Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

The Bloody Kaleidoscope

A sky piercing stare of the one-eyed Uchiha turned at Gokibure who still held the man's sister on his shoulders. Despite possessing one of the most potent and unstable defenses that could've been repurposed into an all-devouring offense at any moment the Aburame just barely resisted the instinct to shiver. Even when his opponent was outnumbered, even when his body was covered in bruises and burns and he was cornered right up close to an object he had to keep standing. Such was the power of the mere presence of Jiou Uchiha.

"Do not believe for a second that I'd hesitate to pierce my sister's heart to get to you. I love her too much to let her burn herself in self-directed hatred for being a burden" Jiou's silent yet efficient voice reached Gokibure's ears and now that the sandstorm had ceased and become a rain of grain-sized crystal dust he could understand every word.

"I saved your sister because I hate hurting women. I consider myself a gentleman and even when a woman is too dangerous to keep alive or I only barely pull myself out of a tough battle, I still cannot push myself towards such a thing..." Gokibure replied with a cocky smile, he meant every word. He'd have much rather took the young Aisha for dinner than fought her in such a cruel battlefield.

Remashi placed her hands together and suddenly veins violently shot out all over her face coming out of her eyes as her white Byakugan of the Hyuuga clan intensified. She scanned the battlefield around her while still trying to keep her eye on her injured opponent just in case he decided to pull something funny.

"He may be right, I don't see Mardith's chakra at all, nor do I see your insects inside of him. He may actually be dead..." she said with a hint of surprise and a slightly smaller shade of hidden sadness.

"Hmmm... I seem to have sensed the signal of the nano-roaches going out some time ago, I was troubled by that but figured it could've been a great lot of things. I thought maybe the woman shorted the roaches out with a Lightning Style technique... If he actually is dead that is unfortunate" Gokibure nodded looking back. Before he could back Jiou's injured and bare-chested body leaped up to him for the kill. Before the Uchiha could deliver a lethal blow or the Aburame could command his insects to protect him Remashi flashed up to the man getting in between the two and thrust her palm forward.

"Fire Style: Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!" she chanted sending a powerful heated up shockwave that blew Jiou backward a great distance inflicting damage all over his body as he took the technique head on. The intense heat burnt up parts of his hair, it completely incinerated his eye-patch revealing a black hole where his Sharingan once was. The technique left even more patches of black burns over some areas of the man's body, the heavy injuries that he sustained from the previous superheated explosion of chakra greatly impacted his speed.

"I am your opponent, I recommend you treat me as such before I end up killing you..." Remashi exclaimed looking back at her friend. She wasn't overly fond of the roach wielding Aburame but she would have preferred to keep him alive. Kusagoro's squad saw many difficult missions and somehow they started taking each other's lives for granted, even while they bickered like children normally, they'd have protected each other's lives if given the choice.

As the smoke cleared and the searing horizontal twister of fire burnt out the two Kusagoro's teammates realized that they were played – Jiou was nowhere to be seen. The eyes of the Hyuuga woman squinted and focused on a specific point in the castle ruins.

"I've got him... A slippy bastard..." she grunted with great annoyance and dashed onwards to the castle entrance. She knew that Jiou was faster than her so the woman leaped up into the air and drove both of her hands backward.

"Fire Style: Eight Trigrams Twin Vacuum Palms!" she yelled out as two crystal piercing jet waves of pure flame and heated air fired off of her arms sending her body skyrocketing forward faster than sound itself into the castle. It took great mastery and perception for the woman to flip over in the air and dash off of a couple of walls surrounding her, she bounced off of the walls in her way like a pinball only losing a small fraction of her momentum, she had to catch up to that Uchiha bastard, she hit him with a head-on "Vacuum Palm", that closed at least four of his chakra nodes, his total chakra level must've been plummeting down at that moment.