Shamal withdrew her hand from the Mirror of Travels. The barrier separating the Hokage and Orochimaru from the world fell as soon as Shamal drained the core of the fat ninja holding the barrier together. There were another two quite small cores, and it took a few moments of adjustment before she was able to drain both at once, killing yet another of Orochimaru's bodyguards. A symbiotic relationship between two Linker Cores? A primitive form of Unison? Whatever it was, the Book now held it in its archives.
After she was done saving the Hokage, and as soon as she watched the ANBU swarm in to take down the other two living operatives as well as aid their leader with the most well known traitor in the entire country, Shamal turned around and frowned for an instant as she saw the wounded before her. She had no time for this. Her vows as a medic, once so important, probably, faded to the background, superceded by one a million times more important in her mind, one that she would uphold at the cost of all others.
Shamal would betray everything but her master, and now, her last vow called for her to ignore the wounded on her own side to turn around and search for her mistress. Extracting her from the Barrier had been more difficult than expected, but fortunately Vita could keep the enemy Shinobi off Shamal long enough to pull it off.
Unfortunately, the first thing she'd done upon seeing Shamal was to give her the order to aid the Hokage, and almost did the same with Vita before the smallest knight insisted Shamal could handle it and Naruko's own protection was leaps and bounds more important at that point. An attack by enemy shinobi thwarted by the prompt arrival of a man in green spandex cemented the urgency and Vita just wound up grabbing Naruko and flying away.
Closing her eyes, Shamal entrusted herself to Klair Wind and opened her senses fully, taking in the carnage going on around her. She increased her scrying radius until she could feel her master's power, and promptly shot off as fast as she could, realizing her master was alone with a bunch of people who could not defend her, Vita being a short distance away, detained by several fairly strong shinobi.
***
Signum's command rang loud and clear. The Civilian Bunkers were compromised. It didn't take long for the Yamanaka to relay it to as many shinobi as they could. It took even less for the Shinobi guarding the bunkers to snap into action and begin clearing out the lethal traps set all along the tunnels beneath the Hokage Monument.
However, it was for naught.
A gigantic monstrosity of Sand and chakra rose, towering above the Hokage monument. It opened its mouth and vomited a torrent of energy upon the massive show of Konoha's respect for their leaders, reducing it to rubble and destroying any and all within, or trapping them within rubble.
***
Naruko was caught in the blast, being not far from ground zero, and she was flung into the rubble of a building that had been knocked down. Unfortunately, she hit an exposed broken pipe, sharpened into a spear. It went through the right side of her body, piercing through one of her kidneys, and came out the left side, just past the belly button. She was also pelted by dust and debris, causing several cuts and scrapes to form on her body. Suffice to say, her nice yukata was ruined, as well.
"MISTRESS!"
Oh. How odd. Despite how hard Vita seemed to be yelling, and the fact that Naruko could see all twelve of her swimming in front of her, she could've sworn the girl had to be a few kilometers away, given how distant she sounded. Oh, well. A nap seemed like a good idea. She was so tired.
—
A flash of silver greeted Naruko, even as she basked in the warmth.
***
Naruko's eyes opened slowly, because her eyelids were just so heavy… but the light was annoying, and it wouldn't let her sleep. She'd been having a nice dream, where a lady with pretty eyes was patting her head. "Uwa… Shamal..? Did you dye your hair..?" Naruko asked, sleep dragging her speech and causing her to somewhat slur her words.
"Mistress, I need you to listen to me, okay? Just focus on my voice and block out everything else. Look into my eyes, don't look away. Try to keep your eyes open as much as possible, but don't look away," Shamal said, though Naruko wondered what she was going on about, or why she sounded so serious.
Naruko blinked, slowly, having to force her eyes open. "So sleepy… turn off the light… wanna go back to my dream…"
"Don't, Mistress, don't fall asleep. Stay with me," Shamal ordered, one of her hands lightly slapping Naruko's cheek, bringing her a little more awareness. "Now, I'm going to need to deactivate the numbing spell in order to begin healing you. This will hurt immensely. You've been wounded pretty badly. Please, forgive me, Mistress, but you'll have to bear it. Here, bite on this…"
Shamal presented a rolled up bunch of fabric, which Naruko vaguely recognized had once belonged to her yukata, given the color. "Dun wannaa…" Naruko refused, trying to shake her head, only to find that she couldn't, and when she opened her mouth to protest further, Shamal shoved the piece of fabric in between her teeth.
Naruko couldn't quite complain following that.
She was busy screaming.
***
"What is this thing!?" Zafira asked, yelling as he dodged under a gigantic ball of tightly compressed wind that flew harmlessly into the sky. He took the chance to ram the sand creature tossing those things around, and barely managed to make it stumble even slightly. His wolf form was physically stronger than his humanoid form, and even it failed to overpower this creature.
"A CORPSE!" Vita roared, as she swung up her hammer. It extended until it was several times longer than she was tall. "GRAF EISEN! GIGANTFORM!"
"Gigantform!" Graf Eisen confirmed, ejecting all the rest of the cartridges Vita had remaining.
"Oh hell no!" the creature screamed, bringing its massive tail forward and crashing it against the hammer just as it swung down. The tail exploded in a shower of sand, but it'd slowed down the attack enough that the creature could stop it with its hands.
Signum had remained wholly silent since the bout had begun, and only now had leaped back, putting distance between herself and the monster she'd been almost uselessly hacking away with Laevateinn at. With a fully serious scowl, she brought sword and shaft together. "Laevateinn!"
"Ja! Sturmwinde!"
The arrow appeared in Signum's hand. Laevateinn knew her too well.
