54: Matched

Mishima easily brought up his kunai to deflect the angle of his foe's blade. 

Yuta struck at him multiple times in quick succession, but couldn't land a single blow. Part of that could be because he was using a katana with only one hand, causing a significant lack of power compared to a typical fighting stance, but most of it was Mishima's Danger Sense doing what it did best: Keeping him alive.

"Hm hm hm... You really can see this all coming, can't you? It may surprise you to know that I've already practiced against a similar ability in the past, but yours seems to function somewhat differently..."

*Clink*

His attack was deflected again.

"I wonder, does this ability utilise your own senses, or does it provide you with a brand-new sense unlike any of the others?"

*Clang*

"Are you done fucking talking yet, extra?" Mishima cursed as their clash heated up.

Yuta laughed as he blocked a retaliatory strike from the green-haired murderer. "Not at all! Oh, and don't think I can't see Pakura over there sneaking up behind me. The benefits of a System like mine prevent sneak attacks like that quite effectively, I'm afraid. A bit like your own sense, in a way-"

He had to cut off his own speech as Pakura's fireballs shot at him from behind. In response, he casually whipped around and sliced the line of Jutsu with a single swing before spinning around to face Mishima again as if nothing ever happened.

Mishima clicked his tongue in frustration and signaled Pakura to try again in a minute.

With the interruption over, Yuta continued speaking.

"You see? I'm afraid that I counter your sister's frankly adorable attempts at stealth quite handily."

He lunged forwards with a stab that Mishima jumped backwards away from, already aware that if he'd simply sidestepped it, it would've turned into a horizontal cut and hit him.

"Oh? You can even see through feints like that, hm?" Yuta mused as he let Mishima back away.

"Well, that's enough close-combat for the moment... Why don't you show me what you can do at a distance? Besides your little fireballs of course."

Mishima was all too happy to punish Yuta for his arrogance. Without bothering with any real buildup this time, he clapped his hands together and formed his Atomic Dismantling Jutsu.

Yuta's eyes went wide for the moment before his brain caught up with the surprise, and he dodged the beam before it was fired. After that moment, Yuta's eyes caught an unusual sight as the beam shot past him. It seemed to slow down and the edges appeared to fade ever-so-slightly as it got close to him. Mishima let the beam fade after a moment, not willing to spend the chakra on a continuous cast.

'How odd... I'm certain Mishima didn't do that himself. Do I perhaps have a guardian angel watching over me? Ah, no time to think about that. Pakura is attacking again.' He thought to himself before ducking under Pakura's fireballs.

He let out a little breath of exertion once he fully stood up again.

"Well, this fight is certainly proving to me that I need to work out more. All this ducking and dodging and deflecting is making me rather tired."

"Die then." Mishima bluntly responded as he switched back to his fireballs in an attempt to box Yuta in alongside Pakura's attacks.

"Well, I suppose I could..." Yuta joked as he once again cut through their attacks.

"Hah... No, I suppose I would rather not. It isn't fun is it, Mishima? Fighting someone with a similar skillset to your own? Neither of you has landed a single scratch on me."

Pakura was already looking tired from the constant Kekkei Genkai usage, breathing heavily and shaking slightly. Needless to say, things were going badly for Team Mishima.

Yuta glanced at Pakura's state and shook his head.

"You're out-matched here, Mishima, but I admit, I'm having a hard time pinning you down. That Danger Sense of yours is incredibly annoying indeed. Now... I suppose I should stop holding back so much. Why don't we find out how good those senses of yours really are?" Yuta said cryptically as he shifted his grip on his sword.

Mishima put up his guard, expecting for a moment that Yuta would charge at him again, but was surprised to find his Danger Sense not reacting to Yuta at all besides the normal threat response. 

Was Yuta not going to attack him?

"Pffft... Look at you, so surprised that I'm not attacking you right away. Do you not recognise the design of the blade I'm holding? That's your only clue to protect yourself from what I'm about to do."

Mishima's eyes narrowed as he focussed on the sword. His Appraisal Skill didn't respond to it, indicating that it was technically not an Item, but rather a manifestation of one of Yuta's Wishes.

He couldn't figure out what was special about the weapon. It looked like almost any other katana, with the only identifying features being that the tsuba was hexagonal, and the wrapping on the hilt was green. There was nothing else that could help him figure out the identity of the blade.

