Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Tanshu's Story: Howoku's Starlight

After the aftermath of Sorano's technique, there was a brief moment of illumination even after it had resolved, such an "afterlight" effect was not something that was common to many techniques. Also, there were countless lightning sparks crackling in the air, even the aftermath of the technique was violent enough. The retired Sannin was breathing heavily and clenching one of many wounds inflicted by her opponent with small drops of blood ticking down on the floor once in a while. As the afterlight cleared the result of her technique was apparent, then slowly the surrounding dimmed away into the gloom. Loud grunts and whining could've been heard in the darkness.

"Your leg is quite messed up, perhaps it'd be for the best to grant us passage and let us go?" Sorano taunted the opponent whom she saw to be alive. "You've got to be kidding..." Tanshu thought, he noticed from sensei's stance that he used his "Demon Kick" technique charging his body with Lightning Release chakra and kicking transferring all of the force into this one kick, such kick was swift, silent and was strong enough to cut people in two, even more, the Lightning Release nature of the technique would've been enough to absorb the technique while sensei's other leg would've grounded it. And yet... Oni Mask's leg looked like a lump of coal, it was black and barely resembled a human appendage, just how powerful was this technique that this retired Sannin used? This strength was beginning to defy even the ninja limits, these Sannin were not superhuman, they were super-ninja.

Sorano grunted again as she spun her staff and pointed it to where Oni Mask last was when light illuminated the room, a powerful and unstable lightning bolt shot out, as the room was lit up it revealed Oni Mask standing right up to Sorano and having ducked right to the ground. "Demon Kenpo" he shouted thrusting his hand right to the woman's heart, as the body was penetrated it dissolved into pure lightning chakra and lit the room again revealing Oni Mask grunting and falling to his knees, "Lightning Clone!?" he shouted out in frustration. A loud thud echoed, then the thud repeated, then again, and again, and again, and again. The thuds started echoing around like a machine gun, it was tough for Tanshu to keep his ears open - the two were exchanging blows again in total darkness, using just perception and imagination of their opponent's position and predicting their movements with complete precision, as Sorano's staff ground against the floor it shot out lightning sparks that briefly lit the room. It was a glorious dance of light and violence. It made Tanshu almost beg for another peek just to see these two amazing ninja clash again.

A flash of light lit the next exchange, the woman's palm was shooting straight at the mess that was Oni Mask's face, there it was - the opening. The arms of the assassin shot backward like he was winding up to push the woman away, he then just shot them both forward at the same time. "Twin Demon Kenpo!" he grunted as another flesh tearing sound reached everyone's ears. Then it started sounding like someone was spilling a bucket of water on the floor, as the lightning lit everything up again it was revealed that one palm penetrated Sorano's gut, this was major, with so many injuries and her old body there was only that much that the woman could do, this battle was wrapping up. Sorano tried to use her chance to hit Oni Mask's exposed head but she couldn't, the pain made her slower, exhaustion made her even slower. She shot all of her lightning out already from her staff, if she hadn't she'd have used staff's own abilities and not her own "Lightning Clone Jutsu" moments before to avoid death.

Once again loud clangs echoed through the room, again and again, Tanshu could not believe for how long these two were dancing together, for how long they could keep this race of mind, will and determination up, for how long they could both fight to the best of their abilities without slowing down. Sensei was being pushed, according to Tanshu's calculations he only had one last technique and no chance to use it - the All Speed. As the name suggests it is the entirety of sensei's potential speed and strength but... It couldn't just have been thrown out like that, especially not when sensei was this hurt, his eyes were flooding with blood coming from his forehead and his body was tired at this point of the fight, Tanshu had expected the jutsu to come in early to gain advantage but why was sensei keeping it for last? Having its drawbacks in mind...