Naruto: Stormbreaker

Chapter 194: Chapter 194: The Hunt Part 6

Kaen POV

Sena approached as I kept my eyes on Owl, who was still bleeding from the earlier slash. Heron’s body lay a few steps away, twisted and broken, the shattered mask pressed halfway into the mud. Steam rose faintly from the blood pooling around him, the smell of iron thick in the air. I glanced at Sena and saw the exhaustion on her face, her chakra barely a flicker in my vision.

She stopped beside me and asked quietly, ”How much chakra does he still have?”

I focused my Sharingan on Owl, watching his chakra pulse and flow. ”Very little,” I said. ”Maybe one strong jutsu or two weak ones.”

The fog had thinned, revealing the full weight of the battlefield. Heron’s corpse, the cracked ground, and the smeared blood were all reminders of how narrow the line between life and death really was. I clenched my teeth. It bothered me that Owl’s chakra wasn’t distorted like ours. ”Do you know how they’re fine using so many jutsu without any trouble?” I asked.

Sena sighed, her eyes narrowing. ”It’s probably a seal that’s doing that for them. And they’re familiar with the area, so they’ve likely adapted to it. This was a setup.”

Her words made my stomach tighten. One of the few things I trusted without question was Sena’s intelligence, and if she said it was a trap, then it was.

She continued, ”If Noa were here, he would have confirmed the seal theory. Let’s hope he can help Sensei.”

I nodded. I wanted to finish this quickly and go help too. Even without chakra, I would not have minded throwing my life away if it meant protecting someone like Shisui sensei, a treasure of our clan, second only to Fugaku sama.

Owl didn’t seem to mind us talking as he circled us slowly, observing every twitch in our movement. Our training kept us sharp enough not to show an opening, but his eyes searched for one anyway. Sena spoke with a slightly raised voice, calm but firm. ”Kaen, keep him occupied. I’m going to end this.”

Before she could finish her hand seals, Owl moved. He charged toward us with heavy, deliberate steps, his chakra flaring wildly. As his hands flashed through a quick sequence of seals, the remaining chakra in his body erupted into earthen energy. A thick coat of stone spread over his body, hardening into a jagged shell. His face became a mask of rock, and he came at us like some monster from the deep earth.

When he struck the ground with both fists, the impact tore through the terrain, sending a shockwave of shattered soil outward. Sena and I jumped in opposite directions, debris raining around us.

I lost my footing for a moment as I landed, my eyes reflexively scanning the ground beneath me for a stable spot to regain balance, and Owl was already on me. His fist came crashing down, faster than I expected. I crossed my forearms just in time to block, but the impact drove the air out of my lungs. I was thrown back, coughing blood, my arms throbbing with pain even through the guard.

Sena flicked a kunai toward him, aiming for his extended arm. The weapon struck the hardened stone and bounced off as if it had hit solid steel. Owl lunged at her immediately, his stone-coated arm swinging toward her head.

Sena moved with terrifying precision. Her body twisted in a motion that looked almost like a dance, graceful and impossible to follow. As she slipped past his strike, she slapped an explosive tag onto his arm and jumped back. Her hand snapped through a seal. ”Release.”

Owl’s eyes widened. He tried to flood his chakra into the tag to burn it away, but he was too late. The explosion erupted with a violent flash and a deafening crack. He stumbled back, screaming, smoke and fragments of stone bursting from his arm.

Sena retreated a few steps, her breathing uneven. ”Don’t close in,” she warned sharply.

I grunted, not happy to take orders, but if it was between Noa or Sena, I would always listen to Sena.

Owl straightened slowly, a rough, dark laugh leaving his throat. ”I thought you’d fall for that and rush in,” he said, flexing his injured arm. ”But that blonde girl is smarter than she looks.”

His arm was still attached somehow. The explosion had shattered the stone coating and left the flesh beneath bruised and torn, the skin darkened and raw from the blast’s impact, blood seeping through. Yet his fingers still curled into a fist. He looked like a beast bleeding from its own armor, and even wounded, he still felt dangerous.

Owl cracked his neck as he drew his tanto, the faint scrape of metal echoing through the ruined clearing. A heartbeat later, he exploded into motion, closing the distance between us in a blur of speed. His blade flashed toward Sena’s side.

I did not think. I just moved.

