Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
It slammed one of its feet against the ground, and coral began to grow from the ground itself and spread towards them. This was one of its more powerful abilities, but one that Suiren had come prepared to deal with. He inhaled, taking in a vast amount of air. He extracted the rich water vapor, enhanced it with his chakra, and spat out a torrent of cutting water that tore through the coral as it was forming. At his side, Kurogane used her Lightning Release to shatter some of the coral formations. Mahito created an explosion to the left of him to send him flying right into the midst of the coral formation.
He detonated, leaving himself standing in the center of a massive crater and very little of the coral to be found. Shigure took the chance to jump right at him. Mahito watched his approach and then moved the Blastsword so his teammate landed right on it. The blade exploded again, sending the big burly man flying at the Tailed Beast like a missile with the Needle Sword held right in front of him. His goal, to tear through its neck, failed as the creature retracted itself into a ball and then began to roll.
Shigure skidded against the moving beast, flying off to the side.
Kabuto jumped right in front of the Tailed Beast's approach, bringing her blade to bear. Her chakra exploded from her, forming a series of ice walls aiming to stop it in its tracks. It tore through each of them, barely even slowed, before it clashed against the Twin Sword-wielding woman as she stood like a mountain before the wave. She would not be moved. Hakoda, jumping from beyond Suiren's view, slammed his blade into the Tailed Beast as it tried to grind through Kabuto's stalwart block.
He slammed the mallet down, and there was an audible crack as he broke through the beast's shell. It unrolled itself with a roar, spitting a water bullet that almost tore through Hakoda. His water turned into a tendril wrapping around Hakoda; it was all he could do to pull his teammate out of the line of fire in time. But that was not enough for the apoplectic Tailed Beast. It turned, spitting water bullets in every which way, aiming at each of them.
Suiren did not bother blocking, allowing the bullet to hit him, turn his body to water, and then add itself to his mass. He grew a good two feet from the impact. He dragged Hakoda back to the ground, allowing him to take his feet before transforming his hand back to flesh and placing it on the sheathed blade he wore on his back. Now he was big enough to use it.
Mahito created an explosion that caused the bullet aimed at him to lose concentration before it hit. He jumped through it, creating further detonations that boosted his speed and drew the Tailed Beast's attention to him. Trying to predict Mahito's path, the beast lashed out with its tails. Of course, Mahito enjoyed an advantage few others did. He could change his trajectory in mid-air. He used his explosions to do just that and avoid each grasping tail. Kurogane, having dodged the bullet sent her way, fired another bolt of lightning at the beast's neck.
It screamed, and Mahito used that distraction to land right in front of its sole eye. He cackled before bringing the Blastsword to bear right in front of its eyes. He triggered the massive explosion, allowing it to push him backwards just as it forced the head of the Tailed Beast backwards.
The Tailed Beast roared in pain again, and Kurogane added another blast of lightning right into its open mouth. It stomped on the ground, attempting to disturb their footing once more, but just like the first time, it failed totally. And then it exhaled loudly from its nose, making a sound that reminded Suiren of home. Of the sound of waves washing against the rocks that dotted the shore near the small island the Hozuki clan had called home.
He was there again. He was watching his father show jutsu after jutsu and then being forced to copy it. He watched his brother—Jiren—fail to execute jutsu after jutsu. He was always close. By the waters themselves, Jiren was close. It was always one thing or the other that made him fail at it. Jiren, the eldest, was unable to perform in front of their strict father. Perhaps it had been a childhood where he had been left alone against the man's cruelness. Perhaps it was a natural weakness, but it did not matter in the end.
In the end, Jiren failed one too many times, and his father made Jiren prove he deserved his position as clan heir. Jiren had cared for him and shielded him in his youth, but that had been an eternity prior. Suiren had become the more skilled of the two of them in no time at all. It was an inevitability. And then when he was forced to face his brother in mortal combat, he swung too early and Jiren swung too late.
He watched the body again. He had been so sure it was some sort of trick. A replacement. Surely Jiren had managed to activate hydrification on time? And yet the image of the body would not change. The head remained a distance from the body. Blood gushed freely on the ground. It was not turning to water or to wood, or even to cloth to signal a substitution or a clone. It just remained there.
