Yukio was suddenly woken up by a scream from down the stairs, his eyes opening wide as he reflexively reached for his Ninjato.
He grabbed the sword and held it tight as he pushed open his bedroom door, the sounds of what seemed like combat rang out from the dining room.
Suddenly sensing for chakra signatures, Yukio's eyes widened as he felt his mothers chakra signature slowly fading and his fathers signature engaged in combat with two unfamiliar men with far above average chakra reserves.
He moved to look at what was happening, he quickly ran to the stairs and the moment he could see what was happening, his blood ran cold.
He saw his mother, Aki Sunohara laying at the foot of the stairs on her side. A strange throwing knife looking object was lodged clearly in her throat, the handle turned slightly upward. Blood had pooled beneath her cheek and stained her blonde hair red.
Yukio didn't scream.
His breath hitched in his chest, but his mind didn't fracture. He was too stunned to do anything but think, so he analysed.
The weapon appeared to be an unfamiliar make of kunai, the grip was longer, steel was darker and pommel was ringed.
His gaze lifted slowly.
The living room was destroyed. One wall was cracked through its center as if struck by a battering ram. The furniture was overturned. The air stunk of sweat and blood.
And then he saw his father, Yuu Sunohara.
Six feet Ten inches of solid muscle, bare arms coated in blood, chest heaving as he swung a splintered beam ripped from the wall as if it weighed nothing. He wasn't trained, so the attack wasn't graceful.
But boy was it overwhelming.
Yukio took note of the two men facing him.
They wore strange sandy coloured clothes, cloth wrapped around their heads and there was a metal plated headband with a weird symbol on their heads. They were wearing demon masks and their movements were strange. Trained.
These guys were absolutely outsiders.
Invaders?
Yukio's mind ran through the possibilities of what could be happening.
His mother was killed immediately with a silent weapon and his father engaged the intruders in combat.
This wasn't a robbery.
Yukio quickly judged the situation as an eradication of their village.
But what the hell could've caused this?
One of the masked men flickered sideways and reappeared near Yuu's blind spot, blade angled to his hamstring. The other quickly formed hand signs that Yukio couldn't see and inhaled sharply.
And finally, Yukio joined the fray.
"Page Seven, Voice of The Flower." He said beneath his breath as he flew from the stairs.
His sword cleared its sheath in an imperceptible arc, the cut so minimal it didn't seem to do anything… until the first masked man stiffened mid step, blood spreading across his horse where Yukio's timing had intersected perfectly.
The man stumbled back, confused as to what had happened.
Yukio stayed true to the principles of the Mirror Flower style and didn't press.
His father roared and brought the beam down with monstrous force, smashing the injured intruder through what remained of the wall. The impact destroyed the stone wall, debris exploding everywhere.
The second masked man finished his hand signs.
The floor beneath Yukio's father erupted.
Sand surged up in a column, slamming into the massive man's toss's and lifting him off his feet before hurling him across the room hard enough to fly through the wall.
Yukio's eyes widened.
They used weird techniques.
He trusted his father to get up and exhaled, making a hand sign with his free hand."
"Clone Technique!"
Two duplicates split from him in a cloud of smoke, immediately diverging in opposite directions. The masked man reacted immediately, throwing a volley of kunai that destroyed the clones.
The real Yukio flickered behind him.
His execution wasn't as seamless as Takeo's would've been, but it was pretty clean. He stepped into the man's guard and drove his blade under the ribcage, angling upward. The masked man convulsed once before collapsing.
Yukio didn't have the time to process the fact he had just taken a life.
He turned to his father, who was on one knee.
His hands were slick with blood, his own blood. A deep gash ran across his abdomen where the technique had torn through him.
Yukio saw the depth of the slash.
He rushed over quickly, pressing his hands against the wound, chakra flowing instinctively even though he had no idea what he was doing.
"You must stand, father!" Yukio cried, voice shaking as his heart continued to break from not only losing his mother, but potentially his father. "We need to move, please!"
Yuu looked at him, not at the destroyed house nor his fallen wife.
At Yukio.
There was pride in his gaze.
"These guys… are trained, probably soldiers." His father said with a raspy voice, his lungs filling with blood.
"Yes," Yukio replied quietly. "Probably an organised outside force targeting the village for some reason."
