{Though there shouldn't be any need to say this but there's minor gore in this chapter in the mid to late stages so those light hearted ones, yeah, handle with care}
{Also, this is last Juichi chapter and from tomorrow it'll be all Ren AND 2 Chapters a day so rejoice and show support}
~~~
Juichi's breaths had grown rough, his chest rising and falling in sharp rhythm, but his eyes never wavered from Shinden. He knew this back-and-forth couldn't last. Trading blows and strikes wasn't going to end the fight. It wasn't enough to simply clash with Shinden, not when the hunter still held stamina to spare, he needed something decisive.
Just striking normally wouldn't work. If he went with a clean thrust, a standard slash, Shinden would slip away again. To finish this, his final strike had to be everything, the kind of strike that would either cut through and end the fight or leave him open and defenseless, nothing more than a vegetable on a chopping board.
That thought didn't scare him. It steadied him. If this was where he gambled everything, then so be it.
The next whip of water-lightning came in fast, hissing like a snake, but Juichi pivoted, body turning to let it brush just past his flank. The aftershock still stung his skin, but he ignored it. Another lash came in, sharper, and he cut it away with Gryphon's edge, sparks hissing in the mist.
His hand flexed once at his side, then tightened around Gryphon. He'd already begun to move chakra. It poured into Gryphon, layer after layer, the steel starting to hum faintly under the strain. The blade's edges glowed, not just with lightning now but with raw chakra shaping its outline, thickening it, making it look less like steel and more like a blade carved from pure energy.
Juichi exhaled once, steadying his breath, and then surged forward.
The first swing cracked the air wide, chakra-coated steel leaving a sharp wake in its arc. Shinden's eyes narrowed, and his body blurred to the side, narrowly missing the edge. The second swing came immediately after, and then a third, Juichi was swinging Gryphon with brutal rhythm, each cut forcing Shinden to adjust, dodge, or lean back just to avoid being carved through.
The hunter's pace quickened, his steps flickering across the mist-soaked ground. Every dodge was sharp, precise, his cloak snapping with the wind of each pass. He wasn't retaliating now. He couldn't, not with Juichi's blade glowing like that. Getting caught once could end him.
Juichi pressed harder. His body ached from the speed, his muscles screamed from the pressure, but he forced himself to keep slashing. Wild swings, but not without aim. He wasn't just throwing cuts at Shinden; he was closing the distance inch by inch, bleeding ground away between them, narrowing the circle Shinden had been dancing him around with since the fight began.
The trick worked, for a while. Shinden couldn't pause long enough to weave a full set of hand seals, couldn't risk standing in one place while Juichi's blade carved air apart. Juichi knew that was his only window. Force him to keep moving, deny him the time to build his ninjutsu. If he could drive Shinden to the wall, even once, he'd unleash his strike and that would be it.
But Shinden wasn't stupid. Even pressed like this, his caution didn't falter. Every time Juichi closed the distance a little too far, Shinden would spit a stream of water from his mouth, sharp and fast as an arrow. It wasn't strong enough to wound him outright, but it was enough to make Juichi shift, to break his forward momentum for just a second. That single pause gave Shinden the step he needed to slip away again.
The cycle repeated, over and over. Juichi slashing, pressing forward. Shinden weaving, dodging, spitting streams to reset the gap. It turned into a deadly circle, both men locked in a rhythm, neither able to fully take the upper hand.
But Juichi didn't stop. His blade moved like a storm, swings cutting arcs through the mist, each one glowing sharper as his chakra continued to pour into Gryphon. His voice was low at first, barely audible over the clash, but the words slipped out without him thinking.
"…twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…"
A steady count under his breath, each swing matched to a number. His eyes stayed sharp, his movements unbroken, but his lips kept moving, muttering the numbers as his body shifted through the rhythm.
Shinden caught it eventually. His eyes narrowed as he slid past another cut, cloak snapping with the force of the air. Another slash came, then another, but his gaze wasn't just on the blade anymore, it was on Juichi himself, on the strange muttering between his teeth.
The hunter exhaled once, long and low, confused by why his prey was counting suddenly however he didn't stop dodging. If anything, he grew sharper, his movements more exact, each dodge perfectly measured to give him just the space he needed. He let two more swings pass by, then another, his cloak slicing through the mist as he spun away.
And then he paused.
Juichi caught the shift instantly. His blade tore through empty air, missing by a hair, and he turned in time to see Shinden plant his feet firmly against the soaked ground. The hunter's hands moved for the first time in minutes, fingers snapping through seals so quickly they blurred.
