Hyperdimension Neptunia Third Sister: Darkness

by Somedudeonline

WARNING: This a direct sequel to 'Light', read that first if you don't want to be confused. After having died, Bios is reborn with the energy of Despair running through her, now the opposite of a Goddess. In spite of what fate demands of her, she gathers a group of vigilantes to save Lowee from a sinister group of organisations known as, SCJP

14. Chapter 15: Master of All Ninja

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 15

Master of All Ninja.

It's not been too long since I split off with Dragonette. From here, Tenchu's mansion can be reached within half an hour of running at full sprint. Maybe earlier.
I passed the barrier, down a slope is a huge wide open white plains, in the front of that lies his mansion. It is horizontally big, the only height it has is the one second story floor at the northern area of the building. It must be his office or something.

There is no security. I don't sense a single ninja in the area. Once I get close, I see the gate and a big double door of the mansion wide open. I only see a dark void inside. Yeah, this is definitely a trap. I am not going inside, I know his ability of darkness manipulation. Never mind that fighting a ninja inside his dark home is an unreasonably suicidal idea. No, I am jumping above the mansion using a strong burst of Light step.

The mansion layout is pretty odd. The mansion itself has an outer-layer of hallways and square rooms in each corner of the wall, the rest of the mansion is build up north whereas the south is a big yard, within that yard is another small building? A shed? Unlike the rest, it was build round with modern materials. Since it looks suspicious, I figure to simply destroy it.
I jump up high and shout, "UnionStar! Light Slash!", and shoot a big white blade from the swing of my sword.

Without warning, I hear, "Anton! Light Absorption Jutsu!" A black orb is shot below the light slash and in sucked it up. I sense someone running on the roof. Before I knew it, a shadow jumped my way trying to slash me. I block him, he and I both landing on the roof after.
Before I could make out who it was, he shoots a fire ball from his mouth shouting, "Katon! Fireball Jutsu!" I jump to my left, off the roof and above the yard. The fireball casts shadows near me, which this ninja uses with the call, "Anton! Shadow Spike Jutsu!"

The shadows the flame cast turn into 3D spikes of darkness that expand to me within a mili-second.
"Explosion!", I shout as I cast explosion to dodge them in the middle of the air. I move past the ninja standing on the roof before casting another explosion to get back.
We now come face to face with each other. I know of one ninja able to use dark ninja magic, and that is the master of all ninja, Tenchu.
"Tenchu, I presume.", I say.

At first glance, he looks like an old man…Staring at him feels like looking at an optical illusion. Like and old man and a young warrior in his prime fused together? His hair has greyed, yet the top of his hair is mostly black. I could've sworn he had a large grey beard, but now it is a straight long thin beard. His eyes were blacker than shadow. He wears a completely brown gi over a black bodysuit…Actually, it looks like a black bodysuit, but upon closer inspection, he wears chainmail. Probably of a special material.

He wears black metal fingerless gauntlets. And black metal boots where the feet kind of look like he's wearing a brown sandal with metal socks. Of course, he has a black cloth over his mouth like most ninjas. He carried one katana and two shorter Wakizashi.
Name: Tenchu "Rikimaru" Long.
Age: 50
height: 177 CM
Occupation: Master of All Ninja
Residence: Lowee.

"And I am very certain the one that challenges me is none other than the Goddess SCJP has been bothering me about. Ah, and the leader of that gang White Heart ordered us to subjugate. You must excuse me changing that into an order to eliminate your group, it would be more convenient for my relations with those business folks.", he speaks to me, his voice sounding deep and confident.

"You have no issue admitting you work for SCJP.", I say before looking at the suspicious structure below us, then I ask, "Are you working on something for them in there?"
"While I commend you for noticing the workplace about to generate my life project, I should inform you, SCJP is not my employer or boss, but my ally. I'm simply using them for what I'm doing here. This whole war was according to my plan…", so he says.
He looks over to where I came from and tells me, "Well, I must be honest and say I wasn't expecting Enma to start her war in the day, nor did I expect you and your friends to help them."

He smiles at me with, gleefully stating, "But it matters not. I just needed time. Both sides suffering equally only helps me complete my objective.."
"Does that include your daughters as well?", I ask.
"In the past, I would've been saddened. But I've opened my eyes. What do you think, Goddess? The meaning of this life? The secret to this world? The reasons we fight? I've been stuck, not letting myself think about it through my dedication to be the best ninja. My Discipline blinded me, as was by design. Earthly desires had to be kept from me, for my shadow knew, I could be the one controlling this world. I could be the one to restore all ninja to the highest place. I also knew, it was a dream beyond my reach. Until I met them. SCJP has given me the roadmap. And now I am about to become the master of shadows. I've shed my former self and all ties. My daughters? I've lost all emotion for them.", he explains.

I can tell, he is honest. Everything he says is with glee, he is genuinely overjoyed he is about to reach his goal.
"You bastard…", I curse for the first time. I raise my voice, "For the sake of Dragonette, and all the ninjas you plan to sacrifice, I will defeat you!"
"Ho…And I heard you were quiet. Should I be happy you care so much for my daughter? You two are friends? Did you meet when she was in her rebellious state? No no…She still is rebelling, huh? Well, that is fine.", he casually talks to me with his arms behind his back.

