Past the Pain

The night had already fallen, near the border of the country of the Earth, even though it was not so late the Sensei of Shirasagi had chosen to raise the camp, not only for the safety of his team but to guarantee the safety of the messenger that they were escorting, after all the man was carrying a message from the granddaughter of the Daimyo of the Wave Country, to his grandfather and in one way or another. Because it was a long trip that would take at least two weeks, it was agreed between Shirasgi and his teammates that they would guard the camp between them little by little, when they drew lots the young Hyuga lost and was first to be chosen to watch.

It was dawn, the moon was already high, the fire was burning with low fire while everyone was already sleeping deeply, except Shirasagi who sitting a branch on top of one of the trees that surrounded the camp, watched closely the perimeter, keeping his guard high he was prepared to deal with any hostile intruder.

With his Byakugan, Shirasagi would inevitably be able to make out the presence of a single shinobi moving in on his location, coming from the northern direction. Though he would be unable to know the boy by his face or renown, this shinobi was Ōmitsu Kaguya of Kirigakure, who had been evenly employed to take part in the killing of the very same messenger Shirasagi and his team were to protect.

He was still nearly 2 miles away from Shirasagi’s camp and had no way to know that he had already been located. Nevertheless, Ōmitsu kept moving through the forest surrounding the camp, closing in little by little on the camp.

Perceiving Ōmitsu's sneaky approach since he entered the perimeter of three kilometers of the field, Sirasagi didn't waste any more time, getting up balanced on the branch, he jumped, investing quickly towards the possible intruder.

Enchanting him perfectly in the night's darkness because of Dojutsu, he drew three kunais between the fingers of each hand, he threw the six blades at high speed towards Ōmitsu.

Due to the incredible distance that the thrown projectile were required to cover even after Shirasagi had moved away from the camp allowed Ōmitsu to eventually perceive them before they were anywhere close to him. This gave away Shirasagi's element of surprise and not only informed Ōmitsu that he had been spotted by his enemy but also where his enemy was located based on the direction in which the kunai and shuriken were thrown from. Using the natural defenses the forest provided in the form of trees, bushes, and branches, Ōmitsu had more than ample time and space to evade the thrown projectiles. He hid behind a thick tree stump, all the weapons sinking into the wooden bark.

Ōmitsu had no idea how many enemies he would be dealing with nor how far they all may be. Shirasagi's Byakugan would enable him to see right through the tree stump that was covering Ōmitsu. Ōmitsu remained behind it, waiting for his enemy to unveil himself by coming in closer. He paid attention to anything that would aid him in spotting his opponents.

Noting that his attack had failed and seeing Ōmitsu hiding behind the log through Byakugan, Shirasagi may conclude that that target was definitely a human opted to decide the fight at once before his opponent became a bigger problem, making the Tiger's hand seal, he used Body Flicker Technique, abandoned his natural speed, he moved at a dizzying speed towards Kirigakure's shinobi.

Putting himself in front of Ōmitsu, cornering him between the Shirasagi himself and the dense tree, he concentrated his chakra on the palm of his hand, he delivered a single blow into the air releasing a vacuum shell targeting his opponent's abdomen.

"Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm !"

The Body Flicker worked only in bursts, meaning it could only work linearly. While active Shirasagi would not be capable of lateral movement, only movement going forward. The continuous clouds of smoke alerted him of his moving target, as well as the sound of ruffling leaves and quaking branches that shook the forest. It was fortunate of Ōmitsu that he formed hand signs in time to cast the Body Replacement Technique before Shirasagi could corner him against the tree he was held up against.

The log was struck with full force, dissipating immediately. With a puff of smoke, Ōmitsu was gone and in his place was a thick log taken from just behind Shirasagi. This closed the immediate gap between Ōmitsu and Shirasagi. They were now in close quarters, with Ōmitsu being just behind Shirasagi. Due to his Byakugan and superior reflexes, Shirasagi should easily be able to predict the incoming attack made by Ōmitsu but reacting to it would be much more difficult as Ōmitsu had similar base speed to Shirasagi if not a bit more and was already within point blank range.

