“Gimme your heart, Hinako!”

Despite knowing the lumpiness of his next move, Futaru tried to charge towards Hinako while abandoning his invisible state. Aware of the situation, Hinako enforced a deflector by spinning around her standing point with her tessens open, which in turn, nullified the impaling attack of Futaru.

He triggered the emerald another time, enabling the option to vanish from Hinako’s sight, this time striking her from behind. Hinako acted ahead of time and initiated a parry, throwing Futaru’s concentration.

Futaru had it enough. Each and every move he used to strike only ended up being futile. Frustration grew within him. The constant rising of Hinako enraged Futaru every time. And each time he raged, stupidity became abundant in his mind, blocking off the vital mental state required to overcome his opponent,

Futaru tried to scoot towards Hinako while trying to pretend that he was going for her upper body. Hinako launched a few shurikens, which were fended off without any difficulties. She slashed vertically using the two ninja tessens, targeting Futaru's stomach. The strike was blocked…and Futaru made a quick withdrawal.

He then used the emerald once again to camouflage himself and tried to deliver the final blow, which was a piercing blow to Hinako's heart, out of annoyance.

He screamed out in a loud voice, not knowing that his voice would reveal his position.

"Die, you nasty little brat!"

The invisible man accelerated towards Hinako. Hinako was excited about the ignorant man's work and prepared to finish him off.

She threw a kunai targeting Futaru's head, which almost landed on Futaru's ear, but unfortunately, missed by a fraction. Futaru's speed was increasing rapidly and was getting closer and closer to Hinako. Futaru smiled while in a state of invisibility, with the glorious hope of an instant kill in his pocket.

Hinako threw her fans with the last hope of defeating her opponent, but thanks to her misfortune, both of the fans were dodged. Her face struck with panic.

This aroused hope in Futaru’s mind. And he continued to speed into Hinako while roaring with a loud chuckle, foreseeing his victory. He yelled out.

"Go to hell, moron!"

Futaru expected Hinako to be horror-stricken, outnumbered and frozen on the spot. Things only looked half-right from his perspective as he saw Hinako standing still, not coming up with anything to act against his onslaught. She casually turned her head to a side and glazed upon her enemy with her eyes, smiling in a way that made Futaru dissolve into discomfort.

He asked, in a bewildered state.

"Why are you smiling even after you have failed to land a strike on me?”

The response didn’t occur until Futaru was just a few feet away from Hinako…when she broke her silence most casually and confidently possible.

“I never miss.”

And that was it…That’s all she said. And Futaru’s ever-increasing momentum suddenly was cut in half. His breath never left his body, instead, it was thrown onto the floor beside Hinako with the invisibility cloak disabled along with a slice shaped like a cross on his back, lifeless.

“Never thought Kōga ninjas could sometimes be this careless…”

What happened? Though Hinako purposefully threw the tessens in his plain sight, her only intention was to distract her foe and to make him overweening about his strength. One of the tessens performed a downward diagonal cut to the left side of Futaru’s back while being returned. The other one managed to pull off another downward diagonal cut, but this time to the right side. Those diagonal cuts managed to complete a perfect Kesagiri strike, assisting Hinako in obtaining a bloody victory.

Hinako slowly moved away from Futaru’s corpse and tried to pull out the two makibishi claws stuck inside her footwear, which wasn’t that severe but they actually could damage Hinako’s foot, making them painful to stand.

While she was removing the claws, she was startled when she suddenly heard the sound of a boy shouting. But it only took a while for her to realise that it was none other than Yamazaki Yorihide, who had recovered from his unconscious state.

“Hinako, are you there? Can you come?”

His cry distracted Hinako’s slow treatment process and spurred her to move fast, making her quickly remove the claws to hurry towards Yamazaki to aid him.

Hinako had a tough time walking towards the injured boy lying beside a tree and thought about hopping towards him using her uninjured leg.

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“Yamazaki, how are you feeling?”

Yamazaki answered after a slight groan.

“Ahh…what just happened?”

He opened his eyes after the slight mishap and was dumbfounded when he caught sight of the dead body of Tokitsune Futaru.

“Wait what? Don’t tell me...Hinako, did you defeat our next opponent?”

“Yes, I did. Can’t you see what that guy did to my body?”

Yamazaki cheered although his stomach wasn’t feeling any better.

“Hooray! That’s a common Hattori victory right there!”

“Oh stop it, Yamazaki! Can you tell me what the heck happened before you got knocked out?”

