A/N Hey everyone I'm back! Sorry for the longest (2 month) break from updating since I started Nexus. Had a lot going on, from family visiting, to my job starting, but mainly writer's block just got me for this chapter. Finally got it done though, so I decided to start editing and get it posted tonight if I could. Anyway, hope you enjoy the longest chapter in all of Nexus, breaking 30,000 words!

Last time on Nexus: Gray and Kirito attack Terra Base where the Sith and League of Assassins took up camp. Darth Bane corners Gray and offers him Juvia's life with the power of the dark side, but only if Gray kills Kirito. Gray almost goes through with it, but Kirito tells him how he interrogated a League member and discovered something which could bring Juvia back to life. Gray collapses as he realizes what he was about to do, and upon breaking down in front of Kirito, Kirito abandons him for his attempted murder, leaving Gray on his own to head to the League's Headquarters, and find the rumored Lazarus Pit.

Nexus HWR 9.8 Ra's al Ghul:

99 Miles North of Pon-Gatso

BrrrmmMMMmm… The engine of the truck rose in volume as they hit some bumpy terrain, then returned to its regular hum. Eight figures sat in the back of the truck, and there were two others inside the vehicle up front in the driver and passenger seats.

Black Canary sat in the passenger seat and she looked over her shoulder back into the main section of the eighteen wheeler where the heroes were sitting. She gazed carefully down at Superboy lying in between the rows of seats lined against the walls, but the girl on her knees on Conner's side stood up with some sweat on her face but also a relieved expression. The auburn haired girl smiled towards the front of the truck and Black Canary nodded back at her. Dinah turned her head to the driver's seat and the Korean man sitting there who was grinning ear to ear as he headed back towards Pon-Gatso.

Out past the windshield there were headlights shining their way, and Jin and Dinah looked out their windows and watched as dozens of vehicles drove by on their way to the Fire Nation encampment to take it over now that all their troops had been routed. Jin-Soo Kwon looked towards the tree he could see fireworks shooting off of from even ninety-nine miles away and he chuckled, hoping his wife and daughter were watching the same thing. They did it. Those kids really did it!

In the back of the vehicle, Grif lay back with his head against the wall, still in his orange armor but passed out inside it. His visor was dark and the others around him could hear a light snoring coming from him. Kairi walked towards his side of the vehicle and sat down a few seats away on the right side of a small blond-haired boy she healed as soon as she arrived on the battlefield. "He'll be fine," Kairi said and the other men and boys in the back of the truck with her nodded or sighed in relief.

Other than Dash who was sitting next to Kairi, Ben who sat on his left side with his head leant down near his lap and his eyes closed as he was exhausted from the day of fighting, and Grif on Kairi's opposite side as Dash, there was another person on their side of the vehicle. The guy wore a blue jacket over a long-sleeved blue shirt and had on black pants, along with a black-and-blue-striped beanie over his head. He still had a shocked look on his face even though it had been a while since they picked up the team that routed the Fire Nation. This man sitting closest to the back of the truck was Imori, the youngest of the three Amori brothers… possibly two since his older brother Umori was at Terra Base when it fell.

"I can't believe you guys did it," Imori whispered. "I mean, you really, won a battle," he repeated, wondering if anyone else thought that was as crazy as it sounded to him.

"Of course we did," Natsu said from the other side of the vehicle where he lay across four seats. He had his hands behind his head and his eyes closed, but he was awake as the vehicle's movement was making it too hard to sleep, even though his stomach was not bothering him. "You guys have never had me before. Or Ben, or Dash," he added, as it was not fair for him to take all the credit and he knew it. He turned his head to the side and looked in between the rows of chairs, "Not to mention, the son of Superman. I don't see how you guys were losing with a guy like that in your ranks."

"Thanks." Natsu's eyes opened wide as the man whose eyes were closed as he lay flat on his back spoke. Natsu frowned deeply as he did not mean to say that while Conner was awake, but there was not much he could do about it now. Conner's eyes slowly opened and he continued speaking while staring straight up at the ceiling, "Technically though, Superman, wasn't my real father." Natsu sat up a little, the other man sitting on Natsu's side of the vehicle looked over in questioning wonder, and Imori, Kairi, and Dash all looked in as well. Superboy kept speaking in a low voice, "I, am," he paused and clenched his teeth hard. "I was created in a lab, with Superman's DNA. I'm a clone."

Even the members of the Resistance who knew Superboy prior to this looked at him in surprise. Jin's eyes widened and he glanced in the rearview mirror, and only Black Canary looked back with a look of understanding as she had already known this. Why is he telling these people? She wondered, glancing around the back of the truck. She saw Conner turn his head and look straight at Natsu before continuing and Dinah's lips curled up a little.

"I may have been a clone of him, but, before we were teleported here, Superman had started treating me, like his own, son," Superboy still had some pretty bad burns on him as Kairi only stepped aside to take a few minutes' break before getting to healing him again. He started panting after speaking, then continued, "What did, how did," he paused, then growled in a guttural tone, "Why did Luthor kill him?"

Natsu kept staring back into Conner's eyes. After a few seconds he began, "Lex Luthor tried taking over all of Awul. But, someone got a video of him killing Superman, and they played it all over so we would know what he had done. We didn't let Luthor take over. By the time the war was over, he was too strong for us to take down, but… but we stopped him anyway. Seeing Superman die like that, there was no way any of us were going to let Luthor rule Awul. Your dad didn't die in vain."

The Dragon Slayer said it seriously and Superboy closed his eyes after, sighing and turning his head straight again back towards the ceiling. His eyes opened back up the slightest amount and he whispered, "Thanks." Natsu nodded and leaned back himself. After a few more seconds, Conner continued, "I don't know why I told you guys that. I haven't told… I haven't had a team, like this," in his mind flashed faces of a lot of old teammates and Conner winced. "In a long time," he finally finished.

"A team," Natsu repeated softly. He closed his eyes and faces appeared in his mind: a blue cat's, a blonde girl's, and the grimace on his face deepened.

Dash closed his eyes too as he heard Conner say that. He put his hands under his chin and whispered in a tired tone, "I hope our team is doing okay. All of them, Goku, Timmy, Sora, Luffy and Riku and those guys, and… and Gray and Kirito." As he mentioned that last part, everyone in the vehicle became quiet.

"Did you get any word from them since we left?" Natsu asked the younger man near him.

Sokka shook his head. The General of Pon-Gatso came out to check the battlefield himself with the first groups that went to reinforce the area, but he had to return to Pon so he left with the assault team. He was so excited by their victory that he had pushed it from his mind, but the others seemed to be thinking deeply on it and he frowned, saying softly, "I'm sure they're alright. I let them take the best super-suits the Resistance has to offer, the only two we had in Pon-Gatso. Those things can handle pretty much anything thrown at them."

"Including Ra's al Ghul?" Kairi asked the other teen.

Sokka opened his mouth wide and held up a finger, then lowered that hand and closed his mouth. "I don't know," he finally said in a soft voice. "Ra's is more of a legend than most Lords and even some High Lords. The Resistance leaders he's killed, our forces his group has decimated, and he doesn't just attack us. He's taken out Lords before, Co-op generals, and back in the Third War of the Gods, I heard that on a battlefield of thousands, Ra's al Ghul was the sole survivor."

Natsu, Dash, and Kairi stared at Sokka in horrified shock. Dash gulped and shook where he sat, while Kairi put her hands together and thought a silent prayer. Natsu stared to his side at Sokka for a few more seconds, then lifted his head and stared at the top of their moving vehicle. Gray, I have faith in you. You're my nakama. But still… don't let your guard down. This guy sounds like a monster.

Southwest Aebrith

Gray Fullbuster sat on a single speeder bike that flew across the burning tar pits of south-western Aebrith like a missile. The small windshield in front of it protected his face from the extremely fast winds that would be crashing into him otherwise. Still, he had to wear a pair of goggles to protect from the wind that snuck in around the outsides of the bulletproof glass. He had his hands on the handlebars in front of him that were covered in rubber gear-shifters. The throttle was twisted as far forward as he could put it to make his bike move at its fastest speed.

His expression was flat. His lips were straight, his eyes open to their normal degree, but his breathing was faster than ever. Gray blamed it on the wind, on the feeling of moving four hundred miles per hour. The sky was dark, though instead of late night, it was now early morning the day after he attacked Terra Base.

His right arm still felt sore from a powerful attack he blocked with it earlier. I probably would have lost the arm if it weren't for these battle suits. This, battle suit, he corrected himself. The mage cursed under his breath for still thinking in the plural form. It's just me here. I'm on my own, heading after the League of Assassins all on my own.

He ground his teeth together. If Kirito didn't run off I would have a much better... Gray could not even finish the thought. No, he thought, Kirito did nothing wrong. All he did was get me into Terra Base, and locate the League's HQ, and find a way to bring Juvia back to life. How did I repay him? Stabbing him in the back, almost literally. His hands clenched around the thrusters on his handlebars harder.

Calm down, he told himself, loosening back up his grip. Stop thinking about Kirito for now. There are more important things going on. His face hardened and his eyes darted back and forth over the black landscape he was zipping over. The only lights for miles were the lava pools that were not covered by black rocks. I'm deep in the Emperor's territory. A thousand miles south of Terra Base puts me close to Daedra and Far Far Away. Daedra, he thought nostalgically. When they took it I was first in line to help get it back. The siege of Daedra went great, but once we had it back, we couldn't hold it. That's when I first realized how hopeless this all was.

Gray started staring straight ahead with a purpose. Darth Bane may have been right. The Resistance might just be an almost dead bug writhing around with its head cut off. Maybe we are just waiting to get finished off. Maybe our fight is futile. His hardened face only looked more determined as he thought these things however. But if I had done what he said, the Resistance would have meant nothing anymore. The Resistance stands for everything the King and his Cooperative isn't. I joined them because I thought they were good. And as long as we keep fighting for good, there is always going to be reason to keep writhing.

Gray flew across the landscape without stopping once. He had not eaten since before the previous attack, and his sleep the night before was restless so he was going on a very little amount of rest. His powerful armor was still in pique condition, unlike his body that was still recovering mainly from the difficult escape from Terra Base.

It took him over two more hours of traveling before he saw the mountain that Kirito marked on the map as being the League's secret base. There was a town at the base of the mountain but Gray somewhat recalled hearing Kirito mention that his source said the town was a front, and that every person inside was working with the League. He could see the lights from the town already, and he slowed down his speeder to allow him to approach more stealthily.

Gray spotted a house just ahead of him. He almost did not see it as he had cut off the headlights of his bike to mask his approach. The silhouette of the house's shadow surprised him mainly because he was still miles away from the mountain and the town at the base of it. The shack was dark inside and although that made sense considering how late it was, he had a feeling the building was abandoned. No vehicles outside, cracked windows, no sign of upkeep.

He slowed his bike to a stop a hundred feet away from the building. It was a wooden shack and as Gray looked around, he did not see a single tree for miles in any direction. This house must have been built a long time ago, before the forests here were destroyed.

He parked his bike and jogged towards the wooden building. The ice mage pressed his back against the wall and snuck to the corner of it, peering out and looking into the distance. He stared at the mountain and around the town at the bottom. I need to find a way in. If anyone sees me, I'll be assassinated before I set foot in the base. Then, am I trying to sneak in, to a mountain full of assassins? The question lingered in his mind and he clenched his teeth at how suicidal it sounded to him. His rational side told him to wait, to run and find help, bring them to this mountain and attack it together. All of us could take on the League and win. It would take a while, but it's not like the League can just take the Lazarus Pit somewhere, can they? No, even if they could, they're deep within their own territory. They would feel safe… They would be safe. He realized and clenched his teeth hard, If a large group tried attacking the mountain, the Emperor would send them reinforcements. It has to be like this. I need to do this now!

Gray left the cover of the wooden shack and started sprinting across the dark landscape while keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible. And… now! His body covered in an invisible aura, the special Nen of Zetsu. He was wearing all black and now his power was hidden even more. Power Blockers hide my energy, but my presence could still be noticed by the enemies' Haki, the ones that have it. Not to mention my magical power. There must be a powerful mage or two in the assassins. I'm glad I took that Nen refresher course from Killua back on the Sunny. Almost forgot how to do this. He kept up his speed and went far to the left of the town he was approaching. There would be entrances inside the town, but I'll definitely be seen if I go in over there. Look for a back entrance. There will be guards, but they probably aren't expecting to be assassinated themselves.

The mage kept to the shadows and sprinted farther across the dark ground. There were no more lava pits around, so it was pitch black except for the light coming off the town up ahead. The moons were blocked out by a big cloud that moved above him right before he left the cover of the shack. He was still to the left side of the town and gaining on the mountain, when a few headlights turned on very close to the mountain's base. The mage thought fast and darted to the right as the headlights started pointing his way. Gray picked up his speed and then came to a sudden stop right as he got behind the wall of the closest house in the village. He stood there with his back up against the wall and held his breath as the lights he saw pointed over the landscape he was just running on and illuminated the black ground all the way up to the house he was next to.

Gray held his breath for twenty seconds before hearing rumbling that got louder as the lights grew brighter. He did not dare move, and he only watched out the corners of his eyes as two trucks rolled over the ground to his left and then kept driving the way he just came from. League scouts? Do they have patrols around here? Or are they heading out on a mission? Gray let out a deep breath once the trucks were far past him, then his eyes opened wide and he tensed up. My bike! I didn't hide the speeder, STUPID! He jumped out from behind his hiding spot and started sprinting full speed towards the mountain. I only have a minute max. I have to assume they're going to find my bike.

The ice mage was right up along the edge of the town now, but he did not care about the illuminated buildings next to him. That changed however, as while sprinting past a two story home only a hundred meters from the base of the mountain, Gray spotted two people in the window staring straight outside. He panicked as he thought they were just looking outside and he had run into their eyesight, but then his panic grew even more as the people were staring straight at him, and did not look surprised. The man and woman looked right into Gray's eyes as he sprinted past and neither changed their blank facial expressions.

I'm seeing things! He thought to himself in a panic. The mage running towards the base of the mountain sped up, his breathing picking up with his footsteps, and then he came to a sudden stop still fifty meters away. There was a gap between the homes and the base of the building. He thought he would have to look around for an entrance, but one was illuminated very brightly at the base directly in front of him. It was so directly in front of him that he gulped because he had been sprinting straight towards it. There were two men standing outside the hole in the mountain, and the mage thought about turning and running to their sides to get a sneak attack in on them.

"There's no point!" One of the two guards shouted towards the town. It was a distance, it was dark, and Gray did not know how he was seen, but it did not matter now. He sprinted forward while raising his right hand, but the man who shouted continued, "We have been instructed to receive you, Gray Fullbuster." The young man who created a sword of ice in his right hand started slowing down because the men in front of him were not drawing weapons of there own.

He stepped into the light near the entrance of the mountain and tried to look as intimidating as possible. He wanted one of them to raise a weapon at him, but the two figures just turned their backs to Gray and walked inside the entrance. "Follow us," the man on the right began. Gray opened his mouth to shout at them that he would not walk into a trap, but the man continued, "He is waiting for you."

"He?" What are they doing? I could kill them right now! Their backs are turned! He sped-walked his way into the entrance and behind the two guards, right hand clenched so hard around his sword that he could feel the ice cracking. Do it! Kill them and look for the Pit yourself. You don't need to move at their pace! Gray's breathing was speeding up and he did not like this at all. He was walking through a rocky tunnel that was dimly lit, but farther down the rock walls got less bumpy, the floor evened out, and lights became more common on the ceiling. The tunnel's dimensions became rectangular once he was fifty meters from the entrance, and he darted a quick glance behind him to see if anyone was following him.

The muscular young man looked back ahead and continued walking directly behind these assassins. They were in black cloaks, one had short brown hair and the other black hair of the same length, and they were silent as they walked. Gray tried to sense them with Observational Haki, but he could only feel six presences in the entire mountain and the people in front of him were not any of those. He saw something on his left as they continued to walk straight and he looked at the wall to see a painting hung up in a frame, a beautiful landscape with the mountain he was inside in the background of it, far to the right side. The farther they walked, the more decorations like this became common, like shelves on the sides of the hallway with strange objects on them: totems, gold tablets, books with mystical characters on them.

This is the base of the most feared assassins on the continent? He was underwhelmed by it. The young man passed by another small tunnel that jutted off of the wider one he was in, and he turned and saw two people standing in the narrow dark path, speaking to each other in hushed voices. They became silent as he looked their ways and they both turned his direction, looking at him with eyes that glowed red. What the Hell? Gray looked back ahead as one of the two men leading him motioned to the right, and the three of them turned down a darker, narrower hallway than even the one Gray just saw those two creepy pale-skinned figures in.

