Chapter 133: Betrayal, Sinking and Help

Chapter 133: Betrayal, Sinking and Help

_________ POV Narration _________

Saburo's clone's mask broke as he also felt his legs being swallowed up by the Samehada.

"Tsk... So you were hiding your strength?" The Strawman scowled while his eyes landed on Tosho.

"I was merely following my master's teachings. A good assassin always keeps his cards close to his chest." Tosho shook his head as the Samehada chewed on the clone's flesh with glee.

"Haha~ Too bad your master couldn't follow his own teachings. He attracted too much attention with his actions, this could have all been avoided..."

The Strawman's dismembered clone seemed to gain a bitter tone as it spoke about the leader of the Dark Brotherhood.

Tosho didn't seem to get offended when hearing the traitor badmouth Ken.

"Well, it was certainly an effective strategy in terms of forcing our true enemies to rear their heads... Like you did.

After this is done, our Brotherhood will be able to roam freely, without any worry about snakes like you lurking in the shadows."

The First Blade shook his head before swinging the Samehada down on the clone's back.

"Children, immediately undo all seals on you that are connected to the Second Blade and his clones." Tosho then turned to the children and nodded at them.

"Way ahead of you sir... I already told all of our siblings to do so when killing his first clone." Tatsukio waved at the First Blade with a smile underneath his mask.

Plenty of his siblings had gotten injured due to Saburo's explosive clones.

Tatsukio himself was safe, and he had even managed to pull away some of his siblings, but without Tosho's interference, some of them would have surely died.

But it wasn't like this was the first time Tosho saved them. He was the one to bring them all within the Brotherhood at the end of the day.

"Then it should be fine... Hunt down all of Saburo's clones that are within the barrier, and form a defensive line around the pillars of support." Tosho waved his hand around and ordered the children with a stern voice they, all nodded and blurred away, Tatsukio included.

Only a few of them remained around the Pillars.

'What a god damned mess..." The First Blade then vanished, dashing towards his master's building.

His mind was reeling, trying to understand the extent of Saburo's betrayal and the full scope of what he was truly capable of.

In his mind, he couldn't help but worry, Saburo could still interfere with the barrier they had set up even without killing the pillars.

'Thankfully the children acting as pillars are all instructed to block off their contract seals, otherwise, Saburo could've destroyed the barrier without any issue...'

Ken had made sure to take many precautions to ensure that the pillars of support for the Barrier around the brotherhood were not going to be disturbed.

He had even instructed all of them to remove any seals that would allow their siblings to draw charka from them. The pillars were essentially only supposed to draw chakra from others through seals and nothing more.

If they were to be interrupted, then the last line of defense of their Brotherhood would also fall.

Akria, the Third Blade, was surely already also helping in hunting down the other clones that were somewhat scattered within the compound.

Saburo was a skilled shinobi, but when splitting his consciousness between many clones at once his skills became dulled, which led to even the children being able to deal with the clones.

The only real problem was that they could coordinate like no other Shinobi Squad in existence and that the more of them died, the harder they became to kill.

Tosho knew that the children would handle everything within the compound, so the most difficult part would be up to him.

The Laboratory.

It was likely deserted by now, but Tosho was sure that was where the bulk of the clones were located.

'There were around 65 of them in total from what I remember... I should expect at least 20 of them down there, the original likely fled long before this happened.

I just hope Ken is not in any immediate danger.'

Fighting ensued and embroiled the entirety of the compound, Tosho felt the earth rattle as jutsu of all kinds erased the houses they had worked hard to build.

But it was nothing to worry about, a house could be built back up from its foundation. And the brotherhood's foundation was the children and Ken himself.

As long as that foundation survived, then the Brotherhood was bound to thrive once more.

Tosho passed by two other clones on his way to the laboratory, they seemed to still be idly guarding the entrance.

They weren't able to react in time, both of them getting decapitated as soon as the First Blade passed by them.

The Laboratory was about as empty as he expected it to be.

Or so it seemed, Tosho received a strange premonition before raising his Samehada above his head.

He blocked a hand that had been grabbing at his head, and a strange seal spread on the living blade.

"Crimson Seal, huh?" Tosho muttered before flinging the clone to the side of the room, smashing him into the wall before shaking the Samehada slightly.

