The Sounds of Battle Part 3 – Old Rivals
Ryuu was smiling wildly now, knowing that the real fight had just began with the activation of Argo’s curse mark. Argo was many times the size that Ryuu was now; he could probably climb out of the canyon by just reaching up and pulling himself at this point. He was a force to be reckoned with, now, and Ryuu felt that he might even be able to get a little serious in the fight.
Both swords in hand, Ryuu rushed in towards Argo, as the giant brute did the same. It was quite an odd sight, a man who was about six feet tall running towards a beast who was around forty or so meters tall. When they neared each other, Argo clasped both hands together and then slammed them down onto Ryuu, who simply increased the speed at which he sprinted forward, scarcely dodging the hands coming down on him, and now running straight under Argo.
Ryuu kept on running, and then jumped forward, now fully behind Argo, and then spun around, throwing his blade towards Argo’s back.
How the brute screamed!
That confirmed it, Ryuu thought to himself. He didn’t want to automatically assume that Argo’s speed was lowered drastically and then risk doing a move that would cost him greatly, but with that simple move that should have been easily dodged, he was completely sure that Argo had barely any of the speed that he had before, and even then the fiend had been far slower than Ryuu.
Argo reached over his shoulder, howling as he grasped frantically for the blade plunged in his back, unable to reach it. Quickly, Ryuu landed and then jumped forward again, jumping right over Argo’s broad shoulder, making a quick vertical slash with his sword to cut the beasts shoulder as he did. As he was jumping though, at this point he was right in front of his opponent, Argo’s arm snapped out, grasping him.
He yanked his arm back in then, an iron grip holding Ryuu with one hand. Argo pulled him in close, right in front of his face, laughing as he did so, a heavy laugh and as he did it, his shoulders moving up and down. He tightened his grip, slowly squeezing the life out of Ryuu. Ryuu struggled for a while, trying to get out of the grip, but then suddenly, he stopped struggling and stared at Argo, becoming very calm
Oh so very calm.
Within a second, no, not even that, blades shot out from within Ryuu. Literally right from within his skin, cold, steel blades burst out from all over, his arms, body, legs, everywhere, stabbing through Argo’s hand, making him release his victim and stumble back quite a bit.
Reaver and the leader of Akatsuki watched with wide smiles, as Kabuto, May, and Argo all looked astonished, staring at Ryuu as he landed back on the ground, standing there hunched over as the blades slowly began to recede back into his body.
“What sort of jutsu…?” Argo started in an intensely slurred speech, but quickly stopped as Ryuu stood back up casually, looking back at his opponent with an apathetic stare.
“No… no jutsu. You didn’t expect any member of Akatsuki to be normal, did you?” Ryuu asked.
The two were still staring at each other, and Reaver turned erratically towards his leader, “When did he learn that!?”
The leader of Akatsuki gave a slight laugh, “His entire life. When I met with Ryuu, at this time he had only been in his late teens, he was an outcast of his village. Ryuu is far more than one of the, if not the, ultimate weapon masters, he is a weapon himself. No one knows, exactly, how he had been born like this, but for some reason, he’s capable of releasing steel from within his body, in any form he wants. Many of you have jokingly speculated that Ryuu has an endless supply of weapons under his cloak, well, there’s far more truth to that then one would imagine. At the ripe age of five he began using weapons, at six he discovered this ability of his, and at seven, when he had a fit, as most young children did, but Ryuu was known to be… easily enraged, and in the midst of this tantrum, his entire small village was laid to waste, naught a single survivor other than himself. Since then, he had attempted to live quietly in some other villages, specifically the Hidden Mist Village, where he figured that he would fit in perfectly amongst those savages, and while searching for members of Akatsuki, I knew that he would be perfect. Ryuu knew well that he would not be capable of fitting in anywhere, and so I offered him a place where he would be amongst other… ahem… outcasts,” he chuckled slightly yet again at the last part.
Reaver raised an eyebrow at the word ‘outcasts,’ “That supposed to be funny?” And with that, the second Akatsuki leader laughed again, without answering.
As his leader gave the background story, Blades suddenly extended out of several areas around Ryuu. Each of his arms had at least ten long blades covering them, poking up at several areas, while each hand held a giant axe. At each of his knees, sharp, short, dagger-like blades came out, and all over his body, as they did before, countless, small, scimitars extended out of him.
“Well, since the secret is out,” Ryuu said, and then went on in a frank tone, “I guess that there’s no reason to hold back. This last strike… will end your life.”