Quickly forming hand signs behind his opponent, Ōmitsu expelled a sphere of water from his mouth intending to catch Shirasagi inside of the Water Prison Technique. Shirasagi's Byakugan would also make out the chakra building up underneath Ōmitsu's skin in the same moment, surrounding his skeleton.

Realizing quickly that Ōmitsu had escaped from his onslaught and tried to attack him from behind, knowing that if he was fast enough to dodge he would certainly have a higher speed, he already knew that he couldn't escape even using the Body Flicker Technique, but he couldn't risk being captured, after all if his opponent reached the camp and was able enough to shoot everyone in a sneaky way he could kill everyone while sleeping, putting the lives of his companions and the success of the mission to lose.

Having this in mind, even though he had recently learned the technique he decided to take the risk and use it, expelling Chakra through all 361 Tenketsu of his body spinning at high speed he created a perfect spherical chakra shield around him, repelling the big bubble of water before it envelops him forcing Ōmitsu to keep away so he wouldn't be repelled too.

"Eight Trigrams Revolving Heaven !"

Ōmitsu was forced backwards by the jutsu, which made short work of what he thought was a pretty stellar water prison. To see a shinobi who could detect where he was and plow through one of his most powerful techniques so easily induced great panic in Ōmitsu. He was straight out of options as far as the water release could go.

Still, Shirasagi's eyes would tell him that there was a large buildup of chakra underneath Ōmitsu's skin. Wanting to maintain the small distance between him and his opponent, Ōmitsu waited for Shirasagi to stop spinning, while remaining an arm's length away from his revolving heaven.

In the moment Shirasagi reached for the kunai, Ōmitsu took a step towards him just as he had finished spinning. He wasn't quick enough to act before the kunai could be thrown however. But as he was now less than an arm's length away, Ōmitsu caught the kunai with his chest.

The tips of the kunai stabbed into Ōmitsu's chest like darts on a dartboard, dealing only superficial damage at best and failing to penetrate the defensive prowess of his enhanced skeletal membrane.

Ōmitsu while less than an arm's length away from Shirasagi caused the bones in his ribs to protrude from his skin and surround Shirasagi in a cage of his bones. They would not touch him, only surround him as the explosive tags from the kunai went off.

They would both be caught in the explosion. The bones surrounding Shirasagi would prevent him from any means of escape while concentrating much of the explosion towards him. Unlike Ōmitsu he would not have the defensive prowess to survive the impact of the explosion --even Ōmitsu would only barely survive the point blank explosion. Shirasagi would be lucky to be in one piece.

Without choice or chance to escape Shirasagi swallowed dry, he never imagined that Akame would make a counter suicide attack like that to defeat him, for a moment his eyes glimpsed death, he ended up being caught in the radius of the explosion.

Falling far from the place of the initial impact completely wounded, the wounds were serious enough that he wasn't even able to get up from the place where he was falling, little by little his eyesight became obscured he was losing consciousness, without seeing the figure of Akame, he sighed relieved, believing that at least he had managed to stop the enemy, before he had lost consciousness.

The noise of the explosion echoed all around the perimeter, and it was enough to alert everyone in the camp that without hesitating they set out in search of Shirasgi, after some minutes of searching Sakkai the sensei of Shirasagi found him in time to save him leading him back to the camp to be treated.

## Bone Voyage

24 hours had gone by. Even with the healing abilities of Yama Kamizuru , despite being out of risk Shiarasagi remained unconscious, a really serious situation, after all thanks to Shirasagi's condition they could not leave and on top of that the enemy was still at large knowing this left Sakkai cautious, keeping vigilant in the perimeter chaos enemy turns up he would certainly have problems dealing with an experienced Jonin expert in the use of the Explosion release.

Meanwhile, Yama was keeping an eye on his companion's situation while recovering after all he had spent a considerable amount of Chakra using Mystical Palm Technique to alleviate the situation of Shirasagi, protecting them was Taru an expert in the use of Genjutsu.

