Naruto: Tales of Ashihara
Prologue – Arc 2: The Daitengu
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Chapter 19 – The Power of Kings II
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Shibata and Ritoru, the yamabushi of Tentoki and Kasha respectively, are standing before the tengu Ryutoki, the Power of Kings, who just took control of Chuji's body. With Tentoki's assistance, Shibata is ready to react despite this unplanned problem. To him, this sudden threat shouldn't make the plan derive too much.
"Get ready." says Shibata to Ritoru, still unsettled by Chuji's weird behavior, but ready to comply.
"I am ready!" he yells as he unleashes his claws.
Shibata makes a simple hand sign and disappears from his ally and opponent's sight. Boosted by Koton, he runs too fast for Ryutoki to see and passes by to kick and send him flying toward Ritoru. When he sees the mind-controlled Chuji flutter toward him, the money-loving mercenary chooses the right moment to flip and hit his chin with his heel, redirecting him up above the trees. He then joins him mid-air to strike a second time in a row, and attempts to scratch his face off.
However, the surprise effect of Shibata's attack wears off and Ryutoki gets his focus back. He uses his hand blades to stop the claws of Ritoru. Countered, the mercenary leans on the air to jump and sneak behind Ryutoki. Once in his back, he tries to cut his nape, but the Power of Kings won't let such a fatal blow happen so easily. As soon as Ritoru leaves his sight, he spins his body around with his arm blades wide open.
Caught off guard at the moment, Ritoru has his chest sliced open by the rotating chakra blades. Fortunately, it didn't cut deep enough, and he just lost a bit of blood. Pushed down to the ground by this strike, he lands on his hands and feet, like a kitten after a fall, and makes a series of hand signs with his palms against the ground to spread his tengu's chakra.
Deiton – Deiteimu
When Ryutoki lands with his feet on the soil in front of Ritoru, the dirt under him turns to mud and begins to swallow him down. Mud hands crawl out of the puddle and up the target's legs to stop his movements and dig him in faster. However, Ryutoki's sheer power can't be stopped that easily. The loose tengu lets his chakra invade Chuji's body and explode outside to provoke a repulsion that bursts the mud arms away and frees him from this trap.
Seeing his opponent surrounded with the thick mud drops lifted by the repulsion, Ritoru makes another hand sign to control them and close them together as a second trap on Ryutoki, who's still standing in the middle. For a moment, the tengu is really deranged by this dirty rain. A moment that Shibata carefully exploits. He comes at a light-upgraded speed to punch Chuji in the face and doesn't stop running there. Already far away from him, he instantly comes back from another direction and hits the target again at the same speed.
"That's good. Keep these large movements to prevent him from grabbing you." says Tentoki in his yamabushi's mind. "And keep changing directions, or else it's pointless."
He keeps coming at super speed, boxing Ryutoki who, despite the unsettlement, pain and Ritoru's efforts, still manages to gradually break out of the new mud trap. Shibata keeps beating him from all directions, and tries to measure how much Chuji's body has been strengthened by the tengu's control. Seeing him about to release himself, Shibata takes a longer run-up and prepares a white lightning bolt that flows down his arm as he runs. When he reaches Ryutoki again, he punches his chest at the same moment when the lightning reaches his hand.
The tengu is shocked by the white energy and is thrown out and away from the mud trap. Shibata stops but still stands ready to resume his run. He and Ritoru stare at Chuji's body to see if he'll get up. Several seconds pass, he stays lying on the ground, until suddenly getting up back on both his feet in an odd movement, not even helped by his hands.
"Still moving? Seriously?" says Ritoru.
"He scares me." simply exclaims Kasha in Ritoru's mind, after being quiet since the fight began.
"You won't be able to take him down as long as the tengu controls the body." suggests Tentoki to Shibata.
"Okay but even after all these punches, he's still passed out and used as a flesh puppet." answers Shibata a bit frustrated by the durability of his opponent. "Is it really possible to wake him up?"
