| abstract
| - In the depths of night, where no ordinary person would be out and about in the wilderness, a sound had been humming among the vast forests within the Land of Fire. The movement of leaves within the wind as a dark silhouette had raced across the forest with little disturbance in the surrounding environment. Despite the plethora of trees, roots, vines and flowers that could effortlessly intercept the man's path, he appeared to be a veteran to them all and fluidly avoided making contact with anything that would give away his position. The man's name was Mahōbin, an agent who worked for a rather irritating young man and had currently been assigned a duty of "evaluating the Land of Fire's resources." In other words, Izaya wanted a souvenir and it was Mahōbin's job to get it. "The things I have to deal with...it's ridiculous." He sighed, prior to making note of a presence nearby. Steadily slowing down in order to arouse suspicion, the man quickly managed to hide behind a large, dark tree. "There's another person here? Who and why? Ugh." He kept still and tamed his breathing in order to hide his presence almost entirely. "A coincidental expedition or a confrontation...we shall see." He thought to himself, keeping an eye out for nearby presences. Footsteps could be heard clearly in the silence of the night along with the sound of crickets chirping along the wide forest of Konoha. The footsteps belongs to a relatively tall man with a rather muscular physique. The man's attire is nothing unique as he's wearing the official Konohagakure Jōnin vest. Accompanied with a navy long-sleeved shirt. His pants are the same color as his shirt. He finishes his outfit off with bandages that covers his ankles along with black sandals. The man possesses distinct features such as his eyepatch and his silky silver hair that glowed under the moonlight. The man is clearly on guarding duty. He has an emotionless expression on his face that almost signifies boredom. He's putting his hands in his pocket as he strolls along the forest. "Why was I given guard duty? Out of all the Jōnin in the village." he says out loud letting out a sigh. Saizen walks past Mahōbin's location and takes a few steps forward before stopping. "You do realize that I know you're there, right?" the man says as his back is given to Mahōbin. He then tilts his head towards Mahōbin saying "I can hear your heartbeats racing." "Liar." Mahōbin scoffed at the man who just sensed him, retaining his pretense of confidence despite noting the situation he was in. "You just saw the leaves shift and heard a slight crackle, didn't you?" He walked forward, but within the attire that he was clothed in, it was rather difficult to discern him from the rest of the environment he was in. While he hadn't equipped any weapons as of yet, he did have precautions set in place in case this man planned to attack him. Notably, he did have precautions in place if he was attacked. He had just hoped in the meantime that his core skills would be enough to deal with a potential onslaught as he could not afford to have his identity realized. "So, what exactly do you plan to do with me now that you've caught me lurking about?" Mahōbin questioned casually, showing no fear towards the supposedly strong Jōnin before him. Saizen turns to Mahōbin with his hands in his pockets, indicating no signs of hostility. "Well that would depend really, I doubt that you'd come with me to the interrogation division and questioning you would be useless, so I do predict that this encounter would be a pain in the neck." he says as his eyes are slightly closed, indicating his boredom. Despite the darkness and Mahōbin's attire, Saizen can clearly see him due to his enhanced vision. "Tell you what. I'm really bored. Guard duty ain't really my thing. And since I caught you here, might as well have some fun, eh?" he says smiling in a rather friendly way. Suddenly, a puff of smoke obscures Saizen for an instant. In less than a quarter of a second, Saizen was right behind Muketsu, despite the distance between them. Saizen's Body Flicker is very close to Shisui's level, granting him easy mobility and immeasurable speed. Not to mention that his body strength and natural swiftness augment his speed even more. Saizen made no sound as he got behind Mahōbin, despite stealth not being his specialty, shinobi are generally masters of stealth. Saizen swings his arm as senbon emerge from under his sleeves. Saizen's accuracy is very precise, he didn't intend to kill his opponent at all, he was rather playing with him for the time being. Three senbon are launched. One to Mahōbin's right calve. Another to his right shoulder and the third to his liver. The speed of the senbon are relatively high, yet not high enough to cause significant damage to Mahōbin. "Fast." Mahōbin's reflexes weren't as bad as the man thought them to be. Despite