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Naruto: Shattered Mirror Ch18

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Lightning flashed in the sky as Naruto and Takeru charged at each other, their eyes both a crimson red.

Takeru withdrew three kunai and hurled them at the Kiri boy. The moment the blades looked ready to strike him, Naruto vanished in a red flash, only to appear behind the man and the blonde drove his fist into his back.

The vampire was propelled forward by the attack, so Naruto vanished again and appeared in front of the Takeru. This time he grabbed the dark-haired man by the face, digging his claws into Takeru's cheeks before giving a loud growl and threw him into the crumbling building.

The Jashinist went thru two of the walls before vanishing into the darkness under the rubble. The damage done to the walls was severe enough that the rest of the structur began to collapse around him too, but not completely on the downed rogue ninja.

Naruto stood there, breathing heavily, feeling the Kyuubi's power coursing through every vein of his body. It felt good, really good, like he could do anything. Like nothing in the world could stop him now.

"Na… Naruto?"

It was Shiori's voice that brought him back into reality. Naruto looked over his shoulder and saw the redhead standing up from the ground. Her body was muddy and wet with all the rain that coming down now. Naruto had not even noticed the rain, every time a droplet hit his body, it quickly evaporated.

He could see that she was clearly afraid of him, but he did not blame her. He must have looked like some kind of monster at the moment. But it was going to take a monster to beat Takeru.

Shiori took a step towards her teammate. "Naruto, what has happened to you?" She looked so timid and uncertain right then it almost felt familiar to him.

"STAY BACK!" Naruto barked at her, and she stopped moving. Naruto's slit eyes stared at Shiori. "I don't know what I am capable of doing in this form, and I don't want you to get hurt so stay back."

Shiori was about to say more, but she did not get a chance to, for the sounds of laughter coming from inside the building got their attention.

"Your strength, your speed, your power!" Takeru said as he dragged himself out of the large hole in the side of the building. Blood was dripping from the side of his face, but it got washed off in the rain. He had a crazed look on his face, a mixture of rage and glee with a hint of madness thrown in as well. "Finally I have met with an adversary worthy to be sacrificed to Jashin. It is your blood that will sate my hunger and that of my god."

Naruto snarled at the crazed cultist. "You want it? Come and get it!"

Takeru smiled even wider, as he brought his hands together. "You should consider yourself lucky, I have only ever had to use this form once in battle and that was against a fellow worshipper who was even more stubborn about dying than I am." He suddenly performed a number of hand signs. "Cursed Demon Transformation Jutsu."

Both Naruto and Shiori stood and watched what happened next.

Takeru feel to his knees, growling like some kind of rabid animal. He ripped off his cloak and threw Hikaru's sword into the mud.

The mans hair began to grow longer, and thicker. Next his body, which had been a ghostly white color, turned a sickish grey. The red eyes suddenly began to glow as they sunk back a bit into the sockets His face began to twist and contort becoming more skull-like as the jaw began to widen and enlarge as his teeth began to grow sharper and longer. His ears became pointed and his nose rounded and became slightly piggish

Next Takeru's shoulders became broader and stronger looking. The muscles of his body began to grow and expand making him stronger. His nails became sharper, not just on his hands but feet as well. And finally two large bat-like and jagged wings sprouted from his back, quivering slightly as he stood up.

Takeru in his normal form looked very fearsome and intimidating enough, but he now looked like a true vampiric creature. Like the sort of thing a person would expect Dracula himself to turn into. And when he spoke it was cold and inhuman. "I am a servant of Jashin, here to do his will."

Naruto crouched into an attack position and snarled "And I am a Ninja of Kiri, here to do my job." He then propelled himself forward, and became a red blur.

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Kasumi fought on, too occupied to be fully aware of what her students were doing right then. Her opponent was a tough one, effectively suited for the standards of the Yakuza.

