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Takuma gazed at the identical agents. There had to be a reason why they were given their identical personas. From their short exchange before, it was clear they had great coordination with each other. He even considered that they might be true identical twins under their masks who were brought up together as shinobi.
"Twins," he muttered to himself.
He signed the necessary seals, and a moment later, a shadow clone emerged from the plume of smoke, creating an "identical twin" of his own. Takuma had considered sending a shadow clone to the meeting with Enomoto, but he was impatient. If he sent a shadow clone, he would have had to wait until after the conversation was over to find out what was talked about, and he had no idea how long it would take. He couldn't wait. Not to mention, Enomoto had revealed that he knew about ANBU, and still risked calling him.
Given hiss personality, Enomoto would have had a reason not to be afraid. And that didn't bode well with him.
But the most important reason was that he wanted to handle it himself.
A shadow clone was a copy of himself, but at the same time, there was a persistent thought in the back of his mind: what if he sent a clone to make an important decision, but the clone made the wrong choice. Takuma and clone were identical, and he was just as likely to make a mistake or wrong choice as they were, but in that case, he wanted to be the one to make the mistake instead of blaming the clone and then blaming himself afterwards for sending a clone.
He didn't want to regret those "what ifs".
And truthfully, Enomoto wasn't a lethal threat. Nothing would've changed even if Enomoto had brought some friends along. The only reason Takuma had geared up in the first place was that the proposed meeting location was a training field.
"Maintain your distance," Takuma said to the clone while picking up his sword.
Both sides moved simultaneously.
Takuma weaved the hand seals for Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears and slammed his foot into the ground. The chakra from his soles shot forward through the ground until it reached just a few steps in front of the running agents. A dozen earthen spikes, each four to five feet tall, pierced the earth beneath their feet.
Both of them jumped to dodge, but a spike shot up from directly beneath Red's lead foot, causing him to stumble right into another rising spike. He barely managed to move his face out of the way, but it rammed into his shoulder.
Blue, on the other hand, managed to avoid the spikes completely. Around the same time, the clone finished signing his own set of hand seals and pushed his palms into the ground.
Earth Release: Flying Thrown Spikes
The spikes from Takuma's jutsu broke away from the ground and floated into the air. The clone waved his arm, and the spikes began spinning as they shot towards Blue. He raised his sword to meet them, and lightning chakra flooded the blade. The hardened earth split like flimsy clay as the sword went through it and obliterated it into dust and loose mud.
But as Blue cut the spike, Takuma sprinted past him towards Red. Blue tried to stop him, but more earthen spikes hurtled his way, giving him no choice but to step forth and face the spikes.
Red immediately saw Takuma running towards him and barely raised his sword in time to block a kunai.
Takuma's heart gave an elated lurch as he sped up. The lack of sparks meant he'd dealt enough damage to disrupt his focus, and therefore the Lightning Release kenjutsu.
The kenjutsu was a problem because it limited his strengths, but it wasn't the first time he had faced it. Nenro, who also had a strong Lightning Release affinity, had learned a jutsu that shocked the target on touch—he had learned it to counter melee fighters like Takuma and Masaaki. The key difference between Nenro and the agents was that his friend, unlike the ROOT agents, was not a melee fighter and learned his jutsu for protection and insurance. In contrast, the ROOT agents were comfortable in close combat and used their kenjutsu for offense.
Moreover, while Nenro's ninjutsu did more damage, it was a single-charge attack; the agent's kenjutsu did very little damage but lasted much longer, which was perfect for melee.
Takuma could tank damage, but he couldn't afford to lose his guard every time he was in spitting range. Feinting a kick, he slid around Red, readying his managed to block it at the last moment, but Takuma didn't dare slow down and pushed the agent not to give him even a single second to reapply the Lightning Release kenjutsu.
He side-stepped in the injured shoulder's direction and swung his sword. Red was quick, but with one hand out of the play, he couldn't avoid the sword. It ripped through his gear and opened a gash in his side. Takuma clicked his tongue at the shallow attack and reset his stance. Damage was damage; if it wasn't enough, he would just snowball it until he could drive in a killing strike.
But just at that time, he heard the clone's shout,
"Danger—your left!"
He looked to his left to see a hyena formed from lightning leap towards him. He dug his heels into the ground, sending dirt flying forward as he stopped and jumped back, narrowly avoiding the animal-shaped ninjutsu.
But because of the angle, he'd missed the crackling link connecting the animal's tail to Blue's hands.
"Shit," Takuma cursed when the hyena turned directions and leapt back at him. In a last-ditch attempt, he hurled a kunai at the ninjutsu, hoping it would explode before reaching him, but the hyena effortlessly sidestepped the projectile and jumped right into him.
It was a world of pain as his body clutched up. It felt as though every muscle was being pulled all at the same time, while his nerve endings burned.
