Instinct overrode reason, at least in that first moment of realization. In the twilight’s darkness there was no telling how many of the angered insects now swarmed. Yuu reflexively used his other hand to attempt to swat the descending bugs from his face but it was a token gesture, almost laughable compared to the stinging that soon followed. A thousand pinpricks erupted along his exposed skin and his eyes snapped shut in response as he felt the featherlike touch of tiny legs upon his face. And yet! Yuu kept his grip on Daisuke, determined to hold the general down until Hana could finish her work. That’s all he had to do, keep the titanic strength of General Daisuke at bay. He didn’t need eyes for that!

In the midst of that furious deafening buzzing sound was an almost imperceptible sizzle. The noise was so out of place it forced Yuu to open one of his eyes, just a crack. Only seconds had passed, certainly not enough time for anything to have changed. Surely Daisuke had to be out of options? Like a javelin, the tiniest ray of yellow illumination pierced through the night’s darkness and hit Yuu’s eye like a bolt of lightning. The source was small, but Yuu instantly knew from whence it came.

In Daisuke’s one free hand, resting precariously on his fingertip, was a tiny wisp of flame. This wasn’t the mighty engulfing flame of the Sixeyes, though. It was a diminutive, puny, pathetic spark of fire, something that wouldn’t even tickle the ribbon’s which continued to tighten around his throat. In those few seconds of distraction Daisuke used the opening to...light a single match.

Yet that single point of light did not suddenly shift into a massive fireball or forest engulfing stream of death, as was so often the case when Hashimoto Daisuke was involved. No, rather, he seemed to be letting it linger on purpose. The general wore a tired expression across his now barely illuminated face, not at all what one would expect given the stakes of this encounter. He almost seemed at wit’s end. That emotion carried over into his voice as well, which somehow managed to croak out past Hana’s ever tightening noose.

“You want this, right?” Now Yuu’s gaze snapped off the beleaguered Daisuke and back to his palm, where the small flame still danced. Wrapped in some kind of gauze (not Hana’s, thankfully!) was a small...something. Something roughly ball shaped and rigid. As his bee-stung face grimaced and Yuu finally made out the shape of the time through the flickering light.

The Metsina Royal Family’s treasure! There could be no doubt now that they had caught the real Daisuke. Not that there had been any, but after their initial encounter it was hard to not hold some doubts about the man’s seemingly endless bag of tricks. General Daisuke, the Green Ghost of Garion, was offering his prize to Hana and Yuu! Was this a surrender? A bargain for his life? The blistering burn from a hundred venomous stingers momentarily faded away as the joy of victory flooded Yuu’s brain. Victory at last!

“That damned rat Motonubu...” Daisuke’s strained voice carried an even heavier edge of venom now. “When did he swap out the hourglass...?” The mixture of pain and pleasure blinded the boy to Daisuke’s obvious disgust. Daisuke’s expression was not one of defeat or one expecting mercy. No, the man looked positively murderous. His next words barely registered with Yuu.

“Catch.” The flame at Daisuke’s fingers caught the edge of the wrapped skull in the next instant and the surrounding forest burst back forth into vivid color. The fireball in Daisuke’s hands swirled and sputtered with a menacing glow and the small match’s flame consumed the skull entirely. At that moment Yuu thought the cornered general was just going to hurl it at him like a petulant child. The artifact itself wasn’t exactly flammable but no doubt a man of Daisuke’s calibur would have no trouble hurling the thing hard enough to shatter it- fear turned to despair in an instant. No! He wouldn’t!

Yuu shifted his stance in preparation to snatch the projectile from the air, rather than try to extinguish Daisuke’s flames like before. His younger siblings and relatives played a game much like catch as part of their Agent training and this would be no different. Who could have thought such a meaningless pastime would matter now!

Daisuke snapped his arm upwards instead. A fiery wisp trailed behind the immolating ball as it spiraled straight up into the air.

Again Yuu couldn’t help himself and his gaze shot upwards to follow it like a moth to a flame. The flaming artifact easily cleared the treeline and shot up like a beacon into the night sky. Up, up, up it went, and at the apex of its climb it seemed to freeze in place. The cloud cover that night blocked out most of the stars, so the little fiery skull stood out especially hard against the black backdrop above. As it hung at the top of its ascent the seconds stretched out to feel like a lifetime.

As the stings continued to multiply Yuu became aware that no, actually, that moment WAS taking an eternity to pass. The little point of light far above their heads wasn’t coming back down to earth. Rather, the tiny object began to drift, like a lightning bug lazily floating through the air. Hana put the pieces together before Yuu did. Those Metsina Royal Family catching skills wouldn’t have a chance to be tested here, it seemed.

A brief glance at Daisuke all but confirmed it. His outstretched hand wasn’t relaxed at all and seemed to be tugging at invisible strings- the General was using his jutsu to keep the skull afloat!

Left to its own devices the skull would float away and land somewhere in Jinchi’s massive jungle. It might take hours- maybe even days to scour the area for it again. That was time Hana and Yuu simply didn’t have. The flames around the skull began to shrink and with it their window of opportunity to chase after it. Daisuke might be tied up and immobile, but he was by no means on death’s door. With the upper hand they could no doubt finish the General for good, but doing so meant forfeiting the skull.

