章 202: CH_6.31 (202)
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A strange permeating silence covered the pit; even with an ongoing invasion from one side and a defensive effort from the other, the silence hung over Gojiro Gold Mines. However, that strange silence made the sounds of steel clashing steel, explosions, words and shouts, footsteps in the mud, and everything else more audible.
As Takuma ran towards Kameko and Rikku to assist them, he took in the greater landscape to ensure he was aware of the battlefield. Only a few moments ago, the enemy forces were rushing towards them to kill—but now, as he watched the movements of his allies and the Hidden Cloud and Hidden Frost shinobi, both dressed in the latter's colors, it was clear they were moving away.
He wondered why.
The sound of his heart in his ears was distracting. He stopped in his tracks, which only worsened it, but he observed with renewed focus. The enemy's second wave of the enemy, which was larger than the last and was due on their heads and most likely would have posed a real, life-threatening pressure on them, was backing away.
Why?
He looked around for clues, but the sun was still not high enough to peer through the abyss that was the sunken pit. But then it hit in an instant. The enemy wasn't running away, they were making space—clearing away—and his mind just barely arrived at the reason why he thought they were doing it. There was only one reason why a force would suddenly move away when they were on the cusp of putting on real pressure.
They didn't want their people to get caught in something.
"A fucking AOE attack," Takuma muttered.
The enemy was going to bomb them—which was when he saw the flickering light of a fire in the distance.
Takuma stopped caring what it was and sprinted as hard as he could towards his team while flying through hand seals.
"Everyone, to me! Attack incoming! Quickly!"
By the time he reached them, there was a rain of fire descending on them from the sky.
Kameko, Rikku, and Anko all moved, but they did it after spending a moment staring at the blinding rain. That wasn't quick enough, so Takuma followed his instincts. The eight tentacles combined into three, and the thicker appendages shot toward his teammates and leader. They wrapped around the three and forcibly pulled them towards him.
"What the fuck?" Anko yelled at Takuma—but she released the Summoning Jutsu at the same time, showing that she understood the situation.
Her snake disappeared into a puff of smoke.
Takuma slammed his palms onto the ground, pouring excessive amounts of chakra into the jutsu and letting the chakra seep deep below them. The muddy soil made for poor structural material, so he put in more chakra. He wanted to make it stronger so he poured in more.
The situation brought up a past fright which only made him pour in even more chakra.
The last time he had been in a similar situation was also against the Hidden Frost mission, and an enemy chunin had released a Lightning Release jutsu that covered an entire area. That single jutsu had ripped away his defensive jutsu, and he barely came out of the attack, avoiding getting hit. And he could instinctually feel that the Fire Release jutsu was much more dangerous than what he had faced all those years ago.
Earth-Style: Earthen Dome Jutsu
The mud rose around Takuma and the other three, quickly forming a dome around them. It solidified, hardening into a solid structure with chakra coursing through the soil to increase its defensive power.
The moment the dome formed, Takuma felt something slam into it. A cloud of fire made direct contact with the dome and then it exploded.
"Brace yourself in case it tears through," Takuma said through gritted teeth.
Outside the dome, he heard the fire hit a large area in front of the dormitory where the majority of the Evacuation Unit was standing. The clouds of fire exploded when they met the ground, creating a sea of flames.
Almost immediately, the intense fire burned through the dome. Intense heat burst into the already smoldering crevice they had packed themselves into, causing everyone to gasp. Takuma huffed as he shoved the tentacle mass against the gap. The water began turning into steam, creating a hissing noise, but was enough to close the gap.
"It won't hold," Takuma warned.
Before the dome crumbled, he retracted the tentacles that burst so everyone was doused in water.
"Jump!" Rikku yelled.
When the dome crumbled, everyone jumped high up in the air before the fire could stick to them. While in the air, Takuma weaved hand seals as quickly as he could, almost making the wrong seal while doing so.
Water Release: Wild Water Wave
He aimed below and moved his neck to spread the water around, which extinguished enough area for the team to land safely.
