The coastlines were a swath of battles. From his observation post just off the landing ramp of the boat on the first level, Souji swept the expanse with a critical gaze. The land of battle and ruins laid only a few hundred meters away, but the Water damiyo had learned the lesson of the first battles. Their next generation combat boats were equipped with sophisticated chakra engines that kicked in automatically when the sails were cut off, delivering a program of standing orders to those in the boats.
Order number one was kill everything that moves. Half the landscape was rubble, and the rest was a firestorm of Konoha, Kumo, the Sarutobi and Hyuga, the Amalgamation, the Monsoon country, Hurricane country, Thunder country, Islands country, and just when Souji was thinking how he really wished he had a comrade or two around right now, several metric tons of debris hurtled from the sky and hit the water in front of him hard enough to buckle the hull.
Not that it did the ship any harm. Uzumaki sailboats were basically flying javelins, and this particular one was armored and equipped with buffers and inertial dampeners formed from fuinjutsu, powerful enough to stop them on a dime, to protect the sophisticated scrolls they were carrying.
Souji looked up at the debris and Yuko.
"Yuko-san." He said.
"Souji-san." Yuko said with a nod. She was still scanning the battle around them. "Did you contact the compound with the news of our departure?"
Souji gave a slight nod. "As Hisao-sama ordered."
Yuko looked at him. "Are you all right, sir?"
Souji wiped away some of the dust and blood that smeared his face with the sleeve of his charred haori, and only left a black smear across his cheeks. "Yes. It has been a eventful day."
He waved out at the coastlines.
"But we still have a battle to win."
"Then I suppose you'll be wanting this." Yuko said, holding up the sword she had recovered from the estate. "I believe you almost forgot this, sir."
The weapon floated gently up to Souji's hand, and when he smiled down at Yuko again, she could swear he was blushing, just a bit. "No need to mention this to anyone else."
Yuko grinned. "Is that an order, sir?"
Souji shook his head. "There's a swath of battle."
"Yes, sir."
Yuko stuck her hand in the bag where she was keeping all of the scrolls and frowned down toward where Souji ran selflessly into heroic battle. Yuko was his comrade. She would execute the order faithfully, without hesitation or regret.
But she was also human enough to mutter glumly. "We're always selflessly jumping into battle. When will we have time for ourselves?"
Just as she finished, a line of shinobi came down the path behind Souji, their shuriken firing. She reacted at once, spinning about and flashing her sword to deflect the many projectiles, turning them back on her attackers. She knew that these few shinobi were the least of her troubles, though, for as she glanced around she saw the source of their confidence, thousands of shinobi rolling along every path, in the forest line and out into the coastlines below. The fight began immediately, the whole landscape filling with screaming projectiles, Yuko leaping and spinning, trying to close into tight defensive maneuvers with Souji, their blades deflecting the shuriken wildly.
Shinobi scrambled all about, some trying to attack the duo-and dying for their trouble-others just scrambling to get out of the way of the wild fire. Souji spun about, recognizing that his most dangerous enemies were behind him. He faced them and found himself looking down into the eyelids of a flame dragon. A burst of flames reached out for him, igniting his flowing haori. With both shinobi so close, and in such a vulnerable position, Souji just leapt away, lifting himself with chakra to fly out from the water and across the land onto the battered forest line.
He pulled the burning haori from his back, throwing it aside. All around him, the fight intensified, with Yuko battling scores of shinobi on the coastlines, and many other shinobi rushing down to join the battle against the largest concentrations of enemy shinobi. Souji was a blur of motion once more, working his blade furiously to turn back the storm of kunai and shuriken screaming at him from the multitude of foes.
He joined Yuko at the center of the chaos, and back-to-back, they went into movement, soaring into crowds of foes, taking down several dozen with deflected shuriken, then slashing through, turning in unison as they went. Yuko went at one shinobi with her blade held parallel, but when that shinobi lifted his defenses appropriately, the two whirled about, Souji coming around hard and fast, with his blade high, slashing through their foe.
Souji and Yuko fought in a back to back posture, with Yuko working in a defensive manner, deflecting all the shuriken and kunai coming at them, while Souji picked his shots carefully, cutting down shinobi after shinobi. But despite all the efforts, despite the mounds of slaughtered enemies, Water damiyo armada and Water country shinobi alike, the outcome was beginning to show clearly, as Souji and Yuko were slowly being pushed back by sheer numbers.
They glided across the water, though that area would provide little respite. Their foes howled and came on, more shuriken flying towards them. Their blades worked quickly, precisely, turning one shuriken after another right into their charging foes, finally slowing one down enough to stun him. Souji rushed in and leapt and stabbed. Right in the shoulder. He slammed a kick into the man's ribs, running past him. He heard the man slam into debris behind him, but he knew that battle was done, so he went at the next horde of foes barreling towards him with murderous intent.
The larger fight seemed far from won, and far from winnable. Yuko had finished with her foes by then, and to the other side, they both continued their perfect teamwork behind the overturned chunk of debris. They turned away kunai aimed at either of them, deflected shuriken, picking off shinobi after shinobi. But even with that, even with the two of them fighting brilliantly in the chaos, their foes continued to press in, herding them together.
More shinobi went down under the sheer weight of their barrages.
Less than half of them were still standing.
"Limited choices." Souji said to the exhausted and bloody Yuko.
Soon they were down to just over two hundred in their area, all herded together, and in the landscape all about them stood rank after rank of shinobi, weapons leveled.
Then all movement stopped suddenly.
"Souji Domou and Yuko Uchiha!" A shinobi yelled. His expression showed that he had truly enjoyed the spectacle of the battle. "You are worthy of recognition in the eyes of the shinobi world. Your kenjutsu has proven to be peerless! Now it is finished."
He paused and looked all about, leading the gazes of the trapped duo to the rows and rows of enemies still poised to destroy them.
"Surrender." The shinobi ordered.
"We will not become hostages." Yuko said without the slightest hesitation.
"Then it is done." The shinobi said.
He raised his hand and looked to his assembled army, prepared to give the signal. But then Yuko, exhausted, dirty, and bloody, raised her head to the sky above, and a shout escaped her lips.
"Look!"
All eyes turned up to see hundreds of arcs of lightning fast descending upon the area, screaming down in a swirl about the duo, chains of lightning rushing out as they touched down to ground level. A hailstorm of lightning blasted those surrounding them, launching them backwards into the tree line, flinging their charred corpses for miles around, but the some shinobi were swift, and amid the sudden confusion and flashing lightning, Usagi and Himari appeared in the forest line of one of the nearby cliffs, offering a salute to Souji and Yuko.
"Move!" Souji yelled, and they rushed to the nearest cliff, scrambling up. Souji climbed up right beside Usagi, and they lifted away immediately, chakra blaring, scattering shinobi as they soared up out of the area. Souji could hardly believe the incredible sight unfolding before him, as thousands of shinobi rushed down on the assembled armada of the Water damiyo, the Water country clans, and tens of thousands of mainland shinobi dropping down to the coastline.
Everyone could agree the Water damiyo was the bigger threat evidently.
Behind him, Yuko continued to orchestrate the battle with one last shout. "Encircle their numbers and then divide!"
"We're going to need to double time it. That was Shin and Tsugi collaborating that jutsu." Himari said.
"To the compound we must go." Yuko said, igniting her chakra with a cry, she soared ahead refusing to look back at the carnage.
I have to make it back with these scrolls and all the wisdom Hisao-dono bestowed upon me!