A/N: Just barely got it out in time.

~,,––,,^^-

Naruto

Since I wasn't sure how much of a time crunch we were on, I didn't go through my usual mission-prep process of wrapping my leg with gauze for my thigh pouch. Instead, I just hurriedly changed into a long-sleeved shirt with a jacket and the most flexible pair of cargo pants I owned, then loaded up on my gear. With my sword held slung over my shoulder, a bunch of kunai split between my thigh pockets and my sleeves, as well as a single, bulky, homemade smoke grenade in my jacket pocket, I raced back downstairs.

Without knowing how our smoke pellets and flash-tags were made back home, I had to rely on the internet to make due. My final product after hours of off and on experimenting was barely acceptable, only making a person-sized cloud of dense smoke that would quickly disperse in seconds. I'd say it was about on par with the smoke left by one of my clones being destroyed; enough to mask a single action, maybe two if I was quick.

With everything all set and a window left open in case Kuro wanted to leave, my momentum leaving the stairs had me sliding across the wooden entrance-hall floor on my socks until I stood next to Koneko, who was waiting next to the door and pulling on a pair of cat-themed combat gloves.

Apparently there were ways to bring people with you when teleporting if they weren't able to, but it took an expert level of mastery over the magic and a lot of demonic power to do it. Even Red, some sort of noble pureblood Devil, wasn't able to bring the Hyoudou guy along with her. Since Koneko didn't really qualify for either, we were going to fly to the meeting location. She could have made it there on her own in a moments notice for them to begin and let me arrive later on my own, but with how new Hyoudou was to the whole "life-or-death fighting" thing, we decided it was better to get there together and have three capable fighters involved from the start.

"I'm ready," I announced as I finished pulling on my shoes. I opened my front door, glancing out for signs of my neighbors or any uniformed staff that might want to stop and chat, before looking back at my friend. "No ones around right now, but stay close and follow me; I know a spot where the security still doesn't have coverage that we can take off from."

That Freed guy either hadn't known about the cameras, or didn't care about being subtle in his initial break-in, because the security company had been rushing around the place beefing up their measures these past two days the moment they noticed the footage. The fact that the guys manning the front gate recognized the construction company that came to patch my wall, made me think they were aware of the secret side of the world to some degree. At the very least, the on-duty guards were aware enough to not question weird things past a certain threshold.

Otherwise, there would probably be more confusion about how none of my neighbors reacted to the loud noises and obvious damage.

"Mm." She nodded once at my instructions.

It only took about a minute of walking, but there was a short open-air pathway through the building that connected two of the courtyards together, and the only cameras near it were mounted directly above either end of the path. It would be trivial to fly straight up right next to either of them, outside of their field of view.

"A part of me is raging in jealousy that a cute girl like Koneko-san is holding you that close, but on the other hand… Princess carry." The calmly contemplative look on the brown-haired teen's face as Koneko landed next to the boys pissed me off more than his actual words, like he was actively trying to decide which part of himself to act on.

"Oi." I deadpanned at him. I felt conflicting emotions at the statement itself too. On the one hand, I wanted to get in his face and brag that it was me and not him, because I didn't like the pervert thinking of Koneko-chan that way. Sue me, I enjoyed having the girl I like hold me. On the other hand…

Yeah, Princess carry.

Having a girl barely more than half my weight carrying me was embarrassing enough on its own.

I settled for sending a squinting glare his way.

We were gathered in a clearing near the edge of town. There wasn't much in the way of infrastructure in the forested area, though there was an old building we saw from the sky a bit over a kilometer away. It wasn't quite nighttime yet with the sun still on the horizon, but it was getting dark enough in the forest that most colors looked pretty washed out to me by now. Pretty soon I'd have to rely on my eyes' motion tracking and listening for sounds to pinpoint people's locations in the dark.

"Kiba-kun, what's the situation?" Koneko asked the other teen, ignoring Hyoudou's shenanigans. I glanced at her face out of the corner of my eyes.

Hyoudou spoke up before the blond knight could answer.

"I want to get Asia away from the Fallen!" He declared with an angry fire in his eyes. "It's obvious that she's miserable with them, and Yuuma– er, Raynare outright said she's important to their goals." His fist clenched tightly at his side as he grit his teeth. "Knowing them, there's no way that can mean anything good for her!"

"I don't know who this Asia person is or why she seems to be this important to you," I chimed in, "but I'm always down to help someone out of a bad situation. But, uh, could we get a quick rundown for some context?" I asked a little dryly.

I also decided to call him by his given name from now on. If I was gonna help rescue a friend of his, surely that meant we were on a first name basis now. Right?

