Pressure point strikes were the most precise form of attack imaginable. A deviation of even a fraction of a millimeter could reduce the damage dramatically, or nullify it entirely.
And once Miyuki saw Diavolo's hand shifting between forms, the answer hit him all at once. He understood exactly what had happened during his Four Palms combo.
It was obvious now. In the instant Miyuki had launched his Eight Trigrams Four Palms at the four lethal points on Diavolo's head and neck, the man had switched. Swapped bodies with his other self, "Tobiou," in the space between heartbeats.
The transition had been so fast that Miyuki hadn't noticed his target changing mid-strike. But Diavolo and Tobiou had different bodies. Different builds, different bone structures, different proportions. Which meant the pressure points mapped onto Diavolo's anatomy simply didn't exist in the same locations on Tobiou's.
Four kill shots aimed with surgical precision. All four landed on the wrong body. All four missed their marks.
You've gotta be kidding me. He's a natural Juuken counter.
Staring at Diavolo's blood-smeared grin, Miyuki felt the distinct sting of bad luck. His very first solo outing and he'd bumped into the worst possible matchup.
A dual-personality anomaly whose body physically transformed when the personalities switched, shifting every pressure point on the map. For Miyuki's current skillset, this was the single hardest opponent imaginable. His Juuken couldn't land a meaningful hit.
"Sss-ss-ss. Your turn is over. Now it's mine."
"We're not playing a card game. There are no turns."
A-rank rogue ninja Diavolo used "High-Speed Movement!" A-rank rogue ninja Diavolo threw "Poisoned Shuriken!" A-rank rogue ninja Diavolo activated "Crimson Mist!"
Before the sarcasm had even left Miyuki's mouth, Diavolo's body vanished. In its wake came three shuriken glinting with a sickly green sheen and a burst of blood-red vapor that exploded outward like a smoke bomb.
Hey! You said it was your turn! Since when do turns include a triple combo?!
Miyuki threw himself into a sideways roll, snatched a wooden plank off the alley floor mid-tumble, and hurled it toward the incoming shuriken like a makeshift shield.
At his current level, Miyuki couldn't track professional-grade shuriken throws with his dynamic vision alone. Quick and dirty countermeasures were all he had.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. The plank intercepted all three, the impact knocking it spinning out of sight. But in that same heartbeat, a spike of killing intent slammed into Miyuki's senses from his left flank.
Diavolo! He's there!
Miyuki spun to face the direction of the killing intent, bracing for the incoming strike.
But then Kaguya-hime's ears picked up something. A sound. Incredibly faint, almost subliminal. And it was coming from a completely different direction than the killing intent.
Miyuki kept Kaguya-hime hovering roughly half a meter behind him at all times as a safety measure, and their senses were linked. Which meant something had appeared behind him.
What?! No, I can't block in time!
Whatever came from behind was impossibly fast. Before Miyuki's body could even begin to turn, a force like a knife blade drove into his back.
The impact detonated through his organs. His small body launched forward, airborne, and a mouthful of blood sprayed from his lips before he'd even started to fall.
The wall was rushing toward him. Miyuki forced his left hand against the stone surface, scrubbing off what momentum he could before slamming into it and dropping to the ground.
Heavy damage. No question. Diavolo outclassed Hyuuga Miyuki by a wide margin in raw combat ability. Taking a direct hit meant exactly this kind of result.
But even so, Diavolo let out a surprised grunt. Something about that exchange had felt wrong.
That's not right. Why didn't it go through him? And that sensation on impact... that didn't feel like hitting flesh and bone.
Diavolo's hands were honed sharper than steel from years of his favorite pastime. His chakra reserves dwarfed Miyuki's. By every metric, that strike should have entered through the boy's back and exited through his chest. Clean through.
But Miyuki had taken the hit and only coughed up blood. He wasn't impaled. He wasn't dead.
Hah... hah... hah... What did he just do? How did his body and his killing intent come from completely different directions?
Diavolo had his own confusion, but so did Miyuki. And floating beside him, Kaguya-hime's small form looked visibly weakened. Her once floor-length white hair had been sheared in half.
That was the reason Miyuki had survived. Kaguya-hime's defense.
While Miyuki's attention had been locked forward, Kaguya-hime's reaction speed and movement were faster than his own. Almost the same instant Diavolo's hand-blade came thrusting in from behind, she'd been ready.
She'd layered her long white hair into overlapping coils, wrapping them around Miyuki's back like a cocoon. Then she'd drawn chakra from her master to reinforce the strands, forming a makeshift barrier.
"Sturdy" was a generous word for it. Relative to Miyuki's unprotected body, sure. Against Diavolo's killing blow, the hair-shield had been punched straight through. But after the shield broke, the attack's remaining force hit Kaguya-hime's physical form instead of Miyuki's actual body.
Even so, when a Stand took damage, the user felt it too. The hit had still done serious harm.
"You little bastard, what did you just..."
"This blood-colored mist. It's your signature technique, isn't it?"
Miyuki cut him off, his eyes scanning the faint crimson haze now drifting through the alley.
It wasn't as thick as Zabuza's Hidden Mist jutsu. It didn't blank out visibility entirely. But the thin red fog obscured just enough to interfere with line of sight. And that clearly wasn't the real purpose anyway.
"Just now, I felt killing intent coming from a completely different direction than your actual body. That's what threw off my positioning. The killing intent is coming from the mist itself."
Miyuki's sensory awareness was sharp. His eyes couldn't keep up with Diavolo's speed, but he could track an opponent by following the direction of their killing intent with frightening accuracy.
The blood mist turned that strength into a liability. When the mist itself radiated murderous intent, Miyuki's finely tuned senses pointed him toward the wrong target. And facing the wrong direction in a fight was just a more elaborate way of committing suicide.
"Hmph. So what if you figured it out? Think you can stop the next one?"
Diavolo's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. His figure dissolved into the crimson haze like a ghost sinking into a lake.
I see. Kirigakure rogue. A Suiton-based assassination style soaked in blood. No wonder the technique feels like that... This is very, very bad.
Once Diavolo vanished into the mist, Miyuki felt the constant pressure of a blade hovering over his neck. One lapse in concentration and he'd be cut in two.
What do I do? I can't see him. My eyes can't track his speed. If I rely on sensing killing intent, the blood mist feeds me false readings. Can I actually survive the next hit?
To eliminate the threat from behind, Miyuki pressed his back flat against the alley wall. That covered a full ninety degrees of vulnerability.
The front ninety degrees he could watch with his own eyes. The space directly above, he assigned to Kaguya-hime.
It still didn't feel safe. Not even close. Putting his back to the wall reduced the angles of attack, but it also killed his room to dodge. If he could block the next strike, great. If he couldn't... he'd die right here.
Come on. I HAVE to see him coming. If I don't, I'm dead. This isn't a joke anymore.
Life on the line, Miyuki poured every ounce of concentration into his eyes. Those pale white irises, the ones that looked like the world's most severe case of cataracts, locked onto the space ahead, searching for any trace of movement.
And in that instant, Miyuki noticed something very, very strange.
The world in front of him had begun to move in slow motion.