There was a set of double doors not far into the jutting-off pathway, and Gray figured that was where he was being led. He could feel a presence through the doors and it was a powerful one, but his face hardened at the feeling and he gripped his sword tight once again. He marched forward and past the two assassins, ignoring the looks they gave him as he moved by. He stepped up to the doors, large and made of steel, and he pushed them open with one shove of his left hand.

Gray stepped into the next room and glared down the six steps to the circular area in the center of it. All around the outside of this fifty meter diameter circular room were large stone pillars, separating the open area in the center from a small pathway around the room on the outside. There were ten pillars in all, and Gray marched forward so he was at the top of the stairs in front of him and in between the first two pillars close to the entrance. He did not see any other doors in the room, or any other people besides the man standing alone in the center of the room adorned in a brown cloak. The dark-skinned figure lifted his gaze and made eye contact with the mage staring back at him. "Darth Bane," Gray snarled at the sight.

The Sith Lord glanced behind Gray and the steel doors slammed shut, the sound of it echoed through the enclosed room. Gray did not flinch. Bane looked up at the young man, and after a second he said in a deep tone, "Disappointing. I had high hopes, but you failed to kill the one requested of you. Do you not care-"

"Where is the Pit?" Gray interrupted. Bane quieted, and Gray continued while walking right, not down the stairs to the man at the bottom. He walked right and behind the pillar on his side, then once he was between that one and the next he continued, "I know all about it. I can bring Juvia back, and I don't need to kill my friend to do it."

"Friend?" Bane questioned, slowly turning and following the mage's movements around the top part of the room. Gray stared right back at him and while he listened to Bane, his eyes darted around the room he was in. In between the two pillars he was walking between, there was a thick steel rod sticking out of the ground. It looked like it continued down past the ledge of the top section, likely only one level down. Bane continued while Gray looked around and noticed more of these metal rods around the room, "Do you really think he considers you as one, after what you did?"

Gray grimaced and clenched his teeth, wondering how Bane knew about that. How? Was he watching me? Actually, how did he get here before me? I didn't break since I left Terra. I didn't see anyone fly overhead, and no one passed my on the- no! He wants you to get caught thinking about that. Focus. Focus on your surroundings. "Maybe he doesn't," Gray said, keeping his voice calm. "And I'll pay for that later, but right now, I'm getting Juvia back."

"You could have had her already," Bane said darkly. Gray glared furiously at the man as he walked around another pillar, but he could not tell if Bane was lying to him or not. The Sith with dark markings around his eyes and a constant serious expression continued, "If you had murdered that boy, you would have Juvia back. She would be alive. It's your fault she is still dead!"

"Shut up!" Gray yelled down at the man. "I shouldn't have to kill, a good person, to bring her back. It wouldn't be right."

"'Right?'" Bane scoffed. The Sith Lord turned his head as Gray continued to walk a circle around him, and he questioned, "What is 'right' when compared to a woman's love? You fool. I thought you understood that the Resistance is just a writhing insect, about to be squashed! The values it holds will be killed along with it. 'Right,' will become whatever the victors choose, and in this world no one would have blamed you for choosing her, over him."

Gray's teeth were grinding hard and he was trying desperately to keep his cool. Bane continued though while Gray started walking around the other side of the top part of the room, "Good and evil, darkness and light, they are not two sides of the same coin. They are the same thing, colors meshed together to create one underlying truth. Intelligent life will always be neutral." Gray's expression became confused but he did not let himself slow down his walk around the top of the room. He knew that once he reached the spot he started in, Bane would attack or he would. They both knew it and he could tell Bane was finishing up as there were only two pillars to go. "Whether one chooses to use the darkness, or hide from it, does not change their innate nature. You never saw yourself killing a comrade, but when presented the opportunity with the right circumstances, even one bathed in the light can delve into darkness." In Gray's mind he saw Sora on the lower decks of the Thousand Sunny the day they all went insane, and he watched as that teen everyone loved shrouded in black and tried to kill him. Bane continued, "It is the same for all people. Anyone can be 'corrupted,' because every person has a side to them that you would call 'evil,' even those in the Resistance."

The ice mage stopped as he reached the spot he first entered the room. He stood between the two pillars on either side of the doorway and looked down at Darth Bane. The Sith's right hand slid out of his cloak's sleeve, and a purple blade of light came out of the silver hilt in his grasp. "Let us begin," Bane said.

"Before we do," Gray interrupted, and the Sith's face gained a hint of annoyance as he was not expecting Gray to say a word. The mage holding a sword of ice lifted it up next to him, then dropped it so it fell on the ground. He smirked. "I've got a few things I want to say too."

Bane rose his right hand, and a massive dent appeared on the center of the steel doors behind Gray, or behind where he just was. Bane snapped his head left and glared at the young man stepping out from behind a pillar. "I have fought all kinds of enemies," Gray began, then shot to his right very fast so he was on the side of the room opposite the double doors. A thud sounded on the wall behind where he just stood and some cracks formed on it, but the mage himself was not injured. Bane spun around and glared towards Gray, but Gray was no longer in the back of the room, but on Bane's left side.

The Sith Lord spun and growled under his breath, and Gray chuckled, "So you realized it huh? Yeah, I was expecting as much." His expression darkened but he continued in a smug tone, "I have fought Chimera Ants, mutants, demons, Espada, and I have fought Siths. You were not the first to face me, and there was something that all of the Sith Lords I faced had in common, just like you." Bane started lifting a finger, but Gray was gone and back in the front of the room near the doors. "You're slow," Gray said, and Bane darted his eyes over with a look of anger on his face. "Sure, you have long-ranged attacks, and your short-range is pretty good too; those lightsabers really pack a punch. Being able to predict what attacks I'm going to make without Haki, that's pretty impressive too, and despite a difference in speed, that tends to make up for it."

Gray started walking to his right, he walked behind a pillar, then walked out from behind a different pillar three down from that one which made Bane snap his head that way fast as he had not seen him dart over there. Darth Bane clenched his teeth but the corners of his lips curled up and he rose his left hand towards Gray. "Another thing," Gray began, right as blue sparks started coming out of Bane's hand. "I noticed you chose a room with a lot of metal in it. On the ceiling lights, these metal rods sticking out of the ground, so I guessed that Force Lightning was probably one of your stronger attacks."

Thick blue lightning shot out of Bane's hand and hit the metal rod in front of the mage. The Sith was confident that Gray was about to be zapped by the rod that was supposed to send electricity scattering in all directions, but once the lightning hit, nothing else happened. The Sith Lord looked closer and his eyes widened at a thick coating of translucent ice surrounding the pillar. "When?" Bane questioned.

"Every time I passed one on my loop around the room," Gray replied. He glared down into Bane's eyes, "You were following me closely, so you didn't see I was leaving behind a trail of ice that slowly made its way to the lightning rods only after I had walked around the next pillar." Gray rose his hands and he clenched a fist with his right, while leaving his left open into a palm. "I have one last thing to tell you," he said before using any Ice-Make magic. "I'm a Fairy Tail mage, and you may be right that there's a side of me that would do evil things, but you're wrong when you say anyone could. You're wrong when you say the Resistance is just like everyone else. Even if we have a dark side to us, not everyone is a monster who would act on it. Goku, and Kairi, Natsu, and Juvia, they're good. They're better than me, and they're definitely better than you."

Gray slammed his fist into his open palm and yelled, "Ice-Make: Freeze Lancer!" A dozen lances of ice shot out of the ground around Gray where the air suddenly dropped fifty degrees in temperature. The spears were wider than Gray's body and the heads sharp as real steel weapons. They curved in towards the center of the room, but when they got close to Darth Bane, all of them shattered at once.

The Sith glared up at the start of the shattering lances, but as the ice fell in between him and Gray, the mage vanished from sight when a shard of ice passed through his vision. Bane spun left and he rose his right hand, slashing his purple lightsaber through the hammer of ice Gray was swinging down without yelling the move's name. Gray spun off the attack and kept diving towards Bane as the Sith's lightsaber finished swinging through his hammer, but Bane stopped his swing's momentum and started pulling back towards him faster than Gray thought he would be able to. He could not wait until he landed to change momentum, so instead Gray let out a breath so cold that the air beneath him thickened, slowing his fall just the slightest amount as ice particles formed from water vapor in the air. The ice did not have time to completely harden into a pillar that would have stopped his fall, but it was enough. A purple blade of light slashed inches below his horizontal body, then Gray swung his left hand down on the floor before Bane could switch directions and stab down at him again.

Five huge ice spikes shot out of the ground around Gray's hand. Bane was swinging his lightsaber down at the man's back, but he felt with the Force an attack coming for his feet and leapt up high in the air. As he rose, a point of ice rose directly beneath his feet, almost moving fast enough to catch him. Bane did a seven-twenty spin in midair though and he used the Force to change his direction completely, making it so he was high above Gray's head right as the mage below was snapping his head up. Gray's eyes opened wide seeing the sparks coming out of Bane's fingertips, but even though he was standing on ice, he was able to move the same speed as always and darted to the left.

Bane's Force Lightning crashed down on the ice beneath where Gray was just standing and ice shards flew everywhere. The thick bottoms of the spikes Gray made were even shattered, and the rest of the ice on the floor around them melted fast with the electricity charging around it. Gray stood behind a pillar, his hair on end as he barely made it away from the end of that last lightning bolt. Gotta keep up the speed, he thought, right before hearing a voice in his ear, "Is that all?" Gray ducked, then a blade of purple light swiped through the pillar above his head. He rolled to the left, and just in time too as Bane used the Force on the top half of the pillar to knock ten meters of stone down where Gray was just sitting.

The mage got to his feet and sprinted to the left, only to hear a loud crash and look back to see Bane had picked back up the first pillar he knocked down and thrown it after him. The only reason it did not hit him was because another pillar got in the way and the first one shattered against it while also putting cracks up the entire second one. Chunks of stone shot off of the jolt that blew the first pillar apart and two of them slammed into Gray's back, only to shatter against his black armor. He stumbled when hit by them, but he felt no pain at all and smirked as he spun back towards Bane. These Sith and assassins are all wearing cloaks, just ratty, non-protective cloaks. I have the technological advantage!

Bane stepped forward hard with his right foot, then threw his lightsaber as hard as he could at the mage glaring into his dark eyes. Gray panicked at the sight and he leaned back hard, allowing the spinning lightsaber to fly right over his head. He leaned up once it was past him, then sprinted forward as he felt what was coming for his back. "Ice-Make: Gladiator!" He yelled. The young man slammed his hands together and ice coated his body while in mid-sprint, while he felt with Haki a lightsaber chasing him as Bane pulled it back with the Force. Gray reached Bane right as two swords of ice were forming in his hands, and he swung them both at the side of the man's body. Bane leapt up into a front flip and reached down, catching the hilt of his purple lightsaber as he did. He slashed it at Gray and Gray spun around, swinging his two ice swords to protect himself.

Gray's eyes popped open wide as the lightsaber sliced through his swords like butter, not pausing for a single second to show they had trouble cutting through. Gray tried leaning backwards, but the enemy was too close. The end of the lightsaber still hit him, right in the front of the armor, and it cut through the armor slowly. Gray pulled back harder and escaped the range of the lightsaber, then leapt backwards fast to create some distance. Jumping in the air was not the smartest move though, and Bane proved that to him by waving his free hand and Force Pushing Gray at five times the speed he was already moving backwards, slamming him into another pillar in the room that he smashed straight through and then hit the wall behind it, creating a huge Gray-shaped crater in the wall.

The mage fell out of the hole in the wall while the pillar in front of him collapsed on top of itself. Dust rose up and created a screen between the two fighters, Gray at the top of the room and Bane still in the center, staring out and waiting for his opponent to get back up. Gray knew that Bane knew he was not down for the count, which actually helped him more than hurt him as he was able to examine himself more closely with a sense of security. Bane doesn't want to come up here. He has the advantage having a lot of space around him. Any direction I attack from, even if I get to the other side of the room without him realizing, he'll still sense me attacking before I can get the drop on him.

Gray looked at the front of his armor, down at the left side of his chest, and sighed in relief at the sight of the deep cut Darth Bane left in his armor, and only his armor. He frowned a second later as he realized he might have been relieved too soon, as a drop of blood trickled out of the four-inch slice in his super-suit. Still, to hold off an attack from a lightsaber… thanks Sokka. Gray punched his fists together in front of him and the already-settling dust dispersed faster. He glared across the room at Bane who stood in the center calmly, lightsaber pointed down at the floor on his right side. His reaction time is too fast. As long as I keep my distance and my speed up I can prolong the fight, but how do I get close to him?

"You seem to be mistaken young warrior," Bane began and looked towards the edge of the room where Gray was standing. "Do you really believe that keeping your distance will save you?" He rose his left hand and lightning sparked off of it. Gray saw the bolt coming and he ran left. He was still running around the edge of the room when he saw the lightning collide with one of the frozen metal rods in between stone pillars. His eyes opened wide though as the metal rod was not frozen when Bane's attack hit it, and small openings on every side of the top of the pole redirected the lightning out in smaller bolts that flew around the room into other metal rods.

Gray leapt up in the air as a bolt of lightning flew beneath him in the direction of another rod which was luckily still frozen. However, once he was up in the air, he had nothing to prevent Bane from clenching his left hand into a curled fist and making Gray's neck feel like someone just tightened a vice around it. He gasped for air and squirmed where he was held above the ground. Need. To. Attack! Gray's body surrounded in a thin white veil, one that turned light blue after a second and then stretched to cover the air around him all the way up to the ceiling. He froze the metal bars holding up the ceiling lights and the lights shattered after a second, plunging the room into sudden darkness and making glass rain down on the fighter in the center.

Darth Bane grimaced as he finished clenching his curled fist, but no longer felt anyone inside of it. The Sith Lord chuckled though in the dark room and he closed his eyes. "Foolish boy," he rose up his purple lightsaber which gave Gray a perfect target. Bane was practically the only thing visible in the room any longer and he charged the man, only for the light he was using to track Bane's position, to suddenly vanish as he retracted his light blade. A second after the blade disappeared, Gray felt a fist pressing into his left cheek so hard he heard a crack in his jaw. He flew off the punch spinning through the air and collided with a pillar, only for a force of what felt like a train to slam into his chest a second later and plow him through the stone column.

Rocks and debris fell down on top of Gray, then the mage let out a deep breath as all the weight pressing down on his body lifted up. He quickly realized that should not have happened though and rolled left on the dark floor. He was just in time too from the sound of things as all the rubble that was lifted up came smashing back down into the ground where he was just lying. Plan! I need a plan! He rolled forward and used his Haki to sense out Darth Bane. The man was only ten feet in front of him, and he was lifting two fingers to attempt to choke Gray again. I won't have a way out of it this time! The younger man thought in panic, and he dove to the left to avoid the Force coming at him.

"Ice Make:" he yelled out as he rolled. Most of the ice around his body had shattered off when he was bashed around a minute ago, but now more was forming in his right hand as he finished the roll. He came out of it and jumped up while spinning his body, yelling, "Ice Blade Cannon!" A three foot long sword of ice had formed in his hand, but as he slashed it in front of his body, a visible slash of light blue air shot across the room and into Bane who tried turning on his lightsaber to slice the flying slice in half but did not get it up in time. He's on the defensive! Now is the time to move in for the kill! Gray landed and instantly charged forward fast at the man getting back up with lightsaber in hand. Gray slashed down but Bane rose his blade to slice Gray's weapon in two. Darth Bane was so confident his lightsaber would cut it, that he stopped focusing on defense as much as he went in for a slash of his own knowing it would cut through Gray's blade mid-swipe.

Risk it! Gray's sword split as he swung it, but he ran even faster as they were close enough now that he could see the darks of Bane's eyes. He rose up his hand not on the hilt of his sword and slammed it full sprint into Bane's neck, lifting the Sith off the ground while Bane was still swinging his blade, and hitting the Sith Lord so hard that the silver hilt came out of his swinging arm. The lightsaber lifted up in the air while Gray kept sprinting forward with Bane lifted in front of him.

"AHHH!" Gray suddenly screamed as electricity surrounded his body and electrocuted him. He dropped Bane who jumped backwards while using the Force to pull his lightsaber back to him. As it was coming back though, it arced down towards Gray who despite being in excruciating pain, sensed it coming and dove to his right. He barely avoided the blade of light and skid across the ground on his stomach with his arms crossed in front of his face. He rolled onto his back after a few seconds of pain and glared towards Bane, only for Bane's free hand to already be risen. Gray gasped in panic as Bane rose him off the ground with the Force only to slam him down again.