'Ugh. This is why I hate formalities.'

Kiba stepped forward, glancing at me with an amused smile. "Of course. Issei-kun and I were exercising in the park when we encountered a nun he'd met the other day. She was very sheltered growing up in the church before they excommunicated her, so we took her around town to experience the outside world at Issei's request," He explained, a carefully controlled expression on his face when he mentioned the church. "About an hour ago when we got back to the park, the Fallen Angel Raynare approached us on supposedly peaceful terms, claiming that she had already completed her mission when she initially killed Issei and had no intention to continue hostilities."

Issei scoffed. "Yeah right, after everything her group's done… I still don't believe it." He muttered.

He said that, but from the conflicted expression and tense stance as he did so, there was more going on in his head than he was letting on.

"Either way," Kiba continued with a frown, "There wasn't much choice at the time but to hear her out and let her take Asia-san back with her to their base. I would most likely have been able to defeat her on my own fairly easily, but my senses aren't the best, and it's highly unlikely that she would approach the two of us without insurance that she could either win or escape if we attacked on sight." He shrugged. "I decided that it was safer in the moment to be cautious in case she had backup, and take the time to plan an assault on their base. Which leads us to now."

I nodded. That sounded perfectly reasonable, especially if–

"Wait a second, I just realized something you said!" I looked towards Hyoudou in a new light. "You were killed?" I asked in sympathy.

"It was when he became a Devil. Buchou brought him back." Koneko answered for him, the boy looking uncomfortable. Damn, that was recent too, wasn't it?

'Probably still painful to think about then.'

"Eh-heheh… sorry for bringing it up then, that's my bad," I apologized sheepishly. I tried to think of something to say to break the slightly awkward atmosphere. I tried for a little pep talk.

"Hey, take it from me; dying really sucks, but at least we're still here. Most people only get the one chance, there usually aren't any second or third chances like I got."

Well, I tried to anyway. That just seemed to make everyone look at me funny instead.

At least, the boys looked at me funny. Koneko-chan just sort of glanced down at me as if I confirmed something she suspected. Which was probably entirely fair, given what I'd told her of the tailed beasts.

'Actually, have I told her this before and just forgot?' I couldn't remember. Maybe I'd mentioned it offhandedly at some point.

"Please tell me you're making an awful joke about some ninja technique, one that stops your heart to feign death or something?" Issei asked with dread on his face.

"Nope." I shook my head. "I've died at least once, possibly three times depending on how you interpret some things. My teammate had to cut open my chest and manually pump my heart with her hand until they could find a way to resuscitate me." I gave a bright smile. "Shit got wild during that battle. I'm totally lucky to still be alive."

Koneko's hold on me tightened slightly.

Huh. Somehow I'd forgotten she hasn't set me down yet.

'... Should I tell her, or would it be too awkward at this point?'

Issei grunted with a disturbed expression on his face. "I seriously didn't want to think about kids younger than me going through that sort of thing." He glanced between Koneko and Kiba warily. "Anyone else have a totally traumatic story about dying and being brought back?" He asked with an impressive amount of sarcasm.

I felt more than saw Koneko shake her head, but Kiba raised his hand in the air with an amused smile at the way Issei groaned.

While it hadn't even been a weight on my shoulders before, I felt an irrational bit of relief at Koneko-chan's answer.

Logically speaking, I already knew based on context that she had a really rough childhood, and she was currently alive and well, so her answer shouldn't make all that much of an impact either way. Regardless though, I wasn't lying; Dying fucking sucked, even when you were totally prepared for the possibility. I was glad that she hadn't had to go through it herself.

I'd set out to make the atmosphere a bit less depressing, so mission accomplished, I guess?

"As interested in hearing some more about your exploits as I am, Uzumaki-kun, perhaps we should focus on coming up with a plan of attack?" Kiba lowered his hand and got serious.

"Right," I nodded. "What info are we working with here? I think you guys said you know where the base is, but what else have you got? Numbers, approximate skill levels, entrance points, terrain… Anything you have can help."

"They're hiding out in the old abandoned church further out that way." Issei helpfully pointed a thumb in the direction of the building we'd seen from the sky. "I escorted Asia there the day I met her, before I knew about those bastards."

"From what we put together based on your and Issei-kun's statements, there are at least four notable enemies working together," Kiba added. "The first is as we've said, the Fallen named Raynare. She is the leader of the group, which usually means the most powerful as well, though it's possibly not the case since she confirmed her mission was the assassination of Issei. She shouldn't be too difficult for Koneko-chan or I to handle, though I wouldn't recommend You or Issei-kun taking her on in case she's more skilled than I believe," he cautioned.

