7̶3̷8̷
Present day, Elemental Nations
"Ami,
what happened to our Hot Springs network?" Ren growled, Iron Nerve barely concealing her intense frustration and exhaustion from a seemingly endless parade of bad news. The Kurosawa were keeping quiet about it, but Ami was fairly certain that Kurosawa Niichi had been either severely wounded or killed in a sealing failure; it'd explain why Mori Biwako had suddenly requested her second cousin in the middle of a teatime that Biwako had strugged to get Ami to attend.
Ami smiled, bouncing up despite the glares of Mist's senior command, Ren, and Gramps sitting in the corner. In that order of importance, of course. "Well, if I wasn't so fantastic, I'd say we're encountering the worst news possible, but since I
am, I'm just going to report merely good news," she deflected.
Internally she cursed. If Hazou wasn't just about the only person in the Elemental Nations crazy enough to do what he did, she'd be able to make him regret
fucking tearing open Reality without even making sure that Keiko would be safe from the aftershocks.
"Well, it turns out that in that area there
used to be a civilization on the edge of extinction, but now there's just a horde of horrifically strong, ludicrously durable, and constantly evolving metallic humanoids made up completely of blades that also happens to learn jutsu that we used on it. When I met up with the tatters of our network, I found out that the survivors of the Battle for Hot Springs were headed to the border to meet up with the ragged forces of Rice for one last desperate struggle atop Junko's Hill."
"And you dealt with the problem?" Ryugamine asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, the actual problem is that
something is tearing apart the foundations of our reality, and the effects are that sealing failures once thought adequately contained might not actually be contained
enough, but yes, I did temporarily contain the horde of metallic blademonsters for about two or three months, and I got Fire to launch suppression missions in the area. In other mildly unrelated news, these monsters are now confirmed to be completely immune to drowning and electrical damage, resistant to fire and ice, and can only be destroyed by ridiculously overwhelming force or by thermal shock. I also now owe Uzumaki Naruto one hell of a favor," Ami reported with a catlike grin.
The rest of the room shivered, and looked at each other.
"Ami," Ryugamine carefully said. "Is there anything we can do about reality falling apart?"
"Depends," Ami truthfully answered. "Do we have any enterprising sealmasters or technique hackers stupid enough to stare directly into the truth of reality, stubborn enough to survive, and crazy enough to try to use that knowledge to make changes to the foundations of reality, knowing that the slightest misstep could doom us all?"
Dead silence.
Two years ago
"Neji-sensei, I can't do iiiitt," Honoka petulantly whined. "How am I supposed to dodge those grapes with these blindfolds on?"
Chakra burning through his hands, Neji flicked another grape at her.
"Sense my hand motions," Neji blithely said.
"But howwwww? I can't see with these blindfolds on!" Honoka said, hit by another grape.
"Ask
Lord Goketsu; the CASE system was his idea in the first place," Neji responded, flicking another grape high into the air. If he had guessed which direction Honoka was going to dodge next...
"Neji-sensei, he told me - ow!" Neji guessed right, and his day was improved by about negative one micro-Goketsus. Of course, his day had started with about three Goketsus in the negatives because Hazou had somehow convinced Hinata that this banality was a good use of his time, but Neji tried to look at the big picture nowadays.
Ugh. Listening to Honoka complain was seriously grating on his nerves. It might be worth helping Honoka out just to not have to hear it anymore.
"Supposedly, Honoka," Neji began, flicking another grape into the air, "the monks of Himetsu Castle in Lightning once had a certain monk Naomichi who was a prolific writer and happened to lose the use of his eyes in middle age due to completely natural chakra-liger related reasons. This is notable because Himetsu Castle was nowhere
near chakra-liger hunting grounds, and Himetsu Castle was also training far more woodcutters than the local area could support."
Honoka stopped, confused. "What - no, wait, I can figure this out," Honoka said, and Neji could see through the blindfold how she was scrunching her face up in concentration. "Himetsu Castle wasn't training woodcutters, they were training warriors, and because of that Naomichi was blinded as a warning by..."
