Happy Sunday--the day of our Lord--to all! First I'd like to thank my faithful editor for smoothing out the rough edges of this chapter and making it fit for reading. Thanks Chakra Wizard. Now to the chap. This chap is pretty good. The ending, I think, is quite interesting. Enjoy!
The two giants were face to face, Akakuma’s entire frame quivering with rage, his breath heavy with anger as his earthen foe stood motionless in front of him. Atop the colossal statue, Sato weaved a few hand signs and placed his hand on Hoji's back, sending a complex web of indecipherable kanji across the medical-nin’s body. The Titan, too, was quickly enwrapped in this enormous seal, forming concentric circles along the length of its four arms, which continued down its torso to its submerged feet as their teammates watched with confusion. Noticing this, Hoji began to explain the technique to them.
“The Titan is an ancient Senju technique which my mother was researching before she died. It precedes even the First Hokage, and was the primary means by which the clan fought Bijuu before he came along with his Mokuton. It used to be that whenever they came across one of the nine beasts, a team of Senju would attempt to subdue it using several Titans at once. However, they were never able to control the Bijuu they managed to capture, which is why Mokuton was deemed more fit for subduing them than the Titans.”
“So, this has the power to take on a Bijuu?” asked Himura, shock and skepticism written all over his face.
“Well, yes and no. The true titan is actually much bigger than this. I'm afraid I haven’t mastered it completely yet. And as I said, it required multiple Titans to actually bring down a Bijuu, so just this one would pose little threat.” replied the medical-nin.
“So, where does Sato come into this? What role does he play?” inquired Shiko.
“The Titan is a two-man technique.” The Hyūga spoke up. “One man coordinates the movements and attacks of the giant itself, while the other is in charge of the Titan’s trump card technique.”
“Which is?” asked Itachi.
“You’ll see!” replied Hoji ecstatically. “Now let’s go!”
In response to his battlecry, the four-armed humanoid lunged towards Akakuma, lifting one of its fists and driving it against his face. The offending arm was caught at the wrist by Akakuma’s right, and the Red Devil retaliated by sending his left elbow plunging into the Titan’s face. The stone giant was able to block it, however, with another one of his appendages, halting Akakuma’s blow. The beast’s arms were now effectively out of commission, meanwhile the Titan still had two more to spare.
In a puff of smoke, a massive hammer appeared in the stone giant's third hand, which it then lifted and brought down upon Akakuma’s jaw, sending him reeling. The two arms which the Titan had been using to restrain Akakuma’s own were now free from these constraints, and so all four quickly began raining blow after blow on the beast—three of them employing their fists while the last made use of the metal hammer. After a few minutes of this, Akakuma was laid out across the shallow waters of the Aoran Creek, and the Titan leapt to the sky to attack once again as the moon shined in the background, giving its ascent a more ominous feel. In three more clouds of smoke, three more massive weapons appeared in the Titan's remaining hands, one a metal war fan, another an axe, and the last a giant steel sword.
The earth shook and the waters raged as all four weapons crashed against Akakuma’s body, which was left broken and bleeding in the aftermath of the devastating attack. All four limbs pointed their weapons towards the moon overhead before bringing them down ruthlessly upon the beast once again. And so the violent act repeated itself over and over, like the beating of a drum whose thunderous notes seemed to announce Akakuma’s imminent doom. After nearly ten minutes of this barrage, the Titan relented, and Akakuma laid there motionless, partially submerged within a large crater crafted by the force of the assault. The four weapons then vanished into thin air as abruptly as they had appeared, and the Titan crouched down and placed all four of its arms on the beast’s chest.
“Now, for my turn.” announced Sato. “Chakra Extraction Seal!”
Hoji and Sato grinned in excitement as Akakuma’s body slowly began to shrink right before their teammates' eyes, while that of the Titan slowly increased in size.
“This is how the Titan defeats Bijuu. It extracts chakra from the beast and then turns it into his own.” explained Sato. “The more chakra the Titan eats, the bigger it grows.”
