Chapter 56.5- Gamer of the Desert

“Almighty Push” He commanded right as my hand was about to touch him. I swallowed as I was sent flying without even the time to brace myself tfor the impact. I tore through the air like a bullet from a gun until I felt my body slam into one edge of the crater. The lack of much in the way of buildings to arrest my momentum was proving to be as much a boon as it was a detriment. I could see Nagato from all the way across, and that meant I could hurt him. I crossed my fingers and formed two more clones. All three of them us raced down the distance between us as one. His missile arm came up again, but none of the projectiles managed to fly further than a few feet before my sand appeared in their path and contained them all.

My first clone weaved a series of five seals. The other weaved seven.. I weaved three. This was the first true triple element combination I’d ever come up with. It started simply: “Earth Release: Rising Earth Dragon” Lefty commanded. The earth heeded his will, rumbling and quaking as it sundered itself from the rest of the ground and unleashed itself with the roar of shifting earth and then slammed down towards our target. The next element came from Righty; “Earth Release: Sludge of the Underworld” An original jutsu that I designed a bit after Jiraiya’s own arsenal with his toad oil. The sludge was designed to be extremely flammable. The clone to the right aimed perfectly and covered the stone dragon with it as it continued its path towards our target.

My own jutsu was a much simpler one. One that I’d practiced with so much that I’d been able to reduce the number of seals to the three most essential ones. “Katon: Karyu Endan” the fire dragon bullet flew through the air while I took in a deep breath. I did not need any seals for this. The Wind release: Great Breakthrough passed from my lips like a storm from a teacup. It hit the fire dragon and did just as it ought. Kakashi’s eye allowed me get the ratios perfect to a tenth of a percent. The wind amplified the flames but maintained the shape transformation. The fire dragon swelled by several orders of magnitude before slamming into the very flammable stone dragon.

Everything erupted in flames just as it was about to hit Nagato. Absorb this, you arsehole, I thought to myself as I allowed the clones to dispel. He raised both his hands and used his gravitational power once more. This time, I refused to be denied. The dragon still responded to me. I commanded it to resist, to keep going. I fought against the push of gravity for seconds, seconds that passed by with all the speed of hours. And then it was not enough. My dragon was sent flying backwards, destroyed to naught but loose stone, but that had been part of my plan. I body flickered into Nagato’s guard.

He hid the fact that he had not fought with this body for long. Some times I even found myself doubting what had to be the reality. He adapted well to using all his powers as one. But as I’d noticed with his use of the Gakido and Shurado paths earlier, he always hesitated. He should have used Tendo the second I got close, but he spent seconds hesitating. He simply didn’t think of it. More used to fighting as six bodies instead of one, there had to be more issues to be spotted. Undoubtedly, one of them was that he just wasn’t as sharp after using an almighty push. I’d noticed it, but this was the first time I got the chance to take advantage.

I body flickered in, ignoring the warning bells that rung in my head, and swung my blade aiming to stab it through his chest in one go. The blade passed through with no resistance but when our eyes met, I knew that I had made a mistake. He pushed himself in further on my blade and grabbed a hold of my hands.

Behind him, a ghostly spectre appeared. A large demonic head with a rinnegan in each eye socket surrounded by purple flames, darker than he eyes that had called them forth, stared me down. I could not describe what happened. All I knew was that in one second, my tongue had been safely in my mouth, and the next, it had been spontaneously enlarged and pulled across the room into grip of the King of hell. Please tell me that’s not a tongue, I thought to myself, shuddering at the thought of tonguing such a hideous creature. I’d never even gotten to kiss anyone in this life.

“How do you know about my technique” I heard Nagato’s voice ask. What a silly question, I thought, and then I felt grip on my tongue tighten. The King of Hell was pulling. The pain was indescribable. How could I describe having your tongue dragged out?

A/N; Final bit of this chapter.