"Summoning Jutsu!" Beniko said as she slammed her hands onto the ground. There was a large puff of smoke and what appeared next was a giant six-foot black rat. "Devour her and leave me the bones." Beniko commanded and the rat rushed forward to obey.

Kasumi backed away but did not run away. The large rat jumped at her ready to peel her flesh off but she thrust her sword down it's throat thru it's open mouth. Within seconds the rat burst into many bloody pieces. "So that's how you get your materials? Your rats eat the meat and you keep the bones for yourself?"

"Yeah, but they have other uses too." Beniko said as she reclaimed her scythe. "But you should really worry more about your two kids. My partner is not someone you want kids fighting."

"They can handle him until I finish with you." Kasumi said as she tried to hit Beniko. The scythe blocked it. 'Dammit! If I could just make a cut on the handle at least I could make it explode and then she'd have nothing. But I can't damage it.'

"Wasn't it thinking like that that got the other boy killed last time?" Beniko asked offhandedly.

Kasumi's eyes practically glowed red with rage. "You're going to wish you never said that to me!" Moving quickly, Kasumi took her left hand off her sword handle and quickly hit Beniko's neck with an open palm attack.

"Ahh! That stings!" The puppeteer shouted, feeling a hot surge of pain on the right side of her neck.

"It's going to get much worse for you bitch." Kasumi said before jumping back and sheathing her sword.

Beniko was immediately confused. 'What the hell? She's going to fight me without her weapon now? This woman is one of the worst decision makers I've ever seen.'

Kasumi got into her taijutsu stance where she held both palms out forward and her elbows were sticking out to the side. Her right hand was further out than her left hand and so was her right foot compared to her left one. The weird thing about this was that her hands now glowed a soft red color, like there was a light under her skin.

"You intend to fight me bare-handed with a light show?" Beniko asked with a hint of humor in her voice, like she was trying not to laugh.

"Yes, I do." Kasumi replied, looking like she was preparing for something.

Beniko spun her scythe. "We'll see about that." She tried to cut the Kiri jounin, but Kasumi kept grabbing the handle to block any hits and then releasing it so Beniko could swing it again. The white-haired Suna kunoichi could not for the life of her see what the streaked brunette was trying to do. And to make things weirder, Kasumi always seemed to be grabbing the parts of the handle closest to her own hands.

"There. That should be enough." Kasumi said after one last grab then back away.

"What are you talking abo-AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Beniko started to ask, then screamed in pain as she dropped the scythe. She clutched her right hand and saw it was now covered in severe burn marks and welts, primarily on the palm and fingers. When she looked at the scythe, she saw the handle was glowing a hot red like it had just come out of a forge. "What the hell did you just do?"

"I don't talk about my fighting style like that." Kasumi answered.

Kasumi's family, the Midorigami, did not possess a kekkei genkai, but they did have a fighting style uniquely their own. It was called the Nenshouhira, the Burning Palm. Her clan was capable of focusing fire chakra into their palms and fingers so whatever they touch burns. And the more they touch, the worse it got for their target. First touch gave a first degree burn, second touch in same place made a second degree burn, and so on.

What Kasumi had done was keep touching Beniko's staff in the same spots over and over again until they became scolding to the touch and the puppeteer would have no choice but to let go. Beniko also had a first degree burn on her neck where Kasumi had struck her earlier. Now with her weapon too hot to handle, and her hands too burned to move properly, she was all but beaten.

Or so Kasumi thought. Beniko surprised her by grabbing her scythe with her gloved left hand and held it like there was no problem with the heat it emitted. She swung the scythe, and Kasumi had to duck to avoid being cleaved.

Kasumi looked on in confusion, not seeing how this woman could hold onto the super-heated metal pole, even with a gloved hand. The scythe handle was hot enough to give third degree burns now. Her answer came when the fabric of the glove burned away and she saw what was underneath it: A hand made of nothing but bone.

