"DODGE!"
The roar ripped from Ayy's throat not as a command, but as a primal, instinctual scream. It bypassed conscious thought entirely. The moment Renjiro's hand had flung that screaming rectangle of crimson annihilation downwards, something terrified within Ayy's core had shrieked.
His massive body reacted before his mind could fully process the sight – a blur of pure reflex powered by years of battle-honed survival instinct.
He threw himself sideways with explosive force, a desperate leap that carried him clear of the immediate impact zone just as the world detonated.
He hit the churned earth hard, rolling, the breath knocked from his lungs. As he scrambled up, dust coating his dark skin, the horrifying reality slammed into him with the force of the blast itself. He hadn't been fast enough for his men.
The Rasenshuriken didn't just hit; it unmade.
It struck a Kumo chunin mid-charge, a young man whose face was still contorted in a battle cry. There was no resistance. No moment of impact. One instant he was there, a blur of motion and sound. The next, he was… gone. Not blown apart, but disassembled by the screaming, grinding vortex of wind chakra. A wet, tearing shriek filled the air for a microsecond, drowned instantly by the explosion.
"Ka-Boooooooommmm!"
The detonation wasn't fire and heat; it was pure, kinetic disintegration. A sphere of screaming, blood-red wind chakra, easily a couple hundred yards across, erupted outwards from the impact point. The ground ceased to exist, vaporized into a cloud of superheated dust.
Those on the periphery suffered a worse fate. The chakra tore through flesh and bone like paper, flaying muscle from skeleton, reducing hardened warriors to crimson mist and mangled fragments in the blink of an eye.
"Whumph-flash"
The Horrific expansion of energy was followed as dismembered bodies and liquefied earth rained down hundreds of yards away.
"Boom!!!"
Ayy, shielded slightly by a low rise he'd thrown himself behind, felt the shockwave slam into him like a physical wall. The roar was deafening, a physical pressure that made his ears bleed.
He saw the light – a hellish, swirling crimson – consume hundreds of his men. The charging tide, moments before a wave of unstoppable force, was instantly transformed into a scene from a nightmare.
A colossal crater, easily fifty feet deep and twice as wide, yawned where the centre of his advance had been. Steam hissed from the glass-smooth, scorched sides. The air reeked of ozone, vaporized blood, and the unique, acrid tang of annihilated chakra.
"GET BACK! SCATTER!" Ayy bellowed, his voice raw with horror and fury, finally finding its purpose. But it was too late. The damage was already done.
Inside the ring of Rashomon gates, the world trembled violently.
"By the Sage!" gasped Hyōma Hyūga, his Byakugan veins bulging as he stared through the solid iron of the nearest Rashomon gate, his face a mask of utter disbelief.
"He… he just…"
"What? Hyōma, what's happening?!" demanded Kenji, a burly Inuzuka handler clutching his trembling ninken.
"The ground shook! Was it the eight tails Jinchuriki?"
"No!" Hyōma whispered, his voice trembling. "Renjiro-sama… he threw something… a jutsu… red, spinning…" He swallowed hard, struggling to articulate the horror he witnessed miles away. "It landed… and… it killed them. Dozens… maybe hundreds… just… gone. Vaporized. A crater big enough to swallow the Academy…"
A chuunin nearby paled. "What do you mean killed?"
"Gone!" Hyōma insisted, his Byakugan still fixed on the distant carnage. "He just did it again. Twice more. East and west of the first. Three craters… like wounds in the earth."
A stunned silence fell over the group near Hyōma. The sheer, unimaginable scale of the destruction was both terrifying and exhilarating. Hope, fierce and desperate, warred with the chilling realization of the power wielded above them.
Amidst the chaos near the centre of the fortified area, one of Renjiro's shadow clones, its Sharingan active but face etched with the strain of maintaining the barrier.
"You! Medic-nin!" it barked, pointing towards a cluster of figures collapsed near a shattered section of the inner fortifications.
"Priority on the barrier corps!" The clone's gaze swept the area, sharp and assessing.
Just then, another of Renjiro's shadow clones, the one not manning the barrier, flickered near the makeshift medical station, carefully cradling the unconscious form of Miwa Uchiha.
"Chakra exhaustion. Severe. Stabilize her," the clone ordered, its voice clipped. The medic nodded frantically, already reaching for supplies. The clone didn't linger and simply flickered away.
Up above, Renjiro gritted his teeth, feeling the familiar, searing agony race up his right arm. The skin from his fingertips to his elbow was raw, cracked, and bleeding, the chakra pathways inflamed and screaming from the backlash of moulding three Rasenshuriken in such rapid succession. His healing was strong but it couldn't keep pace with the sheer cellular damage the technique inflicted.
Below, he saw pockets of Kumo shinobi scrambling backwards, the initial charge shattered, commanders desperately trying to reorganize amidst the hellish landscape of craters and carnage. Ayy was a furious beacon of rage, bellowing orders, but the momentum was irrevocably broken.