“Uh...I think I remember something. Yeah, I remember! I went into the cave because I started sensing something funny inside. And I could only take a few steps before I got hit in the chest. God! First that heartless monk! Now, this guy! And by the way..."

“What is it, Yamazaki?”

“Tell me this. Why didn’t I see him coming? I mean I didn’t even get a chance to react to him. Why?”

“Idiot, didn't you remember? He had the Emerald of Invisibility. He was invisible the whole time.”

“That explains it. But….Wait a minute…” Yamazaki essenced his voice with bafflement. “If he was invisible all the time, then how did you figure out if he was charging towards you?”

Hinako wasn’t ready to answer Yamazaki’s question right away. She instead tried to apply some crushed Kachū na Kyū essence onto her foot.

Yamazaki’s gentlemen instincts kicked in. He couldn’t bear a woman trying to attend to her wounds. So he decided to volunteer.

He reached his arm out and asked.

“May I?”

Hinako was surprised although she wasn’t ready to let this opportunity go away. She slowly sat down and offered her wounded leg. Yamazaki slowly grabbed the bottle of Kachū na Kyū particles and poured out a handful of powder to start attending to Hinako’s wounds, while Hinako ran down her battle strategy.

“Hinako,”

“Yes?”

“Tell me…how did you defeat that freak, by the way?”

“Yamazaki, firstly I tried to sense his movements from the sound patterns. He eventually realised this and became a lot more...stealthy I suppose. So my method of visualising my enemy’s position by exploiting sound was contained. For the next few seconds, I could barely sense his movement, and he almost managed to pull off some successful strikes on me. Then I switched to sensing the movement of air to track, though it wasn’t as effective as my last method. But...luck was on my side this time...somehow. It was only a matter of time before I could successfully figure out the “Weak spot” behind Futaru’s invisibility.”

“And what was it?” Yamazaki questioned, in a highly curious state.

“Well....guess what?" Hinako lifted her right hand and pointed her finger towards the cave entrance. "When I changed my position into this place where sunlight was plentiful, the invisible cloak of Futaru started exposing its weakness right into my eyes. I eventually started noticing the rainbow colours around his hair. I soon realised that Futaru’s 'Invisibility' cloak would slightly be highlighted if any light from a direct source refracted through it. And turns out, I was right. He probably had no idea of how I was tracing him. So eventually, he gave up on becoming invisible…at least until the last moment.”

“Well,” Yamazaki replied in surprise. “I guess you just got some of this lazy slacker’s work done. I have to be honest. Their names often send chills through my body. But I can’t believe how stupid these Kōgas can be...”

“Yeah, but I can tell you one thing. They are way better than you…by a large margin.”

Her reply agitated Yamazaki, thrusting him onto his feet. Hinako had the conception of him being unable to walk after the unexpected kick. It turned out to be better than what she was thinking. Though Yamazaki was bruised badly, he could stand and walk without any problem. She was relieved and her breaths were finally calm after awfully long minutes of battle. Hinako volunteered to treat Yamazaki’s wounds as means of paying forward for what he did for her.

“Hinako,” Yamazaki said right after his treatment concluded.

“We should get out of here…we have to meet up with the rest of the team at the right time.”

Hinako turned her eyes to the sky, deducing the time of the day by analysing the position of the sun, before agreeing and replying to Yamazaki’s insistence.

“Okay then...But wait.”

“Now what?”

Hinako reached Futaru’s body once again. This time, however, she crouched down as she got close. Her senses picked up the disparity of Futaru's body, which had started to cool off due to the effects of the surrounding environment. Hinako felt the impact of some interesting thoughts as she had her eyes locked on his corpse.

"People...how fragile their lives are huh? I could feel the heat emitting from his body as we were going head-to-head. What drove him to follow the path of someone evil like Keiichi...only to end up in this fate. Cold, still, stiff and eyes wide open. Soon nature will erase the remaining evidence of his existence. And one day...he won't be even remembered for the sacrifice he made for his master. Perhaps....all of my friends...and my brothers...will end up like this? I honestly don't know how to feel about it..."

Taking her tessens back, she slowly broke off the thread used to hold the fourth piece of the Star of Izanagi in place. When the thread lost its strength, the emerald became loose and touched the surface. Hinako slowly picked up the emerald glowing with a lush green colour, placing it in her ninja pouch, while responding to Yamazaki.

“Let’s go, Yamazaki. We have accomplished what my big brother expected us to do. Let’s just hope that the others are doing fine.”