| [Apr. 30th, 2014|05:16 am] |
The knot in Katsuko’s chest loosened when she felt Raidou’s chakra signature stabilize. She clicked her throat-mic off. Then she threw herself underneath the Kiri-nin’s next strike and rolled between his legs, slamming the heel of her boot up into his groin on her way through. He yelled and leapt out of the way before she could take out his knees, lashing out at her with a water jutsu that filled the air with a veil of steam. Katsuko twisted aside and surged back up to her feet.
The hallways were too narrow to accommodate the broad sweep of her katana. Katsuko switched to her kodachi instead, relying on its shorter blade to slide in underneath the Kiri-nin’s guard. He dodged, despicably nimble for such a tall man, and kicked her in the ribs. She turned aside at the last second to divert the force of the blow and stabbed her kodachi downwards; he yanked his leg back fast enough that she only scored a long line down his calf instead of hamstringing him. Katsuko leapt back and slapped her palms together as she started to flicker through the first seal for her clones.
Metal flashed out of the corner of her eye. A machete blade cut through the steam with deadly accuracy, aiming for her throat. Katsuko flinched backwards and knocked it aside with her armguard, gritting her teeth at the high-pitched screech of steel against armor. The newcomer was another Kiri-nin: a kunoichi with a thin scar bisecting the crooked tilt of her mouth. Pale eyes glinted at Katsuko from underneath the Kiri hitai-ate.
“Konoha,” the kunoichi hissed.
Katsuko lashed out with her kodachi and ducked underneath the other woman’s whip-fast counter-strike. The machete whistled a centimeter over her head.
The kunoichi and the shinobi with the shark teeth made for two out of the three enemy presences she’d sensed. She cast her chakra out, searching, and found the third energy signature hovering nearby, in the master bedroom.
The kunoichi slammed a knee into Katsuko’s stomach. Katsuko doubled over, gasping in a lungful of steam, and wrenched her hands together to call fire out from the empty spaces of the world. Flames licked her palms and fingers, raced along the floorboards, surged up the walls in a roaring wave of heat. The kunoichi swore. Further down the hall, the shinobi let out a guttural snarl.
|
|