'Enough for now,' Renjiro thought, the pain a sharp counterpoint to his cold focus. He gave Tenjin's neck feathers a gentle tug. "Pull back, Let them stew."
Tenjin's shadow blotted out the ridge where Nara Shiba and his aide stood. Renjiro dropped lightly from the eagle's back, landing silently before them.
"Shiba-san," Renjiro stated, "Reporting."
Shiba blinked, tearing his gaze from Tenjin's imposing, storm-grey form to focus on the young captain.
"Renjiro. Good timing, though perhaps a bit… dramatic. Status?"
"Barrier stable for now. Miwa unconscious, severe chakra drain. Barrier corps are spent. Kumo's advance stalled. For the moment."
"Can you break them?" Shiba asked directly, his dark eyes sharp and analytical.
Renjiro paused, a flicker of fatigue crossing his face. He glanced down at his hand. "My chakra is almost low. Maintaining the barrier is a constant drain. Three of those," he nodded towards the distant craters, "took more than just chakra." He flexed his hand slightly, a grimace touching his lips. "And I'm not sure I have enough left in the tank to survive a direct confrontation with him right now."
"Raaaaash-Booooommm!"
The sound came from the direction of the Rashomon fortress. One of the colossal gates on the southern flank, directly facing the area where Killer Bee had been, exploded inwards in a shower of twisted, demon-faced iron shrapnel. Through the billowing dust, the swirling orange chakra cloak of the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki pulsed like a malevolent sun.
Shiba's gaze snapped towards the breach, then back to Renjiro, "Can you contain him? Even briefly? If he breaches that barrier..."
Renjiro met Shiba's eyes, his jaw clenched tight. The strain was visible now. "Not without dropping the barrier. And even then..." He shook his head slightly, the unspoken truth hanging heavy: 'It might be suicide.'
Shiba was silent for three heartbeats, his mind a whirlwind of tactical calculations. The remaining Kumo forces, though mauled, still vastly outnumbered the Konoha shinobi inside the barrier. But they were disorganized, terrified. Without B leading a concentrated assault... He made his decision.
"Drop the barrier. Focus only on B. Contain him. Distract him. Give me thirty minutes. The rest of us will handle the main Kumo force."
Renjiro didn't hesitate.
"Poof!." A shadow clone appeared beside him. It locked eyes with the original for a split second, then deliberately dispelled in another puff of smoke.
"Understood. Be ready." His voice was tight. "When the barrier falls."
Inside the pulsing crimson dome, Renjiro's shadow clone suddenly appeared directly in front of Nara Shikyo, who was coordinating the last defences near the breached Rashomon gate. Shikyo jumped, hand instinctively reaching for a kunai.
"Shikyo-san," the clone stated urgently, "Prepare all forces. The barrier collapses imminently."
Shikyo's eyes widened. "What?! Why? We need this shield!"
The clone turned its crimson gaze fully on Shikyo. "Do you have the chakra reserves to sustain it indefinitely? To power it against a Tailed Beast's concentrated assault?"
Shikyo opened his mouth, then closed it, his shoulders slumping slightly.
The clone didn't wait for an answer.
"Poof!."
Another clone appeared, and dispelled itself instantly, sending the update back to the original. The primary clone turned back to Shikyo. "Commander Nara Shiba of the Second Division has arrived and will assume overall command. He orders an immediate offensive upon the barrier's collapse. Prepare your forces." Without another word, the clone flickered away.
Outside the southern breach, Killer B struck a triumphant pose. His orange chakra cloak flared brightly, tails lashing the air.
"Yo! Konoha gates, iron and mean, thought you were tough, a defensive machine! But Bee the beast, with power supreme, smashed you down, fulfilled the dream! Like cardboard boxes, weak and frail, your iron defence? An epic fail! Yeah!"
He pointed a chakra-wreathed finger towards the pulsing blood-red barrier dome visible just beyond the shattered gate. "Next up, the red bubble's turn, gonna pop it fast, watch it burn! Konoha hiding, think they're safe? Time to bring the pain, accelerate the pace! Word up!"
He drew his palm back, the orange chakra swirling violently, concentrating into a blinding point aimed directly at the centre of the barrier. He lunged forward, a confident snarl on his young face, ready to unleash a blast that would shatter the final shield.
"HA!"
His palm slammed forward with devastating force... and met absolutely nothing.
The blood-red barrier didn't shatter. It didn't resist. It simply... vanished. Dissipated like smoke in a strong wind, without a sound, without a ripple.
Killer Bee stumbled forward, his momentum unchecked.
He blinked, off-balance, his triumphant rap dying in his throat. "Yo... what the...?!" He stared at his empty palm, then at the suddenly exposed Konoha forces, then back at his hand, his expression a perfect picture of bewildered, cringe-inducing anticlimax.
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