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

17. Chapter 16: Dusk's here, When Will Dawn?

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 16

Dusk is Here, But Will Dawn come?

The outer walls and the suspicious shed in the middle of the courtyard have been protected by a special shadow spell that links the user's live to those areas. In other words, it is a shield that cannot be penetrated, only will it fade when the user dies. That is what I imagine anyway. Tenchu has retreated inside the building. There must be some risk involved or something, because he could've done this before our battle. Is time not the only thing his plan requires?

Either way, if I don't kill him fast, there's no telling what kind of incident could fall upon us.
I really didn't want to, but I had no choice but to go inside his dark mansion. Since it is dark magic rather than shadow magic, even if it is so dark that a shadow isn't cast, the darkness itself will amplify his magic. Never-mind that traps are placed everywhere inside the mansion. I sure hope for his retainers that these traps are only laid out during war time because I can't comprehend living like this.

I fly around at high speed inside his mansion looking for him. While I need to be careful, it is my speed that lets me escape traps quickly, never mind that my ability to fly renders trapdoors, mines and pitfalls useless. The problem is, he may be able to sense me with Shadow sense inside here. It may be called shadow sense, but it is in fact seeing me through the dark element, meaning the darkness inside this place allows visibility to him. He can even predict my movements.

Spears come flying at me, and within the darkness, said spears are recreated by their shadow meaning I have to evade twice the amount of projectiles. Saws and blades extend from wooden arms all over the hallway with added shadow counterparts as well. These traps are not difficult for me to elude, honestly. I was a bit more worried whenever small projectiles got in my way. Like when a dispenser shoots a bunch of shuriken and Kunai at me. These are already large in number, and then they get doubled by darkness.

I just speed up the swinging of my sword to knock them all away, still, that wasn't enough, so I used a big of light magic to extend my rage. It is too bad that doing so has the effect of making the dark room around me denser with the darkness element, he could now blast darkness magic my way. I can fly around it, but not without strenuous effort. The darkness magic here will actually damage me enough, so I proceed with even more caution.

In one room, poison gas is shot out of some tubes. I cover my mouth and cast air blast on repeat to blow a hole through the gas and escape.
Suddenly, I get pressured onto the ground. It is like a gravitational force is pushing me down. it feel like I am under a hydraulic press.
Gravity Magic?
Gravity magic is a bit special. Some spells are associated with other elements in some magic books but not in others. Gravity is often considered dark elemental or earth elemental depending on which magical philosophy someone uses.

A lot of powers here come from imagination, so whatever magic system we have can be overwritten. That is how ninjutsu allows people the use of earth magic despite it not being an element. It gets even more complex knowing some people have traveled through different dimensions, some of those dimensions have completely different magical laws. Now I can safely assume Anton or regular dark magic allows him to manipulate gravity in dark areas.

Now I get blasted by dark magic from the ground…And currently, I'm sinking. The ground turned into a black hole, even worse, a giant fire is shot my way, and I am about to be sandwiched with said flame and its shadow that is spawned behind me. All I could do is guard myself, strangely enough, my transformation shifts. I am suddenly in the Rainbow Snowflake Sweetch Processors. The flames burn me, but this form is more defensive, so it does less damage. I see scorch marks all over. I decide to take one of my healing items.

I see I have a few dozen left. Calm, I think about my escape, Since his attacks come from darkness, he can hit me at any time. I'd have to create a light, especially below me, to stay in the air…But then he can use more powerful darkness spells…Yet, I feel this alternative is better…
Having decided on that, I let my sword burst in light. I hold it below me, with a small space illuminated around me, I hear weird squirming noises. The darkness around me got compressed and balls and spears of darkness are shot my way. On the other hand, the gravity spell doesn't work on me thanks to my light magic, so I can fly away.

Within my flight forward, I had to constantly move as I get barraged by dark magic, all the while I try to find him. My Wind Sense helps me sense traps activating, but I just can't sense Tenchu himself anywhere…Wait, there he is!
I see one silhouette approach me. I dodge his blade, when I cut forward, he was able to move away from my sword, albeit, barely. I am too fast for him and cut him down with my second slash.

It was a clone.
Great. Back to shadow cloning.
If there is one advantage, I bet he has lower than half of his SP remaining. Eventually, his attacks will be just annoying distractions. Especially when he runs out of traps. Some mechanical dummies walk in my way. These are able to move and attack, but since they are only simple training models, I doubt they have any strength. I cut through them, only to get jumped from the rear by their shadows.

I shoot a blade of light at them, in return, a dark energy is shot back into me. I destroyed the dummies at the cost of getting hit myself. On top of that, I fly into a wall…That I can't sense. I immediately fly away to see the wall shoot it spikes. It seems he hardened the darkness elements and created a wall of pure black. My light magic makes short work of it, but I get hit by an even bigger darkness magical attack. It is a pity our elements are equally as effective on each other, it wouldn't be so bad if I could locate him.

I only find more shadow clones to fight, and those clones create physical shadows of themselves. Since they do lose in one hit, I can take their attacks and kill them. Being able to predict my movements in the shadows means little when I have overwhelming speed and strength. His clones can attempt to avoid any attack they want, my attacks won't elude them. I fly further with my sword bringing enough light to this room to see. But no matter many circles I fly, I just can't spot him. The traps have already been sprung.

And his attacks get less frequent and powerful, he must be close to running out of SP. Inside my heart, my two alter ego's wage war.
Cold Soul, my negative form flies towards Snow Heart, my Goddess form. Snow Heart is equipped with the Lowee's Hero Blade, whereas my negative form uses Yukishihai, the same sword that I currently use.
However, Cold Soul is able to transform her weapon instantly.

Even if the weight means nothing to Snow Heart, her bigger weapon makes it difficult to counter swift changing weapons that can get past her defense. Cold Soul thrusts her spear under or over Snow Heart's blade, stabbing her a few times before plunging her down onto the ground. Snow Hear floats backwards right after getting back up, she avoid getting impaled into the ground. When she has flown back a little, Snow Hear fires a big White blade of light at Cold Soul.

Cold Soul turns her spear into the thinnest blade possible and cleaves the light blade in half infusing her blade with powerful dark magic. Before Snow Heart could even move her sword again, Cold Soul uses reflection to shoot her blade against her arm, knocking her sword out of it. Cold Soul had already used Light Step in that same moment, she has no trouble grabbing her airborne sword to stab Snow Heart in a flash.

But Snow Hear is not much slower than her and quickly evades getting stabbed by taking off into the air. What she didn't expect was the blade to suddenly extend and shapeshift into a morning star. She avoids the spiked ball, but her leg ends up getting entangled in the chain. Cold Soul slams her down onto the ground, then she swings her around before bringing her back down a second time.

"Thor Spear.", Snow Heart said, alas, in the nick of time, Cold Soul spots the spear bursting with light aimed right above her head. She does a rolling jump backwards to dodge it as it smashed into the ground exploding with light. Although she dodged it, the lights that flares up from the impact touches her, slightly burning her.
Once on the ground, she gets sucker punched by Snow Heart, right in the face, whilst Snow Heart also had enchanted her fist with strong light magic.

Cold Soul enchants her fists with darkness and shoots herself back with Light Step to return a punch at Snow Heart, but Snow Heart vanishes into the air. Cold Soul, her smile deepening, flies right after her, slamming into her. Snow Heart had grabbed Cold Soul's arms as she is getting pushed further into the sky. The two struggle until Cold Soul headbutts Snow Heart, making her release her grip as she floats backwards in recoil.

Cold Soul flies in to punch her, only to miss her as it looks like she disappeared in thin air. But that is just how fast she moves. Cold Soul can sense her and flies a little further to dodge a drop-kick, and beyond that, she wraps the long and wide coattails from her rugged dress around Snow Heart to throw her with a 180 turn before flying down at her with a kick. Despite the possible disorientation, Snow Heart escapes with Light Step and flies in an arc under Cold Soul. She almost kicks Cold Soul in the back.

That fails as well, Cold Soul simply vanishes only to instantly appear behind Snow Heart in a snap movement trying to punch her, with Snow Heart using that exact same technique to appear behind Could Soul's back. Now Cold Soul just flies a bit further away to dodge a punch and immediately returns, lunging her head forward with a thrown fist. Snow Heart catches her fist with her right hand and is about to knee Cold Soul with her left knee. Cold Soul stops said knee with her other hand and closes in with her head to smash it into Snow Heart's.

Snow Heart anticipates it and leans backwards to kick Cold Soul up, and she pursues her right after. Cold Soul dodges an upper cut from Snow Heart and she tries to drop kick her back in retaliation, only for Snow Heart move back ever so slightly to push Cold Soul's foot down, lowering her faster. With Cold Soul low enough, Snow Heart headbutts her. She combos that with a kick, albeit, the kick was parries with a return kick. Cold Soul quickly kicks Snow Heart with a sweep using her right leg, only for that to be blocked and pushed away by Snow Heart's arms. Cold Soul ducks under a left hook, whilst her counter-punch gets blocked by a knee.

The two rush their fists at each other, constantly blocking magically charged punches and returning their knuckles back to each other. In a few more seconds, they've added kicks to the mix, kicking, punching, blocking at high speeds in mid-air. After a few minutes, they charge a lot of light and dark magic respectively into their fists, they perform a cross-counter that launches themselves away from each other. It is within that moment of flight they actually flip over and fly in opposite directions so they could arc back towards each other, a light and dark aura leaving a blazing trail behind just before their fists clash with light and dark magic.

They are equal in strength and magic, the two kept pushing their fist forward to no avail, they end up catching each other's other hands as they push themselves into each other using their flight. Pushing and pushing, their altitude lowers as light and dark magic swirls around them until it bursts and waves all around them. Not being able to hold on, they let go and continued fighting by flying into each other at such high speed, it only looked like a light blue trail and a murky dark energy fly into each other from all over the place.

I can't keep up. On my end, I am still searching for Tenchu. It's been minutes, but no matter how many circles I fly, no matter how many rooms I destroy, I can't find him…
Is he really just hiding? His power is darkness and he has Shadow Sense…He may be able to sense my location at all times and escape that way.
Having though that, I stopped moving. Conveniently, my transformation returns to the other processors. These ones are faster, which I am going to need.

I have the crazy Idea of just speeding up so much he can't keep track of me. I tap my toes on the floor as I am still hovering over it. Determining it safe to land, I plant my feet down. I raise my heels to let light blaze from under my feet, maximizing the power output of Light Step. I must go faster than I have ever had. I will reach even Mach 9!
I launch myself forward. It is very difficult to fly like this in circles when I am in a house that is mostly just a long square hallway. I literally am cutting corners to make it rounder so I can go in circles easier.

Eventually, I sense and spot Tenchu. He tries to flee, but I already had planned for this. In flight, Light Step is not activate. So I had my feet already charged up, I just had to break my momentum a little with explosion magic from my hand to align myself with Tenchu, it is then that Light Step will sling me towards him. I crash into him straight as an arrow and throw him through a wall onto the suspicious building. I can see him in great pain. He isn't moving at all. I take this chance to fly higher up. I will hit him with my strongest attack, the moment his life is extinguished, the building should explode along with him.
I gather a bunch of snow turned into light inside my sword, then I swirl it around me before striking down light from the air as I shout, "UnionStar Helios Slash!"

A giant blade of light that can swallow the whole mansion is lowering towards Tenchu, but at the last second, I see him smile, actually, I see four flashes of red, green, blue and yellow just before the whole mansion just implodes. I say implode because what I see is too odd to describe. It looks like a really slow explosion of white. I can feel it from here. I fly a little higher to not get caught up in it.

It was so bright, I had my hand in front of my face the entire time. I can barely sense anything in the wind. I lowered my arm when it was over, but now I see only rubble. What is strange, is that it isn't even a lot of ruble. Like, the foundation or the wood and bricks from below I can see, but everything else just kind of evaporated. I don't sense Tenchu or his body. The explosion didn't even leave any cracks, rifts, or burn marks on the ground itself.

Confused, I go down to check the surroundings. No matter what, I see nothing of the mansion or notice a sign of Tenchu. Standing on top of where the suspicious building was, I don't discover anything strange…Like it never existed. Suddenly! My head snaps! I hear ringing in my ears, it is like my brain is physically pointing north. I see the sun has begun to set. A twilight that creates a red sky. I fly a bit further, from up here, I see a small individual, but his shadow was that of a giant thanks to the low sun. Even then, it doesn't look right.

I lower myself just before the shadow, if he is Tenchu, landing on his shadow would be dangerous. Down here, I can see him better. He is cloaked in shadow, yet I can see his wide grin. He starts laughing at me. I have never heard such joy from a man.
"It's finally here, Goddess! I have finally achieved my goal!", he shouts.
I see a looming darkness under his arm as he holds the palm of his hand above the floating dark shape.

"The four flames of each direction, all lit, their shadows are cast creating a center of darkness. Darkness from the heavens compressed by the emotions of those in war.
Shadow that travels the earth, cast by the gods who gift mortals their powers. The darkness shed by the light between heaven and earth creates what even the omniscient can't see. The center of all that is divine and wicked, create a weapon to slay the light…", Tenchu chants as he grabs the dark energy below his hand, the four flames gather into him and burst into a black fire.

The dark energy takes the shape of a blade. Soon after, Tenchu waves it around, it losing its aura, revealing a black sword.
I hold my own black blade up. I compare the two, they look eerily similar.
Another black blade? Again?
"Goddess, you must know what this is. I must say, I would be shocked if I weren't so happy. I think our blades are similar. Obtaining this has been my goal, alongside the bonus of the four flames converging into the center flame.", he tells me.

"You would be more intimidating if your sword weren't the same type as mine. All in all, I still have the upper hand.", I reply to him.
"Ah, I can understand your reasoning. You figure since I am still man and you are goddess, that my obtaining a blade of the same class as yours is only going to fractionally deepen our gap in capability. It's fair. But I should mention. This one controls shadow.", he elaborates.
I see! I do feel a bit worried now. He has the black blade that controls shadows. With his ability to sense through shadows and manipulation of darkness with Anton, it's a perfect weapon for him!

