"Detonate," Jim whispers.
"Aw, fu—" An explosion throws Raven through the air.
"Lightning Release: Fazing Flash Kick!" The Marine Contra backflips, slamming his electrified feet one after the other into the Anbu Captain's chin, rocketing her through the ceiling.
Crane hangs onto a rafter jutting from a ruined section of the skyscraper. He reaches for the steel girder, but his grasp slips against its slick surface. Below, a mass of shadows shift and shuffle in the dark; lightning reveals the growing Red Zetsu hoards scaling the surface after him. Despite his shoulder injury, the struggling medical-nin pulls himself inside a lavish conference room with comfy office chairs and a large, sleek table in the center. After dusting himself off and confirming his ribs and internal organs are not suffering critical damage, a dreadful realization dawns upon him.
FLASHBACK NO-JUTSU
"By the way, dick doc—I'm *not* a girl! Lightning Release: High Voltage Vendetta!"
END FLASHBACK
Heat rises in the shinobi's cheeks; he slumps on a chair, and his face flushes red with shame and humiliation. A ghostly humanoid fish-like creature with bulging eyes and dark red skin appears beside him.
"It's a trap!" the apparition warns before fading away; Crane dismisses the Force Ghost as a lingering genjutsu from a dead caster.
The medical-nin recalls many nights alone (as far as he knows) in his office with what he now doubts is a woman's picture. 'The top brass should've at least known Malkhaz's *correct* gender before cataloging a dossier!' The shinobi shudders, remembering how many of his colleagues keep copies of the ASF's Bingo Book. 'In retrospect, the model on the front cover of Majin Booty Magazine – Issue No. 4 looks precisely like her—*him* or whatever!' Crane's hands rest on his mask, unaware of the creeping danger, 'no need for any hasty conclusions. After I recover Malkhaz's body, I'll check to be certain. I'll pass it off as an autopsy and…' there's a light tap of a footstep, the scrunching leather of his conference chair.
A pair of hands squeeze his shoulders; he winces. A silhouette with long white hair appears before him. Lightning brightens the conference room. An eyeball dangles from the wheezing mutant hag's bloody, decomposing skull as discharge and maggots ooze from every wound covering its slimy flesh. The medical-nin smashes a vase across the Red Zetsu's head, knocking out its dentures. The abomination falls over, shattering a glass side table. He leaps over the office chair, but the cannibalistic fiend snatches his ankle, tripping him. He kicks the mutant in its face, then rushes across a couch for his sword.
The flesh-eating ghoul springs off the ground, tackling him onto the cushion. He shimmies free and leaps away, but the Red Zetsu grasps his pants. The mutant drags him back on the couch; the shinobi's trousers slip around his ankles. He clasps the armrest, struggling to escape the abomination, clutching his boxers.
"Aaagh! No! Nononono! No! No!!" Crane's boxers rip and tear. The mutant yanks him and his boxers down onto the couch, "fucking no!!" the salivating ghoul seizes the medical-nin's junie cakes, "not my ass!!" before chomping down, "AAGH!!!" he screams as the toothless Red Zetsu suckles and slurps, "MY ASS!! MY ASS!! SHE'S GUMMING MY AAASSSSS!!!"
Jim ducks a mutant lunging from above. It crashes through a window, fading into darkness; a distant crash precedes a blaring car alarm.
"Toasty~!!"
He shrugs, then continues up the stairwell onto the next floor. The Contra throws a kunai armed with an explosive tag at an obscure figure dangling from the ceiling. The kunoichi's eyebrows raise, and her now bloodshot eyes bulge; the kunai detonates on impact. He dives for cover. Despite his target escaping the explosion, the kunai hit its mark. His snickering turns to full-blown laughter, knowing he bulls-eye the brown eye.
"You insufferable wretch!!" Raven screams, appearing behind him.
He is on the defensive, dodging and deflecting an onslaught of kicks capable of removing his head. Both combatant's respective kicks clash; he locks her leg between his calf and hamstring. He dispatches swift, sharp jabs and pokes along the Anbu Captain's hip, floating rib, shoulder, triceps, elbow, and wrist before kneeing her solar plexus. She traps him with a flying armbar as the numbness in her limbs subsides. He siphons the kunoichi's chakra; agony inundates her nervous system, preventing Raven from dislocating his arm. He breaks free, locking her in a triangle choke.
His legs tighten, constricting the blood flow from her carotid arteries; the frigid stare of a psychotic mass murderer bears down upon the Anbu Captain. Her vision fades; the kunoichi's chakra depletes as she struggles against an unyielding lateral vascular choke. She snatches a rotary dialing phone and cold-clocks Jim across the head, dazing him. He almost blacks out, unsure if it's his head or the phone ringing; Raven bodyslams the war criminal onto a table and winds him with an elbow strike. He deflects another blow to the chest. Jim rolls back onto his shoulders, pinwheels his legs, and stuns the Anbu Captain with a revolving torrent of kicks to the head. He bashes her across the face with a keyboard; nevertheless, she retains enough clarity to distinguish the stars around her as falling computer keys.
