"Kirin!"
The skies, bruised purple and black from the battle's fury, now churned with an even deeper malice. Clouds writhed like angry serpents, pregnant with thunder that cracked the tense silence, and jagged lightning clawed across the heavens.
"I may lack the strength to shatter your seals," Kakashi's voice cut through the brewing storm, sharp with determination, "but I can shock you back to yourselves." With a swift, precise flick of his wrist, explosions ripped through the air, each followed by a deafening roar that echoed the tempest above.
Below, Son Goku and Gyūki recoiled, alarm flashing in their eyes. "What?!"
Their gazes snapped upward, widening in disbelief as a colossal dragon woven from pure lightning descended upon them. Its immense form blotted out the remaining light, an electrifying silhouette against the storm-wracked sky, briefly illuminating the heavens with its incandescent glow.
BOOM!
The impact was cataclysmic. The lightning dragon detonated, unleashing a shockwave that pulverized the already ravaged landscape. Roiling waves of supercharged water and crackling energy slammed against the shore. Tendrils of lightning snaked outwards, setting the very air ablaze.
"Aaaaaah!" The tormented roars of the tailed beasts ripped through the chaos as Kakashi's Kirin struck, its raw power engulfing them in a blinding, electrifying inferno.
As the echoes faded and the violent energy dissipated, the churning water gradually stilled, and the wind whispered through the ravaged scene. A heavy thud reverberated as the massive forms of the tailed beasts collapsed, their eyes, moments before wild and distorted, now held a flicker of clarity.
"Ugh..." Kakashi grunted, his body protesting with every twitch as he fought to stand. A chilling emptiness spread through him as his chakra reserves dwindled. He forced himself upright, a gasp escaping his lips as he registered the sharp, agonizing pain in his leg – the sickening angle of the break. 'Damn it.'
With a grimace, Kakashi fumbled for a crimson chakra pill, swallowing it quickly. A faint warmth spread through his system, easing some of the superficial wounds, but the brutal reality of his shattered leg remained.
Then suddenly air shifted with a sharp blow…
Kakashi's head snapped towards the sudden rustling in the leaves, his eyes widening in response to the unseen threat.
He reacted instantly, his arms snapping up to block. The force of the unexpected attack slammed into him, driving him backwards with brutal momentum until his spine collided hard against a cluster of trees.
A grunt escaped Kakashi as he pushed himself off the ground, his body aching. 'Of course,' he thought, blinking to clear the blur from his vision. Even through the haze, the attacker's lean, powerful build was unmistakable.
His gaze hardening, Kakashi fixed on the figure before him. "Atsukan. That's your name, right?"
A smirk stretched across Atsukan's face as he shifted his grip on his blade, settling into a fluid stance. "You remembered me, huh? What an honour." He casually wiped a trickle of blood from his forehead, his eyes glinting. "It truly is."
With a burst of blinding speed, Atsukan launched himself forward, the wind whipping in his wake.
But Kakashi had already anticipated the move. With a swift, agile leap, he soared over the assassin's head.
Atsukan's blade sliced through the air where Kakashi had been moments before, instead cleaving through a nearby tree. The initial cut seemed innocuous, but a heartbeat later, hairline fractures spiderwebbed across the bark, and with a series of groaning cracks, a line of trees began to topple.
"You're starting to get on my nerves now, kid," Kakashi said, his voice low and dangerous as he readied two kunai. The crimson of his Sharingan pulsed with power.
"It's only a mission. Don't take it personally," Atsukan retorted, his stance shifting subtly.
'Assassin's build. Anbu, likely, though the uniform… some kind of specialized division. His speed is impressive, but his tactical awareness suggests he's holding back. Rookie mistake. This ends now.'
"That's where you're wrong." Atsukan's eyes widened in surprise as Kakashi's voice echoed directly behind him.
"Black Lightning!"
A crackling buzz filled the air as a blade of pure black electricity erupted from Kakashi's hand, piercing Atsukan through the chest.
"Ah-" Atsukan gasped, blood bubbling from his lips as his knees buckled, his body collapsing forward.
Simultaneously, Kakashi dropped to his knees, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. 'That was draining…'
He stared at his hand, watching the faint sparks of black electricity fade into nothingness. 'That's it. All I had left. Now… I have to get to the front lines.'
Kakashi jolts as Inoichi's mind transmission jutsu connects. "Kakashi, can you hear me? We've been monitoring your battle against the tailed beasts."
"Inoichi, I need medics, stat!" Kakashi replies.
"They're already on their way and nearby. I'm sorry, but we couldn't send the medical ninja or any shinobi to aid you. Rikuto needs reinforcements sooner."
"Rikuto? What is it? I'll help." Kakashi tries to run ahead but falls on his face. 'Damn… I'm still exhausted.'