"Hm… Yes. Now that I see what the weapon I sought looks like, I should be scared of you. You had the same type of weapon the entire time? That one controls snow, I could tell. I must eliminate you before you find ways to counter my sword.", he tells me.
"Center Flame!", he shouts as a flame erupts around him. His skin actually looks younger. He transforms slightly into a young male in his twenties, his body grows leaner. This flame is putting him in his prime. The flame is black at first, but now it is pure white…And now it is golden….It is cyan now? Oh? it disappeared.

"How did you create one of the mythical black blades?", I ask him.
"Oh? Should I tell you? Since you have one, can you really be that surprised? My knowledge on the mythical black blades is rather sparse, as is their information. The only one I took an interest in was the blade that controls shadow. I now call it, Kagetenshin. At first, I had no ambition of being a threat to the goddesses. If anything, even still, I serve Lowee. But I think we've gotten a bit too peaceful.", he initiates a whole story of how he got here.

He goes on about it, "One of Team Ninja's founders and growing up to be the heir of the master of all ninja, I cared a lot for our society and standing, do you follow? Ninja don't have a code of honor, but we do have pride in our lifestyle and work. But where does that leave us today? Our missions from assassinating high standing individuals to even generals in another goddess' army, to fighting for the highest bidder. We had so many missions to complete. We were always treated with respect and importance. We thought our children would be better than us, and guide us to an even better age of Shinobi…Only for us to be in times of peace."

He looks at his reflection in his sword, "I thought it was fine. I trained my daughters to be proper ninja. I genuinely believed in the importance of our existence. I sought this sword with the only goal to grow stronger. It was merely a childish dream I had on the side as I perform my duties…But I got older and realized, who needs us anymore? Outside of just looking cool, what is the purpose of ninja? Corruptions are taken less seriously. No government or high standing company wants to hire us anymore. Only criminal organizations were left. On top of that, I wished only for Lowee to thrive over others, yet, I only see it fumble alone. I just accepted it as faith and moved on…Until I met a certain woman."

I looked down, it was like his shadow smiled at me. He now reveals his contact, "I myself had found that the black sword is a divine or demonic weapon, it is capable of damaging an immortal. I understood it could only be made through legendary means, which I would never have time for as a side project, you can imagine. But this woman had already done her research. The Diva of Justit Info B.V. We worked with their organization as neutrals, but I soon learned their true standing. They also belief Lowee should dominate."

"She told me I needed the shadow of the four flames to smith the blade. I knew about the four flames converging into the center when all four are close to their deaths, the strongest one receives all four flames and is granted the power of the strongest god. There was one more requirement, negative energy. In the past ten years, I had been gathering it, as a side project. I wasn't all in on it yet. I cared more for my duty, and my daughters. Now I don't care about any of that.", as he talks, he begins to perk up and hold his sword in the air.

He speaks loudly, "This last half year, I had understood. I was actually closing in on my dream! That is when I reflected upon myself…I hated myself. Becoming bitter, thinking only about my duty, when in my heart I learned Lowee will never be what it was, and we ninja will die out…I abandoned my faith! I worked together with SCJP to begin this grand ninja war so I could easily condense enough negative energy and stretch the four flames to their limit! Finally, I have obtained this sword. I will force the Goddess to fight. I want the Console Wars to return! We ninja will thrive again! With me as the apex predator!"

So that is his motivation. He wanted ninjas to have their place in this world of ever-growing peace. I can understand where he is coming from. But it is clear he got drunk on power. His personality must have changed as the idea of divine power shattered his worldview. Regardless, I can't accept his vision. Lowee must dominate? He wants to eliminate the other nations.
Then my sisters would have to fight Nepgear, Vert, Uni, Uzume, Neptune, Noire, and more…I. I definitely don't want that!

I take a stance, holding my sword close to my middle with both hands, I declare, "I won't let you wage war. I won't let you hurt my friends!"
He drops his arms, he looks at me with a smile, yet his eyes scream irritation as he replies, "I see. You are a modern Goddess too…You wouldn't get it."
"Big Si- White Heart would never want to fight the others again. This peace would do no good for Lowee's people. Ninja are meant to deal with Lowee's shadows, but you want to throw us all in the dark for the sake of keeping your purpose…", I tell him.
"And what about you? Why do you even care? That same goddess wishes you dead. Aren't you the same as me? You too fight in the shadows.", he argues.
"My goal is to rid Lowee of its shadow…My light will vanquish the dark!", I shout.

Did that sound cool? I hope so.
"You should soon learn. Our shadow is a natural part of us, it can't be separated!", he takes a stance as he speaks to me in a haughty tone.
Just before our battle could start, another fight was taking place inside my very soul.
My Goddess incarnation, Snow Heart, and my opposing incarnation, Cold Soul are still struggling for supremacy. Whoever wins may take over my body.

After enough punches have been flown, Snow Heart seemingly vanishes through Cold Soul, within a millisecond, Cold Soul is surrounded by a bunch of crystal looking weapons in every direction. They flare up in light just before Snow Heart snaps her fingers to shoot all of them into Cold Soul simultaneously. Cold Soul covers herself with the flaps of cloth that comes from her dress, materializing metal over them with Shadow Weapon Create, she speeds through a tiny gap between weapons. The protection wasn't enough to let her escape without damage, but the incoming explosion had been eluded.

Snow Heart waved her arms around, summoning thousands upon thousands of weapons, mostly swords.
"Shadow Weapon Create.", Cold Soul says as she recreated Yukishihai. What came after is Cold Souls desperately dodging barrages of swords bursting with light. She flies all over the place to lose them, but they often curved at the same time as new weapons are materialized and shot at her. Cold Soul waves her hands over the cloth flaps that come from her dress, inside the wide tails of cloth were sheaths for weapons, with dark magic, she creates generic black weapons. Each flap had about five swords as she not only dodges blades of light, but now also deflects it with her main sword and the weapons on her flaps that she somehow controls like they are an extension of her body.

Despite the fact that she was in immense danger, Cold Soul smiled from ear-to-ear in comparison to Snow Heart who had a stone-cold face that never reacted to pain of any kind.
Flips and turns, flying in different directions at high speed, swinging her sword around, Cold Soul did everything needed to evade all weapons, all the while inching closer to Snow Heart.
In Response, Snow Heart had materialized the Hero Blade to block an overhead swing. But what was concurrently done, Cold Soul had turned her swords into spears as her the tails of her dress curl up to wrap around the staffs of said weapons.

Alongside the black blade, Snow Heart also had to deflect four spears. It would be difficult to move her large sword that quickly, on the other hand, its size allowed her to block more attacks at the same time. Nevertheless, she's being pushed to her limit, after blocking four synchronized spear thrusts, she's unable to defend against a sword strike. Or, that is what Cold Soul would've wished, a shield was materialized before Snow Heart's head, weakening the strike enough to allow Snow Heart to nudge her head away and punch Cold Soul in the face with a quickly materialized gauntlet, with she herself only attaining a scratch on her shoulder from the strike.

Snow Heart uses reflection to shoot the gauntlet towards Cold Soul at the speed of light, but with Cold Soul's quick reactions, she cuts it half the moment it closed in at her. Right after, she had to fly away to avoid more blades of light. She flew in a circle whilst slowly lowering her altitude. She suddenly flew even lower, it was the instant her blade gathered a lot of darkness magic.
"ShatteringStar, Darkness Slash!", she shouts as she fires a flying black blade of pure dark magic at Snow Heart.

Snow Heart tears it in two doing a powerful strike with her blade brimming with light magic. The darkness explodes behind her, whilst Cold Soul flew straight at her. Out of nowhere, two axes appeared in front of Cold Soul, about to be swung into her horizontally. She would've flown straight into their attack if she didn't stopped herself to bend backwards and go under the axes. More axes appeared near her, this made her cast explosion to fly backwards, avoiding more axes. Still, her back bumps into a hammer that is about to be smashed against her.

She gets tossed a little higher up by it, and immediately had to block an axe, smacking her down from above. She did a backflip to regain balance before dodging another axe using Light Step. She flew a little to her left to avoid in incoming vertical light slash, then she saw Snow Heart closing in on her with an axe in hand. Barely, Cold Soul dodges a wide explosive swing of the axe, but as Cold Soul had fluttered higher up from Snow Heart's left, the moment Snow Heart's swing aligned with Cold Soul's direction, the axe is shot at her with reflection.

Cold Soul barely catches it, it disappears upon impact, for it was a cheap crystal axe made of share energy. Cold Soul quickly flies over a shooting blade of light, directly above Snow Heart, she returns a shooting blade of darkness. Snow Heart, dodged that one, but the next attack required more effort. For Cold Soul not only throws a few knives at her at light speed, she also had a bunch of knives materialized into her cloth flaps, enveloped with dark magic, she tosses them all at Snow Heart with a few spins.

The blades at light speed she could only guard against and take some of the damage, the darkness knives turned invisible and changed their speed randomly. Since they are enhanced with dark magic, they should be countered by light magic. Snow Heart flies backwards nearing the ground as she first shoots a light blade to eliminate as many knives as she could, then she returns fire with a bunch of swords bursting into light.

Cold Soul flies through the barrage, she begins to roll down from the sky in a ball. A few swords hit her, only to bounce off her. Snow Heart is already on the ground, she looked perplexed at Cold Soul, but surely, she could sense danger. She did one step back as Cold Soul reached hear and unfolds herself, her cloths carrying axes that she smacks down upon Snow Heart.
Snow Hear retreats using Light Step, and swiftly, Cold Soul throws four axes from her cloth flaps towards her.

Snow Heart zoomed to her right, and next, she blocks an incoming strike, Cold Soul slides her katana a bit over the big sword, almost stabbing Snow Heart's eyes. Snow Heart backs off, her sword grinding across Cold Soul's blade, that was when the black blade transformed into a halberd, the axe's edge preventing Snow Heart's escape, her sword stuck in motion. With extended range, Cold Soul was free to pierce Snow Heart with the sharp tip of the Halbert.

Without warning, Cold Soul is thrust into a conundrum. She can indeed keep the attack going, or she can dodge the small knives bursting with light that had been generated close to her. She only noticed it now, but with her speed, she could avoid it. She attempted to do both, but her aim worsened for it, only gracing Snow Heart's neck as she tilts her body to make one knife miss her, then she uses Light Step to the rear to avoid the other knives. It was no less dangerous, Snow Heart had already prepared a bunch of spears in the air, aimed down at the ground.

Bursting with light, the spears were shot down and would explode with light upon impact. Cold Soul does a bunch of acrobatic back flips and hand-stands to move away from the array of falling light spears before blasting herself off into the air. She uses reflection with a few knives to shoot them at Snow Heart, but Snow Heart covered herself in multiple shields to prevent damage.

After the knives bounced off, Snow Heart, shoots the shields back into Could Soul at light speed, making her flinch. With no time in-between, Snow Heart had launched herself into the air, thrusting her sword forward like she herself had become an arrow. Cold Soul's face is warped with a smile as she slightly moves alongside Snow Heart, wrapping her flaps around Snow Heart's hands, bending her wrists and forcing her sword out of Cold Soul's reach, she made sure Snow Heart could not shoot the sword into her with reflection.

With Snow Heart bound, Cold Soul gleefully prepared a sword strike, furiously gashing with dark magic. But her sword was blocked by a bunch of knives enchanted with light magic shooting into her hands. If it weren't for the dense dark magic, it would've done a lot more damage. Cold Soul was surprised more than anything. With her more cautious than before, her face sinks in a panic as she notices a huge barrage of knives reaching her back. She blocks the thousands of knives brimming with light by blasting darkness from her sword held behind her back.

This still hurt her a bit, but she could endure it. Knowing so, Snow Heart, casts explosion from her feet to inch closer into Cold Soul and headbutting her. Cold Soul responds with her own explosion magic, grappling Snow Heart by the shoulders. They repeatedly cast explosion as the cloth is wrapped around Snow Heart, they locked in on each other and dropped their blades. They rolled down from the sky like a speeding boulder. Cold Soul finally reaches Snow Heart's face, her plan was to smash her head into the ground. At the second they reached the ground, Snow Heart throws a mighty punch into Cold Soul's face with explosion magic, albeit, that did not stop her face from getting dug into the dark void that is the ground. Somehow it is solid.

Either way, Cold Soul was hurled over the floor. She landed on her feet and right hand, Snow Heart herself also had her hand on the ground, they casted reflection to move away from each other at light speed. They grabbed their strongest blade, and created a second sword.
"FusionStar…", Snow Heart called out a she combined the two blades into a giant sword of light.
"ConsumingStar…", Cold Soul chants in response, doing the same but with dark magic instead.

"Light Burst!"
"Dark Burst!"
Each respective element is shouted as the two shoot a burst of dark and light magic, in the end, the two attack cancelled each other out in an explosion of magic. Right after, the two directly fly to one another with their swords bursting with light and dark elements. They thrust them against each other, struggling as wind blasts across them. They push and push, but both elements are equally as powerful. Their blades shoot past each other, they are thrust next to the opposing weapon, reaching for their opponent's necks.

Neither side was willing to take the hit, so they both move out of the way, dragging their sword close to their right should to clash once more. Again, they keep pushing and pushing, but there was no victor. They use Light Step to get into the sky. Their speed increases as they spam Light Step, each time, they appear as if they vanish and reemerge, slamming their blades against each other. A dozen after-images clash along with the real ones. It's too fast to keep up.

Now back to me, my form has changed again to the sweetch processors.
Their fight is forcibly changing my transformation.
This is a bit bothersome, but I doubt I'd lose to Tenchu regardless.
The sun has cast large shadows of the mountain quite a distance to the east and west, Tenchu himself has largened his own shadow. With his sword, he physicalized a giant of a shadow.
The giant shadow version of him does a generic punch to the ground my way. I dash into the sky with Light Step, I maneuver over another swing of its fist.

