Two feet.
Stage Five
Requirements: 19 Willpower, 19 Tactics, 18 Intelligence, Speed 16
Stage Bonus: +3 Speed
The Feint Ability is now nearing its most dangerous point. At this stage, the user of the Onigokko can alter their own apparent physical location by two feet in any direction of choice, be that straight, back, to the left, to the right, or diagonally (same with all stages, just a longer distance). They can also be up to one foot away from their weapon and still alter its apparent location.
The Devil Sword techniques allowed Ren to offset his body by about two feet, in the right conditions. A man’s shoulder ran just over twelve inches. A head was closer to six. In either case, Endo’s chakra-fueled hand shattered through Ren’s illusion, kicking up fluttering feathers as the mirage shattered. The haze in his mind parted just enough for him to recognize now was his chance. Ren rolled away and sucked in a huge gasp of air. The ash floating in the air, like moths circling a light source, fluttered from his mouth as he spat out his breathing unit and took in a fresh gulp. The witch, it seemed, had come through after all.
Teikouryoku - Power of Resistance (Dokushite)
Requirements: Power 3, Intelligence 2
Description: A medic must always be wary of becoming a victim of whatever their patient suffers from. Passively, a medic can increase his resistance to mundane diseases and poisons, delaying them by a post before they take effect. By forming hand seals this technique can be made active, allowing the medic to purge the frozen poison or disease from taking effect entirely. Outside of combat, if given the proper ingredients, the user may create the ‘antidote’ item, which can cure any poison the user has a sample of.
Base Effect: In combat, 2 point poisons or Stage Two or lower poisons may be delayed or purged.
The same ash burst out of his lips when he roared out his revival. “ENDO!”
From Endo’s perspective, Ren had snapped to the side faster than a thought, fully alive and shouting – despite repeated admonishments from more serious swordsmen, Ren had always found that a sudden shout would off-set all but the most stalwart of opponents.
And against a superstitious, anxious coward?
The very literally mad scientist shifted his stance almost immediately, bringing his sword around towards where Ren rolled. This too, it seemed, was not beyond his calculations- unsurprising given how Endo had watched Ren fight once already. Two hands, though, were better than one. Ren’s massive blade slid out in his hands and despite Endo’s flourish the thick blade of Ren’s easily deflected the blow. The girth of Ren’s weapon easily outmatched Endo’s decorative sword and with one mighty push, Endo stumbled backwards and off balance. Ren kept up and plowed into Endo like a wild bull, slamming the man backwards and then swinging his huge sword overhead. The metal tore into the bulkhead of the ship and shattered the window, causing a blast of fresh air to surge in and replace the tainted miasma that permeated the cabin.
The tip of Ren’s sword bit into Endo’s throat. Still unable to speak Endo nervously glanced over at his desk and cringed as he saw his tanks of poison rapidly emptying in an attempt to replace what was being lost out the broken window.
“Last chance. Where the hell is that detonator?” Ren stabbed the blade against Endo’s throat and, for good measure, planted his heel right in the man’s gut for added measure. “No more games, Endo! I’ll dig the truth out of your corpse if I have to.”
Unintelligible, sputtering nonsense came out of Endo’s mouth. Eventually, though, he managed to choke out some words through the effect of Gushiken Ren’s genjutsu.
“Asking for consent...this is why...you’re not popular with women...Jelloshot...!”
Endo’s father might have been a greedy, blind fool, but the man had recognized his child’s medical talent at a young age. Some people were just born different- and the way Kakatsyuki Endo used to ‘play’ with caught fish as a child made his own talents perfectly clear. From where Ren’s heel jabbed into Endo’s body a black smoke erupted, as if the chuunin’s foot had punctured a balloon. Though the skin wasn’t visible behind Ren’s clothing an undeniable burning, corrupting sensation shot up the muscle, causing him to pull back almost immediately in shock. A vicious smile bit into Endo’s face as he felt Ren’s genjutsu lose its hold over him, causing him to let out a barking laugh. Even the strongest patients could barely endure Endo’s special treat! The Mizukage herself had even been caught off guard by it- Endo hated to think of it as a ‘trump card’, but over the years it had gotten him out of every dicey situation thrown his way. The swirling corrupt chakra embedded itself in any body part that happened to touch his own, and ESPECIALLY those that did so without his express consent. The Touch of Death wasn’t just in his hand- Endo’s entire body was a conduit of death!
