Chapter 48: Yama's Wail and the Troubled Wind
The midnight forest lay in ruins, a testament to the storm of violence that had passed through it. The air, thick with the scent of ozone and scorched earth, was eerily still. Chunks of ground were upturned, trees reduced to charcoal or splinters, and the lingering heat from Lightning Release chakra made the atmosphere shimmer.
Across the devastated clearing, Ragnar and Armani faced each other, their chests heaving in unison. They were no longer just combatants; they were two predators who had tested each other's claws and found them equally sharp. The next move would not be an exchange—it would be a final, all-in gambit.
Lightning Armor. Enhanced physique. My brute force can't break his defense decisively. I need something sharper. Something that cuts. Ragnar's mind, honed by battle and Haki, analyzed coldly.
This kid's weird power is too durable. My stamina won't last. Lightning Armor is a drain. I need to end this fast, before my chakra runs dry. Armani's thoughts mirrored the urgency. Kumogakure ninja were explosions of power, not marathon runners. Only freaks like the Third Raikage could fight for days.
Ragnar's hand moved to the pouch at his hip. With a practiced flick, he produced a standard-issue ANBU storage scroll. Every operative received one—a necessary tool for carrying the arsenal of a shadow warrior without being weighed down.
"Release."
His hands formed the seal. The scroll unfurled on the ground, its complex seals glowing briefly before dissolving into a puff of white smoke.
Poof.
The smoke cleared. In Ragnar's hand, resting there as if it had always belonged, was a sword.
It was not a standard ninjato. It was Yama. One of the 21 Great Grade Blades. The demonic sword he had subdued in the ANBU Crucible.
The blade was just over three feet of wicked, elegant lethality. The steel was a dark, hungry grey, and along its spine flowed an etching like frozen, dark flame. The edge curved like a captured crescent moon, so sharp it seemed to cut the very light that touched it. A palpable, bone-deep chill radiated from it, a cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with malice.
As Ragnar's fingers closed around the tsuka, a shudder went through him. Not of fear, but of recognition. A wave of dark purple, almost invisible energy whispered up the blade. He had never formally trained in kenjutsu, but holding Yama felt like completing a circuit. Instincts he didn't know he possessed stirred—footwork, grip, angle of attack. The sword was a teacher of violence.
"What… what blade is that?" Armani asked, his voice uncharacteristically tight. The sword didn't just look dangerous; it felt like a hole in the world, a promise of oblivion.
"The sword's name is Yama," Ragnar said, his voice low and clear. He lifted the blade, holding it horizontally before his eyes, watching the moonlight run along the cursed edge. "It sends all it cuts to the hell of the dead."
"Yama…" Armani breathed. "A fitting name. A monster's sword for a monster child." The assessment was grim, without mockery. He saw it now—the boy and the blade were two halves of the same terrifying whole.
"Nin-Taijutsu: Thunderstorm Fist!"
Armani committed. There was no more time for awe. He became a thunderbolt again, a streaking comet of blue-white annihilation aimed at Ragnar's heart. The ground tore apart in his wake.
The touch of Yama's hilt had sharpened Ragnar's mind to a diamond point. As Armani charged, his right arm, and then the sword itself, was sheathed in the deep, absolute black of Armament Haki. The dark energy flowed like liquid shadow, coating the entire blade until it became a sword of pure, light-eating darkness.
He didn't think. He acted.
A simple, fundamental draw and cut.
The world changed.
SHIIIIIING—!
A sound like a universe being torn in half. From the tip of the blackened Yama, a crescent of pure black energy slashed outward. It didn't move through the air; it erased the space it passed through. Color, sound, substance—all were nullified in its path.
Armani's combat-honed instincts screamed. He threw himself forward into a desperate, graceless dive, his face plowing into the dirt. The black crescent passed so close over his back he felt the absence of heat, a vacuum of death. Cold sweat drenched him instantly.
He looked up, and his blood ran cold.
Behind Ragnar, in a perfect fan-shaped arc extending for hundreds of meters, everything was… gone. Or rather, cut. Every tree, every bush, every rock at waist-height had been sheared clean through. A whisper of a pause, then the upper halves began to slide, crashing to the earth in a cacophony of falling timber. Farther back, even the distant waterfall had been momentarily split, a clean gap visible in the white water before it crashed back together.
This… this sword…! Armani's confidence, rooted in his Raikage-given power, cracked.
