Race against time

Ami continued to bravely fight Sanno, but the forces were unequal. Without a reserve of her special magatama and exhausted from the battle with Hidora, she could only hold back the enemy, blocking attacks with an umbrella, using it as a shield, and parrying numerous katana thrusts with her sword.

"This is what you were trying to achieve by hiding in the shadows. Isn't that, right?" Ami said with disdain, breathing heavily.

"This is called strategy, remember? What you've always lacked, sister!"

With swings of dual katanas in four hands, Sanno pushed Ami against the tree, not giving her time to catch her breath.

"Don't call me that!" The girl said furiously. "Amaterasu is just a part of me — Tsukiyami Ami!"

"Arrogant, as usual."

Sanno sped up the rotation of the katanas, turning them into circular saws.

Noticing a tree behind her, Ami pushed off from it with her bare feet and hit Sanno with her shield. She then ran, pushing Sanno until she slammed him into the tree.

Bouncing back, Ami blocked one of Sanno's katanas but missed the other. Blood gushed out from the girl's wound, leaving a mark on her cheek. Ami put her palm to it, but the healing was much slower than usual.

"Red, like humans." Sanno pretended to be surprised. "Our time is coming to an end, so…"

Sanno took a special fighting stance, bending down and dividing his katanas into four, and then instantly began to spin them, creating a powerful air flow. The mountain fog began to move, gathering towards Sanno and thickening around him and Ami.

"Susanoo technique?" Ami guessed.

When the fog thickened enough and Sanno created a tornado around himself, he rushed towards Ami with lightning speed. She instinctively covered herself with a shield and prepared her sword for the enemy's next strike, but the thick fog hid the enemy's attack even from her "sunny" sight, and the whirlwind was so strong that Sanno knocked the umbrella aside and cut off Ami's hand. He pierced her with the finishing blow. The girl's blood spilled onto his blade.

"That's it!" Sanno concluded, raising his other hand with the katana. "Now you're mine!"

"Never…" Ami whispered through the pain.

"Waaaaaa!" A rumbling sound was heard from the side.

Omosa rushed at high speed and pushed Sanno away with his shoulder. But at the last moment, the enemy managed to touch the big guy's metal cables, cutting off several of them. Ami fell to her knees and quickly concentrated on restoring herself.

"Thank you, Omosa…"

Spitting blood, Ami thanked.

"But don't worry about me… protect this thing."

Without waiting, Sanno rushed to finish off Ami, but something grabbed him from below and knocked him to the ground. Looking at his leg, he saw a dark hand made of thick smoke holding onto it and an annoying smile that he’d despised since childhood.

"Yomi!" Sanno said dismissively and struck with his other leg.

The smoke grabbed this too, and then pulled itself towards Ikari, embracing him and transforming the umbrella around the enemy into a dungeon.

"And your husband is more alive than all the living!" Sanno writhed on the ground, trying to free himself.

The sound of a mirror cracking was heard.

"Yomi, let him go! It's dangerous!"

Sanno pushed himself back and jumped to the ground with force.

"I don't have time for these games!" He growled menacingly, as if Susanoo was breaking out of him.

Straightening all four arms, he freed himself, throwing away the umbrella. Ami caught it, leaving Kusanagi behind.

"Don't scare me like that, I won't be able to stand it if I lose you again!"

"I just wanted to lend a helping hand." He said gently, holding out the arm he’d cut off earlier to Ami.

They applied it to the stump, the arm immediately healed, although it didn’t get stronger right away. Sanno was already closing in with a furious attack, Ami quickly grabbed Kusanagi and parried the flurry of blows and even went on the counter-offensive, skillfully fencing with a sword, inspired by Yomi's encouragement. Omosa decided to support and repeated his "rhinoceros" move with a shoulder strike. Sanno jumped up and landed right on his back, plunging four katanas into him, Omosa cursed under his breath from the piercing pain.

"No!"

"Well, that's even better!" Sanno smiled triumphantly.

He cut the fastening and grabbed the suitcase with Magmatama, and then jumped onto the tree to avoid Ami's attack. Blades appeared from under the cloak at the back. They spun, lifting Sanno into the air before Ami cut the tree.

"Stop!!!"

"Sayonara!"

Sanno waved his hand at her.

"Damn it!"