Gray was lifted up and smashed down three times then slammed to the left into the small wall of the lower level that shattered so that Gray dragged through the floor on the upper circular section of the room. Pushing through stone that hard hurt almost as much as being slammed into the wall, and when he finally stopped moving he groaned in pain that filled his body. As he pushed down on the floor next to him, he thought about how this fight would have went without the armor he was wearing and grimaced. Darth Bane is not the only one I have to face here, his face hardened as he got fully to his feet, then darted right fast to avoid being caught by another Force grab. He started running around the room as fast as he could although he was already panting heavily and his legs ached. I do not even know where the Pit is, and I'm wasting time! I need to finish this, now!

"Getting desperate?" Bane questioned the blur he saw racing around the outside of the room. Gray flinched as he said it, but the more the Sith talked the more anxious and angry he got. "Feeling afraid? Wondering how you will ever make it to save your dear Juvia, when you can't even get by me? I am not even part of the League of Assassins. Defeat me and you would still have the entirety of this fearsome force to take on by yourself. I can only imagine how you feel, knowing that you have already lost, before you even got started." Bane swung his arm right and a pillar shattered, but the blur he saw slow down behind it changed directions and shot the other way to avoid flying debris. "Tired? Did you ever fully regain the strength that you lost at Terra Base? You should have waited. Taken your time. Instead, you have rushed to an early grave."

"Shut up!" Gray shouted. He pushed his feet down harder and kept sprinting around the upper section of the room. He ran over rubble and hopped over craters on the floor that were shaped like his own body. The room was almost pitch black, though his eyes were adjusting to the darkness. The ice mage ran around and around, pushing his body and mind to the limits. I can't get close. The Force is like a more impressive Haki. He knows what I'm going to do, every time I attack. How many seconds does he have from when he learns what I'm going to do, and when I actually do it? One? Half a second? His reaction time is faster than any Sith I've ever fought.

CRASH! A hole blasted in the wall in front of Gray as Darth Bane tried leading him, but luckily the mage just happened to be subconsciously slowing down at that exact moment. He stopped short as stone shards shot out of the wall, then kept sprinting forward through the rest of the rubble. He knew it was the right call as behind where he stopped, another hole blasted in the wall showing that Bane thought he would turn and run the other way after the first attack. The Sith in the center of the room frowned deeply as he lost Gray again, and his eyes darted around the dark room following the sound of footsteps and vibrations on the floor.

I have an idea. Gray thought, his eyes opening wide as he finally came to a short and sudden stop. "Bane!" He shouted, standing directly behind a pillar so that the man could not grab him with the Force so easily. Darth Bane hesitated as the younger man shouted his name. Gray knew he had a moment and he continued louder, "This is your last chance! Surrender and I'll let you live!"

What is this? Darth Bane thought to himself. Is he trying to anger me? Distract me? Give himself a few extra seconds? Bane lifted his hand to shatter the pillar, but stepping out from behind it was the young man who just shouted at him. Gray Fullbuster stood there, ice swords in his hands, looking towards the center of the room with a confident expression that Bane could make out even in the darkness. Gray took a step forward, then Bane barely moved his left hand and Gray's neck was clenched by a Force Choke. The young man lifted off the ground with a look of pain strewn across his face, but he managed to raise his arms even as he was risen.

While Gray was lifting up, he pulled his arms back and threw forward as hard as he could. The three-foot long blades of ice with sharp edges on both sides shot through the room, spinning around and around in the air. The corners of Bane's lips lifted up the smallest amount as he continued to choke the man, because though the blades were flying close to him, he did not need the Force to be able to tell that they were going to miss him. One blade was heading to his left side, and the other to his right.

I need to time this perfectly, Gray thought. Ice Make: Castle!

Bane felt a twitch on the back of his neck. He stopped choking the life out of Gray, and instead clenched that hand he was using to Force Choke all at once. Gray's neck snapped, but instead of a loud crack filling the room, the sound of shattering ice filled it instead. "Ice Make:" a voice shouted behind Bane, making the Sith dart his eyes to the side and try to look behind him. Out from behind a pillar straight behind him, Gray charged with a sword clenched in both hands. "Clone!" The Gray coming at Bane's back shouted, while the one in front of him fell out of the air losing all the color to him as he turned to ice and fell apart.

The figure coming at Bane's back was doing so incredibly fast, and Bane lifted his arms to use the Force on one side of himself, push himself away from the younger man. As Bane was about to do it though, he remembered something and his eyes widened more at the sight of the spinning swords directly in front of him while his head was turning to the side. Clever, boy. If I push to the left, I'll destroy one sword and fly into the other. Push right and have the opposite effect. In that case, Bane twitched a finger, and Gray stopped where he was in mid-charge at Bane's back. "Fool," Bane began as he sent such a huge amount of Force behind him that he halted Gray's movements completely. The swords came flying by his sides as Bane himself was lifted forward thanks to expelling so much Force behind him. "I don't need to dodge the swords at all, if I stop-" A crack formed on the face of the young man he just plowed with the Force and the Sith froze with his mouth open.

The Sith Lord felt something else that made his body wrench and his head snap straight ahead again. Behind the falling ice of the first Gray Clone, another young man sprinted forward with an ice sword turning black with Armament Haki. Darth Bane was so close to this Gray already, only ten feet between them as the Sith Lord's eyes looked into the mage's. Gray started swinging his sword while they were still eight feet away, and Bane calmed himself as his feet were about to touch the ground. He is too far. Bane's lightsaber flew back into his hand and he got ready to turn it on, going to slash the young man as soon as the end of the boy's sword flew just in front of his body.

Bane's feet touched the ground and he stopped himself short. Gray continued swinging his sword, and Bane started rising up his right hand, but the calm Sith Lord's eyes opened wide and darted at the floor beneath him. The breath he was taking caught in his throat as he looked at the ground: shiny, slippery, frozen over. His feet slid forward, and his lightsaber was a millisecond behind turning on. He brought his arm around, but Gray was already mid-swing. Gray brought his sword across Bane so hard that it looked for a second he would split the man in half, but his blade got jammed halfway through the enemy who used the Force to prevent a clean slice. Bane stood there, a foot and a half in front of Gray, looking the younger man in the eyes while Gray held both arms out, gripping the shaft of his sword as it trembled inside his enemy's chest. The Sith Lord had his left hand up, shaking as he tried holding Gray's ice sword in place, with his other hand holding the hilt of his lightsaber in mid-swing, the purple light blade only inches to the side of Gray's chest armor.

"When?" Bane questioned. A drop of blood came out of the left corner of his mouth and slid down to his chin. "When did you freeze the floor?"

Gray looked the Sith back in his dark eyes, and though it did not matter now, he responded anyway, "While you were choking the first ice clone."

The taller man nodded once, then let out a long breath. "This is unfortunate," he clenched his left hand into a fist and the sword lodged inside him broke. It broke off right near the hilt though, and Gray increased the distance between them so he was out of range of the purple lightsaber that was way too close for his liking. Darth Bane did not give chase though. The Sith Lord's lips were curled into a deep frown. He stood there staring at Gray, the calmest look Gray had ever seen on a man's face who was about to die. "My wrath will know no end," Bane said, while his arms fell limp at his sides.

His lightsaber dropped from his hands that could no longer hold a grip around it. The purple blade of light fell to the floor but stopped inches from the ground. Gray's eyes darted down to the weapon he did not hear clank against the ground. It was dark, and he stared at the weapon as it hovered there, casting a dim glow on Darth Bane's body. "Farewell," Bane said, as his knees started to come out from under him. Gray did not know what it was, but something told him he needed to run, run fast.

He turned and looked around for the door, but it was pitch black in there. He felt the lightsaber flying towards him with his Observational Haki and he jumped up into the air. As he rose, he watched the lightsaber fly right past him, almost like he was not its target in the first place. Gray's eyes widened as the weapon gave off enough light that he saw what it was flying for. It sliced straight through the stone pillar, then curved and shot past two collapsed ones towards another. Gray was panicking, but he had not hit the floor yet so he could not run for the door.

Bane hit his knees, and his upper body started to fall forward. The lightsaber he sent out with the Force followed its path, cutting through every pillar still standing in the room. The weapon turned off, plunging the room into darkness. Gray touched the ground, while cracks ran up and down the walls and across the ceiling. Chunks of stone fell over the young man who started sprinting towards the door. He made it to the stairs, then a huge chunk of ceiling fell down in front of the doorway. Pieces of the rock that fell flew into him and knocked him back, right into more debris he could barely see, falling down on him hard as the room collapsed. Gray shook his head clear after getting hit by a rock, then snapped his head up as he felt danger coming, and watched the entire ceiling above him collapse at once.

League of Assassins Headquarters

"Father." Deep inside the League of Assassins' mountain headquarters, a beautiful young woman with jet black hair walked into an open hall. The room was almost as dark as the rest of the mountain, only this one had gas lamps hanging from the ceiling in two lines. The room was very empty. There was a red carpet leading from the craggily entranceway all the way to the other side of the room where a man sat in the air. He sat cross-legged in midair facing four columns of figures in cloaks of black material, swords at their sides or bows and on their backs.

The woman who walked in was trailed by two others. They walked on either side of her as she entered, only a few feet behind. Talia al Ghul strode down the carpet and in between the two center columns of assassins. As she neared the front, a woman with long curly black hair broke off her meditation and smirked up an insane look at the woman walking by. Talia ignored Bellatrix Lestrange's creepy gaze and only stopped walking once she was ahead of the front row where she got down on a knee in front of her father. "Darth Bane has been killed. As has the intruder-"

"The boy is alive," Ra's said. His daughter snapped her gaze up and saw Ra's lowering down. His eyes opened and he left his sitting position, fully extending his legs right when he lowered to the point where by extending them his feet would touch the floor. The fifty-one assassins in front of Ra's al Ghul looked to their leader awaiting orders. They rose from meditation positions into the same kneeling pose that Talia was in at the front of their pack. Ra's smiled as he looked over all of their heads to the opening in the back of the room that had no real door in it but led to the rest of the mountain. "I want to see him for myself. Make yourselves scarce."

Fifty people in front of Ra's darted away and vanished into the shadows. His daughter stood up slower though and faced her father, "Darth Bane was no fool."

"You are not to harm him," Ra's repeated. Talia ground her teeth, but nodded, then leapt back to the door she came in from, before vanishing out into the mountain.

Ra's turned his back from the entrance. He faced the back wall and closed his eyes again. Ra's waited. The leader of the League waited, waited, then spoke, "Gray Fullbuster."

Across the room, the man who had snuck his way through the mountain all the way to this giant room froze. He had been on the other side of the entrance, looking inside while using Zetsu, waiting for his moment to sprint into the shadows. As soon as he took a single step out in the open though, Ra's al Ghul called him by name. The mage did not even try to go into hiding after that. There was no point. He dropped his Zetsu as keeping it up put a danger on himself of being completely unguarded if Ra's were to attack. "How did you know?" Gray questioned.

"En," Ra's explained as he turned around, his eyes opening up only once he did so that Gray could see they had been closed. Gray still looked confused, and Ra's continued, "It is similar to Zetsu in that it is a utilization of one's Nen. En is more complex however." Ra's dropped his En and the sphere surrounding him shrank back into his body. Gray's eyes widened and he looked around as a translucent sphere of white light closed back in on Ra's' body. "It allows me to feel the shape, size, and movement of anything that enters within sixty meters of my body.

Sixty meters?! Then, he didn't just notice me as I entered the room. He was waiting for me the whole time.

"Father," a voice said, and Gray spun around to see someone back in the hallway he just came out of. Talia looked aggravated as she spoke up, "There were four opportunities to kill him on his way here." The woman glared at Gray and continued, "Even now, he turns his back on Ra's al Ghul. Please, allow me the honor of killing him."

"Did I not say," a voice began, making Gray spin even faster back around than he already did after hearing what this woman said. Ra's was half the distance to him as he was a second ago, standing there with a straight expression on his face that somehow still set off so many danger signals to the young man. "I want to see him for myself?"

"You have seen him," Talia remarked. "Are you impressed?"

Gray stepped back towards the left side of the room while these two conversed. Ra's al Ghul has a daughter? How strong is she? Will I have to face them both on my own? "I am, in fact," Ra's replied. His daughter looked surprised, then Ra's continued as they both faced Gray, "Now, Talia, leave me. Do not return again until I call for you." Talia hesitated at the entrance, and Ra's continued to look at Gray while he said, "If you like, you could try and kill him right now."

Ra's left the offer up there. Gray did not know if the man was being serious, but one quick look at Talia showed him that he had completely misread the situation. Ra's was not giving her a shot at him first, he was telling her to try and harm him, like if she tried it would be the last thing she ever did. She bowed her head and stepped backwards, before vanishing into the darkness before Gray's very eyes. Gray looked back towards Ra's as soon as Talia was gone, and his eyes focused in on his enemy. He became so focused in that single instant that Talia could likely walk back in the room and straight up to his back without him noticing. This was Ra's al Ghul standing before him. His eyes, his ears, his senses, everything he had was honed in on Ra's.

If I'm to get to the Pit, I need to get past him. This is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. Ra's al Ghul is a monster, the leader of the League of Assassins. There's nothing I can say to this man. All I can do is try to get past him. I need to get beat him. Unless- "Ra's, I'm here to-"

"I know," Ra's interrupted Gray, stopping him before he could make a speech, or attempt to stall to have more time to think up a plan. Ra's al Ghul faced Gray inside this empty room, and he continued, "You are here to bring back the woman you love. But Gray, tell me," Ra's lifted his right hand and Gray's nerves got even more rattled as the leader of the League of Assassins had a saber in his hand that the mage did not notice until just now. "Why would I allow you to use the Lazarus Pit which has kept me alive for a millennia?"

Gray's face gained even more sweat to it. He looked at this man who was clearly aged, but did not look like an old man at all. "A, millennia?" Gray muttered, wondering if he heard correctly.

"A thousand years I have honed my skills," Ra's pointed the tip of his blade at the young man ahead of him. "Now come, we both know that there is only one way this will end."

Gray grit his teeth and he rose his arms. "Ahhhh!" Gray's hands covered in ice and then the air in front of them shimmered with light. His fists were clenched but had openings between his palms and fingers so that his hilts could form in them. A pair of longswords appeared in his hands and Gray planted his feet down on the ground hard as he stood in a stance with them. Don't form any ice on the legs, he thought, and keep as little weight as possible on my body. I saw how fast he was when he faced Ben and Dash. Damn how I wish one of them was here right now.

The ice mage charged. He sprinted towards Ra's, and the man he was facing did not move. Ra's stood there, almost six feet tall, with sideburns on his face that stopped before his chin and spiked back up towards his nose. His hair was brown and pushed back even though there did not look to be any product in it. His eyes were small, cold, evil. Unlike the rest of the assassins in the base, Ra's had on a green cloak and a cape connected to it by golden clasps on his shoulders. His collar was popped up and the hilt of his long silver saber was pitch black. Gray noticed all of this as he slashed his two swords down into Ra's' shoulders all the way down into the floor.

Gray's blades connecting with the ground sent loud clanks echoing around the room, while Gray himself stared at the spot Ra's was standing, or at least where the image of his body was fading away. "Wha-" Gray froze, his voice stopped coming out, and the cold steel against his throat slid across. Gray stumbled forward and spun around, looking at Ra's in horror while grabbing at his throat.

"Do not worry," Ra's began. "I used the back of the blade," he turned the weapon in his hand and smirked at Gray's reaction when the mage looked down at his hand and saw no blood on it. "Also, I would like you to know, before I kill you," Gray gulped, annoyed at himself for doing so, but he could not stop himself after what just happened. Ra's continued, "I do not have any poison on my weapon." Instantly, Gray's nervous, hesitant, afraid expression, darkened and hardened. Ra's nodded, "Yes, in an assassination, the poison I created is very useful, but I do not feel the need to use it in a fight such as this. In fact, it would be dishonorable, would you not agree?"

"Honor?" Gray snarled, his swords shaking as he rose them up again. Ice spread up his arms, all the way to his neck that it wrapped around in a strong coating. "What do you know of honor? The way you killed Juvia," Gray spat on the floor of this man's room, and finished, "you have no honor."