The paths diverged. Something had to give.

Yuu kept his grip on Daisuke with the expectation Hana would do the same. As the saying went, a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush! To Yuu the other option was unthinkable. Truthfully ever since losing the artifact, Yuu prepared himself for never getting it back. Already he made his peace with that failure. There would be no way to find a small rock quickly before morning came and the advancing Annitou forces found them. Surviving to fight another day, that was the real prize. Also they could finish off General Daisuke for sure now- their combined strength had forced the man into this corner. With just a little more push they could take the rogue actor out of the picture. Wasn't that better than chasing after some allegedly important rock?

It was an Agent’s job to make those calls, though. As Hana brought up every time the issue arose, what separated a cadet from an Agent wasn’t power. A mad bull had plenty of power, but you didn’t put one in charge of your military. No, what made an Agent an Agent was the ability to make snap decisions in the interest of their home nation. They were supposed to be leaders, commanders, the ones who made the hard but necessary calls when the time came. The razor edged voice of Hana cut through the jungle’s darkness and sliced right through the incessant buzzing still clouding Yuu’s senses. Daisuke wouldn’t have been able to decipher what Hana said as it was in a code specific to the two of them, but Yuu heard her clear enough to understand.

“I’m going after the artifact. You finish the target off.””

Like a spider tugging at its web, Hana's bindings proved tight and hard to break. But that cloth possessed no true strength of their own. Her Weave couldn’t do any heavy lifting without her operating the other end of those winding ribbons. She could, however, still impart her own strength to her extended appendages. Immediately after issuing her order to her underling Daisuke’s body contorted and twisted like a rag doll. The ribbons around his neck and torso jerked and unwound all at once and sent him spinning into the air. Hana abandoned the slow suffocation strategy. That meant it was up to Yuu to finish the job.

That wasn’t for Hana’s lack of trying, though. On the other end of the ribbons which bound Daisuke Hana yanked as hard as she could. Usually this much force had been more than enough to snap the neck of lesser men. The cloth wrapped around Daisuke’s throat constricted painfully and he found himself in the next instant being hurled to the ground like the tip of a cracked whip. Without any means to brace himself Daisuke slammed awkwardly into the dirt and his skull bounced painfully off the ground. Air cushion or not, getting your brain rattled was a disorienting experience. At that moment the illustrious Hashimoto Daisuke looked very, temptingly helpless.

General Hashimoto Daisuke posed far too big a threat to try pulling out any other kind of assassination, but now there was no choice. Yuu understood his role and finally his legs found the strength to spring forward again. Hana’s attempt to crack Daisuke put the man out of range of Yuu’s own jutsu, but surely it wouldn’t matter! In his other welt-covered palm Yuu flattened his fingers and hand as if he was going to slap Daisuke. Rather, a feeling of searing heat ran along the outer edges of his skin, burning hotter than the many inflamed blisters he now sported. The angry insects still swarming on that particular part of his body found themselves at once torn to shreds, pulverized by the swirling, charged force now running between Yuu’s fingertips.

The true strength of the Hand of God jutsu wasn’t in meagerly extending the boy’s reach. No, the real deadly edge to the technique was its intangibility. No armor, no protective air shield, no flesh or bone could prevent Yuu from imparting the force of his palm wherever he chose to put it. That included the interior of one’s body. No matter how much strength a target might boast there was no coming back from having your brain punched from the inside.

Well, almost no coming back. That Annitou kid from the night before somehow had shaken it off- and Daisuke himself had miraculously avoided the technique in their first encounter. But Yuu wouldn’t screw it up a third time!

Mustering a final burst of speed Yuu dove at the now motionless and collapsed Daisuke with his knife-like palm drawn back. A thrust of the arm was all it would take once his target was in range. The gap closed so quickly that even the most stubborn hornets clinging to Yuu’s skin were dislodged, blown away by the boy’s rapid movement. Daisuke’s face was buried in the dirt and his body posture was completely unprepared for a counter attack. Ignoring all those hornet stings Yuu felt in top physical form. This was a moment every lowly cadet would fantasize about- the toppling of a mighty opponent, though nothing but one’s own guile! Of course, when they did tell the story of the great Hana and Yuu, they would need to leave out the part where they got into this mess themselves- but the victors got to write the history books!

Conditions wouldn’t get more ideal than this for dispatching a Garion general. He was so close now, Yuu could make out even in the darkness Daisuke’s now untidy long hair splayed out against the forest’s dirt floor. Without an ounce of hesitation Yuu lunged. His palm shot forward and with it an invisible, unblockable spear of force shuddered forth. He didn’t need to be very precise here. Even a grazing blow to the head would do it!

Fingers burning hotter than any flame Daisuke could spit out, Yuu’s fingers smashed into Daisuke’s head. He felt like even his spirit was shooting out from his body in a blow more powerful than anything the boy had ever been able to muster up before. This was reflected by the attack sheering straight through its target and practically blowing up the dirt beneath where Daisuke lay, gouging a meter deep hole into the soil and sending a suffocating plume of dust up as soon as Yuu made contact. He didn’t divert his eyes even as the spray of particles buffeted his face. This time, this time for sure, General Hashimoto Daisuke was done for!