Chapter 98 - Consume All, Amaterasu
"Naruto, you must remember. You know why the people of the Leaf Village stop hating and fearing you. You know why they accepted you as one of their own. It's because you showed them that you understood them. And you fought for their acceptance." — Itachi Uchiha.
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Charlotte Chuhlhorne, like his other comrades that were graced and ordained to the esteemed position of being his majesty's, Baraggan Louisenbairn, fraccion, was a very strong and fortunate enough Hollow that had climbed up the Hollow evolutionary ladder and now stood above hundreds of Adjuchas-level Hollows just like him.
With a finely muscled body – and white Hollow carapace that covered his upper arms and legs like petals of a white rose –, an overhead Hollow mask and bright purple hair, he exuded a feminine aura that heavily contrasted against his perfectly masculine body; but to Charlotte Chuhlhorne, he was the embodiment of perfection.
When his glorious majesty stood up from his throne for the first in a little over a century, Charlotte and the others – his six fraccion – knew that someone – a very arrogant someone – had angered their glorious king, and it was up to them to show these insolent rodents their place – which was the very endless white dunes that spread over Hueco Mundo.
Charlotte had been very ecstatic to fight and measure his strength against a Vasto Lorde, maybe even killing this being and eating a part of them, but since their king himself was going after the Vasto Lorde, the others took it upon themselves to make sure they and their companions wouldn't escape their certain death.
He had expected it, for them to scatter and try to escape when they come across the rest of the fraccion, but what he didn't expect was that the others would be held down by a single person, a Shinigami no less, and they let the weakest Adjuchas he'd ever seen(if she even was qualified to be called that) pass through and come to him.
"Kugh—!" He batted away the pathetic Cero she shot at him and sneered. Even some Gillians had stronger Cero than that.
"Sorry, little girl. It's nothing personal, but your companion made the mistake of standing against our glorious king." He said with a glazed and cutesy look. The scene was so bizarre that Lilynette could swear she saw sparkles around him.
She tried running away but when she tried, the world turned into a blur and she screamed in pain as she felt a powerful kick in her abdomen.
"GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" She screamed frantically, huffing and panting in hot pain, even almost crying, as she tried to crawl away from Charlotte who no longer looked cute but demonic.
"I gain no pleasure from this… but my king's orders are absolute." His thick hands grabbed her by her neck and lifted her up with basically zero effort.
"You look, you talk, and you even feel like an Adjuchas, but you're not even there." Charlotte remarked as he gave Lilynette a deeper look and gained a slight frown on his face.
"S-T-A-RRK—" She choked when Charlotte's hands wrapped a little tighter around her neck and effectively cut off her voice.
He was a second from snapping her fragile neck when his spine tingled, and as if expecting it, a blanket of Reiatsu covered his hands and he swiftly turned around and punched whoever was attacking him from behind.
The Shinigami was suddenly upon him with blood running down one part of his head and three deep claw marks on his left hand.
....
Itachi wanted to use his black flames to burn the Hollow holding Lilynette but he really couldn't stop him in an instant if he just snapped the girl's neck.
He had been forced to make a hasty play to get out of the confrontation between him and the remaining two Hollows and get to Lilynette in time before this Hollow killed her, just like he'd been about to do.
With Truth-seeker in hand, Itachi kept a level head, even with Lilynette in the neck of fatal danger, and reviewed all he could tell about his Hollow from the short clash they just had.
The giant Hollow, along with the handicapped one, was behind him and were both making their way towards him.
There was a famous saying back in the Elemental Nations, one about the Uchihas – specifically the Sharingan the Uchiha possessed.
When going up against the Sharingan, if it's one on one, run. If it's two on one, attack from behind.
Most opponents were hard pressed when going up against the Sharingan of the average Uchiha. Against one of the most prodigious Uchiha in history?
Itachi's hand flicked in and out of his robes and six shurikens with a kunai behind them were inches away from burying themselves into Charlotte's face.
Even without the Sharingan, Itachi's visual acuity was flawless. With the Sharingan, the six shurikens effectively blocked Itachi's form from Charlotte's vision and when he tried to avoid them, that was when Itachi moved.
Body Flicker.
Charlotte swerved his head to the side to dodge the shurikens, two of which nicked him, and when he turned back to look at Itachi his eyes caught a reflection on the sheen of the kunai.
Red eyes.
He sharply turned behind to see if anyone was behind him but that was a fatal mistake.
Why would you carelessly turn your back to an Uchiha in the midst of battle?
Itachi who was behind him never dwelled in theatrics and unceremoniously stabbed his sword into the Hollow's hole in his lower stomach and just as efficiently dragged it upward.
With Amaterasu flowing through his blade, his blade smoothly cut up the Hollow's body like a sword through water.
"Itachi—" Lilynette looked stunned at how easily Itachi killed the Hollow. Just as easily as Charlotte toyed with her.
Itachi cut the arm holding her and they both disappeared as soon as he did, a moment later than Redder who brought down an explosive heel kick on where they had been that sent up a small mushroom cloud of dust and white sand.
"Itachi, how—"
Lilynette snapped her mouth shut when she saw the frigid emotionless mask on Itachi's face. He had always been expressionless but she knew that was because he didn't want to show any emotion on his face. On the other hand, the look on his face right now was as if he was an undead emotionless husk.
Itachi's eyes narrowed on the remaining two Hollows – the gargantuan sized Choe Neng Poww and the handicapped Abirama Redder – and contemplated whether to kill them now or retreat so as to give Starrk the chance to escape.
The giant Hollow was already on them and Redder was snarling furiously at them, murder all too clear in his gaze.
'Putting the big one in an illusion is a waste of time and there's no guarantee that it'll work given his current state. I'll snipe the red one for now.' He thought.
He silently let Lilynette down, absentmindedly taking note of the destruction Starrk and Baraggan were causing a couple miles away, and in the next moment he was gone.
With how huge and erratic the second Hollow and its Reiatsu was, any illusions he used on the surroundings will be rendered unstable.
Lightning sparked into his other hand, soon turning black, as he crossed the distance between the two of them.
Redder yelled uproariously and flew towards Itachi, shooting off feathers from his wings as red bullets, while coating his wings in extremely potent Reiatsu and positioning them as if intending to cleave through Itachi.
Itachi dodged every single one of Redder's feathers and cut those that would have gone for Lilynette behind him.
"DIE DAMNED SHINIGAMI! Devorar Pluma!"
"Onyx Chidori."
Back in the Elemental Nations, it was common knowledge that the lightning element was weak against the wind element, but as souls those conveniences were irrelevant.
The black lightning jutsu which was made from combining Amaterasu's Reiatsu and his lightning release effortlessly tore through Redder's wings and his chest, piercing through the natural wind barrier his Hollow ability granted him.
"He… hehe.."
Redder, who was on his end, held Itachi so tightly that he almost crushed the latter's bone.
"Do… it, Choe Neng…"
Itachi calmly lifted up his head to see Choe Neng Poww charging up yet another Cero with his mouth and Hollow hole while Redder held him down.
Itachi slowly exhaled and his robes of flames flared out, incinerating Redder as they did.
'You already have more than enough power to destroy most of the enemies you'll come across. This one is not any different.'
"Come, Amaterasu."
A conflagration of flames rose about and around him; his passion, his efforts, his beliefs – all fueling the flames he now called his.
"Consume All," he brought his sword slowly upwards, his breath growing a bit labored as he did, and in the fraction of an instant, brought it down.
"Black Sea Conflagration."
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