CHAPTER 25
One Hour Later
A shadow streaked across the moon.
Sam set his hand on the end of his katana and Razor stoically gnashed her teeth. They hadn't moved since and it showed; a light dusting of snow draped over the samurai and the snow around the girl was fluffier, albeit the ground around her feet was bare.
Their eyes were drawn to the end of the road. The moonlight allowed them to see a small speck approaching from the end of the road, where the Border Post was located; both siblings were certain it wasn't a Border Officer since they had been knocked out for the night. Not as deep as the villagers Higashiyama but deep enough for them to be out of commission for the next six hours.
The person didn't seem to be in a rush, walking with careful steps on the snowy path. Their hands were at their sides and their posture was hunched.
Electricity crackled on Razor's heel and Sam glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
"It's him…" she said in a scathing whisper.
"Yes." Sam nodded.
He knew that terrible walking posture from anywhere. They had been teased many times for walking as if he was about to dip into a sprint; back hunched, neck craned and hands close to the sides of his thighs.
Their brother, Ninety-Nine.
Those that made fun of their brother for walking like an ape couldn't beat his agility and reflexes. They also didn't have his crystal-clear eyesight.
Razor snarled and the electricity at her heels travelled up her calves, snapping against the ground and incinerating more snow, scorching the ground as the electricity rose to her lower back and then shot up her spin, setting her blonde hair alight. Her short hair frayed and stood on end. The sky darkened as a cloud rolled in from the south, hovering over the village, adding to the foreboding atmosphere of Sandy's mist.
"Steady," Sam warned, holding his hand out but not touching her. The atmospheric pressure had dropped and he took a step away from his sister, given that metal reacts dangerously against electricity. A bead of sweat rolled from his temple. The last time his brother and Razor had sparred, it hadn't ended well. When it came to Razor, Nine-Nine didn't pull his punches, not like with Sam, Sandy, or One. "He's seen us. We've seen him too. He's planning something…"
"Makes no difference." The girl exhaled through grit teeth and her compound eyes flickered white with lightning.
"Sister—"
Her eyes flicked to him and lightning cracked overhead. The booming rumble sounded across the region.
Sam held his tongue.
"Stand back."
Sam shrugged and held up his hands, stepping back two more steps behind his sister. That was when Naruto came into full view; he was in a long, white parka that reached his knees, zipped up to his nose with the hood pulled over his head. His didn't wear any gloves or mittens.
His byakugan swam with emotion. He blinked them twice, rubbing his eyes with the back of his right hand to rid himself of his tears.
He activated his doujutsu.
His eyes jumped over Razor, as it always did, and Sam pursed his lips and crossed his arms, giving his brother a measured look. The samurai's lips wiggled with uncertainty and he shook his head, turning his face away. Sam did see, from the corner of his eyes, his brother sag with grief. The roil of thunder stifled Sam's regretful whimper.
Finally, their brother looked at Razor, and his eyebrows flew up into his hood.
The girl grinned, opening her arms. Her abs rippled. Her figure seemed to have been carved from white marble. All six packs thumped in tune with six cracks of thunder in the clouds. "Like what you see, lover boy?" A crooked grin crept up her face. "Bet your hearts going crazy seeing me again."
A dark shadow descended over Nine-Nine's face and he squared his shoulders. He unzipped his jacket and opened it, revealing his featureless shinobi vest and his weapons, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck.
"Don't have anything to tell me?" the girl snapped and her brother's face remained unchanged. Where he had shown forlorn and homesickness when he saw Sam, he only showed his frustration for Razor, and the girl's mood worsened; her eyes widened and shone with ceaseless electricity. Lightning curled from her body, peeling off her form and striking the ground, turning snow to mist and soil to hardened ash. "You haven't given me your answer."
"I don't like you like that, Razor," the boy signed, shrugging off his coat. It fell on a lump on the floor. The weapons on his person came into full view.
