Land of Snow 6.9
"We'll deal with these three, and then finish off Doto together," Hisana said, settling into her iaido stance. Hinata was already in the ready stance of the gentle fist, and Karin had a golden chain wrapped around one arm.
"Dismissing us so easily, brat?" the lead Snow ninja said.
"If you're like the rest of your village - reliant on technological tricks and gadgets. When we understood your little armour field, it became easy enough to defeat you," Hisana said.
"You've been in the thick of the fighting, and I can tell your chakra's nearly all gone. You won't scare me into running away with the legend of those eyes, Uchiha!"
"Is it?" Hisana said, and then made a single handseal. Her final hurricane seal, which she'd so carefully refrained from using throughout the whole mission, sprang to life. Crimson lines of ink ran down her face and then all across her. Ink became chakra coils and tenketsu, and the seal on her forehead burst open.
She would leave no reserve, hold back none of the five interlocking segments of the seal. This conflict would be settled here, and she would emerge the winner. There was so much chakra flooding into her system that it was almost a haze around her, and phantom winds seemed to whip up around her.
"W-what is that power? A chakra storage seal?" the snow ninja with the claws asked.
"So you have some tricks the Copy-Ninja didn't teach you. You're still just an overconfident brat with a fancy tattoo," the leader of the Snow ninja said. Doto placed the Hex crystal into the controls, and Hisana grinned as she felt the chakra begin to gather.
"This one's mine," Hisana said, almost in a growl, and her two teammates nodded. Then she
moved. Her lightning blood seal activated and she charged forward, drawing her sword for a perfect, clean strike. Crimson light ran up her katana's length, wind natured chakra flow forming the solid edge of the samurai sabre. She swung up from the draw, and then her opponent began to move.
His hands moved as if drawing an invisible sword, and then Hisana saw his chakra gather. It was some kind of bloodline limit, a combination of water and... lightning natures? Hisana realised what was happening just before the sword of burning black plasma formed in the ninja's hand.
The masked Snow ninja managed to block her strike, barely. He was still slower than her when her seal was active... but if he was only a little slower than her now, he'd be faster than her when it dropped. And, Hisana thought to herself, he had a lightsabre.
Beams of dark energy sparked off his sword and flew towards Hisana, but she cut them apart with precise swings of her own sword. They flew all around her, setting off explosions with tremendous force. She fired her own arcs of chakra back at him, the crimson beams forcing him to back off as Hisana followed them up with another attack.
She poured even more chakra into her speed, willing herself to go even a little faster. Her coils weren't designed to handle chakra loads this intense, not even with the reinforcement from her final hurricane seal. Her body screamed in pain, but she ignored it. She couldn't fail here - not while she had so much left to do, not while people she cared for were counting on her.
She outran the sound of her attack, and her sword struck the Snow ninja's chakra field right above his mask. She could not drain it, nor could she strike at a weak point. All she could do was smash it open. Her own chakra, coating her sword, met the field with tremendous energy. She could feel, in that instant, the field waver. She detonated the chakra flow.
The field shattered, and the last bits of the explosion's power shattered the Snow ninja's mask. He was older than she expected - around forty or so - and had greying dark hair and a scarred face. She blurred backwards, reestablishing her chakra flow, and then her seal faded and the world sped up.
The Snow ninja wiped the shattered remains of the mask from his face and spat out a little blood.
"You're fast, kid. Almost like the second coming of Shisui of the Body Flicker. But you can't keep that speed up, can you?" he said, and he breathed a storm of black energy beams. Hisana's eyes traced their paths for her, and she knew she couldn't dodge them all. She weaved between most of them, and then she saw the deadly trap coming. Two beams would strike her at the same time from the side whilst she was dodging one coming from the front.
She leapt over the frontal beam, dropped her sword for just a moment, and channelled chakra to the seals on her forearms. Two circular shields of crimson chakra appeared there, and just barely deflected the beams. Before her sword had fallen to the floor, she picked it out of the air and blurred backwards.
Hinata rushed forwards, towards the masked Snow ninja with the swords. Judging from her build, she seemed to be the only kunoichi on the team. Hinata's hands glowed with pale blue chakra, and she deflected the Snow ninja's first few sword strikes with ease. She blurred behind the snow ninja and landed half a dozen gentle fist strikes right at her back - but the armour's chakra field held.
Karin leapt backwards as she willed two of her sealing chains to burst from the ground. They struck at the claw-wielding Snow ninja like vipers. He managed to evade one, only for the other to wrap around his arm. She blurred in after it, smashing into the Snow ninja with the brutal taijutsu she had learnt from Lee. The chakra field was useless against pure physical force, and Karin finished the claw wielding ninja off with a lethal roundhouse kick that snapped his neck.
