Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 13.3 POV-MarvelousAQL

The dance of flames.

The leader of the Phantom Crusaders was a Goddess. It isn't that bad Goddesses don't exist. However, I have no reason to doubt her. She stopped attacking Falcom after winning the fight. She didn't hurt her more, laugh at her, mock her, kill her. She just talked…And now I know Tenchu is involved with some shady organizations. I doubt she will listen to me. But even if I have to drag her, I will get Kagura off their side!

I got to the middle of the residential area. I stopped Kagura from attacking one of the members of the Phantom Crusaders. Face to face, I will try to convince her with words.
"Oi oi. What are you stopping me for, Marvy.", she talks to me in a facetious tone of voice.
"Kagura. Do you have any idea what you are doing, what is actually happening?", I ask her.
She raises an eye brow and leans her head a little back asking, "Is there something you know that I don't?"

"Just so you know. We have been fighting a Goddess all along.", I tell her.
She grins at me, then she speaks arrogantly, "Yeah, I know. I fought her. But she keeps running away. Not that her friends are any less entertaining. That guy that just ran constantly gets in my way, you know?"
She knew?! I raise my voice, "You knew and still keep fighting?! Why?!"
"What's wrong? So what if a Goddess is my enemy?! Plenty have been bad or are enemies of other Goddesses. And I don't care for her strength, I have a mission, and I will fulfil it!", she says so with conviction, there is no humorous tone of voice with this line.

"Will you still not stop if I told you Tenchu is corrupt?", I ask her.
"Oh, I see. So you learned something else?", she asks me, crossing her arms, looking at me with a devious smile.
"Tenchu is working with evil companies! He works with them to gain the power to take over Lowee, maybe even the world! He has been lying to us.", I explain to her.
"Oh~ He really does sound like a villain.", she says absolutely without a care.
I can't help but make a weird annoyed noise, I question her, "Do you not care at all?! Will this not stop you?!"

"No! What is it to me, anyway?! You change sides because your employer ends up being bad?! Good for you. I don't care!", she tells me loudly.
"Kagura…Why work with him? Why stay loyal to him? He deceived you too.", I wanted to ask her more, but I was too slow and she talks back.
Angrily she tells me, "So what?! You seem to be misunderstanding something here! I don't work for HIM! I work for his MONEY and rewards! I don't care if he is evil or if he lies to me. As long as he gives me what I have been contracted for, I won't slice him up and do my job!"

"Is the reward that good? Is it worth hurting a Goddess over?!", I ask her.
"Do you understand what it is like to be a rouge shinobi?! So what if he is corrupt?! I am branded as such since middle school! Even though I did nothing wrong?! I chose the path of evil and will continue to do so! I have no choice after all! In the past at least, me and my friends had opportunities for missions, lots of choice. But now the rules have changed a lot. There are so many freelancer ninja that do things that would've made either of us rouges during our school days. Now they take all of the jobs we used to have! All because no one wants to hire a rouge anymore. Why take the risks when freelancers can do most jobs?!", she rants.

I see. I knew something was bothering her between our missions. But she never shows any clear signs of frustration outside of battle.
She continues, "Every day, we are hunted by the 'good' ninja. And the evil school we went to ended up being some experiment. All ninja from there are after us too. You should know, we destroyed Orichi together. But years later, we are at our low point. If I don't bring enough money, we will starve. But worse, if I don't get the rewards from Tenchu, where can we go to stay save? Some of them have been injured, and there is no way to treat them. I will fight and kill to save them, no matter what!"

I understand her conviction.
"Kagura. You won't possibly entrust me with your problems. Would you?", I ask her.
"Considering your blades are sticking out of your scabbards, you already know, don't you?", Kagura replies.
"I will force you on the right path. I want to be your friend. And I will beat you if necessary!", I tell her while grabbing my two ninja blades.
"Friend? Then show me a dance worthy of that title!", she responds with preparing her six katana.

We kick ourselves off the ground, the sheer force of us getting close bounces us back before we could even swing our weapons. Air is shooting the snow below us into the sky as our blades clash. Foolishly, I attacked her whilst she guarded with her blades, now she sends me flying with a spread of her arms.

She jumps after me, relentlessly clawing against me. Even blocking her blades doesn't do enough to protect me, with her wide range I can only block a few swords per swipe. Even then, it isn't like she hasn't hit me with these hundreds of times. She blows me further away with a dual uppercut.
I land on top of a house's roof. I quickly dash off it onto the ground before air blades shot from Kagura slices the roof apart.

I use my special ninja Speed Stealth Skill to move away from her diving at me whilst spinning like a drill. Her contacting the ground creates tears into the earth, at the same time, she uses Futon wind magic to shoot another three air-blades at me. Still using Speed Stealth, I circle around to her left. She turns with me, but even then, I have to try attacking her.
"Katon!", I shout as I go forward with my blades enchanted with flames.
"Futon!", she parries both swords with her katana blasting air at me that puts out my fire.

