76 BSNW CH 072 The Last Mirrors

Team 1 contained Kakashi, the mysterious ANBU captain of Leaf ANBU and Leader of Team 1, Yakumo Kurama, the Kurama Clan Heiress, Itachi Uchiha, the Uchiha Clan Heir, and the last was Chino, his adopted sister with her mysterious Kekkei Genkai. All of them were pretty strong in their own rights, Chino even had the potential to surpass Itachi because of her rapidly strengthening Dojutsu.

Team 2 contained Rikuo Kaneko, the Wind Sage and leader of Team 2, Oichi Oda, the Fishnet and Katana loving busty beauty, Saibo Kazahana, the tall and roguishly handsome ninja with a vast repertoire of terrifying Jutsu, Nozomi Uchiha, the raven-haired Uchiha beauty with terrifying prowess and a mysterious past, and finally Kashikoi Makidori the brunette beauty with a mysterious Kekkei Genkai.

Rikuo had managed to find the corrupter of the Spirit Best in a hidden realm called The Forest of Eternal Night, which was near the Valley of Evil where the Spirit Beast was sealed and experimented on. Currently, they were going to the Valley of Evil first, to let Jun absorb the fourth part of the beast contained within the Mirror his Master Hinoki had. After arriving near the Valley of Evil, the two teams will part.

Team 1 will continue with Jun to the Valley of Evil, Team 2 will go to the hidden realm, The Forest of Eternal Night, and take the final mirror from the enemy and hopefully meet Team 1 in Valley of Evil before the Spirit Beast can get free and rampage. Jun was confident that with Rikuo and the others, whoever the enemy might be, they were not going to be able to keep corrupting the Spirit Beast.

After traveling for over four days constantly, they managed to reach the Valley of Evil. Team 2 parted with them and left for The Forest of Eternal Night, while Jun guided Team 1 along the secret path his master had taken to get to the sealing spot. When they arrived there, they saw many dead bodies of bandits and ninjas scattered here and there along the path. Jun, Itachi, and Kakashi also managed to spot innumerable Fuinjutsu traps, most were used up, but some still active. Maneuvering around them, they finally reached the innermost part of the valley.

"You're here finally Jun." Hinoki said happily "We almost thought you won't make it."

"Sorry Master, I had to assimilate with the parts of the spirit beast in the other mirrors to have the best chance of success against the main body." Jun apologized "I have got very strong in these past few months and I am very confident of my success now."

"It's fine, Jun" Hinoki assured them "We wouldn't have told you to go if we didn't think we could hold out or that you could become strong enough."

"Let's start the ritual already" Kakashi interrupted "I have a strong feeling something is about to go wrong, so let's at least complete our side first."

"Why do you always have to be a downpour of negativity?" Jun complained as he swiftly set up a containment circle with Fuinjutsu using his new Ink Release. Both Hinoki and Kakashi were stunned momentarily upon seeing the large elaborate Fuinjutsu containment circle emerging suddenly.

"Kakashi is right though Jun" Hinoki intervened after getting over his shock "if there is one thing I have learned about battles is that one should always make plans, don't put all your faith in them. There is one certainty in a battle, which is that there will always be variables, even if you are in an overwhelmingly superior position."

-x-x-x-x-x-

It had been a few hours since Jun had erected his containment barrier and went in to merge with the fourth part of the spirit beast. Though he had the experience from the other three parts, he didn't have the support of Resshin this time to suppress the beast. Hence the progress was slow in comparison.

But just like Kakashi feared, something went wrong. Nearly twelve hours after Jun went into the containment field, Kakashi noticed someone arriving at their location. It turned out to be Kashikoi from Team 2. She was boosting her running speed with a pair of weird mechanical gloves, that spewed out chakra forcefully to act as the equivalent of a thruster to boost her speed. She also had a unique mechanical mask on her face, with an eye visor made of crystal-like material.

When she finally reached near, her equipment faded into chakra particles, indicating that they were chakra constructs the whole time. She quickly reached out and threw a mirror to Hinoki, who caught it with surprise.

"Things went wrong," Kashikoi said in a hurry "there were three main enemies, of which we have already taken care of two. The final one, who was also their leader, went insane and forcefully let the final piece of the spirit beast to merge with him. He also somehow used the connection between the beast and him to slip in between the seals. He is currently inside with the beast, corrupting it. If Jun doesn't hurry then the enemy might corrupt and fully merge with the beast."

"This a race of fate now Ms. Makidori" Kakashi intervened "Jun has already gone into the containment of his making, most probably based on his previous experience with merging of spirit beast parts. There is nothing we can do to help."

"That is not exactly true Kakashi" Hinoki interrupted "I have a method to disable the seal, however, which will also mean that if the enemy can gain control of the Spirit beast, they will wreak unchecked havoc. Hence, the only way now is to disable the seal and stall the enemy so that they don't gain control of the beast."

"Sounds like the only plan now. I guess then this will be a two-pronged effort, me, Hinoki-San and Ms. Makidori will go in. You kids keep an eye on Jun and bring him in as soon as he finishes the merging." Itachi, Yakumo, Chino, and Nazuna nodded.

"Let's do it then Hinoki-San," Kakashi said. Hinoki activated hand-signs at a rapid pace before slamming his hands on the glowing dome. Blood-red Fuinjutsu seals spread out from his hands, covering the dome swiftly. Hinoki's face got paler at a rapid pace as more and more red seals appeared from his hands.

