Behind the mask, Katsuko's lips peeled back from her teeth. Rage boiled in her veins, just under the surface, nearly blurring her vision.

She was going to kill this bastard slow.

Masahiko kept on talking as if he hadn't just signed his own death warrant. "It was a stroke of luck that I took your partner out first, I suppose. Now I can take my time--"

He staggered back as her killing intent hit him full in the face, a rising tidal wave of bloodlust that caught him off-guard long enough for her to get nice and close.

Her first hit caught across the shoulder, laying flesh open to the bone. He managed to block her second strike with his arm guard but she simply reversed her blow, slamming the butt of her kodachi into his chin in an uppercut. Something crunched and he made a strangled sound--she'd shattered his jaw.

Good. Maybe he'd shut up, now.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him starting up the lightning jutsu; she flipped her katana up and stabbed him in the stomach. She almost screamed in frustration as the blade was deflected by hidden armor, but managed to make the best of a bad situation and twisted the hilt to slice across unprotected skin and bone underneath the armpit.

Masahiko grunted and threw his hand up; Katsuko sneered and got ready to block. One-trick pony, this guy. If she could manage to block it she'd be--

Lightning shot out of his hands, heading not for her, but for the limp, unconscious form of--

Ryouma.

She wasn't even aware that she'd lunged, just twisted her chakra up into her blades and met the jutsu head-on, putting herself between Masahiko and her partner. The flare of energy blinded her; she couldn't tell where Masahiko was or--

Something hit her from the side, a crackling energy different from the last jutsu but still just as crushing. Katsuko's swords spun out of her hands as she soared through the air, doubled over the fist Masahiko had buried in her gut.

Dimly, she was aware that the wall was rushing up behind her. Reflex took over; she grabbed the twisted mass of her chakra and shoved it, all of it, into her back and the air behind her. Had to make a cushion, something to soften the impact--

Air rushed out of her lungs as she hit the wall, hard.

Light, then

dark, then

silence.