I nodded. She technically could be a pure infiltrator type, with a squad of people stronger than her to act as a backup plan if she failed.

Not every leader could be like Kakashi-sensei, who was strong in literally every squad role.

Either way, I'd take his warning into consideration, and discard it if I felt that following it was the wrong choice.

"The next two are the man who you encountered and a blue haired woman named Kalawarner, also Fallen Angels."

"Donut-seeker, right." I added. "He'll probably target me the moment he sees me. I think I made an impression on him."

"'Donut-seeker'?" Issei asked, confused.

"Close enough." I shrugged awkwardly in Koneko's arms. "I forgot what his name was exactly. I was focused more on watching his tells when he introduced himself, so I only vaguely caught the sounds he made."

"Can you take him?" Kiba probed.

I shrugged again. "Eh, probably. He wimped out right when he was about to attack me, and I'm way stronger now than I was when that happened."

Kiba glanced at Koneko, who nodded, and Kiba nodded back in satisfaction.

"That just leaves the exorcist Freed as the last known individual threat, though Fallen are known to frequently work with many lower quality rogue exorcists supporting them," Kiba said. He looked at me. "Freed may not be as fast as me, or as strong as both Koneko and I, but he is exceptionally skilled and quick to escape when in a losing position. It would probably be best for you and I to rush him down before he can make the choice to get away, and leave the Fallen to Koneko-chan. Your skill at subterfuge would help greatly."

"I'm faster too." She corrected, getting Kiba to look at her in surprise. "You haven't seen me go all out since I started training." She informed him, an almost imperceptible amount of indignation in her voice at being looked over. I bit back the urge to tease my little student for it, since she would probably drop me on my ass if I did.

"I could take him." She said, petulantly to my ears.

Unfortunately, I had to rain on both of their parades. "As much as it pains me to say this, if that psychopath tries to escape, we should let him go instead of focusing on stopping him."

"What the hell, man?!" Issei exclaimed incredulously. "That guy's nuts! He's just gonna keep hurting a bunch of people if we let him go!"

"I have to agree with Issei-kun," Kiba said with a frown. "What's your reasoning for this?"

Koneko just stared down at me with a frown, obviously agreeing with them.

I sighed, thinking back to that first retrieval mission, splitting up to fight those Sound ninja on our way to catch up to Sasuke. Despite the fact that everyone else ended up winning their fights in the end, the mission as a whole was still a failure because we couldn't catch up in time. Because I wasn't strong enough to stop Sasuke on my own.

"This is a rescue mission before anything else," I said, staring at the two boys with my most serious gaze. It was a bit ruined by my current status of being held by a girl smaller than me, but it worked out regardless as they seemed to begin grasping my meaning. "Once we start attacking, we only have so long before they figure out our objective. Every second we don't have Asia under our protection is another second that she's in danger of them turning it into a hostage situation," I warned, seeing the grim expression on Kiba's face as he realized it, Issei gritting his teeth at the idea.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't try to beat the guy– beat the absolute shit out of him if you can– but he isn't the priority, we don't know what their exact numbers are, and we can always try to track down any runners after we complete our objective." I finished, getting nods of understanding from each of them. "With that out of the way, does anyone know the basic floor plan? Entrances, side rooms, things like that?"

Issei's hand rose. "I can remember a little bit of that. I used to go to church services there with a friend as a kid before they moved out of the country."

So probably not up to date.

'Then again, he did say it was abandoned…' I thought it over, before shrugging mentally. 'Eh, whatever. Good enough for me.'

Koneko

We only spent a few more minutes ironing out a basic strategy. It wasn't much more than the boys' original idea of full-on assaulting the church, being some basic guidelines focused on the "search & rescue" part rather than a real combat plan like we were expecting after he grilled the boys for details, but we all deferred to Uzumaki-kun anyway given his obvious experience.

"Without a sensor on the team to scout ahead and give us good info before we jump in, we gotta rely on being quick and adapting to whatever comes our way on the fly, so there's no point making some complicated plan that'll just fall apart in a moment anyway," is what he'd said.

Now we were making our way to the church through the forest instead of flying, since they could have people on lookout watching the skies. Kiba-kun and I were taking the lead as the most senior devils and the members of the group able to react the quickest to a potential ambush.

I personally thought Uzumaki-kun was overthinking this a bit, and underestimating just how much stronger than the Fallen's group Kiba and I were. The chick Kalawhatever, who tried to attack Hyoudou of all people– the newborn Devil with less demonic power than a newly born Devil– fled the scene just from him activating his Sacred Gear, a [Twice Critical].

