Chapter 64   - Ch64. Salamander Realm 2

The two salamanders glanced at each other and the one on the right side, the black one sighed. "Youngsters and their cheekiness." He said in an exasperated tone to which, the salamander on the left, the green one... shrugged? Rei wasn't sure what that shaking gesture was meant to be but it was apparently an agreement. The black salamander continued. "Well then, I am Elder Salam and the esteemed salamander next to me is Elder Mander. Now that we are here, your free-roaming through our caverns has come to an end intruder! We will show you the terror of offending Salam and Mander! Prepare for your Doom!" The one on the left... Elder Mander just again... shrugged, or better yet shook in agreement but stayed quiet. Rei expected the fight to begin so he crouched slightly, preparing for it as he quickened the flow of his chakra and reinforced his muscles... but the two geezers just motionlessly watched him.

After a minute of stare-off, Rei blinked in confusion, straightened up, and raised his eyebrow at them as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Uh... shouldn't you... I don't know, attack me?" He asked. He wanted them to do the first move as reacting would be better than charging in without knowing their way of fighting. It was then he noticed a slight smirk on Salam's maw.

"Oh, youngsters nowadays... so impatient! We already did our move! Kehehueheaha!" He laughed in a senile way. Rei instantly tensed up and discreetly looked around but was unable to find anything out of ordinary. And so the duo of salamanders and Rei stared at each other in awkward silence for a few more moments. As time passed, Rei watched as the 'eyebrows' of the beasts started to twitch. Salam suddenly turned to Mander and asked in an annoyed tone. "Oi, did you add Laman's wet socks into the recipe? How come the intruder is still standing!? That thing is more toxic than Hanzo's underwear!" Mander just shook in agreement but Rei wasn't feeling good when he heard the words 'recipe' and 'wet sock' and 'Hanzo's underwear'. His prospects for this battle were getting quite bleak if that's what they wanted to fight him with. He started looking around with mild disgust, his wariness increased by ten magnitudes when his eyes widened.

"Shit!" He started swaying on his feet and put his palm on his face, his vision blurring slightly. Only the timely input of nature energy into his system stopped him from feeling dizzy. "Salamanders equals poison." He quietly grumbled to himself, feeling indignant he didn't realize it sooner. "Go figure. The entire air is steeped in a special kind of undetectable poison..." Thankfully he kept his eyes on the salamanders. The second they saw Rei swaying, the two senile geezers as if evaporated and bloodl.u.s.t filled the cavern and Rei barely managed to push himself to the side, evading another water jet that could cleave him into two pieces. He was about to recollect himself, only for his eyes to widen as Salamander Mander suddenly appeared in front of him and slammed his tail into his body, sending him flying. Only the wall of the cavern stopped his body, making him slid down onto his ass and groan in pain.

Rei didn't have time to take a breather as a water bullet, courtesy of Salam, impacted his abdomen, making him bend forward with a silent gasp, breaking a few of his ribs in the process. The poison still coursed through his body, numbing it so it was quite hard to move for him. Yet again, he wasn't given a breather as Mander appeared near him, his tail lashing onto Rei. He did the only thing he could in his battered state. He used Kawarimi and swapped places with his clone who was smashed into a watery pulp almost instantly. Rei wobbly stood up, holding his stomach in pain, and stared at the two senjutsu-using salamanders. He smiled slightly, even though his smile was broken and resembled more a grimace due to pain. "I must admit... you two have supreme teamwork." He wheezed out before chuckling. "But..." The second he said that both Salam and Mander tensed as they could feel a danger from his hunched up, hurt form.

Suddenly, Rei straightened up, wiping the blood from the corner of his lips while wincing slightly. "I also admit that in hindsight, Konan was right and storming the Salamander Realm by myself might have been a stupid idea." He clicked his tongue and took a deep breath. Neither Salam nor Mander felt at ease so they didn't leap at him to continue. Instead, both Salamanders could clearly feel the danger in the air and tensed as chakra started swirling around Rei. "You know what's funny?" Rei offhandedly asked as he started closing and opening his fist. "Nobody ever checks for chakra strings." He quipped and the chakra swirling around him went towards the floor and condensed into a massive amount of fine threads spreading outwards, dragging themselves on the ground. These then started connecting to an even wider system of threads that was spread through the cavern by the water clones right at the start of the battle. As the previously invisible chakra threads lit up, the entire ground of the Salamander Caverns looked like one big intricate web. This was Rei's trump card. Since day one, he didn't stop honing his chakra strings. It was his first usable skill, after all. But getting them combat-ready... now that was quite a chore.

