Anger and killing intent flooded the darkness and tension, pressing the atmosphere and sending both Itachi and Kisame into a defensive stance. The former was still confused, for the first time, perhaps not only in his life but since the existence of the Uchiha Clan... someone had managed to break free from the Mangekyo Sharingan.
In his own small world, where he held full control, he had been strangled and murdered.
With a single swipe of her scythe, Kizame blocked with Samehada but felt a mountain crash on him. His body was blasted into the forest; the strength was different, the speed was different.
She was a different monster.
*BOOMMM!!*
Kisame groaned. Like a ragdoll, he couldn't control his own momentum, but he knew this was far from finished.
A gigantic wall of water that appeared out of nowhere. Chaotic chakra condensed and materialised in a defensive position. The water wall crashed agaisnt three incoming lightning spears. The contact didn't stop the spears, but deflected them much to Kizame's luck.
They shot in different directions and impacted in the forest, tensing up the atmosphere even further.
*BOOOOMMMM!!*
*BOOOOMMMM!!*
*BOOOOMMMM!!*
Three massive explosions of holy light wrecked the world and sent all animals in the forest running for their lives (the ones that survived). It was a blinding light that could be seen kilometres away from the forest.
Azrael saw from the corner of her eye shurikens coming her way, but she didn't do so much as move. The shurikens phased through her, genjutsu.
Nevertheless, he already knew genjutsu didn't work. What he wanted was a distraction. An Itachi puffed like smoke behind her, but she slapped him with her wings.
*BAANG!*
The man groaned and put his hands together to make a jutsu. Just as quickly, she threw her scythe at Itachi with a powerful motion. The scythe spanned in circles and chased after Itachi, cutting down all trees in the way like they were butter. He landed on a branch and flickered through the other branches, avoiding the scythe that he realised too late was chasing after him like a living being. No strings attached to it, nothing...
"Slaughter him, Sheol!" Her lifeless voice thundered through the forest, the scythe heeded.
Gigantic balls of flames shot from different directions. But Azrael didn't even need to move. Her wings slapped everything aside, and the balls that looked like they could burn a small house to crisps, scattered without leaving even embers.
With his evasion, Itachi managed to close in and engage in Taijutsu, possibly giving him a chance to use his Tsukuyomi, which he knew worked very well agaisnt her.
Nevertheless, he saw something that made him twitch.
Azrael caught her scythe back mid-air and struck at Itachi with her eyes closed.
"I won't fall for that trick again, kid!".
However, a torrent of water hit her back, pushing her forward. An opportunity that Itachi took to wrestle her and send her to the ground. Azrael groaned, flapped her wings, and sent both of them into flight. Mid-air, Itachi's efforts focused on having her open her eyes. In the meantime, he sent a scroll towards the recovering Kizame, who, upon getting it, prepared a shark made out of water.
'We need reinforcements, as much as I hate to admit it! We have something here more dangerous than a Bijū'.
With the shark gone, it was only a matter of time. Their objective was to stall her as much as possible, and of course... to survive as well. To buy some time, Itachi knew he had to get serious and fight her with the intention of killing her.
*BAANG!*
They both landed on the water puddle, and as soon as they did, Azrael prepared two lightning spears with her hands, two more with her wings, directed in opposite directions.
!!!
Azrael's body flickered away at the sense of danger, but still, one of her wings caught the black flames.
Horrendous pain flashed in her mind as she groaned and made some distance back into the forest. She fell in the water, but even after, the flames didn't extinguish; instead, they burned the water!
'What is this?!'.
Azrael didn't expect to find something in this world that she couldn't explain. The flames targeted the soul, but they would burn all flesh and matter in the process.
Huge torrents of water were created in the forest, crashing against her, trying to stop her from being able to scatter those flames, assuming she was capable of it.
Itachi's horizons had already been broadened; he couldn't hope to fight her with a premeditated plan.
Kizame's huge chakra reserves flooded the whole forest until he created a lake where Azrael sank. The woman, seeing the flames not extinguish but instead extend, was forced to make a decision.
She failed to notice how the Soul Stone Ember in her back, sucked the black flames slowly.
*SLASH!*
Gruesome blood poured into the sea of sharks as one of her glorious and beautiful ten white wings detached. One of the water sharks happened to go by and devoured those wings, biting onto them savagely.
*RUMBLE!*
Darkness seeped off her body. Azrael created a lightning spear, but this spear was not bright; instead, it was pitch-black.
Gone was her desire to ask questions.
Itachi, on the surface, did a hand sign that resembled a sealing technique. But he saw the spear coming his way with his Sharingan. Sadly for him, the spear was moving too fast for him to dodge. With no option, something resembling a rib cage began to form around him.
*whoosh*
Something else saved him. A portal appeared in front of Itachi, something resembling a whirlpool. The pitch-black lightning was sucked by this whirlpool, saving his life.
Itachi frowned. He knew who it was, and he didn't expect them to arrive so quickly. However, he did play his words sagely.