A teenage boy with barely more than twice the amount of power as a baby Devil, caused an at-minimum hundreds of years old Fallen Angel to retreat.

I felt secondhand embarrassment for the Fallen just from hearing about it.

Maybe she was just total crap at sensing demonic power, saw the Gear and had a moment of panic?

Either way though, he had a point that the whole purpose of the mission was to save a girl, not to focus on the combat.

Speaking of which…

"Kiba-kun."

He turned his head to look at me curiously as he stepped over a tree root. "Yes Koneko-chan?"

I glanced behind us for a moment. "Did you ask Buchou?" I only saw Hyoudou behind us. 'Hmm…'

A sudden urge to glance to the side confirmed my random thought, Uzumaki-kun barely visible to even my eyes slipping through the forest a few meters parallel to us. I wouldn't have noticed him if I hadn't looked exactly in that direction at the moment.

Kiba gave a slightly strained and nervous smile. "... Of course. I certainly asked our master for permission to attack the base of a rival faction, on the behalf of a former-member of another rival faction."

"... On the same day she warned us about making a mess," I deadpanned, voicing what he didn't say out loud.

"Eheheh…" He rubbed the back of his head with an awkward chuckle. I've thought it before, I'll think it again; him and Uzumaki-kun really do have surprisingly similar body language, for how different they are as people.

"She didn't give you permission, did she." It was less of a question than it was me stating the obvious.

Kiba was silent for a moment.

"... The Church threw that girl away like trash." His smile stayed on his face, but his voice was low and his eyes were dark with memories. "I'm with Issei-kun. I want to help Asia-san."

I nodded, and that was that.

"Got it."

Either Kiba had already hinted to him the absolute basics, or Hyoudou was smart enough to not ask why that meant so much to the [Knight, because the rest of the walk was spent in relative silence, the crunching of leaves under the two boys' feet being the only audible sounds.

It wasn't long before the trees began thinning and the church became partially visible in the distance.

"Jeez, you guys feel that?" Hyoudou asked, shivering as he did so. The church may have been abandoned for a few years, but he was still new to being a devil and a weak one at that, so it affected him a bit more than the insignificant amount of discomfort it caused Kiba and I. Even so, the amount of Holy energy radiating from the place was weirdly high.

Kiba nodded. "Yeah. They must have a whole lot of exorcists in there."

"Ignore it," I said blandly. "Activate your Gears and let's go already."

Uzumaki-kun's scent had drifted off at some point on the approach and I'd lost track of him, so I assumed he was going to try a stealthy approach while the three of us served as a distraction.

The two shared a look and nods, Hyoudou's red gauntlet appearing on his raised arm at the same time the black blade of Holy Eraser appeared in Kiba's hand. I still wasn't comfortable with the idea of the Perv seeing my youkai features just for a buff to my fine control, especially against such small-time enemies, so I just increased the overall force and momentum I was using to cycle my chakra through my body constantly, instead of something flashy like them.

We ran at the same time, Kiba and I easily pulling ahead of Hyoudou in the couple seconds it took to reach the building. I ignored Kiba's vaguely surprised look as I kept pace with the speed he was using, and then cocked my arm back mid-sprint to then swing my open hand down with the force of a speeding truck, [Rook] strength backed by chakra enhancement. My knife hand carved through the center of the thick wooden double doors in a spray of splinters without slowing in the slightest, the housing for the locking mechanism shattering at the force my extended fingers struck it with.

The leftover force from my swing slammed the doors inward without totally destroying their hinges immediately. I would have normally just thrown a regular punch or kick, but with my chakra boosting my strength that would have destroyed them wholesale. This was a rescue mission; It would be entirely on me if my casual destruction accidentally caught our target in the crossfire.

Hyoudou caught up to us a second later as we stepped into the darkened worship hall. While making our way down the middle aisle with our heads on a swivel for any signs of activity, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching from a side room, but more importantly, I also heard the slightest whistle of air flowing through a tight space coming from the floor somewhere ahead of us.

I didn't see any obvious seams for a false floor, so with the only other thing in front of us…

"There's a hidden basement under the altar," I informed the boys.

"Really?" Hyoudou asked in surprise, to which I simply nodded. "That must be where they're holding Asia then!"

The sound of clapping began as the person approaching stepped out from around a corner. My eyes narrowed as the bastard that tried to kill Uzumaki-kun was revealed.

