*Ah, my head is hurting.*
He had never experienced a migraine quite like this. Too much raw data was flooding his optic nerves at once. The three tomoe spun in a furious crimson blur within his eyes, breaking the world down into fluid vectors, micro-twitches, and heat signatures. The Sharingan was forcing reality to lay bare its deepest secrets, and he had no choice but to drink it all in.
His gaze swept over the six-man squad locking into formation ahead.
Two frontline vanguards. The swordsman's plate armor was immaculately clean—untested in true combat, making him a low threat. The spearman, however, held his weapon with a relaxed, deadly familiarity; his posture was poised, his toned frame moving effortlessly beneath light plating. High threat.
Beside them stood the tank. He was white-knuckling his heavy tower shield, standing too close to the swordsman and refusing to take a single step forward. Timid. He would hold his ground out of sheer terror rather than tactical discipline.
The backline held three. An archer nocking an arrow, a support mage weaving three distinct mana traces simultaneously—marking her as the primary target—and an attack mage whose tunnel vision was completely consumed by the offensive spell coalescing in his hands.
The plan materialized in a microsecond.
Jin surged forward, leaping high into the torchlit air. He made his silhouette massive, banking directly on the tank's cowardice. The heavy Devil flinched, freezing in place as he hid his head behind his shield.
"Here he comes, get ready!" the spearman roared.
Jin's chokutō smashed onto the top rim of the shield, the impact driving the tank down onto one knee. Instantly, the swordsman and spearman thrust their weapons upward. But the swordsman, caught off guard by the violent rhythm of the assault, struck a fraction of a second too early.
Jin twisted his waist in mid-air, using the blunder to close the distance instantly while leaving the space he just occupied wide open. The broadsword grazed empty air, and the spearman's lethal thrust plunged harmlessly through empty space.
The swordsman's eyes widened at the sudden shift. Panic set in, but rigid training kept his hands glued to his hilt when he should have retreated. Jin didn't care. He swept his chokutō in a brutal diagonal arc, cleaving the swordsman open from his collarbone straight down to his stomach in cross fashion . Blood erupted across the stones. Without breaking rhythm, Jin tilted his head a fraction of an inch; an arrow hissed through the space where his ear had been a moment prior, its trajectory already mapped by the Sharingan.
Reversing his grip, Jin dropped his center of gravity, driving his blade straight into the tank's exposed flank. The man was still paralyzed by fear. Instead of pulling the steel free, Jin wrenched it forward, tearing through muscle and skin, spilling the tank's stomach and intestines onto the cold tiles.
The spearman tried to step in, but his path was completely blocked by his comrade's collapsing body.
Jin's eyes darted back. The attack mage had finished his incantation. Jin instantly dashed toward the female support mage, positioning her directly in the line of fire.
*A soft spot,* Jin calculated. The attack mage hesitated, unwilling to obliterate his ally.
That micro-second of hesitation was all Jin needed to swat a second incoming arrow mid-air. But the support mage was quick on her feet; taking advantage of the second Jin spent deflecting the arrow, she sprang backward to open the range.
The backline was now scattering in three directions, and the spearman was charging back in with white-knuckled fury.
Jin scanned the geometry of the field. The mages were backing off along three divergent angles, the spearman was closing in behind him, and the attack mage was re-aligning his spell. Charging the attack mage directly meant stepping straight into a point-blank blast—no. Diving for the support mage opened his flanks to an arrow and a magical volley while she was positioned between them—no.
Jin vaulted into the pocket between the support mage and the archer, who was just finishing another draw.
*Let's push the archer straight into the spearman's path.*
Jin rushed her flank, forcing her to alter her stride and stumble into the spearman's line of approach. But the spearman was sharp. He smoothly shifted his weapon from left to right, opening a lane for the archer to fall behind his guard, while the attack mage, seeing Jin's back exposed, finally loosed his spell.
Caught in the crossfire, Jin let out a low breath. *So, I can only save that much strength.*
He stopped holding back. He funneled a precise burst of Touki into his legs.
The stone floor shattered under the explosive force. Jin closed the gap before the archer could even release her bowstring, driving his blade cleanly through her heart. Ripping the steel free, he caught her falling corpse and hurled it into the path of the incoming spell, the magical blast detonating and tearing her lifeless body to pieces.
The spearman thrust forward, rage burning in his eyes. Jin didn't bother raising his sword. He brought his left forearm up as a guard, activating his hardening. A jagged, dark metallic sheen erupted over his skin. The spearhead struck his arm, sparking violently before sliding harmlessly off the dense surface. Jin stepped inside the weapon's reach and buried his chokutō to the hilt in the spearman's chest.
Dropping the weapon, Jin spun on his heel to face the backline, his bloodied hands blurring through a sequence of hand seals so fast they merged into a fluid trance.
"Fire Style: Majestic Fireball."
The two remaining mages couldn't even raise a scream before the white-hot sphere consumed them, reducing them to smoldering ash.
Jin cracked his neck, glancing down at the dying spearman. "Now to finish you off—"
"NOO!!!!"
The raw, agonizing scream of Akane Naberius echoed across the courtyard.
Jin snapped his head toward the sound. The main body must have just brutally put down someone close to her.
*Wait,* the realization hit him. *I'm processing this much tactical data and doing Touki hardening. The other clones are doing the exact same thing.*
A grim thought settled in. *Information overload plus a personality crash. Uff. The main body is in for a real treat when we pop.*
The ground shuddered violently.
Jin turned his head just in time to see the colossal, drooling maw of the Cerberus lunging out of the dust, snapping shut around him.
*Shit. Distracted for just one second—*
The jaws clamped shut. The clone ruptured into a dense cloud of white smoke, instantly firing a massive, crushing payload of sensory data, agonizing pain, and mental exhaustion straight into the brain of the main body across the courtyard.