He looks up and sighs. He says, "SCJP will be using me as well afterwards…Huh? Well, that is fine with me. Our goals align. If I defeat you, however, I can gain their favor enough for them to ask less of me. You or White Heart or any other Goddess will soon bow before my power!"
He grabs his katana, whilst I unsheathe my sword simultaneously.
And so, our battle truly begins.

In my head, another conflict is taking place. My Goddess form, Snow Heart and my shadow form, Cold Soul are taking a stance against each other.
Cold Soul still has a smug face, smiling with superiority.
Snow Heart shows no emotion, she just has a job to do, which is to take out evil.
"Well then. It seems Master is gonna be quite busy. But all the fighting she's done has given us the most capability in her mind. I won't waste it. This body will be mine.", Cold Soul says.
"Negative. I will use this opportunity to eliminate threats to master at all cost.", Snow Heart replies.

Cold Soul unsheathes a black blade, Yukishihai.
Snow Heart summons a big sword, the legendary blade, Lowee's Hero Sword.
The two fly over to each other, the sound barrier shatters in this void.
The two shout, as their blades are bursting with Light and Dark magic respectively.
Cold Soul's sword of darkness clashes with Snow Heart's blade of light, their clash unleashing bursts of spikey energy beams across the void of black and white.

I can't pay too much attention to that, I have Tenchu as my opponent.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!", he shouts, suddenly, clones of his have occupied the entirety of the mansion's rooftops.
From this first impression, I gather that this fight is going to be annoying like the few other times I've had to deal with these types of skills. His style going to be more about trickery.
"Anton! Wailing Shadows!", he shouts, suddenly he and his clones are cloaked in shadow. He jumps around with his clones, probably trying to hide himself among them.

I try to use wind sense. I see, his spell was more than just a visual cover. He hid himself and his clones' presence to the point I can't tell which is the real one.
But it will do him no better. The moment a clone is about to strike me, I can sense whatever he's trying to hit me with gaining some form of mass.
With Wind Sense, I dodge a clone's blade and cut it in half with a 360 spin slash.
I shuffle alongside the many clones attacking me, carefully taking them down one by one.

"Anton! Shadow Spike Jutsu!", I hear from a lot of clones. Their shadows surround me, so they must be trying to get me stuck between spikes. I just do a spin slash with my blade engulfed with light, "UnionStar, Halo Slash!", I shout as some of their clones got vanquished by light magic. It was a bit of a gamble, since light and darkness are often both weak to each other. There is no telling what counters he may have towards my light slash attacks.

"Anton! Shadow Orb jutsu!", I hear. I can sense dense round objects being shot at me. they have some kind of gravitational pull. It assume they can tear through Light magic. With that in mind, they aren't too fast. I can easily use Light Step to move around them.
I open my eyes to see them all in the air as a bunch of shadows. They throw bombs combined with wind bags filled with kunai. The bombs either get close to me or explode in the air to make a smoke cover. The explosions blow up the wind bags and sends thousands of kunai my way.

I casually cast air blast, standing completely still, The wind magic blasts the kunai aimed at me away. Thousands of Kunai miss me. Without sound, I sense someone approaching me. At the last second, a blade slices the wind behind me, I do a quick turn and deflect a sword with my own blade. I see a shadow of a body, no, it is the real Tenchu. I had deflected his sword with mine being held in one hand, with the other hand, I immediately hit him with explosion magic. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it undoes the shadow magic cast on himself.

"I see, you are quite used to fighting clones.", he says. I turn to look at the sky, all his clones were gone.
"But to be able to deflect me. I even created the smoke cloud to cast a shadow over you. You managed to react in time and notice me…You must have a special sense, right?", he says, peering at me with his curious eyes.
"It's not Ice Sense. The snow has cleared by now…Wind Sense?", when he asked me that, he gave me another stare.
"I bet that must be it. Ah, Wind Sense isn't as rare, but that is irrelevant, it is still a most useful ability. I am certain you are aware of my special sense.", he keeps chatting.

Does he talk so much to soften his opponent? To make them feel comfortable enough to accidently reveal too much information?
"Are we going to continue fighting, or is the interview not over?", I ask him.
"Ah, I just thought I'd be a pity to eliminate someone as skillful as yourself. I would ask you to join my cause, maybe even become a ninja. But you are an entity larger than life, aren't you?", he says.
Okay. He was evaluating me. I guess he took an interest in my fighting style.

"Anton! Darkness Shroud!", he shouts, turning everything around me into a pitch black void. He should know the futility of that, due to Wind Sense. I can sense him running from me while shooting Kunai at me. I easily deflect them, and right after, I charge my blade up with light, it gaining a longer and longer tail of white as I break out of this darkness.
The light shines brightly just before I am about to throw it at Tenchu.
"UnionStar Light Slash!", The shouting and the shooting of my white blade, he is facing my attack, not budging an inch.