The seal was undone rather quickly, not that it would have done anything to the Samehada, as it required the victim to have a human-like chakra network in order to work.

But the failed ambush wasn't really concerning to Tosho, what felt more concerning was that he was now completely surrounded from all sides by masked clones.

"I guess I wasn't the only one hiding things... Seems you've made more clones than reported...

I knew your clones felt weaker than usual, maybe you're spreading yourself out too thin?" Tosho scowled while the Samehada twirled around him and bared its teeth.

"Of course I am... This is a special occasion. It was difficult enough to create this many clones away from the Red Dot's 'gaze'... I need to make use of all my resources to make sure everything goes well."

He and his siblings were hard at work, hunting down the one that had betrayed their trust.

What they didn't expect was for the ground underneath their feet to break.

In an instant, the entire brotherhood seemed to collapse.

The children acted quickly, jumping off on some buildings while doing their best to try and remain aboveground.

The one-legged assassin then looked at the sky, only to notice that it had lost its red tint...

"Shit! The barrier's fallen!"

The earthquake and sinkhole had certainly managed to disturb the pillars, causing them to lose concentration.

The Four Red Yang Formation was both powerful and complex, and the children acting as pillars were not yet at the level of mastery where they could maintain it during such chaos.

Saburo would've known that as well had he ever bothered paying attention to the children.

Had he done so, then he could have sunken the Brotherhood from the beginning, and not even sacrificed as many clones as he did...

Regardless, now things were taking a turn for the worse.

Tatsukio shouted for his siblings to prepare for the worst, but he realised that they didn't have enough time to set up another barrier.

Back at the front gate Akira slowly sat back up.

He had returned there after taking care of a few clones. And now that the barrier had fallen, he had a bigger threat to address.

"Well... Shit."

He uttered as he stood in front of two enraged tailed beasts brimming with power and bloodlust.

The monsters wasted no time at all, both pointing thier tails to the skies as two gigantic spheres of chakra gathered above their mouths.

One's chakra took the form of condensed steam, the other's took the form of pure magma.

'... I can't let that hit the brotherhood...' The Third Blade clenched his fists before turning into a blur, he dashed into the forest in front of him, his aim set.

In an instant, the two Tailed Beasts fired off.

"Tailed Beast Lava Bomb!" "Tailed Beast Steam Bomb!" The two tailed beasts repeated thier attacks from earlier, this time, there was no barrier stopping them from erasing the compound in its entirety.

But just as they pointed their mouths forward, a figure appeared in front of them.

They both immediately recognized it as the Third Blade, currently in mid-air and finishing up a Jutsu.

"Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique!"

In a desperate bid to stop the Tailed Beast Bombs, Tosho threw himself in front of them and released a gigantic wave of water, using up a lot of chakra to spit it out of his mouth in hopes of combating the Tailed Beasts's attack in any way.

Even more steam appeared as the gigantic wave Akira spat out flooded the forest in front of him and made contact with the Pressurized Steam and Magma.

In a few seconds, the water he was spitting out was overwhelmed purely by the massive force they were up against.

And in the end, Tosho was forced to block those two Tailed Beast Bombs with his body.

He gritted his teeth and spread out his arms, preparing for the worst.

And just as he closed his eyes, he heard a loud shout.

"YEAHHHHHHH~!"

The Third Blade immediately opened his eyes. only to see two gigantic purple octopus tails deflecting the Tailed Beast Bombs into the sky.

"8 Tails- Hachibi Jinchuriki~ Lord Killer B is here!"

Akira sweated as he looked behind him to see a gigantic singing octopus with a set of burly arms and an ox head.

Instantly, the Third Blade's eyes lit up.

And before he could even think, a flash of black lightning appeared at the corner of his gaze, and the 5-Tailed Beast seemed to be struck to the ground, on its head landing the figure of a dark-skinned burly man with long spiky white hair.

It took a second, but Akira did recognize him eventually... The Third Raikage.

"How dare you pieces of trash try and attack our ally!" The burly man glowed with a dark aura around him as his voice thundered throughout the entire battlefield.

Akira couldn't help but smile.

'Shit! This might just be doable!'

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Felt like writing on this one today, will try to upload more the following days too, but for now just gonna finish uploading and going to slep

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