They stood off for a moment, two freaks of nature, watching each other. Ryuu covered in blades from head to toe, Argo… well… simply a disfigured brute. Argo rushed in, and Ryuu stayed standing, watching him sternly, his smug smile now replaced by a glare determined to end everything with this. Argo kept running, speeding up as he went, going quickly, each step bringing him meters closer to his opponent.
And suddenly Ryuu disappeared.
Ryuu reappeared behind his back, standing, all of the blades now disappeared, standing and looking like the same simple swordsman that he had before, though his robe was now covered in holes, “Reaver!” he called to his partner, “It’s your turn.”
No one understood what Ryuu was saying at first, Argo was still standing, his eyes open with the same sour expression he held for the entire fight. He was moving, turning his upper body around with his fist clenched to try and squash Ryuu where he stood.
Argo froze in place.
Suddenly, a collage of cuts and slashes appeared all over his body, covering him.
Gradually, blood gushed out from every cut.
Slowly, he fell to his knees… and then face down on the floor.
Argo was dead, before he even hit the ground.
They say that all of the members of Akatsuki were born straight from some sort of evil and vile god. That all of the members, in truth, have the same origins, coming from the god of war himself, descending down to the earth to wreak havoc and give the world a taste of what is true fear. They are without passion, without apathy, without emotion of any kind. All of them are, in truth, hollow shells, without a trace of mortality. An all-powerful group, each of them destined for great power; each of them destined to spread fear.
Ryuu the Weapons Master gives testament to that tenfold.
~
Sora stared at Riku for what could have been hours, clenching his sword tight enough to nearly break it, his teeth clenched together so tight that it was difficult to open his mouth. Riku stilled watched him with a slight grin.
Sora lashed out suddenly, his arm throwing back as he yelled at Riku, “What’s with you!? Are you even thinking!? About ANYTHING!? Why would you join with them!?”
Riku’s smile went away slowly, replaced by something that was between a blank stare and a slight frown, “Because it’s the winning side, it’s the only chance that I have at…” Riku’s voice trailed off in thought.
“At what!? See? You don’t even know yourself! They’re offering you nothing that you didn’t already have on our side!” Sora screamed back.
“Akatsuki and Konoha are allied for now, right?” Riku said, looking away, “So shouldn’t we be moving on.”
“That’s not the point! They’re still evil,” Sora said, attempting to calm down at the last part.
Riku began walking, going right past him and down the valley, “If you’re just going to keep yelling, then both of our time will be wasted, time that could be better spent getting back to the war.”
Sora watched him walk for a while, and then said slowly, “No…”
“Pardon?” Riku asked, stopping and turning his head to the side to regard his temporary ally, or temporary aggressor, depending on how things went from here.
“You’re not going back with them, you’re coming to the Leaf Village,” Sora explained, gripping Fenrir even more tightly.
Riku laughed aloud at that, “And I suppose that you’re going to make me?”
“That’s right,” he replied.
“Heh… I suppose that Hokage of yours won’t mind too much if only one of his ninja goes… missing,” Riku said, turning and bringing up Soul Eater in a casual fighting position, bringing his hand cocked back just behind his head, with the sword pointing straight towards Sora, and his free hand held outwards, palm pointing to the sky, his fingers moving in a slight beckoning motion, “Come on.”
~
Reaver wasted no time getting straight to battle, as the second that Argo fell, before Ryuu could even go over to his position, he was already running frantically, leaning heavily to his right side so that his clawed arm scrapped on the ground, and as he neared Argo’s dead body (apparently his body wasn’t going to shrink after death, or at least not so soon), he took a great leap, allowing him to land on the giant man’s stomach.
“I was hoping to get in at least few dozen kills today. I kind of have this bet with Tenzu and I’m sure he’s gotten quite a few by now, but I guess I’ll have to settle for just you,” Reaver went on rambling, as May stared at him carefully. He was a quite odd site, with the completely, dark as night, blackened skin, either painted or from some sort of mistake, with white lining around his eyes and mouth.
As he talked, May disappeared in what seemed to be a small whirlwind. Reaver stopped talking suddenly, and let out a slight, confused sound. A single, black petal fell down from the sky. Slowly, gracefully, falling from the sky, and then gently landing on the ground without even the slightest of sounds. None of them saw the small, unnoticeable petal as it fell gently behind a baffled Reaver.