"Anton. Kagenuge", he says, drawing his sword, blackened by a shadow. He carries the shadow behind him, which has been elongated by my light. His shadow turned into a physical blade as he uses it to slice through my cut. His sword of Darkness can easily be blocked by mine of light, I just need to casually wave it to my left. With that gone, I observe him, he isn't moving much. Perhaps he is wanting me to make a move instead.
His plan must be to get enough information to properly trick me with a supposed weak point I may or may not have.

It might not be snowing now, but the rooftop is filled with enough of it. With a swing to my right, my sword turned the snow next to Tenchu into a physical set of spikes that can stab him. He wasn't expecting it and got hit by it, albeit, he defended his vitals with his blade. I see, as long as no shadow is cast upon it, he can't sense it coming.
I try to hit and capture him a few times, but as expected of a master ninja, he fights intelligently, always landing nearby shadows so he can sense incoming snow, and always quick to move out of harm's way.

"Doton! Particle Clear Jutsu!", he shouts, with a smack to the roof, it feels as if an earthquake rumbles before all snow is shot into the air.
"Katon! Suiton! Mix!", he shouts, melting the snow into hot water and using Suiton to fuse them together with me in the epicenter.
I use a strong burst of Light Step to get in the air, completely eluding his water attack.
I grab a bow and arrow, I fire a thousand arrows at him shouting, "Arrow Rain!"
He throws some kunai at the ones in the front. Then he jumps towards the arrows.
"Suiton! Futon! MIX! Sonic projectile escape Jutsu!", he says. It's like he turned into a flowing river as he moves over a bunch of arrows, the other arrows slipping past him. It's like his weight has become that of a feather.

In no time, he reaches me, about to cut me with his sword.
What he won't see coming, is me using my left foot to hold the bow. With my right hand, I block his sword strike, with my left hand, I pull on the string. He couldn't escape me and gets hit by an arrow. I get close enough to send him flying down at Light Speed using Reflection.
I thought I'd have him there, so I dive down to come into a slash, but then he shouts, "Anton! Haze Escape Jutsu!"

He isn't nauseous? Either way, I ended up cutting through a black mist as I come down. I look around, but only see smoke. Using Wind Sense, I only make out faint breezes that go through this smoke.
I stay alert…I stay focused… I…I sense the slightest movement in the wind and fly towards it.
"Anton! Taihenka!", he shouts, his sword and left arm suddenly covered in darkness. I aim for the hand that has nothing guarding it, but he managed to deflect my blow and move behind me.

He does a spin kick against my back. He could've hit me with his sword…No, thinking of the name. He probably magically swapped his sword with his arm, that is why he could block steel with said arm. I look back and see the magic already gone, so it must not be a very long lasting spell.
He came after me, but I have no intention of letting up. I put a lot of force into a strike, I did it with enough haste to compel him to block me. Within that moment, I kicked him back. I didn't hurt him a lot with it.

He moves in whilst throwing a shuriken at me. Even if it is an obvious diversion tactic, I can easily deflect his shuriken and then also cut him when he gets close. I even enchant my blade with light. Now I see him smile, just before saying, "Anton! Light Absence Jutsu!" Even though I can tell I'm stronger, he easily knocks my sword behind my right shoulder. For some reason, I can't move my arms at all.

He is about to step on my toes, I use Light Step to quickly shift around him, then with my other leg I kick him with it bursting in light. He tries to block it with his sword, but he could only slightly push my leg down, I hit him across a corner of these walls.
After landing, he stands straight like nothing happened.
It didn't do as much damage as it should. I can tell I am physically stronger than him, actually, even Dragonette is stronger than him. But his level is way higher. He might even be level 99. That would mean I do quite a bit less damage than normal and will take more damage than normal.

It may not be such a big deal, once I transform, I can easily make up for that difference.
"Suiton! Essence of Water!", I hear him shout as he makes some kind of diver's gesture. An orb of water splashes onto him, suddenly his body is brimming with blue light. He jumps over to me, and the movement in the wind tells me to hop aside. With a strike of his blade, high pressured water flies off his sword cutting through a wall.
It's an essence skill like Yume's, only he absorbed it into his body instead. Even worse, he doesn't need to make preparations to use it. A master of Ninja is a master of elements, I guess.

Every part of his body movement shoots sharp high pressured water. If it weren't for my speed, I'd be cut through no matter if I block it or not. I can easily shuffle aside and jump over his blades, but then he backs off.
"Hyoton! Essence of Ice!", he shouts, this time absorbing the ice element.
He does an uppercut with his sword in the middle of the air, and shoots a row of ice spikes out of the ground. I jump away from it.

With a thrust, he shoots icicles to me. Whilst I cut them apart, he froze the roof and skates over to me. I try to hit him, but he just slips away with some kind of dance.
"Katon! Essence of Flame!", he calls out as his body now absorbs a ball of fire.
With his next horizontal swing, an explosion that brings a wave of flame over me has been channeled in front of him.
I jump over it, he fails to hit me with a flamethrower that came from a thrust of his sword after.

