Danstun lived for this, his sinister smile grew ear to ear watching Kiso’s face as he slowly made his way in Yuni’s direction…

Chapter Sixteen -

Each step Danstun took stomped on Kiso's heart, his emotional pain was literally physically injuring him.

Time seemed to slow down as Kiso's mind raced, searching for a method to rise from this abyss. Quickly contemplating all the options before him, Kiso's dull sorrowful eyes slightly lit up thinking, "Healing! That's right! Although I cannot perform the technique to Yuni or Koho's level, I can certainly still do it!"

Kiso began to circulate his spiritual pressure through his damaged tendons attempting to repair them as quickly as possible.

After several seconds however, Kiso's dread intensified, "Still there! That's right, those metal shards are still blocking my spirit veins, how could I circulate the healing nature, DAMNIT!"

By now, Danstun had walked within three meters of Yuni, no longer paying attention to Kiso, eyes on his prize. He licked his lips as he slowed his pace and began to raise his arms, now just a few feet away from Yuni, who's face was covered in dread and tears.

Kiso's mind went blank, he had lost all hope, if that man touched a hair on Yuni's body, he no longer had the desire to live. He was prepared to die. He couldn't forget the pain he felt, but his mind cleared as he stared up at the sky.

In the sky, scattered clouds were blowing gently with the wind. The sun was still ascending into the sky early this morning and was almost about to touch a particularly large cloud in the distance.

Kiso's eyes bulged, he had one last chance. No matter how hard he had tried in the past, he wasn't able to use the last stage of the Skyshadow technique, but now faced with the current impending doom, how could he not try?

Focusing his entire soul onto his spiritual pressure zone, Kiso first noticed Danstun, who's hands were now within one foot of Yuni. His mouth was open and if one looked closely, drool could be seen about to spill over his lower lip. Kiso viciously attempted to affect Danstun's person with his spiritual pressure, but it was no use. No matter how hard he tried, his spiritual pressure simply passed through Danstun as if he wasn't even there.

Danstun could feel Kiso's probing but didn't flinch, he was extremely focused on the young beauty in front of him.

His fingers, aiming at Yuni's two perky mounds, inched closer and closer.

Ten inches, eight inches, five inches....

Kiso's was at his wits end, his rage was causing his eyes to bleed red.

Just as he was about to give up for the last time, the sun finally cast a shadow over the courtyard. In Kiso's rage, he had forgotten about the significance behind the shadow in his mother's ancestor's story.

Kiso's spiritual pressure had been extended the entire time, attempting desperately to move Danstun's body away from Yuni. When the shadow covered the courtyard, Kiso clearly felt the Danstun's spiritual nature change, if just barely. He quickly had a thought, "Could it be the shadow contains a hint of darkness nature? Of course! I tried at night as well, but how could I detect the difference when the darkness nature is always present!"

Kiso immediately understood, when the darkness nature energy began to invade the space around Danstun and the others, it merged with their own spiritual pressure. Most people simply feel a cool sensation, as the heat of the sun lessens, but it is in fact much more then that!

Kiso frantically sent out his spiritual pressure, linking it with the darkness nature spiritual pressure surrounding Danstun.

Danstun, his fingertips within a hair of Yuni's body, suddenly stopped. His brows clenched together as the veins on his arms and legs bulged in attempt to cover that last hair's distance.

Kiso was completely immersed within his spiritual pressure zone. The bodies of everyone present were indeed just as that story had described, their conflicting spiritual pressure made them like stars in the night sky.

Without sufficient spiritual pressure, the effect this technique would have is minuscule, after all, controlling the very essence of the darkness energy of the world was no simple matter.

But if Kiso had one particular talent, it was his spiritual pressure. Taking hold of the darkness energy surrounding Danstun's body became illogically easy.

Yuni's tightly clenched eyes wet with tears, trembled as the touch she had been dreading never came. One blurry eye opening, her vision slowly cleared revealing Danstun's beat red face filled with rage.

In the next moment, Danstun's body vanished, or rather it shot up into the sky extremely fast.

Yuni's neck strained as she looked up into the sky.

Danstun, along with all the Ichi clansmen, were growing smaller and smaller, until finally their figures could barely be seen.

