In the middle of the room stood her captured mother. Her empty eyes stared into the horizon, devoid of emotion.
Akihiro smiled with a certain sense of satisfaction. Genjutsu. Contrary to popular belief, genjutsu still had its uses, albeit only from time to time.
The girl dropped her guard. Cheerful, she rushed toward her mother, arms open, prepared to embrace her.
"Okaa-san! Okaa-san!" the ignorant girl beamed, but all her hopes were crushed with merciless brutality. She froze. Her entire body turned to ice.
A single strike — a single, well-placed strike from Hagane — ended everything. His sword skewered her mother's heart, taking her life. Her mother's body plummeted forward like a lifeless puppet whose strings had been cut. Her life ended instantly.
Her dead mother now lay before the girl, who stood, unable to comprehend what had transpired.
Akihiro spoke coldly, "Hagane, Ibuki, let's grab her and get out of here. We've already wasted enough time..."
Asami clenched her fists. Inside her heart, confusion, pain, sadness, and undiluted hatred clashed violently.
Okaa-san was dead.
They took her.
They stole her.
They killed her.
Her heart demanded revenge, vengeance, justice.
Her trembling hand reached for a kunai and a set of explosive tags.
Four consecutive explosions shook the room. The blast forced everyone to take cover, Akihiro included. Years of experience, good instincts, and sheer luck saved him. Akihiro threw himself onto the ground, narrowly avoiding being blown apart. The kunai and tags sailed past him.
Yet it didn't end there. Where there was one kunai, there were more. Many more.
He didn't like what he saw. Not one bit.
The initial cloud of dust settled — and a hailstorm of murderous kunai greeted him. They were fast.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight kunai... and more.
They saturated the air, and each kunai carried a lovely little present — an explosive tag.
Akihiro's eyes widened. Shit! There was no escape.
This was meant to be his end.
He didn't have much time. He had to act fast.
Driven by pure adrenaline, he made the only sensible choice: run and pray.
Powered by desperation, Akihiro ran for his life. He took cover behind the first sturdy stone wall he found.
Against all expectations, he survived.
Akihiro survived the following series of detonations — he survived the inferno of fireballs and the wooden splinters that filled the air.
Her assault finally subsided. No more kunai. No more tags.
It had only cost him a few burns and some ugly cuts — but he lived, and that was what mattered.
The remaining dust cleared, and Akihiro cautiously peeked around the corner.
He spotted his teammates — Ibuki and Hagane.
They had gotten lucky. They hadn't suffered any major injuries.
In the middle of the room stood the girl — her predatory gaze locked onto them.
They wouldn't escape her.
This girl was no longer the same.
Her aura had changed.
All happiness, joy, and hope had left her, replaced by pure, undiluted bloodlust.
A thirst for revenge filled her heart, and an ominous shade of red darkened her eyes.
Her chakra oscillated, cold, uncaring, corrosive — powerful.
It thirsted for blood. Their blood.
Akihiro's hands trembled. Fear gripped him.
Who was this girl?
What was she?
The girl drew her sword and pointed the polished blade at them.
"I thought we could solve this peacefully," she said, her voice a death sentence, "but I was wrong."
Her murderous stare bored into their souls. Her voice promised inevitable death, destruction, and suffering.
"You killed Okaa-san right before my eyes. I ask you — why?
Why did you kill her?
Why did she have to die?"
The girl closed the distance in an instant.
Her sword pierced toward a stunned Ibuki — but Hagane intervened at the last moment, deflecting the deadly thrust.
Steel clashed against steel.
Asami disengaged immediately, retreating.
She wasted no time — she attacked again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
The room echoed with the relentless clash of metal.
Hagane parried her blows, but they grew heavier and heavier.
He was losing ground.
The girl abandoned all finesse, resorting to sheer brute strength to crack his defenses.
Each blow struck like a sledgehammer.
Her sword craved blood.
She terrified them.
She showed no weakness, no hesitation, no fatigue.
Her eyes — fully transformed — stared them down.
Two black tomoe, surrounded by a luminescent red and a hint of glowing purple, spun in her irises.
Hagane groaned under the weight of her blows.
He needed help — and he needed it now.
"Ibuki! Akihiro! Get your asses moving! You want me to die here or what?!" Hagane roared.
His shout snapped them out of their stupor.
They joined the fight — and together they forced the girl back with a coordinated pair of kunai.
They kept their eyes trained on her.
They had underestimated her once.
They wouldn't make that mistake again.
But bigger problems loomed.
Their cover was blown.
"Hagane, Akihiro, we must retreat immediately," Ibuki advised. "Our target is far stronger than expected. Extracting her alive will be difficult. Our mission is compromised."
"Agree," Hagane growled. "Time to retreat."
But the girl disagreed.
Her lips curled in blazing hatred.
"Do you really think you can escape my wrath?"
And yet, she was powerless.
"...Yes," Hagane grinned mockingly.
A smoke bomb exploded, covering their escape as they vanished into the night — running for their lives.
Asami wandered across the devastated battlefield.
Eventually, she found what she was searching for.
She clenched her fists, smashing them against the ground in rage.
Below her lay Kurano's corpse.
Her body remained unscathed, spared from all the fighting — as if Okaa-san were merely sleeping.
She was even smiling.
Asami's hand grazed her cheek.
It had grown cold — yet still so soft, so tender.
"Okaa-san..." she whispered brokenly.
Tears poured from Asami's eyes — tears of indescribable grief.
Her limbs grew heavy from exhaustion.
She had given everything — but everything wasn't enough.
In the end, she had failed to protect Okaa-san.
Asami's breathing intensified, her panting heavy with rage and thirst for vengeance.
A dark veil of purple chakra enveloped her — chakra born from her agony.
The air thickened with anger and hatred.
Her chakra sensed her emotions, awaiting her command to unleash cataclysmic destruction.
Rage.
Unending rage.
All-consuming rage devoured her heart and mind.
"AAARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!"
Her cry of desperation and frustration pierced the air — and with it, an explosion.
Her chakra expanded violently.
A shockwave burst forth, consuming the area in an inferno of unrelenting, primordial purple fire.
These cowards.
These bastards.
They had done it.
They had truly done it.
They ran.
They escaped.
But one day, she would serve justice.
One day, they would pay.
One day, they would know despair.
They would know the darkest abyss.
Asami collapsed, unconscious, but still hugging Kurano's dead body tightly in her arms.
Even unconscious, she clung to her mother — the one she loved with all her heart.