Showdown! The Best of the Best

Chapter Eleven

The spikes rotated frantically, barely giving Killua the time he needed to sidestep from out of harm's way. Similarly, Boruto was also caught off guard, springing into the trees to avoid being shredded by the razor-sharp spikes. The three-tiered metal menace stomped toward Toph and Mr. Incredible, who stood at the ready. Unlike the two flighty preteens, these two were stubborn and stalwart as an oak.

Stepping forward in an intricate series of forms, Toph summoned an earth wall to intercept the hellish monstrosity, causing the ground around the four heroes to tremble. The sudden obstacle gave the robot pause, but only briefly. With the energy of a petulant toddler, it meandered forward, annihilating the wall of rock in its path.

"Killua, Boruto!" Mr. Incredible barked. "Take the crab! Toph and I will handle this one!"

"These things might be a little beyond us, ya know!" Boruto quipped. But he dropped to the ground alongside Killua, anyway.

"Follow me in!" Killua ordered, dashing toward the crablike robot.

The creature's eyes glowed menacingly, and Boruto intuitively knew what that meant. Somersaulting out of the way, he managed to avoid being incinerated by a bolt of red energy. He came up just in time to see Killua leap into the air, his aura once again snapping and sparking like living electricity. The young boy, clad in periwinkle, thrust out a hand as he arced through the air like a bolt.

"NARUKAMI!"

A blast of tungsten followed the palm Killua set from his palm down to the robot. The bolt caught one of the robot's limbs, singing it and denting the leg, damaging it beyond function. However, the war robot still had seven more to spare, and danced erratically toward Boruto, its next target.

Boruto wove the necessary hand signs to engage one of the techniques that he knew the very best.

"Kagebunshin no Jutsu!" He announced.

Smoke clouds popped up all around, and clones of Boruto appeared seemingly from out of nowhere. The robot paused as Boruto was multiplied, baffled at the sudden appearance of several foes in the place of only one. The four clones dashed forward, peppering the monster with kunai knives and shuriken, which it shrugged off effortlessly. Still, with its two crablike limbs swiping away at the duplicates, it was sufficiently distracted.

"Killua! Go!" Boruto suggested.

The young assassin nodded and seemed to vanish into thin air. Boruto knew that Killua was simply moving faster than the eye could see, but it helped that the robot didn't know. Boruto's clones continued to harass the robot and provide it with an obvious target. Because of this, the giant war bot failed to notice Killua tumbling through the air in a graceful dive. Killua's hand thrust out, warped into a savage claw, wreathed in lightning, as he finally dove down toward the robot.

"Lightning Palm!"

The force of Killua's dive, combined with the savagery in the attack, and the complimented lightning, was too much for the robot to take. Not just one, but two of its arachnid legs buckled and snapped asunder as Killua dove. With three of its legs out of use, the creature sagged awkwardly. It no longer had legs enough to keep it properly balanced. Landing, Killua's head whipped back toward his unlikely ally.

"Boruto, now!"

Nodding, Boruto's clones darted toward him. As the original version leaped toward them, two of Boruto's clones seemed to channel the wind itself into their palms, and Killua had a general idea of what he was planning to do. Jumping into the air, Boruto propelled himself off of the palms like a springboard, forming his blue Rasengan in his left palm. He surged toward the inert robot with incredible speed, slamming into him almost as fast as Killua had been going when he'd disabled the robot's legs. The blue orb buried itself in the robot's hull, and the thing was sent somersaulting backward, into the dark wilderness. A dull explosion echoed as the thing was reduced to a crumpled pile of metal.