appearing as if there were no sound, the sudden burst from his location easily gave away where Saizen planned to land. Using that as a prompt, Mahōbin, whose hands were already placed around his waist, instantaneously drew two tantō from his sides and used his own speed to quickly intercept each of the three Senbon. The two headed towards non-vital areas had quickly been dealt with a swift stroke, whereas the one headed for his liver was harder to deal with. However, he inched slightly towards his left in order to avoid the majority of the senbon, causing it to just barely make contact with his skin as he dashed forward. "I'm wasting my time here..." Mahōbin had noted, as he used the force of propulsion that he had just used in order to create a slight disruption as he quickly phased away from the sight of Saizen, leaping up to one of the surrounding trees and proceeding to make haste away from the village and back to his own, without stating even a word. "Nice, so he I am gonna have fun after all, at least judging from the way he dodged the senbon, heh." Saizen says with a smirk on his face as he watches Mahōbin trying to escape. "Oi, I was having fun, why leave so quickly?" he says with a disappointed expression as he tilts his head towards Mahoubin. Saizen's physical prowess is incredibly potent. His strength and speed are tremendous as some even claim that he's stronger than Might Guy. He leaps upwards and uses a tree as base to launch himself with great speed towards Mahoubin. Saizen flickers to Mahoubin in an instant as if he's using a Space-Time technique considering that his speed is inhuman even for a Shinobi. As he catches up with Mahoubin in an instant, Saizen's sleeves seem to be leaking with dust, which possesses a silver glow. This dust is seemingly manipulated by Saizen as it's moving towards Mahoubin and attempting to surround him. "Lets see how well you do against this." For some reason, Saizen avoids any contact with that dust, even though it's manipulated by him. The dust dashes towards Mahoubin with swiftness as it attempts to strike the Ame shinobi. "This is ridiculous." Mahōbin notes to himself as Saizen appears before him. "This man is ridiculously conditioned...but I can't afford to use it here." As he notes the dust that appears, he briefly watches Saizen's reaction to its appearance and follows the same course of action. He quickly managed to outpace the dust due to Saizen's initiation of it only being brief. After creating a noticeable amount of distance, Mahōbin points his finger towards the collected dust particles that Saizen was using against him. "Scatter." The man muttered as a small beam of lightning, that quickly formed into a jagged bolt, pierced through the formation of the dust cloud and caused it to spread apart, giving Mahōbin a little more time to make his way to his own village. However, before doing so, he quickly realizes the folly in giving Saizen the ability to follow him, despite the short lightning beam being directed towards him following its initial purpose. As a result, Mahōbin descended on the ground from the trees and, using the naturally large amount of leaf foliage as cover for his actions, performed a few hand seals before sending out multiple, faint concentric circles of lightning in order to ensure that he would be delayed, given that his opponent had a rather irritating habit of following him, as he had quickly dashed away soon after completing this task to optimize the amount of time he had before Saizen caught up. "Raiton? This man seems to be a smart one, facing metal with electricity. However..." he thinks smirking slightly as he leaps from branch to branch. Seemingly, the lightning attack is actually consumed by the metallic dust rather than affecting it. It is rather odd. The metallic particles then grows in size for a few seconds before decreasing back to their original form. "Oh? he jumped down?" he says as he watches Mahoubin closely. He then hears the sound of lightning piercing through the air as a glowing web spreads on the ground. "Wow, you seem to enjoy using Raiton techniques." Saizen notes sarcastically. He produces a larger amount of the silver metal, as it makes it's way towards Mahoubin with extreme swiftness. Saizen dashes with tremendous speed as he's leaping from branch to branch racing Mahoubin. He manages to go past Mahoubin, who's being chased by Saizen's sliver-tinted dust. Saizen leaps from the tree branches to land on a metal cloud that he forges out of thin air. Mahoubin is running towards Saizen with incredible speed, in hopes of escaping the metal dust. Saizen weaves some hand seals moulding chakra in his body. He then directed his hands towards Mahoubin, releasing a sea of metal dust of an unknown metal, yet it carries the same tint as the metal dust chasing Mahoubin. This sea of metal dust approaches Mahoubin from three