Using the strings to defeat a chunin was nice and all but Rei was no longer playing in the casual league. Against jonins, the strings were most of the time useless and that was the actual reason why Suna was known for puppetry instead of chakra strings. Hence, Rei had to be... creative. The threads started to enwrap around Rei, forming a cocoon that completely covered his figure. For Salam and Mander it resembled something akin to evolving butterfly summon. Multiple thread endings loosely hung from the cocoon, like decorative strips.

"Salam," The ancient but quiet voice of Mander suddenly hurriedly exclaimed with a warning undertone. "Water Wall, fast!" Salam's eyes widened. He knew Mander was the better sensor amongst them and the Jutsu the human was about to unleash was quite powerful if it unnerved Mander so much! Salam slammed his front legs into the water-covered ground of the cavern, snapping a few chakra strings in the process as he pushed half of his chakra into them, getting assistance by Mander as they created quite similar Jutsu to the Water Dome of Rei. Three layers of water formed three domes around the cocoon. The Jutsu of Salam was more geared towards preventing escape so the inner walls were neigh-impenetrable while the outer ones were weaker.

While the two Elders busied themselves with protective layers, the salamanders finally finished dealing with Rei's clones and came to spectate their esteemed Elders dealing with the intruder.

All this took at most three seconds and inside the water Jutsu, the cocoon started changing. The strings started revolving around Rei's figure, creating a spectacle no different than Hyuuga's kaiten. Despite that, it didn't have the protective function of kaiten. Inside, Rei smirked. "Well, time to fire this party up." His chakra flared. The strings were now spinning at insane speeds, grinding against each other. All it took was a slight spark of katon and futon chakra, supported with nature energy.

Outside, Salam and Mender watched the water of their protections. "This should be enough." Salam said but Mander didn't answer. Suddenly, his body went rigid. Salam saw and...

Uncountable small crimson red droplets of condensed flames shattered the three layers of water domes as they went through it like a knife through butter. As the strings spun, the previously loosely hanging thread endings were now flying around in a swirling pattern. The second the cocoon lit up with the crimson fire, these flying endings created a whirlwind of a crimson whirlpool of fire, the sheer speed tearing apart droplets of it, showering the entire Salamander Realm with highly concentrated fire capable of burning even katon itself. These crimson flames were the direct opposite of Rei's blue suiton/katon flames. Their potency reached and slightly surpassed even blaze release. Their sole purpose was to 'kill it with fire', even if 'it' is the fire itself.

The salamanders were disorderly running around, trying to avoid the shower of crimson death. Many of them already died due to being stupidly brave and trying to block them with water jutsu only for the droplets to go through the Jutsu first, and the caster second. The walls of the caverns were burning and the ever-covered grounds with water were now dry. These flames could spread alongside the chakra strings and as the entire cavern was covered in Rei's strings... The ground flared up with crimson whirlpool as the web of strings became a burning death-trap.

Salam and Mander watched with horrified gazes as the fires started to engulf their Realm in its entirety, both pushing enormous amounts of senjutsu chakra to create a safe haven from flames on the ground and in the sky with their senjutsu-enhanced water Jutsu. As the minutes of the downpour of fire ticked away, the two Elders gathered around a hundred surviving salamanders in their water barrier, their hearts could only ache as they saw that those of their kin still outside were most likely already burned to death. Fortunately, they had enough strength to create a place safe from the crimson hell.

Thirty minutes. That's how long it took for the spinning to stop and Rei hummed in appreciation. He was not yet that proficient with the Jutsu and had to channel his chakra for a long time. He nevertheless stopped supplying chakra in the third minute and the spinning sustained the Jutsu for ten times as long. He made the cocoon open to witness the effects of his Jutsu with his eyes and as he did so, his jaw dropped to the floor. The cavern... was no more. Above him, a clear night sky was highlighted crimson as the hellish crimson flames still burned strong all around him.

Rei smiled. "Damn, that's way better than I thought. These flames will last at least for three days with the chakra I supplied." He shook his head but then winced, showing a bitter expression. "Shit, Konan will scold me! I have at least two broken ribs and six cracked ones with multiple torn muscles. The Mander did pack quite a punch...Tsunade could learn a lot from him." He said as his eyes turned to resigned sad gaze full of unwillingness as he used his seal to enter his dimension.