Immortal Guardian Shadowfire frowned at his failed team attack. Finding it rendered useless quite irritated him. However, a flash of chakra would grab his attention, as he looked skyward. Being a master of Raiton ninjutsu himself, he easily spotted the signs of a jutsu he had learned not three months ago. He cursed softly. "Damn it. They are using the kirin... Kara, Thorn. Converge with Lathasa... Now. Lathasa I need you to throw up a wind barrier defense.." "And you, sir?" Shadow smirked. "I'm going to split the lightning bolt..."
As Thorn heard the warning, her eyes flashed up, before She twisted, and 'flashed' herself to Lathasa's position. When she arrived, She grabbed Lathasa, and hopped to land. If they were caught on water, it would be far more dangerous to them. As they landed, She would release Lathasa to finish his seals. She would, as a first line of defense, drop her heel into the ground with enough force to crack, and launch chunks of the earth into the air. She would pivot and send a flurry of kicks at the descending chunks to send them high into the air.
Kara, having noticed the clouds during their last assault, noticed the lightning before the words even came over the com system. She had already begun preparing for the incoming lightning attack. She was probably one of the most prepared. With a deft flick, two small rods fell into her hands. As the order came, she would shunshin over to the other two, as they landed on the earth. She would swing up the two rods, and press the button at the hilt. A half-second later the rods would elongate into a long staff like weapon, though it was far to thin to be used as such. Instead, she would toss them to the sides of her. Each of them would strike the ground, point down, then stand straight up, as if they had a mind of their own. Pressing her hands together, she would focus her chakra, into the earth, and create two small pillars underneath the rods, and cause them to rise into the air about twelve meters total. The truth? The two thin rods were lightning rods, and each emitted a special chakra signal that would attract any and all electricity or lightning assaults to the rods. At that moment,
Lathasa would finish his seals. With a deft flick of his wrists, he would extend his hands out, and the wind would pick up around Lathasa and the two team members that congregated on his position. The wind would whip until it created a visible barrier about the team members that had congregated on his position. The wind would encircle around the team, lifting them slightly off the ground to hover a few feet before becoming a solid grey color as it swirled about them. This, of course, was the famed Fuuton: Kaze Bariasufia that Lathasa himself had created, and perfected.
Not a second after the sphere was formed, the lightning bolts would strike. The earth in the air from Thorn would do little to slow the bolts down, however, the lightning rods would do their jobs to perfection, drawing two of the incoming bolts to them, and sending the lightning deep into the earth where it would disperse harmlessly as it was grounded. The last bolt would land a direct strike upon the wind barrier with enough force to cause the barrier to dip slightly. It would not be enough, however, to disrupt the wind. It was known that the wind was the weakness of lightning, and thus The technique was employed perfectly, causing the lightning to whip away harmlessly.
Shadow's voice would crackle over the com with a lot of static. "Pull back. Meet me at the coordinates previously deigned. Move!" Kara would be the one first to remember, then fill in the others. It was time to rethink the strategy, so She told Lathasa's who lowered the shield. The earth was scorched and torn by the lightning and wind, and as they touched, static sparked lightly against their footwear. A moment later, the lot of them turned and dashed off towards the surrounding forest, disappearing into the depths not long after.
At first light of the lightning, Shadow had warned the team, while sheathing his blade. When they had vanished, he had just enough time to do two things. First, he would form a string of handseals, ending by gripping his right wrist with his left hand. A that point, chakra would coalesce upon his palm, as well as focus into his eyes. Suddenly the chakra on his palm would shift, and release a high pitched chirp. Lightning would swirl about him violently, as it created a coating over his hand. A moment later, he would raise his head to the sky. His eyes would be different at the same time. No longer were they the bright vibrant gold that was the norm for Shadowfire. Instead they were a pale, listless, almost white gold. Around his eyes the veins were excessively prominent, webbing out from the corner of his eyes to vanish behind his jaw, and into his hairline. This was his Kekkei Genkai, which flowed with his Hyuugan Blood. "Byakugan!"
Shadow would straighten out, and swing back his arm, as he studied the chakra within the clouds. Just as it coalesced into four main points, Shadow crouched, and with a burst of chakra, launched himself high into the air. He met his lightning bolt head on, so to speak. As it came towards him, he had enough time to pinpoint the main chakra stream within the bolt, assess it's strength, and slam the Raikiri he had created into it. Shadow's Raikiri, whose chakra would be more intense, more focused, and containing a stronger electric field would literally splice the lightning in half, sending the two sides careening by him at the earth below.
Shadow also focused his chakra into a pointed strike to split the chakra controlling the attack. With this combined strike, he was able to literally split the technique in half. He would not escape unscathed, however, as electric burns would form on his arms, legs, and across his body. When the bolt was done, Shadow would flip end over end back towards the ground, before he laid his body parallel to the ground, swung his legs in an arc, brought them close, and spun his body at high velocity towards the ground. When he neared the ground close enough, he would unfurl, and complete his spin to land on the ground. Looking up, he would spot his opponents field, and, presuming it didn't block the sight of his dojutsu, the chakra circulatory networks of his opponents.
Noting what he could in a brief glance, he would backpedal, then shunshin multiple times until he reached the point his opponents were at, well out of range of the opposing team's sensory shinobi. As he appeared in the defensive zone his team set up, Thorn came forth forming a set of seals. A moment later, her hand would glow green as she focused healing the many electrical burns Shadow has sustained in his stunt.
"Report..." "Let's see, after the attack we all dashed to this point. That about sums it up." Kara's voice dripped with sarcasm as she gave the 'report' Shadow had requested. Shadow yawned softly. "Then nobody was hurt. Good. So here's what I picked up. Eric is a Shadow manipulation artist. The barrier he threw up seems to absorb any attacks thrown at it. I would say it would be a good guess to say it could suck up people as well. It doesn't seem as if the opponents can attack when this absorption technique is going, but if it is let down, they seem to be able to. Hence the split Kirin attack... Either way, they are congregated within that defense, so our best bet is to move on to our next plan."
Shadow pauses as Thorn finished her work and stepped back. Shadow would lean back against a tree as he thought. "They also seem to each have chakra pills, which they have taken of already. It is a safe bet to guess they have more. We need to be careful on our expenditures of chakra." Shadow nodded in agreement, as he tapped his chin. "They have a bit of chakra left from their last boost, but it seems Eric is the one doing most of the work for the opposing team. He is their leader, so it would make sense, but he is also blowing through chakra like crazy."
"Should we target him directly then, and knock him out of it?" Shadow paused at the idea, then sighed. "I'd rather we hit each of their team out at the same time..." Kara crouched to place her hands against the ground, presumably to monitor the opposing team. Shadow released his Byakugan after a moment as he passed off the monitoring duties to Kara. "Do you think we should use three-thirty-one then?" Shadow blinks, and quirks a brow at Kara.
It was an odd suggestion of a plan, and Lathasa seemed to have the same ideas. "But that would mean we'd...." He trailed off as he thought about it, and turned to shadow. "It could work." Shadow was nodding, as was Thorn. "it may work, granted we follow it precisely. I'll need to call the rain again, and use the lake. But yes. it should work fine."
The team nodded, and Shadow turned to finish preparations, as Kara kept tabs on the opposing team. She would give them warning when it was time to move.