Genta felt his defensive jutsu fail. Driven by pure protective instinct, he ripped his hands from the mud and forcefully shoved Shizuru away from the crumbling wall. He braced to take the full brunt of the hit, desperately coating his entire body in thick earth armor.
Then, his vision flashed a blinding red.
The unseen force split the terrain completely in half. Unfortunately, Genta's arm was caught on the wrong side of the divide. The invisible blade severed his limb perfectly cleanly, just above the elbow. The detached arm flew forward, brutally striking the last remnants of the earth wall before thudding heavily into the muck, leaving a sickening trail of fresh blood in its wake.
My eyes widened in sheer disbelief and unadulterated rage.
Spinning mid-air, I instantly summoned my spear. I flooded the weapon with such an overwhelming amount of lightning chakra that the metal began vibrating intensely, feeling as though it would literally crumble apart under the immense compression. With a feral shout, I launched the supercharged weapon directly at Kannon.
She looked visibly exhausted, her reserves noticeably depleted from the previous attack, yet she did not panic. Closing her eyes, she struck the chakra-metal strings in one fluid, desperate motion.
"Chord of Sunyata," she whispered.
The air in front of her sharply distorted. A dense, hyper-vibrating wall of sound erupted into existence. She kept her hand pressed firmly against the strings, rapidly injecting more and more chakra to fortify the acoustic barrier.
My spear collided with the wall in a blinding explosion of blue light. The piercing lightning drove deep, almost tearing entirely through her defense. Genuine worry fractured Kannon's calm, goddess-like facade. She gritted her teeth, forcing even more energy into her lute as the music swelled into a dissonant, bone-shaking crescendo. The spear unleashed a devastating shockwave, but the rapidly vibrating sound wall scattered the electrical currents, fighting the attack to a brutal standstill in a deafening, high-pitched screech.
As the two jutsu furiously fought against each other, I moved. The entire sequence took only a few agonizing seconds, but I flickered immediately to my teammates.
Shizuru and Genta flinched, panicked by how fast I had appeared between them. Without wasting a split second, I sealed Genta's severed arm inside my storage seal, hauled both of them up, ignited my Stormdrive, and vanished.
However, Kannon's calm, enraging voice rang out with absolute clarity. "Thread of Anatta."
A high-pitched, piercing frequency assaulted my ears, causing them to ring painfully. I instantly coated my entire body in a dense armor of lightning chakra and spun, using my momentum to hurl Genta and Shizuru toward the safety of the barrier.
But the attack was already there.
It was so fast and impossibly sharp that it nearly shattered my shield in a single, microscopic hit. The formless slash was merciless. It sheared right through Shizuru's calves. It would have amputated her legs completely if my spinning momentum hadn't already been pulling her away. She flew through the air, completely unaware of what had just happened, a horrific trail of blood painting a red line behind her. She and Genta crashed hard against one of the carts, tumbling to the dirt just as their chakra signatures safely crossed the threshold of the barrier.
"Genta!" I shouted, desperately hurling a scroll toward him.
Though his eyes were streaming with tears and he gasped for air through the blinding pain, he reacted. He snatched the scroll with his one intact arm, slammed it open against the ground, and flooded it with chakra. A secondary, reinforced barrier instantly erupted to life, sheltering them safely within the already erected caravan defense.
Yodomi had not been standing still. He continuously unleashed powerful water jutsu, but my shadow clone was too fast, dodging away from every strike. Whenever the rogue ninja tried to shift his focus toward me or my escaping teammates, the clone fired devastating lightning spears, forcing him back on the defensive.
But now that Genta and Shizuru were finally safe, the clone dispelled itself in a puff of smoke.
I stood alone in the shattered clearing, erratic currents of electricity crawling all over my body. I stared them down: Kannon, whose chakra signature had dimmed significantly from the overuse of her ghastly ability, and Yodomi, who seethed with rage that I was still standing between him and his targets.
The spear materialized in my hand, and I flickered. A streak of blue lightning crossed the distance in a fraction of a second. I slammed the weapon down toward Kannon. She struck her lute hard, but her speed had dropped. Exhaustion and heavy chakra drain were finally taking their toll.
A dense sound barrier erupted directly in my path, slamming into me, but my lightning armor fought back against the crushing pressure. I began to force my way through the acoustic wall, inch by agonizing inch. Blood dripped from my ringing ears. True fear finally warped her features. She had to keep playing the chord to maintain the barrier, but her reserves were now running low. Like all assassins, she relied on the element of surprise and critical strikes, and when those failed, she resorted to unsavory tactics.
The crushing pressure of the barrier smeared the blood pouring from my ears across my entire face. I was grinding my jaw so violently that my bared teeth were stained crimson. When my blood-soaked visage finally tore through the acoustic wall, my features were twisted into a monstrous snarl of pure rage.
Suddenly, a massive water slash collided with my back. Yodomi was trying to save her. But my lightning armor tanked the devastating blow, and the kinetic force of the water actually propelled me forward. The sudden push shoved me completely through Kannon's acoustic defense. I brought the spear slashing down.
She jumped back at the very last moment, but my vertical slash tore across her shoulder, chest, and abdomen. She screamed in agony. Desperate, she blindly struck her lute. Thousands of micro-slashes thundered outward, instantly reducing the immediate area to dust. I flickered directly through the maelstrom. My armor absorbed the brunt of the damage, and I reappeared right in front of her just as her now bloodied fingers struck a new chord.
"Mandala of the False Realm!" she shrieked.
I felt the heavy, suffocating weight of a powerful genjutsu attempt to grip my mind, right as another of Yodomi's water dragons crashed into my back. But the water jutsu was instantly dismantled by my volatile electricity armor upon contact, and the illusion completely failed to take hold. My Stormdrive kept my chakra network in a state of violent, hyper-agitated flow, rendering her acoustic trickery entirely useless.
Absolute horror consumed Kannon's face.
I drove my spear forward. It punched straight through her chest with an explosion of blood and gore as it slashed through her heart. I didn't stop there. I forced a tremendous amount of lightning chakra into the blade and let it detonate directly inside her. Her body shook violently, expanding slightly before exploding into pieces. Charred flesh and ash blasted outward, washing harmlessly off my lightning armor.
I slowly turned my head to look at Yodomi.
His body was shaking uncontrollably. Pure panic took over, and he flew through hand signs faster than he ever had in his entire life. It didn't matter. I was faster. I flickered directly in front of him, swinging my spear with so much velocity that the very air warped around the blade.
A thin, red line appeared across his neck. His eyes widened in sheer agony and terror. A second later, his severed head slipped from his shoulders, and his lifeless body crumpled to the dirt.
I stood still in the silent clearing. My lightning armor slowly dissipated, leaving only faint blue sparks crawling across my skin. I was now alone in a field of blood.
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A/N: My second story is officially out! If you want the same awesome action but with a faster-paced plot and a very unique MC, you should definitely check it out: (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/182626/bloody-nirvana). It'll be running while Stormbreaker is on... well, a break, lol. Go give it a follow. Appreciate you all <3