"Keep going, but stronger, faster." advises Tentoki. "No matter how durable he is, he can't follow our movements. Use this to our advantage."
After standing up, Ryutoki didn't move a single finger. He just stays immobile like he's waiting for something. Not taking this in consideration, Shibata follows his tengu's last advice and gets back to his run. He hurries to try and punch him in the face again.
"STEP BACK!" screams Tentoki, before Shibata reaches the target, when he understands what the foe is doing.
Too late. Shibata runs right into Ryutoki and raises his hand. Too close to consider Tentoki's concern, he holds his light covered fingers together and aims to slice through the manipulated criminal's face. But before it reaches, he sees his fingers disappear and feels them fading away. He puts all his strength in his legs to promptly cease running and steps back. Taking a look at his right hand, he sees he couldn't save his four fingers. Silencing the pain and confusion of his nervous system and mind, he looks at his opponent standing still and silent.
"He's finally decided to use his actual powers." says Tentoki. "There's a barrier around him, that's made of Jinton. It will disassemble everything that touches it."
"How do I get past this?" asks Shibata, worrily gazing at his missing fingers.
"You can't. But judging by his behavior, I guess he can't move while holding this jutsu." assumes the celestial light. "Which makes sense since moving will make his body meet the barrier. As long as he's standing still, the barrier's on. When he moves it wears off. The question is how fast does it reappear?"
Ritoru stands up and looks at Shibata and Ryutoki, both not moving. He thinks there must be something he missed. He notices Shibata's severed fingers and blood flowing from the cropped vessels.
"When did this happen to his hand?" he asks his tengu, as he couldn't see Shibata move.
"Don't know, don't care. Get in the action already!" answers Kasha, as excited and childish as always. "We're not safe when we stand still!"
Awoken by this call, Ritoru closes his fist, checks on the two other yamabushi who are still not moving, and gets to make his own move, as his tengu advised.
Katon – Endan
While Ryutoki and Shibata seem focused on one another, Ritoru fires a large flame bullet at the enemy. But since he's still motionless, the Jinton barrier is still on, and the fire is erased before reaching him. Ryutoki turns his head to where the flames came from and sees Ritoru making a weird face, unsettled by how his fire ball was countered. Neither he nor Kasha understood what happened. Shibata stays back, and tries to learn more about Ryutoki's barrier by observing it in action, as long as he doesn't counter attack.
"Tell Ritoru about the barrier." Tentoki tells Shibata. "You need his help to win. Maybe connect me to Kasha in his mind. That'll make it easier."
Shibata, not really happy about this requirement, still decides to follow the celestial light's advice. But Ritoru leaps away before seeking any intel. Not as bright minded as Shibata, he only feels provoked by the inefficiency of his attacks and decides to come again with a bigger jutsu.
Katon – Shishi Endan
He now unleashes several lions of flames that all run to the target, burn up and collide in front of him. The impact results in a huge smokescreen and the incineration of the surrounding trees. Ritoru, convinced that he hit his target this time, makes a proud but mocking smile. Shibata stays on his guards, not aware of what might emerge from the thick smoke cloud that slowly settles.
Before it does settle, a chakra beam violently erupts out of it and strikes Ritoru off-guard. It's a tengu chakra orb that Ryutoki combined with Jinton and fired as a chakra beam to optimize its destructive power. Shibata follows the beam with his eyes and stares in shock at where it landed. It hit right in Ritoru's left thigh and completely erased it, detaching his leg from his body.
Ritoru stays breathless for a moment, after the near heart-attack that this harm caused him to have. Not able to stand on both feet anymore, he falls down and clenches his teeth to hold back the pain. Before he has time to scream it out, Ryutoki runs out of the smokescreen, following the attack he fired, and kicks Ritoru's face while he's on his knees to send him colliding with another tree.
