The world seemed to flicker. The blinding hue of the lightning finally faded away, and the dim sky began to show once more. In front of me was a devastated land. It was a scene of total destruction. The docks and warehouses we had been fighting on were simply gone. In their place were massive craters filled with bubbling molten slag and stretches of hollowed earth coated in a terrifying layer of bloodied glass. An eerie, heavy silence had fallen over the battlefield. The air itself smelled different. Wrong.
My heart grew heavy. I knew these enemies were after me and the people I care for. I was justified in defending my life, and in doing so, I had not broken my promise to myself. However, that did not mean I was entirely free of guilt. A cold feeling started to accumulate darkness in my chest. It felt so similar to how I felt the first time I took a life in my old world.
My hands were shaking a bit. This was most likely from how low my chakra was, but it might have been some of that fear seeping in as well. I did not have the time to think about it. Suddenly, my vision blurred into a dizzying haze, and a high pitched ringing pierced my ears. The air around me felt impossibly thick and heavy to breathe as a horrifying sense of weakness completely drained the strength from my muscles. I lost my balance instantly and almost fell to the ground. Shisui blinked next to me and caught me, holding me up by my shoulder.
He kept his eyes focused ahead. He had a thin line of blood from his ears, but the damage seemed minimal, as if he reacted fast enough to shield his ears from any serious damage. A grim expression appeared on his face. "Noa, that was an incredible jutsu. I do not think I have seen anything like it before. That scale of destruction is unheard of for someone your age." After he made sure we were momentarily safe, he looked at me, unable to hold back a smile of pride. "You are an amazing student, Noa. Simply incredible. I am glad that I have contributed, if even slightly, to your amazing progress."
I smiled back, happy to get a genuine compliment from someone I value so much. He continued jokingly, trying to raise my morale since his very perceptive eyes noticed the telltales of more than just chakra exhaustion. "Stop getting so tall, you surpassed me already. If you continue like that, you will not fit inside your house doorframe." He chuckled as he ruffled my hair, and my eyes shone a bit with life, a small smile returning to my face.
The bear walked slowly towards us, shaking the fractured ground with his heavy steps. He looked like a demonic entity with how much blood covered his body, his crimson eyes shining more than ever as his booming voice echoed in the quiet. "Kid, that jutsu reminded me of those powerful monsters I fought before. I did not know you had something like that in you. I want you to strike me with it. I want to see if I can take it." Before I even raised an eyebrow, the bear suddenly disappeared in a giant puff of smoke.
I sighed heavily. "I had very little chakra left, so I was not able to maintain the summon."
Shisui spoke with genuine intrigue. "Your chakra reserves are very large, and yet you only summoned your bear and used that one jutsu for such a short time, and you are already running empty. It makes sense that such a powerful jutsu consumed that much chakra but still, the consumption is terrifying."
The general weakness was still settled deep in my bones, but I could not afford to stay blind. I mustered the little chakra I had into a single pulse to scan the surrounding area, and a dark look instantly fell over my face. Shisui noticed it immediately.
"How many?" he asked.
"Two powerful Jonin level chakra signatures coming our way," I replied. "They were most likely scouting far away before noticing my jutsu."
Shisui sighed as he took in my exhausted state. He grabbed hold of me and flickered.
My head spun violently when we stopped. The sheer speed of his technique was terrifying. Shisui quickly scanned the surroundings and spotted a tall building in the middle of the ruined area. He flickered again, the whiplash hitting me hard since he was moving at the very limit of his speed.
"Let us take shelter in that building," he said quietly. "It is large enough to stay in for a while without being easily discovered."
We blinked inside the structure, and Shisui gently set me down on my feet. "Do you have a barrier that can hide us?"
I nodded, pulling a scroll from my bag and handing it over. Shisui slapped the seal onto the ground and fed his chakra into the formula. A shimmering barrier erupted around us. From the inside, it cast a faint yellow tint that warped the ruined world outside. However, it would completely mask our chakra signatures and hide us from visual observation as long as Shisui maintained the supply.
I sat down in the center of the barrier with my legs crossed, regulating my breath to calm my nerves. I desperately needed to meditate to recover some of my chakra. I had already consumed a soldier pill during the boat ride in preparation for the mission, so sleeping was completely out of the question. Besides, falling asleep in the middle of a war zone was a terrible idea.