"From what I have heard," Ra's looked straight into Gray's eyes, and countered, "neither do you." The hilts of Gray's ice swords cracked in his grip. The mage charged again, and though more furious and full of hate than a minute ago, his moves were sloppier too. He slashed so hard with the sword in his right hand that a flying slash came off of it and flew into the wall over on his right. Ra's sidestepped the other direction though, having noticed the sword was moving with so much force and momentum that it would release a long-ranged attack like that. While the attack was still coming off of Gray's first blade though, he jabbed his second towards where he felt Ra's was dodging to.

"Does it pain you?" Ra's questioned, while raising his right hand and catching the tip of Gray's second sword. Ra's clenched his hand into a fist and Gray's sword broke in two. The League's leader reached forward and grabbed Gray by the face while the younger man leaned back trying to avoid it. Gray brought his other sword across his body trying to cut Ra's' hand off while the man had him grabbed, but as his eyes were covered by one of Ra's' fingers, he did not see the man's forearm covering in Armament Haki, shattering his blade on contact. "I killed the woman you love, and you are so powerless to stop me." Ra's lifted Gray off the ground while the mage tried to think of something to do against this overwhelming power, then Ra's tossed him straight up towards the ceiling.

Gray snapped his eyes open and rose a fist to use some Ice Make magic on the man down below. When he tried refocusing on his opponent though, his eyes widened as Ra's was no longer there. His presence was gone too, and the first time Gray realized where he was, was when Ra's' left leg slammed into his side so hard that the armor he was wearing could not cushion the blow enough. One of his ribs cracked, he coughed in agony, and shot off the kick down into the ground where he collided on such an angle to start rolling across the floor into the opposite wall as the door he entered from.

This isn't good! I need to focus! Get my bearings, get a strategy together like with Bane! "When you tried to murder your friend," Ra's began, and Gray clenched his teeth and fists hard. Ignore him! He's trying to get to you! "Did he look betrayed? Of course he did. How did that look feel?" Ra's stepped towards Gray who stood up from under the debris that collapsed on top of him when he hit the wall. Ra's looked genuinely intrigued and he continued, "I have betrayed many people, but for someone like you to do it. A Fairy Tail mage. A good son, student, friend…" Gray froze right as he was getting ready to sprint at his opponent again.

How does he know those things?! What the Hell?! Who is this man!? "Ra's al Ghul," Gray muttered. The top half of his face got shadowed over by his hair, and he growled in a deep voice, "Who, who are you?"

"I am the Demon's Head," Ra's responded. "Over a thousand years I mastered my arts, all while researching the mysteries of the world. I was not surprised when we were brought to this world." Gray's lower lip lowered and Ra's stared so deeply into his eyes that Gray could feel fear throughout his body. "When the darkness rises, when the guardians fall, the League will be there. I will lead us through the end of everything. In this fight to the death, who do you think is more likely to survive?"

Gray suddenly realized he was up against a wall, no exits around him, the only exits in the room that he could see were behind Ra's. Here he stood, facing a man who knew things that terrified him to his core. "I don't know what it is you're fighting for," Gray snarled, his nerves soothing as his body relaxed. He dropped his swords and rose his right fist, lifting up his left palm at the same time. "But I know what I came for, and I won't leave without her. I won't die until she's alive!" Gray slammed his fist down on his open palm, "Ice Make Unlimited: One Sided Chaotic Dance!" Bright blue light shone around the point of Gray's hands and expanded farther and farther until it flashed bright. Ice appeared all around Gray. Swords of ice spun around his head and shards shot in every direction. Ra's looked left and right as the ice surrounding Gray expanded, circles of ice stretching from the floor to the ceiling, spinning around and around so fast it was hard to see what the ice actually looked like. When it stopped being so blurry, slowing down to a sudden stop, Gray had hundreds of swords of ice surrounding him on every side.

The man inside all that ice was panting hard, his chest heaving, but the corners of his lips curled up. All of the blades shot the same way. They flew towards Ra's, and Gray focused hard on controlling his attack. He kept a small distance between each sword in order to spread them out through the room, giving Ra's nowhere to dodge to. Then, when he saw Ra's standing still getting ready to take the swords coming straight for him, Gray slammed his arms inwards and sent all of the blades on the outsides shooting in at the same point. As soon as the swords connected, an explosion of ice blasted Ra's, covering ten meters by ten meters of ground in ice crystals that stretched all the way up to the ceiling.

Gray stood right in front of one of the crystals, as they had spread so far that they almost hit him. I couldn't hold back though, he thought, while trying to steady his heavy breathing. Did I get him? Gray took a step around the crystal closest to him and tried looking into the center of the ice. He stared inside it and his eyes opened wide at the sight of Ra's' face, his eyes opened wider than usual, his mouth open like he was trying to say something. He was frozen solid. "I did it," Gray whispered, more shock than anything else in his voice.

"If only," Ra's replied, and Gray snapped his head right to see the man stepping out of the shadows. The gas lamps on the ceiling were waving back and forth, a few of them had broken from the attacks, and shadows danced on the walls giving the room an even more creepy aura. Ra's continued to walk towards Gray while staring into the shocked mage's eyes. Gray did not look back towards the ice, but Ra's said anyway, "A clone. What you just froze was no more than a rock that I transformed to look like myself after you hit that wall. That moment you were covered in debris was when I made the switch." Gray's mouth opened more and his breaths were coming out more staggered now, exhaustion seeming to set in as what just happened set in. "It must be frustrating," Ra's said while still walking calmly towards his enemy. "Knowing that you wasted so much magical power, while all it took was a pinch of chakra to use the Transformation Jutsu. The futility of your actions."

Ra's lifted his sword and Gray realized how close he was. The man jabbed his sword forward and Gray leapt back, but the weapon was longer than he thought, which along with Ra's jab, arm length, and how far he leaned his body forward, made the tip hit Gray in his armor. It started to cut through, but Gray was already in a backwards momentum and the sword thrust solely added to the speed he was sent backwards. Gray slammed his back into the wall, then slammed both of his hands back against it too, covering the wall in ice.

The Demon's Head no longer seemed to be playing around though. As soon as Gray flew off of his sword, he sprinted at the mage, slashing down towards him. Gray rose his right arm and formed a sword as fast as he could, covering it in Haki too for good measure. Even with his Haki, as soon as Ra's' weapon clashed with his own, he felt the entire weapon crack inside the Haki coating. His arms trembled as he grabbed the hilt with both hands and pushed back as hard as he could, but Ra's pushed down harder. "AhhhhHHHHH!" Gray roared louder and louder, then kicked his legs out while slamming his right hand to the wall again. With only one hand on his sword, he could not hold Ra's back for more than half a second, but before his blade got pushed aside so Ra's could stab him, the leader of the League had to dodge his double-kick.

As Ra's moved to the side of Gray's legs though, the younger man's other hand slammed into the wall already covered in ice and the entire wall shattered. Ra's' eyes focused on the part right where Gray's hand hit, and he pulled his sword back while leaping to his right. Gray had a long shaft of a spear in his left hand and he smashed it down where Ra's was just standing. He darted his eyes to the side and saw Ra's still in midair about to hit the ground, so without any hesitation, Gray turned, stomped down powerfully with his right foot, and threw his spear forward with all his force. The spear flew across the gap between them in an instant, the whizzing sound of the spear cutting through the air filling their ears. Ra's leaned his head right, and the spear shot over his left shoulder without touching him.

Gray sprinted at his opponent. This was the first time through the entire fight where he felt like he had any sort of control. He could not lose it now just because of how disheartened he was at the ease with which Ra's seemed to dodge that last attack. He slammed his right fist into his left palm, yelling, "Ice Make-" Ra's moved. He moved so fast that Gray stopped mid-shout because his opponent was suddenly sprinting towards him and bringing a sword down. Gray formed a sword as fast as he could and rose it up, then his eyes opened even wider while he was lifting the sword as Ra's' entire weapon coated in black Haki with a dark purple aura around it. Focus! Gray shouted internally, concentrating as hard as he could on surrounding his weapon with Haki.

Ra's' sword collided with Gray's. Right before the blades clashed, Gray's surrounded in a coating of Armament Haki. The blades pushed against each other, for a moment. Gray felt all the ice inside his weapon shatter, then watched in horror as his Haki shattered before his eyes, and then Ra's' sword kept slashing down straight across his body. The sword cut through Gray's armor, slicing from right shoulder down to his left side, and completely cutting through the powerful material of his battle suit. Gray was still staring in horror at his shattering sword when blood splashed up in the air, his own blood.

The power of the slash was too much and Gray got thrown backwards. He yelled out in pain before he hit the ground and tumbled over and over before uprighting himself. He got to his feet and looked down at his armor, seeing a slash across it and blood coming out of that slash fast. It didn't cut deep enough, he thought in relief, before snapping his head up as he felt Ra's right in front of him. By the time his eyes were off his bloody gash, Ra's stood there three feet in front of him, saber held at his right side by the hilt with both of his elbows curled in. Gray's eyes started to widen. He had no weapon in his hands, and Ra's jabbed with his own, far too fast for Gray to avoid. The blade connected, it went through Gray's armor, and the ice mage gasped as his chest felt like it was slammed into by something hard, even if he did not go flying from the attack this time.

The Fairy Tail wizard stood there in a daze. The attacks Ra's was hitting him with were too fast, too strong, too skilled. The leader of the League had stopped talking, and Ra's al Ghul lived up to his name. Gray looked into Ra's' eyes, and then he didn't die. That, hit my heart, he thought, before lowering his eyes just like Ra's in front of him did. Gray looked at the blade sticking out of his chest that for some reason seemed too long, almost like it had not impaled him at all. Ra's looked at the weapon as well, and he said while sliding it backwards, "I see. That armor of yours is most powerful in front of your heart. I used the exact amount of power it took to cut through before, yet you have survived, and from the looks of it, even you did not see this coming."

Gray snapped his shocked gaze back up and stared at Ra's with huge eyes. I almost died! If he had hit me even a little harder, I was dead. If this suit was just a little weaker, I was dead. Gray leapt backwards fast, not knowing when Ra's would strike next. Ra's looked at Gray as he arced through the air, and the Demon's Head started walking towards him before he even landed. "Now you understand. I can see it in your eyes. Your determination, your will to fight, they are strong indeed. However, even the strong fear death." Ra's slashed his sword to the side and Gray's blood flew off of it and into the wall on his right where it made a splatter mark. The lanterns that remained on the ceiling were waving around, light dancing in the room as Ra's walked towards Gray, holding his saber straight out to the right.

Gray was panting loudly, unable to keep himself composed, unable to keep his voice down as he wheezed for breath. He was close to a wall when he landed, and there was no way to get out of the room. I have to just try to get to the Pit without fighting him! He's way too strong! "This will be the final attack," Ra's stated calmly, while all of Gray's warning sensors went off and his mind screamed at his body to run. He could not run though. Ra's will follow me. If, if I'm risking my life for this, I might as well go all out.

The younger man stopped panting all at once. He brought his arms in to his sides, bent his elbows, clenched his fists, and yelled, "AHHHH!" Gray's arms covered in a thick coating of light blue ice, stretching all the way up to his shoulders. The ice started moving to his head, but Ra's picked up the speed to twice what he had already been moving. As he was already faster than Gray, this was almost like teleporting to the younger man whose eyes opened huge as the ice swords he was making were not ready, the armor on his head was not ready, and he had no time to dodge. Ra's got within a foot of Gray and his sword was covered fully in Haki, moving faster and harder than it had moved all fight.

Ra's slashed.

CLANK!

Gray had his eyes closed. He did not know when he clenched them, but the release of death he thought was about to take him never came. The instant he had closed his eyes, a thousand images had rushed through his mind. He had heard people say that when you are about to die, your life flashes in front of your eyes. Well, the only images that he saw in that instant, were memories that he had shared with Juvia. He opened his eyes, ready to keep fighting, ready to go on and take on the entire League again as what he was fighting for reappeared before his eyes. When his eyes opened though, he suddenly realized why it was that Ra's' sword had never reached him.

A black cloak waved in front of the mage's eyes. Gray's jaw dropped. There was a figure in front of him holding two swords crossed over his head, each one coated in Haki, but also another substance that dripped off the hilts as he held off Ra's blade. He held his swords there holding off an assassin who looked less shocked than Gray, but still had his eyes opened larger than normal, his eyebrows raised, and whose saber he pushed down harder, only for the two longswords that were shaking beneath his own to push up and knock his blade back. Ra's jumped backwards ten feet. He landed and stared at the boy in front of him, the teenager with jet black hair that was long in the back and had long bangs that partially covered his big dark eyes.

Gray could not make out words for a few seconds. Ra's composed himself more quickly though. "Kirito," he said, and the teenager before him narrowed his eyes to glare straight into Ra's' similarly dark ones. Kirito lowered the sword in his right hand, the black one, down to the right side of his waist while keeping it pointed towards Ra's. He rose the blue sword in his other hand up at his left side with his elbow bent and the sword slightly pulled back as if he was already planning a strike with it, even if that was just his usual stance. Ra's examined the stance, and he then looked back up and past Kirito to the doors the teen came from. "How did you get here?" Ra's questioned.

Kirito's blades dripping blood was a give away, but the teenager said nothing for a few seconds. He kept eye contact with Ra's, his instincts telling him to stay absolutely focused, because he was facing one of the most powerful opponents he had ever fought. This feels like Blackbeard, but I have no backup, no healers, no Wanda to give me the upper hand. Thanks to Akuma's training I made it here only killing four guards, but even if they can't sense me, they'll find the bodies soon and find out I'm here. If I'm going to beat this man, I need to do it before they get here. "Kirito," a quiet voice whispered behind him.

As soon as Gray let out a sound, Kirito's forehead wrinkled in anger, his teeth clenched like his hands around the hilts of his blades, and he glared even more furiously at Ra's. "You came," Gray whispered, taking a step to the right so he could see Kirito's face. "You, saved-"

"I only came for Juvia," Kirito growled, his irises darting to the corners of his eyes for a second to give Gray the same glare he was giving an amused-looking Ra's. "I have a better chance of that if you're helping me, so that's why I saved you." Kirito's eyes darted back to Ra's and he continued darkly, "I realized if Juvia has a shot of coming back, I have to take it. I was willing before, and she shouldn't have to pay for the choices you've made."

Gray's bottom lip lowered as Kirito spoke, but when the teen finished he grit his teeth and focused back on Ra's himself. Ra's was no longer facing his original opponent however. "You defeated several members of the League to make it this far," Ra's stated.

"Four to be exact," Kirito replied. His swords stayed steady and his eyes looked deep into Ra's'. "I was able to sneak past the rest of them without issue."

"Hmph," Ra's lifted his head and looked down his nose across the room at Kirito. "What you said about being a ninja, perhaps I was too fast to dismiss it." Kirito's fists clenched harder around the hilts of his blades as Ra's referred to the night the League ambushed them. The corners of Ra's' lips curled up a small amount, "Something has changed about you. That night, you would not have killed the Resistance leader I-"

"It was not my ninja training that allowed me to get here," Kirito snarled, interrupting the leader of the League whose expression immediately took a darker turn. Kirito's was already that dark though, and the teenager took a step forward before coating both of his swords in a full coating of Haki. "I was part of a criminal organization where I learned how to mask my energy. That organization took down countries and slaughtered millions." Kirito started sprinting forward and he roared, "You know nothing about me!" He slashed down before he reached Ra's, and a slash of blue light flew off of his blue sword that was coated in Haki.

The slash flew at Ra's only for the man to turn his body left and allow it to fly harmlessly past him. Kirito pulled his other sword back far behind him and slashed forward, now close enough that the blade itself would be what hit his enemy. Ra's lifted his katana and blocked Kirito's sword, only for the blue one he swiped first to already be coming back down over Ra's' head. Ra's lifted his free hand and around it formed a white veil so thick that when Kirito's blade hit it, the Ko completely protected Ra's' skin from being cut. As Kirito's blade stopped against his hand though, Ra's felt something coming from below him and his head snapped down.

The floor broke upwards and four arms reached out of it for Ra's' legs. Ra's hopped in that moment and his feet rose just above Kirito's hands as they grabbed in for his legs. Ra's stomped back down hard and his feet smashed through the ground and through the two clones beneath the stone. As this happened however, Kirito dragged his black sword against Ra's' saber all the way up to the hilt and then forward towards Ra's' head. Ra's leaned back and kicked upwards, catching Kirito in the gut and knocking the teenager up in the air. One of Kirito's swords came out of his grip as he rose, but what Ra's thought was a mistake in account of the pain, was just another move by the teen who brought his newly freed hand to his waist and pulled out five shuriken that he whipped down with a flick of his wrist.

