Chizuki, Sakura, and Shikibu observed the battle Uehara had initiated from atop the mountain. Behind them were the people Chizuki had saved. To be accurate, they were the very few informants she had managed to sneak into the city.
The three women watched the battle with different expressions. Sakura sat on the ground cross-legged and leaned against a tree. She watched the fight below with an avid expression of wonder.
"Wow! Aoki-sama is awesome!"
Shikibu, on the other hand, watched the battle with an expression of amusement. "Fufufu~ Indeed, my little Sakura. Aoki-sama is indeed… amazing. To immobilise the famed Patriarch of the Minamoto clan with such ease is… very amazing~"
As for Chizuki, she was sitting cross-legged on the ground as well. But instead of watching the fight, she was more focused on sensing the surroundings. With the ability to sense through water vapor, she was able to keep her eye on every relevant party within a kilometer radius of Uehara.
Over at the area where Keiji was, Chizuki was amused at how her father was skillfully avoiding the two shadow clones attacking him. But at the same time, he was unable to get past the two of them or strike them for that matter.
With her eyesight now locked on him, Chizuki rather enjoyed watching her father struggle.
[Knowing his personality, he would never live this down.]
Nonetheless, she was about to turn her gaze elsewhere when she saw Keiji pull out a kunai after back-flipping away from a potential knee to the chin. Even from here, she could feel the dangerous amount of chakra flowing into the kunai, something the clones noticed too. The two clones looked ready to defend should the kunai be thrown at them.
But, Chizuki noticed the smile her father had.
[?!]
And that was when it happened. The kunai was thrown, but not at either of the clones. Instead, it was heading straight for the real Uehara. Not knowing when she reacted, all Chizuki knew was that she had moved forward at a speed she didn't even know she had. But that was beside the point. Her only focus was getting there before the kunai. She saw how Uehara was completely unaware of the metallic projectile. The young demon was so focused on his quarry that he didn't even detect the kunai whizzing towards him.
The kunai was closing in fast, having already covered nearly half a kilometer in less than half a second. With only around two hundred meters left, Chizuki pushed herself further, straining her chakra coils to produce more boost. But it wasn't enough. She could see that she wouldn't be able to intercept the kunai in time.
[No…]
Time seemed to slow down, despair creeping in. The realization that her master, the one person she loved, respected, and valued above all else, was going to die.
[No!]
She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't ALLOW it to happen. Her very life depended on his. She had already failed him once by not being there in his accident.
[NO!]
She'll be damned if she lets that kunai pierce him. As if responding to her desires, her body evolved at that moment. Her chakra coils widened. Her chakra capacity grew. A rush of energy entered her body, but the most important thing was, she became faster. The kunai itself had already been traveling at more than twice the speed of sound, and with its head start, Chizuki was barely faster than it. But now, her new boost in power allowed her to easily surpass her previous speed twice over, allowing her… CLANG! …to intercept the kunai in time…
…
Keiji kept his senses on the battle his brother was having with the boy while he himself was kept busy by two of the boy's clones. He had heard of the boy from his recent escapades in Nara City, where he killed a cultivator. He had also heard rumors of the boy being the son of Hiroshi no Mangetsu. But when he had gone to the city itself, he was surprised by the recent rumor of the boy supposedly being a yokai.
(AN: Remember the auction house chapters. When Sakura and Uehara had gone into a hotel for the night, he was in his cat form. But when he went out the next day, he was in his humanoid form. The young man attending to them noticed this. This man then suspected Uehara of being a yokai. We can assume the rumors started from there.)
Having recognized the boy from the portraits, Keiji wanted to capture the boy and study him. That desire was further elevated when he witnessed the boy conjure clones out of thin air and fight with them. The idea of clones was something he had tried to create for a very long time but always failed.
But as time went on, the desire to capture him turned into a desire to kill him. He felt the ridiculous amount of chakra the boy possessed. Even the clones had more chakra than he did. He knew there was no feasible method available to capture the boy while at the same time keeping him useful.
So biding his time with the two shadow clones stalling him, Keiji waited for the inevitable moment when his dimwit of a brother would get himself killed. And that moment had come. Seeing his brother on his knees, Keiji got ready to end it.
Working on the psychology that the boy would more than likely relax his guard after killing Hozuki, Keiji timed the moment to throw his kunai just right. Jumping to the side to avoid a stone shrapnel barrage, he made the ground beneath his feet rise up with such speed that he was launched a few dozen meters into the air. Withdrawing a kunai from his pouch, he channeled as much chakra into it as he could before throwing it just as the boy appeared in front of his brother.
[Hehehe]
…
(After Chizuki intercepted the kunai)
CLANG!
Uehara quickly slammed his hands on the ground. Immediately, a dome five meters thick and the size of a room covered himself and Chizuki. Still running on paranoia, he weaved a set of hand signs before slamming his hands on the ground.
[Dog-Ox-Tiger-Pig: Obsidian Dome]-(Water-Earth-Fire-Fusion: Obsidian Dome)
The earth dome was then reinforced by layers of obsidian replacing a few layers of the earth, making it so that of the five-meter thick dome, four meters of the thickness was contributed by obsidian.
It was then that he turned towards Chizuki, and what the young maiden saw shocked her.
"M-MASTER?!"
