War in Equestria: Eclipse and Dawn

by Akasuna no Sasori

Chapter 4:The Magician Returns

Chapter 4:The Magician Returns

“There it is, Konan. The floating city of Cloudsdale.”

Konan stopped to catch her breath, and gaze upon the floating pegasus city.

“Nagato, here’s the scroll.” Said Konan, giving Pain the scroll containing a spell for allowing him to walk on clouds.

“Excellent, we’d best get on with it, then.”

Pain unrolled the scroll, and let Konan read it. It didn’t take her long to comprehend the spell.

“Are you ready, Nagato?”

Pain nodded. “Do it.”

Konan focused chakra in her horn until it was glowing a bright green, then unleashed the energy on Pain.

He was surrounded by the energy, and started levitating.

“Konan, is this supposed to happen?”

“Yes, the spell makes the user ‘home in’ on the nearest cloud; which is, in this case, Cloudsdale itself.”

Konan flapped her wings and flew up with Pain. They both landed on the largest cloud that served as a landing area for pegasi arriving to Cloudsdale. Just a short distance from where they were standing was the golden gate that led into the city itself.

Three guards who were shooting the breeze, turned around to see them land.

“Hey! You’re those Akatsuki ponies we’ve been hearing about!” Said one of them.

“Since you know who we are, then you would also know it’s wise to stand aside.” Said Pain.

“Well, it looks like we’re all out of brains, since we’re not letting you by!” Said another guard, drawing his sword.

This prompted the other guards to do the same, and they rushed Pain.

“Almighty Push!”

The three guards were sent flying back; but since all they hit were clouds, they reared up and charged again.

“Allow me, Nagato.”

Konan stepped forward, and turned her hooves to paper. She shot the paper shuriken at the guards.

“Huh? Paper?! What does she think she’s gonna do wi-”

The guard was cut off as the paper shuriken struck him and his comrades; tearing small holes all over their bodies. Blood seeped from their wounds, and they passed out from blood loss.

Konan saw they weren't dead, and threw more shuriken into the unconscious ponies' bodies; effectively finishing what she had started.

Pain nodded approvingly. “Well done. Let’s keep moving.”

Konan and Pain continued through the gate into Cloudsdale. As they entered the city, numerous ponies screamed and ran away from the duo.

“Konan, I must rest from using the Almighty Push. You will take care of these.” Said Pain, as he sat down.

The Almighty Push was an ability used by Pain’s Deva Path, Yahiko, in life. His ability to manipulate gravitational forces allowed him to use such abilities, and when Nagato used the shinobi’s body as one of his paths, the ability was retained. However, use of the Almighty Push is limited to once every five minutes; due to the incredible strain the jutsu puts on the body.

Konan nodded, and put her hooves together.

She sent out numerous paper squares that created a rapidly rotating wall in front of, and around all of the fleeing ponies.She closed off the wall, and flew up above the ponies.

When she reached her pinnacle height, more paper squares appeared that formed a large spear-like object with a sharp point.

“Shikigami Dance!”

The spear sped towards the ponies, who were grouped very close together because of the paper wall. It pierced the chest of one victim, then exploded; shooting numerous shards of paper everywhere. They flew into other ponies and killed them as swiftly as the first.

The paper wall subsided, and Konan flew back down to the cloud. She counted the bodies to see how many she killed.

‘Forty-three?! I’ve never killed that many people with one jutsu,’ she thought, ‘then again, they are ponies.’

With all the civilians dead in the streets, Konan took a rest beside her partner.

“You know the guards will be here in approximately 1 minute.” Said Pain.

“Your guess is a lot less lenient than mine. I’d say at least a minute and a half.”

The two waited, and sure enough, a large group of guards appeared from around a corner way down the street.

“Will you fight them?”

Pain shook his head. “No, I would prefer to wait for the leader of these ponies and fight him. You haven’t had a real chance to fight in this new world until now.”

Konan nodded, and turned to see the guards were almost upon her.

The first three drew swords, and attempted to strike Konan, who had constructed a shield from her paper.

“What kind of a pegasus can make a shield out of paper?! How can she even manipulate the forces of magic?!”

“I am no normal pegasus. I’ve figured that much out already and you should have, too.”

Konan separated some paper from the shield and used the fragments to create a sword which she used to clash with the guards’ swords.

The guards struggled furiously to fight her; but chakra isn’t like normal human energy. She began to overpower them, before finally stopping their block and slicing through two of them.

The final guard looked down at his two dead comrades, then back up at the unusual pegasus.

“Please! Don’t kill me!” He said, dropping his sword. “I have a family!”

Konan looked back at Pain. “Can we let this one go?”

“No.”