Ra's backflipped three times as sharp throwing stars stuck in the ground where he just was over and over again. When he stopped, he pressed both feet down hard to get ready to charge forward again. As soon as he pressed down though, he felt his feet grow cold and a quick dart of his eyes showed him his legs covering in ice. "Ice Make Trap!" Gray yelled, and the floor of ice all around Ra's shot up his body in an instant. Before the ice had even reached his waist though, Ra's started moving his hands in strange positions in front of his body.

Kirito finally landed from the kick in the gut and was charging forward, but he realized what Ra's was doing and shouted to his right, "Dodge!"

Gray glanced in Kirito's direction, then leapt to his own right without questioning what the teen yelled his way. It was right on time too, as Ra's put his hands up to his mouth and cupped them there. A cone of flames shot out of his mouth so wide that Kirito had to stop charging and cross his arms in front of him, before getting knocked back by the force of the attack. Gray also crossed his arms even as he dodged, and both of the younger men came out of the attack barely scathed. When the flames settled however, Ra's stood there no longer partially encased in ice. He also stood in front of a figure that had both of the younger men hesitating at how big he was.

"Gray, I no longer have any interest in you," Ra's stated. Gray got a bead of sweat on the side of his face as the ten foot tall muscular giant in a white mask behind Ra's turned towards him. "I would like to continue a one on one fight, but with young Kirito. My bodyguard Ubu, will take care of you." The giant leapt over Ra's' head and arced towards Gray while pulling an arm back. Gray got ready, and while he did, he spotted someone on his left sprinting forward. For a second Gray though Kirito was going to intercept Ubu, until the teenager sprinted right underneath the muscular giant and leapt at Ra's who was still looking Gray's direction.

Ra's stepped left and swung a fist into Kirito's stomach, making it visible on the teen's back. "Kirito!" Gray yelled, before having to refocus on the man falling on him who punched forward his pulled-back fist. Gray tried stopping it with a punch of his own, but Ubu's arm buckled his own and kept going until it hit him in the chest and sent him flying backwards. Gray smashed into a wall, then formed a huge crater in it, then smashed straight through it completely as Ubu leapt towards the crater and slammed an elbow into the mage's stomach. Blood splashed out of Gray's mouth as the wall crumbled around them, and he was thrown out into a different hallway then through the wall on the other side and into a large empty room full of weapons.

Back in the main chamber, Ra's al Ghul faced off against Kirito who was frowning deeply but not panting at all. Kirito did not wish to show any sign of weakness in front of this man who was much more monstrous than his giant manservant. I managed to recover most of my chakra from last night, but I wish I was at full strength before fighting a more powerful opponent. That's what this is. Imagine fighting Blackbeard, but without any outside help, without healers, without any way to restore myself if I make a mistake. I can't make mistakes like I did that day. Every injury is life-threatening. Every move I make is a waste of energy and chakra if I don't make it count.

Ra's reached behind his back and then swung his arm around his body. Kirito's eyes widened as the same type of shuriken he threw at Ra's a minute ago came flying at him. He could still see his own throwing stars on the floor, so he knew that Ra's must have had the same weapons on him from the start. Kirito used his Observational Haki to figure out where each one was coming from and dodge accordingly, but as he dodged Ra's came sprinting forward. Nowhere to dodge! He thought as Ra's swiped his sword down and there were shuriken on all sides of him. Kirito closed his eyes calmly, and the sword slamming down inches in front of his face stopped.

Kirito's eyes snapped back open and he glared through the yellow veil at the enemy over him. Ra's pushed down harder and cracks formed all around the magical barrier, but it gave Kirito the time he needed for the shuriken to fly past him, and now he was able to dive to the left and avoid the attack. The barrier dropped and Kirito picked up his black sword lying on the ground where he dodged to, before pressing his feet down hard with bent knees, and springing off at the man who landed where he was just standing. He slashed both swords down together but Ra's rose his own and grabbed the hilt with both hands to stop Kirito's swipes. "Raaa!" Kirito slammed his swords down as hard as he could and his weapons shook violently against Ra's' sword.

Ra's pressed his own weapon back against Kirito and sent the ninja flipping back through the air and landing thirty feet away from him. "A Borg?" Ra's questioned. "I admit I was not expecting you to know any magic."

Kirito paused before sprinting at the Demon's Head. He likes talking. I should let him. I need to catch my breath more often than he does, and he might not know that. "I learned it in a place called Magnoshutatt, but I never finished my training. The NEG took over the country and I fled, joining the Underworld so I could continue my training." Kirito tossed his swords up in the air and made several hand signs in front of his face before cupping his hands to his mouth like Ra's did a minute earlier. Ra's' eyebrows rose and Kirito yelled, "Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" Fireball after fireball shot out of his mouth towards the older enemy who darted around to avoid all of the attacks. Kirito turned his head to follow Ra's' movements, but the Demon's Head was too fast for his fireballs to connect.

Kirito puffed his final fireball then sprinted ahead again. He leapt up in the air and brought both swords high above his head. As he came down at Ra's though, the older man raising his sword to block noticed that Kirito's swords were not coming towards him as fast as the teen's feet were. Kirito lead with his legs and the bottoms of his feet covered in Haki to protect them. Ra's covered his blade in Ko and Haki and rose it to block Kirito's kicks, but when Kirito's feet connected, a loud CRACK echoed through the room making Ra's' eyes open wide. Kirito covered his feet in Haki as protection, but also as a diversion from what he was really planning, the first use of his Devil Fruit powers in the battle.

Ra's let go of his snapping blade as Kirito's feet smashed through it. He rose up his hands and caught Kirito's feet, but the boy was already swinging down with the swords over his head. Ra's pushed up hard with his hands making Kirito do a backflip as his feet were thrown up. He let go of his swords as he flipped and crossed his index and middle fingers across each other. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Five clones appeared in the air around him, and four of them shot at Ra's without delay.

The man who flipped Kirito away thought he had more time to recover and pick up a second weapon, but seeing these five new enemies told him the teen had different plans. He had to flip backwards and gain some distance to prepare a counter, and while he did that, Kirito's fifth clone hit his hands around Kirito's open palm over and over gathering spinning chakra there. The fifth clone vanished as soon as the spinning blue ball of light had formed, then Kirito sprinted forward and yelled, "Rasengan!" He slammed the ball of light straight through a Shadow Clone that was swinging a sword down at Ra's, trying to catch the leader of the League unawares.

Ra's saw the blue ball of light coming through the puff of white smoke as Kirito's clone vanished. He stared at it with eyes that were narrowing, right before those eyes lifted and focused on Kirito's. The teen saw the smirk right as he connected the ball of light, and he already knew he had failed before the clone he smashed the ball through vanished. Ra's did not disappear into a puff of white smoke, the image of him simply faded away. What was that? A regular clone? After-image? It doesn't matter, he used my clone's smoke as a cover to vanish. He knew what I was doing from the start. Kirito rose up his arms in a fighting stance and the two remaining Shadow Clones of his made a triangle formation with him to guard as many blind spots as possible.

"How did you do that?" Ra's questioned. The three Kiritos started walking in a circle, having each of them focus on different parts of the room at different times, making it harder for anyone watching to figure out which one was the real Kirito. "My sword should have been strong enough to cut through any type of steel, or the Haki's of men with very strong wills. How did you crack it?" He could not figure out where Ra's was speaking from, nor sense him in any corner of the room. A loud crash sounded from past a hole in the wall where Kirito suspected Gray was having trouble with the heftier enemy. The second he focused on that hole though, he felt Ra's in the direct opposite direction and spun around fast, all three of them. The Kiritos looked straight at Ra's only fifteen feet away from them, somehow having approached without a single one of them noticing.

The three identical teenagers rose up two swords each, even the original who grabbed his while circling with his clones. Don't let him know it's a Devil Fruit. There's a possibility he has Kairoseki in here, and if he- "Is it a Devil Fruit?" Ra's questioned. Kirito's eyes opened wide and he instantly cursed himself in his mind for being so stupid. "Ah, so it is," Ra's said, and Kirito grimaced deeper that Ra's caught his reaction. How did he know? Can he read minds? Did he guess? Does something about that power give it away? No, it doesn't matter anymore. He knows, now adapt.

"You no longer have your sword, Ra's al Ghul," Kirito taunted. The one in the middle stepped forward and continued, "I have six." The teen on the left stepped forward while also walking a little left so that they were starting to encircle Ra's. He spoke as he walked around, "You won't be able to stop all of our blades-" The Kirito walking to the right continued, "And our Devil Fruit powers-" The Kirito in the center re-positioned his stance and finished, "And my ninjutsu, with nothing but your hands." All three Kiritos bent their knees and pressed their feet down hard.

"I believe, you may be right," Ra's replied. He reached up to his shoulders fast and grabbed both hands underneath his green cloak, then brought his arms back out in front of him so fast that the Kiritos who all sprinted forward had only made it a single step before Ra's was holding two scimitars in his hands. The curved blades as long as Kirito's looked so sharp that Kirito had no idea how the man could have had them unsheathed under his cloak, and he wondered what else could be hiding under there. He only had the luxury to wonder that for a moment though, as Ra's sprinted to his left and took out the Kirito that originally walked to the right. He stabbed both swords through Kirito's chest, and the teenagers went wide-eyed at how fast he moved.

The other two ran at Ra's' back as the third exploded in a puff of smoke. He took on Dash and Ben and was able to land hits. Wait a second. As the Kiritos slammed their swords down and Ra's blocked two each with only one sword of his own, the boys fighting the older man realized something. How is he fighting so well? Dash said he broke one of Ra's' wrists. It's only been a few days. Kirito was too distracted and he snapped his head to the left as another Shadow Clone went flying backwards and smashed into a wall before disappearing from sight himself. Kirito re-focused on Ra's who turned to him once more from only a few feet away, both of them with two swords risen but the older man clearly in control of the fight. "What happened to your injuries the other night?" Kirito growled.

"I thought you knew," Ra's said as he started circling and Kirito did the same to keep equal distance from the man. "Is it not why you are here?" Kirito's eyes widened slightly but he regained composure instantly and grimaced at what Ra's was saying. "The Lazarus Pit has kept me alive for a millennia. Its regenerative properties are incomparable." The League's leader tilted his head and questioned with a straight lip, "Do you really think I will allow you to use it for a woman I myself killed."

Kirito's lips lifted so Ra's could see how hard his teeth bared at that final sentence. He sprinted forward and slashed the blue sword he had higher up down towards Ra's' head. Ra's stepped to the left to avoid it, but Kirito's other sword slashed across his body to follow Ra's' dodge. The man rose one of his own swords and they clashed CLINK then Ra's slashed across his body with the sword he had free. Kirito had already swung both of his own and was still pressing against him, so with the extra speed he thought he would slice right through the young man. Kirito saw the blade approaching fast, but he also saw it approaching from the very start and had enough time to snap his body backwards. Whoosh the sword slashed horizontally right over Kirito's face and upper body. Right after it passed over him, he snapped back up and jumped towards Ra's, bringing up the blue sword he swung first that slammed into the ground earlier.

The blade slashed close to Ra's' left shoulder but he leaned away and brought up the sword he parried Kirito's second swing with, brushing his weapon against Kirito's to force it to keep its distance. SHHHH The swords slid across each other and Kirito moved closer the whole time, so that he was close enough to slam his head forward at Ra's'. Ra's leapt backwards though right before their heads collided, and Kirito bit down in fury as he missed and the Devil Fruit Crack he was trying to use failed. Ra's knew what I was trying. He's already figured out part of my Devil Fruit, and he knows I have Shadow Clones and Fire Style Jutsu. I need to use everything in my arsenal and catch him off guard every time if I'm going to start landing some hits.

Ra's landed a good distance from Kirito, then he examined closely the weapons in Kirito's hands. "I put a large amount of Haki into my parries," Ra's began, making Kirito stop and keep up his stance instead of charging in again. Any time he gives me to formulate a strategy, to catch my breath, is time I'll accept. Ra's continued despite knowing what Kirito was doing by standing there and listening. He was far too interested and he continued, "I did not sense any Haki in your blades, but oddly enough they did not crack, let alone break. What are those weapons you are holding?"

Kirito's eyes glanced down at his swords. These are the swords Timmy wished for me in Metropolis. After the battle I searched for hours to find them near where we fought Luthor. They've never needed to be re-sharpened. They're stronger than any sword I've ever used before. These are the swords I used to kill Blackbeard. His hands tightened around the grips of his weapons and new confidence was rising in him. Luthor, Blackbeard, Nagato, Naruto, Orochimaru, I have fought dozens of powerful enemies before, and I've always made it through. This time will be no different! Kirito shot forward like a missile, pulling his black sword back at a speed faster than he had moved throughout the battle. He put so much strength into his liftoff from the ground that the rock floor beneath where he just stood cracked down, then shattered into a small crater.

The teen slashed down while filling his black sword with Haki. Ra's rose a blade of his own and filled it with Haki, before swinging at Kirito. "RAAAA-" CRACK Kirito's eyes of fury opened as wide as saucers and his yell caught in his throat. Ra's did not swing at him at all, he noticed it in the final moment before their weapons collided. Ra's was swinging straight at the center of Kirito's sword, right where the weapon was now cracked from one end to the other. The top half of the blade was lifting high in the air, but while it did Ra's turned to Kirito's shocked face, stared into the boy's eyes for a moment, then slammed the elbow of the arm he just slashed his sword with straight into the teen's head.

Kirito was thrown so hard into a wall across the room that he smashed straight through it. The hole was not on the same side of the room as the one Gray bashed through a few minutes ago, and the room Kirito was thrown into was so much darker than the one Gray was currently fighting Ubu in. Kirito hit the ground in that room and he coughed violently as he pushed debris off of him. I feel myself slipping. I can't, give in. Not yet. Hold on just a little longer. He pushed up on his hands and knees and looked around, around the pitch black room he entered where the only lights he could see were coming from the hole he smashed in the wall.

A shadow walked towards that hole though. The shadow got closer and the lights in that room past it became dimmer, until all of the lamps in that other room suddenly went out all at once, and there was true darkness. Kirito continued to stare straight ahead, even without a shred of light illuminating the room. Ra's stepped in and his footsteps stopped reaching Kirito's ears. His Haki vanished. Kirito did not try sensing him with the training Goku had been helping him with, as he had no doubt Ra's was masking his ki as well. "That look on your face," Ra's said, the distance from Kirito sounding only ten feet away, and directly behind him. Kirito did not flinch. Ra's continued, "You appear remarkably calm for such a scenario. At any moment I could take your life." And at that moment, Ra's chose to.

Ra's al Ghul sped at Kirito's left side and slashed down one of his scimitars. CLASH! Kirito had his blue sword risen and blocking Ra's' with no effort as Ra's did not feel the need to put much strength into that slash. Kirito turned his head left and looked straight into the Demon Head's eyes. "You're not the only one who can see the expression on his enemy's face," Kirito said, and the look on Ra's' vanished and was replaced with one of anger and intrigue. "It may be dark, but I can see!" Kirito slammed his other hand forward covered in Haki and with all his fingers outstretched. Ra's was too fast. The enemy leapt backwards to avoid the attack aimed for his chest, but he could see that Kirito was aiming straight for his heart with that attack.

Kirito started sprinting after Ra's and moving as fast as he could to keep the man on the retreat. Ra's started making hand signs as he retreated and Kirito slowed down and let distance gain between them. I don't recognize those hand signs. What is this jutsu? Ra's started murmuring under his breath and Kirito could not make out the words, but he knew they were not a language he understood. The teen's head snapped down and he looked at the floor on either side of Ra's with lifting eyebrows and growing eyes. "My studies in the realms of demons have improved greatly on this world. I have a pact with several." Ra's pointed an arm forward and the two dark monsters that rose out of the ground charged at Kirito.

Kirito stepped left to avoid the one on the right as it slashed down at him, then he crossed his hands and yelled, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Two clones appeared and leapt at each of the monsters attacking him, while the one in the center ignored them and sprinted right at Ra's who had been opening his mouth to continue speaking. Ra's closed his mouth and he pulled a scimitar back, only to throw it forward at Kirito who had to snap his back ninety degrees backwards at how fast the weapon came flying at him. He felt the next attack coming but could not tense in time to avoid a huge amount of pain from filling him when Ra's slashed a blade down his left arm that he did not pull far enough away. He turned sideways and kicked both legs out at the enemy to make him back away, but Ra's sidestepped then dragged his second scimitar across the floor making sparks as he brought it towards Kirito.