Unlike Shirasagi, Omitsu had recovered swiftly from his injuries following their battle. And though he had defeated Shirasagi, his mission was still far from over. For what remained in the way of his target were three other shinobi belonging to Shirasagi's team, one of which who was already handicapped due to their part in healing Shirasagi.
By now Omitsu had reached the camp and had hidden himself in the leaves of a bush nearby. With Shirasagi down for the count, the team had lost their sensor and so this would enable Omitsu to remain undetected.

He observed their formation closely. Shirasagi, the Hyuga he had battled the day before, was still unconscious. From the body language of the medic beside him, she too would be largely unavailable in combat. While their Jounin commander was staring in the opposite direction, Omitsu turned his attention toward Taru, who was keeping watch of the other two genin.

From inside the bush, Omitsu molded his bones and shot them out in a barrage towards Taru and the medical-nin. These bones were small projectiles that would be fired at them in dozens targeted at their backs, meaning they would be hard to detect and due to their speed even harder to avoid.

Because they were made from his bones, the projectiles were incredibly sharp and durable; deflecting them was mostly out of the question as well as they would likely pierce through anything and everything in their way until they hit their targets.

Being caught completely unprepared, even realizing that the blow Tāru had little, he managed to avoid being dyed directly thanks to the small difference between its speed and the speed of Omitsu's blow, but it was not enough to prevent one of the bones from suffering a deep cut and retreating towards Yama and Shirasagi, so that the Medical -Nin at least could make a proper dressing.

However, attacking in this way Kirigakure's Chunin ended up revealing his position, and when he realized that Sekkai didn't waste time, causing the Tiger hand seal to use the Body Flicker Technique, advancing over Omitsu at explosive speed, he concentrated the Explosion Liberation Chakra, he prepared himself to strike a blow to his opponent, in case he hit Omitsu directly would trigger an explosion powerful enough to damage him sevearously.

Omitsu had willingly targeted the more inferior prey knowing of Sekkai's positioning along the camp which had him momentarily separated from the three Genin. It seemed Omitsu's attacks had met their mark, for the most part, dealing enough damage to Taru so that the three Genin would now primarily be unavailable for the duration of his bout with Sekkai, who was by all accounts and purposes the true threat of this mission.

Even knowing where Sekkai was did not help Omitsu all that much in reacting to his speed. Omitsu could not react to Sekkai's speed at all. There was no time to move his feet, no time to even draw hand signs to cast a replacement technique or to use water style to counter him. Fortunately Omitsu had his Kekkei Genkai to bank on, which did not require hand signs at all to make use of. This was his only means of response.

In a manner very similar to his last, Omitsu once again expanded the bones of his ribcage out of his stomach. In this instance however they were not able to cage Sekkai's body entirely. However, Sekkai extended his own arm outwards of his own choosing. His hand would contact Omitsu's chest and liberate an explosion. But not before the bones of Omitsu's ribcage would have wrapped around Sekkai's arm, certainly piercing through and perhaps even ripping off his limb in the process. It was like sticking your hand into a venus flytrap.

The result was a devastating explosion which would send Omitsu flying backwards along with the arm that he should have ripped off Sekkai's body. Both parties would have likely suffered massive damage.

"You rock-heads... can all you d-do is explode..?"

Omitsu's mouth opened against his wishes, vomiting another wallop of blood. His mask had been torn off in the explosion. But he had to quickly correct his posture. He shot up to his feet. He couldn't die here nor give Sekkai another opening to attack.

Several smaller bones protruded from his body and could be seen at the surface of his skin. They were aimed like arrows at the position of the camp.

They were very obviously directed at the three defenseless Genin. Sekkai had blasted Omitsu closer to the Genin. These bones would certainly reach their target if the ones from before had hit. Omitsu was giving Sekkai a decision to make.

Should he not stand down or even attempt to attack him again then he would fire these bones at the camp to kill the Genin.

Either Sekkai could defend himself from the attack or defend the Genin but given they were split up he would likely not be able to do both.

Realizing the trap that Kirigakure's Sinobi had prepared for him, Sekkai did not try to remove his hand from the bones that held his spleen, supporting him with the other hand to ensure that the retreat of the blast would not pull him by force, he remained purposely attached until the explosion released breaking the rib bones that held him, despite the damage that the perforations had caused, Sekkai was standing and ready to put a definitive end to that situation.