"By?" Neji smugly asked, tracking the downwards trajectory of the grape.
"By Cloud ninjas, who called it a chakra-liger accident?" Honoka said, relaxing as she found confidence in her answer.
"Correct," Neji declared, counting down to the grape's impact.
"Ya - ow! What the heck was that for, Neji-sensei?" Honoka complained, pouting.
"For paying attention to the word problem and not the point of the exercise," Neji said, smirking.
"Then, Neji-sensei, what
is the point?" Honoka asked.
"The monk Naomichi's writings become understandably less legible and a different handwriting style after he got blinded; however, he noted that about a year after his blinding, his sense of hearing, smell, touch, and direction had improved significantly," Neji lectured.
"Ohhhh," Honoka said, before scrunching her eyes shut and clapping her hands over her ears.
Smirking, Neji picked up two grapes, and flicked his hand in just the right way to send one directly at her and the other high into the air.
Just as he expected, Honoka dodged the first one, swaying wildly to avoid the shot. Neji could tell that Honoka knew she dodged it by her confident smile, and although he wouldn't admit it, that smile improved his day by one negative Goketsu.
"Neji-sensei, I did it!" Honoka crowed - and then was hit by the second grape Neji threw into the air.
Honoka's annoyed face improved Neji's day by another negative micro-Goketsu.
Marked For Death Voyage: If You Call It A Miracle
Smoke popped in front of Kagome's fingers, where the silver-haired man once stood.
For an instant eternity, time froze - stuttered - restarted at a snail's - paused - decelerated - jerked laterally - space broke - reformed - rotated inwards - expressed imagination - clicked between states -
Honoka remembered seeing all five of her teammate's eyes. The light in Kagome's teary eyes hardening. Neji's wide-eyed expression of confounded terror. Lee's overacted shock and wide eyes telegraphing the hope he dared not express. Hazou's eyes unfocusing towards the middle distance, releasing his hope and humanity for a path to victory. Mari-sensei's green eyes blazing into a fury that Honoka had never even suspected Mari of being capable of, as her face curled into a rictus of terrified hatred.
The killing intent crashed into her next. The promise of a terror inflicted by a cackling demon swept through her and through her surroundings. Visions of nightmares beyond Honoka's imagining -
within the Lady of Red's, her mind whispered - flickered around her and the recesses of her mind, and her innermost self knew that the only reason she lived was that the killing intent was not meant to be pointed anywhere close to her.
Distantly, she recognized that the Voyager team had moved into a battle formation on reflex. Mari-sensei had left the formation, coalescing such a powerful Wind jutsu around her form that Honoka could feel the biting lash of the wind dozens of meters away. The light of a glowing arrow pierced through the sphere, but it had only touched the afterimage of
red. Water flowed around the sphere as Honoka blinked away the aftershocks of the glowing spear, spinning in a reverse direction to the air. Both revolved and lashed out indiscriminately. In one instant, an earthen dragon descended from the sky; in the next, a heaven-splitting peal of thunder shot from one of the tendrils and reduced the dragon to so much ash.
"Stand," a chorus of eldritch whispers affirmed. "Deliverance is within grasp," they echoed. "Seize it," they stated, and Honoka felt her spine stiffen with hands unclenched.
"Plan Faultline Black," Hazou icily called out, and Honoka slotted into the back right position, around Hazou and Neji casting the Summoning jutsu. "Neji, all-out. Bring your strongest."
Honoka tightened her lips. Faultline Black was the prelude to an Earthquake Black, summoning dozens of Summons and elemental clones to boost damage. Hazou had just ordered them to go silent; why would he order them to immediately go all-out, and attract everyone's attention? Worse, Honoka knew better than anyone just how strong her suits were; an all-out attack would hit her too. So why...?
Calm, Honoka inisted. Ino-sensei, as part of her "cruel training", had her prepare to "walk in other people's minds, even though you're not a Yamanaka." Honoka knew Hazou-sensei usually made good decisions, if often also at complete right angles to common sense, so there was some logic to it.