The teenager pressed one hand down hard on the ground, so hard that he pushed his whole body a foot up. Ra's' sword slid right under his arm and Kirito grabbed the back edge of it as it was sliding under him. Ra's snapped his head up and looked into Kirito's eyes, both of them still in complete darkness, right in the middle of an intense fight. "Your reflexes are more impressive than any man I have ever faced. They are your most impressive skill." Ra's slashed up with his weapon but Kirito twisted in midair and when he finished spinning he already had a half dozen shuriken in his hand that he threw down at Ra's. The Demon's Head slashed his scimitar back and forth in the air and split every single shuriken perfectly in half, twice. The shards of sharp steel fell from the air and clinked on the floor, but those clinks were drowned out by loud, pain-filled roars.

A glance behind him showed Ra's that both of his demons were ripped to pieces and sinking into the floor. The Shadow Clones turned their heads and glared towards him in the darkness. They knew exactly where he was despite the amount of ways he knew how to hide himself. "Are you wondering how I can see you?" The Kirito Ra's was already fighting asked, regaining the man's attention back on him even though Ra's was now in the center of a three person triangle. Kirito took a step towards Ra's and grabbed his blue longsword with both hands by the hilt, getting into a kendo stance. "That criminal organization I worked for, I trained for months in complete darkness! The one who trained me was a man named Akuma, a martial artist better than you and more demonic than any you could summon."

"Yet it is not those feats that I am impressed by, but your reflexes," Ra's said, not intimidated by Kirito's speech and showing it through his words. He turned his back to the boy facing him, and he flicked his wrist in the direction of one of the other clones. The third Kirito snapped his head to the left and looked with huge eyes at the shuriken sticking out of the other clone's head, wondering when it was Ra's put that weapon in his hand. Did he catch one of mine? Did he have that inside his cloak? FOCUS! "I believe that those reflexes were something you must have had from before you came to this world," Ra's continued, while turning and facing the Kirito closest to him. "I also believe your sword skills may have been obtained prior to your arrival on this world, as you tend to rely on them more than your other powers."

That could just be because I don't want to waste my strength though, Kirito thought, as that was actually why he believed he was using swords mainly, though now Ra's had him unsure of his own thoughts. "Tell me young man," Ra's said, staring into Kirito's eyes and smirking as he did. "Before coming to this world, were you, a normal human?" Ra's smirked more when he saw how Kirito barely reacted to the question, and then his smirk lowered down and he took a deep breath. "This is a first." Kirito did not say anything, mostly because he was confused. Ra's continued, "I will now tell you a secret Kirito, one that not many on this world would believe, but I know that you will."

Ra's rose his sword in front of his face and the weapon covered in flames from hilt to point. They illuminated his face with a dark orange glow, and in that light he looked so menacing as he said, "Before coming to this world, I also had no powers." Kirito's eyes turned huge as he stared at this man more powerful than nearly every man he had ever met before. He did not doubt Ra's' words however. "So, if all of the various powers the two of us have, have been obtained and mastered since our arrival on this world, this comes down to a battle of who we were before our arrival." The assassin no longer smiled. Ra's pointed his flaming sword at Kirito and said in a dark voice, "Even if you were gifted on your own world, I had a thousand years to sharpen my intellect, fasten my reaction speed, master my weapons, and fine-tune my martial arts. I only became the Demon's Head a thousand years ago because I was the most gifted of the assassins picked from all around the world for their potentials. What can you do to stop me?"

Ra's shot at the Kirito standing in front of him so fast that Kirito had no time to react. "It's over," Ra's said and his voice was so loud it filled Kirito's head. The teen did not see Ra's take a step, but suddenly he was in front of him, in midair, with his sword slashing across the front of his body. Kirito leapt backwards and at that moment caught a glimpse of his left arm where Ra's' sword cut through his black armor earlier. Ra's was swinging as hard as he did back then, but this time it was going to hit him right in the stomach. Kirito's eyes were huge, the flames flew off of Ra's' sword and a roar echoed from them, they shot at Kirito, but through the flames Ra's looked into Kirito's eyes, and at the final second he saw them narrow and his lips curl into a smirk.

The flames collided and there was an explosion. An object in the flames was thrown backwards so hard that he flew out of the hole in the wall they made before and back into the original room they were fighting in. Last second insanity? No, this boy was too strong for that. What was that look? Ra's walked into the hall he presided over his subordinates in, pointed his hands up and ignited the lamps on the ceiling he put out two minutes earlier. He looked in the light towards an object in the center of the room, and that object was in the shape of the teenager he was fighting. Kirito was standing back up, a huge slash across his black armor and blood all over his torso. The burnt figure looked at Ra's, and then the still-smirking teen exploded in a puff of smoke.

Ra's felt it behind him but stared at the opposite wall for a moment as he asked, "When?" The Kirito standing in the hole behind him did not respond so Ra's turned around. Ra's glared into Kirito's eyes and the teen saw an emotion on the man's face he had not witnessed before. It was rage. Ra's was masking it behind his calm demeanor and questioning expression, but he could not hide that rage deep in his eyes. At the same moment Ra's turned from the opposite wall, a bloody victor from a fight beyond it stumbled into the opening.

"'When?'" Kirito repeated, sounding like he spat it out at Ra's. They both knew what he was referring to. Kirito created two Shadow Clones and at some point during their exchange in the darkness, the real Kirito must have switched places with one of them. Ra's thought he kept his eyes on the Kirito who cast the jutsu the entire time though, but he just watched that teen puff out of existence as a clone. Kirito narrowed his eyebrows in and the corners of his lips curled up even as the same emotion filling Ra's' eyes filled his own. "'When?'" Kirito took a step into the room and cocked his head to the side, "When, did you ever think, you were facing the real thing?"

The Shadow Clone watched Ra's' bottom lip lower, then it vanished just like the injured one a second ago. The shock of what the clone said doubled as it was proven to the assassin that the boy's words were not mere boasts. That look on Ra's' face filled Kirito's mind. He opened his eyes. Kirito shot up the dark path of the League's headquarters from the small room he stood in full of dead bodies. He knew the path from the Shadow Clones already destroyed whose information he retained, and he sped into the hall he was just fighting Ra's in, only he was twice as fast as ever, both of his swords were undamaged and strapped to his back, and Ra's was not using his impressive En to find where the real Kirito was yet. He turned when Kirito was already finished making the hand signs he started only halfway up the mountain, and the teen snapped his body forward while opening his mouth wide. Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!

The glowing in the back of Kirito's throat exploded outwards with such force and speed that it looked impossible to dodge. Gray dropped his jaw from the hole on the other side of the room. Behind him was a pillar of ice with a burly man frozen solid inside it. The heat from the fireball made Gray wonder if Ubu would be thawed out, as the size of it was more than Gray thought Kirito could produce. Kirito and Gray stood there, on opposite sides of the hall full of flames. Kirito was panting hard, but Gray was panting a lot worse and his posture took a toll from it. He had one hand against the wall, his face had a lot of wet blood on it, and he had a small limp in his left leg where there was noticeably less armor covering it than before he started fighting Ra's al Ghul's bodyguard. Kirito took a single glance Gray's direction to see how well Gray had it together, but refocused on the massive fireball that was starting to shrink after only that one look.

"You would not have killed that man." Kirito's eyes opened wide and he bit down hard. I used so much chakra. I'm a fool. There was no way those taunts would get to a man like him enough to get the drop on him. Even those looks, they might not have been genuine. Have I gotten to him at all? Is he fine? Kirito looked into the flames, hoping that when he saw a man walk out of them the figure would have injuries all over him. His shadow appeared first, then the flames around him parted and Ra's stepped out. It seemed that even his cloak must have been fireproof, as the green fabric did not take a toll from the fire that had surrounded him. Then Kirito saw it, on the backs of Ra's' hands. Burns!

Kirito focused so much on how he finally landed some damage, that he had forgotten what Ra's said inside the flames, and Ra's knew it. "You would not have killed that man," Ra's repeated, and this time Kirito looked into his eyes and appeared confused like he had no idea what Ra's was speaking of in the moment. "The leader of that Resistance base," Ra's specified. Kirito thought back a few nights and he bared his teeth remembering his conversation with Ra's that night. "Before you were betrayed by that man behind me, you would not have done it." Gray was both stopped from thinking he could sneak up on Ra's while he was facing Kirito, and reminded of what he had done hours earlier, and the mage felt his energy deplete. "A young man who would dirty his hands to save his younger friends from having to dirty their own, is one of the most good acts a person can do." Ra's grinned a little as he saw how much Kirito started snarling at that. "You may not believe it, but you are so full of light, and you were lying when you said that you would kill a good man to-"

"You," Kirito started, his bangs shadowing over his, "have no idea, the kind of person I am." Kirito lifted his head but the shadow over his eyes only appeared darker. Gray looked across the room and into that dark expression and he felt chills down his spine. "I trained under Akuma, unknowing to the fact that Akuma killed Marco, a former teacher, and friend of mine. Unknowing to the fact that the organization we were a part of killed my best friend Naruto, and abducted my close friend Angel, and was responsible for murdering thousands, upon thousands of people." Kirito glared into Ra's' eyes and he growled at him, "My closest friends' loved ones, the ones still alive, they all look at me with hate deep in their eyes, because none of them have forgotten."

Kirito reached up for his hilts and he returned to a stance that Ra's knew well, but to the boy it was the first time he was getting in it since arriving. "I will not die here," Kirito said, firmly, without caring about how crazy it seemed when Ra's took so little damage from one of his strongest attacks. "My ignorance does not resolve me of my sins. That's why I won't die here. I have not done nearly enough to make up for what I've done. Killing Sokka would have saved my friends, and saved Ben and Dash from having to do it themselves, so I would have done it. I walk in the darkness so that others may walk in the light. I would have killed him whether or not Gray stabbed me in the back. It would have been a step in the right direction. This is just another step. A step I'll take," he rose his arms and crossed his swords in front of him, making a loud clank ring out and sparks fly, "By Killing YOU!" Kirito sprinted through the sparks and he yelled, "Get him!"

Gray sprinted forward as there was only one person Kirito could be talking to. They made it two steps each, then froze and their hearts fell. Ra's stopped standing. Kirito suddenly realized how Ra's moved so fast to knock his clone through the wall before, and a trump card Kirito was saving suddenly felt very irrelevant. Kirito and Gray lifted their heads and watched as Ra's floated off the ground and crossed his arms in front of his body. He covered in a white veil that flared like fire around him. "Don't give up hope," Kirito said, and Gray turned his head to the left with wide eyes as that was exactly what he was just doing.

If I didn't get Sokka to adjust the battle suit… don't think about it. Wings shot out of Kirito's armor and spread out behind him. Two split fairy wings, one half of each pointed diagonally up and the other halves pointed the opposite direction down. He flapped them once and lifted in the air, then held them in place and used his ki to continue floating there. Gray looked up at Kirito floating there in the air, then to Ra's who was staring straight at his flying opponent like he was the only one he needed to be concerned about. The ice mage ground his teeth and he yelled out in fury at the sight of the man who killed Juvia, ignoring him right before his eyes.

Gray lifted an arm and smeared the blood across his eyes away a bit so he could see better. He glared at Ra's with bloodshot eyes and yelled out at the top of his lungs, "ICE TRANSFORMATION:" Ice instantly shot down his arms and formed off of them down at his sides. Ice spread down his back and spikes shot out one by one along his spine. A mask of ice covered his face with a visor over his eyes, but a protrusion sticking out in front of his mouth, a protrusion that shaped into a long mouth full of sharp frozen teeth. Ice covered his torso and legs, and the spikes going down his spine continued long past his body forming a tail of ice. Gray snapped his head up while swinging his frozen arms out to his sides, and as the wings pressed against his body flapped, he yelled, "FROZEN DRAGON!" Wind raced off of the Fairy Tail wizard and it was so cold that the flames still flickering from Kirito's fireball dimmed and went out, leaving only the lamps on the ceiling igniting the room.

Gray rose in the air so the mage floated next to his ninja swordsman comrade. They flew there facing Ra's together, all three flying in a cramped space, no one saying a word. Ice spikes formed in Gray's hands, barbs on the sides ready to extend and expand at a second's notice. Kirito's hands clenched around his swords, and from his wrists to the points of his blades, Armament Haki wrapped around him. Ra's uncrossed his arms but when his right arm extended, a small shaft of wood slid out of his green sleeve and into his hand. He grabbed the weapon, and it extended ten times to create a staff twice as long as he himself was tall. The end of the wooden staff opened up and a black spearhead came out of it, and though not made of steel, whatever it was looked so sharp that the boys fighting this assassin doubted even their body armor would be able to protect from it.

They flew towards each other. The time for words was over. Gray swung an arm forward before they reached Ra's. A spike of ice flew off his hand and at the assassin. The spike missed and kept flying into an opposite wall where it exploded into a dozen spikes all extending from the collision. It exploded so violently that it ripped a hole straight in the wall it slammed into. Gray swung his left arm forward next, while Kirito and Ra's collided in midair as they were the faster of the three. Kirito slammed his swords down into the wooden shaft but even with his Haki, his blades did not cut through Ra's' weapon. Ra's twisted his spear and knocked Kirito back through the air, only to see another ice spike flying at him. Kirito flapped his wings hard behind him to stop his momentum, and he was about to start flying back in when he saw Gray's ice spike fly behind Ra's. When the spike passed the man who only had to lean his head to the side, Gray clenched his left fist and the spike exploded prematurely into a ball of ice spikes. The spikes slammed into Ra's' back and the assassin went flying the other direction, straight into Gray's Frozen Dragon's claws that grabbed him by the arms and clenched down as hard as they could.

"RAAA!" Gray squeezed Ra's' arms into his body and the mage's ice wings cracked all over from the force he was putting into his attack. The mouth of the dragon that Gray formed with ice over his face opened up, and a bright blue light shone from deep inside his mouth. He was facing Ra's' face from inches away, and he bellowed out a roar so cold it felt like it would freeze the air itself. Ra's also opened his mouth when Gray did however, and the light glowing inside his throat was much different from Gray's. The orange light that shot out of Ra's' mouth was burning, and it collided with the ice to make half of the room a bright light blue, and the other a deep dark orange.

He can't do this! Kirito stopped staring and his wings flapped behind him, sending him forward at a hundred miles per hour. A shockwave rippled behind him and shot wind into the damaged wall full of holes at his back. The entire room rumbled, then stopped as Kirito slammed his blue sword down at Ra's' back again. It stopped because Ra's rose his spear and stopped Kirito with barely any effort, then twisted the weapon so the spearhead sliced across Kirito's weapon, and shaved half of it off like cutting through butter. Kirito ripped his sword back to prevent it from being completely destroyed, while already spinning his body in a three-sixty to get as much force as he could behind his second sword's swing.

Gray closed his mouth as he ran out of power in his ice breath, and he formed two more spikes of ice in his claws even as half of his frozen face melted off. Kirito's relentless attacks made Ra's stop breathing fire at him, but the assassin who dodged Kirito's second attack was making several hand signs as he flipped through the air. Stop his hands, Gray threw both spikes of ice at Ra's on opposite sides of him, then blew them both before they collided with anything again, this time aiming the spikes that shot out of his original attack. He tried positioning the secondary spikes to protrude into Ra's' hands, but before they connected, all of his ice shattered in mid-explosion. Kirito was flying straight up, and Gray was dropping to the ground, but both of them went wide-eyed at the sight of Ra's' hands completely covered in electricity.

Ra's slammed his sparking hands together above his head and all the sparking combined into one giant light. The light was seizure-inducing because of how fast it was strobing, and then Ra's dropped out of the air with it straight towards Kirito. FAST! The electricity was not only for attacking, it increased the already faster opponent's speed greatly, and Ra's dropped behind Kirito before turning to the ninja in midair. Kirito started turning his head and he saw Ra's pointing both of his hands straight at his own back. He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound never came out before Ra's blasted him with the lightning.

Kirito shot across the room and collided with a wall, but the boy's eyes snapped open and he breathed deeply and in rapid succession. If he had aimed for my head, I would be dead. These suits disperse electricity thanks to their rubber-like properties, but, my wings, Kirito winced as he pushed off the wall and tried flapping his wings. They were charred and barely functioning, and he could not stay in the air for long. He started dropping, but as he did he caught a glimpse of Gray on the ground looking his way. Kirito's panicked eyes and the pain filling his face when he flapped his wings hard enough to fly towards the ice mage, made Gray look back up as he understood what could panic Kirito so. Ra's was dropping towards him, no longer with hands covered in lightning, but ones covered in Haki that looked like they would crush his head. "Ubu failed me, but now I will get to remove this nuisance myself."