"Well aren't you a perceptive one, you disgusting little Devil." Now that I got a good look at him, he was surprisingly short. Barely any taller than Uzumaki-kun, and probably only that much again taller than Gaspy.

"Now, I have this thing you see; I pride myself on not having to fight the same demons more than once-" I stepped over to one of the benches as the albino priest spoke. "-but I really, really want to kill that blond kid you all are friends with, so–"

His weapons were out in a split second, and the bench I'd thrown at him was sliced in half like it was made of paper, crashing into the walls behind him. I couldn't say there wasn't anything personal in my attempt at inflicting violence on him. Kiba was in his face in a flurry of sword clashes and parries in the next moment, the [Knight] dodging point blank gun shots all the while.

I observed for a second or two, seeing that Freed was able to keep up with Kiba's average speed relatively well, even if he wasn't quite as fast as the [Knight].

Kiba's normal style tended to be aggressive but cautious, allowing opponents time to make mistakes for him to capitalize on with bursts of his max speed to punish them, and he seems to have fallen into that habit here because of the exorcist's skill. We didn't have time to dance around like that though, when we could instead just crush the enemies in front of us in a moment and keep moving.

"You're pretty quick on your feet, but can you dodge–!"

With their attention on each other, I lunged from a standstill, my [Rook] muscles and churning chakra working together to propel me across the building at a speed rivaling Kiba's.

The crazy priest must have had good instincts or something, because he was just barely able to react in time to cut himself off and frantically disengage, jumping back out of the way of my lariat aimed at his throat.

'Dang it.' I grumbled internally as I missed my target and hit the altar behind him with a loud crash instead. I stopped dead the moment my leading foot landed. 'Both my feet left the ground so I couldn't turn in time to get him.'

I would have easily had him if I had a better hold on the chakra-sticking technique.

I turned to glare at the enemy a couple dozen meters away.

He brought up his gun and fired a rapid salvo of Light bullets aimed at my vitals, all of which I intercepted with my reinforced hands.

My gloves now had a few holes in them, so I tugged them off and stuffed them in my uniform pocket, revealing that at most my skin had a couple of minor singes.

"That stung," I grunted in annoyance.

Going by the look on his face, it seemed to occur to the exorcist that he wouldn't get an easy win against us with his current weapons and natural ability.

"... Okay. Fuck that." True to expectations, the bastard turned and jumped up a couple of levels to reach a high windowsill before turning his head to address us. "This ain't the last you'll see of me! Just you wait, I'll be back to taste the flesh of each and every one of your fresh corpses!" With a deft flick of his wrist, he threw a tiny pellet towards us that burst in a flash of white.

His disappearing act lost points on presentation though, because we all still clearly heard the sound of glass breaking, and saw the shattered stained-glass window after the light was gone. It was disappointing that he got away, but it was probably a good thing that we didn't have to waste any more time on him.

If they didn't know we were here before, they do now. We needed to hurry.

On the topic of hurrying up, I noticed Hyoudou still standing tensely in the same spot, not having been able to contribute.

"Perv," I called out, getting him to look at me. "Promote to a [Knight]. We need to be fast if we're gonna take out the other priests in time."

"Oh shit, you're right! I almost forgot about that ability."

I suppressed a sigh, but it was expected for his first actual fight.

Moments later, while the three of us raced down the staircase my failed attack had exposed, I couldn't help but wonder where Uzumaki-kun was. After he'd broken off from us I'd assumed he would have tried finding a different entrance to cover more ground faster, but maybe he'd come across one of the Fallen?

There was way less resistance to our assault so far than we'd expected, so the Fallen could be anywhere right now.

I didn't like it. I knew he could handle himself, especially with his recent "mysterious" recovery, but it still bothered me. I forced myself to ignore my worry for the sake of finishing the mission quicker.

'The faster we get the nun, the faster we can regroup.'

I'd just have to trust in his skills to keep him safe for now.

Naruto

It felt like some cosmic joke that my luck had to be this bad. It should have been simple to sneak around the side and infiltrate the church while the others caused a distraction, but instead it seemed like random chance struck again, and I found myself trailing the majority of the enemy's known combatants plus, one extra, all by myself.

"Mittelt, no one is stupid enough to reveal themselves just because you turned in a random direction and said 'we know you're there'," a tall and busty blue-haired woman said in an exasperated tone. She was wearing a high-collared red dress shirt and an absolutely tiny miniskirt like the kind that Ino would wear.

At least, I thought it was red. It was pretty damn dark already under the canopy of trees. The natural sounds of the wildlife also made it pretty difficult to listen in on them at this distance, but not impossible. I was just lucky they were speaking Japanese.