Death Doctor Combo Special: Twice, the Death Doctor can physically touch a muscle and cause it to cramp painfully for one post.
Ren’s leg is marked for death, and being hit 3 times there will kill him.
This uppity chuunin would be no different! As soon as Endo felt the pressure relent off his torso and Ren’s blade recoil, his delicate trained surgeon fingers knit together with a blinding speed. Endo’s grinning countenance sprayed acrid smelling bile from his previously choked off mouth. The foul acid sprayed out everywhere in the cabin, perhaps in anticipation of the chuunin’s displacement genjutsu or some other trick. Endo’s precious hesitation to ruin his office all but evaporated as he expelled the caustic liquid in every direction at once.
Stage Two Medical Jutsu
Zesshi Nensan - Fanged Tongue Acid
Requirements: Control 6, Power 6, Intelligence 4
Description: The user performs seals and then opens his mouth, expelling a highly corrosive acid. The stream can reach up to twenty feet away and is strong enough to cause first degree burns and eat through fabric, paper, and other weak materials. Launching acid from the mouth requires cautious control on behalf of the medic, so this technique cannot be used while moving at high speeds to keep from burning the user.
Stage Four: Acid can reach fifty feet and causes third degree burns.
Slowly yet all at once, Ren’s leg cramped harder than he ever felt in his life, like the muscle itself was going to snap directly off of his bone. The pain was so sharp and severe that even the thought of moving it seemed to be a nasty, painful thought. He jerked the leg away from Endo and shoved his boot back down onto the deck, desperately trying to force the calf muscle to release. The pain sharpened his experience of time and yet dulled his perception. He knew something was wrong, deadly wrong, but couldn’t place what or why. He only knew letting Endo get in any more hits would be bad.
Ren dropped his sword in a snap decision. He formed his own, quick seals, finishing the last sign of “cutting” before his dropped sword had time to clatter to the ground. The cabin exploded in a shower of debris, and smoke and movement as Endo’s acid blasted the surroundings and destroyed everything with no discretion.
There was the unmistakable thump of a body clattering to the floor, and the nasty, acrid smell of flesh being cooked and ate away by the Fanged Tongue Acid.
Not Ren’s body, though. It was an imitation of the trick Endo pulled in their fight with the Flame- a replacement! The corpse of Azuma Tadashi, one of Endo’s most loyal bodyguards, swapped places with Ren. Cloth covered the cadaver’s face and mouth, offering him only the slightest amount of respect as a dead man. Against the dripping acid, the corpse rapidly became unrecognizable, but it did still function perfectly fine as a shield.
Kawarimi no Jutsu (Body Switch Technique)
Requirements: Power 2, Tactics 2
Description: A common jutsu - used to quickly replace a body with a close by object. Creates confusing among the opponent(s) - creating a chance to escape, or return with a larger strike. Useful for avoiding attacks and hiding from potential enemies. This is a super-speed jutsu, not a teleportation one. It may be used twice.
As the smoke cleared, Ren stood unarmed and facing Endo in the small office. Particulate matter was still streaming from his mouth, like bugs seen only in the periphery of vision, as the last of the witch’s long-range assistance was starting to work its way out of his system.
He hadn’t wanted to use his replacement so early. He needed it in case Senmitsu showed up - - !
But Tadashi’s body was thrashing as the acid bit deep into the flesh and dead muscle, causing the body to crackle and jerk. Ren’s sword was between himself, the corpse, and Endo.
The acid spray was eating away the carpet, the desk – even making pot marks in the steel hull walls. The only spaces freed from the attack were Ren’s spot, which had been sheltered by the corpse, and Endo and the space behind them. Ren wasn’t sure if he could even walk on that stuff, the way it was already eating away at the furniture and the corpse.