From an explosion of fire under his feet, he moves to me, I dodge another flaming swing.
With him lacking in speed, he can only slightly heat up my skin. His flames may have hurt if I were alive.
"CombinationStar Light Slash!", I shout, shooting a medium sized blade of light at him.
"Futon! Essence of Wind!", he shouts as gales are blowing around him. He jumps high up, the blade of light eluding him.

He waves his katana around, shooting many wind blades my way. It bothers me little, I tip-toe around with Light step and occasionally fire arrows back at him. However, he has become very nimble, even in mid-air. He dances around the arrows like a sheet of paper. Gracefully, he flies around me and gets close to the corner that connects the wall I am on. He jumps at me, striking me rapidly with his sword, despite throwing his sword down at me multiple times, his feet stay in the air.

His legs curled up, he somehow moves forward with his hips as I am forced to keep stepping backwards to deflect his blows. On top of that, he has starts to kick my arms, so now I also have to do some kind of boxing shuffle technique from time-to-tome to dodge his blade. I make the choice to kick him up the moment I block his blade, but he just jumps off my legs, it felt like he weighed nothing when my leg reached him.

Now in the air, he raised his blade whilst holding two fingers in front of his face, shouting, "Raiton! Essence of Lightning!" Lightning strikes him, creating a sphere of thunder that he absorbs. He suddenly shoots towards me like a lightning-strike. I had to use Light Step with enough power to dodge him, it was too sudden and I almost tripped over. But I immediately had to move away, for he is going to zoom towards me right away.

Thanks to Wind Sense, I can predict his movement and move just fast enough to either get out of his way, or parry a sword slash from him. Occasionally, he slows down to do a slash, which I easily block before he moves on. At some point, I predict him to stop at a certain spot, and I will launch myself his way into a thrust.
"Doton! Essence of Earth!", he shouts, making himself big holding his arms wide open.
I stab him with my sword, but I only see him pushed slightly with no other reaction.

I can't believe it, no damage at all? This form probably gives him ultra high defense.
He moves in on me, I attempt to parry him, but he easily shoves my sword away. He knocks me back with a kick. It doesn't hurt much, but it feels heavy. I see him jump at me, I try to stop him, but he easily pins me to the ground, I can barely hold his sword back with my own. If he pushes a little harder, he will break through my guard and hurt me. I cast explosion magic from my left hand and two feet before he could get on top of me, sending myself flying away from him.

With a backflip, I land, ready to dodge whatever move comes next.
But he won't continue with this one. Instead, he strikes a new pose.
"All elements absorbed to nothingness. Absence of all…Anton! Essence of Darkness!", he shouts, his body and clothes turning pitch black, like he became a silhouette. He runs towards me, but the odd thing is, he's still standing back there? With each movement, he gets cloned. I don't know if there is a limit to it. But before I knew it, I am close to getting surrounded by a bunch of black clones again.

Like before, I can use my agility to dance around them, and zero strength is required to cut through them. I only need to make sure to block their blades. But some of them kick me, it is almost synchronized. I don't sense any of them being fake, all of them are physically there in the wind. Many of them have jumped in the air and somehow remain there. There are clones frozen in time until I've killed a few of them. I shot a small slash of light at the original, but he also just vanished like the other clones.

Maybe there is no real one hiding anywhere. They are not casting magic, the shadow itself is the spell. They can't cast another. I begin to think that the essence of darkness would mean anything associated with the dark element. Space and Gravity are usually intertwined with this. The only other spell associated with gravity is earth, but I haven't really seen any ninja using Doton as gravity. Another thing related with space is time. I doubt it is time magic, I rather think that I need to focus on the shadows. Perhaps each shadow clone represents a still frame, a moment in time, a shadow of the past.

Each clone is a possible timeline, of an action he was thinking of doing. That is the essence of darkness technique. It will go as far as his mind can handle, is what I theorize.
Since he can't do another spell, however, I can easily turn my blade into one of bursting light.
I move around, vanquishing many clones as I avoid projectiles and bombs. I jump away from a swath of them approaching me and destroy a few below me further ahead. Now that I have landed, a few clones of him dive down towards me, I sense smoke in the wind.

They are suicide bombers. I use Light Step to shoot myself in the sky, I look down to see the many big explosions. I guess he could think of possibilities to sacrifice himself without actually dying.
But now I am stuck in the air, many of his clones have appeared above me. With every clone's action creating another one, he will eventually be able to quickly overwhelm me with numbers.
At first I thought to just use Light Slash to obliterate them. But then I think about the fact that I can make the real one show up.

I look at the structure he protected before. He can't afford it to be damaged. So I turn with my sword already blazing with white light, and I fling a burst of raging light down at the building.
"Anton! Shadow Fusion Jutsu!", he shouts, all of the shadows combine together in front of the structure, turning into a wall that blocked my blade of light, in turn also crumbling itself.
I sense him behind me. I turn around to do a quick Light Slash called, "GatheringStar Light Slash!"