Sam gawked, looking from his brother to his sister. He wasn't wondering why his brother was unarmed. What did they expect? He was more occupied by the thought that Razor had made a move on Nine-Nine. The girl actually went for it. She shot her shot.
Sam's cheeks tinged a sickly green at the thought. Ew.
The girl's face coloured and her mouth dropped. A heavy stillness fell on the region after Naruto turned away her previous confession; before the CORE graduation, she had promised him something special if he graduated with the rest of their siblings, not expecting the graduation event to be a murderous free for all. When he fled after graduation, she took it badly.
Naruto shivered at the memory and the girl, seeing his disgust, gasped in outrage.
The air exploded with static and Razor vanished, zigzagging in the form of lightning and crashing into Naruto's chest, reforming her body with her hands around his throat, lifting him off the ground. She squeezed his neck. Her whitened eyes oozed hatred.
Her movement happened in less than a second.
"Think you're too good for me?" she swore and Naruto gagged, eyes bugged and watering. He clutched at a scorched spot on his vest, hot and smoking by the lightning that had struck between his chest, just about missing his heart. Frankly, he was lucky she missed. It still hurts though. Badly.
The boy gasped and Sam snapped out of his delirium, drawing his sword and shouting, "Sister! Don't!"
Razor ignored him, tightening her hands around her brother's neck and swearing under her breath. She held him higher, as if offering him up to the twisting, roiling thunderclouds as a human sacrifice. Electricity crackled at the corners of her white eyes. Somewhere in the distance, lightning crashed to the earth. "Admit it. You still like me. You've always liked me."
Naruto wheezed, out of breath, but he managed a fiery glare. His byakugan crackled with irritation, meeting his sister's overeager expression.
His body was positioned perfectly, to Razor's disadvantage.
He swung his right knee and bashed her nose. The suddenness of the attack ripped her hands off his throat and flung her onto her back, crashing into the ground and rolling to her knees in a crouched stance. One hand was on her nose and the other dug into the ground.
Naruto fell into a similar crouch, albeit standing with his slouched, but ready, stance. He gripped the spot on his chest that still sizzled with heat, panting through grit teeth.
Blood oozed through her fingers, ebbing from her broken nose. The tempo of the storm clouds simmered down, as if also in shock at the action, and Sam's shoulders slumped. The tip of his blade touched the snowy ground at the sight of Razor being knocked down.
The girl removed her hand from her gnarly nose and looked at it, her mouth agape.
Her vision shuddered as she blinked once. Then blinked again, this time lifting her stare to her big brother, who was levelling her with a remorseless stare.
"Y-You…hit me…" she whispered, aghast.
"Oh no," Sam whimpered under his breath. His voice was lost in the distant rumble of the storm clouds.
"You hit me first!" Naruto signed ferociously, barking without a word coming from his mouth, jabbing a harsh finger at Razor. "And if you know what's good for you, stand down. I'm warning you."
"Heh," Razor's shoulders shuddered once as she chuckled. It was a scratchy noise that didn't reach her eyes, which stared widely as her brother took out a kunai and threw it to the ground, nailing it upright close to his feet.
Her nose stopped spilling blood; her mutated healing ability had finally kicked in. It was tied closely to her high metabolism, which connected back to her bloodline. It gave her cells the ability to adapt to any environment no matter the climate and also healed any wound she sustained, short of decapitation and having her heart ripped from her body. Razor bleeds easily. She was injured easily. She was even slightly haemophilic, but that meant nothing when even a severed arm could be reattached, no matter how long it had been detached or what state it was in. Her healing ability came into full view when her broken nose, crushed to the left, popped back upright with a grisly click. The girl didn't react.
She gathered herself up to her feet and the intensity of the thunderstorm increased.
Lightning screamed from the heavens and struck her shoulder. She clicked her tongue, and though the lightning didn't affect her clothes, underneath her shirt the crisp burn spot and the open cut caused by the strike promptly healed.
Naruto's face was a mask of determination, standing upright and sliding his hand into his left sleeve. He pulled out a wooden bow staff. Plain, aside from the flecks of cement on each end of the staff. He twirled the staff in his right hand and slammed the end down into the ground, meeting Razor's blank stare.