“Fuck it,” Ren said, tossing his hand in front of him like he was dismissing a thought. “I’ve been in trouble with Maya before. I’ll just fuckin’ kill you.”
He darted for his sword as four droplets of water – one from each finger – flew through the air in front of him.
Mizu no Waruasobi (Trick of Water)
Requirements: Power 2, Tactics 2
Description: A small drop of water is flicked from the fingers. This drop can be heated or chilled. If it hits a target's eye, it blurs their vision. Otherwise the drop will only cause a brief flare-up of pain when it hits, similar to being slapped. One additional 'flick' of water can be launched for every Stage known in this list. This technique has a range of 10 feet.
In a very un-Endo like maneuver and with a mouth still dripping with acid, Endo darted out in his own blurry flurry of movement. From the floor he snatched up his discarded nodachi and whipped its well-oiled blade in perfect unison with Ren’s splatter of water. It wasn’t an original stance, though- this was Keisou, the dueling form of the old Sanshi no Mizu fighting style.
No snappy retort of his own came from Endo. He did, however, take a seemingly useless stab at Ren’s corpse shield as the man retreated. The laughter still echoed out of Endo’s lungs in a sort of ‘I don’t actually find this funny’ way, and the reason behind his mood became apparent half a second later.
The former Azuma Tadashi, like all men under Kakatsyuki Endo, didn’t leave service to the man with something as simple as death. The boiled flesh of the corpse shook with a sort of new life and then began wildly and manically lashing out in all directions. The corpse’s frenzied spasming sent chunks of sloughed off skin and muscle everywhere as the former soldier attempted to do what it had failed to do once already: stop Gushiken Ren from killing its master.
“Thanks for bringing my subordinate in to help, idiot!”
Kinjutsu: Shikon Ichi - Forbidden Technique: Dead Soul One (Shiyrote)
Requirements: Intelligence 9, Willpower 9, Power 7
Description: The medic runs chakra into a corpse, causing it to come 'alive'. The corpse isn’t actually alive but will animate like a sluggish living person. The corpse has Physical Levels equal to the highest Stage the user knows in this list and operates independently of the medic. Corpses can be given mental instructions via touch, but have to receive vocal instructions by the medic afterwards to change their commands. A corpse can only be reanimated by this technique once, and any normally lethal blow destroys the corpse from being reanimated again. Animated corpses can last indefinitely, however they drop to Level 1 in all Physical stats if their master is more than a mile away from them.
Ren stood, rotating his wrist to flip his sword around in the air, as if he was testing the weight after picking it back up. He glared, across at Endo, as Tadashi started to convulse back to a simulacrum of life.
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“Disgustin’,” Ren spat. He had seen Endo manipulate corpses in their previous operation together, but those had been cadavers. Not his own men, surely?
“Can’t even let a guy die in peace,” He stepped to the side as the corpse barreled at him. He caught his breath as the body quickly came to a stop and turned its body unnaturally, the upper torso rotating like a child’s toy. The fist slammed cleanly into the side of Ren’s skull, sending him reeling, his vision blurring. Whatever quip he had loaded slipped out as a curse from his lips.
There was no grace or elegance to the strike – nothing like a proper fighter. Just raw, rapidly disintegrating meat, muscles firing at full strength. Ren was sure he could hear the body protesting to the movement, ligaments and muscles snapping...but he wasn’t sure if that was just pieces of his own skull rattling around near his ears.
Ren thrust the back of his sword, hilt first, into the corpse’s face, a hammer blow that would have sent any man down to his knees, but the body didn’t so much as flinch. Ren’s blow collided with the face and broke the nose, sending cartilage up inside the skull – but the face around the bandaged eyes and mouth was slack, unfeeling. A second blow came up to meet Ren’s temple, which sent him to the floor, skidding on the damp carpet.
He felt some of that fanged-tongue-acid sizzling against his arm, like a sudden sunburn. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. He pressed up off the ground with one arm and lashed out with the large blade, right for the torso of the approaching corpse.
There was a popping noise, like pulling a soggy coat out from the water, and Ren was jumping through the viscera of the former Tadashi, his blade having severed straight through the flesh, muscle, and bone.