Kakashi was shocked upon seeing this. He had read about this kind of Fuinjutsu, the living sacrifice style Fuinjutsu. This was one of the two life and death manipulation techniques of the Uzumaki, the other being the Reaper Death seal which summoned a being closest to be called a god in this world. This type of Fuinjutsu overcame the need for the correct 'key' for Fuinjutsu containment seals and substituted it with the pure vitality of the caster that manipulated reality itself to negate the existence of the barrier.

Though there was still a lot of confusion regarding the domain of soul and life, Uzumaki was truly a clan of geniuses for inventing two such techniques that could be said to border on the realms of god. It was rumored that even the technique of reincarnation, that the second Hokage was infamous for, was a bastardized reverse-engineered version of Uzumaki techniques. This was why it was said to still be incomplete, unlike the Reaper Death Seal and Life Sacrifice Style Fuinjutsu which were complete techniques.

Luckily, they managed to breach the seal before Hinoki ran out of vitality. They wanted to let him rest, but he insisted that as an Uzumaki he still had reserves to be called upon from and that he can continue. They rushed in through the cave system, leading deeper into the earth, where the beast was said to be sealed. It was due to this beasts chakra poisoning the land around it that the entire Valley of Evil gained its name. The beast was said to know of everything that happened in the land poisoned by its chakra.

When they finally went past the last cave system, it opened into an enormous underground space with a few dimly glowing crystals lighting it up. At first, they couldn't see anything unusual, it was just an enormous dull clearing, with not even a single rocky formation. However, then they say a dim silhouette walking towards them. It soon was revealed to be a young man in purple clothing, with a necklace made of some beast fangs. He had long white hair and eyes with the dark sclera and blue pupils. A weird chakra cloak had formed around him, waving like weird tentacles.

"Welcome, my first experimental subjects. I am especially glad to have an Uzumaki visit here. After all, who better to face the wrath of an experimental spirit beast than one of the very members of a clan that created it." the figure said while looking at Hinoki "However you seem like a mixed breed, your chakra is not only Uzumaki but seems to have the traces of Nature chakra, which the beast is salivating at by the way. Well, no matter, I have a pretty impressive collection here, an Uzumaki and two Kekkei Genkai users, this will be fun."

"Cut the chatter and let's rumble," Kakashi said in a low voice as the chirping of birds surrounded him and a coat of violent lightning emerged on his hand. He had already activated his Sharingan to look for the beast, but the whole place was saturated in its chakra. It was so dense that Sharingan was not able to follow its source. As he looked around for the beast, he heard the unknown guy laughing.

"Oh that is precious, trying to distract me while searching for the beast huh?" he chuckled "But who said the beast was hiding anyway?" he said as suddenly the entire place started to tremble. An enormous amount of chakra explosively emerged from the ground, simply disintegrating the rocks around and above to eventually reveal the sky, with many tons of small rock pieces sent flying.

It was then they realized that the 'surface' they had been seeing till now was actually the back of an enormous mutant catfish, which had glowing markings around its eyes, head, and belly, and had two giant crabs like pincers and legs. It had enormous whiskers and a weird mouth like structure between its actual mouth and its dark eyes. Its chakra that it had expelled, swirled around it like a hurricane, before forming a giant green beaded necklace around its neck. The unknown man was standing on the back of the catfish beast, his feet sunk into its back as if fused permanently.

Before anyone could do anything, an enormous amount of purple fog like chakra emerged from the beast and rapidly spread across the land. As soon as they were touched by the fog, purple markings spread all over Kakashi, Hinoki, and Kashikoi and they froze. Kakashi had experienced this before when they were pulled into a similar form of illusion by the part of the spirit beast in the mirrors. However, this was many times more potent, they never even realized they were in an illusion. Their bodies started moving like zombie puppets towards the beast, while their minds were caught in an illusionary fight.

"And it's over," the unknown man said as he laughed at the controlled figures of Kakashi, Hinoki, and Kashikoi "No one can resist the Spirit Beast, and with me providing it with consciousness, it is in complete control of its powers. We will rule the world with its resident's mere puppets before us."

Just as he was about to control his monologue, two giant balls of revolving chakra with bladed disks around them crashed onto him, creating two big explosions. When the dust settled, the unknown guy was seen covered with a cut like injuries, his purple clothes in tatters.

"Who dares ?!" he roared as another giant chakra ball with a bladed ring appeared before him, but got deflected this time with a purple chakra tentacle. When he looked at the direction from which the ball emerged, he saw a bunch of kids standing there, covered in glowing green markings.

In the lead was a wavy brown-haired kid, with black clothes and the lower half of his face covered in a black face mask. The most eye-catching was his eyes, glowing yellow disk-like pupils with rune markings. As his pupils swiftly revolved, another giant chakra ball with bladed rings formed on top of one hand while the other hand supported a floating rotating chakra construct in the form of a Magatama (basically a 3d comma) filled with poisonous light and Fuinjutsu markings.

"You won't rampage while I am here," Jun said firmly as he launched the Magatama towards the spirit beast and the Giant chakra ball towards the unknown guy, while the others got ready to counter the tentacles of purple chakra that came barreling towards them. With explosive sounds of the collision, the final battle for the Spirit Beast began.