She had been coming onto him for as long as they had been CORE. As far back as when their family was made up of five hundred siblings. He didn't know what made him so special that she, a raging tomboy, fixed her pupilless gaze firmly on him and declared that he had a crush on her, instead of the other way round. She got in his way at every step because of her fascination and he made it a habit to dodge her as best as he could, which wasn't very successful when she could run the length of the continent in seconds, shorter if there were less obstructions in her path.
Naruto didn't like Razor the way she liked him, and that was the truth. He cared for her like a brother would his sister but nothing more. He might not be able to play with her like he did with One and he didn't have the heart to roughhouse like he did with Tenzo, though that didn't stop him from speaking to her if he wasn't able to shake her off. She spoke roughly and used any excuse to hit him, but he bore it in stride because that was how she showed she cared.
Now, he was on a mission, and he needed her subdued.
He didn't have the luxury of tolerating her roundabout confessions.
"Heh," she laughed again. "If that's how you're going to act…" she looked to the sky and shut her eyes, swearing in a quiet tone, "Fuck, this hurts."
Naruto's face softened.
"You're so down bad. It's sad."
Naruto pursed his lips, holding down a groan.
She looked over her shoulder at Sam.
He sheathed his sword and kept away, making a shooing gesture. He smiled nervously. "I'll just…watch from here. Thank you very much."
Using swords in a thunderstorm was just asking for trouble. Sam resolved himself to mop up whatever was left of his brother before Razor finished eviscerating him. She had gotten better the last time Nine-Nine had been with them, three years ago. Their previous spars were nothing compared to what they were now. They were all stronger.
Hopefully, their brother was even close to as good, or else this wouldn't be a fair fight.
Razor faced her brother and opened her arms at her side. Surprising Nine-Nine, she flexed them powerfully, gritting her teeth into a gnarly grin. "Don't blink."
In tune with her unpronounced jutsu, she was struck by a bolt of lightning at the crown of her head and it instantly dispersed through her body. This one didn't wound her. The outlines of her body blurred and her pallid skin became paler, as if she was merging with the air. The very ionised, electrified air.
Naruto kept his eyes wide open.
But it was not enough.
Razor shimmered and turned invisible, disappearing instantly like she had never even existed, and then a fist raced across Naruto's face, punching his jaw clean off.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Lio flew over Higashiyama.
Her spiny, leathery wings spanned twice her height, easily carrying her over the sleeping gas with each mighty flap. Her eyes squinted into the village, searching for her target.
She tried not to worry about Naruto, and rightly so; he was facing off against the human embodiment of ions, lightning and self-righteous vitriol, as well as a samurai that could manifest blades from thin air. Razor had a mutated bloodline that made her lightning affinity chakra in tune with the natural ions in the atmosphere, using that to augment her abilities as a natural speedster, increasing her already high metabolism, boosting her healing ability, and making her the perfect scout and frontline fighter with her skill of adapting to extreme environments, from dense blizzards to breathless volcanos. Sam, on the other hand, had a bloodline that mixed his Yin-Yang release with Earth chakra, forming blades of all sorts and sharpness. He knew how to use them too. Extremely so.
Naruto, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't stand a chance against any of his siblings, but that was where Lio had been proven wrong.
He defeated Tenzo and One. Many times during spars when they were at CORE, once in the Kannabi Canyon one week ago for One, and once in Kumo for Tenzo one month previously. Those two were among the strongest in COREs remaining one hundred siblings.
Naruto had also beaten Razor before. But only a handful of times.
She swooped down till her shoes skimmed the fog. Her eyes fluttered and she heaved herself up, cursing Naruto's brother. No doubt she could break free from Sandy's genjutsu but she didn't know how quickly, and she didn't feel like testing it out.