His one eye was locked directly on Endo, his sword slimy with blood.
“No one to save you…!” He growled.
The smell of rain swept into the cabin. For a brief moment it looked over, Ren midair with his gore covered blade about to plunge into the still reeling Endo. The doctor didn’t wear a face of defeat, though. No, instead, his arrogant, smug countenance only grew more severe by the moment. A corpse was a corpse- cut in half, or not!
One last twitch out of the reanimated body flung its severed leg up high. It intercepted Ren’s leap, connecting with the chakra-tainted leg still festering from Endo’s Killing Hands technique. Ren’s stance jolted and broke as soon as the tremendous pain rocketed through the cursed limb and his attack faltered. Ren missed his window, and more than that, he felt just that much closer to death.
Ren received a blow to the cursed area made by the Killing Hands technique, 2 more and he will die.
This time the clash of blades gave the advantage to Endo. His much smaller sword couldn’t block Ren’s swing, but his relatively still intact body let him slip away from Ren’s attack like a slippery fish. With surgical precision his nodachi slipped Ren’s guard, an easy feat given how difficult it was to move a sword that big. Endo’s target, no matter how slick his moves, couldn’t have been more obvious. His sword stabbed at the broken stance of Ren, right for the man’s leg.
Again Ren managed to frustrate Endo’s attempt to end the battle decisively. Rather than try to intercept with his sword, instead Ren smashed it even farther into the floor. The acid damaged carpet and wooden floor underneath gave way easily and accompanied by Ren’s own massive strength, his blow ripped open a hole in the ground. Now it was Endo’s turn to be caught flat footed as the wood crumbled beneath him. He might have been able to do it still, with a bit of luck and some risk-
-but Kakatsyuki Endo wasn’t a man to take risks. He abandoned his plan, and instead leap away, clearing the room and landing on the opposite side with a soft thunk as Ren scrambled to not fall into the hole himself.
A deep sigh, the kind taken after laughing too hard, escaped from Endo’s lips. He released his two handed grip on his sword momentarily as one hand darted into his lab coat, where he pulled out a pill. He tossed it back dry as his pupils dilated slightly.
“What’s the matter, Jelloshot? No stamina?” Both hands returned to his sword. Rather than take any martial pose, he pointed the blade down, towards the now thoroughly ruined carpet.
“That’s why it pays to have friends. Nobody likes a loner. Me, on the other hand. I’ve got friends all over. You want to see it? The power of Kakatsyuki Endo’s friendship? I was going to use this when that awful swordsman showed up, but I’ll let you have a taste of me as well, since you’re so eager!”
Endo plunged the sword all the way down to the hilt, piercing through the damaged floor in one fluid motion. The sound of thunder shook through the ship- not actual thunder, but a rumbling coming from within the bowels of the vessel. There was a brief creaking pause as the wooden frame lurched and strained.
Then with a horrendous crack the floor shattered completely. A chill wind blasted up from below, like a frigid freezer was just thrown open into the tropical humidity. Along with it came dozens- maybe even hundreds of still thawing frozen human arms. Not individually, but instead as one large, writhing mass, like a morass of ants skittering out of their nest in search of an intruder. The bits and pieces flooding the room were all connected to something bigger under the floorboards that had yet to emerge, but even so the myriad of hands began to blindly claw and tear and anything within arm’s reach.
Kinjutsu: Shikon Nii - Forbidden Technique: Dead Soul Two (Shiyrote)
Requirements: Intelligence 19, Willpower 19, Tactics 18, Control 16
Description: Every dead human body or body part within a hundred foot radius of the user is imbued with a simulacrum of life and is able to move again. This is not true life and is only reanimation. Full bodies are reanimated with Level 5 Physical stats, and body parts are reanimated with Level 1 Physical Stats. All bodies follow a specific order given by the medic, and require vocal commands to be ordered to do something else after being raised. As long as the user holds the final two-handed seal (both hands must be used), even when struck down, the bodies will rise again and continue to act. Any bodies that die within the range of the medic also rise and are reanimated with this technique at no additional usage cost. If a large person-sized seal on the ground with freshly spilled blood is created, this technique may be used without hand seals, and the raised bodies persist indefinitely until the seal is destroyed.