Uehara's eyes were bleeding… HEAVILY. When all six clones dispelled, he didn't just get the memory of them failing to block the chakra-powered kunai as it went through their guards. The clone that he had sent to assume sage mode, that had run to block the kunai with a hastily, but poorly made bone shield, had transferred its sage chakra to Uehara when he dispelled. This would've been fine if it wasn't for the fact that Uehara still had his Amatsugan activated.
The sudden influx of sage chakra got transferred into his ocular technique. Since he couldn't control the sage chakra, especially in the middle of a dangerous situation, the chakra veins in his eyes blew up due to the sudden unstable ratio of chakra supplemented by nature energy.
(AN: To those who don't remember, dark or yin chakra is used to activate the Amatsugan. Now that Uehara had inadvertently assumed sage mode, the ratio of yin chakra was decreased to match the ratio of elements required for sage mode. Unfortunately, this means that while the ratio of yin chakra decreased, the ratio of yang (light), air, water, earth, and fire chakra increased to a sort of equilibrium. Normally, his Amatsugan would've shut off naturally, but with how sudden the ratio had changed and with how nature energy was added to the equation, the chakra veins in his eyes burst, causing damage to the optic nerves as well. Adding sage chakra to an ocular ability that specifically only requires yin chakra is like adding diesel, water, and dirt into the fuel tank. Something is bound to go wrong. Even though diesel alone may contain water and dirt, the engine can survive if there are just very trace amounts that can be ignored. Hopefully, this simplified explanation can help people understand.)
Chizuki's feet were anchored to the ground in shock. Uehara didn't pay much attention to her. He sat down in the lotus position and began absorbing nature energy. Having the chakra veins in his eyes burst was very… itchy.
At this point, he had endured so much pain that having his eyes burst open wasn't anything new. He had long since numbed the pain receptors. They were numbed enough that he wouldn't feel pain but would know if there were any complications.
With the familiar feeling of sage chakra now coursing through his body, his wounds started to heal. Roughly ten seconds had passed, and his chakra veins had mostly healed, while draconic traits were now manifesting themselves on his body. Two black horns sprouted on his forehead, while canines formed in his mouth. Black tear marks formed from his eyes all the way to his jawline, while his eyes turned, first into golden slits, and then crimson-red slits.
Now having the ability to see heat signatures, Uehara could vaguely make out the visages of eight people surrounding and preparing to storm them the moment the obsidian barrier vanished.
Slowly dispersing the nature energy in his body, he released a sigh.
[The rest of my clones dispelled as well.]
Uehara opened his eyes to face Chizuki, who was kneeling in front of him with her hands covered in green chakra. The young attendant didn't even bother asking for permission to tend to her master's bloody visage. Even though his eyes were healed, they weren't at a hundred percent. So channeling her chakra, she began healing the small patches he missed.
Even so, she tried to remain calm, forcing her hands not to shake.
"Please… please don't scare me like that, master."
"Mn."
Despite the dome shaking from the attacks launched against it, Uehara remained calm. He took the time to thoroughly feel the emotions of his attendant.
[Although she tries to hide it, I can feel that she's very scared and concerned. To shield me at my most vulnerable…]
A small smile formed on his face.
"Thank you… Chizuki. Truly."
Chizuki gazed into the eyes of her master in confusion, blue sky meeting dark night. There was silence for a while… until she felt it. The soul-link between the two of them grew stronger. Previously, it was only one-sided. Uehara never made an effort to extend it since he had agreed to it in the first place. But now, she could feel the connection between them strengthening. She could feel how he acknowledged her and accepted her. The gratitude that she felt from him overflowed like the raging tides.
She could truly feel it now. She wasn't just some woman he was unwilling to dispose of. She was no longer someone whom he had to keep by his side reluctantly. She was no longer someone who just simply piqued his interest and tutelage. Now, she had his complete acceptance. She had his complete trust.
She was now viewed as a complete companion.
"Y-yes… master."
The completion of the link brought happiness and a genuine smile to her face.
"I was simply fulfilling my duty."
"Regardless…"
Uehara stood up from the lotus position and began focusing his chakra while a clone appeared at his side.
"... I now owe you a debt… a debt that I will most surely repay in the future with interest."
Without waiting for his attendant to reply, his clone grabbed her and vanished in a dark swirl.
[Sigh. I'm still too inexperienced. I almost— no, I have already failed my assignment.]
For all intents and purposes, Uehara could've wiped out every single person from afar just by using his full power. If not for the seals restricting the amount of chakra he could fuel his techniques with, the water tsunami he released would've been more than what the three white-robed elders could've ever hoped to handle. Had he wished, he could've made and bombarded them with a thousand clones that can use sage mode or a sage transformation. He wouldn't even need to be there personally. Just one super-powered clone created with a quarter of his chakra would still be more than enough.
But that was exactly what Volkarin had feared. He knew that if his son got used to overpowering his enemies, then when real threats arrived, he would not be able to face them.
Finally unable to ignore the incessant banging against his dome, he broke the remaining seals that limited his chakra…
"Enough."
…and let his chakra spill out.
FUUUUUUSHHH
(AN: Finally done with my SQL assignment. I've been busy with it for the past two weeks. Having to link a database to a website sounds easy on paper but to actually do it purely using code is a bitch. Anyway, I'm already working on the following chapters and I'm currently ironing out the details and fixing any plotholes. Thanks for reading. Like I said before, this novel will never be abandoned.)