Konan turned back to the guard and thrust her paper sword into his chest; spilling blood all over the clouds.
The guard fell to his knees, and looked up at Konan; fear in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, but orders are orders.”

The guard tried to mumble something, but fell over onto his side; dead before his words could be heard by Konan.

The other guards down the street saw what happened, and flew away.

“Nagato, what about....”

“I’ll take care of them.”

- - - - -

“Gah! Get away from me!”

Deidara was flying away from the three Princesses and Esmerelda. He had thrown every weapon he had at them, but they just kept dodging.

“We will never leave the likes of you alone! We will hunt you down to the ends of Equestria! Of our entire world, if need be!” Said Esmerelda.

She rushed forward, using all of her energy, and plowed straight into Deidara’s owl.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

The owl’s body was incinerated almost instantly from the energy stored in her horn.

Deidara jumped off the destroyed owl, and fell towards the ground. As he was falling, he noticed a large tree and move himself towards it. He fell into the tree and was injured, but not dead like he could’ve been.

The pony leaders descended to look for the Akatsuki member.

“Where is he? I could’ve sworn I saw him land here somewhere!” Said Twilight.

Deidara had tumbled to the bottom of the tree, and jumped into a nearby shrub to hide. From there he scouted out his surroundings.

They were no longer near civilization; there was a large mountain directly ahead, with a grassy field at the base of it. Trees, shrubs, flowers, and other plants were scattered around.

“Damn! There’s no way I can fight all of THEM at once! Even Pain, although he won’t admit it, had trouble fighting two of them!”

While the ponies were looking for Deidara, another pony ran straight towards them.

Luna looked up to see him arrive.

“Who art thou that comes before us?” She said.

The unicorn glared at Luna. “I am Hotaka the Mind Reader! Now, I would be pleased if you would answer your own question.”

Twilight turned at the sound of his voice. She knew who it was.

“Get back, Princess Luna! That’s the Akatsuki Cadence and I captured!

Hotaka glanced at Twilight.

“Ah! I remember you! You’re that impudent whelp that captured me along with that other one. The pink one, what was her name again?”

“CADENCE! Her name was Cadence! One of your people killed her, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was you!”

“Hahahaha! Amusing you would think I could kill someone whilst weaponless sitting behind half a foot of concrete and metal bars! I was still in your custody when she died. However, describe the battle field and I might be able to tell you who killed your friend.”

Twilight growled in anger. “It was a strange pony, one who wielded many yellow-cloaked beings I have never seen before. They carried many weapons, including poison. That is the one who killed Princess Cadence. Are those not your abilities?!”

Hotaka laughed. “No, certainly not. But I do know who it was who murdered Cadence, now. I will tell you, but first, you must beat me in single combat. You must kill me by yourself; no help from these others.”

Twilight knew it was a risky move, but her love for Cadence was so strong, she dismissed the notion of fighting with her fellow Princesses and Queen. She had to know who it was who struck down her brother’s wife.

“You have a deal.”

The others’ mouths dropped open in surprise.

“Twilight! Is it really that important to know? You could lose to this pony! Do you remember when Luna and I fought the pony in Canterlot? How we were almost defeated? You could lose your life!” Said Celestia.

“I know. But it really is that important. I’m sorry Princess, but I’m going to need you to stay out of this.”

Hotaka laughed. “Splendid! Then if you’ll follow me.”

He walked further out into the field, gaining distance between himself and Twilight’s allies.

Deidara smiled with glee.

'This is fantastic! Hotaka shows up to take the attention off me, and even managed to get one of those bitches to fight him in single combat! No one can beat Hotaka one-on-one except Itachi and Nagato!'

Twilight sighed deeply, and looked up at the sky. She saw the clouds listing lazily across the sky and birds chirping happily. This was life; and she was about to risk it all for knowledge of something that didn’t matter anymore. But to her, this knowledge was more priceless than all of the information she had obtained from her entire book collection. To her, the risk was worth it.

She looked back to Hotaka, to see him draw a small metal object from his robe.

“Now, are you ready to begin?”

Hotaka didn’t wait for Twilight to respond. He move his wand forward, then pulled it back sharply.

“Water Style: Tears of the Heavens!”

Large globs of water the size of boulders fell from the sky. Twilight was startled and began flying in various arcs to dodge the falling water.

“I’ve fought you before! There is no way I can lose!”

The jutsu subsided, and Twilight stood unscathed by the magician’s ninjutsu.

“You may have fought me before. But that doesn’t mean you’ve seen all my tricks!”

Hotaka moved his wand again.

The sky became grey; and much cloudier than it had been.

“You can change the weather?!” Said Twilight.

“As I’ve said, you haven’t seen all the tricks up my sleeve!”

The wand moved forward, pointing towards the Princess.

“Lightning Style: Five-Pronged Surge!”