Despite the size, it is behaving like something of the size of Tenchu himself. Its speed isn't much different. I fly around it trying to spot anything of interest. I noticed a big cloud of snow from one footstep. If works like his other shadow clones, it should behave exactly like Tenchu, its weight should theoretically be the same…Unless the sword can alter the logic at will. It is both heavy and fast whenever applicable. Can he change it on a dime?

I try to do an air-cut that travels through the snow, it jumps over it, Tenchu definitely pays close attention to me. But one thing is for certain, it jumped with the weight of a normal person. Meaning he can slow down, speed up, and change its weight to whatever limit it may have. Either way, A shadow is still weak to light magic.
"UnionStar Light Slash!", I shout, blasting its head off. Within that exact moment, I get a black shadow blasting me in the back, blowing me closer to the giant.

This problem persists I see, my light counters shadow, but it also creates shadows he can manifest into attacks, and way quicker than before.
The giant's head had no real function, so it throws its fist at me, the fist is turned into a literal drill made of shadow. I enchant my blade in light to make sure it won't grind through the metal. It ends up pushing me away, then immediately, its drill changed into a gatling gun. With high speed I cut through the bullets, which were also just shadows, now I fly to the left arcing around the giant, avoiding its shots.

I see, Tenchu can physically alter the shadow into anything he imagines. I see a few holes open up in its body, I assume the shadow isn't hollow inside, so it must use up its insides in place of ammo. With the same method, the left arm gets extended, sacrificing the other arm to increase the mass of the left arm, he slings it around and extends it further to punch me. Thanks to this form's excellent defense, I can guard against it crossing my arms. But after I am pushed away from the fist, Tenchu jumps straight out of it about to strike me with his blade overflowing with flame.

The strong flames push me as I block his strike, we drop onto the ground with a booming sound as his flames explode everywhere. With these processors, I can take it very well. I can feel his strength has increased immensely with this center flame. Combined with the sword, he should have a pretty good chance of taking down one goddess. I cut forward, the flames dissipating, yet I find no sign of Tenchu, my blade only contacts air. Even the giant shadow had disappeared.
I eye my surroundings, but he is nowhere, not even Wind Sense is picking him up. All I hear is the blowing of the wind.

I need to remain calm. It must be a technique that lets him hide in ways not even a sixth sense could pick him up…But if he were to move towards me…
Below me?!
I sense something rising behind me. I fly up in the air and do a vertical swing of my sword, parrying Tenchu. I escape him altogether by getting into the air.
"You sensed me through wind, eh?", he says, still smiling.

He came from my shadow. I get it, with the sword he can assimilate himself inside any shadow. Outside maybe his own?
From up here, I doubt he could reflect a proper counter attack if I use light slash.
"UnionStar Light slash", I use this same move again. He stays there, the shadows around him expanding due to my attack.

I can't really see him through the giant slash of light, but the shadows around him turn into spikes before being launched at me in the form of a thousand needles. My light slash just explodes with no sign of him.
Within my gauntlets hides a spear, I assemble the two poles and shoot it out into a spearhead, then I rotate below me to grind any needle that would hit me directly. However, Tenchu was hiding in one of these needles, I sense him jump out behind me holding wakizashi, each of them lit up with a different colored flame.

I could only attempt to parry his cross-slash, but the flames from his attack propels me backwards.
I couldn't help but wince, even so, I must force my eyes open, Wind Sense doesn't help much to detect shadows. I look above and see the shadow needles combining into a shadow cannon. It is set ablaze with the Center Flame, it shoots the flame out in a beam before fading. Luckily, I changed form to the Bloody Hail processors. Now that my speed has increased, I can easily speed away with Light Step.

Even Tenchu has difficulty following me as I fly up from under him, he almost did a full 180 turn, but I kicked him in the back before he could respond. Directly, I launch myself forward to strike him with my blade, plunging us both onto the ground. With increased strength, he could not shove me back. He had to be more defensive, he took my hit and scurried away from me, even though, I can catch up to him easily now.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is just testing the gap between our strength. He isn't doing any special technique, just trying to predict where I'd move, prepare to take a hit and be pushed back. It is clear, Bloody Hail processors have the advantage in terms of immediate speed and raw strength, it just lacks the defense and special functionality that the other processors have.
Approaching him is still tricky, he makes sure the sun is at his back, forcing me on his shadow, which allows him to predict my movements no different than my Wind Sense.

He finally summons the giant shadow from under him, he also arose from under my own feet. I fly back and see this shadow turn its arms into flamethrowers. I was thinking it would use shadow flames, but then I remember him being able to enchant his shadow with flame, so he will shoot fires from the central flames at me. I quickly fly in a spiral, dodging a great burst of fire from the flame throwers, the pressure and force is way stronger than I expected. If it were to hit me, I'd need to use another healing item.

When I get close to the shadow giant, the whole thing had an intense flame aura around him, It sharpened its arm into a blade and blocked mine before throwing me back. This is a problem, with the flame enchantment, it has a layer of protection and strength. It even moves no less fast than Tenchu himself. It is only due to this form's speed I can evade its punches and other odd attacks. Now it pulls out wakizashi.

I enchant my blade with light, I have to condense the light this time to make sure it doesn't create a shadow. This doesn't weaken it much, but the bursting light has more force and destructive power. Still, I am fighting a shadow. It's protective layer mean little, I just pick a spot and fly at it at high speed and slash an arm off at full power. Over and over again, I cut bits and pieces off, but it is too much work for something that won't even do any damage to the man himself. I look at him behind the giant.

I have an idea. I fly behind the giant and let my blade burst with light. As it turns around to take the hit, I shoot another big blade of white onto it, which destroys the giant. Of course, a black shadow blast is going to impact me right after. However, Tenchu was under the shadow of my light blade, I am certain he can't resist trying to hit me physically. This is a literal shot in the dark, but I grab a spear and without looking, I thrust it behind my back into the shadow blast whilst enchanting it with light magic.

Fortune has it that he was hiding inside the blast of shadow, and I stabbed him out of it. I can see him squint his eyes in pain as he is shoved back onto the ground. I, naturally, Fly down at him ready to strike him down where he lands, but I went back to the sweetch processors, which has me slowed down my one fraction of a second, and it was enough for him to throw a shuriken at me. He hid inside the shuriken's shadow, avoiding my strike. I turn around to see him rise from underneath, smugly smiling at me.

Tenchu unleashes a large flame from his blade. He thrusts it towards me, the flames moving snake-like as they hover over the ground. I fly in the air to my left, and it curves towards me. At the same time, the shadows they create are brought to live and mirror their movements. I have seen this technique before. He tries to swat me between the shadow flame and golden flame, when I dodge it, he will probably make them converge and explode. I have to either be faster to get out of reach or just tank the hit with this form's superior defenses.

There is no reason I can't do both I suppose. I fly out of their reach earlier, and as I expected, they converged. The difference is, he can manipulate the shadow. The sword's ability to manipulate shadow seems to affect the original, the two's shape changing as they are about to explode. This time, the explosion shoots out black shadows precisely aimed at me. I guard myself as I can feel the burning flames shoot through me like bullets.

Just when I thought that was an annoying move, I see his shadow rise and take some distance from him. A real shadow clone, I guess? Said shadow is also lit on fire. Both of them perform the same fire move, meaning I now have four curving shadow fire beams to dodge. This time, they are more relentless, curving the beams of white, gold and 2 black flames over and over again to try and catch me. It should be a forgone conclusion that they can't match my speed, so yes, the beams combine together in a swirling sun of black, gold and white.

This time, however, it shoots towards me as a beam at much higher speed. If I were to imagine how it works, he can manipulate the shadows to the point each individual atom will be the smallest distance possible off from the real flame before being shapeshifted, meaning he can also make multiple explosions at once. The beam explodes constantly as it is shot at me. I gather snow into my sword with light magic and decide to fight back shouting, "UnionStar Helios Slash!" My technique by itself is stronger, but with the multiple explosions, I can merely disrupt most of the attack, it won't defend me from all of the damage anyway.

I float back down, I already feel pretty worn out. After taking a few breaths, I look forward and see him do a bunch of hand-signs. Ah…It is shadow clown jutsu. He made hundreds of clones. I guess the master of ninja is more of a generalist, that number is impressive, but I remember that one commander who could make a thousand. The problem is, even if he makes, let's say, five-hundred, each of them casts a shadow…So that becomes one-thousand clones…
I hate clone ninjutsu the most. I'd compare them to annoying flies.

I get up into the air so I can launch a huge blade of light towards them. They scatter and stop the blade with some kind of shadow shield, albeit, with great difficulty. I've already seen the counter-attack from behind me coming, I had already moved out of the way right after swinging my sword down. The shadow blade above me is transformed into thousands of needles, again, I fly away, all the way to the surface.

At this point, taking damage is inevitable. All his clones are on fire and can unleash big flames and explosions, and their shadows can transform into anything. At this point, I just use the full power of my blade of light, having light flow through my sword indefinitely. In the beginning of this clash, I shall use a proper shield attached to my left arm. I go in, cutting dozens of clones with one slash. They have all spread around me using Doton or Futon to move themselves, some using kites to fly over me.

From below, the air, my left, my right, my back, my front, clones and shadows erupting with flame jump towards me. I can only cut some, in return, I get burned and hit by attacks from the shadows. I can shield myself from some of these attacks now, but I have to just endure an onslaught until every clown and shadow is cut through. They may fire beams of flame and combine them with beams of shadow, I can only respond with using "Helios Slash!", as I fly around.

Because they are on fire, using snow against them is difficult, but it isn't impossible to cut some in half with the special snow shockwave air-cut, and I can enchant some of the snow into light before they melt to hit them from a distance, it won't do much damage, but clones can't endure even a single hit. Some time during this brawl, I had to shoot my shield off me at light speed to stop three of his clones from creating a giant explosion. I don't have time to make another shield, I am overwhelmed with clones. All I could do is take any attack and tear them apart. On top of everything, there were a few giant shadows as well, but with how aggressive I throw Light Slashes around, even they get torn apart rather swiftly.

Eventually, his forces dwindle. I am a little debilitated and only react to whatever movement or sound is closest to me. I hear the last clone running to me. Now, if I was sound of mind, I would've figured a ninja coming at you loudly implies a trick, alas, I can't think straight and simply cut through the clone.
He was hiding inside his own clone's shadow, and with said clone cut apart, he was forced out of the shadow instantly. This actually means he arose from the ground faster. I can't possibly react to his flaming double slash, other than blocking the blades themselves.

He drops his blades and goes around my back to lock his legs over my hips and his arms over my neck from behind. He has me in a grip I can't escape from. Never mind his strength, he is over twice my size.
I can feel his fire heating up. What is he planning? The fire is casting a shadow that he summons from the ground. She shadow hops back a little.
"Katon! Self-Destruction jutsu!", he shouts. He's going to blow himself up?!

I should still be able to take it in this form and perform a counter-attack against whatever he has planned…Or so I thought. The moment he exploded, I am engulfed with fire and have changed back to the Bloody Hail processors which have a lot less defense. I can only screech as I am burning up. In the meantime, I sense him at the spot his shadow was standing at. He compresses a light blue flame into his left hand and makes a perfect shadow version in the other hand. He transfers the flames in his wakizashi and gathers them together. The two blades represented two jaws of a dragon as his shadow and real flames took the shape of a small Chinese dragon. He leaps into me, thrusting the dragon onto my gut. With an encompassing explosion, I am thrown over the snow.

There goes another healing item… Getting back up, I make sure to keep him in vision. I see him making a few more shadow clones and summoning shadows from those clones. I can't let him make more. With a powerful burst of light under my feet, I shoot myself at him, ready to slash all his clones. He combines the shadows of the clones together and catches me in this whirlpool of shadow, he turned his shadows into water. Even if it behaves the same, if I cut through the whirlpool with my light blade, it should still vanquish it.

I am thrown into the air out of the whirlpool, since it is still a shadow, Tenchu was able to enter it, and he jumps out of it to chase after me. I quickly fly away from his slash and shoot a blade of light at his shadow clones below to destroy them. At that time, he had already turned the whirlpool into hundreds of shuriken and throws them my way. I cut through most of them, but one shuriken passes me, Tenchu was inside that one, which baffles me. Tenchu was behind me a moment ago, but he just disappeared, Wind Sense never picked him up landing.

Even if he comes from behind me, I can easily turn around and cut him. But he fades away. Not like a shadow clone, but like a shadow. I could've sworn he was real. I look below and see him standing there. I know this one commander could switch with his shadow clone…Maybe Tenchu can switch with his summoned shadow? He summons his shadow again as I shoot a blade of light at him.

He lets his shadow run as he takes it. That settles it, he switches with his shadow, he can chose to do it instantly or partially. His abilities really tick me off. But I need to take some time. I've taken too much damage. I am down to…Ten recovery items? I'll just have to make the best of them. This is going to be a long fight.
I have healed up a few minutes before, but looking down, Tenchu has more tricks prepared for me. The mountains to our sides in the distance, the low sun has cast large shadows from them, and he has morphed them.

Above me is this giant 3d Shadow thing that is constantly splitting apart, taking numerous forms. Rockets, boulders, flying fists, flames, tempests, and whatever other harmful thing you can made up is raining onto me. This form's speed allows me to evade it well enough, still, it is clear I can't stay up high, there are too many objects that can hit me up here. I go lower and lower as I zoom around the air. Eventually, I get onto the ground, by then, I have my sword lit up with light.
"UnionStar Helios Slash!", I shout as I shoot the giant black orb above me, it is good that I did, because it would've probably fallen on top of me.

"Flame Tree, Shadow Roots!", Tenchu shouts. I see a giant golden flame behind him, the sun casting its shadow onto me. The shadow is too large to escape from. Tenchu sinks into the shadow, hiding from me. He cannot only sense everything I do now, but he is able to attack me from anywhere. The only positive for me is that he can't summon much from this shadow, or else he won't be able to sense me anymore. Since this form is way faster, that must be pretty important to him.