"Yuni, quickly, heal me!" A weak voice rang in her mind as her pretty little eyes, shining with delight, found the source of the voice.

When Danstun had reached a certain distance, the shards of rock fell to the ground and the restraints on Yuni, with Kiso's spiritual pressure's help, loosened enough that she was able to wiggle out.

She darted over to Kiso, falling on her knees, her hands became intensely electrified.

"Wait, one sec." Kiso's face grimaced as he used his darkness nature spiritual pressure to force out thousands of tiny rocks from his body.

Not daring to ease his concentration, Kiso closed his eyes, focusing on his spiritual pressure zone, continuing to hold the Ichi clansmen high in the sky.

Yuni, after seeing the rocks emerge from Kiso's body, gasped but quickly shook her head and put her hands over Kiso's chest.

Positively charged lightning poured from her hands, speedily roaming all over Kiso's body. Kiso only felt a freezing chill, followed by a gentle warmth, as his limbs regained their feeling.

Kiso could have healed himself, but with all his concentration needed to perform the final stage of the Skyshadow technique, he didn't dare. Besides, Yuni's healing is several levels greater then his own.

In the time it would take someone to eat a bowl of rice, Kiso's body had been granted life again. Although the injuries were not completely healed just yet, Kiso felt a foreboding sense of danger still present.

Turning to Yuni, who was staring at him with an extremely complicated expression, Kiso asked her while pointing up, "How do you suppose we deal with them? Sure, some of them are dimwitted and will likely perish simply by being dropped, that's not the case for all of them. The smart ones will regain the ability to borrow the earth's spiritual pressure as they near the ground, escaping impact in any number of ways..."

Yuni's face lost the slight color she had just recently regained.

Kiso frowned and added, "Also, when that sun comes back out, I'm pretty sure I'll loose track of the darkness nature I'm using to hold them up there." Kiso pointed over at the cloud blocking the sun. Rays of light could be seen peaking over the top of it.

Yuni spoke up after looking at the cloud, "Can we run?"

Kiso's frown loosened a bit as he chuckled, "I certainly met my match this time, haha. That Danstun is truly powerful and I just lit an inextinguishable enmity in his heart I'm sure." After speaking, Kiso suddenly looked towards the sun. It was threatening to overtake the cloud any second.

"Guess we gotta risk it!" Kiso's face became extremely serious as he tightened his grip on the darkness spiritual pressure surround those figures in the sky.

"FALL!" Kiso's savage roar made Yuni jump.

After about ten seconds, strange sounds could be heard in the distance above Kiso and Yuni.

The figures of those Ichi clansmen were beginning to grow larger rapidly.

With Kiso's intense pull on the darkness energy holding their bodies hostage, they were falling at nearly five times the speed they would normally. Furthermore, if Kiso's guess was correct, they shouldn't have control of their bodies. Although Kiso was extremely worried about this point, he couldn't think of any other options.

When the Ichi clansmen, Vohan, and Danstun came into view, their expressions varied from extreme rage all the way to sincere regret. Danstun's expression caused Kiso to secretly let out a sigh of relief, as his face was void of all color and his eyes filled with disbelief.

Danstun was presently using every bit of his spiritual pressure to sustain his conscious while traveling at almost six hundred miles an hour. In fact, some of the weaker Ichi clansmen had already passed out.

Kiso and Yuni stared on as human bullets smashed into the ground, all of them headfirst. Every single one of them was powerless to resist. The ones who had enough spiritual pressure to stay conscious quickly wished they hadn't. The exception was Danstun, he wanted one last look at Kiso's face, vowing to pay him back in the next time. He still couldn't comprehend his death, as thoughts of revenge and disbelief were the last he had.

Not a single second after Danstun's death, the sun finally emerged from the cloud, causing a cold sweat to run down Kiso's back. If he hadn't sped up their descent, forcing them to use the spiritual pressure to simply remain conscious, they would have certainly lived.

Yuni gazed around at the small 'man-made' craters, she walked up to Kiso's side and gently tugged on his sleeve saying, "Kiso, that was too close.. I though you were going to.... And that man was..."