Juichi's heart sank as the grin split across Shinden's bearded face.
The lightning strike came a heartbeat later, launched straight from Shinden's hand. It was a sharp, fast, a direct spear of light aimed at his chest. Juichi's body reacted on instinct, blade snapping up to meet it. Gryphon caught the jutsu, diverting it with a sharp twist that sent the strike cracking far to the side.
But the real danger wasn't the lightning.
The mist around them had shifted, the ground beneath them humming faintly. Juichi felt it instantly, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. The streams of water across the field weren't random anymore. They were moving, gathering, twisting into thin veins that slithered outward across the battlefield like roots searching for a target.
His body tensed, grip tightening on Gryphon. He didn't need to see the seals to know what was happening. His instincts screamed it.
Shinden wasn't playing defense anymore. He was preparing something big, something meant to close the field and smother him completely.
If Juichi couldn't break through this, he wouldn't even have the chance to use his own strike.
~
The mist had settled into a dense wall, thicker than before, each breath dragging water into Juichi's lungs. Shinden's chakra pressed through it, turning the air itself hostile.
From somewhere inside that white shroud, Shinden's voice carried, calm and steady. "It seems I finished setting up my trump card first."
The water at Juichi's feet rippled. Something shifted, no, many somethings shifted.
Thin threads cut the mist, crisscrossing in hundreds, each humming faintly with electricity. They stretched from ground to air, interlocking in a lattice so fine that stepping wrong meant losing a limb.
[Water Style : Thousand Veins Constriction]
Juichi froze mid-step. His remaining arm trembled around Gryphon's hilt. Every angle was covered, no retreat, no forward rush. Even breathing wrong, he felt, could get him carved apart.
A faint vibration touched his side but he shifted too late. A shallow line opened across his ribs. The wire had moved.
Static crackled up the cut, nerves burning. He gritted his teeth, slashing down with Gryphon. The blade struck nothing, the wire had already dissolved back into mist. Another hiss, another cut along his thigh.
The trap wasn't just physical. Shinden had turned the field into a net of shifting blades, unseen until they drew blood.
Juichi's breath came harsh now, chest rising and falling. He forced the rhythm steady. His lips moved, barely a whisper.
"Ninety-one… Ninety-two… Ninety-three…"
He was counting.
Not the wires.
Not the strikes.
But something else.
A line snapped past his cheek. He didn't flinch. Another slashed his shoulder, shallow but burning. His body shook under the strain, but he forced his gaze straight ahead. Every step was timed against that counting voice in his head.
Shinden's figure loomed clearer inside the mist. Calm, unreadable, his stance unshaken. The hunter had all but sealed it, distance controlled, prey strangled.
Juichi tightened his grip on Gryphon, knuckles whitening. The blade itself quivered, chakra running unevenly through the steel. He fed it everything left. Every last scrap. The air around the sword began to distort faintly, the edges vibrating at a frequency just a shade off from the mist.
The net drew in. A dozen wires tightened at once, converging to slice him down where he stood.
Juichi closed his eyes and muttered, "…Hundred…"
Then, he moved.
He was not fast or explosive. Each step was ragged, each motion cutting deeper into his own body as the wires tore through his clothes and flesh. Blood splattered onto the water with every push.
But he wasn't fighting the trap. He wasn't resisting. He wove into it, slipping with the current, letting the wires cut shallow instead of deep.
The distance closed.
Ten steps.
Eight.
Six.
A swirl of energy around Shinden became visible to Juichi, it was like a storm around him, mist and water drawn into a vortex, faint arcs of lightning snapping between droplets.
Most would have stopped here. To step so close to that was to be shredded.
Juichi did not stop.
He raised Gryphon high, then plunged it straight into the storm.
The blade howled as if alive, fighting the pull of the swirling current. For one impossible instant, steel and chakra flow clashed head-on, the hunter's tide against the swordsman's will.
Then, Juichi turned it.
The blade didn't resist. It bent with the pull, caught the spin, and redirected it. The momentum surged into Gryphon itself, doubling its speed, doubling its weight.
Juichi rode that current, body snapping with it, letting the storm's strength drive his strike.
Thus, The Flow Severing Blade cut through.
A clean arc tore across the swirl. Shinden's body jolted and then split. One half slid to the left, the other to the right. Both halves hit the ground in silence. The mist above shuddered, then stilled, as if the world itself paused to mark the cut.
