Filled with mist and steam, the area in which Akashi and Yagura stood appeared mysterious and ominous.
It was the first time that they met, and yet, no introduction was needed.
The titles of Red Blade and Mizukage were known worldwide. They had plenty of information regarding each other.
'Three of the Swordsmen. Mei, Juzo, and perhaps some more factors.'
Akashi frowned. It seemed that his calculation was a little bit off, for he didn't expect Yagura to come look for him—at least based on what Mei told him.
Anyhow, now that Karatachi Yagura stood in front of Akashi to prevent him from changing the tide of the war any further. They have become the restraints of one another.
50/50. Based on the current development, such was the possibility of victory that Akashi estimated—the victory of Mei and others over the three Swordsmen, that is.
'...Karatachi Yagura.'
Yagura, the fourth Mizukage. He went by many nicknames.
Jinchuriki of three tails. Ruler of demons. Monster.
One thing was sure. Yagura's never lost in a fight ever since one fateful day... not even once.
The corner of his lips twitched.
"Kiba. Kubikiribocho. Samehada. Nuibari. Shibuki. Kabutowari. Hiramekarei. Those are the names of the fabled seven swords of the Mist."
Breaking the silence, Yagura spoke at last.
"With Kiba under your hold, Kiri currently has five Swordsmen, each occupying one of the listed swords. Now, you must be wondering... where did the final sword, Hiramekarei, go?
The answer is over here."
From his shoulder, Yagura revealed a huge scroll.
Akashi wasn't someone to wait. Revealing four shurikens held between his fingers, he threw them at once, straight at Yagura.
However, Yagura seemed to have expected it. With skillful hands, he threw the shurikens of his own.
The shurikens clashed against each other mid-air. 8 of them in total fell on the ground, having lost momentum.
Just as the first shuriken touched the ground, Akashi moved.
Dashing through the path ahead of him, Akashi aimed to strike Yagura, not giving the latter a time to prepare any further.
Backpedalling, Yagura unrolled the scroll and activated the seal drawn on its inside; a huge, unique-looking blade that was encased by bandages appeared with a puff of smoke.
At the next moment, they were clashing blade to blade, Ryuma to Hiramekarei.
Yagura's emotionless face broke, now exhibiting a crazed grin.
Mid-clash, the bandages around Hiramekarei began to be undone.
As the bandages fell, Akashi saw the dark-colored, fish-shaped blade inside.
"Hm...!"
As Yagura's pupils enlarged, the chakra exploded out of his body. Feeling the pressure, Akashi didn't brashly fight back but simply backed.
At that exact moment, the huge amount of chakra began to manifest around Hiramekarei, coating the blade.
'Now that I look at it closer...'
Akashi noted mid-air,
'The sword has two hilts. It's two in one.'
The chakra expanded. Centring the blade, the blue chakra, seemingly hard upon touch, morphed to form a shape that looked like a huge sword.
Yagura then swung it from approximately thirty meters away, at Akashi.
In response, Akashi raised Ryuma.
CLANG.
The blue chakra around the blade of Hiramekarei travelled all the way to where Akashi was flying, with a surprising sharpness and hardness.
Boom.
The trees on Akashi's left and right had their tops severed from the bottom. One by one, they crashed down to the ground, generating a dust that quickly settled due to the vapor pressure of the mist.
Having blocked the chakra blade, Akashi's feet landed on a middle wooden trunk that remained intact around the cut-down trees due to existing right behind him. Bending his knees, he kicked his feet off of it, propelling forward toward Yagura.
CLANG.
As Yagura made one full rotation, the second slash came from Hiramekarei. Akashi slashed back with Ryuma, parrying the second strike.
Tap.
Landing on the ground, Akashi ran rapidly. Upon Yagura's will, the chakra around Hiramekarei condensed—now being no greater than a great sword in terms of size.
In this state, the two of them simultaneously raised their free hands.
They simultaneously performed one hand seals, having read each others' thoughts.
"Fire Release,"
"Water Release,"
Yagura's cheeks bellowed.
"Water Dragon Bullet!"
"Ash Clone."
The ash that was lying around the area rose and condensed into two replicas of Akashi.
One grabbed Akashi by his free left arm and threw him upward, past the Water Dragon Bullet that Yagura spat out. The other one, dashing to the side, began running toward Yagura.