Yuta shrugged and shook his head, exasperated.

"Ah... Too bad. I knew its design was low-key by nature, but to think that even someone as lost in fiction as you wouldn't recognise it. Oh well..."

Yuta flipped the sword in his hand upside down. When he spoke again, his words echoed with a power not from this world.

"Prepare yourself, Mishima... [Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu]"

And to everyone in the clearing, from Mishima to Pakura, and even Mimi behind her barrier, Reincarnator #12 completely vanished from sight.

- - -

'Oh hell, I'll need to keep a closer watch on Mishima now just in case.' Seija realised as she maneuvered herself through the ground beneath the battlefield.

Seija recognised the power that Yuta just activated. Kyoka Suigetsu, the shikai release of Aizen Sosuke from Bleach. Its power was a pretty complex one: It could control all five senses of anyone who witnessed the release, allowing the user to create perfect illusions of pretty much anything.

Seija was unaffected, not just because she was naturally immune to mental manipulation thanks to Great Firewall, but because even if she hadn't been, she was still underground. The victims had to see the release with their own eyes in order to be brought under Kyoka Suigetsu's effect, and Seija was watching the fight through her Sensory Jutsu, not her natural sight.

The only other way to mitigate the effect was to use some kind of sixth-sense to avoid the user's real attacks hidden behind the illusions, or touch the blade of the sword with your hand, which would free you from the effect immediately if you could manage to do it.

Seija would just have to wait and see if Mishima's Danger Sense was accurate enough to allow him to avoid Yuta's strikes without his other senses available to aid him.

- - -

Mishima ducked low as he caught a warning of an attack aimed at his head from behind him. He didn't feel any wind from his opponent's swing, nor did he hear the *whoosh* of the blade passing overhead. The only clue he had that he had successfully dodged the attack was that the feeling of danger had fully moved past him.

"So it is a separate sense, then! If it relied on any of your other senses to function then that attack would've killed you!" Yuta's intrigued voice echoed from his left. Mishima threw a kunai at the boy, who he could see had reappeared over there, but belatedly realised that his Danger Sense gave no reaction to the figure he was attacking.

The kunai harmlessly passed through Yuta's illusory form, and Mishima had to dodge again as an invisible stab came at him from behind.

He mentally complained to the shitty god who had brought him to this world that this encounter was too unfair as he lashed out with a handful of shuriken to hit a wide area behind him. The shuriken sailed through the air but just flew off into the forest without hitting anything.

Of course, even that could be an illusion. He could've successfully hit his opponent and the damage had simply been hidden by the illusion, but he had no way of knowing... and shuriken couldn't do much damage through a flak vest or chain-mesh shirt anyways.

"Ah, what a shame, you almost had me! Perhaps you should aim a little more to the left next time, hmm?" Yuta's mocking voice echoed once more.

Mishima was royally pissed off by his enemy's tactics. He was half-tempted to just blast out an Atomic Dismantling Jutsu in a full circle around himself and kill this bozo with just one move, but he couldn't risk the chakra cost and Pakura was still nearby, completely unable to see through the illusions. If what the extras said was true, there were multiple others nearby. There was the Uchiha that he'd personally injured, the big guy who walked off, and apparently there was another one who the big guy left to go and fight. And Mishima knew there was still one more underground somewhere too, who had grabbed the Uchiha earlier.

If the big guy, the other guy, and the underground one decided to make use of his exhausted state after he used Particle Style again, he would be screwed. Not that he really believed that he was in danger, since he was the 'main character' after all!

He just hated losing in general, and he especially hated feeling pain. He'd had enough of that just from fighting Renji and getting hit by that final blast of shrapnel.

Still, despite the obvious unfairness of his situation, he was still holding out pretty well. Yuta might've now become almost impossible to hit, but Mishima's Danger Sense still pulled through for him and allowed him to continue dodging the asshole's invisible attacks. Clearly, for all his talk, this Yuta guy only really had Kenjutsu in his kit. Surely if Yuta could use Ninjutsu, Mishima would already be dead, right?

He spat on the ground as he felt Yuta come in for another swing and decided to break open his less-used collection of techniques. He once more dodged the swing, but this time instead of just planting his feet and waiting for the next strike to come like before, he quickly hammered out he hand signs for the Body Flicker Jutsu and dashed to the other side of the clearing, away from Pakura and Yuta.