But it wasn't fatal, even as he fought for his grip over his sword.
He looked for Red, expecting the agent to retreat and gather himself, but instead, the masked man grabbed his sword with both hands, flooding it with Lightning chakra.
'Now?!' Takuma exclaimed when he saw Red raise both of his shoulders and was reminded that he was fighting ROOT agents and not some rogue in the backwaters.
These guys were confident enough to target him in the Hidden Leaf Village.
As Red brought his sword down, a water bullet batted his swing aside, slitting his gear and the skin beneath. It was only a flesh wound, but it managed to destroy the swing. Red didn't look back and immediately rolled on the ground a moment before three more water bullets ripped through the air.
In the distance, the clone held both of his hands up to a floating globe of shimmering water.
Water Release: Spirit Water Wave
The clone shot three more bullets in rapid succession at Red.
Blue used the Body Flicker Jutsu to reach Red. It was a risky move because people had no control while using the jutsu in transit, and even the best individuals took a moment to gather themselves upon exiting. There was absolutely no finesse in his actions either.
He crashed into his partner in his attempt to get him out of the bullet's way.
The clone frowned and shot more bullets. Though not exactly scalable, Spirit Water Wave had the potential to grow. Takuma had not only managed to make the bullets faster and bigger, but had also increased the ammo capacity. He dreamed that one day he could even develop the jutsu into a high-damage shotgun or a high-distance rifle.
The agents didn't waste a single second recovering from their fall. Blue put his body in front of his injured partner and once again showcased an insane level of reflexes, cutting every single bullet while kneeling on the ground.
Red also didn't sit still and threw a pair of smoke bombs long to obscure themselves from the clone. The clone emptied his entire ammo stock through the smokescreen, poking holes through the opaque smoke. He looked through the holes but failed to spot the agents.
Takuma forced himself to get up. His entire body was shaking, and putting force on any muscle caused an inordinate level of pain, but it was on a manageable level. He had been hit worse, in the head at that. He was standing at an angle where he could see the agents through the thinning smoke around them.
He spotted one of them and immediately yelled out,
"Hand seals!"
The clone immediately acted on the information and signed the hand seals for Earth Release: Earthen Dome. He had learned more defensive ninjutsu, but it was still the one he was most proficient with, and a jutsu that could be boosted by actively channeling chakra, which was needed when the opponent knew Lightning Release.
Takuma could tank a C-rank jutsu, but that wasn't the case for the clone. At that level, the clone would undoubtedly pop. Without knowing what was coming, using a defensive ninjutsu was the best possible option.
An electro-ball punched through the thinning smoke screen and headed straight towards the dome.
Takuma breathed a sigh of relief. Even though Lightning trumped Earth, the clone could still brute force it by pumping chakra through the jutsu.
A second later, a much faster shapeless bolt of lightning shot out of the smoke. There was no time to think or do anything as the lightning bolt pierced the electro-ball. Usually, the volatile chakra in both ninjutsu would trigger each other, causing a chain explosion in both jutsu. But Takuma watched as the spinning electro-ball was absorbed into the lightning bolt, turning its blue hue into blinding white.
The empowered lightning bolt then struck the dome like a missile, and milliseconds later, the dome blew up from the inside with such force that the hardened material of the dome turned into fine dust.
He didn't need to feel the two energies rushing back to his body to know that his clone was dead.
The smoke from the smokescreen was now gone, revealing the two identical agents.
He had faced combination ninjutsu before. The ROOT trainees who tried to assassinate him had used two C-rank ninjutsu in combination to attack him, but he didn't remember it being this powerful.
This combination was much closer to a B-rank jutsu.
'I got it,' he thought. The two agents were definitely trained together. They were constantly looking out for each other, which made it almost impossible to get in a big hit unless both of them were vulnerable.
He looked at the identical agents. All of their coordination had been to cover each other's backs, which was impressive enough, but if that was it, he didn't think they would be given special identical agent personas.
Now, he knew why they were dressed up as twins.
They were in perfect sync with each other. Their ability lay in combining C-rank ninjutsu and pushing it to the next rank. They were almost too good at combination ninjutsu, and that sent a shiver down Takuma's spine.
What if… What if this wasn't their limit?
What if they could combine B-rank ninjutsu as well?
The more powerful the two ninjutsu, the harder it was to combine them. B-rank ninjutsu were too complicated to combine with another just as complicated a ninjutsu. But the difficulty was rewarded with something absurdly powerful that approached the level of the disastrous A-rank ninjutsu that were ridiculously difficult to learn.
Did he have a way to survive the combination ninjutsu he had just seen? If Takuma used Earth Release: Earth Spear, he could survive it—but the moment he used his B-rank ninjutsu, it would break the barrier and introduce B-rank ninjutsu from the other side as well.
And if his hunch was correct, and they managed to combine B-rank ninjutsu—how was he supposed to fight against something like that?
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