Swiftly, I jump back, I know Kagura will follow up with an attack. I will use her aggressiveness against her.
She runs to me, about to stab me with all six blades bundled together. I cross my two blades. Instead of receiving the attack, I step to my right and smash my blades against hers to knock them to a different direction. I quickly change how I grasp my sword after having shoved them to my left, The blade in my left hand I now hold in reverse grip, whilst I slightly tilt the blade in my right hand to align with her neck.

I kick myself forward, with my sword aligned, I barely have to move it to damage Kagura as I go by her at a howling speed. I know the pain will only make her angrier, so I anticipate the counter attack. I barely have to do anything. I just turn with my left ninja blade easily able to stab anything. In this case, I stop Kagura's right handed 180 swipe by stabbing her hand, her blades come close to hitting me, but even she isn't crazy enough to keep her attack going with a blade almost all the way through her hand…I hope so at least. I don't want to hurt her too much.

I lean forward, shuffling left and right from below Kagura, swinging my blades towards her. This movement is mostly done to avoid all of her blades. Only four are able to reach me. Even if gets me between her swords, I can at least block two with each of my blade, the ones on top will go over my head. Once in perfect position… I lean forward into a headbutt. She gets extremely mad whenever I do those. She cusses at me, "Damn it!"
With a growling voice, she retaliates by kicking me in my belly. It hurts, but I'll just have to put up with it.

I jump over a swipe from her left arm, right after, she was about to catch me with a thrust from her right, but I push her sword down with my right-handed blade, from there, I roll my body over her arm, pushing her shoulder as I land behind her back. I immediately turn around to stab her again with my left dagger, but she blocks it with the three sword in her other hand. No wait, I am stuck! She uses two of the swords to take control of my blade, and the last one she tries to cut me with.

It must be hard for her, however, it was a sluggish attack. I block it with my other sword. Not a second later, she has her other three swords about to reach my right. I thought to block it at first, but creating a stalemate seems like a better idea to me. So I slide my blade across the sword I just blocked to reach her neck. She stops just before the blades could touch me. Words won't be needed. Having done this so often, we know we should retreat.
With Stealth Speed, we back off from each other, within that same movement, we circle around to run up to each other. Once again, our blades collide, creating a shockwave that blows the snow off the roofs of the houses around us.

We backtracked to have some distance between us. She suddenly comes at me spinning at high speeds, this attack has her turn into a horizontal tornado that flies straight at me. I can't block it, so I end up getting swept up in her attack, my clothes getting a lot of cuts on them. Before I know it, I'll be knocked back with a slash finisher. Kagura still comes after me, but I don't plan to let her get another hit in.

"Doton!", I shout as I smash the ground with my blades, forcing Kagura to pause, she knows this move after all. Earth is shot out into spikes all around me. To dodge this, Kagura is forced to jump back, so immediately after doing it once, I do a quick long hop over to her before plunging into the ground with my fist shouting, "Doton!", once more. The next few earth spears coming from the ground smash her away. But this isn't the end of my attack, I use the common digging skill ninjas use with Doton!

I pop out of the ground behind Kagura. Not a surprise she saw it coming, but since I had still done it quite fast, she only blocks my kick with her bare arm. Her feet slide over the snow after my attack. Refusing to give me an inch, she runs over to me and ferociously attacks me with her claws. She made herself big, taking on a stance similar to that of a bear.

It is to intimidate me with her large weapons, but it doesn't scare me. It is tense, though. I can deflect most of her attacks, but shallow cuts appear all over with me not able to stop every blade. I just gotta work harder! So I speed up my own swings, at some points, I even dance around her furious attacks. This reminds me of the last time we fought…Now that I think about it, I am still warming up. From the beginning, I felt rusty.

I throw my left blade at Kagura with "Raiton!" I hope Kagura smacks it away trying to get to me. She uses "Katon!", with her left handed swords, deflecting my lightning blade with flames. According to plan! It's kind of exciting when something works as you want, huh?
I move in on her and stop her sword swing from her other arm by making a sharp reverse grip horizontal swipe from my other blade infused with Magic as I shout, "Battou Ranbu!" I follow it up with a upper spin slash changing my reverse grip to a regular one.

I get Kagura in the air behind me unable to launch a counter attack. My next slash is indescribable, the magic cuts through her and blows her away.
I see her stamp her feet down to stand strong for a likely counter-attack. But I won't let her! I use more of my SP to launch another special attack.
I grab my second blade that was knocked away. I cross my arms holding both in reverse grip.

"How's this?!", I ask her as I summon a large wide earth spike to jump on top off. I move my blades to my hip as I kick myself towards Kagura at blinding speeds, slashing through her as if it were a speedy Iai technique. Some of her clothes got torn, her shoulder, midriff, and knees are all visible now. I don't lose focus, I can easily summon another earth spike to jump to her again, only this time I slash at nothing. Huh? Where did she go?