"So that's what you did. You did reattach your arm, but only the skeletal part of it." Kasumi stated. "Why the hell would you do something like that?"

"It was easier. Your explosive sword pretty much ruined my arm for me, so this is what I had to settle for. Looks like it comes in handy, and as a puppeteer, I can use my chakra to make the bones move. Most use wooden arms to replace their own, but I like to think of this as my personal signature." She flexed her bony fingers as she said that to emphasize her point.

Kasumi, her palms returning to normal, withdrew her sword again and pointed it at Beniko. "It doesn't matter. I will just slice that one off as well."

The Suna kunoichi smiled. "True, but first..." The former Suna ninja slammed her scythe onto the ground "Let me show you one of the reasons why I'm called Beniko the Corpse Herder. Corpse Summoning Jutsu!" She shouted.

There was a sudden silence in the air, and the ground began to rumble, several summoning seals appeared for a moment in the dirt. From each one of them on the ground burst a skeletal hand, which gripped the earth and pulled the rest of its body up, like a zombie digging it's way out of it's grave. The skulls stared at Kasumi with a sickly yellow glow in their eye sockets. Not only that, each of them had sharpened teeth and sharpened fingertips, and it looked like even their ribs had been sharpened.

Kasumi counted about eleven skeletons were now in front of her, held up by chakra threads connected to Beniko's burnt right hand. Intimidating as this horror show may be, she kept a calm head about it. 'Okay, there's got to be a weakness here. I can't burn them without exhausting my chakra, but maybe I can cut them.' She pulled out her sword and took a defensive stance before charging at the skeletons.

Beniko moved them to ambush her and overwhelm her, but Beniko spun around once with her sword out to keep them at bay. A few got knicked and the individual bones that did lightly exploded, but no hindering damage was done. Beniko laughed at her struggle. "Try as you might, my puppets are unbeatable. Only Sasori of the Red Sand was better at this than myself."

Kasumi felt something sharp pierce her shoulder from behind, but not each to go thru her. She turned to see one of the skeletons with his filed down claws stabbing her. Movement from the corner of her eye drew her attention back forward to see one of the skeletons had adjusted the position of it's ribs to point forward, as if to massively pierce her that way. Kasumi countered by thrusting her sword right between two vertebrae in the exposed spot. Soon the entire spine exploded and the skeleton collapsed.

"Ah, so they do have a weakness. Hit the spine and they fall apart." Kasumi said with a sneaky smirk. 'That's not all, they seem to be slow. She either needs a lot of chakra to keep the bones connected and mobile, or that burn I gave her is affected is control. Either way, I can finish this off soon.' Kasumi used this same method of striking the spine in between the vertebrae to make them explode one by one, and using taijutsu to keep the rest off her until she targeted them.

Beniko looked mad at seeing her precious bone puppets fall to pieces on the ground. "Okay, that's it. I have one last puppet for you to deal with. I would have preferred not using him but since you made me mad..."

The skeleton pulled its entire body from the ground and stood. It was indeed a large corpse. It stood at perhaps seven feet. Its bone structure was very large and strong looking.

Unlike the other skeletons this one wore a tattered white robe. It carried no weapons and stared down intently at Kasumi.

'Something is different about this one. I can actually sense a high level of chakra coming from it. Almost as if... no, it couldn't be. Dead bodies can't generate chakra.' The Kiri shinobi thought as she took a defensive stance, sword still out and ready.

Beniko, as if almost reading Kasumi's thoughts, laughed loudly. "Allow me to introduce you to my most prized puppet, and the reason I had to leave Suna, the First Kazekage of Suna."

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Naruto and Takeru pounced and fought directly like two savage animals. They bit and tore at each other like they were trying to painfully disembowel the other piece by piece. Naruto tried to rip off Takeru's wing and Takeru tried to crush Naruto's left leg. Takeru succeeded first, resulting in a bone snapping loudly.