In a moment, the petal disintegrated, and in its place, standing behind Reaver with a short tanto, was May. Moving forward in a quick flash, she immediately went for a quick slash towards Reaver’s neck. However, the moment that she appeared, Reaver could almost sense her presence, quickly turning around, and putting his claws up so that when he finished turning, the outer part of his claws blocked her strike.
“Going straight for the neck, eh?” Reaver asked, face-to-face with May now, “I like that.”
She quickly retracted her short sword, and then stabbed it back in for a quick strike. Reaver quickly hopped back, and then rushed back in, moving slightly to the side; going around her sword and coming at her left side, thrusting forward his clawed hand for a quick stab toward her torso. May jumped to the side opposite of which Reaver was coming from, turning in mid-air and swiping her tanto across again, going for a horizontal strike a moment before she was too far to hit him for what would have been a scrape on his outstretched arm, but Reaver used the one foot of his that was still planted on the ground to pivot so that he was, yet again, facing towards her, and jump back in one smooth move.
May dropped the tanto to the floor, clanging on the ground, and then put her hands together in one hand seal, saying aloud, “Wind Style: Underworld’s Gust!”
Nothing happened for a moment, and then quickly, within a second, a giant blast of wind shot from under Reaver. The blast pushed him up into the sky, and, surprisingly to everyone considering that none thought that the first hit would come until much later, cut him up badly as he went into the air. Another gust of wind shot up from under May, blasting her, long, dark hair up into the sky as she went upward. The blast shot from under her, though, was much less violent, only shooting her up into the sky, giving her the same amount of leverage that Reaver, who was now regaining composure, had.
She stared at him for a while up in the sky, and then, suddenly, as she was about to make another seal to attack him in mid-air, he disappeared in what seemed to be a bunch of black wisps. He didn’t reappear, but the dark mist did, swirling around May. Suddenly, she could feel her breath going away, as if the mist was stealing the very life out of her, she tried to take in air but there was only the cloud of thick mist, swirling around her, killing her from within.
Struggling as she came back toward the ground, she managed to make a single hand seal, and a burst of wind shot out from all around her, blasting the mist away. It went outwards around her, and then all of it moved towards the ground on its own accord converging on the ground right under her, and slowly, Reaver appeared again, the mist converging in the form of a human body and then seeming to take his appearance.
He flashed a vicious smile toward her, and then crouched and jumped forward in a moment, flying up towards her with incredible speed, his clawed arm cocked back, ready to bring it forward when he reached her in a vigorous stab.
May suddenly put her arm forward, a gust of wind blasting out of her sleeve, with dozens of black leaves in the midst of it. Reaver was hit dead on with the blast, knocked down to the ground, and then rolling, as all of the petals fell. In a split second, where all of the petals were, all of them having landed in a circular form, May seemingly teleported to their location, standing on top of all of them.
Reaver rolled back several times before managing to catch himself, planting his feet on the side of the canyon’s wall just before he slammed into it, and then launching himself off of the side of the wall, right as May teleported, he went straight for her attempting to stab at her again, but this time, she simply turned her body slightly to avoid him, Reaver having to stab his claws into the ground, and then use them to flip over, in order to stop himself from slamming into the wall on the other side.
It was quite odd, but May actually seemed to be winning, Kabuto observed. Kabuto had always thought that Argo was better than May, and he knew how high in regard Reaver was held in Akatsuki, though never had he seen the man fight. Reaver couldn’t be weak though, he was, probably, the most sadistic and violent person in the entire organization, he was always looking to battle, always ready to fight, he had to be one of the strongest members in the group, his sheer composure told that much. But here he was, so far having been hit fully by two jutsu, and throwing himself all around the field without landing even one attack.
Kabuto stopped paying attention to the fight, figuring that the rest of their forces were probably coming fast. Something suddenly rose up from the wall behind him, coming out of it right next to his chair and only coming halfway out of the ground, only his upper half showing. He was only one half of a whole, his skin as white as bleach, with yellow eyes that seemed to have no pupils.
“Now?” the awkward-looking man said, being sure to come out at an angle that none of the members of Akatsuki could see.
Kabuto thought for a moment, and then shrugged, “Go ahead, be sure to give my best regards to our guests.”
The creature sunk back into the wall, and then moved quickly through it, running through the underground network of plant life.
~
Tenzu stopped sprinting suddenly, feeling a slight rumble in the ground. They had been doing the same thing for the past few hours; he would go up ahead to scout with the rest of them walking at a more casual pace, and him going back to them when he had something to tell them. He had been running for only a few minutes when he felt the rumble, slight at first, and then like an earthquake, seeming to shake the entire world.
