>>5943437“Young man?” Comes Hotaru’s voice. “We need to extricate ourselves. Come to me.”
Your heart turns to stone. That was not Hotaru. You knew at this point that she was here somewhere, but she wouldn’t have entered this mist. There was nothing for her to gain by coming for you, it was an inefficient use of her talents to creep in here when she would be much better off raining explosions down on the enemy ninja from outside.
It was a trick to lure you out and kill you.
It was a trick that you could turn to your favor.
You think about what the enemy ninja had seen. They had seen you scared and defenseless. They had seen you go down, seemingly badly wounded. They could only assume that you were still scared and searching for any means of escape. In other words, whoever this was expected you to be a meek child, scared of death and eager to grasp any hand offering salvation.
They were underestimating you. A grave mistake. The last mistake they would ever make.
You begin focusing on the sensation of power in your core.
Tora Ushi Tora Ne. You had to kill them. You had no choice.
Tora Ushi Tora Ne. Kill them.
Tora Ushi Tora Ne. Kill.
You nudge your water clone with your elbow. He nods. “I’m here!” He shout whispers, stepping away from you and to your side.
You lurk in the mist, blind, but relying on a prescient sense of killing instinct that pulses through your brain.
Your clone stumbles towards the voice. The sound of piercing flesh momentarily greets your ears, followed by the splashing of water as your clone dies.
You lunge forward.
The masked man’s face enters your view mere inches from you. He was taller than you, but you catch a glimpse of his eyes through his mask. Younger than you thought. Brown eyes, hard eyes. Surprised eyes. He’s taller than you, so your mouth is level with his neck.
Tora Ushi Tora Ne. Water Bullet jutsu.
His arm flashes out towards you, gripping a kunai he wants to ram into your chest.
Your two Otomo clones come through for you, one grabs his left arm, the other grabs his right. Both press their torsos against the masked man to prevent the kinetic force of your water bullet from being lost sending him flying.
A great torrent of water issues forth from your mouth, point blank into the man’s throat. A choked gurgle is almost immediately silenced by the torrent of water crushing his windpipe.
You continue spraying. Harder. [blue]HARDER[/blue].
You squat down, allowing the water to arc upwards at an angle. His head jerks backwards, mask ripping off along with the skin of his face an instant before his body is finally propelled skywards with the force of your onslaught, ragdolling uselessly into the distance.