Kiso quickly cut her off as he tilted his head to look at her watery eyes, "Enough. Don't remind me." He sighed then shot her a sly smile, "He made the mistake of going after my woman, I couldn't let him off."

Yuni's eyes lit up and her face turned beat red as she quickly peeled her gaze from his to stare down at the ground.

Gather her courage, Yuni bounced forward and spun around to face Kiso and announced, "Naturally! A master should always look after his property!" After speaking, she giggled and gave Kiso a coquettish look before moving forward, closing the distance between them.

She closed her eyes and stretched her neck upwards, intending to plant a meaningful kiss on Kiso's cheek as a thank you. When her lips made contact however, her eyes shot open. Kiso had intentionally tilted his head to the side, kissing her directly on the lips.

Her heart beating wildly, she squirmed a little trying to protest but gave up almost instantly.

As she was enjoying her first kiss, suddenly something caught her eye, and she pushed Kiso away.

Kiso, startled, was about to complain when he saw her eyes staring bug-eyed at something behind him. He turned his body to follow her gaze, which was staring directly at Danstun's dead body a few meters away.

Yuni's body shot past him, jumping down into the meter deep crater directly onto Danstun's bloody corpse. When she came back up she was holding something.

Kiso looked down at her hands with a puzzled expression.

When he saw a blank roll of parchment in her left hand and a metallic vial in her right, his mind was instantly blank. After several seconds of staring at her hands, he finally verified what he saw was true, the ancient artifact of Thunderblack valley had actually been on Danstun's person!

"Yuni, is that what I think it is?" Kiso asked, knowing she wasn't sure herself.

"I....It has to be right?" Yuni's voice trembled slightly.

What Kiso desired right now was precisely power. His battle with the simple leader of a mid-grade clan had created a vast craving in his heart. He never wanted to feel that powerless again.

The hidden technique left behind by an ancient expert cultivator was too attractive to dismiss.

Yuni, still slightly red from the earlier 'event', walked up awkwardly in front of Kiso. Her pretty eyes danced around, trying to avoid Kiso's passionate gaze as she quickly shoved the map and vial into his arms.

Backing away a few steps, she met his gaze and gave him an urging expression by raising her eyebrows and nodding her head towards the map. Kiso couldn't help but want to give her another kiss as her behavior certainly warranted one.

He was about to step forward and make his move, ignoring the map, when Yuni suddenly reprimanded him, "Kiso, check the map! What's on it?"

Sighing in his heart, Kiso glanced down at the map, untying the string holding it together. As he unfolded it, he shook his head and lifted it to show Yuni, "Blank!"

Yuni's lips, which had been curved upwards in anticipation, slightly lowered.

Sticking true to her nature however, she quickly recovered and said, "What about the vial? What does it say on it?"

Kiso lifted his hand holding the vial, studying its appearance.

Engraved on the side was a single line of words:

When the liquid recognizes a worthy master it will revert to its original form, pour the ink on the parchment.

Kiso opened the vial and studied the contents, then sighed, "Yuni the liquid inside is clear, I suppose I'm not the guy.."

Re-corking the vial, Kiso tried to store it in his DS ring. As he urged his spiritual pressure into his ring, attempting to swallow the map and vial, he found the ring refused to absorb them.

"Ah?" Kiso couldn't help but take a closer look at the vial.

Yuni noticed his behavior and queried, "Kiso, whats the deal?"

Kiso laughed and held up the vial, "At least we know why Danstun didn't store the vial in his DS ring, he couldn't!"

After raising the vial, Kiso noticed an engraving on the bottom of the vial as well. Written in large bold letters across the bottom was one word, 'Head'.

Kiso's mind worked quickly and he acted on the first thing that came to mind, lowering the vial's bottom to touch his forehead. He left the vial there for several tens of seconds, then removed it and uncorked the vial to study the interior.

He stood looking into the bottle for a full minute before the liquid inside began to grow murkier second by second. Finally, the liquid turned completely black.

Kiso's silent staring at the vial had brought Yuni over out of curiosity and she caught a glimpse of the murky liquid finally loose its clarity becoming pitch black.

"Ink!" Kiso and Yuni simultaneously cried out.

To Be Continued