Chapter 31: The End of an Assassin
"Heh." A soft, mocking laugh escaped Hyuga Shinra's lips.
"Shinra Tensei!"
The gravitational pull vanished instantly, replaced by a colossal, omnidirectional repulsive force that erupted from Shinra's body. Deliberately guiding the wave around Mikoto, the full force of the blast slammed into the airborne form of Uchiha Kagami.
The Uchiha Jonin, who had been hurtling forward with his own momentum, was mere inches from driving his kunai into Shinra's chest when the repulsive wave struck him. It was like being hit by a freight train. He was catapulted backward, his charge utterly reversed.
The surrounding trees within a twenty-meter radius splintered and exploded into a cloud of sawdust, filling the air with the scent of pulverized wood.
Thud!
Uchiha Kagami landed like a broken doll, crumpling to the ground in a heap. A pained groan escaped him as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"What... what is this?" Uchiha Mikoto stared, utterly shocked. The entire exchange had happened in the space of a few heartbeats, leaving her no time to process it.
"Sharingan. A member of the Uchiha clan," Shinra stated flatly, his voice calm. "He's most likely here to kill us."
"Why?" Mikoto whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief. That someone would attempt an assassination within the village was bad enough, but that it was a member of her former clan was a deeper betrayal.
"I humiliated their clan head's son. And while you were expelled, in their eyes, you're a traitor who abandoned them. They want us both dead to erase that stain," Shinra explained, his gaze never leaving the struggling form of their attacker.
Uchiha Kagami pushed himself up with great difficulty. Every breath was agony, a clear sign that his internal organs had been damaged by the devastating repulsive force.
"What kind of ninjutsu was that?" he wheezed, his voice full of bitter confusion and pain. A technique that required no hand seals and could be cast instantly was completely outside his experience, and it had cost him dearly.
"The dead don't need to know so much," Shinra replied, his expression cold and detached, a deep chill settling in his starry eyes.
"Hah! You just caught me by surprise!" Kagami spat, forcing his body to obey through sheer will. "You think you can really defeat me? Arrogant brat!" His hands flew into a rapid, familiar sequence of seals.
"Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique!"
A roaring, dragon-shaped torrent of flame erupted from his mouth, streaking toward Shinra.
In response, Shinra's own hands moved in a blur. "Water Style: Water Formation Wall!"
A massive wall of water surged from the ground, meeting the fiery dragon head-on. The two elements collided with a violent hiss, producing a thick cloud of steam that easily dissipated the Uchiha's attack.
"Shinra, be careful! He's Uchiha Kagami, a famous elite Jonin from the clan!" Mikoto cried out, her worry palpable. She had been too stunned to recognize him before, but now the identity of their assailant filled her with dread. To send someone of his caliber after them showed how seriously the Uchiha were taking this.
"Don't worry," Shinra said, his voice steady and confident. "If I wanted him dead, he would be already."
He was stating a simple fact. Killing an elite Jonin who had no idea of his true capabilities was a trivial matter. He was confident he could pose a threat even to a Kage-level opponent, let alone a Jonin.
"You are the first person to witness my true strength," Shinra announced, his focus entirely on Kagami. "I hope you can provide a satisfying test."
His right calf began to glow with a brilliant, golden light, transforming into pure photons.
"Lightspeed Kick!"
He vanished. A blinding golden flash was the only warning before his foot connected with Uchiha Kagami's torso.
BOOM!
The impact was thunderous. Kagami was launched backward like a cannonball, his body smashing through tree after tree for several hundred meters before finally crashing to a halt in a broken heap.
The kick had been too fast. All Kagami's Sharingan had managed was to perceive the imminent danger, giving him just enough time to reinforce his body with chakra in a desperate, instinctual defense. It had saved his life, but he was now critically injured, his body broken and bleeding.
"Tch. An attack capable of destroying a small island... and I wasn't even using my full strength. There wouldn't be anything left of him if I had," Shinra mused, a bit impressed by the raw power of the Spark-Spark Fruit. This was his first time seeing its full, unadulterated destructive force in a real fight.
He turned back to Mikoto. "Wait here for me. I'll go finish this."
Mikoto nodded obediently, though her eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and awe. "Be careful," she whispered. "Don't let your guard down."
"Don't worry." With a faint chuckle, Shinra's body dissolved into a beam of light, reappearing instantly before the crippled Uchiha Kagami. For short-range movement, the fruit's speed was even more immediate than his spatial abilities.
"I never imagined... a child... could be this powerful," Kagami rasped, blood bubbling on his lips.
"Enough talk." Shinra raised his index finger, the tip glowing brightly. "Finger Pistol: Light Bullet."
A barrage of searing, photon-based projectiles shot from his finger, peppering Kagami's body. They were precise, mimicking the attack style of the Kaguya clan's bone projectiles but with the heat and penetration of concentrated light.
Unable to move, Uchiha Kagami could only scream as dozens of smoking, bloody holes were punched through his limbs and torso. Shinra had deliberately avoided all vital organs; the man was not dead, but he was bleeding out rapidly. Even if Shinra walked away now, death was inevitable.
"Trying to torture me for information? Don't... waste your time," Kagami gasped, sweat pouring down his pale face. His Three Tomoe Sharingan spun wildly, a final, desperate act of defiance.
"Still resisting? A futile struggle." Shinra met the spinning tomoe head-on, his expression utterly unchanged.
"Most genjutsu are useless against me. You should save your energy." Shinra looked down at the mortally wounded man, his voice devoid of all emotion. To affect him, an illusion would need to be on the level of a Mangekyo Sharingan. This was just a pathetic, dying twitch.