Little did I realize she uses her SP attack to dodge me. I have been hit by this attack before, yet I've completely forgotten about it.
At high speeds she goes through me with her blades, almost as if I get knocked around by green flashes. She finishes her attack with a big charge at such a high speed she appears as a blur, I get flung through a small building…A shed? Whatever it is, it hurts and tore some more of my clothing.

I get back up and see Kagura still after me. But at this point, my EXE Drive is ready.
"EXE Drive Skill!", shouting that slows her movement down to a crawl.
I set my two blades aflame turning them into two long fire swords as I dice Kagura with a flurry of blades while I shout, "Midaresaki!" After my final hit, I use the ultimate ninja scroll to combine four blazes with a sword. I fly towards Kagura turning into something resembling a flaming cross. With my next slash, I send her into a large house, my attack ending in a huge fire that burned the house down.

That must end the first round. I take my time to breath, waiting for Kagura to escape the rubble. Whatever is left over has become a foothold for Kagura to look down on me from.
"I see, you still incorporate your red flame into your normal moves? I know you only just recently mastered your flame? The last time we fought with our flames, you were like an infant trying to fight their father after finding out what martial arts is.", she tells me.

"This time there is no reason for me to lose. Even if I am not as good as you when it comes to controlling the four flames, I refuse to let you work for Tenchu. And I also won't allow you to hurt these ninja who are in the right!". I tell her.
"We've fought so many times, haven't we? You always spout some righteous crap and either lose in humiliation or beat me through luck. Well, I think this is our peak, isn't it? Let's fight to settle things. Is your justice crap of any worth? Or is my evil stronger, thus the only way to save my friends.", Kagura says so with a smile. But it doesn't really ooze the confidence she had before. It feels kind of bitter.

"Shinobi Transformation!", Kagura shouts, transforming her clothing into the sailor uniform she normally wears. For the record, I always transform before a mission. Last time I had by guard down and…No, I can't think about it now.
"Green Flame!", Kagura shouts, her hair turning green as the flame around her gives her a green aura that burns everything in her path.
"Red Flame!", I call out, shooting a pillar of fire around me. My hair gets messy and slightly longer as it turns red. My two swords glow in a red light with flaming auras surrounding them.

She jumps high in the air, I know she is about to plunge into me with a slash. I meet her head on, jumping her way, both of us leaving a trail of flame throughout the air. Our blades clashing has the flames around us flare up in the sky, forming a green and red slice effect. After our flames danced in the skies, we land on the ground, still burning with colorful auras.
Kagura has a great smile on her face. I guess this power feels good for her. Of course, I am heated up as well… Maybe, I should put a smile on my face too?

Just a single step has fire explode from our feet, we dash over the ground to collide with our blades once more, our flames fusing into an explosion that sends us both back.
Fighting her up close without push back is hard. And controlling my flame enough to not blow her away without being able to attack her is rough. I'll just get better!
She sends her six blades flying towards me. I deflect them rather easily then I run up to her.
Kagura moves forward into a thrust of her seventh and most powerful katana. I cross my blades to catch it.

Locking her sword with my blades, I twist it a little to my left before pushing it slightly to get close to her. That is when I noticed her mischievous grin. I observe her eyes to see her swords flying back towards me in their reflection.
I hold my right blade steady to keep her sword from attacking me whilst I turn and swipe a couple katana away with my left blade. I jump away to dodge two more and deflect the final two with my right blade before using Stealth Speed to move away from a counter slash.

Right after, she sends more of her sword my way, this time they are more spread out and chase me like homing missiles. I keep running and using houses and hills as obstacles that could maybe block some of the swords. A few of them ended up flying above me trying to nail me into the ground, but I easily step away from them.
After my evasive maneuvers, Kagura, who had been eying an opportunity, suddenly steps next to me about to hit me with her katana.

I block her with a dual horizontal swing of my blades, our flame once again heating up into a blast that blows us both away.
I aim both my blades at her whilst holding them next to my side. I charge in, attempting to attack her like a bull with its horns, but she jumps to my left, the attack I did shoots flames from my two blades that burned large holes into a building.
One glance to my left already tells me to move, so fearing a hit, I run forward.

The ground behind me gets scorched and torn by a shooting fire strike Kagura did with her Katana. I switch my left blade into a reverse grip whilst I move into Kagura with a strike from my right blade, she easily blocks it and is close to pushing it to my neck. It feels a bit scary, but I know I'll be alright. This is according to plan.
"Katon!", I use explosive fire magic boosted by the red flame in my right dagger to push her sword away, more importantly, to force her to dodge my now flying dagger.

