Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Games of Body and Soul

Shattered Dreams

"Heh, I guess some time was needed for the effects of Yutsubu's jutsu to catch up. Things sure work weird with you involved." Hihei laughed out. The rogue found this exceptionally hilarious. He even bent over from the strain of laughter.

"This... Doesn't feel too good." Hanasaku noted to herself. Her entire body shook in shock but she managed to get herself back on her feet, despite the highly lethal aftereffects of Yutsubu's techniques. The burden of eternity resting on her shoulders itself appeared to merely discomfort the Sannin and make her serious.

"T-That's impossible, she can't possibly be standing! She took it all head on, almost the entire barrage!" Yutsubu shook in her boots, quivering the girl took a pair of steps back as tears and slobber ran down her face.

"I hope you guys don't mind that I take you out quick. I'm feeling kind of sick after that..." Hanasaku grunted while she slapped her palms together and began quickly working on an order of hand seals. Her body was sweating profusely as if she would have been suffering from a fever of some sort and her face was much more serious than before, there were very few times in the Sannin's life where battles forced the indifference and boredom out of her face.

"Earth Style: Staircase to Heaven!" Hanasaku ruffed out before driving her palms to the ground. Almost like the touch of the woman's limbs caused the ground itself to shift, a tremendous pulse resonated through the field and the foundation of the building beside them. Chitabo looked down with a goofy and clueless expression, shortly followed by his comrades that did the same thing. Their feet were slowly being covered up by the shifting ground and swallowed up.

Before the crew could sink to their knees, in case of little Yutsubu - her neck, sky-piercing pillars made of stone and soil rocketed upward, slamming into Chitabo's face and body but most importantly, lifting the immovable man up in the sky before the pillar collapsed after reaching its maximum altitude.

Hanasaku breathed out, working her body through the tension of the nasty sickness she was going through and leaped up in the sky so fast that her movements appeared to fade in and out of existence even the to the dangerous nukenin following them.

"Trillion Yottaton Punch!" Hanasaku roared out, driving her fist into the core of Chitabo's body, using all of her strength to drive it in as deep as it went before letting the force of impact do what it did best. Like an arrow from the world's most unbelievably fast crossbow, Chitabo got launched diagonally up beyond where the eyes of anyone trying to catch sight of the fumbling giant could do so.

Hanasaku slammed on the ground on her knees, hyperventilating. Her vision was blurry and her chestnut colored hair got in the way of her trying to see this fight through.

"Wow! I can't even see Chitabo anymore... How high did he go?" Hihei exclaimed in excitement and surprise, feeling little to no remorse or grief about the fate of his comrade.

"As far as things go. To the very edge..." Hanasaku replied, straightening her back out and preparing to move on to finishing up the fight. She felt the backlash of that punch in her own body, the pulsing intense pain in her bones. That was nothing new to her, she was used to straining and tearing her own muscles by abusing her own immense power and breaking her own bones from punching people harder than any ninja possibly could.

What troubled Hanasaku was that the pain no longer went away. Her hands trembled from it, the blood covering her shaking fists did not dry up but instead got reinforced by more blood coming from those same injuries. What did this rogue's jutsu do to her really? Hanasaku rarely felt fear for her own life, usually, that feeling was reserved to when people she held dear were in danger but... This realization of the fact she was now vulnerable, that her own actions had consequences now almost deserved that same angst in of itself.