Hinata danced around the sword-wielding Snow ninja, sending ranged gentle fist strikes at her. Each hit weakened her chakra field, until... until the next one broke it apart. The snow ninja screamed in pain, and Hinata darted in. The enemy was within her divination.
"Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms!" Hinata shouted, her hands noting but whipcrack-blurs as she devastated the Snow ninja's chakra system. She went flying backwards, landing unconscious in the snow.
"It seems like we'll settle this with one final blow, Uchiha," the leader of the Snow ninja said, his storm-release blade still flickering in his hands.
"Walk away and we won't have to," Hisana said, as she felt her lightning blood seal signal its readiness. The Snow ninja merely readied himself, and then rushed forwards. Hisana's seal activated, and the world slowed down. It was time, Hisana decided, to borrow a trick from her cousin. Two identical copies of her slid into existence on either side of her, and then all three of them blurred out of the chakra smoke.
The Snow ninja had attacked first, and he would die for it. She knew all the paths he could take, knew every defence he had. Hisana drew her blade, as did both her shadow clones. Then, with cold precision, they all struck at once. There was no defence possible, no parry or dodge, that could have saved the Snow ninja. He stopped Hisana's own blade, dodged her first clone's, and then the second clone cut his head from his neck. The world slowed down, and both clones vanished in a puff of smoke.
Hisana could see the chakra begin to move around the machinery now - could see the nature chakra on the wind and in the land be drawn into it. She saw the machines begin to convert it, to make it safe.
"You may have killed my ninja, but you were too late! I have control of the ultimate weapon of the Kazahan clan!" Doto shouted, his triumph etched across his face.
"You think you've found a weapon? How naive. This place is no weapon, Doto. It's something far more powerful - it will bring spring to this land of eternal winter," Hisana said, laughing to herself.
"What - but! No matter, I shall merely have to deal with you myself. I shall slay you with this - the ancestral blade of the Kazahana clan. You may think yourself a master of chakra flow, girl, but I was a samurai before I ruled this land... and I have learned much since," Doto shouted, as he drew a katana from an ornate black and silver sheathe. The blade was made from some kind of black metal, the same colour as his chakra. His chakra flowed along it, and it seemed to grow to tremendous strength.
Then he blurred forwards and swung his blade for Karin's head. Hisana moved faster than she thought possible and got her own sword in the way in time to deflect it. Their blades met with tremendous force, and then Hisana felt a shock as the force of the block shattered her chakra-steel sword into a dozen pieces. So did Doto's sword, but as she and Karin blurred backwards Hisana saw it begin to reform.
Doto continued after them, and Hisana desperately activated the seal on her forearm. The circular disk of crimson chakra began to block Doto's swing, and then it broke. Her reactive chakra armour flared next, and that saved her arm. She was sent flying backwards with extreme force, slamming into one of the massive mirrors that lined the battlefield. She'd probably broken a rib, and she got to her feet unsteadily.
Karin and Hinata engaged Doto, Hinata dancing out of the way of Doto's sword swings. Her ranged gentle fist strikes and vacuum palms slammed into his chakra field. Karin's chains rushed at Doto, but he smashed them aside with his sword - often shattering it in the process. It regrew with frightening speed, and Karin couldn't summon chains fast enough to overwhelm him.
Hisana's mind raced as she tried to ignore the pain. She would need a truly powerful ninjutsu to defeat Doto's chakra field. It seemed even more powerful than those of the masked ninja. If her sword had been intact, she would have tried the jutsu she used against Kimmimaro, but all she had was a hilt. Her mind raced back to Nadare, to the leader of the Snow ninja she had just defeated. Her blade was just a conduit for chakra, just a way to shape it into a cutting edge. Justu formula, handseals, chakra steel - those were all just ways to focus her chakra control further.
She could see the rainbow chakra now, natural energy somehow turned into a lifegiving force - but, like the sun, it was a force that could be deadly. It was somehow more solid than natural energy or chakra...
"Karin, Hinata - hold him down!" Hisana shouted. She held her broken sword's hilt out to the side and focused her chakra. She extended it, felt it waver, and then begin to solidify as the rainbow chakra infused it. She put every ounce of mental effort she had left, every bit of chakra she could scrounge up, into the jutsu. The snow under her feet began to melt, and grass sprang to life around her.
"Gate of Opening: Release!" Karin shouted as she summoned chains wrapped around her arms. Hinata dashed forward, gentle fist strikes severing Doto's more fragile wings. Then, she landed half a dozen vacuum palm strikes into his chin. The gentle fist technique might not be able to pierce the chakra field, but it could do nothing about the physical force the justu left in its wake. Doto was sent flying up high into the air.
