Chapter 222: The Only Choice
Hand signs aren't restricted to the hands; a master can weave them with their feet as well.
This was a trick Jiraiya had used during his infiltration of the Hidden Rain Village while battling Pain. Ronin had mastered the technique after only a few trials—for someone with his biological coordination and Chakra control, it wasn't a steep climb.
Balanced on one leg, he manipulated his Fire Style to suppress the group while using Water Style for a mobile perimeter. Simultaneously, his Sharingan tracked the struggle in the sky. He locked his gaze onto Nobunaga, who was still trapped within the jaws of the fire dragon.
"Amaterasu!"
The black flames ignited instantly, engulfing the dragon's head and the swordsman within. Nobunaga, obsessed with his "Absolute Kill" strike, had refused to draw his blade to clear the fire, saving his momentum for Ronin.
It was a fatal oversight.
Nobunaga's weakness was a byproduct of his own specialization. His Hatsu relied entirely on a specific "Charge" phase within his four-meter En. He was a duelist of the highest order, but his lethality was tethered to a fixed startup time.
By the time he realized he couldn't reach Ronin through the Celestial Stasis, his window of opportunity had closed.
He could have used his blade to slice his way out of the fire dragon's maw earlier, but he had been too stubborn, too focused on the "One-Shot" Vow. To Ronin, a man who couldn't prioritize his own survival over a single strike was already a corpse.
Your four-meter En is your world, Ronin thought coldly. But my world is much, much larger.
Nobunaga was drowning in frustration.
The collaborative ability with Franklin—the "Human Missile"—had been designed specifically to avenge Uvogin. They believed that if they could force Ronin out of his "shell" (the Susanoo), Nobunaga could close the gap and mince him before a new defense could form.
But his pride had been shattered at the threshold of the four-meter mark.
He had felt the air turn into lead. He hadn't just been slowed; he had been frozen in a state where even the twitch of a finger required a titanic expenditure of aura. He couldn't even trigger the "Release" of his Iai-draw.
He had felt a surge of hope when the fire dragon's impact pushed him out of the stasis zone. Franklin's aura, embedded in his suit, had detonated to clear the flames and provide a secondary propellant, launching him at Ronin with a velocity that defied physics.
In that heartbeat, ignoring the burns and the agony, Nobunaga felt only the cold, sharp thrill of the kill.
Then, the second dragon hit him.
He was carried away again, his hand still locked on the hilt of a sword he never got to use. He knew that if he drew now, he could destroy the dragon. But he refused. His "Strongest Strike" was a Vow reserved for Ronin, and Ronin alone.
In that state of stubborn, desperate indecision, the Amaterasu took him.
The fire dragon dissipated, leaving the swordsman to plummet toward the floor in a shroud of black fire.
As he hit the pavement, Nobunaga ignored the pain. He ignored the smell of his own melting flesh. He raised a hand, and the despair in his eyes began to vanish, replaced by a dark, oily light.
As his life force flickered out, his biological components—his vitality and meat—were consumed to fuel something far more sinister.
Post-Mortem Nen.
Nobunaga Hazama was dead.
But his obsession was not. Driven by a dying curse, his Nen refused to dissipate. Instead, it mutated, rising from his charred remains like a black mist. The "Dead Nobunaga" lurched to his feet, dropping into a feral, quadrupedal stance.
His skeletal hand, flesh-stripped by the Amaterasu, remained locked on the hilt of his katana—a blade whose scabbard had already been turned to ash.
His four-meter En erupted outward, expanding with a violent, rhythmic pulse.
The undead Spider couldn't wait any longer. He intended to deliver his final strike before the black flames reduced his bones to dust.
Ronin watched the transformation.
It was an anomaly that couldn't be ignored. The pressure of the Post-Mortem Nen was physical; it weighed on his own aura like a heavy blanket.
He sensed the sudden expansion of the En and the spike in danger.
The diamond mark on Ronin's forehead flared and spread across his face.
Release: Strength of a Hundred Seal!
In front of him, the black-shrouded figure of Nobunaga flickered.
Fast. Too fast.
It wasn't physical speed. Ronin's Sharingan saw the spatial ripple—this was Emission-based Teleportation.
An Emitter/Enhancer hybrid?
In death, Nobunaga had reached the pinnacle of his potential. He had achieved the "Grandmaster" level of his affinities, merging his swordsmanship with spatial displacement.
SHING!
The Iai-draw flashed like a streak of black lightning.
Ronin didn't dodge. He raised a kunai, reinforcing the steel with a massive spike of Enhancement.
Clang!
The katana struck the kunai. The force was immense, but Ronin's foundation didn't waver.
He acknowledged the speed and the power, but to Ronin, the undead swordsman was still just a failure.
"You made the wrong choice," Ronin whispered. "Even in death, you don't understand your own limits."
Nobunaga launched into a frenzied dance of slashes. A hundred strikes per second, each one ringing out with a sharp Clang-Clang-Clang. But not a single one bypassed Ronin's guard.
Ronin analyzed the flaw in the curse.
Nobunaga had applied the spatial warping to his body, allowing him to teleport within his En to close the distance. It was impressive, but it gave Ronin a split-second of travel-data to track.
If you had applied the warp to the blade instead, Ronin mused, you would have achieved a spatial cleave. I wouldn't have been able to block a strike that simply 'appeared' inside my heart.
But Nobunaga had chosen the path of the brawler, wanting to feel the impact of his strike. By requiring his physical body to move, he gave the Sharingan a target it could see.
Against Ronin, who had fully committed to the "Unreasonable" path of an Enhancer, the undead Spider was just a target for demolition.
The match was over. Nobunaga simply hadn't realized he was already finished.
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