As he explained this, Itachi watched with his Sharingan as Akakuma’s chakra flowed from his body and up into the four stone arms of the Titan, like water through a pipe.
“So, you guys have been hiding a technique this powerful all this time, huh?” said Shiko, patting Sato on the back.
“Well, we’ve never really found the right occasion to use it until now.” explained Hoji.
“Now it’s just a matter of time before Akakuma’s power is drained. Then, this battle will finally be over.” said Himura with a sharp exhale. It seemed their mission was at its end, and now the team could finally rest easy.
But he had spoken too soon.
Out of nowhere, thousands upon thousands of small darts began firing from Akakuma’s shrinking frame, painting the night sky with their black streaks before falling like rain upon the forest and water below. Himura quickly clasped his hands together in the Tiger seal, spewing a sea of flames from between his curled lips to create a fiery shield for his team, who was watching this in bewilderment. The flames deflected the darts falling directly over them, but the rest of the battlefield was still riddled with these dark needles, piercing the trees from every angle and covering the river with innumerable ripples. Even the Titan itself was not spared from their assault.
Suddenly, the air was filled with loud thuds and snaps as the branches of every tree around them began snapping off uselessly, the trees themselves shriveling up and falling to the ground shortly after, dead. Sato immediately investigated with his Byakugan, finding what appeared to him like a wave of death sweeping through the entire forest, like a plague of some sort, killing everything in it. Within a few seconds, the luscious Aoran forest was reduced to a sea of dead wood.
As this happened, new life suddenly began surging into Akakuma’s body and his chakra levels multiplied exponentially, something Sato’s Byakugan and Itachi’s Sharingan quickly picked up on. The beast's body continued to shrink, though not into a meager sack of muscle and bone as the group expected, but rather a small concentration of incomprehensible power. Before long, the demon was back to his original size, but as he rose to his feet and looked up at the ANBU team, whose members were still perched atop the Titan, the hellish glare in his yellow eyes and wicked grin stretched across his face informed them that he was now stronger than he had ever been before.
Akakuma, now at his usual height of ten feet, had become so small that he was dwarfed even by the massive hands of the Titan, which had grown to a whopping one hundred feet after feasting on the beast’s chakra. Rearing on his feet, the monster of Aoran launched himself into the air at a speed which Sato’s Byakugan could not even register, Itachi’s Sharingan catching only a fleeting glimpse. Ripping through the Titan like it was nothing, the stone giant was left with an enormous hole in its massive chest, causing it to stagger backwards. The jaws of the shinobi dropped in shock as Akakuma landed violently several yards behind the Titan.
“What the hell just happened!?” Tenzo shrieked.
“Akakuma just drained the life out of everything in the forest and converted it to chakra! His chakra levels are at least seven times higher than what they were before!” replied Sato, whose disbelief was paralleled only by Hoji’s.
“So he just fired those strange darts around the forest and used them as parasites!?” added Shiko.
“Exactly!” assented Sato.
Akakuma turned towards the Titan, surging chakra through his hair and launching it towards the giant like a vast torrent of thin, black vines. Moving too fast for the Titan to even consider dodging, the stone monument was quickly encapsulated by the lengthened tresses, and with a roar deeper and more unnerving than any howl that had ever left the Red Devil’s throat before, the beast commanded them to tighten their hold, completely shattering the statue in an instant.
As the stone fragments of what was once Hoji’s trump card fell to the water and muddy shores below, the shinobi previously standing atop it dropped, as well, landing gracefully on the ground as Akakuma’s hair returned to its original length. Hoji and Sato were panting severely, the former a great deal more than the latter, as all of their chakra had been expended in erecting the giant figure which Akakuma had just reduced to dust and rubble. Shiko, Himura, Tenzo, and Itachi positioned themselves protectively in front of the weakened duo, while Akakuma stood just about fifteen meters in front of them in the murky waters of the shoreline. The chakra pouring out of his monstrous frame was so potent that it set his hair aquiver, sending it swaying and billowing wildly behind him, and the water at his feet danced violently.