For the next five minutes, it was just us constantly clashing swords. He brought out at least ten shadow clones to keep up the pressure. But I am much faster than him, and my Wind Sense isn't inferior to his Shadow Sense. Occasionally, he could land a scratch on me, but the opposite is also true, I can sometimes slash past him, and if that was a clone, it would disappear. I could wonder why he doesn't use five-hundred clones with this, I can only assume he has a limit to this jutsu and it costs too much SP to use it often.

I sensed him exiting the huge shadow to the south. Right after, his shadow attacks me, but turns into the real him.
I see his crazy grin. The shadow beneath me is set aflame. He can make the shadow rise on top of that, creating a fiery ball of explosion. I use my speed to get away and slash him with a flying medium sized blade of light, I hit him within his own explosion. But I already knew, that wasn't the real him. He already switched with his shadow.

I quickly turn and dash right at him, my sword reaching his neck as he looks at me startled. Even he wasn't expecting me to get to him so fast, especially after getting hurt by the flames. I'm already used to the pain. I'll cut him here and now! …I changed back to the sweetch processors in that last second. He must've already sensed my sword swing the moment I got near his shadow, the 1 nano-second of lost speed allowed him to duck under my sword swing.

He thrust his arms forward, his right hand above his left hand. He created a small golden orb of flame in his right, and summoned the shadow counterpart in his left hand. As the thrusts his hands into me, the two orbs combined and created an explosion that has me soaring over the air. I land painfully on my back. Disgruntled I get back up. I see him standing back straight, looking at me with great confidence. I swear, if it weren't for my other selves fighting…

"Isn't it annoying? I guess even a mighty goddess has performance issues, huh? Do you not control your transformations? The little imperfections gets you killed when up against a ninja. You can't stop my world of shadow, the world I will create!", he declares.
He does the huge fire technique again to cast a shadow, except this time, he shouts on top of everything else, "Bestiary!"
She shadow flame is summoned, except, their forms are changed to that of animals and monsters, this also changes the shape of the flames behind him into the same animals.

I condense light magic into my blade and fly straight forward. These beasts may be pretty strong for a human opponent, but I am way beyond that. The only problem I may have is not being able to sense them with Wind Sense, but I am way faster anyway, so it is irrelevant. Among the shadow animals cut down, a sabretooth tiger tried to claw me with its left paw, but this was a distraction for its friend to bite my right side, except, I kicked its jaw into the sabretooth's face face.

Right as I kicked him, I swung my sword to my right to slice an incoming bull apart, then I step back to cut the tiger and a lion that tried to pounce me from my left. As I fly forward, an Eagle dives down at me and a rhino is charging straight towards me. I easily fly up for a bit to hit the eagle with an uppercut, I avoid a bunch of knives Tenchu throws at me right after by going back down. I do a sliding motion under the rhino, though I am technically flying under him. I cut through its shadow belly as I get past his legs, making it disappear.

A big gorilla was waiting for me on the other end, about to throw its fist down on me, but I place my left hand on the ground and cast reflection to get to his face at light speed, I kicked him in the face right then and there. As it stumbled backwards with a piece of its head missing, I slice it in half as I come down. I do a quick back turn and slash an incoming bird, back from my right I cut an incoming shadow, not realizing it was a snake.

It wrapped itself around my sword, and before I could do anything about it, a chameleon like enemy shot its long tongue at me, it entangled my other arm. I just used my superior strength to pull it into the sky before slamming it down onto another beast. I let my blade of light flare up to vanquish the snake before it could bite me. Then I moved in on the two beasts I knocked down to slice them up. Moving forward, I have diced all the shadow animals and am heading directly for Tenchu.

All the animal flames without shadow are combined together in front of him, he turned his shadow into a flame and mixed it with the golden flame, combusting it into a wave of fire surging my way.
At this point, I don't care about taking damage. I need to take a risk to reach him, and so I will. I gather light and snow into my sword before I thrust myself through the fire.
He seems a little surprised to see me appear from the flames, I have my sword hidden behind my side, I block his two blades with my arm engulfed with light.

This still hurts me, but I can get a free jab into his gut with my sword overflowing with light. The shockwave of light expanding as I thrust my sword into him so he gets cannoned quite a distance away, but I won't spare any time for him to land. I do a spin as I rev up my blade, all the gathered light will be shot at him with the words, "UnionStar Helios Slash!"
It's a direct hit, I clearly saw the light go through him before exploding. He is on the ground with smoke coming off of him, the flame aura dwindled. Of course, he gets back up. It was a good hit, but it's really the first good hit this entire fight, even though I don't expect his health pool to be so large. He certainly has a more serious look in his eyes now. His flame largens. I am turned back into the Bloody Hail Processors.

Yeah, the fight inside my head is getting even more intense.
Snow Heart and Cold Soul have their blades burst into light and darkness, their clash shoots off flames of white and black as they keep pushing their weapons into each other. Not seeing any progress, Cold Soul, who had stopped smiling at this point, swiftly pushes Snow Heart back with a punch to the face.
Snow Heart quickly rebounds and goes in for a sword strike, or rather, a feint attack, she hit Cold Soul's blade with the flat end and quickly turned her blade to push her enemy's sword up.

She does that to kick Cold Soul in the gut, sending her flying. She flew right after Cold Soul to try and cut her, Cold Soul quickly lowers her back, moving below the sword slash. From under Snow Heart, she pushes herself onto her with her whole weight behind her sword. Snow Heart had a bit of difficulty standing strong(or floating strong?) Cold Soul, rotates upwards to her left before doing a great push that has Snow Heart tossed.

Cold Soul is now the one flying in to dice Snow Heart, only for Snow Heart to instantly disappear from her blade's reach. She had used Light Step to move above Cold Soul, and was about to plunge herself on top of the devil, Cold Soul may block the attack, but the strong strike throws her down onto the surface of this void. Snow Heart swoops down, Cold Soul parrying her blade attack whilst jumping past Snow Heart, who rolls over the ground in her landing during the aftermath.

Cold Soul flies backwards, and she gets chased by a blade of white light, she hops over it, with her firing a blade of black darkness back as she goes down. Snow Heart side-steps the horizontal flying black blade, and in the next second, she is being shoved back as she blocks a speedy thrust attack Cold Soul launched using Light Step. Snow Heart takes advantage of her sword's weight and size, easily swinging it at Cold Soul's neck, pushing her blade away. However, Cold Soul limbos beneath it. Her next action was jumping past Snow Heart, wrapping her dress tails around Snow Heart to throw her with a spin of her whole body.

Righter after she chucked Snow Heart away, she attempts to blast her with a Dark Magic Slash, but Snow Heart eludes it by flying a distance away. Cold Soul witnesses Snow Heart fly past her vision. Cold Soul bends her knees, preparing to take off. She flies after Snow Heart. At first she followed from behind, over time, she gets close to Snow Heart's side. Side by side, they keep their flight as their swords flowing with light and dark magic clash. Back and forth they swing their magic enchanted swords without stopping their flight, in between they try some quick stabs, those are the only attacks they might compromise a little speed to fly differently enough to avoid it. After a while, the two keep pushing their blades against each other, still not stopping their momentum. Their blades grew with more spiking energies of white and black.

Finally, the two stopped, their feet now planted on the ground, their blades are pushed to the side, their magic blasting off to Snow Heart's left or Cold Soul's right, the magic explodes next to them, and they still continue to clash blades with flames of white and black.
Eventually, Cold Soul had thrown the palm of her hand between the locked blades and managed to shoot Snow Heart off at the speed of light, of course, Snow Heart is me and is used to that speed. But it was perfect enough for Could Soul to shoot a blade of darkness at her.

Since Snow Heart is strong, she's not been send far, but that was for the better in Cold Soul's eyes, because it meant her blade needn't travel far to hit her. Snow Heart is enveloped in the dark slash, it bending as it overtakes her. After an explosion, Cold Soul perks up and shouts, "Yes! One more hit in for me! Take that!"
Unamused, Snow Heart lands down from the smoke, placing her hands on the ground. She send herself to Cold Soul at light speed.

The next instant, she swings her big blade from her lower right to knock Could Soul's blade up, then she casts explosion magic to fling the black blade from Cold Soul's hands along with her own sword. But the confusion gives Snow Heart a free punch in. After one fist, she beats Cold Soul up with fists of light. Relentless, never ending fists rain in on Cold Soul, one final punch blows her quite a bit away.

Snow Hear ascends into the air to grab her sword, then she flies towards Cold Soul who casually summons her blade out of a dark flash. Snow Heart comes close and smacks her sword against Cold Soul who barely parried. Cold Soul gets pushed into the air as Snow Heart shouts, "Cross Combination!", she jumps above Cold Soul right after and knocks her down onto the ground. Snow Heart doesn't spare a second and dives back down at her, Cold Soul however, was preparing a counter attack.

Snow Heart noticed it at the right second and blocks a blade right after Cold Soul shouts, "Critical Edge!", disappearing into nothing and reappearing right after the sound of a sword grinding against Snow Heart's was sound. Snow Heart may have guarded it, but it was in the nick of time. She looks a bit more anxious as she flies down to try and sweep Cold Soul with her sword. Cold Soul uses Light Step to speed into the air, eluding Snow Heart entirely.

Snow Heart chases her into the sky using the same move, but misses Cold Soul yet again for she escapes Snow Heart's pursuit with another Light Step. Snow Heart turns to her left and looks at Cold Snow. The two of them rev up their blades as magic bursts out of them. Both their blades had flowing spikey energy tails of light and darkness. They increased the size of this attack each time they swirl the blade around them.
"UnionStar Light Slash!", Snow Heart shouts.
"ShatteringStar Darkness Slash!", Cold Soul screams.
The two rough giant flying blades of light and Darkness blasts into each other, they combust, then change into an unstable orb of both light and darkness before then exploding once more.

The two fly into each other, both hitting each other with their blades as they came close, now they drop onto the ground after getting hit by each other's sword. They get back up to fight more.
Their intense fight has effect on me, now I constantly change back and forth into different processors. And it has been screwing with my fight against Tenchu.

In the beginning, I may find an opening to fly at Tenchu and kill him, only to get slower by changing into the Sweetch processors, allowing him to hit me with one of his ranged attacks like his light and dark fire combination explosion attack. Or I decide to take a hit, only to go back into Bloody Hail processors as I am inside a flame, taking far more damage. I've turned into that form plenty of times before getting hit, making sure I take more damage.

At some point, he stops using strong attacks. He just waits for me to turn back to sweetch processors the moment I get close and hit me. He isn't even slashing me as much as kicking me away because of how often it happened. He must be conserving SP, his attacks at range have only been shadows he summoned. He even summoned a bunch of mecha looking things from the shadows of the mountains next to us. Instead of real missiles, the missiles had spearheads on them. That among other odd creatures and giants had been things I had to deal with whilst constantly missing or getting hit because of miscalculations due to transforming to the wrong form. I am at my last healing item now.

Finally, I had thought to have a chance. With the Bloody hail Processors, my speed and attacking strength are at their highest. I relentlessly attack him whilst evading every counter slash from the shadows my blade of light casts. I overpower and out-speed him, staying close and not allowing him to use his flames has been my most effective strategy so far. Eventually, I cast explosion on his feet, which does trip him over. I go above the snow cloud before diving down to perform a strike, that was when he just disappeared. Wind Sense is not picking him up.

I dash away from the snow cloud. I already know he sneaked into my shadow. I fly in the air and shoot a blade of light down into my shadow, making him forcefully pop out. Wind blasts shakes the earth as I appear before him with my full strength put into this diving slash with my blade brimming with light I have absorbed.
"UNIONSTAR! HELIOS!", I scream as I am about to decapitate him…And there it is. I get into the sweetch processors, losing my speed, the attack goes over his head, creating a brilliant explosion behind him.

Tired and frustrated, I watch him get up from his ducking position. Cruelly smiling at me, he says, "EXE Drive Skill…"
A giant cyan flame blows me onto the ground a few dozen meters away.
Red, blue, green and yellow flames flare up and close in on Tenchu as his fire turned white. The flames mixed into him as they explode with his swords, "Flame Transmogrify!"
A golden flame takes the shape of a Qilin dragon with no horns, it had accents of the four colored flames around it with its golden scales and fangs making it look ferocious.
"Dragon of the Center, Emperor Fuang!", Tenchu shouts.

A shadow version of the same dragon appears behind me. They run towards me. They claw into me from opposite sides at they pass me. They go past me a consecutively, clawing and biting me each time. One has my arms in its jaw and the other my legs, in a spiral, they fly up into the sky before causing an explosion. My hands and legs are now free, but four other flaming beasts appear near me.

A white tiger smacks me upwards, a vermillion Phoenix knocks me into a black turtle to my left, who proceeds to body slam me with its shell, then I am dragged into the ground by an azure dragon.
On the ground, the two central dragons shoot flames of gold and black over me, then the two dragons combine together, turning into a monster of black and golden flames, they eat their flames and condense them into an orb of light and darkness. It blasts out into a huge beam that explodes into me creating a beautiful field of white and black.

Finally, the fused dragon jumps above me, inflating into a ball of fire.
"God Eclipse!", Tenchu shouts as I see what looks like a sun eclipsed by darkness. It drops onto me doing massive damage.
Such is how the attack ends. A devastating move that I only survived thanks to the Sweetch processors…I am so close to losing consciousness, but I am too angry to faint. Instead, I enter my own mind.

Snow Heart and Cold Soul hover close to the surface, they look at each other, their breathing rough and ragged.
"Opinion, this fight is taking longer than I would've liked.", Snow Heart says.
Cold Soul smiles in response, telling her, "Well, let's be fair here. All of us retain the same stubbornness."
"Declaration, my next attack will finish you.", Snow Heart announces.
Cold Soul scoffs, with a laugh she replies, "If it were that easy, this fight would've been over long ago. We can take the entire day…But you know? I shall meet your attack with my own."