His father gave a faint, proud huff that might've been a laugh.
"Of course you'd figure that out… you always were a lot smarter than me, you got that… from your mother."
He coughed, blood flowing from his mouth.
Yukio pressed harder against the wound.
"I-I can stop it," he tried. "If I keep the pressure and get help—"
"No."
The word was firm.
"I don't know where they're from… I don't know what they're doing…"
The massive man shifted, forcing himself upright through sheer will. When injured, he looked even more terrifying than before.
"You must run." He said.
Yukio's jaw tightened as his father stood, somehow still alive despite his body being ripped to shreds.
"I can fight."
"You will run."
The command wasn't loud.
His father placed a blood covered hand on his shoulder, squeezing with his finishing strength.
"You are my pride and joy. You will grow to be far greater than I have ever been." He said. "Use it. Don't waste your life. Go, survive."
Another tremor ran through his body as he held the wound, struggling to walk.
Yukio saw the light in his fathers eyes diminish, but he was still moving.
He watched as his father slowly crept towards the body of his wife, Aki.
Yukio's eyes started to water as he watched his father sit down and hold his wife in his arms, embracing her one last time before his life ended.
"Run… Yuki.."
Yukio grit his teeth, forcing himself to move despite the agony in his heart.
He rushed out of the shattered doorway into the night air, mind racing.
The village wasn't quiet anymore.
He could hear shouts. See collapsing structures. Multiple strange unnatural movements across rooftops.
Systematic.
Targeted.
He had made five steps before he halted.
His eyes widened as not one… not two… but ten men dropped from rooftops and emerged from alley shadows in perfect sync, the same sand coloured clothes and the same plated headbands on their foreheads.
They circled him without saying a word.
Yukio's heart froze.
There were ten enemies surrounding him.
All likely trained, all of them were probably capable of killing him.
He looked down at his hands, stained with his fathers blood.
A single tear fell from his eye as a tall masked man lunged at him with a blade aimed at his throat.
…
…
Multiple strikes of golden lightning rained down, columns of golden force hammering the floor. Each strike narrowly missed Takeo, but they weren't random. The strikes were aimed to force Takeo to place himself in weird angles.
Takumi spread his arms wide, golden lightning crawling across his body. "The Eyes of Lord Oroshiki see your hesitation!" He shouted manically, voice somehow carrying over the sound of thunder. "You always need time to think, Takeo! You always mistook your pathetic caution for some kind of messed up wisdom!"
Takeo slid beneath a bolt of golden lightning, his robe almost catching fire where it grazed past, his sword rising smoothly.
"Page Two, Still Water Mirror."
He copied the rhythm of the lightning instead of running from it, his footwork perfectly aligned to the pulse between attacks. He wasn't faster than lightning, so he didn't bother trying to outrun it. So he just patiently listened to it.
The Voice of The Lord laughed sharply and thrust his wrinkly hand forward.
A focused lance of golden energy with rippling arcs of lightning dancing across it suddenly screamed across the street, narrower and holding far more Natural Energy than any of his other attacks, aimed directly to pierce Takeo.
The swordsman pivoted off center.
"Page One, Flower Reflection."
The blade angled just enough that the lightning scraped across steel instead of his flesh, dispersing sideways in a violent spray that destroyed a small abandoned building behind him. The deflection burned his palms through the hilt but he did not loosen his grip at any cost.
"You're getting old," Takumi said, stepping forward cockily. "Your reactions are lagging, old buddy."
"Yeah… and you're one hideous looking creature, you angry old prick." Takeo replied with a mocking chuckle.
Takumi suddenly vanished in a flicker of light.
He reappeared above Takeo, lightning condensed around his leg as he brought it down like a divine hammer. The impact managed to crater the ground, dust erupting out and clouding Takeo's vision.
But the swordsman flew out from the dust with a playful glint in his eye.
"Page Four, Butterfly's Edge."
He glided past The Voice of The Lord's flank, blade cutting in a smooth arc meant to rip him open from hip to rib. But Takumi twisted midair in an unnatural motion, the Eyes of The Lord flaring as lightning defined from his shoulder and messed with Takeo's accuracy.
The cut was too shallow.
Takumi hissed… not in pain, but as an insult.