He ducks under it, with the shout, "Futon! Sky Escape Jutsu!", he summons a glider from his gauntlet whilst manipulating the winds to fly away from me. I can't hit him no matter how many small light slashes I toss at him. He eventually lands on top of the second story building within the mansion.
I land back on the usual roof of the wall.

He grabs some shuriken from his…Pockets? I don't know where he got them from, but he's throwing a wide spread of them around. Each of them has a shadow, and he pulls them out and turns them into black projectiles as he shouts, "Anton! Duplicate Jutsu!", Since the shadows come out of the ground and mirror the shuriken from above, their traction is a little odd, which makes it hard for me to really guess where they are going.

These projectiles don't really mean anything to me, however, I quickly shoot myself into the air and blast through them with a "CombinationStar light slash!", this does create a shadow under me he can turn into huge spikes that surround me.
This is becoming a waste of time. I should just force out his flame and exhaust him as fast as possible.
I look within my mind and see my other forms clashing in a desperate battle.

Cold Soul skirts around to avoid and block the big hero's sword Snow Heart's using, on the other hand, Snow Heart takes advantage of her sword's weight and swings it around with a dodge at any second, but, eventually, I see Cold Soul hit her with a powerful stab. Within that moment, Snow Heart shoots her with a blade of light pushing her far back until Could Soul uses a darkness infused blade to tear the light apart with an uppercut.

Afterwards, I see the two take off, taking their fight in flight.
Either way, I am granted access over transformations, but they told me there would be no telling what could happen to me. But if I want to beat him fast, I need to use the evil me's form, which uses powerful attacks at insane speeds. Since evil me is busy, her mind won't take me over when transformed.
"Bloody Hail Processor Unit, set.", I said before a pillar of light flares up around me, until it freezes. After it shatters like glass, I am in my HDD form using 75% negative energy.

I fly to my left, between every projectile before flying at Tenchu at a speed he couldn't even perceive.
I kick him off the roof, soaring in the sky. I fly around to his back with my right leg retracted to kick him into the room of the second floor of the two-story part of his mansion. It seems he used some kind of skill stop himself from breaking through the other side of the room.
Regardless, I shoot a medium sized blade of light at him. It obliterates the top floor entirely, but I see him still standing. No, he is crouching, covered in pitch black darkness.

"Anton…Shadow Shield…", he says. Perhaps he used the shadows in the room to create some kind of barrier of darkness.
But the moment these shadows faded from him, I see his skin is pale and sweaty, I think I hurt him despite it. I move over to him, I see him up his guard, but I am too fast for his eyes.
I'm already behind him, and he doesn't notice. On purpose, I tap on his shadow with my toes, which has him turn around with a slash immediately.

I block his blade with my arm enchanted with light magic. At the moment, I am too strong to be hurt by his sword.
I wave my sword at him, which prompts him to swap with a substitute using some of the tiles from the roof to get away from me, it was a "Substitution Jutsu"
But I can sense where he went with Wind Sense and immediately use my sword's ability to grab his leg with snow. I chuck him my way whilst I fly outside. He lands back at the floor we were at.

I slowly float down, staring at him with a frown.
My strength must be overwhelming to him, but his face shows no sign of fear.
"I appreciate your patience. You could continue beating me up, but you must really want me to use my flame. Is it so I can't surprise you mid-fight? It is fine by me.", he tells me.
"Yellow Flame!", he calls upon the strongest of the four flames. A yellow flame overtakes him, it pillars into the sky as his hair rises and turns gold. His skin and face looks even more youthful.

The bright flaming aura and grin full of shiny teeth is a stark contrast to his status as a master of shadow.
He holds his blade forward, stretching his arms to their limit, then he suddenly moves his arms around his right hip to blast out a spiraling flame that goes high up until to explodes into a wide and tall flame that towers over me.
"Anton! Black flame", he shouts. I look beneath me to see the shadow of the flames coming off the ground in full 3dimensional form turning into a flame itself.

The wide flame towering over me gets flung over me whilst the black flames beneath me are rising to my level at a rapid pace. I use mid-air Light Step to quickly get away from the two flames getting sandwiched together. They fuse and explode in a ball of golden and black flames.
It seems the combination of materialized shadow and original copy creates some kind of force. Even from a distance I can feel that explosion.

He throws a bunch of Kunai, not only at me, but in random directions. The kunai are enhanced by the yellow flames, but I notice the shadows appear larger because of them. He is planning to summon those shadows to fling big projectiles that move at the same speed as the small kunai. The shadows don't move like they have gained mass as their own entity unless he directly controls them, they take the properties of the original in terms of movement no matter how big or small.

Even so, with my speed, I easily move along the biggrt projectiles, at some point I flip over one with my hand touching the side of a big shadow Kunai, but it hurts. The flame effect is also still on them and can bring me some pain. In the end, I just deflect them with my sword rather easily. In between that, he had shot a flamethrower of yellow to his right, he mixed it in a spiral with the shadow, creating a spiraling yellow and black flame that he sends flying my way. As I go up to avoid it, it chases me, moving like a worm or snake. The black flame is somehow accelerating the yellow one, causing it to catch up to me with speed.
I have been gathering snow the entire time, I cut through it with a blade of light as I shout, "UnionStar Helios Slash!"

