Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www̧̧.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
Takuma and the twin agents gazed at each other. It was from experience that both sides intuited that they had reached a critical point in the fight. They had already observed and probed each other and tested a few strategies to finish the job.
Thus, the tactics were laid and the field was set. Whatever happened next would most likely decide the outcome.
The twins once again separated from each other and went in opposite directions, slowly approaching him from either side to trap him with a pincer move—just like they tried to do at the start of the fight. They were going for a gradual ramp-up, but he didn't give them the space to control the flow of the battle.
He pulled multiple shuriken in both hands from his weapon pouches and launched them at both of them. He didn't stop and pulled out two tagged kunai in each hand. The agents saw the tagged kunai headed towards them, but they also saw Takuma weaving hand seals. Their body language instantly changed. Instead of leaping away out of the blast radius to safety, Red stepped in and swung his sword hard to deflect the kunai as far as possible before rushing towards Takuma. Blue dropped to slide on the ground to let the kunai pass over him before popping back up to his feet; the tags exploded, but Blue managed to stop himself from being thrown off-balance.
They correctly recognised that the two-phase projectile attack wasn't meant to damage them, but instead to buy time to complete his hand seals. A shinobi of Takuma's caliber wouldn't require time to complete a D-rank or C-rank ninjutsu because they were neither long nor required complex chakra manipulation—the same couldn't be said about B-rank jutsu. If a shinobi were interrupted while signing hand seals for a B-rank ninjutsu, they lost a substantial amount of chakra.
Thus, it was common practice to get cover from teammates or do it the way Takuma had done. And thanks to the fight, his body was warm, and his pathways ready to handle a heavy, persistent flow of chakra.
Earth-natured chakra flooded his system and flowed to every corner of his body. The feeling of strength a B-rank jutsu provided was intoxicating and the sense invincibility was a universal experience for those who could use B-rank jutsu.
Earth Release: Earth Spear
As Takuma's body darkened, Blue slashed at his legs, but he jumped above the blade. Red arrived the very next second and brought his sword down, but by then, the jutsu finally set in. Takuma raised his arm and met the lightning-wreathed sword.
Even though Earth was weak against Lightning, the rank barrier was still substantial. He poured more chakra into his arm, just to be safe, and blocked the sword's 'stun' effect from taking effect. But instead of counterattacking immediately, he pretended to be weak by stumbling back. Blue went in for a stab but was immediately yanked to safety by his collar thanks to Red. Takuma's fist brushed past his nose. The wind displaced by the arm blew his hair and clothes back like he was standing in front of an industrial fan. His jaw would've undoubtedly shattered if he had been hit by that.
Takuma glared at Red, who had seen through his ruse. The agents' coordination made their teamwork greater than the sum of its parts. They wouldn't have been nearly as much trouble if he had fought them individually.
He dropped to one knee and raised his arms above his head before smashing them down to the ground. The moment the agents saw his arms glow they tried to escape to no avail.
From the point of impact, the earth itself fractured. Cracks and fissures raced out in every direction faster than the eyes could follow, destroying any kind of footing they could find. Stone and soil heaved up and down in deep crests like a violent wave.
The earth's starving maw opened up, swallowing the hungry terrain, and in their attempts to escape, the agents were dragged off their feet and pulled into the flow.
Red fell up to his chest. As he tried to get out, Blue suddenly rushed in front of him instead of helping him out. The reason? Takuma was already upon them with a glowing fist. Blue swung his sword at the incoming fist. Ninjutsu-enhanced fist met kenjutsu-empowered sword. The blade snapped at the point of impact, with the broken piece carving a gash into Blue's mask before zipping through the sky.
Takuma's other fist was already glowing. With Earth Spear, he didn't need to be as careful as he usually was about how much chakra he was putting in his arm and could use augmentation quicker than normal.
The moment the chakra was under his control, he swung.
"Go left!"
Red's voice made Blue move to the side without a single thought about what he was doing. That's how much trust they had in each other. Behind Blue, Red had already finished signing hand seals and unleashed the electro-ball he had used before against the clone.
The augmented fist clashed with the C-rank Lightning Release ninjutsu, triggering an explosion that cracked the ground around their feet even further and stirred up a large amount of dust.