Ren’s legs threatened to slip out from under him as the floor of the ship cracked open, stabbing his own blade into the ground to give him some leverage. His eye was opened wide as he saw the surge of limbs working their way up at him – felt something twist in his stomach that felt very much like sea sickness. He shook his head and took a single step back, and then another, wrenching his blade free.
Every bit of his body was telling him to run. It just wasn’t natural, all these severed limbs just moving on their own. It itched under his skin, sent an emergency through his brain. That twist in his stomach became cold as he sucked in air to focus.
Dead bodies weren’t any threat, he tried to remind himself. After all, if they died once, that meant they could be killed again! But Endo was right; here, there was no back-up. Ren had no friends to call on. His chips were all-in.
“I prefer my companions warm and alive.” He spit to the side and flicked his sword in the air, spiraling in a tight circle. His fingers danced together, forming hand seals with deliberate precision. “I guess it’s true what they said: the only women Endo can make it with don’t have a pulse.”
Ren snatched the sword out of the air. Electricity sparked at the point of contact and rippled up the edge of the blade, until it reached the tip. Then it exploded back down to his hand, a complete circuit completed. There was a terrible sound, like a chainsaw sputtering to life. Ren held the sword before him in a defensive stance, and sucked in air.
“C’mon!”
Stage One Raiton: Serrated Edge (cast at Stage 3)
Collecting electricity along the edge of a weapon, whether bladed or blunt (which can be the user's own hands) and cause it to rise from the weapon in sharp, serrated edges that tear into flesh as any real ones would. They're electricity in the end, however, and when they come into contact with someone they're zapped by it, made slightly numb by the escaping charge of the weapon.
Stage Three: The numbness has grown strong enough that deft movement would be impossible, making this a viable method of disarming an opponent.
Ren swung his sword in a way that no Mist Swordsman did, using it like a staff to cast his spell across the incoming hands. Each fluid wave of the sword made contact with dozens of forearms, causing their muscles to immediately spasm and clench up, falling back to writhe for a bit. The surge of arms was a constant, unending barrage, each attempted grab and blow not particularly threatening but with one specific aim: the curse on his leg. Their single minded obsession made it easy for Ren to anticipate the zombified masses’ attacks, but also left him open. A claw tore a chunk out of his vest. What looked like a jawbone on the end of a leg bit into his scalp. With an elbow he knocked what looked like toenails off a lashing tongue. All the while his sizzling sword batted away anything from his cursed leg, and for a moment, it almost seemed like he could stem the tide all by himself.
Endo expected men to think like he did. Cowardly, in deep self preservation. However, Ren often didn’t even think three minutes into the future.
There was only the chase, the exciting stuff. Something like certain death only brought him closer to that wild edge, where his heart felt like it was properly beating for the first time.
Without realizing it, he was shouting with each powerful swing, taking steps forward towards Endo’s position, working his way through flesh and bone like he was batting away a torrent of water. His sword snicker-snacked. His teeth flashed. His blade sung. Ren wasn’t retreating from the mass. He was stomping towards it.
Eventually Ren’s blade hit not flesh and sinew, but clashed against something more inert. Endo’s nodachi emerged from the racks of bodies to intercept Ren’s blade and parried it, seemingly for no purpose, before backing off and waiting for the counter. When the electrical energy around the metal clashed with the sword in his hand, sparks flew and fizzled; yet Endo held on, unaffected by the current.
“What a limp dicked attempt at ninjutsu!” A laugh ripped from Endo as he again retreated, letting some of the living corpses get in the way to slow Ren’s progress. “This is the raiton that the 'famous' Gushiken Ren is so feared for? I’ve gotten worse shocks from my carpet!”
On every exchange of blows Endo’s eyes darted to the decorative hilt of his weapon as if expecting something before he would again seek to retreat. He wasn’t launching any attacks himself at all and was quite content to just block and deflect as needed. He was waiting for his Killing Hands curse to work its magic, content to sit back and play defensively while Ren exerted himself. While he seemed protected from the glancing blows of lightning that grazed his weapon, his reanimated corpses weren’t fairing too well at all. Yet despite the dwindling reserves of cadavers, Endo wore a grin of anticipation, like a mischievous kid waiting for the teacher to sit on a thumbtack.