My white blade cleaves through and is close to reaching him, but it also creates a large shadow over him that he easily turns into a physical form. He made a barrier and combines black and yellow flames to stop my big blade of light.
In the next moment, I dive towards him at high speed. He throws flame my way with a thrust of his sword, but I can fly to my left and avoid it without effort. No matter what he tosses over me, flying to his left, and then past him across the roof with a swing from my sword is a simple matter.

The yellow flame makes him more resilient, so it is a mystery how much damage I actually did, but he is clearly showing a calculating face as I move over to him at a speed he can't compete with. But now I see him smile. He attacks my shadow? What magic is he using now?
"Anton! Shadow Absolute!", when he shouted that, I tried to use Light Step to move down his level, but nothing happened.

He jumps back onto the roof, he shoots another flame my way. It is more difficult to dodge, but I can still fly around it. It seems I can't use light step. Actually, I can generate light, but it doesn't move me any further. I tried using explosion magic instead, but that also doesn't push me anywhere. Now I have to assume he reduced my motion to how fast my shadow could naturally move along with me, my shadow uses no magic, I think. He also enlarges his flame to cover the whole mansion in shadow, instead of using it to attack me, he makes an area he can double his speed in.

Every shadow he walks on he can move along much faster, I'm sure he thought he could match me better that way. Even then, my base speed is still close to Mach 4 in this form. I kind of fly to him like an eagle about to snatch its victim, still, he can parry me now, though with every time our blades clashes, he is the one that gets pushed around. He may fling Kunai at me or throw flames, and he may find ways to dodge my Light Slashes, but his advantage isn't any more obvious.

After a few more shadow Kunai are flung at me, I back flip over one and redirect it at Tenchu by reflecting it off my hand at light speed. I did manage to hit him, I see it pushing him almost off the roof. At the same time, a kunai is shot through my shoulder at the same speed. It would seem messing with the shadow object reflects back on the real object, albeit, rather selectively. He takes the kunai off of him, I notice a dark spot to where he got stabbed and a wound just on his chin. He swapped parts of his body before he got hit.

I fly after him to finish the job, or so I thought.
"EXE Drive Skill!", he calls out.
"Hitsuden Ninpo!", he shouts as he barrages me with kunai and shuriken infused with yellow fire. Their shadow counterparts come out and twist around me into a storm.
He creates a shadow doppelganger of himself and jumps around me with flames as he slashes me, yellow and black flames dancing around mixing into each other until he and his shadow jump above me, combining with the fire and projectiles turning into a flaming Yin-Yang Simbol.

The symbol crashes down on me as he shouts, "Hikari no Kage, Yakigiri!"
I am cut and burned by an explosion of black and yellow flames under a rain of projectiles.
A white flash passes my eye, I stand back up from the courtyard between his walls, where he looks down on me.
"I figure it wouldn't be enough to kill you.", he says before raising his hands to do hand signs.
Another Jutsu? I'm not sure how long his debuff on me will last. Perhaps it is better for me to take this fight out of his home. Less shadows to deal with that way.

I hold my sword up high and let it flare with light. I make sure to center the light to decrease the size of my own shadow. I'm trying to make sure he has little to no shadows to use in his attacks. Instead, he shoots a ball of darkness at me, which I easily elude by flying up into the sky. I go as high as the clouds. From up here, he would practically have no shadow to use on me. He still reaches me with a burst of flames, but from this distance, I can weave it away by returning a large slash of light back at him. He can facilely cancel it out, but it also means his attacks won't reach me.

After healing myself with a healing bottle and charger 2, I cross my arms in thought. We are in a stalemate. I could wait for his debuff to lose its effect on me…But then again, stalling is his entire plan. If it is speed I am lacking, there is a way to naturally build it up…The Goddesses max speeds can reach Mach 5, in this form I can reach Mach 6. I would do it quickly by using Light Step, but all of us are capable to increase our speed like a jet plane…

I make the decision to go to a mountain quite a distance away. He may not even have seen where I went.
A few hundred kilometers away, I prepare myself for an insane assault. I kick myself off the mountain and fly straight forward. I can feel the air I am piercing through, my arms and legs hurt a bit from the passing winds. I speed up enough until I reach Mach 6, which is already a tad past my limit without using Light Step. I finally get close to Tenchu, who is trying to find me. He might've just heard me, but even he looks surprised to see me coming at such speed out of nowhere.

I generate light into my sword gathering snow around me that I also turned into light. He blocks my sword swing, but at this velocity, it doesn't stop me from pushing him off the building, and once I push forward with my elbows, I fling him into a mountain.
"UnionStar Helios Slash!", I shout as I shoot a blade of light at the mountain that will surely demolish it whole.