Hisana felt her chakra flow take the form of a blade - not of her usual crimson chakra, but a vibrant rainbow. The blade grew larger and larger, eclipsing even the size of her beast-slaying blade. Then it began to concentrate itself into a smaller form. It grew denser and denser, until Hisana held a version of her Beast Slaying Vacuum Talon in her hands.
Karin leapt up after Doto, wrapping him tightly in sealing chains. She gave him another kick, sending him even higher, and blurred for the ground. Hisana soared after him on wings of crimson chakra, shockwaves surrounding her.
"WIND RELEASE: TYRANT-SLAYING RAINBOW TALON!" Hisana shouted into the wind. Her blade of pure chakra smashed straight through Doto's chakra field before the sound reached him. His armour provided no resistance, and the blade went straight through his waist. He had but a moment to scream before the rainbow chakra devoured him, turning him to stone.
Hisana landed slowly as the two halves of Doto's armour and his sword landed with a thunk. His body was carried away as small chunks of stone and dust on the winds of rainbow chakra that spread out from the generators. They had begun to work fully, now. Snow was replaced with verdant fields of grass and wildflowers. Forests sprang to life where there was once nothing but a barren wasteland.
All three of them looked on with awe. It was the most magnificent thing Hisana had ever seen, a treasure beyond worth. For a minute or so, no one said anything. Then Karin hugged Hisana wildly, and roped Hinata into too.
"We won - I can't believe we really did it," Karin said.
"That technique was amazing, Hisana," Hinata said.
"You two were the amazing ones - we never could have won without your jyuuken, Hinata. Or your sealing chains, Karin," Hisana said, smiling widely. The people of the Land of Snow would enjoy spring, and no longer have to suffer for Doto's misguided ambitions.
"Cut!" The director yelled, and all three of them laughed. They sat by the control shrine with the film crew, eating some rations Hisana unsealed as they listened to the radio. At first, it talked about the brave actions of loyal troops, but then Koyuki's forces had clearly captured the radio station. It only took half an hour or so after that for it to be all over.
Hisana sealed away the chakra armour of Doto and the three masked Snow ninjas into her special field analysis and storage seal. It was a large, bulky thing she'd had to carry on her back - but it would allow her to safely transport the chakra armour back home for study.
+++++
Koyuki arrived the next day, and Hisana had worked out the shrine's controls enough to play Koyuki's father's message to her. It was a simple recording of her as a child, and Hisana could see the new queen struggling to hold back tears.
"This is yours, your highness," Hisana said, offering her the Kazahana sword. It hadn't reformed since the last time it had been broken, but Hisana knew it would merely need the chakra of a new wielder to repair itself.
"I will have no need of swords, my friend. And you lost such a fine blade fighting for me... take it, and I shall still owe you a debt," Koyuki said, placing her hands gently onto Hisana's. Hisana felt her face heat up a little a that - Koyuki was even prettier as a queen than she had been as a princess. "I will owe you all a debt beyond anything I can repay. Most of all you, Hinata. Without you, I would never have been able to summon the courage to return - to see my father's work continued."
"I, ah - I also had someone inspire me," Hinata stammered.
"I should like to meet them, sometime. You will all come to the premiere?" Koyuki asked.
"If we're not on a mission, sure. Are they still making the movie?" Karin asked.
"Well, the director claims he got some very dramatic footage out of this location shooting - and I'm sure he won't mind sticking around for a few days to film the last few scenes with me and the cast."
"Your last movie, eh? I suppose it better be something special," Karin said.
"Oh, I have no intention of retiring from acting," Koyuki said, laughing amongst the new meadows.
Hisana and the others stuck around until filming wrapped up, and for Koyuki's formal coronation. The event was a huge spectacle, and the three Konoha genuine were treated as heroes. They set sail back for home with a letter for the Daiynmo of the Land of Fire, and one for the Hokage. Though none of them knew who that was right now.
Hisana has achieved A-Rank Ninjutsu. Choose one trait from the list below:
[x] Wind Release: Chakra Shroud. This A-ranked ninjutsu allows the user to cover themselves in wind natured chakra to massively reduce wind resistance when moving at high speeds. This is merely the first use of such types of jutsu - others may be developed.
[x] Sealing Art: Arcing Razor Wind. By careful inscribing of jutsu formula, this technique allows one to combine, shape, wind, and lightning manipulation in one's chakra flow. This grants a sword both cutting and piercing power.
[x] Mass Shadow Clone Jutsu. Hisana whilst using her seal has just about enough chakra to use this technique safely. Activating it without activating her FInal Hurricane Seal is ill-advised.
AN: Consider that sword-less Beast-Slaying Talon a little sage mode preview. And, yes, to answer a question - Sage Mode is an S-ranked trait. It will require several skills to be at A-rank.