directions. Right, left and upfront with incredible speed. "So he's one of the rumoured Metal Release users...no wonder why my lightning doesn't work." Mahōbin notes the direction of the dust coming towards him and he understands that he has a very limited period of time to act. Using the slight opening between the cloud of metal coming from his left and from Saizen in front of him, he sprinted between them in a completely straight line, narrowly avoiding both assaults before continuing to move forward. He had known that Saizen was going to follow him with very little time left, however, he still had a significant distance to cross. But he knew that if he were to go across the border of Konohagakure's forests, Saizen wouldn't be able to pursue him any longer due to certain repercussions, including international ones. "Let's keep going." He told himself, continuing to move forward. The dust attack obscured Saizen's location as Mahoubin could only look at the dust he was trying to escape from. As Mahoubin escapes from the metal assault, Saizen suddenly appears in front of him, the difference between there faces is a couple of inches "Yo." Saizen says smirking before attempting to strike Mahoubin's solar plexus with a very swift jab. Saizen refrained from using his full power as he doesn't want to kill Mahoubin. As an acclaimed Taijutsu master, Saizen's jabs are performed with extreme swiftness, in less than a quarter of a second at minimum speed. He targets the solar plexus in order to halt Mahoubin so that he can occupy his time a bit longer. Given Mahōbin's enhanced state of mind, he demonstrated no surprise whatsoever at the man's sudden appearance. Thus, without any warning, Mahōbin thrusted his hilt in order to counter the sudden jab that Saizen used against his solar plexus, causing a slight shockwave to be formed as both targets were pushed backwards. Noting that, until he had caused some significant injury to the man before him, he wouldn't stop chasing him, Mahōbin readied his stance for combat, attaching both components of his blade together and boldly asking the, now elongated nodachi, "Shall we dance, Ibaraki?" "Oh? a sword fight? well lets get started then." says an enticed Saizen as he stretches his arm. A sliver sword appears from thin air. The sword is slightly shorter than that of Mahoubin. Saizen takes his fighting stance "I should warn you, this shall not be an easy task. Now, lets begin, shall we?" he says as he disappears leaving a faded afterimage in his wake, he instantaneously appears in front of Mahoubin. Gripping his sword with one hand, Saizen attempts a diagonal slash. Suddenly, the sword seems to multiply right before Saizen swung his arm, creating about five images of Saizen's arm and the sword all slashing simultaneously. In an instant, Saizen forges another sword in his left hand and attempts a slash towards Mahoubin's leg. Saizen's combination of slashes was flawless, using the sword in his right hand coupled with a visual illusion to drag Mahoubin's attention off of his left hand, which gave him the opportunity to strike. Noticing Saizen dived in for the kill, Mahōbin quickly used both hands to begin intercepting the first sword strike. Despite the visual imagery it produced, it was clear to Mahōbin that the sword he was repelling was the one directly in front of him. Using his strength to bat away the sword at his right side, he noticed the movement of Saizen's left arm. Without a moment to spare, Mahōbin used his force to send his own blade down onto the ground, stabbing it with great fervor as he used the blade as a rod to elevate his lower body from the ground, narrowly avoiding the blade that aimed for his leg as his entire body appeared to move to Saizen's right. Fortunate for Mahōbin, Saizen was still continuing his slash due to his false preconceptions of Mahōbin's skill level, giving Mahōbin ample opportunity to pick up his blade and utilize a straight lunge towards the right side of the man's abdomen. Saizen's balance is perfect, he can change his momentum in an instant even if he was going at full speed. Saizen grips the sword in his right hand as he leans towards the left narrowly dodging the sword strike. With all his strength, he uses the sword in his right hand to hit the back of Mahoubin's sword with all his might, this is supported by the sheer heaviness of Ibaraki due to its length. Saizen's strength is nothing less exquisite than his speed. It causes Ibaraki to be planted in the ground, causing Mahoubin to lose his balance as he's gripping the sword and suffered from a severe change in momentum. Simultaneous to his initial strike, he used the sword in his left hand and attempts a vertical slash at Mahoubin's shoulder, the length of the sword in his left hand increases greatly as he uses his metal release to manipulate the length of the sword. "Woops." Mahōbin laughed