I duck under her blade and get close with my left dagger almost touching her belly. I generate a flaming sphere in my empty right hand with "Katon!" and stab her with an explosive force, tossing her through a small hill. Somehow, she recovers with a backflip landing on the ground. She hold her left hand over her stomach, but looks at me with a smirk.
I noticed too late. My breath has left me as I am surrounded by the six katana pointed at me.
Kagura closed her hand into a fist and made her swords collide into me creating a green flaming explosion that flings me over the ground.

After dropping onto the ground, I look at me second blade stuck into a boulder. I shout, "Doton!", breaking up the earth to slam it into my knife sending it my way. I get up and grab the knife at the same time, waiting for Kagura's next attack. She already got to me with a sprint and is about to hit me with an all out attack.
I am forced to go back to give myself the space needed to deflect her seven blades. After getting a few cuts, I decide to try and mix my flame with other elements.

"Raiton!", I shout as two thunderbolts amp up my flaming blades. I understand fire and lightning can mix, albeit slightly. These two elements combined bend each other, increasing the range of my slashes, allowing me to overcome her barrage of swords, on top of that, the sparks can hit her and slightly hurt her.
She tries to counter me with her sword, but I block it, and this time, I hastily get close to her and perform a headbutt.

This pisses her off again, once again returning a kick to me, only this time it is enforced by her green flame, hurting me a lot more. She now gets over to me looking pissed. We try to attack each other again, but getting heated in the moment, we lost control of our flames, they clash once more and blow up. We are sent a few dozen meters away from each other. After catching our breaths, our flame auras are reignited.

I run forward, deflecting every sword she has thrown my way. Getting close to each other, we both jab our blades forward. With my next step forward, I put my foot slightly to my left to barely brush next to her sword whilst I aimed my blades at her face, but in the last second, she strode to my right. Our attacks threw high pressured flames of red and green straight in front of us. Then we turned around, lowering the output of our flames to stay close to each other to do proper attacks.

I hopped when I stopped her katana with my blades to avoid one of her flying katana. Whilst our weapons are being pushed against each other, I switch to reverse grip with my left blade. I quickly cease the pressure I put on my right blade to dance around her with my left blade keeping her sword from cutting through me. I rotate around to her back to cut her with my right blade, but I hesitated when I saw another sword flying towards me. I had to reangle my right blade to both hit Kagura and knock her flying katana away, but instead, it allowed her to jump away from me.

I only managed to protect myself from the flying katana. I'm not letting this get me down. I have only one goal, and I will achieve it. I prance to the right to avoid another flying katana before jumping her way. On the way, I knock two other katana away with a spread out slash of both arms, from that position, I can easily strike Kagura with both ninja blades. She pushes her sword back into my blades. I see a flying katana about to pass by Kagura's neck from my right. I had to deflect it, but that means only pushing back against her katana with one arm.

She easily overpowers me, pushing my blade away to hit me back. I see she tries to knock me towards one of her flying Katana whilst another is shot directly at me. I hold my left blade behind my back to block the katana behind me and the one closing in on me I parry with my other blade. I hope to the right to let one sword go past me, and then I do a high long jump over another sword. One more sword is in the way, I simply knock it away before going down on Kagura. She holds her blade up to receive it, so I won't strike her.

My blades slightly touch her katana before I get below her in a crouching position. Maybe I forgot how good Kagura was? She just stops by dual stab by quickly pushing her blade down upon them, holding onto the blunt side with her left arm to further push my two weapons down. I could try leaning further in, but I can tell a flying Katana is coming. Instead of keeping up the attack, I jump over her blade with a front flip, her flying Katana passing just behind my back from my right, I place my feet on her shoulders to kick her away, just before another flying katana could hit me.

Even in the air, flying katana come at me, I easily deflect them before landing. I move forward, hopping around to avoid flying katanas, in tandem, I deflect some of them with my own blades. I'm getting nervous. It would be bad if I let that get to me. I calm myself.
I have to do this or else I won't get anywhere…It's fine. Right now, I can do anything.
I catch Kagura's katana with my left blade in reverse grip, after I received her sword with my own blade, I slide my hand close to the hilt before grabbing it, with her blade in my hand, I push it away. Despite her flames hurting my hand, I don't feel my hand actually getting burned. My own fire must be protecting me.

Either way, I attempt a slash from my upper right, but then my hand gets shoved back by a flying katana, it came right between our heads and arms to knock my arm away. I didn't see her next attack coming, she just let go of her sword, and with a step forward, she throws a powerful flame filled punch into my torso, blowing me quite far away.
It's no use. Getting close to her like this doesn't do anything for me. Her Katana are in the way. While I think about what to do, I see her swords circling around me.