"Relax, Kakashi, you've done enough. Rikuto can handle himself until backup arrives."
The clash between Rikuto and the Kuroganebi was a cataclysm, a battle of titans that carved fresh scars into the very planet. Lush green forests were reduced to a pulverized wasteland of dust and debris, a testament to the raw power unleashed.
Even after the Raikage's return, Rikuto had fought on, defying every expectation.
Hours earlier, as Kakashi battled the tailed beasts, Ay had reappeared on the battlefield. With a surprise Lariat, he caught Rikuto off guard, sending him hurtling through the air and crashing deep into the forest.
Ay stood tall, his lightning chakra mode crackling around him, one foot planted firmly on a shattered stone. He gazed at the destruction Rikuto's body had wrought and a smirk twisted his lips. "If I can't kill Ryuu Uchiha," he growled, "I might as well take what he's taken from me! And I'll start with you, Rikuto Uzu—"
Boom!
An unforeseen attack sent Ay flying, and his momentum abruptly halted.
Rikuto, now perched on the edge of the same shattered stone, spat blood onto the ground. He ripped away the tattered remains of his jacket and wiped a smear of crimson from his right eye.
'I'll have to use my Mangekyou, it seems,' he thought, his gaze hardening.
As the Raikage began to stir, Rikuto vanished as quickly as he'd appeared, reappearing an instant later with his leg pressed against Ay's neck. A katana gleamed at Ay's chest.
"Tell me how to get rid of this beast," Rikuto demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
Ay scoffed, a sneer twisting his features. "You dare belittle me, boy?!" In a blur of motion, he vanished, reappearing behind Rikuto's afterimage.
Bzz!
As Ay made contact, Rikuto's body dissolved into a burst of crackling lightning—a clone, doing no damage to the Raikage. Ay clenched his fist, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
'Not much information is given about Rikuto Uzumaki,' he mused, a grudging respect forming. 'However, he is most likely one of Konoha's strongest shinobi. If that's the case, I have to make the assumption that he has acquired the Mangekyou Sharingan and is currently using it. That would explain how and why he has caught me off-guard several moments. With that in mind I still don't know how his technique works; he's as much a mystery as his brother.'
"Roooar!!" The sound was a raw, agonizing shriek, tearing through the suffocating stillness of the charred forest. The Kuroganebi wailed, a creature in torment.
Amidst the burnt, twisted trees, Rikuto stood, unwavering, his focus locked on the colossal Kuroganebi. His eyes, sharp with a tactical brilliance, burned with fierce resolve. He clapped his hands, a sharp, decisive sound in the echoing quiet. His chakra erupted, a visible aura shimmering around him. "Let's see you handle this," he challenged, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
A colossal amount of chakra poured from his form. First, a vast, light blue humanoid arm materialized, reaching out like a phantom limb. Then, swiftly, a complete, towering humanoid figure solidified around him. 'Susanoo!' The title echoed in his mind, a testament to the power he was unleashing.
The Susanoo, a spectral titan, gleamed with an internal, pulsating radiance, its samurai-like armour defined by pure energy. It lifted its massive, ethereal hands, and from the churning vortex of chakra between them, a formidable lance began to forge itself, sparking with an untamed, crackling energy.
The creature roared a sound of unbridled aggression, its singular eye narrowing on the emerging Susanoo with a primitive fury. It lunged, beginning its charge. Rikuto's Susanoo mirrored his will, clasping its hands to finalize the chakra lance, then gripping it with titanic strength. The very air around it rippled and distorted, vibrating with the sheer intensity of the concentrated energy.
'The bigger and stronger you get, the more effective my jutsu will be. Even against my brother, I would never use this Susanoo's ability.' The words resonated with a strange, otherworldly quality from within the towering form.
"Now, deal with divine power! Shinsei Gekirin!"
The Susanoo's arm coiled, then unleashed. With a thunderous thrust, it propelled the lance forward, an unstoppable force.
The impact ripped through the earth, tearing up acres of forest floor and casting aside massive chunks of land as mere debris. As the lance screamed through the air, Rikuto performed a swift hand seal, and its velocity multiplied, becoming an imperceptible blur. It was no longer a physical object, but a pure, blinding streak of light, cutting through the atmosphere directly towards the Kuroganebi.
The Kuroganebi swung a massive fist, but the lance's sudden shift in velocity rendered the defence useless, tearing straight through the creature's hand. Boom! The lance struck home with devastating force, plunging deep into the monster's flesh. The earth shuddered, and a raw shockwave blasted outwards. A pained howl ripped from the beast, its colossal form stumbling backwards, clearly reeling from the unexpected, overwhelming assault.