Instead, she stretched out her True Spatial Awareness, covering the village. She mentally prodded each molecule in the air, pushing away flecks of Sandy's chakra while battling away sleep. She found people sleeping inside their homes, small bamboo huts with dead fireplaces. They shivered under their blankets; unable to move due to the weight of the sleep they were put under. Lio glancingly swept her sensory ability over each family, each person, and each house, until she found two solid masses, sleeping in the snow on the other side of the village.
She knew one from the slight impression he left on the molecules in the Kannabi Canyon, and she knew the other from the molecules that annoyingly clung onto Naruto.
Sandy and One.
Naruto had told her that One had too much chakra to be knocked out for long by Sandy's genjutsu. She would wake up sooner rather than later, and she was going to be pissed; she wasn't going to be happy that she was treated like every other victim of Sandy's genjutsu; generalised and dismissed. She also wouldn't like to be labelled as compromised. Not by anyone, especially not by someone as loosey goosey with rules like Sandy.
Lio was going to enjoy watching this.
She stretched her hands down and pink chakra leaked from her fingertips. The pink chakra formed a smooth sphere roughly the same size as a football (soccer ball). Lio moved her hands around and positioned the ball properly as it floated in the air, sticking out her tongue and making careful calculations on the height to her target.
"This seems good," she murmured, and released hold of the ball.
It plummeted. The compactness of her chakra inside the smooth sphere didn't matter, since her chakra had the effect of being heavy and light at the same time, though that was a conscious decision by the girl when she used her killer intent.
Presently, she made the sphere dense. Heavy like lead.
It whistled eerily as it dropped, crashing into One's belly.
Lio smirked, satisfied, when the girl sputtered awake with a pained wheeze, gripping her stomach and rolling to her side. Her glasses tumbled from her face. The ball dispersed and returned to Lio.
"Son of a…" One cursed, blinking away the tears. It was like a baby hippo had been dropped on her gut. She sat up and searched for the culprit, swearing death under her breath. She didn't see anyone. She blindly fumbled her hands on the ground, patting the snowy floor and finding her glasses. She shoved them onto her face, pushing them to the bridge of her nose. She only saw dense whiteness floating lazily around her. Her head swam with tiredness and she pitched to her right, catching herself before she could hit the ground.
Her mind turned.
"Wait…"
She idly dusted snow off her body, briefly taking off her glasses to shake her head, ridding herself of some of the snow before returning her spectacles to her eyes. She smoothed down her hair and tugged at the sleeve of her combat dress, confirming that she still had her sword on her. Her eyes swirled beneath the glasses, adjusting to the fog. She yawned and stretched her arms over her head, groaning satisfactorily as she stretched to her full length, dropping her arms and smacking her lips.
She scratched her head and got off the ground. She stood on her left leg and rolled her right ankle, doing the same with her left, flexing her knees and performing a few lunges.
She felt tired. More so than normal after a short nap.
Her brow furrowed. "Wait…"
The details trickled into her addled brain.
I'm…on a job…for brother Nine-Nine…but really, I'm gathering info on brother's gang…to send to master, she reminded herself slowly, stroking her chin and looking around. She spotted a house. A hut, really. The door was made of wood. Locked. That's uncle's house…business is bad…brother wants to…invest. She rubbed her eyes and groaned, forcing herself to remember. I don't sleep on missions. I don't, she swore, recalling that she kept awake on every single mission she was sent on, except when she was paired with someone she trusted, allowing her to sleep. One crossed her arms and blinked away the sleep. I'm the only guard on this job…I can't sleep. I won't sleep. She faltered and her eyebrows raced into her hairline. Sam!
Then, ever so gradually, her eyebrows dropped. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits. She glared at the sleeping Uchiha at her feet.
"Sandy," she growled through clenched teeth.
The boy hummed, smiling in his sleep. Totally oblivious to the inferno standing over him.
Roughly, she grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. She stared into his Mangekyo eyes as they droopily opened, regarding his sister with a half-lidded stare. He heaved a great sigh.
"Shit. You're awake."