The blonde kid with twintails scoffed. "There's no need to be such a bitch Kalawarner. Of course it won't work if you always shut down my attempt the moment I try it." The girl's aggressive tone was at odds with the cutesy look she had going for her, a style I'd learned was called 'lolita' when trying to figure out what 'loli' meant online. I shuddered as I considered what Koneko might do if the perverts called her a loli to her face.

Even though it was true, I'd never be the idiot to say it out loud. Unless I got really annoyed at her.

Then it might just slip out.

"And it's not a random direction!" Mittelt continued arguing loudly. "Straight behind us is too obvious for a tail trying to follow someone, but they'd have to be somewhere behind us so we don't see them move from the corner of our eyes. All I have to do is choose the left or right diagonal. It's basically a fifty-fifty!"

I felt a bead of sweat form on my forehead as my eyebrow twitched. She'd actually looked directly at the tree I was hiding behind out of pure luck, and I probably would have fallen for it if not for the more developed woman immediately calling out her bullshit.

"Would the two of you just shut up already?" Donut-man grunted out as he adjusted his hat, clearly irritated. "It's bad enough Raynare stuck me on patrol duty, now I have to listen to your constant bickering out here too? I get enough of dealing with annoying women back at base already."

That predictably just got them to direct their ire away from each other and onto him.

I was making my way through treetops to follow the patrol I'd discovered. These trees were a bit on the smaller side for my tastes, with thinner and weaker branches than I was used to, meaning I had to be extra careful and take my time with picking my route, on top of the fact that I couldn't just anchor myself to the trunk anymore like I would have in the past if there weren't any branches good enough.

Normally, I would have expected this to be a problem when trying to follow people who are able to fly, but, uh…

These guys were just walking.

Not even jogging or speed walking, just… walking-walking, in a vaguely circular path around the church, but just far enough away that the church was only ever in sight between the trees for barely a split-second at a time.

They even had their wings out and everything, the feathered limbs phasing through each of their clothes to extend out their back the same way Koneko-chan's did; they were just choosing to walk at a civilian pace as a group of three instead of spreading out in the air to cover more ground.

'They can't really be this incompetent, can they?' The sweat dripped down my forehead as I took in the sheer casualness the three were treating the patrol with as they argued. If even I think you're not taking a boring and monotonous job seriously enough, you should know you're doing it wrong. 'Aren't these guys supposed to be really old and experienced or something? Where's the discipline?'

The trench coat-wearing man stopped walking and growled as the short and bratty Fallen said something under her breath I didn't catch at this distance. "That's it, I'm done putting up with your nonsense," he said, turning with an annoyed sneer. "Feel free to keep wasting your time walking in circles, I'm going to guard the entrance instead."

"Weren't you just whining about being nagged at? Raynare-sama isn't going to like it that you're disobeying her orders again, idiot," Kalawarner shot his way after he'd stepped past on his way back to their base.

It wouldn't be good to let any of them make a sudden appearance and interfere with the rescue, so it looked like it was just about time for me to make my move. I made my way closer.

The man scoffed. "Sure, but she's at least easy on the eyes and I actually respect her a little. Unlike a freak with hobbies as disgusting as Mittelts, or a fanatically loyal fool like you, Raynare has goals worthy of my spear," he over his shoulder without looking as he continued walking away.

I got into position, silently readying myself above the two chicks, closest to the tall blue-haired woman. I began leaning forward, letting my weight begin to tip me over the edge of the branch I was standing on.

The blonde girl snorted, not even arguing in defense of her supposedly freakish nature. "You wish she'd let you give her your little 'sp–'"

I pushed off the trunk of the tree with my feet as my momentum pulled me downward, launching myself practically straight down at them with my weapon held in a two handed grip.

The weighted metal end of my sword's sheath crashed into the back of Kalawarner's head with a decently loud thunk, knocking her out instantly as she slumped to the ground bonelessly in a pile of feathers, and I landed in a roll that ended with me crouched in front of Mittelt with my back to her. I didn't hear or feel the skull cracking, so the woman should have a decent chance of recovery given time.

"'–ear'? Wha–?" The lolita's voice curled up in a confused tone as she finished the insult.

I twisted, thrusting the end of my cane behind me and up into her gut even as she began to step back.

"–hrk!" She doubled over with a hacking gasp. "S-shit!"