Rikuto's eyes narrowed, unblinking as he observed. He knew his enemy's trick well. 'This lance can adjust its speed at any point,' he thought, 'and it accelerates more against larger targets. Even if this beast starts to adapt, the prolonged disruption from this hit will slow it down significantly.'
Indeed, as the Kuroganebi wrestled with the agony, the flesh around the wound began to visibly toughen and compact—a chilling sign of its rapid, terrifying adaptation to the direct strike.
Rikuto's eyes, previously narrowed in calculation, now curved into a faint, unsettling smirk. The Kuroganebi's rapid healing was evident, its flesh visibly toughening around the wound. But this wasn't a setback; it was precisely what Rikuto had anticipated.
"You heal quickly, don't you?" Rikuto's voice, amplified by the Susanoo's ethereal presence, was calm, almost conversational in its menace. "But the lance wasn't the main attack. The delivery method was."
He raised a hand, and within the spectral palm of the Susanoo, a faint, almost invisible wisp of chakra began to coalesce and shimmer. "The true danger of my Shinsei Gekirin isn't the force of the strike, or even the lance itself." His smirk widened, chilling the already desolate air. "It's the little gift I embedded within it. A chakra-eating parasite."
As he spoke, the faint wisp of chakra in the Susanoo's hand seemed to writhe, taking on a vaguely insect-like form before vanishing.
"It spreads," Rikuto continued, his tone devoid of mercy, "and causes decay. Especially effective against chakra constructs. And your very being, Kuroganebi, is a construct of chakra."
A sudden, deeper tremor ran through the Kuroganebi. Its pained howls intensified, no longer just from the initial impact, but from a new, internal agony. Blackened veins began to spiderweb across its monstrous body, radiating from the lance's entry point. The rapid healing it had just performed seemed to stutter, then regress, as if its life force was being devoured from within. The raw, adaptive power that had just mended its wounds was now its undoing, the parasite feeding on its very essence.
As Rikuto readies his next move, the Kuroganebi, now slightly recovered, lets out a ferocious roar and charges. It's clear the battle is far from over, but Rikuto's unique abilities have given him a crucial edge.
Back near Kumogakure's borders, Yui Uzumaki sits surrounded by a complex eight trigram seal drawn on the floor. She forms hand seals and opens the seal with an enchantment, "Serpent tongue, King of Hell, unleashes these Demons upon the world..." The seal around her begins to glow with red symbols...
It brightens up, holding the brightness for a moment. And then it dimmed.
Rikuto steadies himself for another assault, however, the earth trembles beneath his feet, a warning of the new threat emerging. His eyes are narrow as he senses a surge of chakra that rivals even the first Kuroganebi. From behind a veil of trees and smoke, a second monstrous form looms, emerging into the clearing with a menacing presence. 'Another one?!'
This second Kuroganebi, larger and seemingly more fierce than the first, bears down on the battlefield with a heavy, thunderous gait. Its body crackles with raw, untamed energy, shaping into a swarm of cackling electricity, different from the first in both colour and intensity. This one glows with a darker, more ominous aura.
Rikuto, momentarily taken aback by the arrival of a second beast, quickly recalibrates his strategy. "Two of them now," he mutters, the weight of the situation pressing down on him. He glances briefly at the first Kuroganebi, still reeling from his previous attacks, before focusing his attention on the new threat.
With a determined grit, Rikuto's Susanoo rears up, chakra swirling more intensely around it. "If one lance was enough to slow it down by that much, I could win with more," he decides, channelling his chakra to form not one, but a barrage of Temporal Lances. The air around him crackles with power as the lances take shape, each one thrumming with potential energy. "I'll end this with one move!"
However, unlike the previous, this Kuroganebi does not prepare for a clash with Rikuto's Susanoo. It opens and widens its mouth, and a chilling hum begins to ripple through the air, from a low to a higher tone.
Struck by a jolt of fear, Rikuto hesitates, his attack momentarily stalled. "What is that? It has more?" he wonders, anxiety creeping into his voice. He clenches his fists, determination hardening his resolve. "Still..." With a swift motion, Rikuto unleashes a barrage, a spectacular display of his Susanoo's capabilities. The lances fly toward the second Kuroganebi, their speeds varying unpredictably as Rikuto deftly manipulates their velocities.
The beast responds with a colossal red beam, aimed directly at Rikuto.
The beam and the lances collide, clashing in mid-air with a deafening roar. Beams of light reflect off each other, creating a chaotic symphony of energies. As the beam and the lances reach the peak of their destructive power, a blinding burst of energy erupts, illuminating the sky. The explosion is so immense, it engulfs the land in a searing light, obliterating everything in its wake. The shockwave spreads, decimating all life that remains, leaving nothing but a desolate wasteland in its aftermath.