Shisui laughed softly. "This feels familiar. Have we not been in this exact position before?" I managed a weak laugh as he confidently assured me. "We will finish our mission and get out of this alive once you recover your chakra. Do not worry. Thanks to your incredible feat, I still have plenty of chakra left to utilize." I nodded, deeply relieved to have someone as reliable as Shisui watching over me. His presence allowed me to feel safe enough to calm my heart and focus entirely on my recovery.
Not long after, Shisui suddenly raised his head. I felt his posture shift and whispered, "What is it, Sensei?"
Shisui muttered in an uncertain tone, "I feel like someone is in the building."
I strained my ears but sensed nothing at all. "Should I try and locate them?"
Shisui quickly shook his head. "If you use your chakra to search for them, they will immediately know our exact location. It looks like one of them is a sensory type and extremely good as well. How unlucky. They must have sensed us when you sent a chakra pulse earlier and tracked us moving to this building, but chose to check on their comrades first while keeping their focus locked on us to make sure we did not move further. Now they are scouting the building to finish the job since they most likely think that we are injured or tired from fighting their main force."
A few moments later, Shisui's ears twitched. He slowly and silently drew his sword. "They are extremely good. However, I can hear their footsteps. They are sweeping the building floor by floor, and they are almost here. Noa, stay inside the barrier and do not use a single drop of your chakra. You might die if you do."
I nodded silently, dark shadows falling over my eyes. Shisui locked his hardened gaze entirely on the door to our room, a spacious, abandoned office that we chose because it could accommodate my barrier.
I heard it then. It was a sound so quiet it barely registered. My hearing was just sharp enough to catch it now that they were so terrifyingly close. The urge to warn Shisui grabbed at my throat, but his stiff posture told me he already knew. I forced myself to swallow my fear and held my tongue. Beside me, he silently fed more chakra into the barrier scroll, keeping our shield strong as he got ready.
A tense moment passed. Then came the faint noise of doors opening in the rooms to our left and right. Slow footsteps dragged across the floorboards outside, moving directly toward our door. The doorknob turned with a quiet click. The door drifted open, revealing an ANBU stepping inside. She was on the short side with long hair tied behind her back. Her dark green eyes looked terrifying behind her tiger mask. They were sharp and completely cold as she scanned the seemingly empty room for any sign of life.
Looming in the shadows right behind her was a huge man. He was tall with broad shoulders and a powerful, muscular build. The blank eyes of an elephant mask stared out from the dark as he walked slowly behind the tiger.
They were getting awfully close to the barrier, slowly checking the office, but they did not give any hint that they suspected anything yet. Shisui's hand tightened on his sword as his Sharingan spun to life.
Just before she collided with our barrier, she stopped and spoke with anger. "Looks like this is an empty room as well." She turned around. I almost let out a sigh of relief from the tension. However, she suddenly moved her hands towards the ground.
Shisui's eyes widened in disbelief. She could perform a jutsu without hand seals. Shisui noticed the chakra movement with his Sharingan and jumped from within the barrier, slashing his sword towards her. She reacted too fast, rolling to the side on the ground as the elephant ANBU kicked at where Shisui had just stood. Shisui twisted at the last moment and slashed back at the man, who used his arm guard to block the strike. There was electricity in that edge. Lightning chakra bit into the ANBU's arm as he jumped back to avoid having his arm slashed off, crashing through the wall of the office and into the next room.
The tiger-masked ANBU's voice carried a grim tone after catching a glimpse of the edge of Shisui's face and eyes. Her words held pure rage. "You killed all of my men. I will avenge their deaths."
She then disrupted her chakra as she spoke to her teammate, who stepped through the next room's doorway, dust falling from his ANBU uniform as he kept his eyes locked on Shisui.
"He is Shisui of the Body Flicker. Do not use any jutsu during the battle, keep disrupting your chakra, and keep tracking my chakra flow. If it feels weird, then I am caught in a genjutsu, so snap me out of it."
The elephant masked ANBU nodded, his eyes serious. Shisui stood between two powerful shinobi in an enclosed space as they all shifted into fighting stances, a situation that promised a brutal and bloody fight to come.