I spun out of my crouch to both gather momentum for an attempted single-swing knocker on her as well, and to quickly get eyes on the sole guy of the group who I'd last seen walking away. I put pressure on the seam of my sheath with a thumb as I twisted around

Mittelt must have been more capable than she looked though, because in the split second it took to complete the motion, she'd forced herself to straighten up and jerk her upper body back, the tip of my sheath rising diagonally past her face and missing her nose by centimeters.

"Ambush!" She yelled unnecessarily as she tried to regain her balance. I was already following through with my spin to make use of my backup plan, even as Donut-man was already flying towards me with his blue Light spear in hand and a bloodthirsty grin on his face. As my cane continued swinging up and my spin brought me around to face the man, I put enough pressure on my sheath to fully separate the magnets keeping it attached to my hilt.

With the glow of his spear lighting up his face well enough for me to clearly see, something about the way his eyes crossed in confusion just before the tip of my sheath crashed into his nose made me smirk, even as he flew straight past me when I twisted to the side.

Eat my centrifugal force, jackass.

"Got you!" The young sounding voice exclaimed in triumph behind me

I finished my spin to deflect the glowing pink spear tip that Mittelt thrust at me with the flat of my revealed blade.

Unfortunately, I misjudged the amount of strength her tiny body could generate and stumbled a step to the side in the process, which she took advantage of to keep up the pressure with a flurry of quick and efficient stabs and footwork. The light coming off of her spear was just bright enough to wash out our dark surroundings even further in comparison, sending shadows dancing at our feet and creating the visual illusion of an empty void, that the world ceased to exist outside of the immediate area around us.

I heard a distant crash from the direction of the church, and then a loud crack a second later in the direction the man had flown, followed by the creaking sound of a tree slowly falling.

"You're good, but you can't keep this pace up forever, human!" The little blonde taunted with a cruel smirk on her face as her constant attacks walked me back several feet, though it was less bloodthirsty than the one Donut-man had before he went and hugged a tree with his face.

I was forced to duck, dodge, and twist with my deflections, stepping around roots and trees even as she continued forcing me back step by step. Still, I was a bit disappointed and even found time to voice it.

"This is the best you got?" I asked with a sigh, switching to using my sword one-handedly and stuffing my newly freed hand into my jacket, even as I struggled to properly dodge everything she sent my way. My clothes had begun to accumulate small knicks and tears from close calls. She was definitely stronger than what Kiba had shown me during our spars, but I knew for a fact that he was still holding back a lot that time.

"What the hell! are you! Talking about!" She grunted out in frustration as she gave a burst of effort and upped her pace even further, a couple of tiny cuts opening up on my sides as I barely evaded her weapon.

While she was skilled enough for it to be clear she knew what she was doing… it was also painfully clear that she was very set in a particular way of moving and attacking. She was too inflexible, and probably hadn't faced a whole lot of variety in the people she'd fought before.

Case in point; I pulled my homemade smoke bomb out of my jacket and lightly tossed it her way while sidestepping an overextended lunge on her part, and I saw her eyes widen for a split second before a cloud of dark smoke burst out of it all at once, cutting off our sight of each other. She jumped back from the cloud almost instantly with a flap of her wings, a thin trail of the gas being pulled along with her, but there was still a moment where a huge portion of her field of vision was blocked, while I still had an almost entirely clear view of her wings extended far to the sides.

I lunged at her from a tree to her left, just in her blindspot right as she began turning her head back and forth in confusion when she didn't immediately see me.

She just managed to turn back my way in time for the metal ring of the kunai in my grip to bash into her temple, staggering and disorienting her.

It was over in that moment, and she realized it too as I maneuvered under her wings to slip behind her, gripped her hair with that same hand to pull her head back, and pressed my sword up against her throat.

"Surrender," I told her as she froze at the feeling of the blade on her exposed neck.

She simply wasn't used to fighting a lot of different styles, especially the more misdirection-based styles like how most ninja fought.

"... A-ah?" she made a confused sound. "You're… not going to kill me?"

"Not if you surrender, no," I confirmed. I wouldn't actually kill her even if she didn't give up, unless she forced me to. I'd just knock her unconscious to secure her until the mission was over. "I don't like killing people I don't have to. Most people don't deserve that, even if they are my enemy."

Despite the blade threatening her life, she managed to suppress her nerves enough to scoff. "Mercy is an excuse for losers and cowards." She chuckled self deprecatingly. "How pathetic. I can't believe I lost to a weakling like–"

"You're wrong." I interrupted her. I'd heard it before, and I'd hear it again if I kept getting into battles. It wasn't surprising that a life of violence made people decide that more violence was the best solution, but it was disappointing all the same.

