Naruto: The Hidden Protector

182: Hagoromo And Gamamaru Vs Izanami

This pressure, along with the intense killing intent, froze Hagoromo for a split second before he recovered. But this split second was enough for Izanami to break in. With a deafening crack, the clear purple sky shattered like glass. Izanami stepped through the fracture, dual-wielding her katanas as she casually walked on the empty air.

She immediately locked onto Hagoromo and Gamamaru at once. Then, without speaking any nonsense, she swung her swords coated with Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki's entanglement.

Dark red lightning flashed as a massive sword slash tore through the sky, sweeping straight toward Hagoromo and Gamamaru, obliterating absolutely everything in its path.

A massive explosion rocked the realm as the sword strike crashed into the shield, sparking violent red lightning and sending a crushing wave of pressure in every direction.

The two forces grind against each other, the air screaming under the strain. Hagoromo gritted his teeth, pouring his energy into the Truth-Seeking Ball just to keep the barrier from shattering under the sheer weight of Izanami's raw power.

Soon, the power from the sword strike died down, leaving nothing but trailing wisps of red lightning and the smell of ozone in the air.

Hagoromo lowered his shield, his face pale and sweating from the effort. It had taken a significant amount of his chakra just to block a single, casual swing of her blade.

Up in the air, Izanami didn't look disappointed that her attack had been blocked. Instead, she just smirked, resting one of her katanas over her shoulder as she looked down at the two of them like a predator watching mice in a trap.

"You really thought you could hide him from me, Father?" Izanami's voice echoed across the shattered sky, smooth but dripping with mockery. "Did you honestly think your little parlor tricks could keep a soul from my grasp?"

Gamamaru cowered behind Hagoromo's robes, the sheer weight of her presence making his spiritual body tremble so hard it threatened to dissolve. The safety he had felt just moments ago was completely gone.

Hagoromo stepped forward, gripping his staff tightly as he tried to mask his anxiety. "Izanami, you have already taken his life and destroyed his clan. Is your thirst for vengeance still not satisfied? Why don't we take a step back and let this incident slide? Sure, you can do that much for my face."

"Face?" Izanami laughed, a cold, sharp sound that cut through the silence. "Hagoromo it seems you have some sort of misunderstanding here. Your face is worth nothing to me. The only reason you are even alive is that you always manage to run away every time I beat you. So if you don't want me to give you another beating, be a good boy and give me that old toad's soul. "

Izanami's words made Hagoromo's face extremely gloomy. How could someone as arrogant as Hagoromo endure such humiliation? So, ignoring his state, he began to fight Izanami like a madman.

In less than a hundred rounds, Hagoromo was beaten black and blue.

Unlike their last encounter, Izanami was completely enraged this time. She already knew every single trick and skill Hagoromo had up his sleeve, so she didn't waste any time on nonsense. Within moments, she completely shattered his battle rhythm.

Without his flow, Hagoromo was totally defenseless as Izanami's fists—coated completely in jet-black Armament Haki—rained down on him, breaking through his defenses and hammering him into the dirt.

Watching Hagoromo get beaten to a pulp like that, Gamamaru felt his heart grow completely cold. This time, he knew he was absolutely done for. If even the Sage of Six Paths couldn't handle this demoness, then there wasn't a soul left in existence who could save him.

All his grand titles, his centuries of wisdom, and his secret schemes meant nothing now. He could only watch in pure terror as his last line of defense was systematically demolished.

"Are you ready to die now?" Izanami asked.

After tossing the haggard, broken body of Hagoromo aside like a piece of trash, she began her slow walk toward Gamamaru. She casually dragged her two blades across the ground, the metallic screech echoing painfully in the silent realm. She knew doing this would scare the old toad out of his wits—perhaps this was what people called a menacing aura, and she was enjoying every second of it.

Gamamaru couldn't even move. His spiritual body was paralyzed, glued to the spot by the sheer weight of her killing intent as the twin katanas drew closer and closer.

"Any last words, Great Sage?" Izanami sneered, stopping right in front of him. A cruel smirk played on her lips as she raised her right blade high, the dark red lightning and jet-black Haki swirling around the edge, ready to erase his soul from existence forever. "No? Good."

She swung the blade down with brutal force.

But just as the edge was about to split Gamamaru's head, the space around the toad violently distorted.

"Amenominaka!"

Hagoromo's voice roared out, ragged and bloody, but filled with absolute desperation. Having forced himself back into action at the final second, the Sage of Six Paths used the absolute last reserves of his chakra to trigger his newly created escape method, which is a powerful space-time jutsu.

Before Izanami's blade could connect with its target, a spatial vortex snapped open and instantly swallowed both Gamamaru and the battered Hagoromo, whisking them away to some unknown, distant corner of the afterlife. The heavy sword strike hit nothing but empty air, sending a massive shockwave slicing through the ground where the toad had stood a millisecond prior.

Izanami froze, her blade still extended. She looked at the empty space and then realized Hagoromo had actually managed to slip through her fingers and snatch the prize right under her nose—again.

Silence hung over the area for a brief second before a vein popped on her forehead.

"HAGOROMO YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!"

Her enraged scream shattered what was left of the sky. The sheer volume of her fury caused the ground to crack and split open. She was so completely infuriated at being denied her kill by that old bastard that her chakra exploded outward like a supernova.

Wielding her katanas in a blind, chaotic frenzy, she unleashed dozens of massive, Haki-infused slashes in every direction. Red lightning and raw destructive force tore through the fabric of the reality around her. Within moments, the stable, organized pocket dimension Hagoromo had spent centuries curating couldn't handle the strain anymore. The sky caved in, the horizon collapsed, and the entire small dimension shattered into a million fragments, completely destroyed by her wrath.

After destroying the pocket dimension, Izanami finally let out a bit of steam, her heavy breathing slowly stabilizing as the chaotic debris of the realm drifted into the void. She opened a fresh portal with a flick of her wrist and walked through, leaving the smoldering ruins behind.

She now had to find those bastards again.

And when she found those two, she wouldn't just stop at death. She would kill them, tear their souls apart, and then torture what was left of them for a full eternity. 

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