“Is…is there no hope?!” Hoji panted, pure terror gleaming in his eyes. The medical-nin was bent over, resting his hands on his knees to keep himself afoot.
“We could barely cut or hold him before. Now that he’s this powerful, I don’t think there’s anything we can do to stop him. I guess his trump card was just better than ours...” declared Himura grimly, his words echoing the utter despair which had sunken his heart.
It was a crushing despair which had taken hold of all of them, such that they didn’t even bother to raise their guard in anticipation of Akakuma’s attack. They couldn’t do anything to defend against it, anyway. They were much too spent for that. Shiko’s brain had analyzed, schemed, and reasoned, but his brilliant mind could not fathom a way out and the team captain admitted defeat in silence. Sato’s body grew as pale as the Byakugan in his sockets; he seemed to already be dying before Akakuma had the chance to finish them off. Hoji, too, appeared to be standing, or rather stooping—for by now he had sunken to his knees in fatigue—at death’s door, waiting to receive a violent, but perhaps swift end, so that he may join his parents in the land of the departed. Tenzo, on the other hand, seemed as serene and collected as ever, but it was merely a quiet acceptance of what was sure to come which permitted him to keep this composure.
At lastly, Itachi, the youngest among them, a gifted boy whose bright star was never to shine, but was to be plunged into crushing darkness by the merciless hand of this dreadful monster. In this moment, he calmly contemplated the end, as well as everything around him. He understood what it meant physically for breath and life to cease and the pallor of death to come upon a person like a sudden illness—he had seen corpses before in the last Shinobi World War. The vacant stares in their unseeing eyes and the violent wounds that had rent soul from body, that was an image that was forever burned into his eyes, into his mind, and into the deepest part of his heart. Like they did, he was about to give his life is service to Konoha. Like them, he was about to die.
But could he afford to? Bitterest regret swelled in his heart. He did not despair for himself, for he had long since abandoned life and interests to do whatever would bring peace to the world, but instead he mourned for Sasuke. With him gone, who would stand as the sole mediator between Uchiha and Konoha, who would forge the path for a happier and brighter future for the young boy!? Who would avert the looming threat of war!? It was he that was destined to do it! It was his duty and his purpose to drive away those dark clouds! How could he claim to have had any devotion to his brother if he abandoned him to the cruelty of war and death!? How could Sasuke’s innocent eyes weep over his grave and over the graves of the countless others that will be massacred if the Shinobi World is allowed to be ravaged by hostility!? Shisui could not have died for nothing! No! A thousand times no! A million times even!
A courage, an inexplicable determination burned with fervent heat in his heart. Taking a few steps forward so that he had his back to the rest of the squad, he lifted his dejected head and faced Akakuma. But there was no anguish in his eyes, instead there was a doggedness, a determination, a will. Also, there was no Sharingan in those pupils, but the three circular tomoe united into a single structure which appeared like a fūma shuriken with three curved blades; an awakening of the immense power that had lain dormant in him since Shisui’s death, an ultimate trump card, a brand new dōjutsu! Standing in front of him, Akakuma’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden and total change in Itachi’s. Behind him, every other member of the team stared blankly at his back and they marveled at his bravery.
Dauntlessly, Itachi charged at Akakuma and Akakuma launched towards him, as well. Itachi’s clothes flapped freely in the wind, and both his and Akakuma’s lengthy tresses danced with reckless abandonment as they went forward. The young Uchiha drew no weapon as the distance shortened between him and his foe. In a moment they were close enough to strike each other and Akakuma threw the first punch. It took all the clarity, perception and precognition of Itachi’s dōjutsu—as well as every vestige of speed and strength he could muster—to evade that lightning strike, and after Itachi shifted his head to the right in order to dodge, he shot both arms forward and grasped the sides of Akakuma’s head, then pulled his face closer to his own, forcing their eyes to meet.