Shiori stood there in shock and awe at the horrific sight, certain this would be in her nightmares along with Hikaru's death.

Naruto pulled back and Takeru flew into the air, his deformed bat wings flapped with amazing speed in order to keep the Jashinist in the air. While below Naruto clutched his injured leg, the Kyuubi's chakra was trying to heal the broken bone. Unfortunately it was not moving fast enough, and in the process, the red cloak around him faded away.

"Naruto?" Shiori called out, worried. 'Not again. I can't let another teammate be killed again.' Looking around, she saw something that might just give them a better chance of surviving. It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing. Without further hesitation, she ran to get it.

It was then that Takeru began to fall from the sky in a perfect nose dive, heading straight for Naruto. Combining his own weight with the force from the fall provided by gravity, he would surely crush the boy.

"Naruto!" Shiori yelled as she tossed him the black scabbard that contained Hikaru's former sword to her teammate.

Naruto turned his head and caught the sword and then gripped the hilt of the sword. Acting on sheer impulse, he pulled it from its sheath and swung the blade in front of him in the process.

Something happened. A crescent-shaped arc of white chakra shot out from the blade when Naruto released it. It moved thru the air and passed thru it appeared to do absolutely nothing. It was still enough that he suddenly pulled up from his dive and flapped in the air. "What in all the nine unholy hells was that?"

His answer came from behind, when the arc suddenly twisted and came back like a boomerang, only this time its chakra energy was a bright red and more violent looking, and it struck Takeru in the back. The Vampire Ninja let out a horrid cry of pain when it did. No longer being able to remain in the air, he fell from the sky in a free fall, his body withering and twisting in pain as he fell and struck the ground with a powerful 'THUD'.

The red arc came towards Naruto, and he held up the sword to block it. It was unneeded, as the chakra in the arc went directly to the sword and absorbed back into it harmlessly.

"He did it, he actually used it." Shiori said to herself in disbelief.

Naruto, his leg now healed, stood up. The Kyuubi's chakra which surrounded him now encompassed the blade as well. Naruto stared at the sword in his hand, and then he looked over at Shiori who seemed just as confused as he was at what had just happened. "What was that?" He asked.

"That was the Back Biter, the sword's special ability." Shiori said, still in awe.

The Kamitsuku, once Hikaru's blade, is a wind sword that sends out a crescent-shaped chakra wave that harmlessly passes thru anything, but returns to the sword and then cuts thru everything like a razor, effectively striking the opponent's blindspot every time. The chakra used is taken from the wielders own reserves, which the sword combines with the chakra that was infused into it during its creation.

Shiori had only ever seen the special ability work with Hikaru though, how it had worked with Narut-

And then she realized, both Hikaru and Naruto were Wind Element types. They had a similar chakra flow, which was why Naruto could use the Back Biter. And Takeru, he must have been a different element type, so he must not have been able to use the sword's ability. If he could then he would not have thrown it away so easily.

Takeru, still gravely wounded, stood up from the ground on his elbows, and for the time in the battle actually seemed in real pain. His right wing was broken and useless, so he could no longer perform any more flying attacks. He was breathing heavily and blood, his own blood dripped from his mouth. And he stared murderously at Naruto with his sunken red eyes. "It will take more then that to stop me." He growled.

"You're cut in half at the waist. What more could it take?" Naruto asked.

"You'd be surprised." Takeru said before placing his hand on his wounds. "Total Regeneration Jutsu."

Within a few seconds, every wound on the Jashinist's body regenerated completely. It was like watching a video while it was fast-forwarding. It finished just as soon as it started, and Takeru stood up without a care.

"How... how did you do that?" Shiori asked.

"I'm blessed by Jashin. By giving myself pain many times, he cures me of it when I need to be well. Attack me all you want, I will not die from it."

