Even in the middle of high-speed movement, Kanon continued to hurl shuriken and deploy the Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu. In a flash, several blurred images of the girl darted across the battlefield in a coordinated blitz.
The masked man countered with measured efficiency. Though he had sustained some injuries, Kanon was clearly taking far more damage than she was dealing. After four minutes of this relentless, high-octane exchange, Kanon finally skidded to a halt. She knelt on one knee, gasping for air, her small hands balled into trembling fists.
Bloody gashes scored her arms, abdomen, and legs, and the fresh crimson fluid pooled beneath her.
While the masked man had suffered significantly less physical trauma, he was on the brink of genuine fury. This opponent was a mere six-year-old kunoichi, yet she had used the Eight Inner Gates to forge her body into a weapon capable of rivaling his own strength. Her speed had reached a level that even he found difficult to parry.
"You brat," the masked man growled. In an eye-blink, he hurled a simple branch toward her.
Kanon stepped aside to dodge the projectile, but the moment it passed her, the branch sprouted a forest of lethal wooden spikes.
"Wood Release: Cutting Sprigs Jutsu!"
Poof!
The Kanon impaled by the spikes dissolved into white smoke.
Elsewhere, the real Kanon stood trembling, her strength completely spent. She had one move left.
"It's time you died like a good little girl," the masked man snarled.
To his surprise, a smirk tugged at the corner of Kanon's mouth. "I'm not going to die." At this moment, her eyes blazed with an almost defiant confidence. "If I die here, how am I supposed to find that field of flowers?"
"Come on! Let's settle this properly. I won't drag this out, and I won't back down!"
Faced with her defiant shout, the man's expression remained hidden, though a cold sneer surely lingered beneath the wood-patterned mask. "Very well, child. You are a true prodigy. I acknowledge that."
Kanon deactivated the Eight Inner Gates, the green steam dissipating as she summoned one last Shadow Clone. There were no tricks this time, just two identical girls charging at the masked man, one behind the other.
In the heat of battle, it was impossible to tell them apart. However, following shinobi logic, the masked man assumed the real Kanon was the one in the rear. It was a universal rule in the ninja world: clones are for decoys, the original stays behind.
The masked man lunged forward. If he could just touch her and warp her into his pocket dimension, it would be over.
Sure enough, using the front clone as a screen, the Kanon in the back managed to manifest one final, desperate Chidori. The screeching of a thousand birds echoed through the forest once more.
The masked man reached out, his body turning intangible as he phased through the first "Kanon," moving straight for the one he believed to be the original.
Using a clone as a shield to decide it with a Chidori? Naive! The man sneered inwardly.
Just as his fingers were about to close around her, the space in his right eye began to swirl and distort. "I win!"
His hand gripped her shoulder. But in the exact heartbeat the vacuum began to pull her in—
Poof!
The "original" in the back vanished into white smoke.
"What?!" The masked man's shock was absolute.
He had guessed wrong. Immediately, a massive wall of fire erupted from the ground beneath him, moving at a speed that defied reaction.
Impossible! The one in the back was the decoy?! The one in front was the original!
The real Kanon was crouched in front, her hands pressed firmly against the earth in the seal for a Mud Wall. Her crimson one-tomoe Sharingan stood out against her beautiful, determined face. At that moment, the masked man realized the sheer scale of her courage—she had used her own living body as the primary bait.
BOOM!
"Lava Release: Stone-Fire Wall!"
A colossal surge of molten flame slammed into the masked man, launching him backward. The terrifying Lava Release flames engulfed his entire body as he spiraled away.
Kanon slumped to her knees at the edge of the cliff, coughing up another mouthful of blood.
"Did I... win? Papa, Mama, Onii-chan... I survived..." Her voice was weak and trembling, a byproduct of the devastating strain of the Fourth Gate.
But before she could even catch her breath, the space in front of her warped again. The masked man spiraled out of the vortex. His cloak was scorched and tattered, and fresh wounds marred his arms, but his presence was as looming as ever.
"I guess... I didn't win after all..." Kanon sighed weakly. She had pushed past every limit; her body was on the verge of total collapse.
"Do you have any last words?" the masked man asked tonelessly. "I will grant you that much."
"Can you... take off the mask?" Kanon whispered.
The man remained silent.
"I thought not... I just wanted to know who you were..."
Kanon suddenly made a face at him, sticking out her tongue in a mocking gesture. "I'm not going to the afterlife quietly. I'll turn into a ghost and haunt you! I'll be watching you... always!"
Watching you. The masked man froze, seemingly stunned by those specific words. He took a sharp breath, as if a distant, painful memory had been triggered. He stood in silence for a full minute, looking at the dying girl. Even now, she kept making faces at him, acting as if she were the victor.
Still just a child, refusing to admit defeat even at death's door, the man thought. He finally spoke, his voice muffled behind the tiger-print mask.
"I will give you a choice. Throw yourself off this cliff, or die by my blade. Choose."
Kanon's eyelids felt heavy. Before the end, she had one last question. "What you said about my parents... was it true?"
That was all she cared about. In her world, her family was everything.
"You can find out for yourself in the next world," he replied, clearly done with the conversation.
It was a checkmate. She was destined to die here today. But rather than dying by an enemy's sword, she would choose the grand exit.
Kanon let out a faint, weary smile and glanced one last time at the brilliant white moon hanging in the sky. The moonlight seemed to mock her effort, suggesting that all her struggles had been in vain.
Is this the end?
Goodbye, Mama, Papa. Itachi-niichan, Sasuke-niichan... and my very first friend, Naruto...
I can't stay by your side anymore.
With a final burst of strength in her legs, she spread her arms and let herself fall backward, plummeting off the cliff.
The masked man watched her vanish, then coldly turned away to retrieve the lifeless body of Izumi Uchiha. The girl had no chakra left; there was no possible way for her to survive that fall. With a ripple of distorted space, he vanished.
…
The wind whistled past her ears. Amidst the violent rushing of air and the heavy sensation of falling, a flood of memories surged through Kanon's mind, the "déjà vu" that often strikes in the final seconds of life. She saw everyone she had ever known: her parents, Itachi, Shisui, Sasuke, Izumi, and her dear friend Naruto.
I... I don't want to die yet!
Suddenly, Konin's voice screamed inside her mind.
[Kanon! Use Wind Release: Great Breakthrough toward the ground! I've funneled my chakra to you!]
I WANT TO LIVE!
These words hammered through Kanon's consciousness, forcing her broken body to move. She wove the signs and exhaled a massive blast of wind toward the ravine floor.
The counter-force halted her terminal velocity, nearly sending her back upward.
[Now! Drive a kunai into the cliffside!]
Following Konin's command, Kanon slammed a kunai into the rock. Sparks flew as the metal ground against stone, slowing her further.
[The signs, Kanon! Now! Mud Wall!]
"Earth Release: Mud Wall!"
Kanon slammed her palm against the cliff face. A horizontal shelf of earth erupted from the rock, catching her and stopping her fall completely. She collapsed onto the narrow ledge, her face pale and her body slick with cold sweat.
The pain from the hole in her abdomen was so intense she nearly blacked out. Her blood continued to seep out, staining the earthen ledge. It had been a terrifyingly close call; she had truly been at the gates of death.
[Use the Mystical Palm Jutsu on your stomach,] Konin urged. [We have to stop the bleeding first.]
A faint green light flickered in Kanon's hand as she began to channel a tiny trickle of chakra into the wound.
————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to my p-atre-on: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]