Honoka jus/
Franticall/
Luckily/ fbmdl
Her twin beam sabers were already in her hands, ready to block, and even still Orochimaru's descending Kusanagi nearly bisected her. Her arms crumpled under the weight of resisting Orochimaru's attack, as the edge of the blade took on a sinister green sheen which punched through her invisible sabers as if they didn't exist.
Automatic defense seals immediately layered barriers and spat out a faceplate to tank the attack, but the green edge punched through three barriers and cracked the faceplate, exposing her one eye. Just as immediately, the pressure vanished and she staggered forward, boosting leftwards on pure reflex as the sword speared through the space she had just been in. The knowledge that she was nothing aside from a pile of meat whose every connecting tissue had already ceased to hold itself together spread through her disjointed body and consciousness, as a countervailing chorus proclaimed that she was still alive, and that since she was alive she could pursue her dream.
Dream, huh? What even was her dream, she hysterically wondered.
Then the blade whipped back and she had no more time for those kind of thoughts; on instinct one hand dropped to her endless pouch of traps and the rest of her body tossed herself to the ground as she dropped one of her disks. The blade came through, tongue trailing behind on the handle; the trap activated, and a directional explosive severed - the tongue dodged, but not the second beam saber - the tongue suddenly grasped her wrist and
snapped -
Everything went dark, and then sounded cracks, and then became pain. The ground became the sky and became the sky as she soared through the sky, one arm screaming in pain as she idly looked over at her arm flopping in the wind. Muscles screamed in the pain of dislocation; she tasted blood in her mouth, and bit downwards as she popped her arm back in. In the distance, a flood of Dogs and Turtles popped into existence, two great beasts towering over the rest just as Orochimaru had begun to summon his endless array of snakes. Colossal beings clashed on the earth as an endless storm of attacks descended from the heavens, and a limitless number of retorts from the earth rebuked heaven. Blue fire burned as yellow lightning met green venom, punctuated by the unceasing retort of another batch of explosives.
Wearily, Honoka stood up on the cracked earth and steadied her ragged breathing. Inhale. The power circuits on her right arm were badly damaged, not to mention how much even breathing hurt her right arm. Exhale. Her double-sided traps were still good. Inhale. She still had one beam saber. Exhale. CASE system: still effective. Inhale. She was ready to fight.
With her exhale, she bounded back towards the fight.
In the distance, Honoka saw her team fighting against the endless hordes of snakes and attacks. Thundering sounds echoed in her skull, as she tasted the tang of ozone. Sheets of fire met torrents of air and lit the sky afire as the earth trembled and fissured beneath the fury of a thousand Raiton jutsu. Beams of light bent in midair and translucent shimmers shot out of the smoke clouds kicked up by hundreds of explosives. Serpents of water met serpents of flesh and were found wanting; a fiery eagle found a river of dragons and was quenched immediately.
Portals shimmered into existence to disgorge their payloads; spears of icicles found abundant water and began spreading ice throughout, as the temperature dropped and formed a mighty blizzard. The light of Mari-sensei's fury, the Dog Boss's blue fire, and light from uncountable jutsu pierced through the sheet of driving white snow. Shaking her nearly uncontrollable right arm out, Honoka continued boosting back to her team.
"Honoka's - HONOKA!" Kagome-sensei screamed into the communicator, over Neji's quietly relieved callout. "I'm okay, sensei!" Honoka called out, to a conspicuous silence. Kagome was probably crying on the other end.
"Honoka, we need your CASE system up," Hazou urgently told Honoka. "We can't see anything in this blizzard, and Neji's fingers can't keep up with Orochimaru and the red guy's movements, got it?"
"Yes, sir," Honoka said, closing her eyes and feeling what the vibrating seals were telling her: four signatures loosely scattered near them, one blurry figure in the sky that was probably Mari, dozens of small signals which were probably summons, three that were so big they had to be the Boss Summon, and two pretty big signatures. One of them was heading out of the blizzard; the other one was -
She ducked on instinct, and lost a few strands of hair to Orochimaru's blade. How the heck that stupid Orochimaru-stinker's tongue could stand the cold, Honoka didn't know, but that was what she was dealing with. Cursing, she dropped another one of her disks and rolled forward. She could feel Orochimaru approaching her, lazily running in her general direction with his sword held lightly in one hand. It didn't seem like Orochimaru knew where Honoka was; he was running towards the place she had just been, not where she was rolling to.