The collision makes Ritoru feel his guts shake. But again, before he has time to process this pain, the Power of Kings strikes again by crushing his head against the trunk with his foot. He knocked him out and maybe severely damaged his brain with that last hit. Looking down on his defeated adversary, Ryutoki raises his hand blades and prepares to stab through Ritoru's chest with both of them, to end his life for good. But Shibata steps in early enough.
Koton – Kosen
Before Ryutoki can finish off his first enemy, a light beam passes under his eyes. Shibata missed this one on purpose to grab the foe's attention. He points his fingers at him and prepares to shoot another white laser. Ryutoki gets away from Ritoru and stands still in the direction of Shibata, to activate his barrier again. The light user shoots another beam, with no other intent than shooting, and is aware that this will likely not reach its target.
Surprisingly, it does hit. The light beam goes through the Jinton barrier and leaves a small heat mark on Chuji's face. The white tattoo pattern that he has on his skin slides away from the burn mark, like to avoid it, and makes the tengu notice it. For the first time, Ryutoki shows emotion, and makes a slightly disturbed face. He doesn't understand how he was hurt, and specifically how something passed through the barrier. Shibata makes the same grimace, since he's as surprised as his opponent.
"Oh I see! That was obvious!" says Tentoki in his head. "Hurry and keep him busy if you don't want to end up like Ritoru."
Not thinking too much, Shibata obeys to his tengu and quickly performs a series of 5 hand seals. He shoots a continuous, bigger and stronger light beam at Ryutoki. It passes through the barrier again and pushes the black tengu further away from Ritoru. Ryutoki is simply repelled away before crossing his arms to try and contain the beam for as long as he can. Shibata keeps firing it.
"Do you know about light's wave-particle duality, Shibata?" asks Tentoki.
"Um, like light is actually made of very small matter?" guesses Shibata, who doesn't know much about physics and science, like most people in this world.
"Photons. It seems like Jinton can only disassemble stuff at atomic level. So light particles pass through." explains the white tengu. "It makes sense, since the barrier doesn't appear to be complete black, but rather whitened like any other Jinton jutsu."
"So his Kekkei Tota doesn't work against our Koton?" understands Shibata.
"Exactly. If he's smart, this must have made him understand it as well." warns Tentoki. "This means he'll consider that standing still in his barrier is useless. He now has no other choice but to move to avoid damage. Remember you have the advantage in speed."
Ryutoki, still holding the light back with his blades, is repelled further and further away until reaching cover behind a tree. Shibata stops shooting and catches his breath for a brief moment. He keeps his mind ready to go again. Ryutoki jumps out from behind the tree on the left and fires a chakra orb as another chakra beam, fused with his Jinton again. Shibata shoots another light cannon to confront Ryutoki's beam. But the Jinton's atomic limit applies to every jutsu. Faster, the light passes through and directly hits its target again.
Chuji's body is pushed away, further on the mountain. He takes a few seconds before standing up. When he finally stands, Shibata who ran to engage him physically again kicks his foot and forces him back on his knees. The white yamabushi can now see Ryutoki's anger on Chuji's face. Ready to strike him again with white lightning, he instead steps back to avoid Ryutoki's chakra blades.
Once his opponent's arms are down, he runs to him and hits him right in the nose with a light powered knee kick. Ryutoki flies up, falls to the floor and rolls over. He tries to stand up from the ground, but is now always forced back on his knees by Shibata who's punching him repeatedly while running around. Shibata, confident enough to end it now, is preparing his run-up for a stronger and sharper hit to his opponent's throat.
However, Ryutoki gets too much annoyed by this incessant beat down. After the 26th punch he takes to the face, he quickly stands up and makes his body spin with his arm blades wide open again. Shibata, running straight toward him, can't stop soon enough but manages to lean back and pass under the blades. He falls down, rolls on the ground and gets up as fast as possible. When he does, Ryutoki already has both his hands raised toward him with a chakra orb being loaded at the tip of his left blade.