'Something more dangerous than a Bijū' were words bout to get attention.
Having swallowed the pitch-black lightning spear, the whirlpool began to scatter, but before it did, it cracked and collapsed with a cataclysmic boom that shattered the surrounding space like damaged glass.
That whirlpool had led the spear into a separate space. And a huge explosion had happened within that space... perhaps an explosion so big it wasn't able to contain it.
Another whirlpool formed next to Itachi from which some men appeared, all of them with orange hair.
Azrael flapped her wings, swung her scythe with one hand and in her other hand, she held the magnifying glass; both weapons looked bigger than her.
Now, on the surface, Azrael's silhouette looked terrifying.
The side of her body was bleeding, and one of her wings was missing... and she looked like she was periodically looking less... human.
Another portal appeared, from this portal something came out first... it was like a white body that was scorched like someone had done barbecue with it. After that, a man with an orange mask came out, his mask had only one eye showing, and in that eye there was a sharingan.
"We arrived in time. That explosion just now... You were right, we're in front of something more dangerous than a Bijū, Itachi..."
Azrael frowned and saw all of them wearing the same cloak, "Akatsuki".
"Woman, what is your name? I am Tobi, by the way... nice to meet you, you're causing quite the ruckus here".
The response he got from Azrael was a mocking smile and a crack of her skull, "It will take me some time to regenerate my wing. I can't allow master to see me in such a pitiful and horrible state. So you all will have to entertain me as I massacre you one by one".
"Master...?" He frowned behind his mask, 'Someone as strong as you has a master?'.
Azrael used one of her wings to create another pitch-back spear. She threw the spear, the scythe and the magnifying glass towards them at ridiculous speeds.
Effectively attacking everyone simultaneously.
Itachi and Kizame jumped to the right, but the scythe chased after them like a hungry hound. The man with the orange mask stood there nonchalantly, awaiting the lightning strike way too casually. The Soul Ember crashed against a tree and destroyed everything in its way, like the magnifying glass weighed at least a hundred tons. The three men who had been concealing hopelessly from Azrael had orange hair and purple eyes. They stared at the destruction in surprise.
Not only because they were exposed, but because of the destruction, too.
The black lightning strike struck like thunder towards the man with the orange mask. It phased through him as if he didn't exist, crashing into the forest.
A few seconds later.
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!*
He turned around, watching the titanic pitch-black explosion that resembled a black hole of flames that swallowed the land.
Azrael stared at him in surprise.
"Space control..."
Both parties seemed not to have expected the other to be so strong and resourceful. For what Azrael understood, this was a world of weaklings where Tsunade was an oddity. But this Akatsuki seemed to challenge those boundaries again and again.
Space control was not something just anyone was capable of.
Kisame struck the scythe with Samehada; as a result, the bandages around the sword scattered, and showed its real nature, the sword was a living being filled with spikes. Sadly, some of those spikes shattered upon contact with Sheol, and even a huge dent appeared.
The sword screamed in pain, something Kizame didn't even think was possible. But still, he managed to repel the scythe that flew back to its owner.
Taking advantage of the distraction and surprise, Azrael sent yet another lightning spear (those devastating ones that she could throw like they were potatoes) towards the three men with orange hair and purple eyes.
She thought they were the most dangerous because their eyes resembled Tsunade's eyes to her.
'Rinnegan'.
One of them put their arms together to absorb the black lightning that had just shot towards them.
But when he tried to absorb it, his expression changed drastically.
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!*
A devastating explosion ensued once more, this time up close and personal... it burned the artificial sea below and sent debris and gigantic rocks scalding like magma crashing everywhere.
Pain, the leader of the three, categorised her immediately.
'The strength of a Bijū with the size of a human'.
Azrael stretched her arms, and both the scythe and the ember flew back into her arms.
But Akatsuki had already seen enough, and there were enough of them in place to begin a strategy.
*WHOOSH!*
A whirlpool manifested in the trajectory between the Soul Ember and Azrael, intending to swallow the magnifying glass. Azrael gasped in shock and fear at the realisation, she stretched her arm forward trying to distort that space, but in doing so... she created an opening.
"NO!".
A gigantic red flaming sword came crashing down at her from behind.
*BOOOMMM!!!*
Her body was mercilessly smashed into the ground by this titan. Uchiha Itachi staggered towards her body with his right eye bleeding profusely. He ducked just in time for the scythe to crash against Susano'o.
The scythe struck against the body, piercing it, but ultimately not slicing it in half.
The Soul Ember was successfully taken, and the three men in orange landed and started doing hand signs of Fuinjutsu (Sealing Release).
Itachi approached Azrael, whose eyes screamed death... She looked at him as her countenance began to peel as if her skin was detaching from her body, showing her skull. The aura around her tensed even further, and he noticed how the ribcage of his susano'o started to melt.
As her wrath increased, she was getting stronger.
But Azrael still committed a huge mistake; her eyes were open.