To Be Continued.
The two giants were face to face, Akakuma’s entire frame quivering with rage, his breath heavy with anger as his earthen foe stood motionless in front of him. Atop the colossal statue, Sato weaved a few hand signs and placed his hand on Hoji's back, sending a complex web of indecipherable kanji across the medical-nin’s body. The Titan, too, was quickly enwrapped in this enormous seal, forming concentric circles along the length of its four arms, which continued down its torso to its submerged feet as their teammates watched with confusion. Noticing this, Hoji began to explain the technique to them.
“The Titan is an ancient Senju technique which my mother was researching before she died. It precedes even the First Hokage, and was the primary means by which the clan fought Bijuu before he came along with his Mokuton. It used to be that whenever they came across one of the nine beasts, a team of Senju would attempt to subdue it using several Titans at once. However, they were never able to control the Bijuu they managed to capture, which is why Mokuton was deemed more fit for subduing them than the Titans.”
“So, this has the power to take on a Bijuu?” asked Himura, shock and skepticism written all over his face.
“Well, yes and no. The true titan is actually much bigger than this. I'm afraid I haven’t mastered it completely yet. And as I said, it required multiple Titans to actually bring down a Bijuu, so just this one would pose little threat.” replied the medical-nin.
“So, where does Sato come into this? What role does he play?” inquired Shiko.
“The Titan is a two-man technique.” The Hyūga spoke up. “One man coordinates the movements and attacks of the giant itself, while the other is in charge of the Titan’s trump card technique.”
“Which is?” asked Itachi.
“You’ll see!” replied Hoji ecstatically. “Now let’s go!”
In response to his battlecry, the four-armed humanoid lunged towards Akakuma, lifting one of its fists and driving it against his face. The offending arm was caught at the wrist by Akakuma’s right, and the Red Devil retaliated by sending his left elbow plunging into the Titan’s face. The stone giant was able to block it, however, with another one of his appendages, halting Akakuma’s blow. The beast’s arms were now effectively out of commission, meanwhile the Titan still had two more to spare.
In a puff of smoke, a massive hammer appeared in the stone giant's third hand, which it then lifted and brought down upon Akakuma’s jaw, sending him reeling. The two arms which the Titan had been using to restrain Akakuma’s own were now free from these constraints, and so all four quickly began raining blow after blow on the beast—three of them employing their fists while the last made use of the metal hammer. After a few minutes of this, Akakuma was laid out across the shallow waters of the Aoran Creek, and the Titan leapt to the sky to attack once again as the moon shined in the background, giving its ascent a more ominous feel. In three more clouds of smoke, three more massive weapons appeared in the Titan's remaining hands, one a metal war fan, another an axe, and the last a giant steel sword.
The earth shook and the waters raged as all four weapons crashed against Akakuma’s body, which was left broken and bleeding in the aftermath of the devastating attack. All four limbs pointed their weapons towards the moon overhead before bringing them down ruthlessly upon the beast once again. And so the violent act repeated itself over and over, like the beating of a drum whose thunderous notes seemed to announce Akakuma’s imminent doom. After nearly ten minutes of this barrage, the Titan relented, and Akakuma laid there motionless, partially submerged within a large crater crafted by the force of the assault. The four weapons then vanished into thin air as abruptly as they had appeared, and the Titan crouched down and placed all four of its arms on the beast’s chest.
“Now, for my turn.” announced Sato. “Chakra Extraction Seal!”
Hoji and Sato grinned in excitement as Akakuma’s body slowly began to shrink right before their teammates' eyes, while that of the Titan slowly increased in size.
“This is how the Titan defeats Bijuu. It extracts chakra from the beast and then turns it into his own.” explained Sato. “The more chakra the Titan eats, the bigger it grows.”
