CH_7.43 (261)

CH_7.43 (261)

As the Wind Release: Breakthrough jutsu hit Anko, Takuma's instincts kicked in, and he moved in front of her path. Standing beside him, Daiki became an unexpected obstacle, blocking him from reaching her. Despite the hindrance, Takuma's hand shot up in an attempt to grab her, but it was too late. Anko crashed through the window, leaving a trail of shattered glass in her wake.

He saw two kunai thrown by unseen enemies hurtling towards Anko.

"Daiki, go," he shouted, pushing his larger teammate toward the shattered window.

They had barely engaged the enemy in combat and had already been forced to split up. As Daiki leapt out of the window, Takuma swiftly switched the formation, taking the forward-most position. He stepped toward the room at the end of the small corridor before stopping, which puzzled Kameko and Rikku.

He weaved hand seals for the Clone Jutsu and sent an illusory clone into the room. Even though it was easy to spot, an itchy trigger finger was difficult to contain—especially when the enemy was planning an ambush.

The clone stepped into the room and was instantly beheaded by a sword in full view of Takuma and dissipated with an almost silent hiss into thin air. The moment that happened, Takuma charged towards the wall beside the door with his shoulder, augmenting it with chakra. He ran through the wall like it was made of cardboard and body-slammed the agent responsible for beheading the clone. While the wall absorbed significant force, the agent was still hurled to the other side of the large parlour room.

Takuma took in his surroundings and saw Kon and a second agent jump back in response to him bulldozing in. His and Kon's eyes met, and immediately, he was hit by a burning headache like never before. It was worse than the time he tried to force something when he was younger by staring at his scars in the mirror—but he bit his tongue to bear the pain and glared at the man.

He wanted to take advantage of the element of surprise, but the pain prevented him from reacting appropriately.

Kameko and Rikku entered the room and the tension spiked. Too many people were in a relatively minimal space. Chaos would break out the moment anyone moved—and the person to bring it was Rikkue.

He kicked furniture toward Kon and the second agent. Kon jumped up to the wall and stuck to it with his feet while the second agent cut down a cushioned chair, and that was when Kameko went after him with her sword buzzing with chakra.

The second agent was fast and parried her first swing, but she had the momentum and smoothly transitioned into the next strike that the second agent dodged by pulling back, but the sword held out in the front was pushed by an invisible force a moment before the front of his chest gear was shredded and his forearm started bleeding from a cut.

Kameko's Taketori kenjutsu allowed her to increase the reach of her sword with a near-invisible length of wind chakra. It was a dangerous technique as almost everyone got caught by it, and they only tried to avoid the visible sword blade. And many times, one strike was all it took to end the fights and lives.

The opponent had to figure out what had just happened, which was difficult mid-fight. She went for a stab at his throat, but the agent managed to dodge with enough distance to get clear of her invisible extension but then Kameko swung her sword again that he parried and then pulled back once more when she tried to swing for his shoulder.

Just when he thought he was safe, the invisible length cut a long and shallow wound from his left shoulder to his lower right chest. Kon threw a kunai at Kameko from the roof. Takuma countered it by deflecting it with a kunai of his own before following up with another kunai back at Kon, who went for a parry only to have the right side of his body blown back from the sheer force put behind the kunai with his augmentation.

The first agent tried to get up to join the fight. Takuma weaved hand seals as he turned toward him, and his chest expanded as he breathed in.

Water Release: Wind Water Wave

A powerful wave of water slammed into the agent, slamming him into the wall. As Takuma gained skill and experience, the jutsu had become stronger and more vigorous. The pressure behind the wave had increased considerably, and the first agent felt like he had run into the walls as his bones creaked for the second time.

"Kameko!" he yelled as he ran toward her.

The feint made him a step behind and a moment late. The tentacles whipped their kunai at Kon, but he deftly deflected all of them, which gave Takuma almost enough time to catch up. The eight tentacles merged into four so that he could have more length and got them ready to give him a little more reach so that he could protect Kameko.

But then Kon yelled,

"Ni help San!"

The ROOT agent, who was on the back foot, suddenly disengaged from Kameko, jumped to the roof and headed in Rikku's direction. He followed the order so fast, almost like a robot completing an instruction.

Takuma's brain, which was running to the point of wheezing on the track, abruptly stopped; for a very long, short moment, he had no idea what to do and how to react. Rikku was fighting a beaten-up agent, which was the most he thought she could handle, but now there was another one heading toward her.

Kameko couldn't follow him because Kon was sprinting toward her, and he would cut her down if she tried to follow. He couldn't turn away to help Rikku, but if he engaged Kon, he would be locked in and unable to leave— and by then, Kameko would be too late to leave.

'What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?' he thought.

The four tentacles merged into two thicker ones and shot up toward the agent on the ceiling. The water flowed and wrapped around his body before Takuma tugged hard, and the agent was snatched and slammed to the ground. But that wasn't enough; the agent could cut himself out of the tentacles, and Rikku would once again be in danger.

As Takuma slid between Kon and Kameko, he weaved hand seals for a jutsu he hadn't used in over a year. With his head on fire, he almost forgot the hand seals, but his muscle memory carried him through.

Lightning Release: Shock

Kon tried to cut him down, but Takuma managed to half dodge while taking a shallow slice on his upper arm from the burning hot sword, which hurt so much that it overpowered his headache for a moment, something Takuma was momentarily thankful for.

Arcs of lightning snaked down his, forming an orb of lightning. On paper, a D-rank jutsu of nature he wasn't proficient in and hadn't used in a long time wasn't a good choice made under pressure—but he knew that water and lightning were complementary—and he had read the jutsu scrolls, the books on chakra theory, to the best of his ability, and even though he hadn't tried it before, he was confident that it would work, so much so he put his and his teammate's lives on the line.

He shot the orb of lightning into his tentacles, and then the magic happened.

Takuma didn't have the liberty to look at the agent with Kon right in front of him, but the screams told him that his gambit had worked.

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