"MOVE!" Kirito slammed into Gray full force and sent the mage tumbling across the ground, then twisted his body and sliced up at Ra's. By the time he looked up where he was slashing, Ra's was no longer there. The assassin stood on the ground behind a confused Kirito, and he reached his hands covered in Haki forward. "AH!" Kirito yelled in agony as he felt two strong hands grip around parts of his body. He tried flapping his burnt wings to get him out of there, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not move an inch.

"Where did you get these?" Ra's questioned. Kirito's eyes grew as wide as saucers. His entire body shook and covered in sweat.

"DON'T-"

Ra's put a foot against Kirito's back and tugged backwards hard with both of his hands. RRRIPPP "AAGHHH!" Kirito flew off of Ra's' foot while his wings went the other way.

"Kirito!" Gray yelled, jumping up and catching the teen spinning through the air straight towards him. Kirito connected with his torso and shattered more ice off of it than was already lying on the ground around the mage. Gray dropped to his knees and skid back with Kirito in his arms, then dropped the teen and looked at his own arms so covered in blood. Kirito writhed on his stomach for a few seconds, screaming muffled yelled of pain into the floor as blood splashed out of his back.

Gray lifted his head and looked towards the center of the room where Ra's held Kirito's fairy wings in his hands, staring at them with interest, then losing that interest just as fast and igniting them. Kirito rose his gaze from the floor and stared at his flaming wings with an agonized expression. Watching them burn though, a gift from Timmy he had become so used to, they made his pain turn to anger. Kirito curled his right hand into a fist and slammed it on the ground beneath him, and ten cracks shot out from where he punched to every side of the room. Gray stumbled to his left and turned to Kirito with wide eyes that only grew wider as Kirito slammed his other fist on the ground and created a crater that sent four cracks across the floor and up every wall of the room.

"I can still fight," Kirito growled. He got up on one knee, then a foot, then stood on legs that only stayed shaky for a single second. He stomped forward and Gray suddenly tensed up as he saw Kirito's skin through the black armor on his back. Kirito's skin was sealing itself, and the teen thought to himself, Another gift from Timmy. Guess Wanda thought I might lose these in battle, or at least put that in as a precaution. As Kirito's skin where his wings used to protrude from sealed itself, the ninja could only wish that more of his injuries would heal, and his fatigue would go away as well. Gray was not thinking about his current injuries though, no matter how bad they were.

"But Kirito, why?" Gray asked. Kirito paused but did not look back at the bloody man behind him. Gray stared at the ground and his ice claws were melting off of his hands. Bloody water dripped off his fingers to the ground and the mage snapped his head up to look at Kirito's back. He thought about those screams of agony, agony that Kirito went through when the teen could have attacked Ra's in that moment the assassin was distracted instead. Gray stepped towards him, "Why, would you save me? I, what I did-"

"It doesn't matter what you did," Kirito said. His hair was shadowing over his eyes and his voice was dark. He would not look away from Ra's, but what he was saying was directed at the man behind him. "To me, you were once my comrade. We fight the same enemies. And even if I hate you, you're my party member." He clenched his fists at his sides. "I would rather die, than watch a party member die in front of me."

Gray's bottom lip dropped and he suddenly saw himself standing there in that dark room with his knife swinging around his body for Kirito. Kirito kept speaking, "Because to me, seeing my comrades die is a hundred times worse than death." The knife Gray swung in the memory dropped from his hand, but in the moment he felt like that blade was shoved straight into his own heart. Kirito shot towards Ra's who heard everything he said and lifted the corners of his lips again. Kirito knew Ra's was thinking about how he called him a good person earlier, but he was not going to get in an argument with the Demon's Head again. "You're going to regret taking those wings from me," Kirito snarled at the assassin.

"Will I?" Ra's asked, and he floated off the floor again.

Kirito closed his eyes and focused. His body covered in a thin white veil and his feet lifted off the ground. He snapped his eyes open and stared across the room at Ra's who lowered his smile and frowned back. "YES!" Kirito shot at his opponent. Though Ra's noticed immediately he was slower than when he used his wings, the leader of the League noticed something else that made him raise his spear seriously and point it at his opponent with intent to kill. He's getting faster. Kirito dodged the first jab and swung with his left arm, but as Ra's started dodging the sword, he saw that the swing was a feint and Kirito was kicking up with his left leg.

As Ra's dodged the real attack, Kirito opened his mouth and roared, "AHHHHEEE!" A blast exploded off his mouth and sent ripples through the air. As soon as the initial blast went off and knocked Ra's back and off guard, the air condensed in front of Kirito into a single crack with the higher pitched Kirito made his voice. The room trembled and cracks covered the ceiling making chunks fall off and the two fighters to start dodging them. The assassin moved away from Kirito's crack and jabbed his spear towards Kirito's face, but Kirito heard it coming with his Observational Haki and turned his head the direction of the weapon while increasing the pitch of his scream. "EEEEEIII!" The black spearhead shattered, and then the rest of the wooden weapon up to Ra's' hand that he pulled away fast and then flew towards the ceiling to escape.

Kirito needed a breath, but as he took it, Ra's dropped out of the air with a serrated dagger in his hand. He slashed straight down Kirito's face, but the teen pulled back a millisecond soon enough that only some strands of hair were sliced off. A big chunk of ceiling fell down as Kirito leapt backwards, and it fell between him and the assassin he was trying to gain some distance from. As the rock passed in front of him, it shattered into a hundred pieces with Ra's shooting through it with his leg extended. Ra's turned in midair and sliced his dagger across Kirito's chest as the shocked teen dropped his jaw. Puff Kirito exploded and another boulder replaced him.

The second he was out of my sight, Ra's thought, then twisted his wrist and flung his knife at another boulder that Kirito was just coming out from behind to try and get the drop on him. Kirito was too focused on attack and not enough on hiding his presence, and the dagger slammed into his armor on his right arm and cut through it, imbedding straight into his bicep. "Rrrgg," Kirito ripped out the blade and kept it in his right hand while holding his black sword in his left. He had dropped his blue sword a while ago, and considering Ra's had sliced off most of the steel he could not use it the way he was used to and could not risk learning a new tactic against Ra's. I have tried using a knife before though, trained throwing them, I can use this. Kirito held the dagger pointed behind him at his right side, and his longsword up at his left shoulder pointed out at his enemy.

Gray watched this battle down on one knee as he could no longer find it in him to stand up. This is as fast as I was moving against Bane earlier. No, these two are moving faster. I can barely follow the fight, but Kirito, he's keeping pace with the Demon's Head. Gray slammed his left fist down and his arm trembled as he tried pushing up as hard as he could. "I would rather die, than watch a party member die in front of me." DAMN IT! Juvia, I don't deserve, you. Kirito, I'm sorry. It doesn't mean anything, but I am. Gray's knelt leg shook but he stood up anyway. He looked forward and watched Kirito dodge, throw the dagger to make Ra's dodge a certain way, then swipe with his sword. Ra's did not dodge however, but catch his own dagger between two fingers, spin it around, then put it right in front of Kirito's black blade to block it. He parried Kirito's weapon away and gave the assassin a wide opening on Kirito's body, an opening he would take as he rose his other hand with a long blade, curved at the end, back in his hand. Ra's brought down the scimitar and Gray moved. He sprinted faster than he ever did while fighting Bane, he sprinted the distance faster than he knew he could move, while covering half of his body in ice and raising his left arm as he did. ICE MAKE: EXCALIBUR!

Kirito saw he had messed up fatally. He was falling backwards, off-balance from the powerful parry of his opponent. There was too much force pushing his black sword away and he could not pull it back in front of himself fast enough. Gray slammed into him. Just like Kirito did a minute earlier, Gray collided with Kirito. Why? Kirito thought as he fell to the floor. What the Hell are you doing? He hit the ground and winced as Gray really was moving very fast. Kirito clenched his eyes shut in the pain of getting hit by his fighting partner and from hitting the floor, but the pain on his face was amplified by his absolute frustration. Why would you do such a contradictory thing?! His eyes snapped open in rage and his mouth opened to let out a yell.

Kirito could not make a sound. The huge sword of ice Gray had lifted was split in half, but both halves were rising up in the air. All of the ice Gray surrounded the left side of his body in for extra protection, it was all cut away and shattering to the sides. Even Gray's black armor did not hold against Ra's' slash, a slash so strong that the force of it created a flying attack that flew past Gray and to the wall behind them, slicing vertically through that one too and making it collapse. Ra's' sword buried so deep into the rock ground that it was stuck almost to the hilt. The assassin snapped his gaze to Gray with enormous eyes, as he never expected the mage to be able to move so fast, but also because he never thought Gray would jump in front of a slash meant for Kirito. Kirito thought the same thing, but his thoughts were currently frozen as his eyes slowly moved up with something else rising into the air.

Exhaustion. Gray felt it fill his entire body. He tried putting resistance into the sword he held up, but getting to Kirito fast enough was all he could do. Nothing held. He turned to his left side where he felt a screaming pain, even as he himself was too tired to yell out. The sight of his left side shook him from his shock and his eyes widened, not as big as Kirito or Ra's', but he was still shocked as he saw the blood splattering out from his empty left shoulder socket. His eyes rose to the arm lifting in the air, still with half of an ice sword gripped in it. The slash did not cut solely through his shoulder though, and Gray felt the slash going down most of the upper left side of his torso.

"Shi-" Gray fell to the right, his eyes losing solid color, his skin paling. Thud He hit the floor and stopped moving.

Kirito looked to his right and stared at the man sprawled out in an awkward position. Blood puddled around Gray and as it grew larger it touched Kirito. The teen lifted up his right hand and stared at the blood on it. What? Why? I don't- Why? He looked away from the blood and towards the one whose blood it was. "Gray," Kirito whispered. He got off his butt and scrambled over on his hands and knees. Ra's let go of his sword and stared silently at the teenager on top of his friend's bloody body.

"Hold on," Kirito urged. He made a hand sign then rose up his hands only they were covered in a red veil that let out steam because of how hot they were. He lowered his arms down to Gray's left side, right on his shoulder that was spewing blood, and right there in the middle of the battle he cauterized Gray's wound.

Ra's stared at the young teen as he did this. He frowned deeply and reached back to grab a weapon from his cloak, but his arm froze when it was only just touching the green fabric. It froze because out of the corner of his eye, Kirito saw what he was doing, and the black haired teen snapped his head up with eyes so full of rage they had more fire in them than his own flaming hands. Kirito stood up, because though the first aid was not as much as Gray needed, this was not the time to administer more. He could only hope that he had slowed the bleeding enough to try and save him later. Kirito stared into Ra's' eyes looking so angry, so enraged that Ra's knew this was it.

"One final clash then," Ra's said. He stopped reaching for a certain part of his cloak and instead reached up right behind his head. He grabbed a hilt on his upper back and as he pulled it out, the blade seemed to get thicker and longer than what would be possible to hide under his clothes. The leader of the assassin organization snapped his hilt out in front of him and the twelve foot long blade steadied in his hand. It looked like it weighed a hundred pounds easily, but Ra's held it straight out without issue.

Kirito's teeth ground across each other, his eyes were bloodshot, and the top half of his face was covered in wrinkles that showed how furious he was. His hands both gripped the single black hilt he held in front of him so tightly that he could feel it cracking, until he filled it with Haki and spread that Haki through his weapon instead of just in his hands. Kirito turned the weapon around and slammed it straight into the ground, then crossed his hands over each other and yelled, "Fine! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Ra's' eyes darted around him and on all sides, inside the holes in the walls, standing on the walls and on the ceiling itself, a hundred and thirty eight Kiritos appeared. Final fight? Kirito thought. If that's what he wants, I'll give it to him. I'll give him everything I have and then some! "Kir-ito," a voice said, a voice in between a half dozen Kiritos. Only one of them looked down at Gray though, as the others were all completely focused on Ra's who chose that moment to cover himself in a white aura that expanded thirty times until they could not see where it ended anymore. Ra's' hands glowed bright white until his skin was no longer visible, and his eyes flashed white for a second before turning back to normal, but with a veil of white aura over them. His sword coated in a dark purple aura, then flames burst out on it again, while the assassin himself finished murmuring something, and the wall behind him exploded into a thousand pieces as a demon five times the size as the ones he summoned before smashed it down.

Kirito looked down and saw Gray with barely opened eyes looking up at him. "I'm, sorry," Gray whispered. Dozens of Kiritos leapt at the demonic monster, but along with it being larger than the ones they fought before, this one was more powerful, and it could control the shadows in the room. The Kiritos leaping at it found themselves getting thrown without the demon doing anything, then the monster's head started emerging from their shadows and biting down on them with a mouth full of rows of razor sharp teeth. The Kiritos were relentless and saw the monster coming for them once they saw how it attacked, and the monster roared in agony as a sword finally cut through it. "Please," Gray whispered, tears coming to his eyes as he did. "Beat him," Gray begged, "and save her." His head dropped back down to the ground without ever hearing Kirito's response.

Kirito looked forward again and he growled under his breath, "Got it." He started running forward, at first in between his clones, but then all the clones started running with him. "GO ALL OUT!" Kirito yelled. He jumped up and twenty others jumped up with him, and they all threw Kunais down towards Ra's.

"FIRE STYLE:"

"EARTH STYLE:"

Five Kiritos on the ceiling stomped as hard as they could and cracks shot out through it. The ceiling started collapsing down towards Ra's, making it so he could not leap up to avoid the fire attacks coming towards him. Ra's was fast though. He swerved between two fireballs and slashed his sword around the left side of his body. The reach was already incredibly long, but the slash with him extending his arms out made it seem so much longer. Five Kiritos got hit by one swing of the sword and they all exploded. Ra's pulled the sword back between his side and his arm, jamming the hilt of it into the face of a Kirito right behind him. The Kirito's face did not explode into smoke however, but turned to mud and melted around the hilt of Ra's' sword.

Three more Kirito's came on Ra's' right and he sprinted towards and right through all three of them. They spun to look at him, but the two behind the one closest to Ra's froze and dropped their jaws at the sight of the back of the third's head. The paper bomb that was stuck inside the mud clone and wrapped around the hilt of Ra's' sword when he jabbed it backwards was stuck against that clone's head. The two of them ran forward to rip the paper bomb off, but it exploded first and all three of them disappeared. Rocks fell from the ceiling around Ra's, which along with the smoke and flames from the bomb made the assassin disappear into the smoke.

Ra's did not try to hide though. He moved through the smoke like a snake, slithering back and forth and biting everyone in his path. Kirito blocked a sword swipe with his black blade, but even covered in Haki, Ra's cut straight through it. Splitting his energy between so many bodies was making it tough to stand up to any single attack, but Kirito was on the offensive now. As many clones as were being destroyed every second, there were too many of them for Ra's to destroy quickly. Some waiting on the walls picked their moments and leapt into the smoke when one of the other Shadow Clones vanished and let them know where the assassin was.

The Demon's Head turned towards the top of the smoke where three clones were dropping towards him. He hopped up and the hands that reached out of the ground missed his ankles, and he reached up his left hand to grab one of the falling Kiritos by the head before it could finish its slash. He dragged that one in front of the other two, then after it had been impaled by its fellow clones, Ra's slashed his massive sword through the smoke and hit the Shadow Clones behind it. He spun the blade like a rotor above the top of his head, then slammed it straight into the ground and heard the screams below of the Kiritos who tried grabbing his feet. A Kunai flew through the smoke on his left right as he slammed the sword through the ground. It flew between two falling boulders, and Ra's only pulled his head away just enough that the blade grazed his left cheek.

Blood was drawn, but Kirito did not celebrate. Only one of him saw the blood, and that was the Kirito sprinting in from Ra's' right. He caught the Kunai with blood on it and twisted it around, stabbing down for the top of Ra's' skull. Ra's did not turn around fast enough, and Kirito jabbed the knife down into the top of his head. CHH! The blade shattered, and Kirito saw the top of Ra's' head covered in a black veil of Haki, right before Ra's snapped his head back and used that Haki to headbutt the Kirito clone out of existence.

"Blood!" Ra's heard someone shout behind him. The destroyed Shadow Clone's information filled the minds of the others.

"We'll draw more!"

"We'll kill him!"

"He's a fool!"

"Pussy!"

"Murderer!"

