บท 36: Bloodline Limit
"Punishment, huh...?"
The situation had turned worse for the gray-clothed ninja, and yet he didn't lose his calm. If anything, he looked like he was enjoying his predicament.
"I'd love to see how you'll punish me!"
He threw a shuriken to the back of the room. Upon hitting a slightly protruding brick, a grinding mechanical noise began to fill the hall. The entrance gate suddenly moved on their own, pulling into a tight shut.
"Hahaha! Now that I've locked you all in here, I'll kill you all!"
"Kill us?" the Anbu chuckled. "We're three against one, buddy. Stop being delusional. You've just sealed your own escape route."
"Heheheh... hahahaha!"
The ninja's body convulsed as he let out a maniacal laughter.
"Ignorant... truly ignorant!" a smirk surfaced under his face mask. "Have you ever heard of 'Kekkei Genkai' -Bloodline Limit-?"
Those words didn't register for Hikari and Kiba, but the Anbu frowned slightly upon hearing that.
"...What does it have to do with us?"
"Oh, but it does!"
He began to point at each of the three.
"I've been watching your fights with my subordinate. You're highly proficient with ninjutsu, but that's it. Those kids are even worse, they can only use taijutsu. You can't compare with an elite ninja like me. Definitely can't! Because, I possess it! I possess the so-called Bloodline Limit!"
The Anbu's frown grew deeper, while the kids were oblivious to the meaning of his words.
"Hey... what's a Bloodline Limit?" Hikari mumbled.
"Hahaha! I'm glad that you asked!"
The enemy ninja opened his arms with apparent glee.
"Bloodline Limit is the peak of ninjutsu! It's a special technique only available to select members of a prestigious clan! Compared to normal jutsu, these techniques are far more potent, far more destructive! Since olden times, having a Bloodline Limit ensures power beyond belief! And now, thanks to the master, I've attained it as well..."
"Master?" the Anbu raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, master! The brilliant shinobi who had transformed me from a regular person into an elite! He had given me power! If it's for the master, then I'll do anything! And now, I'm going to kill all of you! All for the sake of the m- gohoh!"
Blood abruptly spurted out from his mask as a pebble was thrown in blinding speed right at his nose, interrupting his monologue.
"Shut up!" Hikari roared. "Why are you talking so much?! You're not Xiao Dingding! Just fight already, damnit!"
""...fu.""
The bear-masked man and Akamaru were trying their hardest not to laugh. Their lips were twitching heavily.
'Ah, right, he did the same thing when he first met Dingding... although he threw a sword back then.'
"You... you!!"
The ninja leaped back to his feet, and then furiously formed a long sequence of hand signs.
<Cloud Release: Death Shroud>
Chakra rushed throughout his veins, flowing into the bone tubes on his back. Black gas poured out from their opening, which then condensed into a puff of dark clouds.
"What is that?!"
The Anbu was surprised. He had never heard of something called Cloud Release before, neither in the new body's memory nor in the things that he had learned after he awakened his old soul. If it was an unknown style, that means...
"That's right! This is my Bloodline Limit! This is the power that my master had granted to me! Back then..."
"He's going to start a monologue again, isn't he..." Hikari was about to throw another rock at him, but relented when she saw the bear-masked man shaking his head.
"...I came from a small clan with an useless Bloodline Limit. We were just a clan of below-average Shinobi, trying our hardest to survive in this chaotic era against the monstrous might of other clans. I had succumbed to despair, resigning myself to be a failure.
However, it all changed when the master arrived and showed me the light!
He brought us to his lair and told us to fight to the death. The victor will be given power beyond imagination. And I, has emerged as the winner! I had shed my worthless clan's name, and donned a name of my own! Inazuma Taroemon, remember that name! It's the name of the man who will deliver you to hell!"
"By the way," Hikari raised her hand. "What's your old clan's power?"
"Huh?"
The ninja flinched slightly as her question caught him off-guard.
"We can produce water out of our skin..."
Everyone except Kiba facepalmed.
"That's not power! That's just sweating! Everyone can do that!"
"B-but- aaargh! Damnit all to hell! I'll kill you!"
The amassing clouds suddenly began to move toward the trio, as if getting pushed by a strong wind.
"It's just a puff of smoke, what's to fe- ugh?!"
The Anbu was the first to enter the dark cloud, but he soon realized his error.
The clouds were thick and heavy, making him feel as if he was moving underwater. Although he could still breath, the amount of air that he could take in was severely reduced, and his nose started to feel wet from water vapor.
"Underestimating my clouds, are you?! Too bad!"
He kept producing more and more gas, slowly filling the room with the dark clouds. He made another string of hand signs, and then pushed his hands into the nearest cloud.
"Taste my strongest technique!"
<Cloud Release: Thundergod's Rage>
His chakra transformed into electric charge, which quickly propagated throughout the hall.
"Damnit-!" The Anbu cursed. He was forming hand signs of his own, but he wouldn't make it in time before the crackling thunder arrived.
At that moment, Hikari rushed into the dark veil as well, and then drew her sword.
<<Emei Sect Hard-Sword Style: Butterfly Wing Clip>>
A horizontal slash, faster than the eyes could see, split the cloud in two. The resulting shockwave blasted away the surrounding clouds as well, clearing the area in one strike.
"What-!"
"Good job!"
With his hand signs completed, the man pulled up his bear mask, and then blew out a strong gale of wind.