It was a shame, but it seemed like this world also had its own seemingly endless cycle of bloodshed and violence, even when beings like her should have enough experience to know better by now. If there was one singular upside to a world-ending threat like the true leaders of the Akatsuki popping up, then it was the fact that it forced everyone to realize it was possible for us to set aside our differences and work together.

Mittelt stayed silent, which, you know, fair; I had a blade against her jugular. So I explained it to her instead.

"Mercy is a luxury and an ideal to strive for. If you are weak, it makes sense to do everything in your power to survive at all costs. I won't judge anyone for wanting to live. You can't afford to give it anything other than your all, even as you strive to be better. But If you're strong enough to afford that luxury," I shook my head. "then the only reason to disregard it is out of fear of the enemies you spared coming back in the future, ignoring the fact that sparing an enemy means they might not be an enemy the next time you meet." I let my words sink in for a moment, though I wasn't sure how well they'd get through to her.

"Really, you have it backwards; Weak or strong doesn't matter, only a coward would decide to spit on the very idea of mercy," I finished with a low tone.

"..."

She stayed silent and I loosened my grip on her hair, relaxing my stance just a bit as I figured she wasn't likely to fight back. Then an odd, almost whistling sound rapidly approached from deeper within the forest.

Her Light spear disappeared from her hand, removing the source of light pollution and bathing us in the forest's darkness.

"... I surre–wahh!?"

I shoved Mittelt's head forward and down suddenly while pulling her feet out from under her with a hook of my ankle, sword already swinging behind me as I threw her face-first onto the ground.

At the speed that the blue Light spear was flying, my parry didn't knock its momentum off course enough to miss me completely, and it ended up taking a small chunk of flesh out of my shoulder as it whizzed past, just beside where her chest might have been.

"Gah, damn it!" I growled out as I reflexively clutched at the bloody wound with my other hand, glaring into the woods. "What the hell, you bastard! That would have killed your ally if I didn't react in time!" I would have dodged instead of trying to deflect it, but I didn't have the leverage or the time to safely pull the blonde Fallen out of the way with my sword on her throat.

The fedora wearing man scoffed as he calmly walked out of the darkness between the trees, holding another spear. "She would have survived for long enough for Raynare to get here. Injuries such as that will be a minor concern at best once she's done. Besides," He gave a bloody scowl, the dark liquid slowly running down from his nose to stain his frown. "She's a weakling. It doesn't matter to me whether she lives or dies, as long as I get a shot at killing you."

I glared at the guy.

"Oh, fuck you Dohnaseek." The blonde Fallen behind me huffed from the ground. "Both of us only have two wings, you're basically just as weak as I am, and I don't even really like fighting!"

"You don't," he agreed, "and that's why you lost, and I will win."

I took a moment during their back and forth to take inventory. Figuratively, that is. The only things I didn't have on me were my sheath, the smoke bomb I'd used, and the kunai I'd dropped when shoving Mittelt to the ground. The real issue was my arm. I tightened my fingers around my sword, feeling that my grip strength was mostly fine.

'Tch. I won't be able to put a lot of strength into my swings,' I thought with a frown.

The tension in my upper arm from the grip test told me that a bit too much of the muscle in my shoulder was severed for me to use the arm effectively. Even relatively minor muscle damage could be finicky like that without my chakra to pick up the slack.

I switched back to a two-handed grip, ignoring how the blood coating my palm was getting on the handle's grip, and settled into a kendo-like stance.

I really wasn't that good of a swordsman and had no formal– or even informal– training in the practice, but a blade was a blade, and combat experience was combat experience. After a certain point, fighting mostly came down to a combination of mobility and force, managing distances, and controlling the pace of the fight. For the most part, any styles or techniques beyond those three key things were just optimizations for a particular combat philosophy, meant to act as guidelines on how to deal with a wide variety of scenarios as quickly as they came for the people learning them.

Dohnaseek stopped a short distance away, keeping his eyes on me.

From how naturally his body slipped into a ready position with his spear in hand, I could tell that at the very least he wasn't just talking shit. They could have the same level of strength and speed for all I knew, but Dohnaseek was definitely stronger than Mittelt.

I readied myself for a rough fight. I couldn't afford to make any mistakes right now.

If Mittelt decided to take back her surrender now that her life wasn't in my hands…

"Ufufu~"

A new voice rang out from the side, and two familiar figures stepped into view in the corner of my vision.

"It looks like you could use some help, Uzumaki-kun," the witch smiled angelically, a hand cupping her cheek

I groaned.

~,,––,,^^-

A/N: Next chapter wraps up the arc, then we can get into the chicken.