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Chapter 33

Kento shouted out of excitement that overcame his senses of pain, which simultaneously excited his siblings and his downed friends, forcing them to turn their eyes upon Kento's parents who had arrived just in time to rescue the Teen Ninjas. Their expressions struck with a sense of rejuvenation.

Kento was delighted deeply even though his mental state didn't want to expose it to the outsiders, especially to the others who stood on the other side with the eyes of petrifying evil villains.

After the passing of a few seconds, the fire barrier extinguished, and Kyuzo tried to get up on his feet to witness his recovered parents. Hinako and Kumiko tried to rush to welcome Miyuki and Katuro but Miyuki assisted them by offering her hand.

"Father, are you feeling alright? Thank goodness!"

Katsuro drifted his hand onto his katana to drag it out. And as his trustworthy companion’s soaring iron emerged into the sky, the light reflected upon Kento's scraped cheek, while his father replied with a caring manner.

"Son, you have done enough now. Please, let me and your mother handle this now."

Miyuki then walked to her husband's side while Kento's teammates chose to gather around him. Soon after realising his downed friend's condition, Kento and Kumiko surged to clasp Yamazaki who was being agonised by severe burn wounds along with several blisters on his arm. Kento unloaded his flask of water and gently poured all the contents into the hot blisters, while Kumiko opted to cover them using the bandages she picked before stepping out of Osada’s cabin.

Miyuki, being the reputed chief physician couldn’t stand her son and friend struggling to treat Yamazaki. She stepped right into the circle, casually gave away some of the ointments that she had been carrying with her and advised them as to how to utilise their medicinal value. She only spent a few seconds on this, before gracefully standing beside her husband.

Sensei Keiichi chose to communicate with the people he had put on death row.

"Miyuki and Katsuro, I must say, you have trained your kids well enough to handle this much strain. I have to give credit where credit is due…their perseverance is just… astounding."

Miyuki disrupted Keiichi’s sentence by dragging out her tantō blade.

“You’d better keep your mouth shut, Keiichi.”

Katsuro was mystified after glimpsing the fiery figure of Kagu-Tsuchi, forcing his mind to recollect all his memories from the dark past, before Kento was born into this world. It was when the Hattori family and some close allies of the family were educated about the intricacies and some other dark-kept secrets behind the star and the truth of the ninth fragment and the legend of Kagu-Tsuchi, by none other than Hikomune Nomiya, one of the individuals who stood close with Akio during the fateful encounter and was responsible for the sealing of the secrets of the star to keep as much information out of the public as possible.

"Truly outrageous…isn’t it Sensei Keiichi? You were so fed up with our existence that you had to force the youngsters from Iga to recover the star and take advantage of the separation by forging the Garnet of Resurrection when it was under the morphing state, to fulfil your thirst for our blood?"

"I am not bound by the law to clarify this to you, am I? You'd better recall all your past memories as I am about to force my black ops to slaughter you viciously and painfully in front of my new master's eyes."

“New master? This fiend always wants to stay one step ahead…”

It only took him a swing from his arm to recall his remaining Scarletshades to charge back for counter-assaulting the owners of the rainbow crystal. Keiichi snapped his fingers. The Scarletshades interpreted it as a signal and sent their hands covered with rugged gloves into their ninja robes while Kento strived to validate their intention. And just after a few seconds, they dragged out a bottle or a flask-like vessel to coat their weapons with a gooey, slimy-looking, dark purple fluid. Kento recollected the facts that his grandfather referred to him before the mission and was made aware that the fluid that he was now seeing was the mysterious drug that was utilised to kill him and his mother seventeen years ago. Kento was deeply afraid and concerned about the outcome of the battle and the consequences of all the hardships that he and his team underwent to rescue his parents, who were in front of his eyes, willing to accept the burden of fighting the exiles of the Kōgas.

With one buzzing lift of Katsuro's katana against the poison-cloaked Arcane Scarletshades, he announced.

"Bring it on, Scarletshades."

That was all he could say. As soon as Katsuro's courageous sentence escaped into the air, the Scarletshades unfolded their true selves in a split second as they advanced to Kento's parents with their utmost powerful weapons to take them down.

Kento was gazing upon his parents' deadly combat which was turning profound each second, frustrated at not being able to fight alongside his caretakers against their common enemy.

Katsuro was constantly pressurized by two Scarletshades who wielded two ninja swords coated with the poison. Before they could even anticipate the first strike, Katsuro aimed his katana at the legs of his charging enemies and executed a left diagonal kesagiri cut, forcing the ninja to leap over the iron blade. As they were jumping over, one scarletshade thrust his katana at Katsuro's shoulder, which would kill him as the blade penetrated through his entire body. But Katsuro changed his fate by leaning towards the left-hand side, ultimately causing the blade to dip in the hard soil. Anticipating another strike from the scarletshades, Katsuro bashed his elbow into the other scarletshade who attempted to execute the same lower slash that he had committed a few seconds ago. The impact landed on the victim's upper back, thudding him hard onto the dirt.