The two have their swords blasting out light and dark magic. They fly towards each other, shouting as they are about to clash once more.
They stopped, immediately dashing back, for a blade of lights bursts between them, almost hitting them.
They look to their sides, to me. I shot a blade of light at them. I am using my own custom-made sword that halves all magic attacks.
I breath in and out hardly. I look at them, I hate them so much right now. I am furious.

"STOP YOUR FIGHTING RIGHT NOW!", I scream at them like I've never done before.
"Apologies, had we not mentioned our great battle was at this hour?", Snow Heart asks me.
"Yeah, we told you we would be fighting and your transformation would be screwed up.", Cold Soul speaks to me like I am mental.
"You two have been screwing up my forms constantly. I can't beat Tenchu like this. You occupy my mind and fight a battle I never authorized. This is such an important fight…So. QUIT! LEAVE ME ALONE!", I tell them off.

Cold Soul looks at me with pure disgust. I can taste the hatred in her voice as she shouts at me, "You have some freaking nerve! You said you were fine taking the risk! I told you not to bitch at us, now you demand we stop fighting?! WHO DO YOU THINK IS IN CONTROL HERE?!", her voice gets louder. She flies over to me at high-speed screaming, "DID YOU FORGET YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE?!"
I block her sword overflowing with dark magic, my sword halves its power. I slide my blade across hers as I shoot her off with Reflection.

Then I use Light Step to move in on her, I force her blade above her head as I argue, "I don't give a damn how strong you are! This is my mind! SO LISTEN UP!"
Despite her backing off and stabbing me, I move forward to headbutt her, then I blow her away with a Light Slash. I take the sword out of my chest and toss it aside. Cold Soul shut her mouth, she moved back to her original position and is attentively looking at me.

"I will not allow you two to fight in here any longer. And I won't take no for an answer, you hear me?!", I tell them.
"How could you speak to us like that?! We are the ones that give you your power?! You can't demand anything from us when it is us that lets you fi-"
I cut her off, in a rage, I scold her, "I DON'T NEED YOUR POWER!"
Both of them looked shocked at me.
Snow Heart tries to speak sense to me, "My master, I"
"SHUT UP! YOU ARE NO LESS GUILTY! DON'T PRETEND TO BE ON MY SIDE!", I scream at her.

Cold Soul is shaking, I sense an uneasy and sensitive tone as she asks, "What do you mean, you don't need our power. You think you can take Tenchu on alone, without transforming?"
I look at Cold Soul, my vision is almost unclear due to my anger, I tell her, "That's right! I don't need either of you! If you're going to just mess me up, I might as well discard your powers! This is MY fight, and I will fight it!"

Cold Soul almost looks scared as she steps forward and shakily shouts, "You're insane! It is only because of us that you got this far! What can you possibly do on your own?!"
"I DON'T CARE! LEAVE! I DON'T NEED YOU!", I scream at her.
Cold Soul looks to the ground. Then she looks at me irritated. She tells me, "Fine! Suit yourself! Like I care if you get killed!" She runs off into nothingness.

Snow Heart looks at me concerned. She reaches her hand out and says, "Master, I…"
But I refuse to acknowledge her, "YOU LEAVE TOO!", I scream at her.
"I only…Wanted to be on Master's side…", she says.
"You kept fighting as well! I don't care for the reason! You screwed me over no less! You want to help?! Go away!", I tell her.
She looks saddened. But she quietly says, "Understood…As you wish.", and fades away in silence.
My head is clear now…Maybe depressing with this black void…I look at the ground. Calming down. It is lonely in here… I have a fight to finish…So…

I wake back up. I get on my feet. I am clearly back to my human form.
Tenchu looks at me, he laughs for a few seconds.
"Why did you go back? Ran out of steam? It is unfortunate your power source is limited. You see, this flame composed of all four gives me an unlimited energy. Perhaps my SP is running dry, but my power isn't.", he mocks me.
"It's fine…I can beat you better like this.", I tell him.

He looks intrigued at me. He crosses his arms, waiting for whatever move I will do.
You're proud of yourself over creating that sword? That one weapon has you filled with so much glee?
I materialize two black blades. The black blade that controls magma and earth. The black blade that controls energy. I put the black blade of energy into my mouth. I hold my other two blades forward.
"Santouryu…", I say.
My big sister told me of a legendary swordsmen that uses three swords like this. Maybe there is merit to that?

I swore off using more than my own black blade in the event someone may take them. I find their powers to carry risk. And if I were being pretentious, I belief my victories aren't my own by using more than the one I made myself. However, I am up against someone who has such a blade. I must retrieve it. I can't allow him to win.
Of course, he recognizes my blades and reacts appropriately, "What is this? How do you have three of these blades?! The path to create just one altered my life!"

Exactly, one of these weapons can change someone's world. No mortal should have one.
His frustration fades away, despite everything, he is confident.
"Still. Having more than me isn't everything. Mine works perfectly with my ability. And I still have my flames to give me enhanced speed and strength.", he says before taking a stance, his face seeming more intense. He must be focused, knowing I am a major threat to him still.
I don't think he's bluffing, but his SP must be low, his health is lower than mine after the use of my last healing item, and regardless of his flame lasting forever, his aura isn't always active anymore, meaning even that has reached a limit.

I close my eyes. These three swords give you a lot of their abilities through imagination and sense. Tenchu has figured his one out really quick, most likely because it resonates with him. I've always been slow with special powers. I do remember how these two were used, and I think I can replicate that. What's true for both of us, with exception to the energy controlling blade's strongest moves, our swords do not use SP to perform their special abilities.

Flames burst out of Tenchu, then he guides them towards his sword, with a thrust, he throws them forwards towards me.
I think as long as the earth wall is thick enough, he can't burn through it?
I raise my left sword and make a thick wall of earth rise up the ground in front of me, blocking his flame. Of course, his flames had shadows to their sides, he made them rise and turn into flames of shadow that circle around me. He attempts to swallow me within these flames, I just turn the wall into a dome to protect me.

I make the dome shatter into boulders, I look at Tenchu as said boulders float around me. Now he looks more worried knowing I have a blade that can control earth, but it will get worse for him later. Now I throw the rocks at him, the simplest thing I could do. He heats up his flames, they intensify until turning white, then, with a wave from his sword, melts the rock away. But that won't stop the magma boiling underneath his feet. Perhaps through Shadow Sense, he saw it coming, and hopped away from the lava spewing out of the earth. The light of the lava creates a shadow he could shield himself with to make sure the spraying lava won't hit him.

"Tenkukan Giri", I say as I swing my head from left to right, creating a blade of air tha cuts through space itself. Probably sensing it by gut instinct, Tenchu ducks below it, within that moment, I already cast a new attack upon it. With the magma blade, I create this cannon of earth that shoots out a concentrated beam of lava the size of a car. Tenchu can barely dodge it, so he shouts, "Doton!", an earth spell that shoots himself into the sky, avoiding the lava beam.

But of course, that Doton also helps me shoot the same stone pillar after him. With the snow blade, I sculped the stone formation into a spear through the shockwaves generated by the snow. Tenchu is too preoccupied with the earthen spear flying up to him, whilst he was burning it to cinders, I shot another slash towards him with my energy blade. I cut him in half, but of course it isn't that easy, he switches with his shadow at the right time.

Firing off these air-slashes is difficult with my head. Maybe I should trade it with my other swords? But the other swords require movement for everything unlike this one…
Either way, having switched with his summoned shadow that escaped my eyes before, he now casts Shadow Clone Jutsu. He throws hundreds of Shuriken my way, and duplicates them with their shadows.

I take a deep breath. I feel like I am becoming one with my weapons. I can sense the wind blowing snow all around me… I curl my right arm in front of me, holding the blade down next to my shoulder. When I uncurl my arm, I shoot a blast of snow and light forward, dispersing most of the shuriken. I observe some of the shadow duplicates combine together to form a shadow body of Tenchu. It tried to cut my down from above my left shoulder. I don't even turn around, my left sword bursts into light as I casually uppercut the shadow, slicing it in half with the light combusting out of my slash.

I don't sense Tenchu anymore. He can be hiding inside my shadow again. Since I can't fly anymore, I won't be save just blasting my own shadow with light. But I have another plan.
I raise my left sword, thrusting it in the air which thrusts a rock formation from under my feet. The ground extends upwards, creating this large tower of earth, my shadow elongating. Now I cut off the shadow holding a sword of light below me, Tenchu is forced out of the side of the tower where my shadow could've been at.

I slightly push my sword down, making the earth tower crumble. Tenchu has no foothold and is falling as I am about to throw the pieces of the towers on top of him. With a swing of my left sword, he gets barrages by earth spikes. "Futon!", he shouts as he unleashes a kite from a device on his wrist and flies of with wind magic combined with his special flame. But I won't let him escape. I cast explosion from my feet and dive after him.

I'm sure he heard me, for he turns around to block my blades with his own black blade and a secondary wakizashi. As we struggle with our arms, he slowly raises his chest as he pushes me inch by inch.
"Was this your wisest move? As expected, with these flame I am far above your strength.", he says.
Is that false courage I hear?
My sword can manipulate energy, I can use some of my body's natural energy and direct it into specific muscles. Now I juiced up my arms, surprising him with my sudden strength boost. I knocked his blades away and aimed the point of the energy blade at him.

The blade of energy shoots a beam into him that pushes him down the surface. I don't know what he did, but when the beam explodes onto the ground, I see him doing back flips over the snow. Although, judging from the smoke, that beam still did plenty of damage.
I plunge into him, he condensed the flames into his sword and deflected my whole body to his left. Of course, it merely means I landed next to him, with a turn I can easily attempt another slash.

He may block it, but let's see how he reacts to a sword swing from the blade in my mouth. He bends his back backwards and lets the sword pass him by, since that also means there is nothing holding my other blades back suddenly, I got forced to step forward by my own strength. I move a bit past him with a spin and used the snow around Tenchu's feet to turn it into light, so I could blast it into him. He hops away, but I see his legs still took a bit of the hit.

I try to get him with an earthen spike shot out of the ground with my other sword, but he shouts, "Doton!", swirling earth around his hands from the ground before pushing some type of rock into the earthen spikes that messes up the formation. I shoot an energy beam at him right after, which he hops to his left to avoid.
I use the magma blade to make the earth shoot me forward, whilst using my energy blade to power up the muscles in my legs as I also use Light Step, all these skills combined, I am soaring into Tenchu at the speed of the fastest bullet in existence.

He slides over the ground, trying his utter best to stop himself from falling on his back. Whilst his blades have blocked me, I dunk my head onto his, delivering the slightest bit of pain. His flame flares up as he shoves me back with his own swords. Now I power my arms up with the energy blades, our strength is pretty close now. I'd say he might still be stronger. I make my neck and jaw stronger as I slam my third blade into his sword, together with my left blade, I push him to my right whilst my other sword gathered snow and light.

"CombinationStar Helios Slash!", I shout whilst he was still air-borne. He takes the full hit, taking decent damage. At the same time, a shadow blade is flying towards me, his counter-attack. I shoot myself in the sky thanks to my blade being able to launch earth out of the ground, the shadow hits the stone formation, and is turned into water that swirls around it. I know it is going to be flung up to me, so I have lava erupt to destroy said shadow. Except, that also creates more shadow, which is turned into thousands of needles flying towards me, I destroy it all with a beam launched from my energy sword. I gracefully land without interference. Me and Tenchu stare each other down.

"Shadow Bestiary!", he shouts, using the shadows of the mountain and himself to form a bunch of different animals and mechas. With his lack of SP, this may be his best move. Overwhelming me with numbers would help him.
I can feel it. The snow is me. I have the snowflakes move more frantically, creating a faux blizzard. He responds by summing the shadows of said snow, most likely to counter any attack I may perform with them. I can also guard myself turning some of that snow into light.

My three blades flare up with light before being condensed enough to not cast a thick shadow. With the magma blade, I can manipulate the earth around Tenchu, even if that also creates shadows that will attack me, it is worth it just to keep him at bay. Since the shadows are technically an extension of him, he needs to be focused to have them perform their best as well.
Tenchu hops and dashes around the landscape that is rapidly changing with my powers, in the meantime, I protect myself from incoming attacks of beastly shadows with spiked walls of stone.

I quickly, zoom forward with Light Step enhanced with energy, I outrun a bunch of bullets, then I makeshift some terrain to hop onto and off of to avoid incoming knife missiles, cutting some incoming beasts and shadow knights with my blades, all the while keeping Tenchu busy avoiding being squashed by stone and molten by lava. Of course, those attacks give him more shadows to throw at me, even if that ends up in an endless cycle of stone walls blocking them and lava vanquishing them, only to create shadows again that he can manipulate.

Three beast-men of shadow armed with swords and shields assault me from different directions. I block each of them with one blade, with a spin, I rotate them around me, then I cut one with my blade of light turning snowflakes into more blades of light, the other I destroy with lava, and the final one I kill with a beam from the energy blade. Before Tenchu could retaliate with shadow, I launch myself into the sky to attack a shadow mecha hovering high up.

I shove one blade into it as I place my feet on top of it to stay in the air for a few seconds, then I jump off to cut another to pieces whilst also annihilating another flying enemy with the energy blade. My blades of light fly into plenty of other enemies in the shadows, some kind of wyvern swoops in on me to try and claw me, but I cast explosion to vault over it, I stab in between its neck and wings and make it fly down towards the ground. Once close enough, I illuminate it to destroy it, then I cut a few more shadows up below me, whilst attacking Tenchu with more earth formations and lava, at some point I thought I trapped him inside a bunch of curved stone structures before filling it with Lava. But his shadows still attack me. I do spins as I create circles of earthly spikes around me that block and impale shadow monsters. I sense Tenchu running around me, I try to stop him with the many structures, but he is too agile and ends up jumping on one of the curved stone towers.