<Wind Release: Protective Wall>
The wind gather around him and the kids, and then rotated violently, forming a small-scale tornado that blew the clouds away.
"Clever... but, do you think my Bloodline Limit can be defeated by mere jutsu?!"
Concentrating his chakra, he directed the clouds to somehow resist the push of the wind. They slowly but steadily gathered back around their targets. In fact, it was the wind which was getting weaker during the process.
Before long, the wind finally died out, and the clouds rushed back in with a vengeance.
"Tch!"
<<Emei Sect Hard-Sword Style: Butterfly Wing Clip>>
Another slash scattered them away, but only for a moment. At one point, they moved back in for the kill.
"How about this, then! Akamaru!"
Woof!
The puppy transformed into a clone of Kiba. After that, they spun into the air, rushing toward the enemy ninja.
<Beast Human Taijutsu Secret Art: Fang Passing Fang>
The intensity of their spin was strong enough to generate ferocious gust of wind, pushing away any clouds obstructing them.
"What power! However..."
He blurted out gas in an even greater amount, forming thicker wall of cloud in the middle of their path. Unlike with the thinner clouds, this one felt like they were cutting into elastic rubber.
"Ugh...!"
Dampened by the thick cloud, their spin finally died out before they got thrown back into the group.
"Hahaha! A mere taijutsu and kenjutsu will never be able to defeat a Bloodline Limit, the absolute power of a shinobi! Just accept your fate and die as a fodder for my glory!"
<Cloud Release: Thundergod's Rage>
While the clouds suffocated them, bolts of lightning coursed through, threatening to burn them whole.
When the surge was about reach them, the dark clouds began to glow in reddish hue.
"Wh-"
The dark lump had popped out in a violent burst, filling the air with hot vapor.
Hikari stood at the center of the scene, while Kiba and Akamaru were sprawled behind her, protected by a thin layer of water conjured by the Anbu.
The temperature around the girl's body was so hot that her image started to get blurry.
"Bloodline this, bloodline that... you're annoying."
She was pissed. Really pissed.
The reason was equally childish.
She hated that someone who didn't even use qi, someone who wasn't even reached Foundation Establishment stage, was capable of using a power so similar to a cultivator's mystic art. It felt like a slap to her hard work in the past.
In her view, that person wasn't worthy! Not in the slightest!
The layer of chakra around her body began to glow red as the Tailed Beast's chakra converged with her own.
"Lord Kokuo, you're finally awake? What were you doing by yourself all this time?"
"...This One was concentrating," it retorted. "Nevermind. What do you want to do?"
"Kill him. What else?"
"...Fine. This One also hates annoying human like him."
"K-kuh... so what if you blow my clouds away? That technique seems to be fire-oriented. It's definitely weak to my water attribute! I'll just put you out with my clouds!"
A huge amount of clouds poured out from the bone tubes. They were so thick that their color had almost turned black. Drips of water trailed down as they weaved through the air, swallowing Hikari whole into the darkness.
Unfortunately, they too, disappeared in an instant.
<Boil Release: Unrivaled Strength>
The girl's body was covered with white-hot steam, which blew off scorching wind to her surrounding. The stone floor on her feet had even begun to melt from the extreme heat.
"While it's true that water can overcome fire, the opposite can also happen, can't it?"
"U-uwaah!"
The tubes on the ninja's back clattered as he expelled his entire chakra, producing as much cloud that he could before he blindly sent them all toward her.
"If water is trying to extinguish fire... then the fire just have to burn brighter!"
Her chakra coursed even more violently, raising the temperature further. Boosted by the effect of Boil Release, her strength and speed rose to inhuman level. She sprung forward, crossing the distance faster than a Body Flickering Technique could allow. Every part of the clouds that came into contact with her boiled and turned into vapor, unable to hinder her.
"This- this jutsu, it's no mere Fire Release jutsu... d-don't tell me... a Bloodline Lim-! Ugeh!"
She sent a punch to his gut, knocking him to the ground.
"Enough with that bloodline crap."
<<Emei Sect Unarmed-Style: Nine Yin White Bone Claw>>
With her fingers curled up like a beast's claws, her hand shot out toward the ninja's head, placing it inside her vicious grip. Her fingers dug through his skin, piercing through his skull, until they stabbed the fatal points hidden within.
It was death in one strike.
"Consider this a parting gift from This One!"
Kokuo coursed its chakra through her arm, heating up the ninja's body from the inside. The skin turned black, while the internal organ was burned into ashes.
<Boil Release: Vapor Cremation>
The corpse dried up in the blink of an eye, shrinking down until it turned into a small bundle of charred remains.
It was finally over.
The red chakra faded away, returning to a bluish hue. She could feel the surge of strength disappearing as her body cooled back down to normal.
<Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears>
Thundering noise resounded from the other side of the hall. When she turned around, she saw the Anbu conjuring earthen spikes in order to break the locked gate. After two more strikes, the gate was finally broken through.
"Our mission has been completed. Let's get back."
Carrying his partner on his arms, he led the group back to the surface.
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RanixAurus
RanixAurus Don't you love antagonist who blabbered on and on about themselves? Like, why not reveal all your secrets to these guys who's trying to stop you, right? Surely nothing will go wrong~
We're nearing the Chuunin exam, guys. What do you want to see? Let me know in the comments.
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