"Orochimaru's on me," Honoka huffed out, just before she sensed Orochimaru making another slash. With the resistance of the snow, Honoka couldn't jump up fast enough, but the boosters - no time to think about that, just enough time to boost jump above the blade aaand Orochimaru was now turning to match her new heading at a really fast pace through the snow somehow.
Distantly, she could feel her limbs begin to fall to pieces; it was the second time that she felt Orochimaru's Killing Intent in as many minutes, she noted. No eldritch symphony of voices would give her affirmation this time, though - she would have to fight this on her own.
Fine, Honoka huffed, turning to face Orochimaru. He wanted to face a security specialist who had learned from Kagome and Hazou-sensei? She'd show him just how bad an idea it was to face a sealmaster on prepared ground, no matter how recent the ground was prepared.
Her hands flicked to her trapped disks. Charging forward with boosters in full burn, she threw out her disks with all her strength - dropping several behind her as she flew as the real trap. In the blindingly bright snow blasting in their faces, the disks should've been nearly invisible, but Orochimaru wriggled and slipped through holes in the net that Honoka hadn't even known existed. His sword flashed out any time a particularly dangerous combination approached: watching three of her ZorpBombs getting cut down was frustrating, dammit!
Suddenly, the sword whipped back out, and Honoka raised her own deactivated beam saber up. To make sure she got the timing right, she burned up her own chakra, and watched the world pass by in slow motion. Orochimaru's sword looked almost like normal speed as it came right for her midsection, but Honoka was a ninja, and vaulted right -
fast!
The blade hit her beam saber and threw her back for the second time. Her fingers were numb, but she forced them to keep scattering the disks, as Orochimaru whipped his sword back and himself forward at a ludicrously high speed. Slithering and weaving, Orochimaru managed to dodge out of the way of every trap that Honoka had set. Explosion seals couldn't touch him, implosion seals were too slow, something was wrong with the Dust Bombs, and the Banshees didn't even slow him down. Someone was saying something into her earpiece, but -
Orochimaru was at her throat again. She desperately backpedaled in a circle. Blade met invisible edge over and over again, as Honoka used up all the chakra the S7 Engine could feed her. A thrust was deflected, a rising slash took off her right forearm's armor, a reverse cut left a deep gash in the shin plating, and a spinning slash smashing through her flimsy hold to leave a deep gash on her torso armor.
With each superficial wound, however, Honoka was dropping her own set of disks with her right arm, and leading Orochimaru further into her own trap array, spiralling outside.
Cut. Thrust. Smash. Punch. Half-sworded thrust.
Disk. Disk. Disk. Disk. Disk.
Her faceplate was destroyed. Her other shin armor gave way. Her torso armor cracked. Her shoulder pauldron was cut off and removed. Her skin was one massive bruise, through all the armor. Her consciousness was flayed just as certainly as her GUTS suit was falling to pieces around her.
But.
Dragging her exhausted body into one more block, a fierce smile broke out.
Because her trap disks were
two-sided.
Boosting backwards at full speed, Honoka lept clear of the array she had spent the last minute getting beat up to build up. Orochimaru's tongue shot out to intercept her, and then the world became a maelstrom of sound and a rainbow of colors as the reverse side of her trapped disks activated. Implosion bombs sucked in the goo sprayed by the outer array, lightning surged outwards, a multilayered dome contained all the rest of the traps and the target - just as an earthshattering amount of explosives and Dust Bombs reduced everything inside to ash. Just to make sure of it, a set of Banshees stuck to the floor vibrated the churned mud floor until the survivor drowned in liquified mud.