He turned around, hearing that it sounded as though it were behind him, but rapidly closing in. When he turned, he could see that something was clearly moving through the ground, rising it up slightly as though the entire earth was moving in a wave towards him. He watched it closely, and then, as it came towards him, quickly jumped up, allowing it to move right under him, and then, in mid-air, turned himself around as he watched it rise up.
A giant crustacean, about as tall as the canyon was deep, began coming up from the ground. First it came up slightly, and then ducked back in, going in a sharp turn when it realized that it passed Tenzu, spinning around and then coming out of the ground. It was a giant crustacean with a shell that was purple on top but on the underbelly, it was a light tan, close enough to white. “Giant” actually, was an understatement for this beast. It wasn’t even out of the ground fully yet, but its final joint, where its head was, was above the gorge’s sides. It let out a loud, piercing screech, and Tenzu was sure that the others could hear it even from their distance.
Suddenly, the creature jumped out of the ground, going high up and then slamming down, jumping like a fish would, going up and then back down into the ocean, or ground in this case. It came slamming down on Tenzu, two giant fangs sticking out of the corners of its mouth, its eyes, seeming like two small, green orbs, locked on the Uchiha. Tenzu rolled forward, just barely dodging it; luckily the crustacean wasn’t as thick as it was tall, albeit still rather thick.
When he completed his roll, he managed to turn the upper half of his body around in his crouched position, while bringing his sword around (his hand, as usually, hidden in his sleeve) to hit the creature, however, the attack harmlessly bounced off of it with a clanging sound, the type that would produce from a metal-on-metal encounter. Tenzu’s sword richotched off of the crustacean’s shell, sending a vibration down his arm and putting him off balance for a moment.
Regaining his composure, Tenzu looked around. Nowhere to be found.
And then, out of nowhere, like an underground geyser, a green fluid blasted out of the ground. Tenzu managed to jump out of the way the second that he noticed the ground begin to crack, and moved quickly. As the acid landed, he noticed that it literally melted through the ground that it fell on, completely rotting through it.
The creature came up out of the newly made hole, spewing more acid out of its mouth. With a chain of jumping and running, Tenzu managed to avoid them, and then landed on the side of the canyon, making hand seals before he even connected, and then shooting out a massive fireball towards the creature. The flames roared, coming toward the thing with amazing speed and vigor, the flames leaping towards in from an angle and engulfing it completely.
Tenzu gave a content smile for a moment, but it quickly faded, as, when the flames receded, the creature was still there, wading in place.
Letting out an annoyed moan, Tenzu began jumped down from the side of the valley. So it seems that fire jutsu won’t suffice, and neither will blades. Tenzu thought to activate his Mangekyou Sharingan, but quickly decided against it, and rushed back in towards the crustacean. A barrage of attacks should do the trick.
After all, no one lasts very long against Tenzu.
~
Riku and Sora were both getting increasingly frustrated. For each move that they made, the other had a counter, and then the other responded with an equally as effect counter to said counter. The battle seemed like it would be endless, and thus far they had both only used their weapons along with taijutsu. Sora was on the offensive now, quickly slashing his blade left and right, up and down, but to no avail as Riku danced around the wildly swinging weapon.
The assault went on to make about twenty swings in complete succession, all of them doing absolutely nothing, before Riku finally, as opposed to dodging, parried Sora’s final attack, sending Fenrir outwards, and then brought Soul Eater in for several rapid stabs. Sora managed to jump back at the very first stab, rendering all of the following ones useless, and at that point, he quickly slashed the ground with Fenrir in such a way that it dug horizontally into the ground right in front of him. When he did, a row of spikes came out at Riku from his left side, protruding out of the ground suddenly and going straight for him.
Pushing off of his left leg, Riku managed to jump away from it at the last minute, and while in mid-air, made a single hand seal. Suddenly, a mass of water appeared right in front of him, and from that mass, dense needles shot out of it. In response, Sora made one seal at the same time, and then shot a sudden rush of wind from his mouth.
The mass of water that had been in front of Riku disappeared upon impact with the wind, but Riku was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Sora could feel someone behind him, and a blade pressing on the front of his neck.
“Oh… Sora. When we were only kids, I was always better than you, you don’t think that anything has changed since then, do you?” Riku asked tauntingly.