Naturally, the Water Dragon Bullet missed, crashing into the lone tree that was standing in the middle of fallen ones.
As the water exploded and sprinkled around the environment like a drizzle, Yagura's eyes were naturally locked onto Akashi, who was hovering mid-air.
Akashi, even now, was undergoing another series of hand seals.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball."
The environment was humid. It was the perfect environment for the users of the water nature, and one of the worst for the users of the fire release.
So, what was this?
"The fire release of this extent... in the environment full of mist..."
A huge, meteor-like blast of fire was flying at him.
At the same time, Yagura saw through the corners of his eyes, that Akashi's ash clone that was generated previously was attempting a sneak attack from his right.
"Hmph...!"
He stabbed Kiramekarei on the ground at his front while undergoing hand seals with his left hand at the same time.
"...?"
Akashi raised an eyebrow at that.
Just then, the sharp blast of blue chakra suddenly exploded out of the ground right above where his ash clone was heading. The ash clone was struck by the chakra extension of Hiramekarei, and was dispelled.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
At the same time, Yagura spat out a huge wall of water, just before the great fireball struck upon it.
Akashi set up two different attacks, and Yagura managed to deal with them in an efficient manner.
But that wasn't what Akashi focused on.
'This smell... salty.'
He attained an important piece of information... that Yagura's water was more similar to ocean water than to fresh lake water. Perhaps, it was a characteristic of being the jinchuriki of three tails.
The steam erupted, blinding Akashi and Yagura for the moment. With its burning-hot nature, it would be dangerous to head into it recklessly.
Yet, both of them did, protecting their bodies with chakra as they did so.
CLANG.
Through the sense of sound, they located each other. Ryuma and Hiramekarei met once again.
Retracting the blades, they struck once more. Twice, thrice, and so on—it was a sword battle at an incredible speed, one that an average person won't be able to even see what was going on.
CLANG.
Sparks flew within the hot steam.
Blade against blade. As this continued, Akashi formed a one-handed seal, and so did Yagura.
"Water Release,"
However, said hand seal of Akashi was a fluke. Immediately, rasengan sprang out of his palm.
Yagura's eyes narrowed. Quickly, he applied an increased amount of force on Hiramekarei to knock Akashi's Ryuma away from him.
"Water Mirror technique."
While kicking backward, Yagura drew a circle with his finger. A mirror-like figure, composed of water, appeared between Akashi and Yagura.
Out of the mirror that reflected Akashi's form, the replica of Akashi came out, holding the exact same Ryuma and rasengan.
'This is...'
Ryuma to Ryuma and rasengan to rasengan. Akashi's advance was blocked by his replica, which then dispersed back into the water.
Immediately after, Akashi substituted his body with one of the fallen wooden trunks.
Puff!
Just as he did so, Hiramekarei stabbed through the Water Mirror and into the wooden trunk where Akashi had stood just a millisecond ago.
Taking out a shuriken from some distance away, Akashi placed his finger in the shuriken's hole and began to spin it.
As he did so, the wind chakra surfaced, coating the shuriken delicately.
As Yagura noticed what Akashi was doing, the shuriken was thrown.
Having been coated with the wind chakra, the shuriken was quicker, sharper, and deadlier.
"...You think I didn't notice?"
Yagura saw that underneath the wind-chakra-covered shuriken, there was a second one hiding.
Leaping up, Yagura dodged the two—only to find himself caught off guard as Akashi moved his finger.
It turned out that the second shuriken had a wire attached to it. It abruptly moved up, hit the first shuriken at the right angle—such that the first shuriken, the one covered in the wind chakra, was now deflected to head upward, toward where Yagura hovered.
"Tch...!"
Yagura swung Hiramekarei to deflect the shuriken in his way.
Losing the momentum, the wind that was coated around the shuriken dispersed, forming a small gust right below Yagura.
Akashi's cheeks were bloated.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball."
The enormous ball of fire struck the coiled wind below Yagura.
As the two met, there was an abrupt expansion of fire, one that went out with a majestic boom.
Yagura was knocked further up.
In an instant, the distance between Akashi and Yagura increased by a great extent, giving both of them the time to prepare the next attack.
Yagura underwent a fast series of one-hand seals, uncaring of the fact that he was dangerously high up in the sky.
"Water Release: Water Severing Wave!"
The stream of water, of extremely high pressure, shot out of Yagura's mouth.