The big explosion may take the mountain down, but I can tell Tenchu used a shadow barrier made from the mountain's shadow to protect himself. On the other hand, I see him kneeled after the shadow fades, which implies he still took a good bit of the damage.
"Flame Pillar", he shouts creating a giant golden pillar of flame. It starts moving towards me, and it is obvious its shadow will be erected behind me to slam be between them. I fly to my left and see walls of black and gold slam in on each other, combusting after a fusion that sends a black and yellow flame my way.

I try to use Light Step to garner more distance, and it worked, so his debuff must've ended.
One moment, I zoom away to my left with Light Step, in the next, I am behind him leaving a blazing trail of white behind me. With his flame on, he generates more shadows, allowing him to sense me. But even if he gets the precognition of my attack, he is too slow to do a meaningful counter, he may block me, but his feet are being dragged through a hundred meters of snow.

I shoot a blade of light towards him, which of course, he can cancel out by materializing the shadow that is cast by my light, but as I planned, I was able to curve around him to smack him directly with my sword. It is unfortunate his body is tough, his flames making it even tougher, I can't cut him like this. I don't let up, I fly straight at him for another slash, he tries to stop me with a burst of flame, which fly next to before continuing forward.

He uses the fraction of a second to position himself a little further from my right, my sword reaching him, but my body not being close enough to put much weight behind my slash. letting him parry it and sneak past me. I turn around to strike him holding my sword with two hands, but he comes in to lock blades, increasing the intensity of his flames on his blade hard enough to make it glow like the sun. It hurts being next to him, his flames are spilling over and burning me, however, he isn't physically stronger. I can bear with the pain and will kick his body with my leg enchanted with light.

My kick hurls him over the ground. Now that he lands, he enlarges his flame to cast ourselves in a shadow. Instead of materializing it for an attack, he's using it to speed up his movements. This does help him fend off my attacks. Aside from throwing projectiles in the air to cast shadows that allow him to predict my movements, our fight became more physical. He may be able to stop me from decimating him, but even with our fight seeming equal with my white blade of flowing light and his golden flaming whip surrounding his sword, I am faster, so can I hit him from time to time whereas he isn't able to land a single cut.

Our fight zooms across the great white plain behind the mansion. I've knocked him around plenty of times. I go up and down the air to give myself time to breath, picking my enemy apart like a hawk. At the last second, he summons the shadow from his flames and tries to catch me between the crooked flames about to smudge me. At the last second, I roll in mid-air with Light Step and get out of their range, now flying towards Tenchu.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!", he shouts, creating dozens upon dozens of clones.

These clones have a little magic in them to stay physical. They may appear as strong as Tenchu, and they are, however, they disappear the second they get hit with even a weak attack. The problem is, each omit flames, and each of them have shadows. So the "shadow" clones have their shadow clones that are bigger than them but move at the same speed. On top of that, all of them can use Anton, meaning every light slash can be countered. On the other hand, my magic must be stronger.

My solution is to simply grab a second sword, let them both burst with light, and just swing really really hard really really fast. When it comes to them using the shadow of my sword attacks, I simply need to take the damage. I get hit and cut by multiple clones, but I assure I obliterate a few in return. Eventually, I reach high in the skies. They use flames and kites to follow me. But no matter, they can't get to my speed. I fuse the two blades into one combined with snow.

"ShootingStar Helios Slash!", I shout, obliterating the whole lot of them, even if they copy the shadow and try to cancel it, this slash is so powerful it will blow up, and even the clones just near it must disappear. Once I get back down, taking care of them will be rather straightforward. Flying low and dicing apart the shadow clones, Tenchu is close to his mansion, but regardless of any defensive action he's thinking of taking, this next attack is unavoidable.

"EXE Drive Skill!", I shout, turning the air too dense to freely move in for all around me. At high speeds I move all around him, slashing him with two swords from all sides, occasionally, I change my weapons through Weapon Create to stab him with spears, throw knives into him, smash him with hammers and axes, and I end it with a barrage of punches from gauntlets into changing them back to the swords once I blow him into the air. From the air, with my two blades overflowing with light, I knock him back down. On the ground he wails as I combine my two swords into a giant blade of light whilst I go down.

"FusionStar Light Slash!", I shout as I shoot him through a wall from his mansion. The second story building area collapses. Despite the onslaught, Tenchu is able to jump on top of the roof looking down on me.
His clothes are ragged, his face is drained from color, there're bruises all over, one of his legs is being hold up for he can't stand on both legs anymore. He is pretty beaten. He holds his sword up and his flames flare up.
"EXE DRIVE SKILL!", he shouts with all of his strength, the flames around him growing intense.

"Flame Transmogrify!", he screams as a snake-like flame is thrown from his blade as he waves it around. The flames around him transform and curl around him, the snake-like flaming body entangling his entire mansion.
"Azure Dragon of the East, Seiryū!", he shouts as the dragon's head floats next to him. His flames has morphed into a dragon with an azure body and yellow flaming coating and golden chains. His appearance had changed the weather into cloudy with rays of sunlight piercing through the gaps, these lights are actually capable of burning one's skin, it is a passive attack.

