The sharp clang of steel rang through the blood-soaked courtyard—then suddenly fell silent.
Anko gritted her teeth, staggering half a step back. A numbing ache spread through her wrist and palm; the kunai in her grip felt almost ready to slip from her hand.
Protecting the Wasabi Family members forced her into several direct clashes, but her short kunai was no match against the enemy's heavy samurai blades. Each block sent a brutal shockwave of force tearing down her arm, making her muscles quiver with strain.
A miscalculation… Anko's heart sank.
There were fewer enemies than expected—yet each one fought like a monster.
The Wasabi guards, fighting desperately, weren't just failing to help; their stumbling movements clogged her and Shizune's escape routes, leaving them as easy prey for the enemy to cut down and use as distractions.
Jubei clearly had no intention of letting the shinobi adapt or counter. Now that Konoha's ninja had revealed themselves, he didn't hold his allies back any longer.
"Water Erosion"
The cloaked figure to Jubei's right moved at last. From beneath his mildewed oilcloth cloak, the giant gourd on his back tilted with a dull creak. The stopper was pulled free—silently, deliberately.
No seals. No chants.
From the gourd's mouth, a tide of viscous black liquid gushed forth, carrying a stench so foul it curdled the air.
It oozed downward like living tar—slow, but impossibly heavy—spreading wide as it descended toward Anko and the Wasabi guards clustered behind her.
"Move!" Shizune's voice snapped sharp as a whip, her face pale with alarm.
Anko's pupils shrank. She bit down on her half-formed jutsu and launched herself sideways, toes carving furrows into the dirt as she flashed to the flank.
But the black tide was vast—too vast. Though sluggish, it shifted midair as though it had eyes, sliding hungrily to follow her escape.
Worse still, droplets splattered outward, striking the slower Wasabi guards helping each other retreat.
Hissss—!
Every fragment of metal they touched dissolved instantly, iron melting like wax under a forge's heat, belching streams of acrid white smoke.
One guard, too slow to dodge, screamed as a spray of droplets struck his calf. His leather boot corroded in an instant—
Then the tar reached flesh.
"AAAHHH!!!"
His howl tore through the courtyard.
Before their eyes, his skin blackened and sloughed away, the wound rotting at a terrifying pace.
And worse—beneath the festering wound, tiny shapes squirmed. Barely visible parasites writhed under his skin, gnawing into muscle and burrowing down into bone and veins, feasting as they spread.
The man thrashed, clawing at his own leg, his screams dwindling into a broken, guttural rasp.
Anko's scalp prickled, a chill racing down her spine. If that tide hit her head-on—!
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
The courtyard erupted in blazing light.
A massive fireball, over two meters wide, roared forward, its heat searing the air itself. It smashed into the falling tide of black water—
BOOOOM!!!
Flames and corrosion collided, exploding in a violent spray of sparks and steam. A deafening hiss shrieked through the courtyard as the fire seared the liquid into smoke, filling the air with the stench of burning rot.
A thick, suffocating mist—scalding white, reeking of char and rot—erupted outward like an explosive shockwave.
It swallowed the courtyard in an instant, drowning Anko, the wounded guards, Shizune, and Jirocho in its choking veil.
With vision cut off, chaos reigned.
Another one… Jubei's eyes narrowed as a small silhouette dropped lightly into the mist. That faint figure was enough. The Chayama Gang leader recognized him at once.
'That brat. Then what was left at Haifi Pavilion? And who faced Shoshi?'
Itachi landed silently, hands blurring through seals.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Claw Crimson!"
Over a dozen flame-wrapped shuriken shot forth—crimson meteors piercing through the fog—hurtling toward Jubei, the cloaked Water Erosion, and the corpse-eyed Gaiku.
Not to wound, but to pressure. To pin them down.
"Fall back! Everyone into the inner house—move!" Jirocho's hoarse roar cut cleanly through the smoke. His voice cracked with age, yet carried the iron weight of command.
Though no shinobi, his seasoned instincts seized the moment. The white mist was their only shield.
The surviving guards jerked awake as if from a nightmare. Wounded and terrified, they clung to one another, staggering through the fog toward safety, boots clattering in frantic, uneven rhythm.
But Jirocho wasn't the only one to read the battlefield.
"Hmph. Think you can run?" Jubei scoffed, swatting aside the flaming shuriken with a casual sweep of his blade. His gaze cut through the fog like an eagle's, already fixed on the retreating silhouettes.
"Gaiku. Stop them."
To his left, the bandaged man stirred. His blood-soaked wrappings quivered as he lifted his left arm. Those dead, indifferent eyes flickered faintly in the mist.
With a motion as casual as swatting away a fly, Gaiku brushed aside a flaming shuriken. Then his claw twitched beneath the bandages.
Crack—!
The air curdled with the sound of splintering bone. From his forearm slid a pale length of sharpened bone—nearly a foot long, its edges glimmering faintly with a sickly, greenish frost. Cold vapor curled from its surface as though the weapon itself exhaled death.
Gaiku gripped it with his right hand, gave a flick of the wrist—
—and the bone blade vanished into a streak of pale light, faster than sight, darting toward the thickest cluster of retreating guards.
At the fog's edge, Itachi's kunai were already flying. Two blades, each bearing explosive tags, whistled through the mist—not aimed at the bone, but at the stone tiles lying directly in its path.
BOOM! BOOM!
Twin detonations shook the courtyard. Shards of stone blasted skyward, fire and grit colliding with the bone blade's flight. The weapon's trajectory faltered. More importantly, a smokescreen of dust and embers billowed between Gaiku and his prey.
Through that haze, Itachi moved.
His figure slipped through the fog like a phantom breeze. In a blur, he swept past Anko, Shizune, and Jirocho, brushing each with precise, fleeting contact.
Three small, moist, cool objects—each radiating a pulse of vital chakra—were pressed into their palms or tapped against their collars.
"Lady Katsuyu…" Shizune's eyes widened. That familiar warmth spread instantly through her body, soothing her ragged chakra flow and uncoiling the tension in her nerves.
Anko felt a sudden weight on her shoulder—a gentle, steadying pressure. The slug's chakra seeped into her, easing the numbness in her arm and quelling the ache in her battered organs. Her surprise lasted only a breath before it hardened into a fierce, rekindled fire in her gaze.
Jirocho, too, felt vigor flood his body, washing away his exhaustion.
"Jirocho-san, withdraw at once!" Itachi's voice was cold, sharp—cutting through the haze like steel.
The Wasabi leader did not waste a heartbeat. He nodded firmly. His presence here would only hinder them further.
"I leave this to you!" he barked, then turned, disappearing into the fog, joining the limping guards as they rushed for the inner house.
Anko flexed her recovered arm, fire returning to her veins. With Katsuyu's warmth steadying her, she drew a deep breath.
Her eyes blazed as she fixed once more on the towering figure ahead—the sword-wielding shadow looming in the mist.
Jubei
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