Juichi's knees gave out. Gryphon clattered from his grasp, half-buried in the shallow water. He dropped forward, his body refusing to move again.
There were no words, no triumph.
Only silence.
The hunter was gone.
The swordsman collapsed.
~~~
Ren appeared at Juichi's side the instant the blade cleaved through Shinden. His body hit the ground hard, blood soaking through his clothes, and Ren didn't waste a second. He dropped to one knee, his palm already glowing green as chakra poured into Juichi's ruined body.
"Damn it…" he muttered under his breath, forcing more Yang chakra into his father.
As his hands pressed down, Ren's mind kept flashing back to the scene he had just witnessed.
That strike.
That impossible moment when Gryphon plunged through the vortex around Shinden, turned the tide, and split the man in half like it was nothing.
His chest tightened.
'Did he just… sever the flow?'
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
The flow, even for Ren, it was still a mystery. He'd only started scratching at its surface, barely able to perceive it as faint currents brushing against his senses.
It wasn't chakra, that much he knew. Chakra was energy, a construct built from physical and spiritual halves. But this, this was something different.
It was like Wavelengths, but not like sound, or vibration, or something that tied into everything but stood separate at the same time.
And his father… Juichi Takahashi, who had never once mentioned the word "flow," who had no training in it, had just severed it as if it was always meant to be cut.
Ren shook the thought out of his head and pressed harder. Now wasn't the time to drown in questions. His father's body was battered beyond reason. Cuts everywhere, chakra drained to almost nothing, skin pale like a corpse.
Still, Ren's proficiency in medical ninjutsu had come a long way. He pushed chakra through Juichi's bloodstream, knitting ruptured vessels, closing torn muscle fibers, mending organs that had taken shock damage from the fight. His Yang affinity made it easier, far easier to keep pushing life back into the body that wanted to shut down.
Minutes passed and visible wounds closed and bruises faded. Even the deep gashes stopped bleeding. Internally, bones realigned, veins sealed, and organs began recovering.
And yet… nothing.
Juichi didn't stir. No twitch of his hand, no flicker of his eyelids. His breathing was shallow, barely there.
Ren's jaw clenched. His focus narrowed, Hyperfocus pulling every detail into clarity and then he saw it.
Right in front of Juichi's chest, faint but unmistakable, the swirl of the flow belonging to Juichi still lingered. It was incomparably stronger than before, only, it wasn't stable.
It was… cracking.
Ren couldn't explain how he saw it because seeing wasn't the right word. It was like his senses overlapped for an instant, showing him fractures in something invisible, audible, untouchable. The swirl split into jagged lines, each crack spreading further like glass breaking.
And every time the cracks spread, Juichi's body grew paler.
Ren poured more healing chakra in, but it made no difference. His father's physical injuries were handled, but the cracks weren't physical. And as the flow fractured, it looked like it was dragging Juichi down with it, piece by piece.
Ren exhaled sharply, eyes narrowing. He couldn't just sit here and watch.
He raised one hand, steadying it in the air, fingers twitching slightly. His instincts screamed at him. This wasn't something he'd ever done before. Hell, he didn't even know if what he was thinking was possible. But hesitation would mean death.
"Clone," he muttered, and a puff of smoke appeared beside him. The copy stood silent, watching carefully, ready if something went wrong.
Ren flexed his fingers, shaping them into a claw. Then, deliberately, he let chakra leak out from all five fingertips at once. The green of medical chakra faded into a raw, sharp blue-white glow. He breathed out slowly, trying to steady the shaking in his hand.
'Alright… no turning back.'
He pushed forward.
His hand plunged straight into the swirl.
Instantly, his body jerked like he'd touched live lightning. If the clone belonged to anyone else besides him it would've have been gone in an instant but he knew he barely had a second before he would vanish.
Without wasting another breath, he twisted his hand clockwise.
The swirl resisted, cracked harder, and for an instant he thought his arm might get ripped off. Then, reality pulled sideways.
With a single puff of displaced air, Ren's clone vanished.
Leaving the clone alone beside Juichi's unconscious form.
~~~~~
{The Ren who was here was always a clone in case anybody is confused and if at any point I wrote something that suggested it wasn't a clone then do inform me in the comments.}
{Also, you guys must be confused, some might understand it, but don't worry, it'll eventually become clear and what fun will that be.}
{One more thing, for some reason, don't Juichi and Utakata have more protag moments rather than Ren himself?}
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{ h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / Z e e n o n }
{You know what else}
{STONES!!!!}