The amount of shouting coming from all sides masked the sound of footsteps sprinting around him. Ra's could not sense them, but he could see the smoke start moving in a twister, a sort of funnel. The paper bomb's smoke and the dust from falling debris was fading and settling, and Ra's could see fifty enemies around him, running in circles and yelling insults and taunts at him. They started throwing Kunais and shuriken, and then two leapt up over the circle and puffed their chests forward to shoot fireballs at him. Ra's slashed the fireballs apart with his sword while dodging shuriken and Kunais with his masterful Haki. He stomped the ground hard and a chunk of it ripped out, blocking a dozen shuriken that appeared where only one was a second ago.

"Tssk," Kirito sprinted between two of his running clones and he slammed his sword down hard. Ra's could feel the difference between this Kirito and the others, and he rose up his sword to block the attack. Kirito pressed down on Ra's' huge sword, and as he stared straight into the man's eyes he yelled, "This is for Juvia!" Ra's did not know what he was referring to, as he had just blocked the boy's swipe. All of the other Kiritos stopped circling at the end of Kirito's shout though, and they all dove in at the same time.

They came in from above, below, and on every side of the Demon's Head. Kirito had his sword occupied so Ra's could not swing away or he would continue slashing down and cut into him, but there were so many he needed to dodge in that second, or so Kirito thought. Ra's put more strength into his block and spun in a full circle with his sword. He put so much force into the spin that his sword sent out a slash in a full three-sixty around him. All of the Kiritos running in at ground level were hit, while the wind from the slash was enough to make four dropping down in the air get thrown away too. Ra's finished the slash around him and then lowered it and continued spinning as he dragged the sword through the ground, tearing it apart and all the Kiritos underneath which was actually almost half of the clones remaining as Kirito had a plan that involved them, a plan no longer feasible.

Kirito hit a large boulder on the side of the room, but as he started slouching down on it, he brought his right hand back and grabbed the boulder. He grabbed it and clenched, and the rock broke into five pieces. The boy started walking forward and he could feel something inside his body burning. Each step made the floor crack around him and his body surrounded in a white veil that flared more violently every move he made. "Sword," he said. One of the only remaining Shadow Clones around him that just got to its feet looked over, and one look at the original told it to toss Kirito its sword. It tossed the black blade and Kirito lifted his right hand, catching it and then bringing it down to his side while he rose up the other in his left.

Kirito's black cloak was in tatters, he had cuts on his black armor, and a gash on his head that was letting out a lot of blood. His black hair shadowed his face, and his black swords made him look like quite the dark knight. He snapped his head up and looked straight into the swirling funnel of dirt and rocks that Ra's lifted up by slashing his sword through the ground. "Disappear," Kirito said. Seven Shadow Clones vanished, leaving only the one that tossed Kirito its sword. He sprinted forward, and both of his swords covered in black, then covered in a thin light-blue veil of chakra.

All of the other presences were gone. Ra's al Ghul turned towards one side of the funnel and he rose up his sword in preparation. Kirito smashed through the wall of the funnel he created, his swords already slashing as he had to cut through a large chunk of rock to make it through. Rocks flew everywhere out from the smashed boulder, but Ra's stood still and took them head-on. He slashed his sword down while Kirito swiped one back up, then the boy swung around the left side and Ra's brought his weapon up to block that attack too. Before Kirito's second swipe even hit his sword, the boy was already swinging with the first again. Ra's had to cover his arm in Haki and block Kirito's slash, but the boy roared and the amount of chakra covering his blade tripled.

Kirito cut through Ra's' cloak and just broke the surface of his skin, when Ra's let go of his sword and leapt back through the side of the funnel. Kirito was less than a second behind him, but Ra's was already pulling out two swords very similar to Kirito's, only silver in color. Kirito did not care. He slashed like he had been, only faster. His swords started glowing brighter and brighter blue, and every slash he swung send more and more force off of it until every slash created a flying attack that if parried would fly to the edge of the room and cut a line through a wall. Ra's moved faster and faster to match each of Kirito's movements, but when he slashed back, Kirito dodged and slashed forward again even faster.

Kirito ducked under a sword and popped back up even closer to Ra's, slashing straight up the man's torso with his weapon. He cut through Ra's' green cloak and into the skin of his torso, but Ra's leapt backwards again and put his feet against the wall, before bending his knees and propelling off it even faster than before. He flew along with the jump, and his stuck both of his swords forward straight towards Kirito's chest. "BOMMMMMM!" A shockwave came out of Kirito's mouth and was so thick that when Ra's' swords got close, he slowed, slowed, and then when his swords connected, they did not have the speed or force to break through Kirito's armor.

The younger swordsman started slashing before Ra's' swords even connected with his chest though. He knew the assassin could not cut through his armor moving that slow, and he continued dual-wielding his swords as fast as he was before Ra's tried that last attack. Bright blue light filled the room as slashes flew off in every direction. Kirito slashed faster than he ever had before, faster than he ever had in virtual reality, even as the move he was making was one he could only ever do in a virtual world. "STARBURST-" he slashed both of his swords down so they crossed each other over Ra's' chest, but the assassin slashed up and split them apart, then jabbed his other sword straight at Kirito's face. The boy saw it coming towards his eyes, fast at first, then when it got close, he could imagine it slowing down as his body moved, his conscious mind not able to process it first. Kirito's head moved to the left so the blade just missed its target, so close that it reopened a scar on Kirito's cheek and forced blood to splash out. Ra's arm was over-extended from that miss, one side of his body was open, and Kirito brought both of his swords back up while screaming, "STREAM!" He connected with flesh, a solid hit, and he tore his swords straight through Ra's without stopping, his chakra-and-Haki-infused swords cutting through his enemy, pushing his body to the limit to slice through tendons and bone and organs. Kirito did not stop though, as the Starburst Stream was a continuous attack that involved hundreds of swipes. Kirito slashed back and forth over and over and over, even after the swords in Ra's' hands had dropped, until the assassin in front of him could not stay on its feet any longer and started falling backwards.

"AAAHHHHHH RAAAAA!" Kirito pulled both of his swords up over his shoulders, then jumped towards Ra's as he fell and slammed them both down straight through his chest, and into the floor below in a single stroke. Ra's was impaled by two black swords, as was the ground below him, and the Demon's Head stopped falling for a second, before sliding down the blades and leaving them soaked with his blood. "Ah, ha, ahh, hah, ah, hah…" Kirito stood over Ra's' body, staring down at the man's face, so covered in slashes that it was almost unrecognizable. He was waiting for something. He ripped the blades out but still no reaction from the man beneath him. Kirito kept panting, wheezing from his own exhaustion. His swords almost fell from his hands as they felt so heavy, then one of them disappeared as he could not maintain his shocked Shadow Clone standing in the corner any longer. Kirito saw what he looked like as he fought Ra's, seeing it through the eyes of his clone that just vanished. The teen glanced to one side of the room and saw a murdered demon in several pieces underneath some rocks. He looked the other way and saw Gray, his chin on the floor so his face was lifted up, one eye open and looking towards him in shock and awe.

Kirito looked back down at Ra's' face. He really thought Ra's would say something. Blackbeard was a talker until the very end, he was a screamer too, but Ra's took all those attacks and did not let out a scream. Kirito rose his black sword up over his shoulder, and slid it back into his sheath. He stared at the man below him, at his body, at another body. I've killed a lot of people, a lot of bad people, but you… what, were you? "Speak," Kirito whispered, too quiet for the almost-unconscious Gray to hear him. Is he dead? I don't feel him. His body's right in front of me. Is this really, what Ra's al Ghul's body looks like?

"You, did it," Gray rasped out, and Kirito snapped his head to the older man with wide eyes, as for a moment there he had been so completely engrossed by the body below him that he forgot where he was. Gray put his right hand out in front of his face, and he dragged himself up a bit with it. "You, did it," Gray's lips curled up and what sounded like a cough escaped his lips, though it also kind of sounded like a laugh to Kirito.

Kirito walked over to a discarded blue sword on the floor. He picked it up and stared at it closely, examining the damage and then deciding that he would take it with him anyway. He slid it back into its sheath, then turned towards Gray and slowly walked towards the mage struggling to get up. Gray thought it would be easier, but a glance at a limb sticking out from beneath a nearby boulder reminded him why he was having such trouble. The sight of his own hand sticking out beneath some rocks was discouraging, but what made it feel better was the sight of another hand in his vision.

Gray turned his head and saw Kirito next to him, one arm extended down so that Gray could grab his hand. He saved my life. Ra's had the drop on me back then. He lost an arm for me. Gray's lips curled up while Kirito was thinking deeply to himself, and Kirito pulled his comrade up. Gray's legs were wobbly, but he steadied himself as he remembered what his mission was. Although this was what they told the Resistance they were trying to do, the mission both of them really came to the League of Assassins' Headquarters for had yet to be accomplished. The ice mage could feel the tiny capsule in his pocket and recalled what was inside it. The thought strengthened his legs and made his second eye open back up as he became more alert.

"We're still in League Headquarters," Gray muttered. He tried to say it in a sturdy voice, but he was missing an arm, his skin was pale, he was covered in blood, and he could barely stand let alone fight. His voice could not even put up a good mask, and Kirito could see he was on the verge of collapse. If there was not something they still had to do there, he was sure Gray would have collapsed already. Gray looked into Kirito's eyes and continued, "We need to-" Gray faded off.

Kirito stared back into Gray's eyes. The older man became silent, and Kirito's look darkened more. He turned around and started walking without letting Gray finish, without asking why he faded off. Kirito walked towards a hole in the back of the room opposite where they first came in from. "We should save Juvia and leave," Kirito said. He did not tell Gray to follow him, he did not ask if the older man was okay, nor did he thank him for saving him before. Gray looked shocked for a moment, then his own expression darkened, and he slid his hand into his pocket to feel the capsule inside. Just wait a little longer, Juvia. He lifted his head and started following after Kirito, We're almost there. Just a few minutes more, and I swear, I swear on my life, you'll be with us again.

Kirito and Ra's left the meeting hall that Ra's addressed his fellow assassins in. They were gone for only a minute when someone walked in the normal entrance of the room leading to the lower sections of the mountain. Ra's wished to be left alone for his fight, but they had not heard anything in a while and one brave assassin chose to check it out. He ran back through the dark hallways of the mountain and soon, everyone knew what had happened.

They arrived inside the destroyed room at the same time. Talia al Ghul walked in and saw her father's body, lying on the ground with a hundred slashes going through him. "Father," she said.

"Whoaa-hoa, will you look at that mess!" Talia lifted her gaze over her father's corpse to a hole on the wall to her right. She stepped farther into the room and the person standing in that hole also stepped forward. The other woman had longer, curlier, messier black hair. She twirled a wooden stick around in her hand, and Bellatrix Lestrange shoved the tip of it into her mouth for a second, pressing it against the inside of her left cheek.

"Bellatrix," Talia said, and the two men behind her stepped forward up to her sides. Out in the hallway behind them, five others walked into the room but no one walked farther than Talia. Bellatrix smirked crazily and turned her head to look into Ra's al Ghul's daughter's eyes. "Step back," Talia said.

Bellatrix pulled the wand out from her mouth, and her eyes darted over to Ra's' body. Her eyes lingered on his right hand, on one of his fingers where there was a golden ring wrapped around it. "I order you," Talia continued, and Bellatrix snarled as she re-faced the daughter of the Demon. "Step aside, as I take my place," Talia stepped forward again, but Bellatrix did as well, and this time, three others stepped into the room behind her.

"Even if you got that ring," Bellatrix said, before licking her lips and getting them all wet. "We would not listen to you." Talia's expression darkened and the members of the League behind her grabbed their weapons. Bellatrix smirked and continued, "Which puts you in a pickle, doesn't it? Hehehe, 'cause you see, if I get the ring first, I get everybody who follows only the ring, and all of us." She motioned with her arms at the followers behind her. "But you, you win and we'll still fight to get that ring off your finger. So you see," dark clouds flew through the hole behind Bellatrix and Death Eaters with the black hoods of their cloaks up filled the room around her. "Either I win and get everyone, or we can all kill each other in this fight."

Talia al Ghul looked at her father's body, then drew a long katana that she pointed at Bellatrix. "My father was foolish to allow so many of you traitorous witches into the League after he killed your Dark Lord. I will correct that mistake." All of Talia's subordinates pulled out swords, daggers, and wands. Bellatrix cackled madly and pointed her wand at the other woman, and all of her comrades followed suit. Dozens of League members faced off, and the war for the mountain began.

A/N Hope you enjoyed! Editing took too long so it's now tomorrow from when I started. Ra's al Ghul defeated! Kirito takes down the Demon's Head, Gray defeats Darth Bane, and now the League fights for the ring that decides their leader (which is a major plot point of the show Arrow). This battle took a lot of time to write, as Ra's is really a terrifying villain. Ra's did not have special powers before arriving, but nonetheless, Kirito knew he was fighting an uphill battle from the start, especially since Ra's started talking about the "darkness" and "guardians," whatever that could mean ;). Kirito gets his wings ripped off, Gray loses his left arm, and both badly injured young men still have to make it to the Lazarus Pit to save Juvia, while surrounded by assassins whose leader they just killed... Next Chapter: Lazarus Pit. Hope you're ready.

joebob323 chapter 55 . May 31

Whoa... This has got to be something huge. Kirito has left the group, creating so much more drama! I wonder what's going to happen next?

Kirito returns! Deciding that Juvia's life means more to him than his anger at Gray, he comes to the rescue, saving Gray and the hope to resurrect Juvia! Thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed, and sorry for the long wait!

Darugus chapter 55 . May 31

Wow gray really taking the dark path that I was expecting him
But to be honest I didn't think his obsession with bringing back juvia would start before him taking revenge
Almost betraying kirito when it came down to it really dark kirito's trust in gray can never be restored completely probably
Also the thing with the vinsmokes and haki I made an assumption there since they seem to be genetically modified to follow judge's word without any question

Thanks for the review (and the PMs)! Like that list of power rankings you sent me, they sound pretty on-point. Gray's revenge is settled this time, even if he isn't the one to take out Ra's. I like what you said with Kirito not trusting Gray ever again, 'cause at the end we see Kirito turning from him even after all that had happened. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Espada-001 chapter 55 . May 31

Well that almost ended pretty badly for Kirito, well at least more so than it already did. And Gray nearly messed up in his thoughts of desperation. Also I started thinking about something a couple chapters back with captain Ginyu. When he switch's bodies he's swapping their souls in order to do that, and Nen is basically aura. Aura is the power from your soul, so when he stole Netero's body shouldn't he have gotten weaker since Netero still would have had his powers while Ginyu would only have his physical abilities? As unlike Dbz characters, HxH don't have their energy stored in just their body. Well that's all I have for today so until next time have a good day and I look forward to the next chapter.

Kirito makes it through just barely once again! Thanks for the review! As for Captain Ginyu, we haven't seen much of his strength yet, but when he returns I have some ideas for what to do with his power situation: so first just like with Goku, at first he did not know how to use Goku's body or powers so he was weak, but he quickly grew into the body. We don't know how long he's had Netero's, so he's likely already used to it. And secondly, according to the Nen page of HxH wiki Nen Aura "is the life energy produced by all living bodies vital for survival" so I think the Nen of someone would stay with their body and not their mind if their minds switched bodies. Either way we have not seen what Ginyu-Netero can do yet, so if you see problems when his fight scenes arise, let me know! Sorry for the long update!

7lights13darknes chapter 55 . Jun 1

Before i say anything else this was a really good chapter but ...are you trying to make these chapters darker than the one where all of the main characters ( aside from ben) died. Because it's when i said no one else die i meant the main characters but at least sora, riku, and kairi, ben, dash and Timmy should live i think they are the most likely and they are my favorites in that order too. I almost thought kirito was going to die for minute i am glad he didn't. While reading i thinking we haven't had so many deaths in a row since metropolis. Glad your back by the way. I also thought of other characters you could add they would be about the same as kirito id you have ever heard or seen this show you know why the show is code lyoko. Recently started playing a video game of it and its got me wanting to watch the series that i still haven't finished even though i have known about for years. Most of it can only be found on YouTube. Can't wait for the next chapter have a good summer by the way. Keep up the good work.

Gotta keep up that M rating you know? XD I don't think anything is going to get as dark as the everyone dying in front of Ben chapters (at least for a while). You're right with the no MC deaths since Metropolis, and that's mainly because Heroes Will Rise is a much, much bigger story than the original Nexus. The way it's planned out, it will likely reach 4 million words. Anyway, because of that, there's a lot more time to build up the character development before the... nevermind, no spoilers ;). I love Code Lyoko, don't really have a good place to put them yet, but there is an arc I'm working on that might be a good place for them, I'll let you know (maybe). So, thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and again to you and everyone, sorry it took me two months to get this chapter posted.

-Well, 'till next time.