I can block them with Doton… Thinking about it, I couldn't help but smile. Oh…I got a good idea!
First, I use my first Doton punch into the ground to create earth spikes that block the katana. Then I focus hard on my flames and my hand signs.
Fuse your flame with the earth element. The energy of fire shall turn into a more powerful earth.
With a cry I hop into another punch to the ground, this time sending a longer earth spike towards Kagura.

She was on guard already, but she might've thought it was a regular attack, for she tried to block it. But this earth is hot with its red hue, the power of my flame fused with the earth and slammed against Kagura's guard, blowing her away.
"Yosh! Let's go!", I shout before shooting myself towards her with Doton.
"Like I will let you!", she growls back at me, unleashing a wave of fire while her katana are following behind me. However, I can block her flames and Katana at the same time by summoning earth out of the ground, shooting it up.

They also make for handy footholds. I can jump around and close in on Kagura. I cast another Doton to force her to slice through the earth. This time, I hid myself behind one of the blocks of earth she just tore apart. She perceives me just too late, I fly down doing a circular spin slash over her shoulder, her blade could only stop me from cutting her arm. Her shoulder and part of her back is sliced after I land. She doesn't waste any time and attacks me right after, I just cast Doton as a proxy shield whilst I run away. My Doton shoots many earth spikes, and structures from the ground. They are both shields and cover for me.

This way, I can easily move around Kagura with her flying katana held up by the stone flung up from underground. On the other hand, I can barely get a hit on her. She uses a lot of her strength combined with explosive fire to cleave through the earth. The pressure she puts on me gets me more on the defensive. I can only find an opportunity and jump to her with a strike, which she blocks pretty easily. Stone flies all around us as our flames dance with the sparks flying off of our weapons clashing and sliding past each other.

She looks like she is randomly waving her sword around putting as much strength in as possible, but Kagura is actually more skilled than me. She isn't desperate, she knows that I can't attack her with her overwhelming me with pure power. The only way to overcome this is to stop using Doton, which would increase my attacking speed, but then her flying Katana will get in the way, which is even worse.

Our dance doesn't really go anywhere. Not until Kagura stops me with a shout, "EXE Drive Skill!" making the air around me too danse to move in.
Kagura raises her sword to summon a flame pillar that splits into flames that get absorbed into her flying katana whilst she says, "Dai Hitsuden Ninpo!"
I am get swallowed into a giant tornado of green fire made by the spinning of the six katana around me. A lot of my clothes get cut and burned by her attack whilst she surfs onto the outer layer of her tornado.

She jumps into the air before moving past me with her sword already swung. The tornado exploded into a big ball of fire that released a bunch of flaming knives that barrage me as I fall into another house that will inevitably be destroyed by her attack.
"Midori Jigoku.", Kagura says after her attack is finished.

My breathing is heavy, I can feel my throat hurt with each exhale.
I get up from the rubble.
"Futomaki", I eat one of my special Futomaki infused with SP to heal myself.
I don't even feel the pain…Hehe…Yeah. That is what it was like to fight her again…
Back to my strength, I hold my blades up.
"I haven' lost yet!". I tell her.
"I'd be disappointed if ya did!", Kagura shouts back. And so, our fight continues.

…
…

Our fight has heat up. Our skills barely matter anymore. At this point, the adrenaline has taken us over and it just becomes a struggle of who has more power. Constantly, we collide into each other, causing our flames to expand and burn up into a giant blaze before either pushing us both back, or allowing one of us to knock us into the air, through a big hill or through a building.

At some point, Kagura pushes me with her sword into a smaller house, my back breaking right through the door. Because of that, I lost my footing, I got onto the ground with her pushing her blade down holding her left hand on the blunt side.
I almost got my throat cut, but before she was able to push me down, I shouted, "Doton!". and kicked the ground to blast out a earth structure from the surface that went through the wood and flings Kagura through the table.

I get back up, and I see she doesn't stay down either. Our next attack unleashes a fire that collapses the house on top of us. None of it could really hurt us, our flames would burn whatever falls closest to us. But it is annoyingly distracting though! Kagura dodges my spread out horizontal swing by ducking under me. I quickly block her powerful uppercut that launches me into the sky.

I land onto what is probably the biggest house among this area. I look down at her, my fire still burning brightly.
"How many times have we fought this far? I lost count.", Kagura asks me.
"The same amount of times you fought for something stupid.", I tell her.
"A rare insult from Marvy, huh? Well. I'll show you my true power.", she says as her sword emits even bigger flames, all with a grin.
"Ninja Power…", I say as I use my SP to increase my strength and agility.

I dive down, with her jumping up to me. We clash once more, our flames evaporating the clouds above us. We circle around to my right to hit each other again. I fly above her, her sword missing me, I take that opportunity to drop kick Kagura in the face. She goes down for a bit, but then with a burst of flames flies back up to me. I block her sword, but then she kicks me higher into the air. We fly around, clashing once more, then backing off.