"Yeah," she agreed, and headbutted him. His body became slack as he fell unconscious. She shoved him away and he messily flopped onto the ground, lifting bits of the snow as his face planted into the ground. The sleeping fog remained, airily moving through Higashiyama; it would thin with time, quicker the further Sandy got away from the village. More times than she would like to count, she had to wake him up after he fell asleep on a mission, often having to take a detour from her mission in order to shake her Uchiha brother awake. It would have been somewhat bearable if the others that could resist Sandy's genjutsu helped out but they couldn't; Tenzo moonlighted as a Konoha ANBU, pointedly avoiding anything that had to do with CORE operations, Naruto was always being worked to the bone, never allowed to rest for long, and Five-Hundred didn't go on missions.
The responsibility fell on One.
It didn't help that Sandy fell asleep again ten minutes after waking up.
The hair at the back of her neck prickled and she looked up. The mist above the village thinned, harmlessly spreading outwards and dispersing into the wind. She saw someone hovering over Higashiyama, a pair of massive wings flapped on her back. Her neon pink eyes smirked down at her.
One frowned. Nothing she learned about Lio surprised her anymore.
The bald girl with pink eyes had grown wings. Sure. What else was new?
It didn't matter to One. Not one bit.
She raised her right arm and flipped Lio off. She mouthed a rude swear under her breath, and it only seemed to make Lio's smirk all the more patronising.
One spat on the ground and bent down, grabbing Sandy by his right ankle. She proceeded to drag him out of the village, taking her sweet time and taking the bumpiest, most uncomfortable path she could find.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mud clone!
Razor's eyes widened as her fist tore off her brother's jaw. In that split second, the world paused and the girl's mind was a frenzy of thoughts; where did Nine-Nine find mud to form a complete clone? Was it the clone that had injured me? Did brother substitute at the last moment?
Where is he now?!
Time moved again and a pair of hands tore from the ground and pulled her in, sinking her to her chest. She swore and a bolt of lightning smashed down on her from the sky, destroying the clone that had yanked her into the ground and blasting aside the disfigured mud clone. Painstakingly, she inched out of the ground, though her attempts were stopped by a heavy kick to the side of her head. Her neck snapped, hanging at a grotesque angle, and her eyes flickered off.
Naruto, not deceived, speedily pulled out another kunai from his pouch and stabbed it in front of Razor, jumping away when a bolt of lightning struck the nape of Razor's neck, burning the skin as well as exploding light and chakra.
The boy winced loudly and rubbed his eyes, blinded, stumbling away and falling onto his knees.
A punch smacked into the back of his head and he hit the ground. Razor, wearing an electric grin, loomed over her brother and raised her right leg, bringing it down at the same time as a bolt of lightning, splitting her brother's upper body from his lower body, dispelling him. In his place was an impaled kunai.
Razor frowned.
She idly rubbed the back of her neck, feeling the burned skin cells mend.
The blade glinted ominously but her mind was already on other things, dodging to the right as a bow staff came down behind her. Naruto spun on his heels and swung the staff again, hitting the ground when she leaned away again. He bent under a clothesline and tumbled away from a bolt of lightning, deftly yanking out three blades from his pouch and whirling around, throwing them at her.
She didn't need to move. They missed.
She snorted. "Looks like you need some practice." In response, Naruto came at her again and whacked the staff against her shoulder, only for it to pass through her. He rained down more swings and strikes at blazing speed, only for each to pass through the end. A teasing smile played on her lips. Finally, the ends of the staff became brittle as electricity weaved through it. Razor, reverting back from pure ions to flesh and bones, dashed to Naruto's side in the blink of an eye and brazenly met a poke from the boy's staff with her abs. The staff splintered on contact, falling apart in Naruto's hands. She tutted, savouring Naruto's shocked expression. "To think I used to let you beat me. You've really let yourself go."
Naruto stood back with his hands raised. He bounced from one foot to the other. He didn't look fazed by the revelation.
She chuckled, taking an eager step to him, but she faltered when she saw someone casually march out from Higashiyama, moving with such certainty that it looked like the sleeping fog wasn't affecting them.