internally as Saizen's maneuver caught him off guard ever-so-slightly. But the man didn't remember something rather important; Ibaraki was two swords. Without any sort of effort, Mahōbin pulled the blade apart and made a horizontal slash towards Saizen's blade, clashing against the lengthier blade with his tantō. While initially pushed back, due to the length of the blade, the clash was in favor of Mahōbin as he managed to reclaim his balance in its entirety, pushing Saizen back briefly and allowing him to duck against the entirety of the slash, before grasping the other half of the blade and using a cross-shaped slash towards Saizen's exposed chest. Saizen manages to regain his balance swiftly as it took Mahoubin a few seconds to fetch his sword from the ground. Mahoubin charges towards Saizen using a cross-shaped slash with his two swords. Saizen releases the sword in his left hand as it falls on the ground. He the positions his sword horizontally in the path of the slashes to dodge both attacks with one arm. Both Saizen and Mahoubin are clashing swords, sparks form as the three blades collide. Both shinobi are stationary as they maintain the collision between the blades, each shinobi is trying to overwhelm the other. Saizen's expression seems to be rather dull. "Is that all the strength you got?" Saizen says before putting more power into his right arm in order to overpower Mahoubin. Saizen uses his free arm in order to swiftly forge a wire string, manipulating it to spin around Mahoubin's right leg as he pulls the wire string with all his might in an attempt to imbalance his opponent. He then follows through with his right arm trying to slash at Mahoubin once he's imbalanced. "Yeah." Mahōbin responded sarcastically as he narrowly avoided the wire Saizen made by using his period of imbalance to lift up both of his legs through a backflip, subsequently evading the slash that the man used against the area where his torso was supposed to be. In doing so, Mahōbin made use of his arm strength to propel himself back to a neutral, standing position. Immediately, the masked man noted that things were going against his favor. Without any hesitation, he focused for a brief moment. While focusing, the man exuded a slightly crimson aura, which appeared to enhance his physical abilities to a noticeable degree as he dashed across to the trees and proceeded to escape from the man once again, ignoring the attempts he made at challenging him in a fight. "Having to use my unconventional expression of that...he's not as bad as his attitude is, for sure." "Oh? he got a bit faster." says Saizen as he weaves the shadow clone hand seal, creating six duplications of himself. In order to surpass even Mahoubin's enhancements, Saizen and his clones flow Yang chakra into their bodies. The Yang energy circulates throughout their body with a great amount, overflowing their bodies. Thus, increasing their speed to a frightening level. About five times the original speed of Saizen. Their bodies gained a radiating white aura, glowing around their bodies. Saizen's expression changes as he seems more serious "Shintai Zōfuku no Jutsu" he states the name of his technique before dashing of with his clones towards Mahoubin. Their speed were immeasurable. They surrounded Mahoubin in an instant, creating a circle around him. The Saizen who was in front of Mahoubin throws several explosive tags in his stead. The fear of getting blasted should slow Mahoubin down even though they didn't explode instantly. "Metal Style: Wire String Confinement" three of rear the clones state simultaneously before stretching their arms towards Mahoubin. Countless Wire Strings launch from their hand towards Mahoubin attempting to surround him in a cocoon of Metal Strings. "I'm just going to assume this guy is super high-class in every skill possible." Mahōbin sighed to himself as he proceeded to focus his attention on what happened currently. Noting the dilemma he was about to be put in as he noted the multiplication of Saizen's chakra signature, he knew he was in trouble. Suddenly, he was surrounded by clones and, without any warning, explosive tags and wires were used against him. Knowing that being caught by the wires would be the worst situation, Mahōbin braced himself as he leapt off one more branch and began to descend from his position. While being caught by some of the explosive tags, the injuries he had were comparatively minor to what could have potentially happened as he managed to evade the grasp of the wires, which were descending along with him. "Gah." Without any hesitation, Mahōbin's body lit up with lightning as his speed dashed up significantly, keeping on par with the supposed new speed of Saizen as he continued to speed across the ground in a straight line, while narrowly evading any obstacles in his path.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)