SSS-Ranked Evolution: Worlds Unbound

"This is not the first time you are failing in this mission, Akai! I gave it to you because I trusted your capabilities but now…"

"Master Hisoka! The queen had acquired assistance from a human and judging from their affinity he must have been a—"

"Silence! You dare to interrupt me while I speak?!" his master glared at him down and Akai could feel the humiliation creep up the back of his neck in undesirable heat. He had never been scolded by his master in front of all the other tamers, and it pissed him off that it was happening. He could hear the murmurs of his subordinates and some even snickered, it only made him flare in anger, but he dared not show it to his master, "you are off this mission!"

"But master!" His eyes widened in astonishment at the words he just heard. He was off the mission?! The great Akai…was going to be replaced?! He refused to accept it! With his ability to accept defeat, he talked back, "and who else would you give this mission that would be able to accomplish it? No one is as great as the indestructible Akai! No one would stand a chance against the beast queen!"

"That is where you are mistaken. Indeed, you are powerful, but you are also proud and your pride blinds you." Akai was about to speak again till Master Hisoka raised his hand at his student, "your replacement is none other than White Rose." and at the mention of her name, she walked into the spacious room, everyone freezing as her presence was made known.

Dressed in crystalline white ninja armour, she was stained with the life essence of the once alive individual she dragged by their almost severed head into the room. Her mask covered from her nose downward, that too was stained with blood and her ice blue eyes were fixated on her master. The hood of her attire was pulled down to showcase the mesmerising beauty of her lower back length hair, whiter than the freshest snow but upon closer look, there were dots of blood splattered over it.

Hisoka had an evil grin plastered on his face as she dropped the lifeless body in front of him and took a bow in front of him, "master." Her voice was as chill as her code name, her eyes to the floor before she raised it to connect to his, "I have succeeded in bringing the traitor back, I am ready to go on another mission for you."

"Ah, my favourite student." Hisoka praised her much to the disdain of Akai. Hisoka never called anyone his favourite student except him. His red eyes filled with hatred were eating White Rose up, but she didn't pay any attention to him. Her ultimate focus was to make her master happy, "your new mission is to bring back the tiger beast queen…alive…however there is not much time."

"Consider it done Master." and with that, she rose to her feet, the eyes of everyone following her exact movement, as she turned to leave, her eyes caught Akai's, she could read the emotions behind them and as usual, pretended he didn't even exist. She walked out of the room, everyone murmuring about how she would replace Akai and become Hisoka's best student. The problem was that Akai could hear it, and it only made him more enraged.

"Akai, clean this up." Hisoka commanded him to pick up the corpse and left the room with him and the other hunters. He, the great Akai, cleaning up the mess of another hunter? Such disgrace!

"Whoever she is, she will come back defeated, mark my words master." he hissed to himself before out of blinding rage, kicked the corpse and yelled to one of the lower ranking hunters, "hey you! Clean this up! And do it well!" with that he stormed out of the room to do something, anything that would calm him down.

He hated White Rose and couldn't wait for her downfall.

"It feels like we have been going in circles Nagini…" 

Nagini let out a low hiss as she slithered by Ren, ever so closely. As they moved deeper into the forest, the fog became denser and slowly, it was choking Ren so much that he had to rope a piece of damp fabric around his nose and mouth to prevent him from suffocating slowly. They had been in that part of the forest for hours, and they felt they had been going around a loop.

"Dammit! We are going round in circles." Ren cursed when he moved closer to a tree, only to find out it was the same tree he had marked three times. It was becoming unbearable, and they were running out of time. If they didn't get back in time, Reina's people will die. He let out a loud groan before he noticed Nagini wasn't beside him any more, and she was slithering up a tree, "hey!" he didn't hesitate to climb up the tree as she did, and then he realised that it was less dense at the top, and he let out an excited laugh, "you are a genius girl!" he patted her head, he could see a bit of landscape and also, he was able to sight a water source. Normally snakes have horrible vision but Nagini knew that if he could get high enough, his vision would improve, and they would find a way out.

So the next thing she did was leap to another close by tree, wrapping her body around a branch. Ren looked at her disbelief but slowly crouched to a stand, and jumped. He landed on a branch and luckily, he didn't fall. He felt a thrill of excitement until a memory flashed through him. He used to do this a lot with Hanabi, and each time he would fall flat on his butt, but now he was actually standing. Like the hunter she was.

Nagini leaped again and Ren followed her, they were jumping through trees and sooner than later, Ren realised Nagini was following the birds and squirrels that had become visible. Ren felt proud, he had a really smart partner with him. As he landed on another tree branch, wind was knocked out of him when he felt something hard collide with his body. He crashed to the ground, hearing something crack as he coughed out blood. He had fallen from quite a height.

"What the hell?!" he struggled to his feet before a screech flew into his ears, sending him at an alert, "what the—" he didn't have time to finish before he was hit by what felt like a limb. He was knocked, rolling over and his vision blurred, the fog was too dense for him to see clearly, but he could make out a pair of glowing red eyes. But suddenly, those pairs become four pairs and fer settles in his heart. Before he could react, the creature let out another screech, its mandibles now visible in the fog, not giving Ren enough time to react.

Luckily for him, Nagini threw herself at the creature, and they wrestled, wrapping herself around the intruder and sinking her fangs into its thick body. It let out a piercing screech and Ren saw his opportunity, "Move!" he commanded, and she let go of the creature almost instantly, only for Ren to throw an energy sphere at it, knocking it out of the way and sending it crashing into multiple trees.

The coast was clear.

Nagini slithered up to him, nudging at his side, it was then he realised he had been wounded and blood was pouring from an open cut in his abdomen. The cut burned unusually, but he pushed the pain aside, he had a mission to complete.

"I'm fine, we need to keep moving forward, we are almost there." He urged his partner on and hoped they didn't come across the horrid creature again. But hope was not going to keep them alive.