Tsubaki and Hikari landed lightly on opposite rooftops, facing one another across a wide thoroughfare. Even this late in the evening, the street was still crowded with vendors, carts, and stalls, along with ten times as many tourists. Most of them looked up in curiosity as searchlights focused their beams on the curvier of the two women.
"Ninja Art: Paper Shuriken Jutsu!"
A sheaf of paper shot out of Tsubaki's thigh pouch, hundreds of individual sheets scattering around her like a puffball of dandelion seeds. With a quick hand sign, the tags instantly folded themselves into aeroplanes and shot towards Hikari.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Wary of Tsubaki's explosive tags, Hikari expelled an enormous gout of flame from her mouth in an attempt to prematurely detonate them before the paper aeroplanes reached her. The crowd below flinched as a wave of searing hot air washed over them, but by the time the glare of the flames had dissipated, the two women on the rooftops had vanished.
'No explosion… fakes,' Hikari thought to herself as she launched in pursuit. 'Has she actually run out of explosive tags, or is she trying to make me think she has?'
From what Hikari had observed, Tsubaki had initially been making a beeline for the palace, but, having seemingly realised that she could not shake her pursuer, had changed direction. Having lived in the capital city for a few months already, Hikari could tell that Tsubaki was leading her towards a secluded location where they could fight without worrying about innocent bystanders becoming collateral damage…
All that to say, Tsubaki almost certainly still had explosive tags at her disposal.
"I've got a lock on Lord Orochimaru's spare body," Hikari spoke into her collar, where a miniature radio transceiver was concealed in the lining. "She's going towards the warehouse district, near the salt mine."
The warehouses were just ahead; with one final leap, Tsubaki soared across a broad waterway and landed on the other side. Moments later, a plume of white smoke enveloped her body, and three identical pink-haired girls burst from the cloud, leaving trails of white smoke behind them as they darted in different directions.
"Annoying," Hikari muttered to herself as she leapt onto the roof of one of the warehouses. "Just how much chakra does that girl have?"
Hikari swiftly weaved a series of hand seals and bit her thumb, breaking skin and drawing blood—
"Ninja Art: Roof Tile Shuriken!"
Before Hikari could finish the summoning sequence, hundreds of roof tiles began shooting towards her, forcing her to abort her jutsu and repeatedly spring backwards until she reached the roof's edge.
!!!
Hikari's scarlet eyes shone faintly in the darkness, the three tomoe in her irises spinning into crescents. Time seemed to slow down as one of the roof tiles whizzed by, a white paper bomb pasted to its underside…
"Substitution Jutsu!"
BOOM!
A moment later, Hikari burst from the white smoke released by the detonation of the nitrocellulose paper bomb, sliding backwards as an empty barrel took the brunt of the explosion for her. Now that the interruptions were out of the way…
"Summoning Jutsu!"
Five feathered velociraptors appeared before Hikari. Each was as big as a male turkey and about as long from snout to tail as Tsubaki was tall, and each was armed with a special sickle-shaped, banana-sized claw on each foot. They gazed up at her, their intelligent eyes meeting hers.
"Yip-yip!" Hikari called, her voice driving the small dinosaurs into a frenzy. "Hunt!"
…
Meanwhile, Tsubaki was busy setting up a wire trap between two warehouses a few buildings away. Even in the gloom of night, she doubted she would be able to catch a Sharingan user with nearly invisible wires, but she hoped the razor wire would at least buy her some breathing room—
Boom!
A distant explosion rang out.
In the next instant, memories of small carnivorous dinosaurs running into her Shadow Clone's own explosive wire trap flooded Tsubaki's mind. Taken by surprise in the middle of her work, she had been caught in the detonation, causing her fragile body to pop.
"Dinosaurs again?" Tsubaki murmured to herself. "Did Orochimaru give up on evolving from a snake into a dragon?"
Not even a minute later, the second Shadow Clone's memories surged into Tsubaki's mind. The very same dinosaurs she thought had perished in the earlier explosion had killed her, but this time, they'd avoided the wires entirely, taking great care to weave between them.
This taught Tsubaki three things about the velociraptors.
First: they were as unkillable as Edo Tensei zombies.
Second: despite their immortality, they had an aversion to pain.
Third: they were remarkably smart, on top of being fast and excellent trackers.
"Clever girl…" Tsubaki muttered to herself. "But not as clever as me!"
Moments later, the velociraptors converged on her and tore her to bloody pieces with their teeth and claws.
…
Hikari's heart sank as she heard a series of sharp, hooting calls, signalling that the velociraptors' hunt had succeeded. She had assumed Tsubaki would put up more of a fight, giving her time to rein in the dinosaurs by the time she reached them, but if she arrived too late and they killed her…
"No, no, no!"
What awaited Hikari at the source of the calls was nothing less than a bloodbath. Tsubaki's severed limbs were strewn across the street, the velociraptors stripping her flesh from her bones with their sharp, pointy teeth…
Unfortunately for Tsubaki, Hikari's eyes could see through the illusion; the bloody pieces of meat the velociraptors were gnawing at were actually the chopped-off limbs of a bored-looking Wood Clone. The illusion was convincing, but not convincing enough to fool the legendary Mangekyō Sharingan.
"You're using Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Jutsu, aren't you? My eyes can see your chakra permeating the air," Hikari said coldly. "That genjutsu can only be used if the user is nearby… so stop embarrassing yourself and come on out."
Upon hearing their mistress's voice, the velociraptors began happily running towards her, wagging their long tails, holding in their jaws the Wood Clone's detached limbs…
"Wait, a two-layered illusion!?"
…each one of which was densely covered in explosive tags.
BOOOOM!!