However, Sekkai found himself at a crossroads killing Omitsu and ensuring the success of the mission or saving his companions, at that moment a movie passed in his head, remembering his past where in a confrontation against a group of Shinobi from Konohagakure where all his companions sacrificed themselves in an effort and failed to succeed in their mission, remembering that he took his decision, he would not sacrifice the life of the Genins who were his responsibility for honor or respect, raising his arms as a sign of surrender and said to Omitsu.

"All right, you win, just promise me that you won't hurt the kids".

"You have my word. Just bring the messenger out here to me from the camp and I'll be on my way."

With all the shame and contradiction I felt at that moment expressed in his face, without looking into the eyes of his apprentices, he snorted "Yama brings the messenger here, don't tell him anything about what you hear, understand?

Yama hesitated, and thought of contradicting the order, but fopi approached Taru who had already realized what he was adding, put his hand on the girl's shoulder and said:

"Don't question, go get her, then I will explain what happened".

When Yama heard this, he got up and went to get the messenger who was following him, although he was a little confused, but as soon as he saw all the wounded, he tried to retreat, but he was arrested by Sekkai, who was looking directly into the despair in the eyes of the messenger, swallowed dry and shook his head, For even knowing that he was handing him over to death, he could do nothing, it was his life or that of his companions, something Seekai was not willing to sacrifice, incarnating the man for the last time he whispered before dragging him by the arm and handing him over to Omitsu.

"I'm sorry, butn'd I have a choice".

While the messenger was still in Sekkai's hands, Omitsu watched him tremble and shake as his eyes grew wide. Such a reaction stirred something within Omitsu. He was normally used to being the inferior being. Before Ao and Ski he felt like nothing but a worthless worm. To be before someone who was outright begging for mercy... it made him feel empowered.
Dentures made of solid bone formed around Omitsu's face, taking the appearance of an enlarged jaw structure with two layers of incredibly large teeth. Without him moving from where he was the dentures took a bite out of the messenger that was still being held by Sekkai, ripping him by the waist and munching him so many times over that his blood would splatter all over and drench Sekkai in it along with his intestines hanging over his shoulders and around Sekkai's neck like jewelry.

It was an overkill. A mass murder. Done in a manner so Omitsu could taste the blood of the corpse and ensure it was not a dunce clone or a doppelgänger. And Sekkai had approved of it. Skillfully Omitsu spared the messenger's head, taking it into his hand for safekeeping. Now that his mission had been realized, he grinned, his hand holding a single hand sign: ram.

"I lied to you. Seems you fell for my bluff. I didn't have enough chakra left to kill them all, so you gave him to me at no cost, sensei-san." Mist began to form around Omitsu, quickly obscuring his body as he made his retreat from the camp. "You are a most admirable man, to choose the lives of your students. But you are not a shinobi. A shinobi would never willingly compromise his mission!"

Maniacal laughter radiated through the forest as Omitsu's form vanished into the mist.

With this scathing horror scene, the mission was marked as a definitive speech, after cleaning up the mess that Omitsu left, if it can be called that and the wounds of Seekai, Shirasgi and Taru partially recovering they returned to Iwagakure.

Despite the wounds on their bodies heal, the sequelae in Team Sekkai’s mind would never heal especially in the psychological of those who witnessed the Omitsu’s carnage, Yama developed a severe Hemophobia that would cost him a lot in his efficiency as Medical-nin, causing he moved away from the frontline fields and began to act as a receptionist at the general hospital in Iwagakure, Taru was consumed by the fear of death an like his companion left the battlefield seeking to become useful in other functions, seeking training to becoming a ninja academy's teacher, Sekkai was the hardest hit, after taking full responsibility for his failure in the escort mission he was severely punished by the council of the elders of Iwagkure and consumed with guilt and shame he abandoned his career as Shinobi and sank into depression and alcoholism.

Shirasagi was also taken over by guilt ,after all he had the chance to stop Omitsu in time to deal with all this damage, but he failed to do it, but unlike Seekai it gave him the strength to mature and try to become stronger so that a fail like it never happens again.