There was the sound of a snap and he moved, nearly taking the hand on the back of his head off at its wrist. Kabuto scoffed. "Taken in by genjutsu? Do better," she scoffed, and she was gone. He took a breath and he felt himself return to that scene. He snapped himself out of it this time. He felt it. Looking around, he could see they were engulfed in a mist.
"There's a genjutsu in the mist!" he shouted. And then he felt it take hold of him again. He snapped it with a quick application of his chakra and then searched through the mist for the rest of the team. He could see Kabuto off to the side. She was next to Kurogane and the two of them were attacking the beast. Mahito was slumped on the floor, taken by the genjutsu, and so was Shigure. Hakoda was moving towards the beast, waiting for it to stay still long enough for him to land another devastating attack.
Focusing his chakra, Suiren reached out to the mist. It was just water given another form, and when it came to water, there was no one in the world better than he was. He was the pride of the Hozuki. Whatever part of him that doubted himself—that believed that it should have been Jiren here in his stead—he destroyed it as he weaved seals to help his control.
He could feel the water in the mist, and water never disobeyed his command. He commanded it to drag the rest of the mist along as the mist faded and began to gather itself near his mouth. And then he breathed in, allowing the mist to flow into his mouth and nose. He could sense the Tailed Beast's foul chakra within the mist itself, but it mattered little. He wasn't going to be keeping it within himself.
He transformed his innards to water with the Hydrification Jutsu and weaved another set of seals. And then he took a step forward.
"Hidden Art: Water Release: Graceful Decapitation," he said, and then he spat out a torrent of water concentrated into a single piercing drill aimed straight at the Tailed Beast's head.
The attack hit, forcing its head to the side with a lurch as more and more water left Suiren's innards, aimed at causing as much damage to the Tailed Beast as was possible. In the end, when he had exhausted his supply and no small amount of his reserves, the beast straightened. There was blood dripping down its head, but a slight amount. He had barely managed to break through the skin that was softer even than the shell that surrounded most of the beast's body.
It roared in pain, looking around them. There was a loud crack as the sound of a mallet dropping down on a blade echoed in his head. There was a splash of blood. The beast lurched and screamed again, thrashing from side to side, and then it turned its malice in their direction. It moved, and this time instead of shooting at them, it shot deeper into the island, rolling into a spinning ball that moved faster than he had ever seen something so large move.
"Pursue," Suiren ordered, turning and preparing to body flicker when the beast came to a sudden stop, turning in their direction.
Tiny balls of black and white power began to form in the air as the beast raised its mouth upwards. Suiren felt his heart skip a beat as he realised just what was coming their way. A Tailed Beast Bomb. His clan's notes said it was the most dangerous ability any of the Tailed Beasts had. Something like the former Tsuchikage's Particle Release. An attack that turned anything that it faced into dust. Except instead of using the elements to do it, it used pure explosive power.
"If you get hit by that thing, it's over for you," he said to the rest and jumped backwards, straight into the ocean. He left part of himself above the surface to keep an eye on what was going on, but he remained ready to book it once the attack was fired. No one could swim faster than a Hozuki, after all.
He watched as Kabuto body flickered to the left, chaining multiple flickers together as she tried to escape. The rest of the team were making their own attempts while Shigure, for some reason, had decided that heading straight for the Tailed Beast was the wise thing to do. The Needle Sword was, of all the blades, the one he would regret losing the least. He would have to explain it to the Mizukage, but there were enough witnesses to confirm that this had been Shigure's stupidity entirely and that there was no chance for anyone to do much to stop him either way.
The small bits of energy formed a full ball and the beast tilted its head back in their direction.
And then it fired. At the very last instant, Shigure activated three of his gates to move even faster. He shot forward, the ball flying right above and past him as it headed to where they had been. So that was the strategy, Suiren thought even as he dissolved fully into water and began to hightail it out of there as quickly as he could.
He felt the explosion as it was triggered right in his soul. He felt a good portion of the sea he had merged with be evaporated. Thankfully, he had managed to make it far enough. And when he felt that the explosion had run its course, he reformed his upper body to a view of pure devastation. He could just barely make out his teammates. They had managed to escape the worst of the explosion, but the concussive force had gotten to them. There was a massive glacier that Kabuto lay within while the others were sprawled out around her. And then the Tailed Beast turned its attention to them.
Shigure yelled a battle cry that was audible from even this far away as he moved to strike the beast. Its tails lashed out, sweeping out at him. He braced and managed to catch one while dragging his feet along the ground. And then that tail was smacked by another, and then the third. Shigure remained stalwart, the immovable object.