Everything feels like a blur. I don't even really see what I'm doing. Me and Kagura just fly into each other, our swords making clanging noises as our collisions effect our environment. Two flames dance in the skies as we keep our fight in mid-air. Eventually, we gather all our strength for one great clash, our hot flames burning up with our strength creating a bright light, our power alone crumbling the big building I just jumped off.

…
…

Our battle has lasted for a good more ten minutes.
Now we are back on the ground, Kagura looking down on me from up a slope.
We're both hyperventilating. My flaming aura is getting smaller and smaller. But I can tell, hers is getting weaker too.
Either way, she giggles after seeing me getting weaker.
"I knew it. You haven't mastered your flame yet. You can't even help but let it leak. You see the longer your aura blasts out, the less time you have with your flame. Look.", Kagura lectures me before absorbing her flame into her body. Only a slight green glow and her green hair remains.

"In the end, I will win because you're about to run out of steam.", she tells me.
"I told you already. I won't quit until I've won!", I tell her off.
She is right about me losing my flame like this. I can't do what she does. I'll have to think of something else…
I close my eyes and focus on my flame. I can kind of manipulate its shape. And I am able to force all of that fire into a single point.
I can lessen the aura leak by placing all of focus on my blades!

With a smile I say, "If I can't control my flames, I'll just come up with my own solution!"
I hold my blades forward, the red flames slowly converging into my two blades. The flames get compressed and fuse with my weapons, they turn into dense red blades of energy, almost looking like plasma.
Kagura looks at me aghast, I tell her, "See, this should increase my blades' power AND lower my overall flame output, making it a lot more efficient."

She kind of scoffs at me.
"You think you're smart?! Anything you can do, I can do better! What else have I been training for all these years! I will surpass you!", Kagura shouts at me, gathering her six flying katana.
She stacks them onto her Katana as she fuses her green flame with them, creating a giant dense fire sword that is more akin to green plasma.

"Here I go!", I shout to amp myself up, then I run faster than I've ever ran.
I know there is still a gap of strength between us, so I can only try harder. I break through every limit, slashing at her consecutively, even I can't see where my blades are going as I have her guarding my many attacks. I break through my limits, shoving her back with added spin slash jumps, It looks like I am surrounded by dozens of red slash effects with each jump forward. Kagura's sword is too big to move swiftly, she can stop me from hitting her critically, but my attacks get around her sword and hit her in her legs or shoulders.

It doesn't surprise me, Kagura finds the strength to swing her sword at me, she may not be as speedy now, but her overwhelming strength makes up for it. Even if I guard, it is impossible to stand my ground, she throws me dozens of meters back and in the air.

Still in the air, I see her doing a vertical swing, shooting a dense green fire blade at me. I lean my body to the right, diving with my head to the right to dodge the attack. I roll over the ground with my landing, then I have to jump immediately. Her strength is well combined with more range, her sword elongates with her swings. Although, since that might be just the energy of her sword elongating, maybe I could take the hit…No, I must focus on getting closer and wearing her down.

I jump over a sword slash as I get closer. Whilst I run forward, I see her preparing for a thrust forward, even though I am not within her range…Oh wait, she can elongate her sword.
It's good I remembered that, with her sword brimming with power and increased size, I ran in so that I can go into a crouching position and still slide forward over the snow whilst I have her sword locked between my crossed blades held to my rught.

I take a risk and let my left blade protect whilst I swing my right sword with enough strength to shoot a small red blade of dense fire at Kagura, she tilts her head to her left so it only scratches her rather than hitting her head on. I can tell this annoys her. In frustration, she pushes me hard with her sword, knocking me over to my front.

On all fours, I jump back to my right to avoid a strike from her blade. On the ground, I push my blades to my right to block her next swing. She not only pushes me to the left, but her sword is angled to go up, she'll eventually get to my head. So I decide to duck under it like I'm doing the limbo. The moment my back rebounds, I do a dual strike to shoot two red blades at Kagura. I notice her eyes twitch in surprise, but she quickly reacts anyway, jumping to her right, simultaneously, she gets me under her sword.

I hold my blades above me to block her strike, but with her strength, she's close to crushing me. I can feel the gravity bend my legs, my feet dig through the snow, I even hear the ground crack. As helpless as the situation is, I still don't want to give up. I grit my teeth and slowly march towards her. It feels heavy to lift my legs, but I manage to do so anyway. I get closer and closer to her.

She slightly eases the pressure she puts on me so she can dash towards me, thrusting her leg forward. I've been kicked by her too many times, I could see it coming and raised my leg to block her kick with my knee. Her actions actually lifted her sword upwards, slightly, allowing me to escape.
With my sidewards jump, I shoot two more energy blades at her to get her to block them, then I hop around to her left and do a diagonal downwards dual slash.

