Hand signs didn't have to be formed only with the hands. They could also be formed with the feet.
Jiraiya had once done exactly that when he invaded the Hidden Rain Village and fought Pain.
After trying it a few times, Ronin mastered the technique. After all, it wasn't difficult for him to begin with.
At this moment, while he controlled Fire Release to suppress the Troupe, he also controlled Water Release for defense. At the same time, his Sharingan spun, his gaze locking directly onto Nobunaga inside the dragon's mouth.
Amaterasu activated.
In just an instant, black flames engulfed Nobunaga, who was still struggling inside the dragon's jaws and stubbornly refusing to draw his sword.
Nobunaga's weakness was far too obvious.
Especially the way he had to build up momentum before attacking—it was painfully clear.
The moment he failed to draw his blade inside Ame-no-tokotachi, he had already lost every chance he had.
Perhaps when he was swept away by the second fire dragon, if he had stopped stubbornly trying to complete that one-hit kill, he might have been able to break free from the fire dragon's mouth.
But the moment he failed to understand the situation, his death was already decided in Ronin's eyes.
His En had a radius of four meters.
That was his attack range.
So as long as Ronin kept him from getting within four meters, no matter how strong Nobunaga's ability was, it meant nothing.
And Ronin just so happened to excel at mid- and long-range attacks.
Nobunaga's heart was full of unwillingness.
He had pestered Franklin into developing his ability because he wanted to avenge Uvogin.
And he was confident that as long as he could force Ronin out of that turtle shell, the moment he got close, he could slice Ronin into minced meat.
But all of that confidence and pride shattered the instant he approached the critical distance where he should have been able to activate his ability.
His movements slowed.
He didn't even get the chance to instantly draw the sword at his waist and unleash his ability.
If he used every ounce of strength, perhaps he could still pull the blade out.
But if he did that, the effect of his iaijutsu would never activate properly.
He didn't know how Ronin had done it.
But looking at Ronin, so close and yet impossibly out of reach, he felt despair.
That despair vanished when the fire dragon blasted him out of the slowed zone.
Hope returned to him.
Especially when the Nen Franklin had left on him blew apart the fire dragon and hurled him toward Ronin at even greater speed. At that moment, the excitement and thrill in Nobunaga's heart reached their peak.
For that instant, he even forgot the burning and pain spreading across his body. All that remained in his mind was the satisfaction and pleasure he would feel after cutting Ronin down.
But then, an even deeper despair swallowed him.
Once again, he was swept away from Ronin by another fire dragon.
His sword never had the slightest chance to leave its sheath.
As the fire dragon carried him away, he understood perfectly well that if he drew his blade, he could absolutely cut the fire dragon apart.
But he refused to accept that.
His strongest strike, the one he had spent so long building up, was meant for Ronin.
Not for some meaningless fire dragon.
And amid that tangled, desperate struggle, black flames wrapped around him.
The fire dragon released him, letting the Nobunaga engulfed in black flames fall toward the ground.
But when Nobunaga hit the ground, he paid no attention to the pain continuously tearing through his body.
He raised his hand.
The despair in his eyes had even begun to fade.
And disappearing along with that despair were his life force and flesh.
Yet in that strange state, black aura began rising from his body.
It was post-mortem Nen.
Under the repeated burning of the fire dragon and Amaterasu, Nobunaga was already dead.
But his obsession kept him from collapsing even after death. Instead, the post-mortem Nen born from that obsession allowed him to take one firm step toward Ronin, even while Amaterasu burned him.
His hand, gradually charred down to exposed bone by the flames, still rested on the hilt of the long sword whose sheath had already been burned away by the black fire.
His four-meter En changed at that moment, rapidly expanding outward.
The dead Nobunaga could no longer wait.
Before the black flames burned him down to nothing, he would unleash his strongest slash at Ronin.
Ronin noticed the change in Nobunaga.
Or rather, that kind of change was impossible to ignore. This transformation into post-mortem Nen truly put pressure on him.
Especially when that En covered him in an instant—he immediately felt danger.
The Strength of a Hundred Seal on his forehead released instantly.
But by then, Nobunaga's black-flame-wrapped figure had already appeared in front of him.
Fast.
Too fast.
Far faster than Ronin had expected.
And that speed wasn't ordinary movement speed.
It was a traversal ability from the Emission category.
An Enhancer leaning toward Emission?
Only after death had Nobunaga pushed his ability to its absolute limit—the effect he would have achieved had he fully mastered it in life.
Through the Sharingan's perception, Ronin could clearly see Nobunaga's iaijutsu slash moving like lightning.
Clang!
Nobunaga's draw slash struck the kunai in Ronin's hand.
The force was powerful.
But it failed to cut through Ronin's kunai, and it failed to shake Ronin at all.
Ronin admitted that Nobunaga's draw slash was extremely fast and powerful.
But so what?
Its speed still did not exceed the Sharingan's perception, and its strength was still inferior to Ronin, who was fully specialized in Enhancement.
So even with post-mortem Nen giving Nobunaga a certain boost, in front of the current Ronin, he was still nothing but trash.
A continuous series of sharp clangs rang out.
Nobunaga launched slash after slash like a mad demon, but not one of those hundred-plus attacks broke through the defense of the kunai in Ronin's hand.
He chose wrong. But this was his only chance.
The instant Nobunaga's figure vanished, Ronin's Sharingan shifted slightly, and the kunai in his hand reversed direction.
The moment Nobunaga appeared behind him, the kunai was already blocking the path of Nobunaga's sword strike.
When Ronin thought that Nobunaga had chosen wrong, he was referring to Nobunaga's use of Emission.
If Nobunaga had not applied his Emission traversal ability to his own body, but had instead applied it entirely to the sword in his hand, then Ronin might genuinely have struggled to keep up.
After all, with that kind of spatial traversal, even if the Sharingan could instantly capture where the blade appeared, he would have almost no time to react and block the slash.
But Nobunaga had placed the traversal ability on himself.
That gave him the ability to rapidly close in on Ronin, and even to freely move within his own En.
However, after the human body traversed space, launching an attack still took more time.
And that gave Ronin more time to react.
But just as Ronin had thought, this was the only method the dead Nobunaga could choose.
If he could not use his expanded En to transport his entire body, then he would never have had any chance of getting close to Ronin.
And if he didn't get close, and instead used the kind of long-range slash Ronin had imagined, then the attack's power would fall under the rules of an Emission-type ability, causing its strength to drop.
Knowing full well that Ronin had the strength to fight Uvogin head-on, Nobunaga had only one path if he wanted to kill Ronin with his draw slash:
get close enough for the strike to fully unleash its Enhancement effect.
So from the very beginning, Nobunaga had never had any real chance of killing him.
~~~
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