"You're still just using the same predictable forms!" He spat. "I have ascended far beyond them with the help of Lord Oroshiki!"
"Then why the hell are you shouting?" Takeo mocked.
The Voice of The Lord's eyes burned brighter.
The lightning changed.
It didn't come from above anymore, it spread out in a dome, branching unpredictably, spreading across the ground and flying skyward in jagged whips that removed any chance of safe footing. It wasn't even structured anymore, the damn old man was just wasting his chakra causing chaos.
Takeo's sleeves burned. His long gray hair singed. But he didn't advance.
He waited for the perfect moment.
"Page Five," he murmured beneath his breath, lowering his blade ever so slightly. "Shadow Invitation."
He paused deliberately, making sure Takumi saw the opening at his right shoulder.
And he did, Takumi saw the opening immediately.
The Eyes of The Lord traced the imbalance and deemed it a fatal mistake. He lunged forward without any hesitation, the nature energy condensing into lightning along his arm into a piercing thrust aimed straight through Takeo's heart.
"Dumbass."
Takeo moved at the last possible instant.
He didn't move away or dodge.
He moved forward.
Their bodies passed shoulder to shoulder, golden lightning grazing Takeo's ribs as his sword vanished in an invisible quick draw.
"Page Three, Mist Draw."
The cut was perfect, it was clean and aimed directly for Takumi's side… but lightning exploded from the point of impact, forcing separation before the attack could prove fatal. Takeo skidded backward, sandals scraping across the sandy floor.
Takumi threw his head back and laughed like a maniac, his voice echoing throughout the street.
"You cannot cut divinity, Takeo! The Eyes of The Lord and the blessings of Lord Oroshiki erase your intentions before you can even think them up!"
Takeo's breathing got ever so slightly heavier.
"You are definitely not divinity." He said with a quiet chuckle. "You're a bitchy old man that managed to get his hands on far more power than he should've."
Takumi's manic smile vanished.
Lightning poured out of him and gathered violently around both of his arms, swelling up until the entire street was lit up and the air started to vibrate. The courtyard began to shift as the lightning turned sand to glass.
"I carried Shuen's Voice for eighty years," Takumi said, stepping forward. "I spoke for a god while you hid behind walls and pretended to be his most loyal defender, yet you have allowed all of this to happen? And after all of that you dare to judge me?"
Takeo's gaze sharpened.
He let go of the sword with one hand and formed a hand sign.
Three clones suddenly burst into existence around him, each one was identical, all raising their blades.
Takumi scoffed.
"The Eyes of The Lord see through such tricks."
Lightning ripped through two clones instantly, dispersing them into smoke. The third clone lunged forward, becoming the smallest fragment of distraction.
Takumi obliterated it…
…And in that fraction of blindness, Takeo formed another hand sign.
He vanished.
Silence.
The dome of lightning faltered for a heartbeat.
Takumi's eyes widened.
Takeo appeared behind him without a sound, no dramatic effects or any moves that Takumi could've anticipated, his blade already falling in a merciless slash.
"Page Six." He said clearly despite the crackling lightning.
"Shattered Reflection."
The strike broke his before established rhythm, attacking the angle that Takumi's lightning had left 'safe'. The glint of his blade flashed twice in the same motion.
Takumi's arms fell.
Both of them.
At the same time.
They hit the sandy floor a moment later, lightning still crackling uselessly from the severed limbs before fading into smoke.
For a moment, there was only the breeze.
Takumi stood swaying, blood staining his shredded cloak.
Then he started laughing.
He started laughing like an unhinged lunatic.
"You think this ends it?" Takumi wheezed, his eyes blazing. "You think cutting up flesh will stop what's to come?"
Takeo didn't answer immediately.
He stepped back instead, blade still raised, watching carefully.
"I vowed to never use my blade to kill, so you'll be just fine."
"Oh yeah I'm sure I'll be fine… but that little albino boy isn't fine, if you go further into the building and interrupt our plan… that little brat will lose his life here and now." Takumi grinned.
Takeo's eyes widened, the scent of blood from earlier now making sense. "You…"
"Nope. Not me, I didn't do anything. It seems outside forces have invaded our lovely village. Now, choose between your vow to defend Shuen with his filthy village and the life of that albino brat…"