And then the Tailed Beast rendered him immovable, coral beginning to grow across his body far too quickly for him to do anything about it.
Suiren himself began to reform the rest of his body and then move towards what remained of his team, only for the Tailed Beast to begin gathering the balls of white and black power again. He watched it, feeling a pit form in his stomach. Again? Where the previous one hit was only a massive crater and boiling steam to mark what had been there before. It could do more than one of those?
Suiren realised then that he had two choices. If he moved to defend his teammates—for that was where the beast aimed now—there was a chance he would make it in time, and with his Water Release and that jutsu, he could achieve something magnificent in terms of defence, but would it be enough? Would it be enough to shield them all against an attack that turned all that faced it to dust? Nay. He could not do it.
He could imagine the disgrace. Six of the Seven Swords and those who wielded them lost, and the mission failed on top of that. There was no way back to Kiri for him. It would be better to let the Tailed Beast kill him than leave it to the Mizukage to do it. The life of a missing-nin would be his. For however long that could last—Kiri would come for him sooner or later, and even if they believed him dead, Konoha would find him eventually. They seemed to have some predilection for finding impossible-to-find missing-nin.
He watched the ball become fully formed and he prepared himself to witness the end of his team, before the Tailed Beast's head was suddenly lurched to the side. He looked, seeing Shigure there with a green aura formed around him. How many gates had he opened? It didn't matter, because he had hit at just the right time. The attack was sent off in the distance, in a different direction. Even as it annihilated another part of the island, Suiren felt some hope return to his cold heart. They could do it! The Tailed Beast roared its displeasure. Suiren could see Kabuto shatter the ice around her and begin to move even as the rest of the team stirred. There was still a chance. He formed a single seal and expended no small amount of chakra in controlling the water that surrounded him.
It ferried him like a jawfish carrying its eggs in its mouth till they hatched, taking him across the distance, onto land, and further even, straight to the beast. It slapped Shigure away with one paw and then Suiren slammed into it next with the sea itself at his back, screaming his rage all the while.
He felt the water hit the Tailed Beast before his own body made contact. As he did so, he unsheathed the blade at his back, knowing that his size had swelled enough for him to wield the famed Kubikiribōchō with ease. He slashed along the beast's skin and his blade skidded off with no effect. He kept at it, even as he directed the water to surround them both in a version of the Water Prison Jutsu. His body screamed at him to stop, to use less chakra, but he ignored those instincts.
The mind screams long before the body truly fails, he reminded himself. He still had chakra aplenty. He just had to ignore his body's instincts that screamed to hold them in reserve. Luckily, that was what being a shinobi was all about.
He fed the Kubikiribōchō his chakra and the blade drank it hungrily. He moved and slashed again. This time, he managed to cut through the Tailed Beast's skin. Its tails tried to come for him, but they were in his domain now. He commanded the water to hold it still, and the Beast was held at bay. It fought and struggled, but it was not enough. Not even close. There was only one weak point that the journals had spoken about the Three Tails having. Its eyes. He could sense Shigure rising again, and prepared to spare even more chakra to convey the message.
But then his attention was drawn back to the beast. He peppered it with cuts unceasingly, but it seemed to have given up on trying to struggle against his hold. The balls of black and white power began to gather around its mouth again. Suiren felt his heart drop into his stomach. It was going to detonate that thing in here? That was the most likely possibility. It would trust its durability to let it survive. Suiren had no such advantage.
Damn it. He had to retreat. And almost like the beast could sense his thoughts, its lone eye turned to him. He felt the outer edges of the water prison fade from his control as coral spread across it. It had happened so quickly. The beast had contained him, it realised. It was smarter than it looked. The cage of coral would keep him from escaping and he knew he could not touch the coral even as anywhere it touched the water, it spread even further. He was going to die here. That attack would explode, and that would be it for him.
He stared in the beast's eyes. He tightened the grip on his blade and he made his peace with what was to come. He was Hozuki Suiren of the Hozuki Clan, the wielder of Kubikiribōchō, one of the Hallowed Seven Swords of the Mist. If this was where he met his end, then he would not go quietly into the night. He focused on what water remained and drew it into his control, pushing himself for its eye.
A/N: Just half a chapter more in this POV, and we move somewhere else next. Guess where? Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.