"Perfect opportunity!"
Though blood poured from his mouth, the young A maintained his Lightning Armor even after enduring the ice crystal bombardment. Crimson ran down from his nose and mouth, soaking his upper body and making him look terrifying.
With the ice statue no longer exuding cold air, the young A regained his high mobility and charged straight toward Takeshi.
"Ice Crystal Mirror!"
Facing A's lightning-charged, boulder-sized fist, Takeshi didn't dodge. Instead, after conjuring a few ice mirrors, he allowed his head to be smashed by A's punch.
The headless body swayed briefly before collapsing into a pile of ice crystals that attempted to spread over A's body.
"Ice Clone. Where's the real one?"
Dodging the ice crystals with ease, A quickly retreated back to where Killer Bee and Toroi had just arrived.
"Cough, thanks for the assist, Toroi."
The young A nodded to Toroi with a serious expression as he stared at the remaining ice mirrors.
"Mmh."
Toroi, with a scroll in his mouth, gave a curt nod in response.
"Your wounds..."
Seeing A in such a miserable state, Killer Bee stopped rapping and looked at his big brother with worry.
"It's nothing—just some damage to the lungs. I've already used chakra to expel the foreign matter. Be careful—the enemy can release icy mist to invade the body."
A waved his hand to show he was fine.
"I see... As expected of you. You actually countered the freezing mist that way."
Takeshi's figure appeared in one of the ice mirrors, offering genuine praise.
"Hmph. Brat, to have such strength at your age... No wonder the transport team couldn't match you."
Staring at Takeshi's image flickering in the mirrors, A once again enveloped his whole body in Lightning Armor.
"What's your name?"
"Shimura Takeshi."
As soon as Takeshi finished speaking, an ice mirror suddenly appeared behind Toroi. Immediately afterward, three poison-coated senbon shot out.
Without even turning, Toroi instinctively leaned forward, narrowly avoiding the attack, and countered by smashing the mirror behind him with a massive shuriken.
"He can teleport using the mirrors!"
A brief exchange was enough for A to grasp Takeshi's attack style.
Hearing this, Toroi immediately swung his sleeves and launched a barrage of shuriken toward every ice mirror in sight, attempting to suppress Takeshi's movement again.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
With his swollen face and barely regained consciousness, Shimura Ikku mustered the strength to unleash a Wind Style jutsu to stop Toroi.
"Doesn't matter. I'll handle this!"
Having memorized the positions of all the mirrors, A planned to use his speed to destroy them in one go.
"Akira, go help out!"
Meanwhile, Yamanaka Akira was just waking up groggily when he heard Ikku's urgent shout.
"Huh?"
Akira strained to focus his vision and finally spotted A's flickering figure.
The next second, his combat instincts kicked in, and he rolled away just in time—several shuriken precisely struck the spot he had just been lying on.
"Don't even think about it!"
Even with a scroll in his mouth, Toroi hurled a storm of shuriken toward the two, trying to prevent them from assisting Takeshi.
"One mirror, two, three... Only one left."
Having shattered multiple ice mirrors, A now faced the final one, believing victory was his.
"Who told you I can only teleport through intact mirrors?!"
Bursting out from a broken mirror, Takeshi smashed A in the back with a giant ice-formed fist. The close range left A with no chance to dodge—he had to take the hit head-on.
The ice crystals on Takeshi's fist rapidly spread across A's body, pinning him to the ground. Sealing symbols surged forth, attempting to lock him down completely.
"Big Bro!"
Killer Bee roared, swinging his massive octopus tail to halt the sealing technique's advance.
Takeshi dodged the strike, placing a Flying Thunder God formula on the tentacle before slipping into another ice mirror fragment and emerging from a different angle.
Seeing the half-finished sealing jutsu, he made a swift decision:
"If sealing won't work... then I'll finish this with pure power! Wind Style: Vacuum Great Sphere!"
"Fool! The ice you used to seal me is weakening your Wind Style's power!"
Only his head exposed, A mocked Takeshi's lack of battle experience as he stared at the massive wind attack heading his way.
"Is that so? Ice Style: Ice Explosion!"
This jutsu, developed under Hiruzen's guidance after mastering the five basic elements, detonates ice crystals by injecting clashing chakra natures into ice-style chakra.
Before the Wind Style attack even hit, the explosion from the ice crystals shattered A's Lightning Armor. The Wind Style followed immediately.
BOOM!
After the blast and smoke settled, A stood shakily at the center of the battlefield, his back torn and bloody, unable to maintain his once-proud Lightning Armor.
Beside him, chunks of octopus flesh from Bee's tail bore testament to the Wind Style's destructive force. Without Killer Bee's intervention, A would've been finished.
"Such tenacity... Wind Style: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
Admiring A's vitality, Takeshi moved in to finish him.
With his Lightning Armor gone and mobility crippled, A was now just a sitting duck.
"This is bad."
On the other side, realizing A's dire state, Toroi pushed back Yamanaka Akira and Ikku with Magnet Release and flung a massive shuriken toward A.
Killer Bee also extended his octopus tentacles again, trying to shield his brother.
But the wind blades sliced through the tentacles. Thanks to Bee's sacrifice, A managed to forcefully re-ignite his Lightning Armor at the last moment, despite the pain.
A metallic clash rang out as Takeshi's Wind Style ripped through the Lightning Armor, leaving a massive X-shaped wound on A's back, and still trying to cut deeper.
Just then, Toroi's shuriken finally arrived. The moment it touched A, he activated Magnet Release to draw A toward him with magnetic force, pulling him out of danger.
Supporting A, Toroi brought him to Killer Bee's side. Just as he was about to ask about A's condition, he felt a sudden pain in his waist.
Before he could even process what happened, he saw a senbon lodged in his body—driven in by a small, pale hand.
Flying Thunder God Technique.
Using the formula on Killer Bee's tentacle, Takeshi completed the sneak attack.
Why target Toroi? Because Killer Bee, for some reason, had sensed Takeshi's true intention in advance and shielded A just in time—forcing Takeshi to stab the poison-tipped senbon into the less-important "background character" instead.
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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