One passed Sam. Her nose turned up when the samurai opened his mouth to apologise, not giving him the chance and not breaking her steady stride, pulling Sandy by his ankle while his face scraped the ground. Her face was an emotionless mask, stopping short when she passed between Naruto and Razor.
It was an odd lull to the one-sided fight.
One eyed Razor and the speedster sneered, though her lips stayed sealed. She didn't have anything to tell One, and a glance down at the unconscious Uchiha and the state he was in told her that her baby sister wasn't in the mood for a verbal back and forth.
One clicked her teeth and looked at her brother, then glanced around them. She caught a blurry shadow impaling four more kunai in the ground, and immediately knew his plan.
She didn't make any comment.
"Hmph!" she squared her shoulders and continued her solitary march to the Kaska Valley, walking away with more clipped steps. She hurried away from them.
Nervously, Sam jogged after her, wringing his hands and apologising profusely. She didn't look at him. She didn't answer him.
"She'll get over it." Razor waved away One previous display of defiance, mimicking Naruto's raised hands and jokingly hopping on the balls of her feet. "I won the first round. How about round two?"
She took a step to Naruto and immediately knew something was wrong. She was a nanosecond slower and the punch that ripped into her brother's gut didn't pack as much power as before. Groaning from having the air driven out of his body, the boy leaned back from a roundhouse kick and struck her shoulder with a punch.
Her shoulder slouched.
She shook off the blow easily and backhanded him, only for her brother to duck under the attack and plant two punches under her ribs. He stepped away from a forward kick and jammed two fingers into her side, rearing back when she nearly brained him with her elbow. He surged back in and dug his fingers into her other side.
His byakugan blazed dangerously.
A map of her chakra points laid out before his eyes in perfect detail. From the top of her head to the sole of her feet. He didn't move with the grace of a Hyuuga using Gentle Fist, stylishly poking at chakra points with his fingers and closing them, but his jabs and kicks landed with targeted chakra points with the certainty of one that had fought many times. His attacks and counterattacks were a dizzying blur.
He jabbed her chin once, ducked a clothesline and punched her lower back, sliding around her when she swung an elbow and jabbing her left shoulder blade twice. He bent his knees in time to dodge a high kick and punched her waist, skipping back a step and returning with a leg kick, destabilising her. The boy exhaled tightly through his nose and weaved away from a grab for his face, backhanding the wrist and stepping in with a heavy haymaker to her jaw.
Razor realised that the vital chakra points in her upper body were blocked when she tried to use her right arm to punch her brother, but it only flapped limply. She expected her healing ability to swiftly unblock her chakra points, but was only met with two decisive kicks to the sides of her knees. Her stomach sank at her slowed reaction. She teetered with a confused wail.
The boy backtracked half a step and came back at her with his head lowered, shoulder tackling her off her feet and body slamming her into the ground with a resounding thud.
The earth reverberated with shockwaves of her chakra, and it was Razor's turn to wheeze, the air in her lungs vacating her body all at once. The back of her head throbbed painfully and a terrible lurch in her heart shook her as her brother straddled her stomach, pinning her right arm down under his foot. Her left arm was painfully twisted behind her back.
He glowered down at her, panting heavily from parted lips as his byakugan burned a hole through her head. Taijutsu and weapon's use was his strong suit but taking down someone like Razor, who could reopen chakra points as soon as they were closed took a lot of stamina, but even this level of tiredness was strange. His face was twisted from the exertion; he had been wallowing in misery and that had slackened his stamina. It was shocking how one week of not properly taking care of his body had done. He swore to regain his form when he was done in Higashiyama. He pulled his arm back, bruised knuckles poised to deliver a blow.
Her breath caught in her throat. "H-Hold on—"
Naruto smacked his elbow across her face. Her cheek started to turn purple and her chest vibrated with aching breaths. She was shaking. She was confused. She was scared.
