The sound of footsteps echoed outside the cave.
Two figures dressed in white robes approached the entrance. One of them had a white hair and wore a mask over his mouth, but his eyes alone were enough to notice his arrogant nature, not much different from what orange haired one radiated.
“You heard how loud that explosion was. That should have done them in, no? What are we supposed to check here apart from corpses?” The masked one cackled hoarsely.
The kunoichi shook her head. “Some might have survived. If we had been dealing with ordinary ninjas, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Oh, don’t give me that, Shizu. We could wipe out the entire branch ourselves with no problem. They’re not that big of a deal.”
“They have left no traces to follow. I don’t believe we could do the same as cleanly. That’s why we’ve not taken the risk to confront them head on and why we had to resort to this sacrifice. We can’t have an unknown element put master’s plan under jeopardy.”
The young man scoffed. “Sacrifice? All I see is bunch of weaklings that can’t do their job properly. At least this branch head did something with his worthless life, unlike others that were massacred like pests.”
“Careful, Gitai. Master won’t appreciate you talking about our comrades in that tone.” The kunoichi gave her partner a disapproving look. Though, she inwardly shared the same sentiment about them. Least they could do was leave some sort of message. Bunch of failures.
“So,” Gitai said as he stopped at the entrance of the cave. “How long are we going to wait?”
The two kept standing in front of cave for a while, waiting for any survivors to finish them off. They couldn’t notice, however, that shrouded in darkness was a mask monitoring their presence.
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I deactivated the Diamond Morph jutsu to regain mobility, only to groan in pain when the several tons of rubble weighted down on me. I was stuck.
So, a suicide attack. I guess they weren’t cultists for nothing. Not the worst decision considering their circumstances. And here I thought the chase was starting to get boring.
Collapsing the cave would work on the most shinobi. Maybe even give Kakashi a ptsd flashbacks. But I doubt they suspected their enemy being a single powerful person rather than a group. Not that they had leads to follow. I hadn’t given them enough time nor information to prepare a proper response. I kept monitoring the captured hideouts for that reason, cutting any chance of them investigating what happened. They had sent people to do just that, of course, none of whom returned back to report. The cult deducing that the branches were raided was a given. But left without any clues while their members disappearing one after another, they were in pretty helpless situation. Their best guess might be the government moving against the cult. If damyo had sent shinobi to raid the cult, the group would be annihilated by this surprise they left for me without a hope.
Too bad that the damyo of this country didn’t care. Yomi didn’t need to worry about the old geezer while the outside interference was unlikely until the cult did something deserving of notice.
Anyway, it was better to get out of this mess quickly. I noticed some visitors waiting outside.
The tendrils slithered out of my skin and through the rubble, until taking the intended form as they joined back together. Four thread pillars rose with me in the center with a ceiling on top of me that was supported by the said pillars. As the construct took the brunt of the weight, I was able to push the rocks around me without more falling onto me from the above. With some space to move, I formed the hand seals for the earth release jutsu and sent a pulse of chakra through the cave as I placed my palms on the ground.
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“Earth Release: Earth Corridor.”
The surrounding rock rose up from the sides and joined together in an arch, creating a path for me to move.
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“Someone’s coming.” One of the Yomi’s henchmen warned the other and the larger figure nodded in response.
They both took out the vials and injected let the parasites sink into their flesh. Their chakra flared up, followed by their appearance and expressions going through a rapid change.
The girl’s eyes became purple and her pupils enlarged. Two spikes extended from her elbows and three blue marking appeared on her skin, extending from her forehead to throughout her body.
The boy’s figure grew, especially his arm that become disproportionately oversized compared to rest of his body. His skin turned into grey as arrows appeared on his forehead and arms.
“Only one survived?” Gitai asked with a delirious voice, reminiscent of a drug addict. “So the rest of them are dead? What a shame.”
“There's no rest of them, kid, only me.” I said as I exited the cave.
The two gave me a condescending look before grinning.
“Haha, whatever!” Came the crazed laughter in response. “I’ll just tear you into the shreds!”
From the description the cultists gave me, I could recognize the two of them as part of Yomo’s four main henchmen. From what I heard, they were strongest members of the cult after Yomo. Monsters, as others called them, that had insane compatibility with the parasites, able to draw out more power from them than anyone else in the cult. Though, rather than just natural genetic compatibility, I suspected that they had been results of Yomo's experiments. Still, that implied that there was something that Yomo deemed special about them.
The big guy with enlarged fists, Gitai, rushed at me with speed that far surpassed anything any other cultist had displayed. I shifted my body, the punch missing my face within hair’s breath as the crazed face flew past me. Gitai paused and stared at me for second in confusion, but quickly shook it off resumed the assault. His careless expression faded and barrages of punches descended upon me, only to graze nothing but air. Fury riled up into the boy’s face, only to be momentarily drained out by a fist colliding with his stomach.
He was disappointing. He had strength, but not enough skill to make proper use of it. Instead of using the jutsus in arsenal to test the waters, he surrendered to his instinct that were muddles by his drugged state. The guy might have forgotten that he had a head on his shoulders.
But the same couldn’t be said about the second one quite yet.
My figure disappeared from where I had been standing, only for that spot to be hit by a fireball next moment. I appeared behind the girl, targeting her neck to swiftly knock her out. Instead of slumping to the ground, however, the girl disintegrated into water. A clone.
The girl had been a clone before our fight began. She was being cautions, trying to get an idea about my abilities first instead of throwing punches like an idiot. Which meant that original was somewhere around-
A kunai collided with my raised palm and the girl huffed in frustration. She planted one leg to the ground and swung another into an arc. The water blade shot from her swing, rapidly closing distance between us. I sidestepped and it collided with the cave wall, leaving a deep gash behind.
“God dammit! just get hit already, asshole!”
I chuckled at the reaction and jumped, avoiding the stone spikes that rose from beneath my feet. The attack wasn’t over, as a figure followed me. The big guy’s fist collided with my own midair, both of us being thrown backwards from impact. My arm darkened as another water blade was shot towards me. A clang sound was heard, as if metal was struck with a hammer, and I planted my feet into the ground to steady myself.
Not bad. They were around at the level of special jonin. They might put a fight against some weaker jonins as well. The girl especially. And now, since I had idea of how capable they were, there was no need to prolong the fight.
The silence descended around us as we stood in standstill for a moment.
The boy glared at me. “Who the hell are you?”
Was that my que to go on a monologue? Did he take me for a second-rate villain?
Not thanks. Maybe later.
“Look down.” I pointed at the ground.
“Wha-“ too late.
The boy’s words turned into a scream as black tendrils yanked his leg and rose him into the hair, making him hung upside down. Before he could reach for the threads to cut himself free, more rose from the ground and encircled his figure in a cocoon. Despite his struggle, there was nothing he could do to escape. Something that his partner realized as well. Momentarily frozen in place, the girl looked at me in terror. I smiled at her.
“You’re next.”