Sena jumped back at the last possible moment, the edge of the blade grazing her flak jacket. She retaliated instantly, hurling a kunai toward Owl’s injured arm, but he swung his tanto with precision, batting it aside before carrying the motion into another strike aimed straight at me.

My Sharingan flared. I saw the angle of his swing before it landed and snapped my leg up, striking near the hilt to knock the blade off course. Metal scraped as the impact shifted his momentum, throwing his balance off for a split second. Sena used the moment to slap another explosive tag on his back before jumping clear. I followed, springing back just as the blast erupted. The explosion tore through his earth armor, chunks of hardened earth scattering across the ground in a hail of stone and dust.

Owl landed in a crouch, smoke curling off his cracked armor. ”You are very annoying,” he growled through clenched teeth as a deep bruise spread beneath his skin, a dark blotch of blue swelling where the impact had struck.

Sena smiled, her voice sharp and mocking. ”I aim to please.” The smirk lingered, but her posture wavered, her knees trembling slightly as fatigue began to take hold.

He lunged again, closing in with low, fast slashes. I moved to flank him, keeping pressure from the side. His tanto sliced low, forcing Sena to leap. He pushed forward mid-swing, trying to tackle her airborne body, but she twisted in the air, slapped her hand onto his shoulder, and jumped back, tossing a kunai as she landed, her movements less steady from the strain.

The kunai sped toward his exposed back, but he swung his blade behind him, deflecting it with a burst of sparks. I slid in at that exact moment, boots grinding against the dirt, and kicked the falling kunai back up into the air. It struck his unarmored arm with a dull thud, drawing blood. His next slash faltered for a moment, but only a moment.

To my shock, he ignored the pain completely and brought his injured arm down in a brutal, full-force strike. I braced and kicked against his arm as it slammed into the ground. The impact shattered the remaining stone coating that covered his injured arm, sending shards of rock and fragments of debris flying in every direction.

Pain flared hot as a fragment struck my eye before I could even blink. A sharp, tearing agony shot through my skull, and I felt the stone scrape across the surface of my eye. My vision clouded instantly, the world blurring into a red haze. I knew that eye was useless for now, but I did not care. All I could see through the pain and blood was Sena.

She had landed hard, breathing unevenly, her chakra nearly gone. Owl burst from the fading dust cloud like a specter, his arm swinging in a grotesque, twisted motion. The bones were out of place, maybe broken, yet he still moved with terrifying speed. He swung his tanto with his only good arm, channeling every ounce of his remaining strength into the strike, his whole body driving it forward in one final, desperate attempt to kill.

Sena raised her kunai just in time, catching the blow, her legs spreading to absorb the impact. The sound of metal grinding against metal rang out. She tried to redirect his weight, but Owl’s strength was monstrous even in that state. His blade pressed down, cutting a shallow line through her hair, then deeper, a streak of red appearing as the edge drew closer to her eyes. Her arms shook violently, her muscles failing under the pressure. His leg, still encased in stone, drove forward as he pinned her down completely, growling through blood and rage.

The moment I saw his blade cut into her, something inside me erupted. Rage flooded every thought and breath until all that remained was the need to kill that bastard.

The world narrowed to sound and color, the rush of blood in my ears, the pounding of my heart, the red flare of my Sharingan burning through the pain. I screamed, raw and furious, as chakra exploded out of me. My remaining eye spun violently, the pattern sharpening until everything moved in slow motion.

I did not think. I flickered.

A sword materialized in my hand from a storage seal, the surge of chakra tearing through the distortion field as I forced myself forward. The backlash made my vision pulse and darken, but I did not stop. I could see every detail, the broken lines in Owl’s armor, the exact rhythm of his heartbeat, the weak spot between the cracks in the stone.

I slammed the blade through his exposed back, driving it straight into his heart. The sound was thick and wet.

Owl screamed, a guttural animal sound that tore through the air. Blood sprayed across my arm as he kept pressing down, his dying strength still trying to reach Sena. I roared, twisted the blade, and drove it deeper until I sliced his heart. His body convulsed, then collapsed forward in a heap, blood spreading fast across the ground. I fell with him, panting, vision dimming as the Sharingan faded. The world smelled of iron and ash. My hand stayed locked around the sword’s hilt buried in his chest, trembling.

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A/N: And with that, we end the battle against the two chunin. Brutal, I know, but Sena and Kaen used every bit of training and every trick they had to survive this one. I cannot wait to read your comments on the battle as a whole and how it ended. Do not be shy and leave a comment ;)