"Good work," Anko patted him on the shoulder.
The danger wasn't over yet. While the Hidden Leaf struggled from the large-scale jutsu, the enemy's forces that had backed away to escape its range began charging towards them with an even larger number than before.
Just as the situation seemed bleak, a chain of nearly a dozen explosions went off on the opposite end of the pit. They were big enough to send a brief and faint tremor through the ground. Everyone stopped for a moment and turned to look at the explosions.
"That's… Stage-2," said Kameko.
Chunin Hideki and his two genin, who had broken off the Evacuation Team to forcefully complete Stage-2—which was to plant explosions around the pit—had finally come into play. If that was all, it wouldn't have been a big change on the battlefield; however, Stage-2 was simply the opening play for the real deal.
Sharp horns pierced through the air as the remainder of the Camp Banana forces split into two and appeared on the two sides of the pit before jumping down, raiding the pit with full force. Battle cries filled the pit as shinobi ran down the slopes with their weapons drawn.
Both sides of the conflict now had their complete forces in play.
———
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As the Camp Banana forces came down the sides, Anko turned to Kameko. "Go find Iori and Daiki. Bring them to the front."
Kameko nodded and sprinted toward the dormitory, making her way around the large fire puddles.
"Both of you follow me," Anko said to Rikku and Takuma. "Pick your fights sensibly, remember to protect each other's backs… and our troops pose just as much danger to you as the enemy, so don't overlook them."
Takuma and Rikku nodded, and they dashed forward towards the enemy. As planned, the Camp Banana forces pressed the enemy from three directions. As the Evacuation Unit was the weakest side, the enemy moved in their direction to cover more space.
As he ran, Takuma weaved hand seals for Water Style: Eight Tentacles, and the water from the environment and surroundings gathered behind his back.
Takuma called out to Rikku and pointed ahead.
"The group right there," he yelled as more explosions from ninjutsu recked the field, "I'm going to disrupt them; you start picking off those who stumble."
"Understood," Rikku nodded.
Takuma pushed the chakra into his legs and feet and launched himself into the sky. He traveled long, skipped the frontlines, and landed right in the middle of the enemy forces. Immediately, there were eyes on him, and he was surrounded by more hostiles than he had ever faced. Several of them stopped and surrounded Takuma.
'They're killers, not trained assassins,' he thought. The thought made him chuckle, but it was true—shinobi could be killers, but not all were trained to be in the art of killing. Even Takuma wasn't trained to kill—he simply had capable tools of killing.
However, he had practical experience.
He ran towards the nearest enemy, a brawny woman. She had a polearm that she immediately stabbed toward him with a battle cry. Takuma side-stepped and a tentacle shot forward, wrapping itself around her polearm. The tentacle pulled on the polearm, but the woman was more than powerful enough to resist its pull.
Takuma threw an augmented kunai and she gasped and ducked her shoulder at the last moment, but it still left a gash, spurting blood. Takuma rushed in at that moment. The tentacle around the polearm slipped off and latched onto the woman's leg and pulled.
She wobbled and Takuma kicked her unstable leg and destroyed her balance. The tentacles grabbed her arms for partial restraint, and then he grabbed her open torso and tossed her into the nearby swarm. Some rushed to dodge her, others stepped in to catch her in haste.
As they did, Takuma chucked a burning explosive tag towards them. They couldn't use explosive tags because of their allies, but Takuma had no such problem. The tag exploded in the brawny girl's lap while the others scrambled away with the explosion at their backs.
He weaved the hand seals for Water Release: Wild Water Wave and assaulted another line of enemies with a strong water blast that hit like a shipment of bricks and forcefully drowned them under a wall of water.
His senses sizzled. From the corner of his eyes, he saw crackles of lightning. Takuma immediately shed the water tentacles off his back and leaped to the side. Water conducted lightning and he would be fucked if even the weakest lightning jutsu hit him while he had water tentacles around him.