She felt her body get heavier. Weaker. Another elbow dropped onto her face, breaking her nose again. Blood poured from her nostrils and she gagged, inhaling and exhaling shuddering breaths from her mouth. She babbled, nearly incoherently, "You're cheating—"
Naruto grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt with his left hand and jabbed her forehead with his right fist, letting her fall back again. She reeled on the floor, writhing futilely and gasping for air. Two of her front teeth were gone, likely swallowed and clogging her throat. Her face was a mess of bruises, gashes and blood, as his jab had cut her temple.
Her body sagged further and she whimpered, sobbing.
Naruto breathed in slowly, shutting his eyes and allowing his expression to smooth over. His face turned up to the stormy sky and his calm eyes watched as the clouds gradually dispersed, allowing the moon to shine down on the peacefully sleeping village. He exhaled coolly and brought his eyes down to his sister, who was quietly crying, coughing weakly and muttering confused pleas.
The boy sighed and got off her.
Gently, he stood her up and moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her and locking his fingers on her stomach. Firmly, he performed the Heimlich manoeuvre, pumping once, twice, and three times until she coughed out her teeth, sagging backwards into him as her knees couldn't take her weight.
It was in that weakened state that she finally noticed something.
The kunai.
There were six of them, stabbed into the snow around them in a ten feet radius. Their bladed tips were completely impaled in the earth while the end was simply a four-inch metal rod.
Lightning rods! She thought with a jolt, collapsing down with Naruto as he supported her frail form. Her arms were heavy, as if weighed down by the muscles that bulked up her slim body. Even now, she could feel the ions surrounding her collect into each rod, seeping harmlessly into the ground, though not at any rate that should weaken her so quickly. Too many of her siblings thought to use lightning rods to beat her but none had succeeded, because no matter how many rods they used, it was never enough.
That was why he was blocking her chakra points.
His punches destabilised her chakra network and interrupted her healing ability by forming blockages in important chakra points, breaking the connection between her lightning release and the ions in the atmosphere, diverting them away from her.
Now, it was too late; the area inside the circle of lightning conductors was mostly ion free. Her chakra was blocked. Her healing ability was stalling.
Her breath became faint and she swore. She felt her brother's chest shake as he stifled a laugh. "Just wait…till I get up…jackass." She gnashed her teeth when her brother swiftly brought out a kunai and held it to her throat. She tried to lean away from the lethally sharp blade but she couldn't, only able to vainly inch her chin up and wince as it bit into her skin, drawing a thin line of blood. His other hand was on her forehead, pulling it back for her chin to not get in the way of the knife. Razor found her resolve, albeit with no physical strength. "For crying out loud, Sam. Get him!"
Sam, back from his futile attempts of making amends with his baby sister, held out his hands to show Naruto that he was unarmed. "Calm down, brother."
Naruto stoically flicked his eyes to the katana on Sam's hip and the boy quickly unclipped it, gently setting it on the ground.
"I'll be fine!" Razor gasped. She could heal from a slit throat in a few days. "Just…get him!"
Behind her, Naruto wordlessly shook his head. His eyes didn't advise Sam to make any sudden moves. His byakugan was still activated, blazing seriously as he stared at his samurai brother.
They weren't all seeing eyes for nothing.
Sam also wasn't inclined to try his luck with spearing Naruto with a blade under the byakugan's blind spot. Naruto might hear the blade cutting through the air and do something drastic to Razor. This was new territory for all of them, even Naruto, so they didn't know if the girl would live or die after getting her throat cut open while in her present, weakened state. It was possible she would die.
The samurai was still surprised though, and it showed on his face.
"You beat her…" he said quietly, amazement oozing in the words.
Naruto waggled his eyebrows. Yes.
"How?"
Naruto didn't fall for it, rolling his eyes. Instead, with the hand on Razor's forehead, he motioned between him and Razor, and Sam, then curled his hands to form lips, opening and closing his hand as it was speaking.
Let's talk.
Authors note
Next chapter will be a CORE side story. After that, we find out the aftermath of their fight. If you have any ideas for a future side story, lemme know!
Foy.