The massive beast pushed back Vita even with Graf Eisen at the very limits, and opened itself up for an arrow shot to the very top of its forehead, where its summoner remained half revealed. Signum knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that such had to be a weakpoint.
"You thought I wouldn't see ya there!" the beast taunted, turning on Signum. However, before Signum could release Sturmwinde, she was struck by the beast's speedy wind bullet, shot before she even had a chance to register the creature begin to attack.
While the sphere of wind was very weak compared to the other ones it'd tossed around, it was enough to toss Signum's aim off its intention, and as such, she struck the beast's right cheek and lower jaw, destroying much of its face and tearing its right arm from its place, but doing little in the way of real damage, as it began to regenerate almost instantaneously.
Zafira tried to capitalize on its moment of weakness, after Signum revealed her thoughts on what its weakness was, but when the wolf had approached the boy on top of the sand beast's head in an effort to dig his teeth into the kid's neck and end the fight, the sand around the boy came alive and attempted to impale Zafira, prompting him to retreat before finishing the job.
Panting, Vita approached Signum, and Zafira quickly followed, allowing the Wolkenritter to regroup and get their breath back even as they watched the creature grin in what was clearly smug superiority, regenerating from its wounds even as they all stood. "Its energy levels aren't depletting," Signum said, frowning.
"Ours are," Zafira said.
"I don't care! This thing has to die!" Vita said. "I'll kill it even if it's the last thing I do!"
"You have no more cartridges and I'm running out of energy myself. How are you, Zafira?" Signum asked, her tone cold and fully level.
"Other than a broken rib along with a few cracked ones and general exhaustion, I'm still good to go," Zafira said. To some, the casual dismissal of such grievous injuries would be insane. The fact that he hadn't even mentioned the arm popped out of its socket was… well, he had just popped it back into place and it'd only start hurting once the adrenaline wore of, so that was a bit more understandable.
But the Wolkenritter were enraged beyond measure at this moment, and so self preservation was a very distant concern. "This is bad," Signum said, glaring at the creature, which seemed to have recovered to full and was now laughing maniacally.
Her eyes widened as its arms nearly blurred, moving incredibly fast. All three of the Knights in the air were forced to disperse, lest they be caught by the wide open hand that came down upon the air they'd occupied just a second ago. But the nightmare didn't end there, as the beast's left arm and tail took advantage of the opportunity to grab both Vita and Zafira as they dodged the first attack.
"Gotcha, dorks!" the creature yelled, clearly amused.
Signum had a moment of realization at the trap it'd pulled before she herself was captured by the beast's right hand, surprised once more by its incredible speed despite its size.
"Hehe, got all of you!" the beast said, its gaping hole of a mouth forming a terrifying grin. "Now I'll crush you, and there'll be blood everywhere! It'll be great!"
Summoning all of their magical strength left, all three of the Wolkenritter set up the best physical defenses they could as they struggled to remain alive as the creature began to squeeze the life out of them. Even so, they refused to give it the satisfaction of hearing them scream, though the beast began to encourage them to do so by taunting them.
***
Naruko blinked, and when her eyes focused, she half expected Shamal to have silver hair. "Mistress… I've taken care of the worst injuries, and you're stable now. I will proceed to evacuate you from the battlefield, and lead you to a safe place," the taller blonde said, lifting Naruko in a bridal carry.
"Shamal-sensei, they're too many! We can't keep them off you much longer!"
Huh… "Whuzzat?" Naruko asked, still feeling groggy and quite out of it.
Shamal bit her lip. "Sakura-chan, we're done here, tell Sasuke and Kiba you have my thanks. We just need to move Naruko somewhere safe!"
"The bunkers are rubble, there ISN'T a safe place!" Sakura yelled.
"What's happening..? What's that noise?" Naruko asked. Now that she was a little more awake, she could begin to discern what the sounds around her were. The clanging of steel, ugly squelching noises every once in a while, screams everywhere, random undecipherable yelling, the sound of fire crackling, distant roars, explosions…
But all of that was background white noise, drowned in an instant, when Naruko focused entirely on Shamal. "Shamal… where are the others?" she asked.
"They're out there fighting, Mistress, like you ordered," Shamal said, though her tone was guarded.
"You're hiding something from me. I am your master, you will obey me because you belong to me. Tell me the truth right now, Shamal!" Naruko said, her voice imperious.
It threw Sakura, who had never seen Naruko so much as raise her voice, for a loop. All the missions they'd had at that compound, and only now did she ever hear Naruko talk to her guardians and knights in any tone that wasn't cheerful or kind.
"I… my apologies, mistress. The others are confronting the one who did this to you, the one tailed tanuki," Shamal said, gesturing with her head towards the battle that was taking place not three kilometers away. Naruko's eyes focused, and she noticed the beast seemed to be holding three things in front of it.
It didn't take long for Naruko's ears to pick up the beast's gloating.
***
"Awaken."
"Forgive me, mistress," Signum said, as she felt the last of her strength give out. She prepared to face death with dignity, silently and glaring at her killer. She knew for a fact that Zafira had reached a similar conclusion to her. They'd lost. Fighting an entire war followed by an extremely powerful beast was beyond their limits… but they'd died much like knights should, defying overwhelming odds just to buy their mistress enough time to escape and recover.
"No… no way… I won't accept this! NO WAY!" Vita yelled, struggling to try and break the hold of the tail that held her hostage. "I won't disappoint Naruko! Not like this!"
Vita's last burst of strength bought her a moment to breathe, as she pushed the tail hard enough to actually break its hold for an instant, but her arms gave out before she could free herself, and she felt them break as the beast once more constricted her.
A combination of shame, anger and pain was finally enough to make Vita's iron clad control break, and she let out a shrill shriek of pain.
—"Diabolic Emission!"