From there, he drops kicks me, I block it, yet I sense him quickly throwing his wakizashi and black blade past me. He had hid in the shadow of one the blades. He emerges and grabs the wakizashi to make me block it, in the meantime, he switches with his shadow, despite cutting through said shadow, I could barely block his attack after the real him grabs his black blade. His black blade was condensed with black and golden flames as he knocks me quite a distance away, in return, I shoot a beam of energy and lava at him, and have a bunch of stone structures curve around to plunge into him.

While he is busy with that, I am surrounded by stone structures that all shattered as shadow creatures break through it and attack me from all directions.
I make the snow around me swirl as I turn them into light, I let my three swords burst in light on top of that, with one strong spin, I shout, "Three Sword Illumination Tornado!", I created a tornado of Light Blades that tears the incoming shadows apart, including all the stone structures in the area.

My blizzard subsides, and I see Tenchu has escaped the stone structures. All the shadow creatures have been eliminated.
"Energy Spheres…", I say. From the energy blades, I summon a bunch of orbs of green energy. They are dimly lit and don't cast a usable shadow as they fly towards Tenchu.
I see him recoil with his face slightly distressed, I'm assuming he's actually close to his limits.
He screams as he releases a great golden flame to cast the orbs in shadow, he was able to stop them that way, but to prevent him from using more of those shadows, I unleash a wave of lava from a rift under the ground with the magma blade.

I see his own shadow walking out of the soon to collide lava wave and great fire. Tenchu must switch with him. I shoot an energy beam his way, which he still avoids. Right after Tenchu looks at me with a war face, squeezing what I think is his last bit of SP to shoot a concentrated beam of fire at me, and a shadow variant of it. The two beams curve around as he tries to catch me. I know he's going to combine them and blow me up, with my lower speed, I can't dodge it. So, I turtle up using the magma blade, I even dig myself down a bit as I create this stone barrier.

The black and golden fire melt most of the earth away, but there was one fatal mistake I have made. I see Tenchu smile as I sense his presence six times around me.
"How about that?! Have you forgotten about my shadow clones from the beginning of this round?! Huh?! Mighty Goddess?!", he shouts.
The clones had been hiding underground the entire time, only letting themselves get dug out using Doton when I myself made it easy for them.

They cling onto me with paper bombs put on themselves. They turned into suicide bombers that do some decent damage against me, but this attack was merely a distraction, he ran towards me to attack me. I block his first two swords and try to cut his face, only for him to stop me with a kunai he is holding in his mouth. The smoke from the bombs fade, giving me a closer look at him. The Kunai was actually some kind of inhaler. I have no time to think, before anything, he also ignites a bomb from his torso, switching that part with his shadow so he won't take the damage.

But it wasn't just an explosion, it was a gas bomb. He won't breath any of it in and can also switch with his shadow who had stayed at his original position. Now I am poisoned whilst he is back to original position having taken no damage in this exchange.
His confidence returns, telling me, "It's a shame we can't mass produce poisons against goddesses, but even regular poison will knock you out at least."

He is right. I am on a timer now. What he doesn't know is that the poison won't be able to knock me out either, only drain my health to an extent. I am undead after all, not a goddess. But we are both on a timer. The sun behind him has been lowered already. Once it goes down, he won't be able to use much of his shadow sword, and he is out of SP. I have about a quarter left. This fight is closing soon.

I move the snow around me with Yukishihai. He swiftly responds with, "Another Blizzard? Haven't you realized I can just copy it?"
He'll change his tune soon. I use the magma blade to mix the hot lava with snow, I intend to create a dense steam cloud that won't go away. It is difficult to keep it continuous, but it would stop him from creating shadows. It feels a bit ironic, because this technique would be ideal for a ninja.

I shoot myself off forwards with the powers of light, earth and energy, he blocked the blade in my mouth with his black sword, but the sheer force that shot me forward pushes him back quite far, he blocks the dual slash from the blades wielded within my hands with the wakizashi, which I knock out of his hands right after slamming both blades into his hand, one sword used to slam the wakizashi, the other to push it out of his hand after. He jumps back and aimed his blade at me as he converges the flames into it. He throws a flame my way, it was a regular attack with no SP in it, I can easily dodge it.

I move on him with Light Step, he tries to parry whatever move I use at him, but I use both my blades to knock his sword to my left, at the same time, I placed my right foot further to my right as I use light step to go past him, the blade in my mouth slicing past him. But where I stand now, he had already laid a trap. He threw a bunch of bombs off the ground hidden in the snow with string and blows me up.

In return, I quickly shoot a green beam at him, he steps right next to it and moves under it, running with his body really low to the ground. He reaches me and tries to slash me, but I just dual strike him with two blades, which prevents him from assaulting me, for he is too busy defending himself with his one blade. The energy controlling blade in my mouth sheened a green light for a second, that was a charge up for a forcefield shockwave, strong enough to push Tenchu away, but relatively harmless otherwise.

With him tossed over by about 10 meters, I can easily dash to him, I hold my left blade horizontally so that it will slam into him alongside my mouth blade automatically. Forced to block it, he was open for a stab, I had already prepared my right blade, thrusting it from my right hip, I throw Tenchu further backwards.
As Tenchu is still airborne, I create an earth wall with a lot of spikes behind him, hoping he'd fly into it. With great difficulty, he unleashes flame from himself and barely creates a shadow of himself he can summon.

The shadow jumps to the side, safe from the spikes. He then switches himself with the shadow before the spikes could skewer him. I shoot more stone out of the earth around him, I see him hop and run on curving stone structures before timing his jump right with one big stone slab thrusting out of the ground to get himself high in the air. I shoot a light slash his way, but he dives under it and then strikes me with his sword, I block it with two blades. He's using a lot of strength and actually shoves me back a little. I think to attempt a slash against his face with the blade in my mouth, but just before I can do that, I sense him opening his mouth wide.

He gathered flames around and inside his mouth and is about to spew it at me. Thanks to my small size, I dodged by ducking really low, on one foot. The other leg I use to kick him away from me.
After my kick, I do a leap forward to get into a proper posture. As for Tenchu, he throws a bunch of kunai and shuriken at me. I run forward, with three blades, I can rotate as I deflect projectiles whilst moving forward. A third sword is difficult to use, but can come in handy for some things I guess.

Moving closer, I do a turn, one blade swinging after the other, he parries the first blade, jumps over the second, and he somehow blocks the third in mid-air with his leg…I see, he attached two blades on his front legs that reaches his feet, they are set ablaze alongside his sword. He pushes me back with a kick, once below me, he forces me to hop back and avoid a back flip kick. I come in to slash him with both handed blades, which he blocks with his one blade, and he tries to kick me on the side my mouth blade isn't pointing at, forcing me to use Light Step to his right. Once there, I try to slash him with my right blade, but he bends his knee as he raises his leg to receive it, then he extends the same leg, kicking my blade over my right shoulder with a great push, he tried to cut me with his black blade in that same motion, but I parry it with the blade in my mouth.

I thought I could sneakily stab him in his left side, but he performs a jumps and stops my sword, it sliding over the blade on his right leg. Since he is in the air, though, I can push him above me. But at the same time, he spews fire from his black sword down to me. I skittle to the side and shoot an energy beam back, which he goes under, he tries to hit me with shuriken as he goes down, but I can use the snow to create shockwaves that knocks them away. He pushes me back with a sword strike I had to block with both blades, he immediately kicked his feet forward, his blades going under my two swords, until I turned them to opposing sides to block his feet blades whilst also preventing his main sword from hitting me with my mouth sword.

To stop him from attacking me once more, I summoned earth from under him, which gets him quick to run away. It doesn't stop him from dashing right at me again, we clash blades once more, mine filled with light and his burning with flame. At this point, I have little SP to waste and he has none, this fight stays in close quarters without any special attacks…Until I decided to use the magma sword to shoot earth from the surface, creating whole new landscapes as I try to catch Tenchu.

With his agility, he moves on and off the earthen walls, pillars, slopes, boulders and sometimes is able to go past me performing a sword swing, though of course, I block his attack each time. I myself will use the earth to move closer to him as well. At some point, I have an earthen slope created right in front of my feet as I run on it, with Tenchu running next to me on the side of another earthen wall I had already made. We jump at each other, not able to get past each other's defenses. We quit locking our blades and backed off as we gracefully land on the surface.

A few seconds of silence, I can see Tenchu breathing heavily. This is it. He's run out of Stamina. I assume he still can fight, but he won't keep up with me for long. I suppose I have a lot of stamina, fighting people for entire nights and all. Never mind that he is a professional ninja, an assassin. His work involves killing people before they even have a chance to fight back. He must not be used to long fights like these. He reached his limit.

I move forward, my hands under my arms. I suddenly swing my left blade to my right to make him dodge an earth spike on his left, as he jumps away from it, I use Light Step and the magma blade at the same time, creating a small wall I instantly can stand on to launch myself at him. He was in position to block me, but I didn't shoot myself too close to him, so he dodges me triple sword slash instead, as I wanted. The moment he dodges, he got ready to block another attack, but I feinted my next slash, instead, I cast explosion on his leg. He desperately tries to block my next slash, even that is according to plan, I put no effort in that swing. I used Light Step to move back to his right, I effortlessly shoot a beam at him before Light Stepping away again. he dodges the beam and returns fire with a flame thrower.

I block it with an earthen wall and throw that wall over at him, it making an irritating noise as it slides over the ground. He dodges it as I circle around him more. I shoot myself into him using the same three powers combined as I've done many times, this time, he could only block my incoming attack to his right flank.
I did a spin before slamming all three blades into him, all burning with light that combine together, with one more push, I blast him away with light magic. He gets flung out of the steam cloud, leaving a big hole behind.

I use the three powers to shoot myself into the sky, my swords beaming with light.
"ShootingStar…", I say as I let my blades flare up with light again. I do cartwheels in the air until the three light combine into a big rough blade of light that I shoot at him shouting, "Helios Slash!"
He looks panicked as he just lands on the ground. He has shadows summoned to protect him, yet, he was too late, most of the attack covers him and explodes. The shadows merely prevented him from getting knocked out then and there.

As he clings to his blade stabbed into the ground, I summon lava next to him. This creates a shadow. He makes some type of shadow forcefield with it. This also means he can't actually see me well now. I grab a knife, I concentrate light magic only at its tip, then I shoot it at him at light speed. I am aiming for his foot. The light concentrated at the tip of the knife allowed it to penetrate the shadows, I sense it piercing through his left foot.

I land back down near him.
Despite him clearly being in pain, he stands up, his right foot supporting him.
I hold my blade out, and I see his flame flare up as we both shout, "EXE Drive Skill!"
"FusionStar…Helios Slash!"
"Hikari no Kage, Yakigiri!"
His EXE Drive doesn't require him to move, nor does it cost SP. It was his best action. At the same time, I am at such a high, combined with my own EXE Drive skill, I easily cut through his projectiles. Even if they combine together into a Yin and Yang sign that is meant to burn me down, my giant sword of light cuts it apart. Our moves blow up on us, dealing damage to us all the same.

Being quite a distance away from him after, I decided to just run. He can't move with that leg anymore and he is out of breath. There is no chance to fight me-
I fall down on one knee. My vision blurs for a second.
The poison…
I breath in deeply. I stand back up. I mustn't move a lot in order to get a clear vision. Our time limit is up. The sun behind him has mostly sunken, only a sliver of light remains. At the same time, the poison has drained me to my last legs. This fight won't last a minute.

"It's over…Tenchu. Your shadow over this land is fading…", I tell him.
He looks at me angry. He asks me, "How dare you? You…Come out of nowhere…"
Regaining some energy of some kind, he shouts in rage, "How can my 10-year-old plan fail to some bitch no one has ever heard off?! I sacrificed so much for this?! Do you know how many tools I've given up?! Do you not understand how much of an effective tool I've made myself to our nation! All ninja are tools for war! Screw your peace! I will reclaim our place in this world! I won't let some unwanted Goddess foil what I have worked so hard for!"

He raises his blade and shouts, "Shadow Society!"
First he unleashes a large flame that casts a nice shadow. Even though the mountains' shadows aren't as large, there was enough to summon, and summon he does. He combines most shadow into himself, hiding himself behind a monster made of pitch-black darkness…Actually, it looks purple now. All with golden glowing eyes and red horns. Its main body was very round, its legs were round stumps whereas his arms were thick and muscular.

All ninja are tools?
"Hey…?", I utter. I instantly got his attention.
"When you say all ninja are tools…Do you mean Dragonette as well?", I ask him.
"Of course! That is what shinobi society is all about! We die and live to serve our masters! That is why we get strong! Weak tools' only use is to get discarded! That is why I trained them to be excellent shinobi! Our lives are nothing but betrayal and assassination, so we can only trust out]r own strength and serve our lords! Kill all those that fail to do so!"

I think I understand the problem.
"I think you're wrong.", I flat out tell him.
The shadow monster looks at me confused for him.
"Maybe you were right…And maybe, that was necessary at once. Now with not only peaceful days, but also great allies, is such a thing even necessary? Did you even look at this generation of ninja? How many of them fight for their friends and smile towards the future? I can feel it, you know? Their share energy… You must've been confused, because your loneliness used to be advantageous, but now it is useless and strength is all you have left. You didn't even consider bonding with your daughters… I might've become like you at some point…And now, I have friends I trust to help me. And I will go back home with them, happy I have them. What will you return home to, I wonder?"

"Nonsense! My greatest care was making my daughters strong to survive as ninja! This new generation won't survive as ninja, nor will they stay as ninja. Ninja will disappear, I must not let that happen…I…Don't care…", he voiced his convictions, albeit, his voice grows weaker, like he doesn't understand what he is saying. If power warped his perception, I guess he actually hears what he's saying for once and at least realized he stopped caring about the ideal he spouts now.
"You can't find me within this shadow! Come as you wish, you shall die?! What are you going to do, Goddess?!", so he asks. I wonder if that is his corrupted personality speaking or his genuine one.