Travelling at a very fast speed, Akashi witnessed the powerful technique, probably an A rank in terms of power, reaching him.
He raised a finger.
"Energy Release: Heat Line."
Then, something unthinkable happened.
In an instant, the powerful stream of water evaporated into steam as a thin, sharp laser of green color severed it.
"...?!"
Yagura's eyes widened as he found that laser beam, emitted out of Akashi's extended index finger, reaching all the way to his shoulder, piercing it.
Blood splattered. Realizing that he was wounded a second later, he held his shoulder and grimaced as he began to fall.
'What is...'
Yagura sweated, not having expected this.
'A bloodline limit?!'
Nevertheless, he wasn't a Mizukage for nothing. With a high pain tolerance, Yagura managed to mitigate a fall damage by producing a cushion of water underneath.
Right after Yagura landed, he enlarged the chakra around Hiramekarei, ignoring the fact that his right shoulder was injured and that swinging Hiramekarei drew pain in it.
Then, out of the ground right underneath him, four Akashis popped out, with each one of them holding the replicated sword, Ryuma.
"Bloody Mist Sword Art,"
Seeing that he was surrounded, Yagura gripped Hiramekarei with both hands.
"Bone Mutilation!"
Puff, puff, puff!
Smoke covered Yagura's vision as the clones dispelled.
It also meant that all four were clones.
A chill ran down Yagura's spine.
'...Where is he?'
"Here."
'Above...!!'
Yagura quickly looked up and saw Akashi swinging Ryuma at him—one that was now encased in vigorous fire.
Akashi severed through Yagura, only to see Yagura's form dispersing into water; he attacked a water clone.
Yagura appeared behind Akashi. Then, he swung Hiramekarei. The blood squirted out of his wound at the shoulder as he swung, but he didn't seem to care.
Akashi's body was cleaved in two. Then, he crumbled down into ash, rendering Yagura shocked.
Yagura's body then instinctively moved, barely dodging Ryuma that came in flying from his back.
The blade, encased in fire, nicked Yagura's cheek. The blood, as well as the sizzling noise, was drawn.
Akashi, appearing in front of Yagura, caught the flying Ryuma mid-air.
Ryuma, still blazing in fire, was now being swung toward Yagura.
Yagura instinctively swung back with Hiramekarei. Regaining his grit, his mind rapidly came up with a way to counter Akashi.
"Bloody Mist Sword Art: Deadly Water Blade!"
The blue chakra manifested around Hiramekarei began to bubble before it transformed into dense water.
Water, by nature, was a counter to fire. Using this logic, Yagura transformed Hiramekarei's chakra into water, confident that this would mitigate the destructive power of Akashi's fire-imbued Ryuma.
And this was exactly what Akashi was hoping that Yagura would do.
Again, Yagura's water is salty. It means that it contains minerals and is not pure.
That meant that it can conduct electricity.
At the last second, before two blades clashed, the fire on Ryuma suddenly disintegrated, much to Yagura's confusion.
Then, there was a surge of lightning around Ryuma. An instant switch in nature it was, a feat that would be considered nigh impossible.
Yagura's eyes contained this sight, but it was too late to react.
The lightning-imbued Ryuma connected the water-imbued Hiramekarei.
The result was obvious.
The lightning crackled ferociously as it was transferred from Ryuma onto Hiramekarei.
Yagura screamed as the lightning coursed over his body.
Seizing the chance, Akashi instantly formed rasengan over his free hand.
Pushing his rasengan-holding left arm forth, he was about to deal a critical blow to Yagura.
Ba-Bump.
Feeling a sudden chill, Akashi backed off instantly.
The spot where he had stood a second ago was now smashed into pieces, due to the punch of a gigantic arm of crimson chakra that suddenly manifested from Yagura.
"I... didn't want to resort to using this..."
Yagura's growl, sounding almost animalistic, rang in Akashi's ears.
"But you are forcing my hands!!!"
The red chakra engulfed Yagura's body. One tail of red chakra sprang out of his back as he got on four.
Hiramekarei, now lying on the ground, has been abandoned; it was a complete switch-over of a fighting style.
'It's just like Nii Yugito. The only difference is that... Yagura seems to be under full control, unlike her.'
Akashi, with a solemn expression, watched as Yagura, in this bizarre form, prepared to launch an attack.