Red, enduring the impact, crawled out of the crevice he had fallen into. He was about to move away, but a hand shot out of the dust and grabbed him by the neck, stifling all access to air. The next moment, an almost solid-blue fist struck him in the abdomen as Takuma emerged from the dust. With his neck held in an iron grip, Red couldn't even groan and grunt in pain. However, a mouthful of blood jettisoned out of his mouth and stained the inside of his mask.
The pain made his head grow heavy.
Takuma's fist began to glow as he went in for a second punch, but Blue kicked him in the head. It didn't hurt, but he couldn't stop himself from being moved away, which loosened his grip enough that Red managed to escape.
Blue moved quickly and slapped a tag between Takuma's shoulder blades. Red coughed blood as he tried to catch his breath, but managed to throw a tagged kunai right at his feet
Both of the agents jumped away just as the short detonation explosive tags blew up.
———
.
"Prepare for the B1-combination," Red said between coughs.
Both of them immediately began to weave hand seals. Blue kept an eye on Red to match his hand seals and chakra manipulation with his injured partner, as they had to be perfect in their coordination to combine their B-rank ninjutsu successfully.
Their two ninjutsu didn't exist in any jutsu library and were specially created for them for the sole purpose of creating a perfect B-rank combination ninjutsu. The moment the twins had become "chunin", they had worked with a retired Hidden Leaf jōnin, an expert in Lightning Release, for years to create two custom ninjutsu with perfect synergy.
Red's Lightning Release: Thunder God's Fang
Blue's Lightning Release: Blue Thread of Death
Thunder God's Fang was a rod of pure Lightning chakra that had the capability of penetrating even the most impenetrable of defences because it concentrated all of its power into a thin rod, composed of extremely excitable chakra. The jutsu was among the most devastating single-target offensive B-rank ninjutsu out there.
As the name suggested, Blue Thread of Death, launched a thread made from pure Lightning chakra. Said thread would be attached to the target with a needle-end that digs into the body until it finds a nerve. Once attached, the thread was extremely difficult to detach. The user would then pour Lightning-natured chakra through the thread, frying everything even vaguely close to the nerve.
It was also a special ninjutsu whose damage was entirely dependent on how much chakra the user poured into the jutsu—there were diminishing returns, but it nevertheless caused lethal damage.
But when those two jutsu were combined, their result was something entirely else. Thunder God's Fang would ride the Blue Thread of Death attached to the target and would never miss unless the target managed to remove the thread. On its way, the lightning rod would absorb the chakra poured into the thread and become enormously powerful.
As they were three-quarters of the way through their casting, the target rushed out of the dust and headed straight towards Blue. It only took a second for Blue to realise that he wouldn't be able to complete his jutsu. Even if he moved back, he wouldn't be able to complete his hand seals and chakra manipulation in time.
He had to think about the backup plan.
Lightning Release was stronger against Earth Release. He recognised the Earth Release ninjutsu and knew that it wasn't a purely defensive ninjutsu, which meant Red's purely offensive ninjutsu could very well kill him or bring him to a state where he would be easily killed afterwards. He just needed to ensure the ninjutsu would hit the target.
He continued to weave hand seals until the last moment, and when the target was in range with his shimmering blue fist, he dodged to the right, but got hit on the shoulder. Even before the pain hit, he knew that his shoulder was beyond shattered, along with other problems like torn muscles.
Any hope he had of maintaining his chakra was crushed, but his job wasn't done. He gritted his teeth to endure the pain and jumped on the target to take him down to the ground.
He failed as the target managed to stop himself on one knee, but it was enough as Red completed his hand seals. Chakra poured out of Red's body and coagulated into a long rod above his shoulder. It was a perfect thin cylinder that shone in crystal blue and didn't leak any electric currents or arcs. Everything was perfectly contained inside the rod's body.
The twins shared a look.
There was no need to exchange any words because they knew their mission. The assassination was classified as a suicide mission for them, which meant they had to complete it even if it meant they died doing it. Sacrificing oneself for the success of the mission was the greatest honour a ROOT agent could do.
If he clung to the target, he too would be affected by Thunder God's Fang. Blue used his good arm and leg to trap the target to the ground, and got punched in the chest for it. It wasn't as bad as the previous one, but he felt his ribs break, and he clung on as the light in his vision began to dim.
