ground, his body battered and bruised but miraculously intact. He could feel the cool touch of the earth beneath him, a welcome respite from the searing heat of the dragon's belly.
"Kurotenshi! Thank goodness you're alive!" Okimi's voice cut through the haze of his thoughts, her tone filled with relief and concern that was uncharacteristic of her. "Otherwise, I'm sure you'd hate it that you'd be giving me the pleasure of plucking those magical eyes of yours out." There it was.
Kurotenshi turned his head, his gaze falling upon his teammates. Okimi and Yuki were kneeling beside him, their faces streaked with sweat and dragon grime, their eyes wide with worry. Behind them, he could see the massive, lifeless form of the dragon, its scales iced and sliced, its once-mighty form now nothing more than a husk. It was blanketed gently in ash like freshly fallen snow, as was the rest of the mountain.
"What... what happened?" Kurotenshi croaked, his voice hoarse and raspy.
"You did it," Yuki said. "You destroyed the dragon's heart from the inside. When we saw it happen, saw the beast convulse and shudder, Okimi figured out what must have happened."
Okimi nodded, "We cut into the heart and surrounding area after it died."
Kurotenshi struggled to sit up, his ghostly legs trembling with the effort. He could feel the echoes of the dragon's corrupted essence still clinging to his form, a bitter, oily residue that made his skin crawl. But he was alive, and that was all that mattered.
With a deep breath, Kurotenshi focused his chakra, channeling it into his wounds. He could feel the familiar warmth of his healing jutsu spreading through his body, knitting together torn flesh and mending shattered bones. It was a slow, painful process, but one that he had grown accustomed to over the years.
As he healed, Kurotenshi's gaze fell upon Okimi. She was kneeling on the ground, her hand outstretched, a handful of ashes spilling from her fingers. Her expression was melancholic.
"The Kusanagi," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "It's gone. Destroyed by the dragon's black flames. After everything it's been through, all the battles it's fought... this is all that's left of that legendary sword."
Kurotenshi felt he should have felt some sympathy for her, but right now he was just too exhausted, his emotions too overexerted to care about a sword.
"But all things considered, this is a glorious day," Okimi said, "Let's. Get. The Fuck. Out. Of. Here."
The exit from the Corruption was within reach, and Kurotenshi was also eager to press on, to escape this nightmare once and for all. So, he shakily got to his feet.
Okimi let the ashes of the Kusanagi slip through her fingers, watching as they drifted away on the wind. She smiled with her eyes.
With a groan of effort, Kurotenshi pushed himself to his feet. Okimi eyed his solidified leg from the knee up, but made no comment.
"Miu is waiting for us at the exit. Let's go!" Kurotenshi said, rising shakily to his feet.
Okimi nodded. Yuki nodded.
Together, the three teammates turned towards the distant exit.
As they walked, Kurotenshi couldn't shake the feeling that something bad would happen, that they couldn't possibly make it out of the Corruption. It had been years and many times the hopelessness of their situation had gnawed at him.
But the exit was in sight.
And nothing happened. They crossed the monochrome border into the sun-kissed sands.
An immense feeling of relief fell over him. They'd made it. His eyes began welling with tears as he turned them upwards and gazed upon that good old blinding fireball in the sky.
They began towards Sunagakure following Miu's footprints, foresoles dug in deep. She must have been running all out to bring reinforcements from the sand.
The tension in the air dissolved, as they almost ran over the sand dunes.
But then it came.
It was a moment of abject horror, worse than anything the Corruption had dealt them.
A young woman with eyes of crimson and bubblegum pink hair stood amidst a field of sand and sliced up trees.
Miu was impaled on her sword. It protruded from the top of her skull. She hung in the air, her lifeless eyes staring at her comrades as if asking for help, but too late.
"Oh hi, Chiyuura girl!" The murderer said with nonchalant joy, as she dislodged her sword letting Miu drop to the ground. "Fancy meeting you again. Oh, but it's been so long. You probably don't remember me."
Okimi's eyes flashed with a dangerous gleam that Kurotenshi had never seen before. In fact, he'd never seen Okimi express any emotion so strongly. It was like looking into an inferno of black flames that could consume anything. Kurotenshi imagined those flames bursting out of her body in every direction.
Okimi charged at their enemy with a furious, almost inhuman cry.