They re-engage in close-quarters taijutsu. The fugitive has experience and speed, but the kunoichi has talent and power; she reads, predicts, or mimics his fighting style, 'How is this possible!?' he wonders, 'Unless… No! Not one of *them!*' Jim panics, increasing the speed and ferocity of his attacks. He catches Raven with a roundhouse kick to both ribs, then another to her chin. She sidesteps a prompt ax kick and thrusts her boot into his abdomen before hurling a reverse roundhouse kick. He ducks, then deflects a subsequent volley of feet stomping at his face; she backflips off the Contra's forearm.
The Anbu Captain lunges from a wall; her vicious onslaught remains swift, relentless, and precise. He counters with a heel kick, but she captures his leg centimeters from her head. However, she is on the receiving end of a head-scissors takedown. He reaches for her throat; she grabs his wrists, struggling to forestall him from absorbing her chakra. He inches closer. She head-butts him in the face, then drives her boots into his chest. He flies through the air and crashes behind a reception desk.
"OOF!!" Jim hops on the desk. He grits his teeth, boiling with irritation and a bloody nose, "suck 1.21 Jigawatts, you An-beOTCH!" The mass murderer's hands blur over a sequence of seals, "Lightning Release: Ballistic Bolt Barrage!" Lightning surges after her as she scurries through the office cubicles like a greased weasel; the kunoichi dives away from the converging currents before they dissipate. He scrutinizes his surroundings for the slightest disturbance. With the Bolts of Zeus, Jim smites the first Red Zetsu he spots, reducing the abomination to a red gelatinous paste bespattering the floors and walls.
"Toasty~!!"
"Whoa! Uh—what!?" the war criminal stammers, unable to conceal his astonishment.
"Uh, I said Toasty~!! Because that was the toastiest Brutality ever! Up high~!!" the Toasty beams, waving and gesturing a high-five.
"What do you mean by *toasty?*"
"You know, like, whoa, nice move. That was freakin' Toasty~!! So, let's head over to TGI Fridays! Cause there's a special on everything Top-shelf~!! And I got a Gift card~!! With fifty-three Ryō left on it!"
"What!? Who in the!? Where the hell did you!? How are you even!?" Jim stutters, "I really can't deal with this right now..." he grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Never mind. Do you mind leaving? I'm kind of in the middle of something right now."
The Toasty slumps in disappointment, "No... no. I get it—yeah. I hear you out. That's—uh. That's cool. That's Toasty~!!"
"No! It isn't Toasty~!!" the fugitive says, gesturing with jazz hands.
"Watch out~!!"
"Oh fuck~!!" he dives away from a flaming skull.
"Toasty~!!" Raven teases, appearing behind him. He clasps her sword between his hands, preventing himself from being cut in half. Jim condenses and discharges chakra from his fingers, generating a miniature shockwave that stumbles the Anbu Captain backward. He rushes forward with a kunai; they clash into a crescendo of swift blurs, discharging sparks with every collision. Flames encircle them as they skirmish in the middle of the room, set ablaze by a ferocious exchange of lightning and fire jutsu.
A violent, loudening rumble shakes the upper floors, hastening every second. Jim and the kunoichi disengage, backflipping away before a steel girder crashes through the ceiling; they stare each other down as the floor's structural integrity weakens.
"Jumpin' feet first into hell ain't my mission; making sure it's crowded before I get there is!" he says.
"Nani!?" she questions.
"Oh, that's right; you star-chuckin' treehoppers can't understand me."
"I don't know what you said in your *native tongue*, but something tells me it's what you'd get it ripped from your throat for!"
"Will you, or can you?" the Contra taunts in Japanese.
"I damned well can, and you better believe I will, Jimi," Raven responds, preparing to attack. A long-drawn-out scream approaches. Groans of mindless hunger echo in the halls and stairwells, drowning out the cries of distress. Crane hops out of the darkness down the hallway, trying to pull up his trousers. A screeching mutant hag rushes after him with a hoard not far behind.
"No! NO! NO!! Don't lead them over here, jackass!" Jim yells.
The medical-nin clenches his junie cakes, hopping even faster, "Get bent, Malkhaz!"
The Anbu Captain watches with indifference as the shinobi hops away like he's in a wild sack race with the hordes sprinting after him.
'I'll be torn to shreds unless I act fast!' A cracked lightbulb flickers above the mass murderer, 'This isn't my brightest idea, but it's something.' He manipulates a small but dense quantity of electrokinetic chakra around his hand. Rings of power materialize, levitating above Jim's palm. He ensures both targets align before thrusting his hand forward, "Surging Centrifuge Jutsu!" Concentric chakra rings glide through the air. With a solitary hand seal, the floating rings halt in the entryway and expand. Crane tumbles midair like a tomahawk; his bare behind slams into the kunoichi's face.
"Toasty~!!"
The pulsating rings of power send Raven and Crane crashing into a wall. They stagger back to their feet as their disjointing haze recedes. The medical-nin pulls up his trousers; a rock bounces off his mask, then the Anbu Captain's. They shift their attention, glaring daggers at the war criminal.
"Hey, you dried-up dingleberries! Meet me on the rooftops, and we'll settle this once and for all!" Jim says. He vanishes, discharging a smoke bomb. The mutant hag flies from the black haze toward the Anbu. They dodge; it tumbles out an adjacent window. Their eyebrows raise in stark realization as the hoards reach the pulsating chakra rings. Crane and Raven dive away before hundreds of Red Zetsus catapult off the skyscraper.