Supposing it to be a good opportunity, the bladed scarletshade attacked his katana horizontally, aiming for Katsuro's upper body for an instant kill. But Katsuro's previous analysis allowed him to perceive the enemy's next move. As a Battalion head of the Royal Army, it was a necessity for Katsuro to strategize according to the situation, no matter how good or bad the current condition was.

With the sole hope of hitting two birds with one stone, Katsuro triggered a sweeping kick just before the toxin-blanketed katana could scratch through his revitalised body. The blood-hungry eyes of the scarletshade had permanently distorted his battle senses, therefore pushing him into the well of stupidity. Even after being thrown to the ground, the two Scarletshades couldn't escape from the darkness of diminishment, which caused them to never behold the killer move that was coming for their demise.

Passing the katana into his right hand, Katsuro perpetrated the sweep while holding the katana upside down to be slashed in a circular motion. This epic motion was too superior to be evaded by the two downed Scarletshades and the blade sliced through the bodies as Katsuro's kick brought them on the dirt that had been nourished by the blood of his offspring, ensuing a perfect neutralisation of two more grunts of Tokiyoshi Keiichi's Most wanted black ops.

"Two down," Katsuro commented with a tense tone while heaving his red-blotted weapon into the glints of the daylight. His senses then progressed to glance upon his wife, who was actually busy engaging with the last remaining scarletshade. Upon seeing the hole in the corpse of the steel scarletshade that was resting peacefully beside his wife, he came to a clear conclusion about the consequence of facing Hattori Miyuki in battle.

As for Miyuki, she too wasn’t so different in imitating the same energy as her husband. Her battle senses were hyperactive, capable of outputting the topmost potential of her stamina when fighting the last arcane steel scarletshade of the Kōga clan. But there was a catch. As both of their blades clashed upon one another, all the dreadful nightmares that once got her and her loving son one step away from the grave commenced to flood into her mind, her eyes shed a few decent tears as those unnerving junctures petrified her mind. Her mind slowly began to rip apart from the deadly fight that was going on, until her son screamed out for her as the tears dripped down her face.

"Mom!!!"

Her son's cry restored Miyuki's awareness. And in an instant, her diminished mindset commenced to synchronise with her ripped battle senses. She was ready to counter her enemy's poisonous sword strike.

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"Are you ready to recollect all your past memories, Lady Miyuki?" The scarletshade force consumed his adrenaline to rush towards Miyuki with the will for an instantaneous kill.

Miyuki, who had come up with an awesome plan to destroy the enemy, replied with a bitter sentence that provoked the scarletshade to dash at her with the sole purpose of slaying violently.

"You are welcome to try…pathetic snakehead."

Agitated by the words, the Kōga scarletshade emerged with his venomous katana. Attempting to commit the first move, he struck his katana in a vertical manner, targeting Miyuki's legs. Foreseeing the move, Miyuki triggered her arms and clenched hard to adjust her short wakizashi in an adequate posture to block off the iron-poison cocktail of doom.

"Sssss…Now you shall know what the true power of the Kōgas really is."

Miyuki was surprised by how the scarletshade hadn't lost his thrill of the battle. He then proceeded to overwhelm her with another strike, which Miyuki avoided by ducking and dashing away from the impact zone.

Initiating her first move, Miyuki unpacked one of the three kunai that she brought and hurled it straight upon the scarletshade. She then transferred the katana into her left arm and triggered the muscles to go for a cut with her wakizashi as her opponent attempted to deflect the iron dart. Miyuki knew perfectly that her moves would be intercepted easily. And as for her cut, the scarletshade manipulated his sword into the air to flawlessly obstruct the horizontal slash. The block began to continue afterwards as the scarletshade continued to put force on the blades to pressurise Miyuki to a higher extent.

Miyuki was waiting for her chance, patiently. The scarletshade began to grope the sour thrill of battle stress. Adding an insisting tone into the mix, the scarletshade implored Miyuki for the reason she would not give up.

"You got some nerves trying to go up against the Scarletshades after everything that went through. Why won’t you ever give up trying…SSS?"

She turned her tensed face up to the remaining arcane steel scarletshade, and with a blink of an eye, she gave a reply that delivered her opponent into a loop of panic.

"Because we are from Iga, fool."

That's all she said. The words prevented the scarletshade from anticipating Miyuki's next move. Taking advantage of the situation, Miyuki slowly moved her right hand into the line of sight of both characters. And in a flash, she snapped her fingers, uttering in the smoothest way possible.

"Amber Coruscation."

The scarletshade was petrified. His long, reptile-like eyes wandered. His instincts tried to react quickly and move him to safety. But by the time they had reached out to his body, it was already too late. As soon as Miyuki yelled out, a blazing fire with a yellow-tinted flame roared out of the scarletshade's legs. Kento's eyes were flabbergasted to witness this amazing screen. The fire quickly spread through his clothing, ultimately setting his entire body on fire. The scarletshade screamed and yelled and shouted with agonising cries of unbearable and unstoppable pain. He quickly lost the clasp of his sword and plummeted onto the ground while desperately trying to extinguish the fires. But his efforts didn't last for long. Miyuki quickly walked up to him and jabbed her wakizashi through the scarletshade's burning chest, oozing his life essence out of his half-burnt body.