She ends up knocking me back with a swing of her own sword anyway. I howl over to her and strike her with both blades, not allowing her to get any more attacks on me. She does stop me with a swing of her own swords. Our blades repeatedly clash as they flare up in green and red, but in the end, no matter how well I stand my ground, her strength is greater and pushes me back.
It's as I thought. She's stronger than me…Kagura is amazing…But still…

I wasn't willing to give up. It's been three minutes I think. It felt a lot longer. I just constantly move in on her, but she uses her overwhelming strength to push me back and her wide range to keep me moving from afar.
The sword itself feels more like a problem at this point…Oh, I have an idea.
Running even faster, I move around her sword thrust. In the next moment, I move around like I turned into a bunch of flashes, slicing her sword as I run and jump around it from every angle.

I see her struggling to defend against this, her sword it too heavy already, with me hitting it everywhere, she can barely move it. Eventually, I get close enough to get two strong cuts into her torso as I am above her in the air. I felt a little too good about myself, for I let my guard down and got swatted by her blade in return. I land with my feet on the ground, struggling to get myself steady. But I know another attack is coming. I must end this soon.

I risk using all of my energy in my next combination attack. Avoiding Kagura's sword, I use Doton to dig myself underground. I know she will block my strike from underground. The moment I sprang out of the ground, she jumped above me, holding her left hand on her blade. I hit her sword, and knock her high in the sky. She safely lands and immediately tries to slice me horizontally. Holding my right hand over my left hand, I block her sword with the left hand.

It doesn't matter that she pushes me, as long as I can throw my right blade at her like a shuriken.
Now all her focus is on blocking that blade. Just before her blade touches mine, I shout, "Raiton!", to shoot a thunderbolt at my flying blade upon impact. This will mess with her for a second. That second will be my chance. I speed over to her. She tries to stab me, but I duck with a slide forward, her sword only cutting my left shoulder.
"Katon! Ohono Tsuki!", I shout as I stab her, enforcing my left handed blade with a push from my right hand. I push forward with the energy of my red flames spiraling around before exploding. I blow her a few hundred meters away.

I hyperventilate. My throat is making noises I have rarely heard come from me. All that, and I know it isn't done yet. I grab my right blade off the ground. The flames have long left my two blades. I look forward as I see her six Katana flying away from me. Kagura approaches. I can see her in pain, yet she bears a smile.
The both of us are ragged, our clothing has been reduced to only cover what we don't want to be seen.

Our flames are close to vanquished.
"You keep stabbing me… I hope you're ready to receive my ultimate attack.", she says before crossing her arms and looking at me arrogantly, "You can use our flames' final form, right?"
"Of course… This next attack will be the final.", I tell her, holding my blades up.
"Yeah. Let's finish this!", Kagura shouts back.
Our weapons turn into flames as they merge with us….

"EXE DRIVE SKILL!"

After shouting that, we scream as loudly as possible. We muster all the strength and break through the limit with the power of the EXE Drive. Our flames tower over the lands. By themselves, they collide thanks to their sizes. Once we've gathered all our power, we both shout "Flame Transmogrify!"
Our flames are shaped by our will. We create a new mass that moves with our bodies. The flames are formed into godly beasts.

I see Kagura's fire transform into a tiger. Her fire gets hotter and hotter, the color almost turning white.
"Tiger of the West…Byakko!", she shouts as she is incased in a tiger shaped flame.
I plant my feet into the ground, I feel connected with it as my flames surround me. A shell looms over me as the rest of my fire forms a tortoise.
"Tortoise of the North…Genbu!", I shout as my flame has been shaped into a tortoise with black flares surrounding it.

From the turtle's mouth, I shoot a hot focused fire at Kagura. She almost yields to it, but she manages to go jump through the flames in order to attack me. Kagura moves forward, using her strength and speed to make her flames claw at me. Thanks to the black flaming shield, I can protect myself against her ferocious attacks. She gathers her hand and does a biting motion with her hands acting like her fingers have become fangs. This motioned her flaming tiger to perform a bite that explodes into me.

My feet are dragged back, but I won't let her budge me another inch. I do a turn and hit her with my back, making the turtle's flaming shell slam into her. My body slam creates a combustion that smacks her back a bit. Growling, she jumps at me gripping me with her fingers on my shoulders. Despite her grip not seeming strong, it feels like I have been grappled by a beast with thick sharp claws.

Her flaming tiger grabs my tortoise and bites it in the neck. Somehow this hurts my own. Her jaw might be stronger, but with the Tortoise's longer neck, I can actually make it bite down her tiger's nape. This won't do me many favors, I can tell she is about to overpower me. So I have my final phase. The turtle's special ability.

"Daidoton! Shell smash!", I shout loudly. The turtle's shell is blasts apart. This is a risky move that increases my speed and strength dramatically, but my flame lasts only ten seconds and I can not take a physical hit. The flames infused with my earth magic allows me to hit Kagura in the sky. At the speed of light, I appear behind her, the flaming turtle being compressed into my fist. It turned into a black flame.