As he explained this, Itachi watched with his Sharingan as Akakuma’s chakra flowed from his body and up into the four stone arms of the Titan, like water through a pipe.
“So, you guys have been hiding a technique this powerful all this time, huh?” said Shiko, patting Sato on the back.
“Well, we’ve never really found the right occasion to use it until now.” explained Hoji.
“Now it’s just a matter of time before Akakuma’s power is drained. Then, this battle will finally be over.” said Himura with a sharp exhale. It seemed their mission was at its end, and now the team could finally rest easy.
But he had spoken too soon.
Out of nowhere, thousands upon thousands of small darts began firing from Akakuma’s shrinking frame, painting the night sky with their black streaks before falling like rain upon the forest and water below. Himura quickly clasped his hands together in the Tiger seal, spewing a sea of flames from between his curled lips to create a fiery shield for his team, who was watching this in bewilderment. The flames deflected the darts falling directly over them, but the rest of the battlefield was still riddled with these dark needles, piercing the trees from every angle and covering the river with innumerable ripples. Even the Titan itself was not spared from their assault.
Suddenly, the air was filled with loud thuds and snaps as the branches of every tree around them began snapping off uselessly, the trees themselves shriveling up and falling to the ground shortly after, dead. Sato immediately investigated with his Byakugan, finding what appeared to him like a wave of death sweeping through the entire forest, like a plague of some sort, killing everything in it. Within a few seconds, the luscious Aoran forest was reduced to a sea of dead wood.
As this happened, new life suddenly began surging into Akakuma’s body and his chakra levels multiplied exponentially, something Sato’s Byakugan and Itachi’s Sharingan quickly picked up on. The beast's body continued to shrink, though not into a meager sack of muscle and bone as the group expected, but rather a small concentration of incomprehensible power. Before long, the demon was back to his original size, but as he rose to his feet and looked up at the ANBU team, whose members were still perched atop the Titan, the hellish glare in his yellow eyes and wicked grin stretched across his face informed them that he was now stronger than he had ever been before.
Akakuma, now at his usual height of ten feet, had become so small that he was dwarfed even by the massive hands of the Titan, which had grown to a whopping one hundred feet after feasting on the beast’s chakra. Rearing on his feet, the monster of Aoran launched himself into the air at a speed which Sato’s Byakugan could not even register, Itachi’s Sharingan catching only a fleeting glimpse. Ripping through the Titan like it was nothing, the stone giant was left with an enormous hole in its massive chest, causing it to stagger backwards. The jaws of the shinobi dropped in shock as Akakuma landed violently several yards behind the Titan.
“What the hell just happened!?” Tenzo shrieked.
“Akakuma just drained the life out of everything in the forest and converted it to chakra! His chakra levels are at least seven times higher than what they were before!” replied Sato, whose disbelief was paralleled only by Hoji’s.
“So he just fired those strange darts around the forest and used them as parasites!?” added Shiko.
“Exactly!” assented Sato.
Akakuma turned towards the Titan, surging chakra through his hair and launching it towards the giant like a vast torrent of thin, black vines. Moving too fast for the Titan to even consider dodging, the stone monument was quickly encapsulated by the lengthened tresses, and with a roar deeper and more unnerving than any howl that had ever left the Red Devil’s throat before, the beast commanded them to tighten their hold, completely shattering the statue in an instant.
As the stone fragments of what was once Hoji’s trump card fell to the water and muddy shores below, the shinobi previously standing atop it dropped, as well, landing gracefully on the ground as Akakuma’s hair returned to its original length. Hoji and Sato were panting severely, the former a great deal more than the latter, as all of their chakra had been expended in erecting the giant figure which Akakuma had just reduced to dust and rubble. Shiko, Himura, Tenzo, and Itachi positioned themselves protectively in front of the weakened duo, while Akakuma stood just about fifteen meters in front of them in the murky waters of the shoreline. The chakra pouring out of his monstrous frame was so potent that it set his hair aquiver, sending it swaying and billowing wildly behind him, and the water at his feet danced violently.
