Meeting the Leader

BOOM!

ROAR!

A deafening roar sounded from just across the tree line. The roar was so loud that it caused the eardrums of all the people to reverberate.

Immediately, the team felt their hearts drop in foreboding.

Continuous ground-shaking booming footsteps could be heard in rapid succession as the sound of trees creaking could be heard.

"What... what is that?" the villagers mumbled in shock as their attitudes went from complete happiness to utter despair and fear.

"Looks like it's here..." Kiyoshi mumbled as the Iron Sand began to go back to its carpet form, causing all the bodies of the dead animals to slump to the ground.

"What do you mean?" Ryuuya asked seriously as he heard this.

"I didn't have time to confirm this or tell you because the animals were on the way," Kiyoshi informed as he turned to Haru and Ryuuya and continued, "There is a leader among the animals. It should be many times stronger than the others."

"That makes this mission a hell of a lot harder now!" Haru's puppet shouted back towards Kiyoshi as it descended back to the ground.

An annoyed expression appeared on Haru's face as he stared in front of him. There were still over sixty animals left but they all seemed to stop right at the border of the Iron carpet, waiting vigilantly as they seemed to be aware of the danger of the carpet.

"Guys, change of plan," said Kiyoshi as he saw the forest tree line destroyed.

A large paw could be seen reaching out of the line of trees as the giant face of a mongoose with red eyes appeared out of the forest. It was huge as it walked on all fours, about five metres tall and seven metres long.

"Good heavens..."

"What in the world is that?"

"How do we protect ourselves against that?"

"I'm going to join my grandma soon."

The villagers began to utter words of despair as they saw the mongoose stare at them with its glowing red eyes filled with hate and bloodlust.

They saw the saliva drip out of its mouth as it slowly began to open its mouth and let out another deafening roar.

In that instant, a physical change could be seen in all of the smaller mongooses as spiky brown stripes began to appear on their backs. At this, the mongooses seemed to have newfound confidence now that their leader was here and all began to change once again, ignoring the danger of the iron carpet.

(A/N: Dumb thought: Why is the plural form of goose 'geese' but the plural of mongoose not 'mongeese'?)

"That's not very good," Kiyoshi uttered as he saw that unlike before, the speed of the mongooses seemed to not have been slowed down as much as before.

"Haru, Ryuuya, take out the horde as fast as you can, I'm going to try something on the boss. The carpet is coming off, be careful!" Kiyoshi instructed.

In that instant, Ryuuya and Haru spurred back into action.

Haru smiled as he moved the fingers that were connected to the turtle for the first time.

In that instant, the turtle suddenly began to turn over, flipping over and with its fins, it began to spin. With a resolute push of the hand, the turtle began to charge straight for the animals, spinning rapidly while the puppets began to continue attacking the animals.

(A/N: I thought of Blastoise here for some reason.)

"Take them out as quickly as possible," Ryuuya told Kentari and in that instant, they wasted no time as they immediately began charging forward.

A burst of chakra was suddenly felt from Ryuuya as a white translucent layer began to cover his legs up to his knees. At the emergence of this layer, Ryuuya's speed increased by at least twofold and with his tanto and kunai in hand, he began attacking the animals once again.

But as they attacked the animals, they found that they needed to attack a lot more times for the animals to actually take damage now than compared to before.

At the back, a serious expression appeared on Kiyoshi's face as he made a series of hand seals and this time, he suddenly threw his arms forward, palms open in the direction of the mongoose boss.

Iron Sand Storm!

In that instant, all the iron sand that was carpeting the floor began to fly into the air and began to move around at high speed, concentrating on the mongoose boss.

In that instant, complete pandemonium happened. Because of the carpet lifting, the horde was no longer slowed down and was now able to rush straight towards them.

Kiyoshi also now joined the fray as he pulled out his kusarigama. He then began to tie the chains on his forearm and then proceeded to grab the handle of the sickle at the end and at this moment, he charged forward.

He dodged the first animal, then the second, the third...

And as he dodged the fourth one, he threw out the kusarigama, aiming straight towards the sandstorm that was encircling the boss which was desperately swiping at the Iron Sand.

The chained sickle flew at lightning speed as it flew straight into the storm and in that instant, he pulled on the chain as hard as he could and he was seen flying straight ahead.

At this, Kiyoshi let go of the chain and put his hands together to his left, his fingers forming a hole and as he made it to the storm, a large amount of Iron Sand began to collect in his hands.

Iron Sand: Massive Iron Sand Attack!

A large Iron Sand hammer with a hitting diameter of around two meters formed in Kiyoshi's hands and he pulled the hammer back as far as he could. He could be seen disappearing into the Iron Sand Tornado and the outline of the hammer seemed to have suddenly been swung.

The loud shout of Kiyoshi could be heard, "This is for the two villagers you killed!"

BANG!

In that second, a loud reverberation of a hard blunt object striking something sounded.

Immediately following the hammer strike, a loud roar filled with anger and pain sounded from the mongoose boss before a loud boom could be heard and Kiyoshi was immediately sent out of the sandstorm at a speed faster than the one he had entered the tornado with.

"KIYOSHI!" Ryuuya shouted in shock as he was immediately caught off guard by Kiyoshi's body flying straight out of the tornado like a rag doll.

Crash!

Kiyoshi's body flew straight towards one of the houses and immediately broke through it.

Ryuuya immediately rushed over to the area of impact.

Cough! Cough!

"Ack!" Kiyoshi's voice sounded as he could be seen ending up in a storage box, breaking it while it broke his fall, "Fucking hell that hurt..."

"Kiyoshi!" Ryuuya shouted as he saw Kiyoshi with dust all over him, luckily he did not seem to be heavily injured.

"Ryuuya..." Kiyoshi mumbled as he saw him, "Our blades aren't enough to injure the animal enough. The hammer did damage but I'll run out of chakra before we can finish it off."

"What else can we us-"

ROAR! SLAM!

Another angered roar came again and it was quickly followed by the sound of a giant paw struck the ground.

Hearing this, panic emerged on Kiyoshi's face as he hurriedly got up, albeit a little shakily as he charged out of the house, "Shit!"

As he got out, he was greeted by the sandstorm beginning to dissipate as the Iron Sand particles began to fall on the floor and a huge paw struck the ground, having emerged from the sandstorm.

'Crap!' Kiyoshi thought as he saw that his control of the storm suddenly break down which the animal seemed to realise.

The Iron Sand whirlwind had now thinner to the point where the boss's red eyes and its figure could be seen once again. And if they could see it... then it could see them.

A series of loud stomping followed as the mongoose boss suddenly charged out of the sandstorm.

"It realised from me entering and flying out that the sandstorm isn't a physical wall!" Kiyoshi exclaimed in surprise. But his surprise soon turned into desperation as he saw exactly the trajectory of the boss's charge.

It was heading straight for the villagers!

___________________________________

My bad... You will get the cover for the book revealed in the next chapter. This chapter just seemed to end well here.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the chapter.

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