A very large lightning bolt descended from the sky, right at Twilight!

She gasped, but moved quickly to avoid it.

It struck the ground with a sickening crack, and left a small crater in its’ wake.

She breathed a sigh of relief, but panicked when she heard more thunder and looked up to see yet another lightning bolt!

She flew quickly, and dodged the second bolt, and it struck the ground creating another crater as usual.

Twilight knew the speed and energy she was using to dodge these bolts would wear her out quickly, and that wasn't’ good considering the fight had only begun.

“I don’t get it! A second one? Why was there a sec-.” She stopped when she figured out the obvious.

“Five prongs! That means....”

“Hehehe! Three more bolts for you, your highness!”

Two of the said bolts fell at the same; forcing the Princess to duck and weave through both of them. She dodged one of them, but the second one pursued her just like Deidara’s birds!

This bolt was quicker, and was slowly gaining on her. She looked frantically around for something to help her, when she saw the mountain.

Twilight flew over the mountain, and down the other side quickly, and waited for only a moment as the thunder bolt struck the other side of the mountain; creating a large hole all the way through the rock!

She breathed a sigh of relief, but then remembered something: there was supposed to be another bolt!

Twilight looked frantically about, but couldn’t find what she was looking for. Suddenly, the bolt appeared and ran straight at her at unbelievable speed! It must’ve been at least twice as fast as the previous bolt!

“I’m too tired! I can’t dodge this one...I’m sorry, Cadence, big brother. I couldn’t redeem your sacrifice....I’m sorry....”

She laid down to prepare for death, but the bolt vanished!

Twilight looked all around and saw the the bolt had indeed disappeared! That’s when she saw the unicorn laughing.

“Good show, Princess! You really are as weak as you look! I just wanted to prove to you that I could defeat you. See, my junior will be the one to take your life! I know this wasn’t the deal, but my junior, whose name I won’t disclose to you, is the one who killed Cadence. Figure out the blanks for yourself!”

Deidara saw his chance, and jumped out of hiding. He created another owl, jumped on, and flew towards Hotaka.

“Hey! Jump on, let’s get out of here!”

Hotaka looked surprised, but just nodded and jumped on the owl. The two flew away, leaving four stunned ponies in their wake.

Twilight watched them fly away and growled in anger.

“Ok then, ‘junior.’ Whoever you are, I’m coming for you!”

Hotaka looked back to see the purple Princess still laying on the ground; staring at them as they flew away.

“So, Deidara. Where exactly are we going?” He said, turning back to the artist.

“I’m taking you to our hideout. Rokuro hasn’t seen you since you got here, and I think you two should be reunited. Hmm!”

“Yes, I should see him. But I did want to ask something, why did no one come looking for me?”

“We did, but we couldn’t find you. We had assumed you were being held in that big city Pain destroyed, but, since the city was destroyed, we also assumed you were killed unintentionally.”

“I see. There was no malice then. Let’s hurry to the hideout; I wish to see young Rokuro.”

- - - - -

“Guard duty at this measly shack? Do the ponies even know THIS is our hideout?!” I said, thinking out loud to myself.

The wind was blowing, and it felt great; since it was hot outside. I hadn’t entered the shack for a few hours. Obito had forbid me from leaving this post for anything.

“Well, he didn’t say anything about taking a snooze if I got tired. After all, I’ve been standing here for hours and I don’t really think anyone's’ going to find this place.”

I yawned, and laid down; putting my head in my hooves and drifting off to sleep.

While I was sleeping, I had a dream that I still remember to this day. In it, I was walking in a quiet forest. Suddenly, a large brown bear appeared on a rock in front of me. He was fearsome, and had other bears with him, too. But they were all different: there was a polar bear, panda bear, and grizzly bear.

I felt scared, and started to back up. But I bumped into something, and turned to see an even larger brown bear behind me. However, this bear looked down at me with reassuring eyes, and didn’t frighten me. Why didn’t this bear frighten me?

The other bears roared at the new arrival, but the larger bear roared back; scaring them away. I watched them run in fear and I felt happy, yet strange; like I shouldn’t be happy the four bears ran away.

I started to thank the large bear, but noticed he was walking away. I tried to chase after him, but he moved faster and faster. Soon, I was all alone in the forest.

I awoke with a start, as I heard a large explosion only a few feet from my ear. I looked up to see Deidara laughing.

“Heh! Told you that’d wake him up!”

“Deidara! Why’d you wake me? I was having the greatest dream!”

“Because someone’s here to see you! Hmm!”

“Who?”

I looked around, and then I saw Hotaka walk out from behind a corner of the shack.

“Hello, Rokuro.”

Comments

[AceLord8]

I wish to tell you that it's five seconds for Almighty Push