The arm that erupted from the ground belonged to another of Ronin's shadow clones. The technique was Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu.
The massive tattoo-energy hand sweeping toward him received no attention at all. The clone simply twisted, hauled Tserriednich out of the earth, and flung the prince backward. In the same motion its free fist smashed into the oncoming ink construct.
Reid did not dodge.
The tattoo hand met the clone's arm and swallowed it without a sound, wrapping the limb in living ink.
The clone's brow lifted. Its remaining hand seized the prince and hurled him skyward with explosive force.
"You dare—!" Reid roared, already trying to break free and chase the flying figure.
The clone's trapped arm clenched. Fingers closed around the flowing tattoo lines themselves. The ink could no longer retract. Instead it began racing up the clone's body, spreading across skin and clothing in rapid black veins.
Reid saw he would never catch the prince in time. A cold snort left him.
"You're dead."
A fourth figure materialized in the air above—another shadow clone released from the final sealing scroll.
The airborne prince tumbled straight into its waiting hands. A sphere of water formed instantly, swallowing Tserriednich before he could even draw breath.
Water Style: Water Prison Technique.
A second seal layered over the prison at once: Earth Style: Super Lightened Boulder Technique. The entire sphere became weightless and began to rise.
Below, the Lightning Style clone tore through the remaining bodyguards one after another. It deliberately avoided lethal force, uncertain whether death itself might trigger some hidden transfer. At the same time it scanned for any ability users still concealing themselves.
Some of the specialists cut their own flesh to activate their powers. Others locked onto the prince and prepared to fire. None of it mattered. Against a clone already sheathed in Lightning Style Chakra Mode their specialized training showed its limits.
One aerial clone continued raining jutsu onto the street. The second, carrying the Water Prison, climbed higher with every second. Once they left the effective range of every transfer ability, the prince could no longer be snatched away.
The real test arrived exactly then.
The ground-level clone was now covered in spreading tattoos. Movement grew sluggish.
"Manipulation-type," the clone stated calmly.
"Yes." Reid saw no reason to deny it. The ink had already claimed the entire body. Control belonged to him.
The smile never reached his face. The tattooed clone exploded into a burst of white smoke.
Reid's expression darkened. A contingency? What kind of ability simply turned into smoke?
His gaze snapped upward to the shrinking figure of the prince.
How was he supposed to recover him now?
From the roof of a moving high-rise not far from the ambush, Nobunaga watched the prince being carried away.
"Do we intervene?"
They had come looking for Xiyou. Finding the Fourth Prince under attack had been pure chance.
"It's Ronin." Hisoka lowered the binoculars. "And I think I've been noticed."
"Ronin spotted you?" Machi's fingers were already calculating trap placements.
"Not him." Hisoka shook his head. "One of the prince's bodyguards. The moment I looked at him, he looked straight back at our position."
"Ignore it," Chrollo decided.
Xiyou's ability remained the priority. Even if they chased now, intercepting the prince was far from certain. Let Kakin deal with its own mess.
Chrollo had already calculated the timing. If tonight's operation against Xiyou succeeded, tomorrow morning would be the ideal window to strike Ronin. If tonight failed, there would be no point thinking about Ronin at all.
"Move."
Chrollo turned away without another glance.
On the twentieth floor of a nearby hotel, Xiyou stood at the floor-to-ceiling window and watched the distant flashes of combat. He did not know who had launched the assault, only that the capital's security forces were in for another sleepless night. Whatever answer Beyond sent in the morning would decide whether this trip to Kakin counted as a vacation or a waste of time.
He drew the curtains and returned to bed.
No one intercepted them.
The Water Prison clone carried Tserriednich several hundred meters into the night sky, then angled toward Ronin's true location. The entire flight, its eyes never left the prince sealed inside the sphere, ready for the slightest spatial fluctuation.
Below, the fighting had ended.
Every bodyguard except Reid lay unconscious—ability users and ordinary soldiers alike. One clone hovered in the air. The second, still wrapped in crackling blue lightning, stood on the street. Both fixed their attention on the tattoo artist.
Reid felt the pressure mount.
His tattoos swelled and exploded outward in a widening wave of ink. The lightning simply moved faster, slipping past the expanding field without ever touching it.
At the same moment the airborne clone drew a deep breath and finished its seals.
Wind Style: Vacuum Serial Waves.
Invisible blades of compressed air scythed through the night. The outermost layer of tattoo energy shredded first, the destruction serving as a clear warning.
Reid shifted his stance, trying to step outside the storm. He never saw the lightning concentrate into the other clone's hand.
A spear of blue energy punched straight through the remaining ink and through Reid's abdomen before he could react.
Lightning Style: Chidori Sharp Spear.
Long-range variants of Lightning Style were hardly rare. The moment Reid decided the spreading tattoos would restrict the lightning clone, he had already stepped into the trap.
The ink construct collapsed. Reid's midsection tore open. Blood sprayed as he fell.
An earth-dragon skull erupted from the street and closed around him in a single bite. Earth Style: Super Lightened Boulder Technique lifted the entire construct into the air. Both remaining clones leapt upward and landed cleanly on the dragon's head.