Nenro had done that once and his nerves burned for half a day. He didn't want a repeat of it.
Rikku burst into the circle like a wild bull with her arms swinging at anything that moved. She hit a stout man with heavy armor in the chest. It looked like he wasn't used to wearing heavy armor and tripped on his feet. Rikku caved in the man's throat with a punch as he fell, finishing him instantly.
She then jumped onto a man like a beast. Someone pulled her off, with another one moving in to stab her. Rikku kicked him once, and it sent the man flying through the field before smashing the back of her head into the nose of the man holding her. The hold loosened, and she reversed the situation and pummeled him into the ground, blood splattering from his dented skull.
The people who were moving toward her stopped in the face of her overwhelming strength and turned cautious.
Takuma, while weaving hand seals, landed on the ground with his back to Rikku.
Genjutsu: Mist Servant Jutsu
He didn't have the preparation time to spread the genjutsu to everyone in his vicinity, but it was enough that it latched onto enough people.
The targeted folk started seeing multiple Takumas writhing out of the ground like a zombie horde. With only a few trapped, it would not be long before the unaffected ones broke the genjutsu on their comrades—but it was enough time to do damage
Takuma weaved hand seals and dipped into the ground using Earth Style: Hiding In the Rock Jutsu
One of the enemies released a jolt of lightning towards a group of genjutsu apparitions of Takuma but hit her own allies instead. The jolt jumped twice and crawled over their downed bodies tohit three people who weren't expecting their own ally to turn on them.
It was as Anko had said—the people on the same side were just as dangerous as the enemy.
Takuma emerged just a little while away from his circle of genjutsu and immediately headed back inside to take advantage of the chaos. He immediately stopped and jumped back. All of his senses barked like a guard dog seeing a trespasser. A short blade made of pure lightning impaled the patch of ground he would've landed on if he hadn't stopped. It crackled and burnt the earth, turning it black with embers.
His eyes darted around to find the source, but it was difficult to find the attacker in the chaos of the battlefield. He pulled up his guard and switched to defense—someone had very deliberately targeted him.
"I'm right here if you're looking for me."
The voice whispered from behind him. It was so close that Takuma could all but feel the breath on his ear.
Takuma turned back and swung with an augmented fist without looking. A man with a fake, thin-lipped smile that didn't reach his eyes caught Takuma's augmented punch like it was nothing. Takuma pulled his arm back and launched another augmented punch from his free arm. Before it could make contact, the world slammed to a sudden, jarring stop. He felt the taste of iron in his mouth, and pain shorted the thoughts out of his mind.
The enemy had hit him before his punch could reach.
He couldn't even react when a second attack—a palm strike—hit him flush in his chest. He felt his ribcage bend as though his bones were elastic—a fracture or two were the least of his problems.
This wasn't someone he was supposed to fight.
This wasn't someone he could fight.
Takuma fell to the ground and coughed out blood-stained vomit. He couldn't breathe and for a horror-filled moment his lungs refused to expand. With the sharp pain, and lack of air, he felt like a fish dying out of water.
The dark-skinned, light-haired enemy, wearing just a tank top, yanked Takuma to his feet by the hair.
"You must be one of those geniuses," said the man in a plastic-sounding merry tone. "So young and so deadly—caught my attention right away. How about you play with the grown-ups?"
"…L-Let me g-go," Takuma said.
"Pardon me, I didn't catch that."
The man pulled Takuma closer and turned his ear towards Takuma's face. It was a mistake as Takuma immediately bit it as hard as he could. Surprised, he punched Takuma in the chest once again. He choked up more blood and bile as the man let Takuma go in surprise before kicking him away furiously.
"You fucker," he cursed, the fake voice vanishing for a moment before it returned. "No worries about the ear. I'll get it checked out once this is done and capital punishment will teach you not to do that again."
The man stepped forward. A low crinkle led his gaze down at his abdomen—four explosive tags lined his tank top and cargo pants.
"Fuck—"
BOOM!
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