Chapter 537: Kisame and Tsukuyomi
Ino had traded more than twenty blows with Kisame in her base form when she suddenly heard a world-shaking explosion from within the tunnel. The blast was so powerful that even from a hundred meters away, she could feel the high-temperature oil and steam.
The moment the steam rolled over, Kisame used his Hidden Mist's signature technique, the Hiding in Mist Technique! He seemed to think the explosion had distracted Ino, and he quietly used the dense mist to conceal his movements, hiding in the shadows before launching a surprise attack from behind her.
His right hand transformed into a metallic bone spur, similar in material to Samehada, and he thrust it out viciously.
He was met by a pair of crimson eyes.
"Sharingan? Impossible!" Kisame was not an inexperienced man. He had seen plenty of Sharingan on Obito's side, but those were all emotionless eyes stored in containers, completely different from the pair that had suddenly appeared before him.
In Ino's eyes, he saw something incredibly familiar: loneliness, gentleness, and pain. A myriad of indescribable emotions were mixed in that single gaze.
"How can this be? This, this!" The blow he had been so sure of could no longer be thrust forward. Then, he felt the gaze opposite him turn severe.
With a crisp snap, Kisame looked down to see that Ino had easily torn off his right arm. The metallic bone spur, made of the same material as Samehada, was as fragile as a toy in her hand. Then, ignoring the metal barbs covering it, Ino reversed her grip on the weapon and, with a blank expression, pierced Kisame's chest, twisting it twice in his heart.
With a cry, Kisame spat out a large mouthful of blood.
Then he saw Ino grab his neck and, with a twist of her hands, snap it.
Kisame himself was a ninja known for his great strength. After merging with Samehada into a half-fishman, his strength had increased even further.
And now, a woman was breaking his neck with an irresistible force?
Impossible! He wasn't that weak, and she shouldn't be that strong!
Filled with unwillingness, Kisame's heart squeezed out its last drop of blood. His twisted neck tried to struggle, but the clear sound of cracking bone echoed, and with a gasp, he breathed his last.
The next instant, the crimson Sharingan appeared before his eyes again. It was a repeat of the last round: Ino pierced his heart, then snapped his neck with a single move.
Then, another cycle.
Over and over, without end.
Kisame felt his thoughts slow to a crawl. He found himself bound to a cross, a blood-red moon hanging in the sky. The surroundings were unnaturally quiet, with only the sound of his own blood dripping and bones breaking from time to time.
"This isn't right..."
"You, you're not, this isn't!"
His consciousness cycled endlessly between life and death. One moment alive, the next dead.
He felt his mind in utter chaos, a large part of his memory forgotten.
Ino's Tsukuyomi Sharingan was still in Kimimaro's eye socket. What she was using was, of course, not Tsukuyomi—at least, not in the traditional sense.
Her Yin Release was at a high enough level, and unlocking the Mangekyo with the dōjutsu in her three-tomoe Sharingan was a simple matter. In terms of pure dōjutsu, she had already surpassed the sickly Itachi Uchiha. Most importantly, she understood the Tsukuyomi space and had absorbed a good deal of Itachi's dōjutsu, allowing her to "manually" construct a genjutsu space with an effect similar to Tsukuyomi.
In this genjutsu space, she was the master.
With a thought, her body automatically changed into the black and red cloud cloak of the Akatsuki. She smiled and pulled her left hand out of her sleeve, letting it hang limply and strangely from the cloth, as if it had no bones.
Her hair color didn't change, nor did her gender. The disguise was terrible, but it didn't matter. Kisame had his own inner demons; it wouldn't take much effort to fool him.
Ino's voice echoed in Kisame's ear.
"Seventy-two hours. We still have plenty of time."
Kisame's head throbbed. Something seemed wrong, yet it also seemed perfectly right. From the bottom of his heart, he liked this place.
"Itachi-san, being in the rain is bad for your health. Cough, cough, cough."
"Itachi-san, to be able to work with you is the greatest honor of my life..."
"Itachi-san, cough, cough, when you were dying, did you also see yourself clearly..."
Kisame's unconscious "deeply affectionate confession" made Ino's skin crawl. This band of bros is too much to handle!
Her consciousness returned to reality. Kisame, maintaining his half-fishman form, stood blankly behind her.
Even though she was prepared, seeing this form up close still startled Ino.
This guy's art style was completely different from the surrounding ninja!
With that long skull and ferocious tail, if you splashed some black paint on him, he could go and act in Alien.
Kisame's ninja sword, Samehada, had not fallen into the genjutsu. The large blade extended a barbed head from the half-fishman's shoulder and looked around.
Ino smiled.
Samehada couldn't help but shiver.
It continuously devoured the chakra from the surrounding Hiding in Mist Technique and fed it back to Kisame, seemingly thinking this method could awaken its master.
Unfortunately, it couldn't break Ino's pseudo-Tsukuyomi.
Samehada looked at Ino, caught in a moment of great hesitation. What should it do?
Switch allegiances? It wasn't very willing.
The fact that man and sword could merge showed that Kisame was indeed the master it was most satisfied with, the one it acknowledged the most. Neither Fuguki Suikazan before him nor Killer B after could achieve such a level of compatibility with it.
In its heart, Kisame was its closest friend, its brother.
But a ninja sword is not human; it doesn't have human moral standards. Besides, even among humans, if you paid enough, you could get one to kill their own brother!
Ino didn't care much for Samehada. After trapping Kisame in the genjutsu, she dispersed the dense mist and looked toward the steam billowing from the tunnel entrance.
A familiar ninjutsu, a familiar chakra. Although she felt the timing was off, a bright smile still appeared on her face.
Ino's nostrils twitched twice, and she feigned a look of sudden realization. So that's what the Second Mizukage's oilification means. Back when she went to the Hidden Mist, she had been young and inexperienced, seeing things too superficially. She had only managed to imitate about sixty or seventy percent of it. The Second Mizukage's oilification sought high temperatures to heat the water-attribute chakra, while the oilification Ino had learned from Jiraiya was mainly to aid combustion.
The two were different.
Ino felt that having experienced the power of "Steaming Danger Tyranny" up close this time, she had gained a new understanding of the technique.
Thanks to the Third Tsuchikage's selfless contribution!
The Third Tsuchikage thought she had previously sensed the Second Mizukage, and he was absolutely right.
Ino had indeed not detected the Second Tsuchikage.
The Second Tsuchikage's name was "Mū" (Nothingness).
This certainly wasn't the name his parents had given him. What kind of parents would give their son such a name? It was more like a nickname that attested to his extremely strong presence-masking ability.
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