He could see another Pakura lying unconscious on the ground right in the direction he was running, but he knew it was a fake. He couldn't sense the connection to her collar from the body on the ground, so he ignored it and weaved a new set of signs once he was comfortably far away from where he believed his enemy was.

[Earth Style: Mobile Core]

He slammed his hands down on the ground, causing a large pillar of earth to carry him high into the air. From this high vantage point, he knew that his foe would have to either run up the pillar to attack him, somehow cut the pillar down to bring him back to ground-level, or resort to a ranged attack.

He waited in place for a moment to see if Yuta would do anything...

Suddenly, Yuta appeared beside him atop the pillar, swinging his katana with his full strength and speed. There was no way for Mishima to dodge!

...So he just stood there and let it harmlessly pass through him.

'What a lousy attempt to trick me. Idiot.' Mishima mocked the illusion.

Mishima felt a source of danger shoot up towards his head and leaned to the side to avoid it, as he felt it fly past him, he very roughly estimated its speed and trajectory based on how it moved as it went past his head.

'A kunai. He's just below me, about hmm... ten-ish meters from the pillar. Can't see him... but I don't need to so long as he doesn't move too much!'

Mishima inhaled a deep breath and brought his hands together into another set of signs. He may not have had the chakra to waste on his Kekkei Genkai or Kekkei Tota, but that didn't mean he was out of options. He still had two more basic elements that his Scorch Release was comprised of, after all.

[Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu]

A vast fan of fire spread out from his mouth, splitting into individual fireballs as they travelled downwards to cover a wide area in front of the pillar. He didn't wait for the fireballs to hit though as he was already halfway through another set of hand signs while they were still in the air. If his opponent was as crafty as he seemed, then he would dodge the wide wave of small fireballs by running to the other side of the pillar.

So he simply launched a second set behind it, too. The blanket of fire tore into the ground like a rippling orange wave. The fireballs didn't have much force or explosive power behind them, designed more to burn than outright destroy, but it was the widest-range Fire Style technique that he knew and it had a pretty low chakra cost, all things considered.

As the second wave of fire hit the ground, he noticed something. A fuzzy outline in the air at ground-level below him... and a gasp of pain from that same spot.

Mishima recalled the moment where Renji had burned his own legs to escape from the ground he was sinking into. After that, Renji's burn wounds caused him so much pain that he became unable to escape. Maybe... Just maybe... Yuta was now afflicted with the same kind of wound.

Sure, it could all just be part of the illusion. Sure, his opponent could just be making a mockery of him again. And sure, he'd been tricked by these illusions earlier...

But Mishima trusted his Luck.

Out of his Inventory, he pulled two whole handfuls of kunai equipped with explosive tags that he'd gathered from the bodies of dead shinobi over the years. These particular tags were written with the smoothest, most complicated Fuinjutsu script that he'd ever seen on a tag like this. He admitted that he didn't know how to decipher the script, but he naturally assumed that the more smooth and complex it was, the more skilled the creator must have been.

And therefore, how powerful the explosion must also be. He trusted in his Luck once more as he prepared to toss both volleys down at the ground below.

Suddenly, his earthen pillar began to crumble beneath him without his command. His aim was slightly thrown off as his feet shifted on the unstable ground, but he was able to compensate and hit his target area with the first volley thrown from his right hand. The spread of three kunai detonated together with a cacophonous *BOOM* that shook the foundations of the pillar even harder.

The pillar began to topple as he watched the fuzzy, shimmering form of his enemy get thrown into the air by the blast, and he leapt off the tower when it was about halfway down, throwing the second volley of kunai at Yuta's predicted landing zone.

*BOOM BOOM BOOM*

All three tags detonated, and along with the crumbling pillar crashing to the ground, filled the entire clearing with blinding dust and deafening noise.

- - -

In the distant depths of the forest - roughly two kilometers away from the clearing - a second battle carved lines of felled trees through the woods.

"Come on, man, why are you doing this? Are you secretly on Mishima's side or something?" The defender asked as his sudden attacker was forced to dodge a shining steel sword that tore through the air towards him.