"Black flare!", I shout as I punch her with an earth shattering fist. Whilst she is sent flying, she shouts, "Dairaiton! White Devour!" Her flames turn into a giant white tiger head with lightning discharging out of it that consumes me whole. And yet, I bust through the flames with my final attack. The black flame in my hand expands into the flaming shell with this time only blades sticking out of it.

"Flowing Black Lotus.", I shout as this shell spins at the speed of light, flying over to Kagura. The white flames disperse, and with that, I disappear. I shout as I myself turn into a storm of a million blades slashing at Kagura. I doubt she can even be seen through the many red and black flashes of steel she's being cut by. The end of my Doton and Katon mixing spell allowed me to recreate my ninja blades. I used them to cut through her. I end my move with a circling slide over the ground as Kagura's clothes explodes all over before turning into cinders. She herself fall over my head and down onto the ground. I've won this.

I feel like I'm about to drop. My arms weigh me down. But I know. This is just a battle amidst a war. There is no way we can rest yet.
I walk over to kagura…Wow. The more I move, the more I feel fine. Maybe it is because I won? Or am I just excited to have a chance at convincing her.
I get near her, her body is covered up by debris from fallen buildings and hills.
"Again…", I hear her mutter, "Again, you have beaten me."
There are too many emotion mixed into her voice. I can't tell if she is happy, angry, depressed, or otherwise.

"Kagura…", I wanted to say more, but I got stuck at just calling her name.
"Why is it that I can't defeat you? Even if it is for the sake of my friends…?", she asks me.
"Why do you care so much? I don't understand why you fight so hard to defeat me. Your goal is to help your friends, and it's not like I wouldn't help you.", I ask her.
She lets out a weak laugh.

"Marvelous. You are naïve. You are a shinobi, one that would normally have been hired to assassinate or spy on others. Good or Bad Shinobi, our lives should be rough. I learned that the hard way. But then I see you, happy-go-lucky. The first time we fought, I thought you were a joke. Then suddenly you managed to stand your own against me. Suddenly you were a threat. And without warning, you defeated me…Even when I drew the seventh katana for the first time, you've beaten me. I was happy…Afterwards we defeated Orochi together and saved my friends after all…", she begins to tell her story.

Her smile turns into an empty gaze at the sky as she continues speaking, "I thought of you as the worst shinobi…Only for you to become my greatest rival. After the experiment failed, the remaining ninja of our school and every Good ninja would go after us like the rouges we are. I wouldn't let that get to me…But as I struggled more. As I trained more to match you, you defeat more times whilst still living as care-free as you can. It's frustrating. I chalked it up to good luck. This time, I really wanted to win, knowing that I am at my best now…And I still lost, to this sweet shinobi."

What can I say to that? The way I feel about her…
"The first time we met, I hated you. I thought you and the others were all evil. I hated how you did things. I hated your attitude. I was frustrated our gap in skill was so wide. But then my friends and me trained to overcome you. I got time to talk to you, and to know you. I learned to think of you as a friend, even when we were still enemies fighting to the death.", I told her.

She reacts with a scoff, "Friends, huh? But we were more like rivals.", her face actually has a more peaceful look as she comments, "I liked it better that way. After I was exiled and disowned by my family for defending myself against a civilian, I thought all Good Ninja were just up their own ass…I wondered why they can't understand that good can do evil, and evil can do good. But you were willing to befriend me, despite acknowledging me as an enemy. It's so stupid. But as I saw you surpass me, I kind of admired you. That pissed me off the most.", when she ends her talk, she couldn't help but giggle a bit.

I see. Doesn't that mean she sees me as a friend? I'm kind of relieved.
"Hey. I understand what you're fighting for. And I like us being rivals as well. Today, somehow, I felt happy having fought you. But I can't accept you fighting for someone out of desperation. Especially someone as evil as Tenchu. Please. Let me help you, as a friend.", I got her attention with those words. She's looking very seriously at me.
"Right now, I am fighting for Kuroi. I am absolutely certain we can convince him to repeal your rouge status! And even if not, no matter the cost, I will work with others to get you and your friends what they need!", I declare with a smile.

Kagura smiles at me back, she says, "Ah…I should've just done that earlier. Am I stupid, or what?"
She gives me her hand. I pull her up whilst she said, "Whether I want to or not, you've beaten me. I will give you whatever strength I still have."
I feel such immense joy. I nod to her.
"We should head over to Enma for some medicine.", I tell her.

I also grab some clothes out of my inventory. I simply say, "Oh, I should give you a new set of clothing."
Kagura crosses her arms and says, "You knew this would happen and came prepared, huh?"
"Our fighting happens nearly monthly.", I say as I throw some clothes over to Kagura.
With us now together. We join the war as allies.

To Be Continued…