The vibrations along his blade slowed and then, with a popping sound, the light illuminating the edge of his sword suddenly stopped with a sparkle of energy that ran up and down the blade in a few short loops before fading to nothing. Ren’s footwork was unbothered by the ship’s collapsing structure, and he skipped backwards a few steps to dodge the oncoming cloud of fists and fingers.
“Oooh, I can take a hint-” Ren growled, “Never let it be said Gushiken Ren left a partner dissatisfied.”
He clenched his teeth down on the blade of his nodachi and worked his hands into a few quick seals. As he did, electricity arced up from his feet, bouncing like a relay at his knees and waist, then crowded around his arms as he finished his chakra kneading. His hands split apart to reveal a small, yellowed orb between the palms of his hands. His fingers and thumbs acted as a containment cage with visible arc lines connecting each to its twin. The ball inside suddenly surged with power and chakra.
From a ball, the sphere rapidly expanded until Ren had to open his hands to contain it, until his arms were about shoulder length apart. The orb between was roughly the width of his broad chest, pulsing and convulsing, plasma caught in the web of his chakra.
“Let’s see the mighty Endo scamper away from this!” Ren roared around his clenched teeth, the electricity giving his voice a reverberating edge.
Then, like an undulating jellyfish, it was released – exploding forward through the crowd of crawling hands and towards Endo with a sudden shock of heat – thunder peeled between the two men, enough to leave the ears ringing – and as the jellyfish-like orb danced across the room, it’s tendrils reached out and grabbed everything around.
Raiton: Kyuuden (Lightning Release: Ball Lightning) (Stage 4)
Requirements: Willpower 14, Tactics 13, Intelligence 11, Control 10
Named and themed after the strange meteorological element, the user conjures a sphere of humming electricity struggling violently against the bounds of the user's chakra. The shinobi propels Kyuuden in a line toward a target with their chakra, usually at the ground. When it hits a surface kyuuden explodes in a tangle of lightning, dancing around the bodies of anyone within five meters of the impact point, leaving electrical burns across their bodies and causing horrible trouble with fine motor functions for two posts, including those needed to make handseals.
Arcing electricity jumped from reanimated limb to reanimated limb as the ball of energy shot towards Endo. One might have expected the former head of Kirigakure’s research departments to be smart enough to get out of the way; instead, he merely braced his sword with both arms and held it right in the trajectory of the cackling orb.
Upon impact the thunderous boom deafened nearly everyone on the ship. Most of the crew not engaged in putting out fires had expected the lightning to come from above. Instead several terrifying bolts shot out of the ship and grounded into the ocean in one brilliant display of light.
That was followed by the stomach churning stench of burnt flesh. Black smoke poured out from the bowels of the ship and drove many of Endo’s men above deck to escape it. Within the cargo hold the sound of sizzling and cooking muscle and sinew could still be heard. Within that bombardment of senses was also the throaty, dry coughs of a chronic smoker.
“That’s the stuff.” Endo sputtered like a broken hose and his bloodshot eyes glared down at the broken sword in his hands. The metal blade was all but melted and snapped, revealing not steel within, but some kind of conductive copper core. Electricity continued to dance from what remained of the weapon and across his now cracked fingernails. With both hands he twisted the hilt and it separated, dropping a small glowing cylinder in his hands.
It was the detonator.
Ren's eyes went wide. Not just from seeing the prize, the detonator.
But because a charred, reanimated skull had locked itself around his festering leg. He felt his heart stop, and his vision went white. Electricity might have kept the muscular zombies at bay, but bones didn't have any muscles to seize up. Ren's blood felt thick and his heart struggled to restart, eventually pushing life back into his veins. He smashed the skull with his heel but it lingering agony of its bite continued to pulse. One more mistake would be his last.
Ren received a blow to the cursed area made by the Killing Hands technique, 1 more and he will die.