"Do it," he said, but his voice only managed to muster a whisper.
Red threw the rod the moment the target shoved him, and Blue knew he had done his part and was about to close his eye when he felt a tug and was suddenly in front of the target.
'No,' he thought in horror as he felt the lightning rod hit him in the back.
———
.
'Fuck,' Takuma thought as he found himself in a bad spot. Everything was going well until Blue grabbed onto him, and he couldn't push him away in time. Now he had a lightning-fast B-rank jutsu coming at him.
The moment he saw the rod towards him, he knew that his life was in danger. Earth Release was weak against Lightning Release. Earth Spear wasn't going to fare well against the agent's jutsu. He didn't even have time to execute the jutsu, unlike the last time he faced a B-rank jutsu.
As the rod neared, he knew he only had one option.
Brute force his defence.
If there was one advantage he had over most people, it was his chakra reserves. Not once in his life had he run out of chakra during a fight. He was in a fortuitous situation where he could use multiple B-rank jutsu in the same fight, both of which weren't learnt by people because of their chakra-hungry nature, even among other jutsu of the same rank.
And even now, he was nowhere near bottoming out, so Takuma was going to let Earth Spear drink as much as it wanted to stay alive.
But he had a problem to solve before that. Red's jutsu looked like a rod which told him that it was likely meant to pierce his body. He could tell from the jutsu's defined shape that the power was concentrated and that it would go through him before wrecking his body with lightning.
No amount of chakra would allow Earth Spear to stop him from being skewered. Even if he had time, he would've been scared to punch it because if his chakra augmentation wasn't powerful enough, the rod would go through his arm and cripple it completely, ruining his life as a shinobi forever.
His only choice was to grab the rod with both hands to prevent it from going through him. He didn't know what that would do to his hands, but it was better than just dying. All he could do was to pour as much chakra into his hands.
But as he pushed the agent away, an epiphany struck him. He grabbed the agent back and shoved forward as quickly as possible, hoping the rod would hit the agent and stop there. There wasn't even time to pray as the rod went through the agent, stopping an inch away from his body.
Alas, he didn't have the time to breathe a sigh of relief because a factory load of lightning assaulted him, travelling into his body from his hand that was holding Blue up in front of him as it contracted and seized up in place from the current assaulting his nerves.
———
.
Red fell to his knees from exhaustion as his vision doubled up and blurred. His head was turning so much that it was difficult to hold a thought, even after witnessing his jutsu pierce the closest person to him in his entire life. He was experiencing symptoms of using excessive chakra in a short amount of time, combined with low chakra levels, made worse by his injuries.
He couldn't raise his head or focus his vision and fell over from flinching upon hearing the ear-piercing scream. He knew it wasn't from his partner, which could only mean that he was already dead.
The target continued to scream for a few more seconds before everything went silent.
Red gripped the loose soil and tried to focus. He had to confirm that the target was dead. He still had chakra, so he knew it would take a few more seconds for him to regain his condition and move.
In truth, he wanted to hurry to say farewell to his partner before the death-seal burned his body to ash.
Red closed his eyes when he heard footsteps and knew that his wish wouldn't come true. He weakly looked up and saw the target walking towards him. The teen shinobi's entire body was shaking and trembling as remnants of the jutsu stuck to him. The jutsu he was using was gone, returning his skin to its normal colour—except now, it was shades paler than before. His face, which seemed to be set in stone, twitched involuntarily.
Red had managed to do a lot of damage, but it wasn't enough as the target was still alive. His focus had almost returned, and he thought about fighting, but when he thought about his dead partner, he just couldn't bring himself to care.
"...L-Lay me down beside my brother when this is over," Red said just before the target kicked him in his face.
———
.
Takuma fulfilled the agent's last wishes with great difficulty. He gazed at his fingers; he could barely muster any power in his hands.
He had to stomp Red to death because of it.
Takuma was lucky. Even though the Lightning Release jutsu had got him in the end, he only bore half its wrath, the other half being shouldered by Blue. For the first time, he truly realised how lethal B-rank jutsu were. Even half of it would've killed him if Earth Spear hadn't been working overtime to protect him, and even then, he didn't come out unscathed.
The only thing keeping him standing was that he had things to finish.
Takuma turned around and began walking in Kon's direction.
It was time to end things.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!