Without making any hand seals, simply by focusing his chakra, Sora managed to make a large blast of wind go outwards from himself, pushing Riku back, and pushing his sword forward, so that he was at an awkward position, with his arm out forward but the rest of his body pulling backwards. Before his arm pulled back with the rest of his body, Sora quickly grabbed it with both hands, Fenrir disappearing from his grasp, and then flipped Riku over him, slamming him on the ground. Or he would have, had Riku not managed to get his hand out before hitting the ground, planting his hand on the floor and before his arm gave in from the weight spinning on that hand, to turn around halfway and kick his opponent’s shin.
Sora simply jumped up with that, landing a distance away from Riku, “I guess we’ll find that out.”
Riku tilted his head slightly to the side, and then smiled, they were too closely matched in taijutsu and kenjutsu, so it looked like gears were about to be switched to a ninjutsu fight, considering that Sora hadn’t even bothered calling back his blade. That in mind, Riku dismissed Soul Eater from his grasp, the blade completely disappearing.
They both watched each other for a long while, standing off; their hands empty as they stared each other down, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
And then, simultaneously, they both went into a chain of seals, both jutsu seeming equally as long as each other.
When done, Riku threw his head back and spewed out what seemed to be a highly concentrated blast of wind, and luckily for Sora, he had chosen to go with a massive fireball. Both jutsu collided, and though Riku focused hard to add enough chakra into the wind to the point where it was practically tangible, the elemental weakness refused to be denied, and the fire gradually increased in size as it overpowered Riku’s wind jutsu.
He held out for only a moment longer, before quickly releasing the wind jutsu and jumping off to the side. The fireball roared forward the second that the opposing technique receding, lurching ahead like a feral beast released from a cage. Riku just barely got past it, and upon landing on the side of the cavern wall, shot out ice shaped like large spears, each one rushing forward at a different angle as he jumped across from wall to the other, going back and forth and shooting out spears as he did, angling each jump so that he was slightly closer to Sora each time.
Sora moved rapidly from left to right to dodge the spears, each one of them stabbing into the ground behind him and then evaporating, but before he could muster a counter, Riku was already directly above him preparing another jutsu.
He shot one arm out, his right arm, and a giant claw of ice, along with an arm that seemed to belong to a demonic creature of some sort, encased Riku’s arm. The claw then extended outward and slammed down on Sora, who just barely dodged it with a roll to the side, forcing it to slam down into the ground, leaving quite a large print. A similar claw encased Riku’s left arm, extending that one out with equal force, slamming down right as Sora completed his roll, forcing him to jump to the side shortly after.
This time he was sure to get another jutsu in, making hand seals as he jumped off to the side and when he landed, sliding sideways as he did, both of his hands shot forward, as fire seemed to shoot out from both of them, rushing up towards Riku, who quickly retracted both claws and put them in front of him, successfully blocking the fire and holding it off. Sora didn’t stop there though, because when the fire dissipated, Riku’s claws still seeming to be intact, his sword appeared in his hand again, but this time, it looked different, yet again switching form. It was back in the Meteora form now, and Sora slammed it powerfully on the ground.
Riku had just been about to land when the ground was suddenly coated thickly in lava where he was to land, like a small pool of lava awaiting him. From that pool of lava, meteors suddenly shot out upwards, shooting towards him at an amazing pace as he went towards the ground, going somewhere in between head first and flat on his stomach at this point.
He had just enough time to dodge as two blue wings shot out of his back, bursting out as he fell, and then quickly maneuvering himself to move in between the meteors, still going rapidly towards the ground, and then swoop upwards at the last minute before hitting the ground.
They both panted in and out for a long while, and then Riku took one last deep breath, and then stopped, “Looks like I’m not so much better than you anymore huh…?” he said sarcastically, and then closed his eyes for a moment, and began speaking again, but there was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before, was it reluctance? Regret? “Sorry Sora, but I don’t have any more time to play around with you, it ends here.”
“Heh…” Sora replied, his sword disappearing from his hand yet again, “The question… is which of us it ends for.”
They each made a single seal, threw their heads back, and began to use their jutsu.
But suddenly, there was an earthquake.
Riku and Sora simultaneously stopped, wide eyed, Riku wasn’t even on the ground and yet he could somehow feel it. A powerful shaking within the earth a tremor. Something was under them.
Something alive.
Something that they were about to see.
Suddenly the shaking stopped; Riku was now coming down from the sky, standing on the ground and staring at, and Sora was doing the same. They both looked towards each other, wide eyed, and then a giant hand reached out from under the ground, right in between them. The arm alone was larger than any creature either of them had ever seen.
And then they heard a loud roar.
Kabuto’s greatest experiment… had found them.