"F-forgive me, Ms. Tsukiyami…" Omosa was coming to his senses. "I let everyone down."

"It can't be helped…" Ami said with restraint. "But now you can help the others with that giant demon. And I need to catch up with him."

"Got it! But how did you…"

"Ami, I’ve an idea, grab Haku." Yomi called. "Omosa, give me one last hand! Grab his hands!"

"Yes sir!"

Ami and Yomi's thoughts often crossed, although the girl couldn't read his thoughts. The girl transformed the ribs of the umbrella and put it on like a backpack. Omosa grabbed Ami's hand, spun it around, and threw the girl in Sanno's direction.

"The residual charge should be enough!" Yomi calculated.

The blades of the umbrella at the back formed pyramidal turbines, inside which a small number of magatama particles quickly exploded, creating jet thrust. Ami, like a fighter jet, suddenly took off into the air with a scream.

Yomi was economical with his energy, so after one volley he didn’t maintain the jet thrust, Ami froze at the height for a few moments - this was enough to detect Sanno. Yomi shifted Haku's blades and exploded the magatama particles again, and then again and again, accelerating Ami.

"Hey, Fumiko." Keshita's head turned, lying on Mellow's back, who was holding on to Kamiko's back.

"What's wrong, brother? Are you uncomfortable? Does your head itch?"

"No…" Keshita squinted. "Is that a bird?"

"More like a helicopter." Kamiko was distracted from the road.

"No, it's Sanno!" Fumiko became alarmed.

"We're invisible! How did he find us? What's wrong with Ami!?"

"Mukibutsu's technology is superior to ours… Damn it! He has a Magmatama!"

"There you’re… the penultimate piece of the puzzle remains…"

"Halt! Ikari!"

A menacing female scream was heard from behind.

"Shh, do you still have any strength left?" Sanno turned around.

"Fighting her in the air won't be easy, especially with that cargo… I’d to get rid of her umbrella." Sanno assessed the situation. "Then…"

Sanno pulled out a small device from his seemingly endless supply of gadgets. The minimal amount of equipment was achieved thanks to the compactness of the magatama technology. Sanno activated the device. It transformed into a drone. Sanno attached the suitcase to it and sent it in another direction, while he met Ami.

"Magmatama!" Fumiko became worried, noticing the suitcase flying away.

"Leave it to me!" Kamiko reassured, taking out a dagger.

With a precision move, she hit the drone directly, destroying it, the suitcase began to fall.

"What are you doing!?" Fumiko screamed, softly hitting Kamiko on the head with her fists. "What if it explodes or something!?"

"Oh, I didn't think, sorry!" Soda lowered her lips in shame. "What should we do?"

"Damn it!" Ami and Sanno noticed and immediately flew to Magmatama.

However, Ami hesitated, afraid that Ikari might deceive her and, taking advantage of the moment, head towards Fumiko and Kamiko. The suitcase fell into the river, but Sanno quickly retrieved it, climbing out onto the shore, where Ami landed.

"Round number two?" The girl swung Kusanagi.

"Like the good old days of kendo training?" Sanno smiled.

"I think it's okay, Ami is with him. Soda, can you speed up? We need to get to Tokyo as soon as possible. At this rate, it will take us another eight hours!"

"You're too heavy! And the energy consumption is higher!"

"Don't worry about that."

Fumiko transformed two strands of her hair into dreadlocks and connected them to the contact rail, and the other strands to Soda's cybernetic legs.

"Uwaaaah, it stings! Why didn't you do that right away?"

Kamiko inhaled and exhaled, increasing the input power to redirect the energy for acceleration.

"T-turbo boost!"

"You're five le-e-e-e-e!?" Fumiko gripped tighter, carried away by the oncoming wind flow.

"T-that's my limit!"

"C-careful, we'll crash like that!" Fumiko worried about the new speeds.

"Woo-oo-oh!"

"Hold on, brother!"

"Now we'll be there in about four hours!"

"Isn't that still slow!?" Keshita worried. "Mikhail is capturing dozens of cities every hour, and their number is growing exponentially. Plus, he can use planes…"

"Exactly, we should have taken one from Izumo!" Fumiko realized her mistake.

"We can borrow one from Osaka, but who knows how to fly it!?"

"I do!" Fumiko and Keshita said at the same time.

"Eh-eh-eh!?"