Since this is an EXE Drive skill, I can't move out of it very well. With a quick motion from his sword, he sends the dragon after me. I can only strike it as it comes closer, after that, it drags me up with its head pushing against me. I roll over its sharp body while it slices me and curls around in the air. It's massive body launches its blue scales at me like knives.
Afterwards it appear in front of me, having connected its head and tail turning his body into a perfect circle. It feels like a gate of energy materialized between the circle that is its body.

"Raiton! Heaven's Gate!", Tenchu shouts as Seiryū shoots a giant beam at me that hurts a lot.
"Anton! Shadow Dragon!", I hear as I am slowly falling towards the ground with the dragon chasing me. Now behind me, the shadow of the dragon is materialized and also bites in on me. The two dragons gnaw at me and spin me around as they skewer dive towards Tenchu's mansion. When they got close to him, he slams me with a flaming sword at max power, creating an explosion of flame he shouts, "Black and White Dragon Flash!" I fall onto the ground face first. This was a powerful attack to be sure.

I still was conscious, which allows me to heal myself. I look at Tenchu who is breathing heavily, his flame almost fading. I almost see him stumble, but then he smashes his foot on the roof and shouts, "Once more!" It would seem the dragon itself isn't the EXE Drive attack. he is merely summoned upon the skill activating. I guess it is Tenchu's fortitude that determines the limit of how long the dragon lasts. On the other hand, the actual skill is over, allowing me to move.

I invade Tenchu's domain. His dragon may be all over the mansion slithering with its's giant snake like body, but with my speed, I can easily knock Tenchu around who is too busy pushing his flame hard enough to keep the dragon active. The dragon tries to hit me with its scale shots and whip me with its flaming chains, but I acrobatically move between everything and get Tenchu on the ropes. Until Tenchu jumps into the dragon's head and melds into it. Within the dragon, he slashes his sword at me as the dragon bashes his head into me, smacking me high up in the sky. It flies all around me with its huge body, I am forced to block multiple body slams, sometimes getting knocked away by simple movements.

On top of that, he summons another shadow dragon. The two can whip me at the speed of light simultaneously. If those don't hit me, it is the occasional lighting bolts from the rain of thunder summoned by Tenchu's Raiton. Now I am between the two creating a circle with their bodies, trying to hit me between giant beams of light and darkness respectively.
"Yin-Yang Fusion!", he shouts. Well, this time, I can dodge it. No matter how large those beams are, at Mach 7 I can outrun almost anything in this world. Now I have two dragons chasing me.

I summon another sword to engulf it with light. I fly towards Tenchu with him coming at me and the shadow dragon approaching from the rear. I have gathered light and snow into both swords at this point. I do a front flip, within the flip, I perfectly throw the secondary blade at the shadow dragon. Darkness may penetrate light, but the opposite is just as affective, the light will vanquish the shadow dragon as it bursts whilst the blade cleaves through is like a saw.
With my other sword, I hold it high above my head.

It feels like a Kendo move as I take whatever blast of fire comes from the dragon's mouth and move in with a mighty strike with my sword blazing with light.
"UnionStar Helios Slash!", I shout as I fly through the dragon, cutting the flame dragon clean in half with Tenchu's blade knocked away. he drops onto the mansion.
That really took my breath away. I catch up on air before looking down.
I see him do some kind of odd shadow technique. Fearing he has another trick up his sleeve I fly down.

He is right next to the suspicious facility that he has been defending. As I come close to him, he looks at me with a smile, yet ragged breath.
"You really are too strong…Goddess…Hehe. Of course, the Yellow Flame would not be enough. And thus, I shall pass it towards my heir.", he says, undoing the flame transformation. I see his yellow flame fly into the sky and disperse. I feel baffled. I can't understand this decision. He has no chance without that flame.

I look over to the facility he has been protecting, I see a murky aura around it.
feeling threatened by it, I try to destroy it with a strong slash of light. But it just bounces off?
Confused, I look at Tenchu.
"Hoho. My last Anton spell is to cast a shadow barrier that can only be lifted by the life of the user ending.", upon saying that, I fly to him and cut him down. He disappears in a puff of smoke.

No! A shadow clone? He must've set it up first whilst he was so low on the ground
I pop another healing bottle and Charger 2s.
He is only one hit away from dying as well… Frustrating as it is, I mustn't panic. I can't sense him in the air, he must've run inside the mansion, most likely into the gap between the walls of the demolished building I destroyed with my EXE Drive attack. He wants to lure me into his house of traps and shadows.

There has to be a reason he didn't do this first…Maybe he thought he had a chance of killing me? Hm… Maybe the shadow barrier has some kind of risk or condition. Either way, my only option is to head inside. Whatever trap he has, I will fly through fast in this transformed state and take him down. But First…
I shoot a bunch of light slashes around the mansion.
The Shadow barrier is on the walls entirely. I wonder how much that extends to the interior.
Either way, my fight is long from over…

To Be Continued…