She dragged her sword out and lifted it up to the sky. Her brave eyes glanced upon the raging hot eyes of Kagu-Tsuchi. With a brave tone, she said,

"Your Black Ops is down."

At that very moment, Keiichi began to discern his new master's resentment, with shame and disgrace being sprinkled upon his overconfident mind by Kagu-Tsuchi.

"Tokiyoshi Keiichi, haven’t you specified to me that the so-called Arcane Scarlet Shades were your best combatants? Then could you please explain what has just occurred?"

"I...er...Master…. it’s just…they were the begi…"

"Never mind your witless excuses, Keiichi. I suppose you'd better take your time trying to figure out how to train your black ops to face these vulgar humans. Nevertheless, I think it's my opportunity to see the potential of the current possessors of the star. This will be a great chance to see how well my arrogant father could determine the right to defend his precious treasure.”

Kagu-Tsuchi pushed his newly assigned assistant with his palm while extinguishing the ravaging flames to prevent them from harming Keiichi.

Kagu-Tsuchi walked up to our revived Hattoris while deliberately stepping on the bodies of the dead black ops Scarletshades, setting a few of them on fire. Keiichi watched his dead crew burn helplessly, unable to prevent the acts of his new master.

As Kagu-Tsuchi was walking towards them, Miyuki quickly took precautions and created a distance to effectively prevent any further harm to the Teen Ninjas. Following his mother's advice, Kento assisted Yamazaki, who had suffered from severe burn wounds and blisters to back off from the arena.

"Your father never wished for your arrival, Kagu-Tsuchi."

Katsuro manipulated his limbs and stood bravely while edging his weapon upon Kagu-Tsuchi. Kagu-Tsuchi kept on moving forward until Miyuki positioned herself to fight right beside her husband.

"My father is non-existent. He might have formed this exotic piece of land, but that doesn’t mean he has no right over it! I will bring destruction upon everything that Izanagi formed after betraying my mother and my siblings. Only then, I shall finally bring back peace. And the first step of mine will be to take out you two, the protectees of the Star of Izanagi."

"We will not let our clan perish. Izanagi entrusted us descendants to protect this country and make it prosper. You are just trying to destroy the prestigious family tree that your parents and your siblings, Tsukuyomi, Susanno and Amaterasu grew over so many years!" Miyuki replied with a raised tone in her voice, enough to anger the already enraged Kami.

"Silence! They are not my siblings. My true siblings were supposed to be Hiruko and Awashima! I shall not only slaughter you vulgar Hattoris, but I shall put an end to the family tree of your silly monarchs."

Overreacted by the current situation, Kagu-Tsuchi unfolded his true self for the first time, after the legendary battle with his own father centuries ago. With the thrill of hunting his parents' descendants, Kagu-Tsuchi unpacked his godly powers to forge his fiery blade. Simultaneously, the flames prowling on his body commenced to spread throughout his limbs, leaving only his chest untouched but heated up. Kagu-Tsuchi was illuminating the entire scene like a blazing piece of metal, ready to be struck upon the living to entangle them as prey.

Katsuro and Miyuki, anxiety tweaking their minds, began perspiring, worsened by the waves of heat. Kento, who had been worried about the entire condition yelled to alert his caretakers about the possible showing up of inevitable threats.

"Mother, Father! Please don't fight him! He is a god!"

Katsuro turned his head towards his son, replying with words enriched with courage to melt the fears of Kento.

"Kento, we cannot let an evil this destructive tread in this dimension. We are the ones who are responsible for all this mess. And We should be the ones who must rectify his predicament."

"No please you can't do this!"

At that moment Kumiko grabbed hold of Kento's hand as he was almost about to rush towards his parents who were about to face the wrath of a revived Kami. She didn’t attempt to show her reluctance through her voice, instead, she utilised her gestures and facial expressions to stop Kento from running into even more danger.

Katsuro and Miyuki readied themselves to face the fiery evil that had been caused due to their failures. To be honest, they had no clue of what they were about to face as they had only visualised the hazards through the rumours that had been passed through the clan. Kento on the other hand could forecast the power of Kagu-Tsuchi after seeing how his destructive forces damaged his comrade's life to a considerable extent.

"Mom, Dad…. Please be safe!"

He prayed.

Kagu-Tsuchi attempted to warn his opponents one last time before relaunching his set of skills.

"You mortals, I shall ask you one more time. When will you ever stop fighting?"

Kagu-Tsuchi started to repent his imploring, as he was pushed from grace by Katsuro's majestic sentences.

"We will never walk back until your evil is settled."

Following Katsuro's orders, Miyuki raised her weapon, ready to battle against the razing fire god.

The battle was yet to start. It was a moment of truth for the Teen Ninjas. This moment would judge the value of their strives that had cost them a lot of blood. Kento and Kumiko along with Hinako and Kyuzo were relentlessly spectating the entire scene without letting their eyes flicker even once. They forgot the burning pain, along with the severity of their injuries.

But all of a sudden, Keiichi made an announcement, which then marked the commencement of a legendary battle.

"This...is gonna get real ugly, real soon."