Shibata makes hand signs and shoots a light beam to oppose it. They both shoot their beams, but this time, they actually confront each other and the light doesn't just pass through.
"Damn! Hold on, Shibata!" says Tentoki. "As I guessed he would, he understood that Jinton doesn't work against us. He didn't add Jinton to the jutsu this time, so light particles won't phase through."
Shibata holds on, but very soon understands that Ryutoki's beam is stronger than his. He struggles to hold it back for a few seconds, but seeing it coming closer and closer, he decides to let go. He rolls aside and runs away to pass on Ryutoki's right side. He runs along the colliding beams as Ryutoki's strike takes over, to engage himphysically again while he's busy shooting his chakra.
To his surprise, Ryutoki was prepared for this possibility and has another chakra orb at the tip of his right blade. He fires at him as soon as he notices the target escaping. Because of the surprise, the momentum and his carelessness, Shibata doesn't have time to dodge and takes this orb right to the abdomen. He feels it blowing up against his bones and muscles, shaking his insides. The power of this orb pushes him far, far away, way farther than how far the fight went until now. It finally makes him crash against a boulder that sits on the mountain, outside of the forest. The shock has him almost passing out, and renders him unable to move.
"You should have gone to the left." says Tentoki, before he realizes the critical condition of his yamabushi, and the fading state of his mind. "Shibata? Are you still there?"
He doesn't answer. Ryutoki runs closer to where he crashed to see his second defeated opponent. This time, no one seems to be here to stop him. He walks closer and stops a dozen meters away from the boulder against which Shibata lies. He raises his hands and forms a Jinton cube that he intends to use right now to disintegrate Shibata's body, along with Tentoki's spirit.
The white tengu inside of his host's body is out of option. Unlike Ryutoki, he can't take over and move Shibata's body. Currently he's just sitting in a motionless man about to get erased from existence. Shibata is still conscious but barely, he sees Ryutoki before him.
"Shibata! Quick, Stand up!" exclaims Tentoki, in panic. "We're done for if you don't move now!"
"That… wasn't… the… plan…" says the defeated yamabushi slowly and painfully.
Shibata loses faith as he thinks his plan is ruined. He wasn't supposed to die. Whatever the way this fight ends, the most important part is that he needed to live to the next step. Close to breathing out, he silently watches as the Power of Kings prepares to put an end to his mission.
But it's not over. To both Shibata and Ryutoki's surprise, someone comes to interrupt their fight. Someone who has an interest in both their survival. The Daitengu suddenly appears and holds back Chuji's hand. He pulls it down to stop his rampage and spare Shibata's life.
"Ryutoki. This fight is pointless." calmly says the father of all tengu. "This violence is pointless. This isn't what I brought you back for." he says to his second oldest son.
Chuji looks at Inosawa Yamanaka, dead in the eyes for a few seconds. The two men, both under control of the tengu inside them, gaze at each other in silence for a long 10 seconds. Ryutoki, first to break this calm, not showing any concern about what his creator just said or who he is, moves his loose hand and tries to cut Inosawa's head off.
However, he's the one getting stabbed first. As he was standing ready for such a foolish reaction from Ryutoki, Sojobo had Inosawa Yamanaka's other hand held against Chuji's chest. When he sees Ryutoki's intention, he passes that hand through the criminal's chest and heart. Chuji's body abruptly stops moving and loses its strength.
"How… unfortunate… I truly am sorry. Ryutoki, and Chuji." sadly says the Daitengu.
With his hand in Chuji's body, he unseals and absorbs Ryutoki, just like he did with Tenshi in Moritaka's body. Chuji faints and falls into Sojobo's arms. The Daitengu lets the dying body fall against him and down. He stands still for a moment, as Ryutoki's chakra is flowing and finding its place within his spirit.
Shibata quietly watches as Sojobo, despite Ryutoki's death, gets a hold of all the deadly abilities of this tengu. Chuji is dead, as he wanted, but from the hand of Sojobo who still gets to keep the powers he was supposed to destroy.