Panting, Honoka touched down. The series of traps had pushed away the blizzard, apparently, and she could see the Dome clearly. The inside of the Domes was a blackened gooey ash - not even Orochimaru could've survived that, Honoka thought. Her everything hurt, and she could barely move her right hand, but the widest smile was pulled across her face. She survived Orochimaru, and even got the better of him, dammit! Exhausted, her laughter dribbled out of her, thrilled to be hurting, but alive. Babble from the communicator washed over her, as she concentrated on drawing in the sharp and cold air in deep, ragged breaths.
The Dome cracked. Honoka's knees gave out on her. The gooey walls divided, and Orochimaru stood tall, smirking in the ashes. Casually, he raised two fingers up to his hem, and brushed.
"Mistake," Neji proclaimed. "For you are within range of my divination! Eight Trigrams,
Four Thousand Ninety Six Palms!"
Booms echoed throughout the battlefield, as Neji's palms left shockwaves in their wake. The tinkling of a shattered metal rang out, and Orochimaru launched himself backwards at the highest speed he could. Neji hands caught his ankle, which instantly peeled off, leaving Neji holding Orochimaru's dead skin; in the next instant, Neji leapt after him, but a curtain of fire blocked his path.
Honoka blinked. Where had that fire come from? She blinked again. The air wasn't as cold, the clouds had dispersed, and a golden ray was slowly descending. Most of all, the
silence seemed to echo loudly in her head, the lack of explosions, of crackling lighting and rushing water making its absence felt.
"Impressive, new arrivals! Truly, amazing!" a voice boomed out. "Consider me enterained, incarnated Asuras! That was truly a splendid performance!" the golden figure said, loudly clapping one pair of his hands together. "You have made it worth sending Jirou to this front of the battlefield, and you have made it worth my time to come here in person," he declared, descending on a golden platform.
He was dressed from head to toe with golden armor, interspersed with glowing blood red highlights. Even from a distance, Honoka could feel the incredible degree of power that the man - no,
Asura - was emanating casually. The very air seemed to cling onto his every word, awaiting the order to either relax or perish on the Asura's whim. Two arms remained folded together, as the top two contemptously clapped at their life-and-death battle.
"Tell me, then, Asuras, what prize do you seek more than life itself? A king must know what his subjects desire, in order to satisfy them, of course," the golden Asura smugly said.
Honoka grit her teeth and pushed herself up, shaking off the lingering feeling that her flesh would slough off at any moment. She looked over at Neji, on his last legs. Kagome, shaking from exhaustion and trying to comfort Mari, kneeling on the ground sobbing. Lee, covered from head to toe in corrosive venom, smiling his normal smile.
Hazou, radiating his own aura and purpose.
"Everyone we've ever lost," he said back.
The golden figure's face immediately curled up into a disgusted sneer. "Resurrection? Revival? You presume much, fools," he spat. "You believe that you can do what I cannot? How arrogant you must be."
The pressure doubled, and then redoubled upon the six of them.
"And?" Hazou asked, refusing to give even an inch.
"Tch," the Asura said, finally descending to the ground. "If you believe that you truly are stronger than me in all respects, and seek to achieve the unattainable miracle of resurrection, you will need to accomplish three things: Force the Judge of the Naraka Path to submit to your will, create an opening in the boundary of enlightenment dividing the Pure Land from reality, and then rebind the entirety of Reality together. The first task alone will break you; you will need to personally learn the lesson of each of the Six Paths before you can call youself qualified to challenge the King of Hell," the king-like figure derisively snorted.
"However," he cruely smiled, "because I believe in promoting ambition, allow me to help you on your journey - to the path of endless hunger, the Preta Path!"
The Asura waved all six of his hands in a complicated jutsu. Arrays of machinery emerged from golden portals around him at high speed, multicolored glyphs burning themselves into the air as he rose back into the sky - just out of the way of the yawning chasm opening beneath Honoka's feet, and dragging her downwards.
She looked up. All six of them were falling, falling, and falling, until the sky of the battlestrewn Asura Path winked away.
[X] Let
@eaglejarl write what he wants. I trust him.