Across from him, Ragnar swayed, the sword dipping point-first into the soil. That single, instinctive slash had drained a staggering amount of his Armament Haki and willpower. Yama was a bottomless pit, amplifying power at a horrific cost.
But the demonic blade also sang with pleasure. It had tasted intent.
No more playing.
"War," Ragnar stated, the word a flat declaration. He ripped Yama from the ground, the fatigue burned away by a surge of battle-lust fed by the sword. He launched himself forward, Shave carrying him in a black blur.
Armani, pride wounded and fear fueling his rage, met him head-on. "You think I fear a child and his fancy knife?!"
The battle reignited, but it was different now. No more pure taijutsu clashes. This was a duel of blade and lightning.
Clang-SZZZT-Crunch!
Yama, sheathed in Haki, met the crackling lightning spears. Sparks flew—black and blue. Armani's speed was still immense, but he was no longer untouchable. He had to respect the blade. Every parry sent jarring shocks up his arms. Every missed dodge resulted in a line of cold fire across his skin as Yama's edge kissed him, parting the Lightning Armor like cloth.
Ragnar fought with a ferocious, untutored grace. The sword was an extension of his will. He used Shave not just for movement, but to create fleeting openings, his body and blade appearing from impossible angles.
Seventy, eighty exchanges passed in a blistering, violent symphony. When they broke apart again, the cost was written on their bodies.
Armani's Lightning Armor flickered and died, unable to sustain the damage. His torso and arms were cross-hatched with deep, weeping cuts. One gash on his thigh showed bone. He bled freely, his breath a wet rasp.
Ragnar was no better. His Haki had prevented dismemberment, but the concussive force of Armani's thunder-enhanced blows had transferred through. Several ribs on his left side were cracked or broken, sending lances of agony with every breath. His internal organs felt bruised and battered. Blood, his own this time, coated the inside of his mouth.
"Brat… last move!" Armani roared, spitting a glob of blood. He brought his hands together, the last dregs of his formidable chakra screaming to life. The lightning didn't form spears this time. It condensed, compressed, into two thick, short blades of solid, buzzing energy around his fists—less finesse, more raw, drilling power.
"Lightning Release: Heavy Burst!"
The principle was akin to the Chidori or Raikiri: immense speed and piercing power focused to a single, devastating point. He became a living drill, a final thunderbolt aimed at Ragnar's core.
This was it. The end.
In that suspended moment, Ragnar's mind, linked to Yama, became preternaturally calm. The world faded. His injuries faded. There was only the sword, the enemy, and the technique sleeping in his muscle memory.
He settled into a low, centered stance, Yama held at his side, blade parallel to the ground. His voice, when it came, was a chant, a focus for the sword's demonic energy and his own conquering will.
"Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind… the six senses of man."
"Good, evil, indifference… each has its purity and its defilement."
"A single life… thirty-six troubles."
"One Sword Style: Thirty-Six Pound Phoenix!"
"CUT!"
He didn't swing at Armani. He swung through the space between them.
Yama became a blur. Not one slash, but a whirlwind. The dark purple aura of the blade merged with the emitted black Haki, multiplying, reflecting, crisscrossing. It wasn't a single wave of destruction, but a storm of slicing intent—thirty-six distinct, yet simultaneous, cuts woven into a net of absolute annihilation.
The air itself seemed to be shredded into confetti. The ground in front of Ragnar dissolved into a cloud of dust as countless intersecting lines of force carved it apart.
Armani, mid-charge in his final, glorious assault, saw it. His Lightning Release: Heavy Burst met not a defense, but a domain of cuts. His eyes widened, the white lightning reflecting the approaching, inescapable mesh of black and purple.
There was no sound of impact. Just a terrible, wet slicing whisper, like fabric being torn a dozen times over.
Then, silence.
The lightning around Armani's fists sputtered and died. He took one more stumbling step, then stopped. He looked down at his body.
Fine red lines appeared across his chest, arms, legs. Dozens of them. They deepened, welling with blood.
The mighty Jonin of Kumogakure, the student of the Third Raikage, came apart. His form dissolved into a cascade of meat and blood, collapsing into the dust his own technique had just churned up.
Ragnar stood, Yama pointing at the ground, its blade slowly shedding the last vestiges of black Haki and purple miasma. He was trembling, every cell screaming in protest. But he was alive.
The demonic sword gave one last, almost satisfied hum, then fell silent.
(End of Chapter)
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