Not too many people realized it, but the Jashin cult actually had many branches in it that performed their duties different ways. Takeru's branch of the cult were made of those that inflicted harm to themselves as a sign of faith, and in return were rewarded with greater resistance to pain and incredible healing, along with the ability to take on nightmarish forms. Another branch had to make sure they offered up a human sacrifice and did not make the death quick in order to receive immortality despite any wound or age they received.

Shiori glared and started to pull out her sword. "You killed my first partner. You are going to die even if it means we kill you until you don't come back."

Takeru just grinned. "I'd like to see you try."

With her sword completely drawn out Shiori glanced at her teammate, "You hit him high and I hit him low?"

Naruto narrowed his red eyes as he nodded. "Perfect."

Shiori ran ahead and Naruto ran up catch up with her. Both had swords in their hands but only Shiori looked like she knew what she was doing. Not to mention when she ran Takeru couldn't even seen her blade. "Mist Style Severing Spiral Slice." She called out when she got close enough. What she did was plant her right foot firmly on the ground then spin her whole body to swing her sword, which went right thru Takeru's right calf, bone included, and cut it off, and then she continued her spin but raised her sword higher to repeat the damage to his right thigh.

At the same time this happened, Naruto attempted to repeat that Back Biter move again. Apparently he had a difficult time doing it on purpose, so the sword didn't respond. So he opted to just pierce the enemy in what he hoped was a vital spot. This ended up being between the left collar bone and the heart, but still damaging the lung.

Takeru yelled from both attacks and started to fall over. He flapped his wings before he did to stay up and tried to fly away, but Naruto's weight threw him off and made him too heavy to do anything. "I still would prefer to sacrifice you, so I can't kill you yet But that doesn't mean I can't maim you." He declared as he grabbed ahold of both of Naruto's arms, ready to rip them straight out of their sockets.

"Water Style Seasnake Jutsu." Shiori called out, using the collected rainwater on the ground to make three snakes made of water that constricted around Takeru. Two of them each wrapped around a separate arm and tried to make him lose his grip on Naruto, while the third wrapped around Takeru's neck, trying to strangle him.

With Shiori's help, Naruto was able to get loose and pull the sword he was using out of his enemy. Once free, he put some distance between himself and the Jashinist.

"Try using the Back Biter again. As long as I have his arms kept apart, he can't make handsigns so he can't regenerate." Shiori told him.

"How do I do it? I wasn't even trying the first time?"

"Just put your chakra into the blade and swing it where you want to strike. The sword will handle the rest."

Before Naruto got a chance to, Takeru broke free, panting heavily. "You think... 'pant'... such a weak jutsu would... 'pant'... restrain me?"

"It did what I wanted it to." Shiori said before holding her sword out in front of her, ready to keep fighting. By now the rain had washed off all of Takeru's blood from the blade.

Takeru was only slightly unnerved by this red-haired girl's stance. 'Wait, I couldn't see her sword at all when she moved, and now that she stands still... I STILL can't see it. What the hell?'

Naruto formed a cross sign. "Shadow Clone Jutsu." He formed close to thirty clones and they all ran to Takeru. Since being restrained by Shiori's water jutsu, he had yet to take to the air again, and had yet to heal himself of the damage done to his right leg. And with all of these clones trying to pound him into unconsciousness, he wasn't going to get a chance to do either soon.

Shiori used this as a diversion to sneak behind Takeru. She wanted to cut off the Jashinist's head from behind, but his fluttering bat wings kept getting in the way. 'Guess I'll have to settle for that for now. Naruto you better keep him distracted long enough for me to do this right.' She then swung her sword down to cleave the right wing off completely at the base, and succeeded.

Takeru screamed in agony, allowing Naruto's clones to inflict further hits on him. Shiori brought her sword back up and brought it down upon his left wing, removing it as well. But before she could move to remove his head, several spikes grew out of Takeru's back and shot right at the girl.

Naruto heard his partner scream and a sword fall to the ground behind his foe. "Shiori!"
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blowzer's avatar
when is the next one and where is it