Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

When the Skies Cry Blood

Howoku's eyes were wild, the man felt the blood pumping into the bags below them, his entire body has been pushed now more than it had ever been. Judging from the state of his opponent it was evident that challenging another Kage after previous great fights that tired him out was a foolish move. Shirona's body also displayed some signs of fatigue and injury but it was more on the level of someone being after a bothersome jog, she wasn't really struggling with just standing upright. Howoku clenched his fist feeling blood dripping from his fist, his body was now so tired that an entirely different effect from chakra enhancement of durability was evident.

Enhancing one's body was almost like making it like stone when one used chakra to augment their physical abilities or to improve their chances of surviving one or another attack it interfered with the flow. When one did so many times during a short period of time it was entirely possible to not only mess up one's chakra flow but achieve an opposite effect - body started breaking down. Puniest of blows opened up wounds, scratches felt like slashes from a sword, getting punched felt like an elephant stepped on you. To Howoku this had never happened but he heard from both Hanasaku and Tanshu that such effect was quite possible.

Howoku's palm opened up as Starlight chakra erupted from it, the Starlight Sphere jutsu that he formed now was different, smaller, blinking in and out of existence constantly. It wasn't even perfectly shaped like a sphere too, the shape was imperfect suggesting that troubles with chakra control made Howoku struggle with shape manipulation. The man leaped forward trying to punch Shirona with his fist, then open it up and slam the Starlight Sphere right into her face. The Mizukage gracefully leaped back slamming her palms together. 

"Barrier Style: Barrier Multi-Image Mirage!" she chanted as countless barriers appeared around her and then within moments shuffled all around the area. Howoku's fist drove into a barrier image, busting it down. The Hokage roared out of wild outburst of pain as the bones in his knuckles cracked loud and blood splattered onto the ruined barrier.

In a fit of rage and desperation, Howoku leaped forward driving the Starlight Sphere into another barrier making it blow into bits. "Overhope!" Howoku yelled out shooting a wild burst of chakra into his technique that erupted into a powerful sphere that started tearing trees down and drilling into the stone forming a powerful crater. Now Howoku was tapping into his vital supply of chakra, he wasn't sure just how much more he could last, he wasn't sure of the effects of such desperation but he didn't care. He was fighting for his ideals, fighting to protect his village and nothing more mattered. If Shirona survived now she could've easily torn Konoha and the other villages down, even if Konoha was the only village to fall to her hands it'd disrupt the sensitive power balance making Kirigakure the most capable force in an all-out war.

Barriers burst into shatters one by one, each and every one of them, even Shirona's incredibly hard barriers got crushed when hit by the strength of Howoku's own life force. Shirona shrieked in pain as the barrier she was hiding behind burst sending her crashing into a tree, the woman just barely managed to roll to the side in time. Her hair, skin, and dress were burnt up severely, Shirona's pale skin now had numerous patches of pink burns that needed attention, face had streams of blood that spread from the wound on her head caused by the impact into the tree. 

Her dress only held on a pathetic rag, she had pieces of a tree still sticking out of her, the heat of battle made her not even feel the pain of having those enter her body, they were just bleeding, weakly but relentlessly chipping away at the woman's life. This was no longer a battle of care and planning, this was one ambition crashing into another, only the final person standing mattered in the waves of history. Whoever would have stood would've been seen as right, whoever would've gone down would've been the final relic of the old order.