"HAHAHAHAHA! Nah that guy's so boring! You're strong! You're so much more fun that he is!" Ryu's laughter roared through the trees as he dodged. Small cuts covered his whole body, but he didn't seem to be slowed down much from the injuries.

The defender, a boy significantly taller than Mishima or Yuta, though still shorter than the massive Ryu, sighed and raised his hand towards Ryu again. Unlike Ryu, he was completely unharmed from their fight, his Template System's power holding the big brute at bay from a distance with relative ease.

"Are you sure you want to keep doing this? You said in the Group Chat that yourself and your friend, Number #12, were going to fight Mishima together, but now you're suddenly attacking me? I can't help but feel like you're messing with me."

"Naaaahhh, come on, Fives! I'm just here for a good time, and Mishima's whole thing seems to be elemental attacks, which I totally hard-counter so he would be really boring to fight for me. I'm sure Yuta could handle the murderous little creep on his own!" Ryu jovially insisted as he dodged and deflected another volley of swords, spears, axes, daggers, and multitudes of other weapons that flew at him through the golden portals hovering behind his opponent's back. A few more cuts appeared on his arms from blades he failed to properly turn aside.

He was honestly having an absolute blast. Who knew that the guy he ran out here to fight would have the Gate of Babylon of all things as one of his System's powers?!

'Awesome!'

- - -

Ryu's opponent, Reincarnator Number #5, Taichi, was less enthused by their conflict. Taichi had travelled all this way from the Land of Earth, having to sneak out under the watch of his commanding officer since he was supposed to be fighting on the frontlines of the war against Konoha.

And now at the last step before facing Mishima, rescuing Number #11, and getting access to the Dungeon, this huge weirdo randomly showed up and challenged him to a fight! It wasn't a total loss of time, since it was a good opportunity to make use of his Template and increase his rate of Synchronisation with it... but that wouldn't mean he wasn't going to complain about the weapons he was throwing away for this fight.

His Template System's power was a pretty interesting one in concept. It randomly selected a fictional character from another world, and granted him the ability to use some of their powers. The powers would become stronger as he increased his Synchronisation, from zero percent up to one hundred percent, at which point the Template would be complete and he would be given the option to receive a new one. Once he did, he would be able to switch between the two of them once per day, which would increase to twice per day once he gained access to a third Template, and so on. 

But right now, he was stuck at forty-percent of the way through his first template, Gilgamesh from the Fate series. Gilgamesh's power, the Gate of Babylon, was extremely flashy and required him to store a vast supply of weapons within it, which had prevented him from training it in and around his home Village of Iwagakure.

At his current Synchronisation level, he could open about a dozen portals at a time, which seemed impressive until you realise that the weapons he was firing were only normal steel. 

The Gate of Babylon was so powerful when weilded by Gilgamesh himself because Gilgamesh had an immense amount of wealth and power, storing millions of legendary and mythical weapons inside his own copy of the power. Taichi was not so wealthy, not even fucking close. He used weapons he secretly scavenged from dead enemies and allies, as well as faulty creations sold for cheap by the blacksmiths back home. 

As such most of his weapons would break after being launched at high speed from Gate of Babylon's portals, and he'd wasted more than twenty already just fighting Ryu here.

- - -

Suddenly, after a few more minutes of fighting, a shockwave washed over Ryu and Taichi's battle.

*BOOM BOOM BOOM*

Flocks of birds flew over their heads, away from the rising cloud of burning smoke and dust in the distance. Taichi was getting ready to fire another volley at the grinning lunatic in front of him when Ryu suddenly froze and stared at the distant destruction.

Taichi could just barely hear Ryu whispering under his breath.

"Yuta doesn't have any paper bombs... spent all his money on books..."

His eyes glazed over for a moment as a message from Number #11 appeared in the Group Chat which Ryu took a second to read, his eyes widening as he reached the end of it.

It seemed to take the big guy a few moments for his mind to catch up with its own realisation before he instantly kicked off the ground with a speed that Taichi hadn't witnessed before.

"BROTHER!!!" Ryu screamed as his thunderous footsteps tore up the ground behind his charge.

'Shit, did Number #12 lose against Mishima? There's no World Message announcing his death but I guess we don't know how much longer that'll last...' Taichi pondered before weaving a Body Flicker Jutsu and chasing after the sprinting giant.