Either way, I've seen enough. I'm sorry, Dragonette, but I won't forgive anyone who works with SCJP.
I close my eyes. The poison has me physically weakened… But so close to the edge of dying a second time, I feel my mind closest to nature as it has ever been. These blades have the power to change nature. I have never been so attuned to their power. I feel the snow, the earth plates moving, and the energy surging and resting in my body. A volcano is thrust out of the ground, erupting, its great lava behind me reducing the shadows Tenchu can take advantage of as its light illuminates the opposing direction of his flame.

Meteorites are shot out of the volcano. A bunch of shadow monsters flying off the shadows of the mountains gather to charge at me the second I move. I can't move much, I must make one swift jump.
The snow around me turns to blizzards, the snow glowing with light by my magic. My remaining SP will be put into this attack.
I hold my arms crossed below my chest as I hold the blades next to my shoulders. Energy is charging within my legs and feet whilst a blazing white trail of magic is bursting from under my feet.

"ATTACK!", Tenchu shouts, all of his shadow creatures flying my way, some of them turn into spears, needles, flames, water, lightning, spikes, and much more. At the same time, shooting earth from underneath me in sync of kicking myself forward, at hyper-sonic speed, I fly towards Tenchu. Earth spikes shoot out from the ground as meteorites fall down, taking care of most of the monsters. The blizzards shoot white glowing snow into shadow attacks, eliminating them. More shadows miss me as I move too fast for Tenchu to accurately hit me.

With this high, I have never gotten such control over my snow blade. I can sense each snowflake…I turn a few into light, creating small blades to poke holes into Tenchu's shadow armor. I do it just enough to have wind blow inside. I make a guess as to where he is hiding inside the shadow armor.
He tries to slam me with one of his arms now that I am too close, naturally, he misses me, for I am too fast.
I unfold my arms as I slash through his shadow with three blades shouting, "Demon Slash!"
The shadow armor is torn apart as I land behind him, he falls on his back, his clothes having three big rips in them. As all shadow creatures fade away, it is safe to say, it is my victory.

The sun has set, only the night sky remains. I take the sword out of my mouth. Looking up as my shoulders sink…I have to take a moment to calm myself. My body still feels shaky from the fight. I turn around to walk to Tenchu's body. I hear him cough.
"You're still alive?", I ask him without a single emotion. I am too tired to care. I know I've beaten him already anyway.
"Not for long…", he says.

I stay quiet for a bit…Then he speaks up, "I have just realized…I let myself get consumed by this blade. I genuinely wanted to reshape the world for ninja…and for Lowee. But as I got close to reaching that goal, I stopped caring about everything, including my daughters…It doesn't seem right…My goal didn't change, I believed in it intensely, but I also didn't feel anything for it after getting that sword… When I shouted at you, I realized it. My goal didn't need to be achieved like this…That I've lost my reasoning along the way, my true desires warped by vane ones…"

I frown at him…I don't think he's going to apologize. I don't want to hear it either.
He takes a breath…Then he asks, "My daughters…Can they really survive this new era? Are you sure you didn't just doom them by stopping me?"
"…Dragonette will be fine.", I say after not being able to think of anything.
He desperately leans on his head to see me. I then pound my chest and say, "Because I will protect her!"
He relaxes. Sounding satisfied with that, he says, "I understand now…Maybe the new ages won't have shinobi…I hated the thought. That was selfish of me. Even if they aren't 'Shinobi', my daughters will be important to this world regardless…And a lot happier…"

"Well, as long as you get it.", I tell him.
He chuckles. Now he says, "Well, my time is up…And so, the flames will return…"
I see. With his damaged body, he can't handle all four flames released from him. They are the only things giving him the energy to live.
Red, blue, green and yellow shoot up into the sky. Within a second, the skies are filled with dancing flames of four colors, illuminating the whole snow field. I am entranced by its beauty.

But somehow, it doesn't make me happy. I look back at lifeless man, a shadow covers him, even now. I grab his black sword.
These blades are not meant for this world.
I put it in my inventory alongside the magma and energy blades. I carry Tenchu's body as I head south. I'm not worried about an attack. If anything ends the war, these lights would do it.
The poison has worn off, with it not able to consume anymore HP, it basically just died off. I get to the complex of apartme-
What the heck?
Everything is blown up over there. But I do see huge swaths of ninja. I throw Tenchu's body at them.

Now all eyes are on me as I walk down a slope of a crater. I can see Enma and Acclaim in the center.
"That is…Master Tenchu!", I hear shouting. I raise my blade to the sky.
"This war…IS OVER!", lady Enma shouts.
"It was over about half an hour ago…", Leo of the Ninja Tortoises replies to her.
"Some people were fighting, ain't that right?", Mike says in jest.
"That's because they are battle crazy!", Enma says back in frustration.

I look over to see Marvelous, Kagura, and Wolf fighting three other ninja. They look over to us. Marvelous and Kagura smiling awkwardly, whereas Wolf quietly sheaths his blade and retreats.
"So…Was it all true? Had Tenchu betrayed us all?", one of the ninja asked.
"It is true. We would never betray the goddesses. Don't you realize that? We had a Goddess on our side the entire time!", Enma tells them.
They look at me again.

I should spin the story a little to make their boss appear more positive or sympathetic, I think?
"Listen. I defeated Tenchu. He used the energy spent on this war to create a black blade that controls all shadows… He may have done it for the ninjas, he was desperate. He wanted you all to be important to this world again, and he was taken advantage of by SCJP! Your leader died realizing his vision was mistaken! That in this new age, all of you will be important regardless if it is as ninjas or not! He let himself die, releasing these flames so you can move on!", I tell them.

I see all of them scurry around. They are having heavy discussions. But I can tell from their eyes, what I've said has made them consider this new future that await us. Either way, I move over to Enma.
"Um…This feels awkward…But…", I try to talk to her.
"Could you…Heal me?", I ask her.
"Did you also use all of your healing items?", she asks me.
"Also?", I ask her in return. Like, I fought multiple enemies, who needed all of the healing items.

I look next to her. Acclaim hasn't moved at all. His arms look busted.
"What happened to Acclaim?!", I ask her.
"Leader…You've won. As expected of you.", he tells me.
"Be proud later, tell me what happened!", I demand.
"Your friend has broken through his limits, his arms are not only damaged, his brain needs some attentive healing.", Enma explains to me.
His fight was that hard?

I look around for Yume's body. If anyone were strong enough, it would be Tenchu's second in command. I think I sense her through the wind. She isn't dead. Somehow….This Crater…
"Was this crater made by Acclaim by chance?", I ask her, uncertain.
"I believe so. He was at the epicenter when we arrived. We witnessed a gigantic explosion before arriving.", Enma tells me.
That's crazy.
"There have also been sightings of mountains cut up somewhere west of here, do you know anything about that?", Enma asks me.
I look to the side. Oh, right….
"Ask Falcom.", I silently say.

"I see. I shall have some conversations with her about damaging the environment. Worst comes to worst…There may be a fine.". she says.
Ugh…Please, Falcom, take the bill, we're broke.
Enma giggles. Then she says, "I'm kidding of course. I should be grateful the recorded dead toll so far has been exceedingly low."
She throws something at me. I catch it. It feels like a plant.
"Eat that. It should get rid of any remnant poison and heal you up.", so she says.

I take in in and feel a bit better. Now that my high is over, I can feel a wave of exhaustion.
Looking behind me, I sensed a few people walking over to us, I can see Sili-san helping Theresa walk over to us next to Dragonette who is carrying her sister, Maone.
Happy, Sili-san runs over to me, carrying Theresa with him who was too excited seeing me to care. The two fall over as they reach me.
"Ah! Leader! You won!", Theresa says excitingly before dropping her head back on the ground.

"Is it over so soon?", Sili-san asks me with a smile. He tries to get back up, but he struggles.
"It seems you two had it rough, huh?", I ask them.
"We are overdue on sleep…", Sili-san says. he tilts over Theresa, who has already fallen asleep. He sits cross legged, I doubt he has more strength to walk.
"It's not a matter of taking much damage, we've just never fought for so long.", he tells me.
He looks over to Acclaim and asks, "What happened to you?!", concerned.

"I'll let Enma explain that. I need to talk.", I tell Sili-san. I saw Dragonette walking over to Tenchu's body. She must have some questions, I would assume.
After walking over to her, I tell her, "I'm sorry. Dragonette. I couldn't spare your father…"
After some silence. She breaths in. She looks at me. I see a serious face at first, but she gives me a smile and assures me, "It's fine, Bios. I was expecting as much to happen…I haven't spoken much to him, even after I returned…And I couldn't even recognize him as my dad anymore…"

I look over to Tenchu.
"At the end, he held on to life to just say he regretted his actions. I think he recognized his mind being warped. He said something along the lines of him being happy if you choose to not be a ninja, but maybe something else important. I think that goes for Maone too.", I tell her.
Dragonette slightly looks away from me, I can't see her eyes through her air, only a warped smile. She says, "Is that so?"

She must have mixed feelings, there is no other way. I mustn't pry.
After a moment of silence, Dragonette said, "You really did defeat him. I knew as much. But thinking about it, something weird happened, didn't it? He already looked younger than before, but now I barely can tell he's my dad. Never mind Sis' Yellow Flame just disappeared.", Dragonette said.
Overhearing our conversations, Kagura, along with Marvelous and Wolf had moved next to us.

Kagura elaborates, "The flames can make their user younger. Revitalize their energy. With one flame, they will stay at fighting age…All our flames went into the air. Tenchu must have taken all four of them."
"Kagura, you're so smart.", Marvelous tells her.
"It was just basic deduction, though.", Kagura says back with a wry smile.
"It is true. He used all four flames to fight me. That was when he got so young.", I tell them.

Dragonette makes a noise that insinuates confirmation.
After that, Marvelous says, "I'm surprised…Dragonette, right? You turned to the other side? I heard you were ruthless."
Kagura also adds, "Yeah, I saw you work once. I thought it was brutal."
"It's a long story. Bi-", before she could say my name, I tell her, "Dragonette, my name must not be used. Call me Suno here."
"I see…Suno and I have been friends for the longest time. But I didn't remember her, or something like that. With my memory restored, I knew what I had to do. Unfortunately, Sis had no time to recollect her memory, so I knocked her out.", she says.

Kagura gives her an awkward laugh looking at Maone, and says, "I see…That is why she's on your back…", then she quietly notes to herself, "In one way, your violent work is still the same…"

The sky is getting darker. I look above us and see the flaming lights that danced in the skies gathering into stars. I see a red, green and yellow auras entering Marvelous, Kagura and Maone. I look over to where I sensed Yume's body and see the blue flame returning to her. Now the sky is nothing but stars. A few of our allies bring out a bunch of lanterns.
"Our flames have returned…", Kagura says as she and Marvelous are observing their bodies.
"What a strange feeling.", Marvelous comments.

"I think that is a sign we should move.", Enma says, having already come close to us.
We all look at her.
"The walled off village is undamaged, it would be the best place for most of us to rest. I've already got your friend on a cart.", Enma says to me.
I look aside her and see Acclaim loaded up on a plank of wood with four wheels and a cart handle.

The war is over. All of us headed to the village behind the walls. Many of the ninja carried their comrades with them. Of course, some are still going to jail, the ones that swore loyalty to Tenchu, even knowing his plans. It must be a judicial nightmare.
On the way, Falcom stood waiting for us.
"Ah, I was wondering where you guys were. The war's over, then?", she says.
"That's right…", Enma had gotten silent as she saw Falcom drag a man in a suit, she asks her, "Who is this."

"I was looking for the one working directly with Tenchu. From those evil organizations the Goddess told me about. It would seem their leader swapped places with an underling.", Falcom explains. The man she's carrying is making terrified noses. He looks oddly realistic. Why is there a photorealistic character in an anime game? Or…Anime fanfiction?
Falcom throws him in front of our group. She tells me, "Suno. I think you are a better judge of what to do with this man."

I look over to Enma.
"His ilk committed grave crimes against us, but you informed me he was your enemy. I think it is fair that you judge him.", Enma tells me.
I walk over to the man and ask, "Who are you. What is your relation with SCJP?"
His head between his elbows, he cowers before me, not answering.
"I see. I guess I'll just kill you then. Someone who can't talk is worthless.", I say, showing no mercy.

He shudders. Then he looks at me and says, "I-I…I am vice president of Justit Info B.V…P-please, I didn't know about the great ninja war and the black blade of shadows."
"No one mentioned either of those things…", I tell him.
"N-no…I mean…. uh! Listen, I may have worked for Dream…But it wasn't like I WANTED her to cause a war.", he's trying to talk his way out of it.
"It seems he may not be that important. He was thrown away so easily after all…", Enma points out.

I cross my arms. This guy is obviously deserving of punishment. But he may not be important enough to really call this a victory over SCJP…
I look over to Theresa, she's woken up and is cowering behind Sili-san's leg.
"Do you know this guy?", I ask her.
She doesn't look scared as much as…she's in despair? She nods and says, "He showed up…Often…"

I look back at him his face is drained. He must realize he is on thin ice.
"So…What is your name…Mister vice president?", I ask him.
"I…It's…Arcadia…", he is barely able to bring his name out.
"I remember that name being on the list.", Acclaim tells me.
"Theresa. Did he hurt you?", I ask her.
She looks at me depressed, she gives me a weak nod.
"I see…Then the next step is obvious, isn't it?", I say, looking at the man with disgust.

"Huh?", he looks at me puzzled.
"Sili-san. Cover Theresa's eyes, will you?", I ask him.
The ninja in suit turned their lanterns off. Covered in pitch darkness. No one can see me.
"Flash Step. Terakami.", I say as I use Light Step and use an unsheathing technique with light magic to make a clean cut with my sword.
Anyone who works for SCJP, I won't forgive. Even Moreso, anyone who hurt my friends will not survive.