“Is…is there no hope?!” Hoji panted, pure terror gleaming in his eyes. The medical-nin was bent over, resting his hands on his knees to keep himself afoot.
“We could barely cut or hold him before. Now that he’s this powerful, I don’t think there’s anything we can do to stop him. I guess his trump card was just better than ours...” declared Himura grimly, his words echoing the utter despair which had sunken his heart.
It was a crushing despair which had taken hold of all of them, such that they didn’t even bother to raise their guard in anticipation of Akakuma’s attack. They couldn’t do anything to defend against it, anyway. They were much too spent for that. Shiko’s brain had analyzed, schemed, and reasoned, but his brilliant mind could not fathom a way out and the team captain admitted defeat in silence. Sato’s body grew as pale as the Byakugan in his sockets; he seemed to already be dying before Akakuma had the chance to finish them off. Hoji, too, appeared to be standing, or rather stooping—for by now he had sunken to his knees in fatigue—at death’s door, waiting to receive a violent, but perhaps swift end, so that he may join his parents in the land of the departed. Tenzo, on the other hand, seemed as serene and collected as ever, but it was merely a quiet acceptance of what was sure to come which permitted him to keep this composure.
At lastly, Itachi, the youngest among them, a gifted boy whose bright star was never to shine, but was to be plunged into crushing darkness by the merciless hand of this dreadful monster. In this moment, he calmly contemplated the end, as well as everything around him. He understood what it meant physically for breath and life to cease and the pallor of death to come upon a person like a sudden illness—he had seen corpses before in the last Shinobi World War. The vacant stares in their unseeing eyes and the violent wounds that had rent soul from body, that was an image that was forever burned into his eyes, into his mind, and into the deepest part of his heart. Like they did, he was about to give his life is service to Konoha. Like them, he was about to die.
But could he afford to? Bitterest regret swelled in his heart. He did not despair for himself, for he had long since abandoned life and interests to do whatever would bring peace to the world, but instead he mourned for Sasuke. With him gone, who would stand as the sole mediator between Uchiha and Konoha, who would forge the path for a happier and brighter future for the young boy!? Who would avert the looming threat of war!? It was he that was destined to do it! It was his duty and his purpose to drive away those dark clouds! How could he claim to have had any devotion to his brother if he abandoned him to the cruelty of war and death!? How could Sasuke’s innocent eyes weep over his grave and over the graves of the countless others that will be massacred if the Shinobi World is allowed to be ravaged by hostility!? Shisui could not have died for nothing! No! A thousand times no! A million times even!
A courage, an inexplicable determination burned with fervent heat in his heart. Taking a few steps forward so that he had his back to the rest of the squad, he lifted his dejected head and faced Akakuma. But there was no anguish in his eyes, instead there was a doggedness, a determination, a will. Also, there was no Sharingan in those pupils, but the three circular tomoe united into a single structure which appeared like a fūma shuriken with three curved blades; an awakening of the immense power that had lain dormant in him since Shisui’s death, an ultimate trump card, a brand new dōjutsu! Standing in front of him, Akakuma’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden and total change in Itachi’s. Behind him, every other member of the team stared blankly at his back and they marveled at his bravery.
Dauntlessly, Itachi charged at Akakuma and Akakuma launched towards him, as well. Itachi’s clothes flapped freely in the wind, and both his and Akakuma’s lengthy tresses danced with reckless abandonment as they went forward. The young Uchiha drew no weapon as the distance shortened between him and his foe. In a moment they were close enough to strike each other and Akakuma threw the first punch. It took all the clarity, perception and precognition of Itachi’s dōjutsu—as well as every vestige of speed and strength he could muster—to evade that lightning strike, and after Itachi shifted his head to the right in order to dodge, he shot both arms forward and grasped the sides of Akakuma’s head, then pulled his face closer to his own, forcing their eyes to meet.
To Be Continued.
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