Still, Shibata has a glimpse of hope. This didn't go down as intended, but Sojobo's intervention made the plan loop around and get back on its feet. Now he is there, still alive, and Sojobo too. All he needs now is the strength to run away. Tentoki sees his yamabushi hardly standing up, but managing it out of sheer determination. Sojobo turns his head to Shibata who sees him too. The worn out Kiri-nin slowly raises his hand and makes a single hand sign.
Koton – Shunshin
Shibata vanishes and runs away as fast as he still can. He flees away from the Daitengu, but it's no use. Sojobo knows the same jutsu and, additionally to his better current physical state, has way more chakra and power. He is way faster than him with the same jutsu. Shibata runs away until he gets caught up, atop of the mountain. Sojobo grabs him by the shoulder from behind and gently turns him around. He slams Shibata against the ground and lays his knee on his chest, with a hand held around his neck.
"Shibata, Tentoki… You really made a mess there." complains Sojobo. "It is much to bother me. Once I take Tentoki back, I'll definitely have to kill you."
"Sojobo, you still don't know his plan." says Tentoki, trying to buy some time.
Tentoki himself isn't aware of the plan he came up with anymore, as these memories were taken from him and shared between the concerned people. The Daitengu stands still for a moment, getting curious.
"It is true, Tentoki. But I can easily fix that." he answers.
Shibata, in the blink of an eye, raises his hand and grabs on Sojobo's who just gives him a pity look. A white lightning bolt appears and surrounds both their hands. The lightning turns solid and holds their hands together. The Daitengu, finding this pointless effort suspicious, doesn't wait anymore to get an explanation.
Kioku Kyuin
He takes the memories of the plan away from him. He now knows what Shibata was supposed to do… and is immediately deranged. He looks around and sighs. This place… is where the traitor was aiming for. Stitching their hands together is what he needed to do. And this because… Sojobo raises his head and looks above him. Right at this moment, a black portal appears. He directly recognizes it and guesses who will be coming out from it. He understands what Shibata was trying to do, so he decides to run away, but he's held back. The white lightning material. He stitched their hands together to prevent him from fleeing.
Ameno Tejikara
The white lightning is switched with a regular blue lightning bolt that electrocutes both Sojobo and Shibata, paralyzing them for a moment. In this moment, Minaa Nii falls out of the space-time gate and kicks the Daitengu away while he's startled by the shock. All the present Karasu members step out of the gate together. Minaa Nii, Z Arashi, Kobo Uchiha, Sana Akage, Tsubai Minamoto and Sasuke Uchiha. Naomi Yuki went to bring Kokoro to the land of Water, and Daisuke is accompanying them until they get on a boat. Getting back on his feet, Sojobo raises a hand to perform a hand sign, the one he needs to stop time.
Jikanteido
Time freezes, but Tsubai, who was focused on Sojobo in case he'd try this, activates the jutsu at the same time with the same hand sign (but with both hands) and directly breaks the time pause by trying to move Sasuke's shoulder. As soon as time resumes, and before Sojobo realizes it did, Sasuke summons his Perfect form of Susanoo that materializes above them and lays its wings around the tip of the mountain to lock them all in this wide but confined space. With the ground almost ready for battle, Tsubai effectively seals it.
Meiton – Yami no Ji
He covers the ground near the Susanoo borders with his dark chakra to prevent Sojobo from swimming away with Amabie's Mutai. Sojobo looks around and acknowledges the very well elaborated giant trap they've set up for him. Tsubai gets on his knees next to Shibata while all the rest of Karasu steps forward, with Sasuke leading the group.
"How are you gonna flee this time?" asks the Uchiha.
"Very clever…" says Sojobo. "It seems like you have me cornered." he embarrassingly adds, realizing he now has to fight Sasuke, but also all of his colleagues at once.
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End of Chapter 19 – Next Chapter: Round Two