…

…

As much as that soured the mood at first. After we marched back home, everyone was at high spirits.
I guess it may be related to me essentially eliminating an agent of the organization causing this mess, they must see it as a representation of their woes being cut away. Even Theresa looks happier.
But, we've done enough today. The victory feast will have to wait a bit. For all night and even most of noon, we took a long rest.

The next evening, a party is organized around town and inside the castle. The more prominent members of the war are inside the castle. This feast was necessary to boost morale, recover fatigue, and also, to restore relationships between the various ninja clans. Enma and Kuroi had been busy with a few other clans to make sure only the loyal and greatest sinners stay imprisoned. I assume they have ways to make sure no one lied. At first I was a little worried, this party seemed like the perfect time for an assassination. I see Wolf in the corner watching over us, occasionally eating some kind of sweet rice ball.

Luckily, the atmosphere feels super light, I doubt any assassination is going to take place. As more food comes out, and more of the silly people in this party keep talking about stupid things, the more everyone just kind of winds down and goes with the overly jolly mood. Long tables across the whole upper floor, with the walls temporarily removed, we all had a feast in front of us.

Me, Acclaim, Theresa and Sili-san sit in front of Enma and Kuroi. The Ninja tortoises are a bit further from the middle enjoying some pizza with their master, he seems a bit frustrated with how loud they are. On the opposite end, I see Marvelous eating Futomaki next to Kagura who is just devouring large quantities of meat that has some of the ninja around the two take their distance. They sense danger from her, I think.

To my right was Dragonette, and in front of her was none other than her older sister.
"Parties like these are never held with other ninja. This may be the only time all of us can relax.", Kuroi says.
"It surprised me, too, you know?! With all of us potential threats to life, a party was unthinkable! So my dad taught us.", Dragonette replies.
Maone is a bit quiet. She sips on some tea, and keeps her head low as she places it down.

"Right… Since we were all potential enemies, something like this would be impossible…Never mind that other ninja would frown upon this. It would be leisure when our lives should be devoid of such…", Maone says.
We look at Enma, who looks pretty satisfied to say, "It was Marvelous and Kagura's idea, Lord Kuroi really liked it as well. In the past, we ninja would often fight each other. We could never relax and just goof off. But, times of peace came, and many of the younger generation only fight each other without the intend to fatally harm.", Enma says.

"As bad as Tenchu was, he did manage to inspire a lot of the ninja here with his last words. Ninja aren't over, they just transform to something suitable with the peaceful times. The next generation shows us the kind of relations we can have now. Friends, rivals…And when it comes down to it, we will fight those that harm the four nations. We can do it together now.", Kuroi says.
"Still, is it not slightly naïve? Won't there be evil ninja hiding as well?", Acclaim asks.
"Of course. But so will evil police officers, warriors, companies, doctors, scientists, and whatever other group you can think of. But that is okay, they will just make us stronger!", Kuroi answers with grit.

"Fighting evil makes you stronger…Huh?", I say as I look at a cup of sweet cherry flavored juice. I see my reflection and say out loud, "I can't help but agree with your reasoning…"
"Yeah. As long as we don't get crippled, okay?", Sili-san says, sounding half joking.
He looks at Acclaim and asks, "We don't need more injuries…I mean. Are you even healing?", he asks Acclaim.
"I can move and think fine. My copy ability hasn't restored, and my arms will take a long time to repair.", Acclaim states.

Enma tells us, "He should stay for a week. I can help make sure he fully recovers within that time."
"Speaking of his last fight. What happened to Yume?", I ask Enma.
Kuroi answers instead, "Since she is one of the four flames, we can't execute her. Not that I have the intention of executing anyone. But if a flame dies, their flame is returned to the heavens and will be given to someone. We don't know what the conditions are, they could be random or fate. We have always preferred they are transferred to a pupil. Since a flame user is important and meant to be a high-ranking member of shinobi society, we'd need to convince her to do community service instead of long jail time.", Kuroi explains.

"I see, dealing with a person who has a holy power is difficult.", I say.
"It was already difficult to convince others to fight Tenchu on basis of his status, him being a flame wielder made it even more difficult.", Kuroi says.
I hear Maone drop her cup pretty hard on the table.
She looks at her younger sister and says, "Sister…I must say Sorry!"
Dragonette looks taken aback at her older sister.

"I sided with father. I still loved him as I do all family…And I was afraid. I caused many problems for you. I'm sorry! I don't deserve this Yellow Flame. You were always better than me, you should have it!", Maone says.
Dragonette gives her a confident smirk and says, "I don't need it!"
Maone leans forward confused as she asks, "What do you mean?"

"I'm fine. I have come this far with my own strength. And I have this naginata! If I wanted a flame, it will be one of my own making. Besides…I may be stronger than you, and you may have been on the wrong side, but you care a lot more about this society. I think the flame is fine with you. You may have been on the wrong side, but you didn't have your full memory! I say, there is no shame. Relax at this party, and become an even better ninja.", Dragonette says.
Maone looks like she's about to cry. I kind of want to look away and let them have their moment.

I see Falcom joining in with Marvelous and Kagura, eating some of Kagura's meat, which got them into an argument. Strider, one of the special ninja shouts at the tortoises for accidentally throwing some pizza on him. Some weird girl with a robot frog are doing weird food experiments, with some ninja intrigued, others annoyed. Despite the little annoyances here and there, everyone seemed to be having a good time. Their angry shouting is often a mask for the laughter they try to withhold. We have a nice view of the party outside, with all the other ninja talking rudely to each other, punching each other, then having a laugh.

This must be what they mean with the new generation of ninjas.
I think I can smile too…I look to my left and see a bombshell of craziness. There are hundreds of plates in front of Theresa. She exhales and leans on her chair, almost falling over.
"Wow…That is a lot…", I say.
"Wow, girl can eat!", Sili-san comments.
"I have never seen you eat that much…", even Acclaim couldn't help but say something.

"I used a lot of magic. Using Magic by constantly recovering SP costs a lot of energy. I would already need to eat plenty to cast magic a lot normally, I need even more to be back at full strength.", she says all of that, it is funny how she shot up, then tries to look calm as she explains herself, only to sound more embarrassed the more she kept talking. Everyone is looking at her with smiles and she just replies, "What? I don't understand what you are looking at me for!"
Everyone is having fun…That's great…
A thud can be heard…Oh, it is me…I have…Fallen…Asleep…

I got an earful when I woke up the next day. I can't help being sleepy at random, okay? I used to be able to sleep for days, that is hard with my current occupation.
For the next week. We took a nice vacation staying here. I think Big Sis will probably hear news of Tenchu's defeat. Enma asked me if they should mention our help and get our names cleared, but I preferred big sis knowing as little of us as possible. Besides, I think Big Sis will give more to the ninja village if she thinks they resolved this issue themselves.

It's the dawn of a new week. After we went through the rift guarded by two slightly annoyed guards(Sorry for putting you to sleep and tying you up) we get stopped by a familiar voice.
"Oi! Bios! You can't just leave!", Dragonette says, jumping off from the plateau the rift is in.
She's using my real name again…
"We didn't just leave, we announced we would go today.", I replied to her.
"What are you saying? We're supposed to leave together…Actually, did you not read any of my letters?", she asks me.
"Letters?", I ask her bluntly, I have no clue what she is on about.

"Those were yours?", Acclaim asks.
"How come you know, and Bios doesn't?!", Dragonette asks with a straight face.
"Well…They kind of reeked so I assumed they were poison and burned them…", Acclaim says.
Dragonette looks at him aghast, and I honestly also can't help but stare. What?!
"Why didn't you tell me? Usually you give me all information?", I asked him.

"My mind was still being healed by mistress Enma. A lot of thought patterns were irregular.", he says.
"That wasn't poison! It was my perfume! Some ninja use perfume to make sure the receiver knows who send the message!", Dragonette states, her tone making it seem she's still in disbelief.
"You wear perfume?", I ask her.
"Now that you mention it. I can smell something off of you.", Sili-san comments.

"Of course! I may be a simple fighter, but I am still a woman! In fact, you should wear perfume, too, Bios.", so she says.
I am out of words. Is it wrong not to? Did I miss something? I think she can tell I'm stunned.
She sighs. Now she relaxes and says, "Well, we can figure that out later. Maybe you won't need it."
"So, may I ask that you state your business, miss Dragonette?", Acclaim says to her.

"Oh right. Well, I am obviously joining your group!", Dragonette says.
Everyone looks shocked. They shout a bit here and there. I am rather excited, hearing that.
Still, I need to ask, "Why? I would be happy to add you, but isn't the adventurer life more suitable for you?"
"Of course it is! And what greater adventure than to help a friend out!", she says, showing her teeth with her grin.

"You may become a fugitive, you know?", I ask her.
"So what. I have already fought in the shadows. But this time, I do it on my terms. I've got nowhere else to go anyway. Traveling with others may be more fun.", she says.
"Does she really fit the team?", Acclaim asks.
"If you ask me, she's really strong. She saved me and Theresa big time.", Sili-san says.
"I like her…She's cool. Perfect guardian for a Goddess.", Theresa says.
"Well, if that is the consensus, than I am in favor as well."

"Well, congratulations, Dragonette. You're on the Phantom Crusaders. We'll think of a codename for you and make a mask in due time…I guess.", I tell her.
"All right! Then, let's go!", she says excitingly. She just kind of walks off. Oh well. We follow her for a bit, but we get interrupted once more.
"Sister!", we hear from behind us. We turn around to see Maone.
"Is this your answer?!", she asks Dragonette.

"Yeah! I love you, and I don't hate my fellow Ninja anymore! But this is to be my path!", Dragonette answers.
Maone looks saddened. She may have wanted her to stay.
"Big sis! You better help everyone back home! Both of us have different paths, but we stay in the shadows! One day, we should also end up seeing the next dawn together once more! So don't feel lonely!", Dragonette says.
Maone looks up. It looks like she forces a smile on her face, after a while, it appears natural instead.
"That's fine! You do what you want, sis! You are amazing no matter what path you take! I will follow mine to a destination where I will meet you at the highest peak! Don't you dare make me wait when I get there!", she shouts.

Dragonette gives a satisfied smirk and replies, waving her hand, "You bet!"
While the two wave and say their farewells, the rest of us go ahead. Dragonette follows us soon after. And thus, ends our adventure in the ninja village. We got a new and reliable party member. Who knows what next challenge comes our way? I doubt it will be long until we destroy SCJP.

Epilogue

"Well. That would be the end of Computement-corp. Those meddling ninja have found headquarters' location."
Two men stand in front of a big glass window in a dark facility, they are overlooking a beast inside some kind of testing room with many machines discharging electricity.
"We'll just have them converge with Justit-info B.V. It matters little. Our goal is soon to be reached. As long as we sacrifice everyone but Computement Corp's leader, it'll be fine.", the larger individual assures the slender tall one.

The slender tall man replies, "So, you wish me to inform them, then?"
"Yes. Tell Dream, the time has come. With the ninja out of our control, we can only hope to stir up adventurers and treasure hunters.", the larger man answers.
"Treasure hunt…Huh…Hehe…The treasure they are looking for have a lot of worth, but in the end, only we will make proper use of them.", the tall slender man says. He holds up some gem, looking at the monster through it.

Some kind of mecha is being made, the monster dies and its data disappears into it.
"Once we collect them all. Gamindustri will be Lowee's…", the large individual says.
"Then, allow me to assign Dream's next job.", the slender man says, pocketing that gem. He walks off.
"Soon…Aviner will be a military might that surpasses the divine…"

To Be Continued…

Afterword

This arc is finally over! That was a long one, wasn't it? It was meant to be two chapters…Just two. The first was them entering the village, getting to know some locals, allying with Wolf and maybe MarvelousAQL. That's it. Then it is war time. Acclaim, and Sili-san together with Theresa only had fights.

Tenchu was originally more of a serious humorless villain. He ended up being Dragonette and Maone's dad after all. I don't remember if that was the original plan. Now having read parts of volume 3 of Light, it was definitely NOT planned. Three years ago, I wrote him being the head of Team Ninja as a guild. It was a quick cheap reference to throw in. I wrote that…Three years ago? Yeah, I forgot that until proof reading chapter 14.2, by then, it was too late.

I simply have it changed to him being a founder of Team Ninja and only being the head of it in public whereas he is actually the master of all ninja in secret. Gaiden would be one of the founders as well… I think. Nioh would be the actual current leader. I think.
It wasn't planned when writing Dragonette and Maone in the tournament, that is for sure. But I thought it would be most interesting if I added that dynamic. I think it was a good way to reunite Bios and Dragonette. She wasn't originally planned to be a member of this group, but I didn't plan much of a group at all before Darkness. Also, Steamax isn't in it because he is comfortable staying with Affimojas.

The four flames I made up after writing Kagura into the story. I wanted more Senran Kagura representation and thought her to be a fun mini-boss. Since Marvelous was already orange and uses red flames, I figured I would make Kagura like Homura but with green flames. Their color schemes are inverted from their reference counterparts. After that, I thought of Marvelous and Kagura having flame attacks as their ultimates, and thought I could do something with it. The black blade was going to be Tenchu's ultimate power, but since his opponent is Bios, I think giving him an extra power up made the fight a lot better.
As much as I like writing shounen esque fighting arcs, it is a bit tiring writing almost nothing but fights, even though I naturally tend to do so.

The next arc should be less fighting and more adventuring. I would say it is about three chapters long, with some extra's, but who knows at this point?
If you're wondering, the idea of making chapters with the perspectives shifting to different characters was thought of after reading TenKen (Sword dad and Murder Kitten) Last year, I got obsessed and read everything. I thought they would work as in-between chapters, since they are often shorter.

With that said, things will slow down now that this arc is finished. I am also taking a break, I am working on video editing and that is going to take most of my focus at the moment. I hope everyone enjoyed this arc. There are only two more arcs left before the end of Darkness!