Raiju stared, his single yellow eye wide with disbelief, then boiling outrage. Twenty-five sets of crimson Sharingan, each pair spinning with lazy, predatory grace, pinned him and his overwhelmed team. The sheer, suffocating pressure of their collective chakra, even diminished as Renjiro claimed, felt like the weight of the sky pressing down.
"How is this fair?!" he roared, his voice cracking against the barrier's hum and the distant roar of Minako's fire. Lightning crackled sporadically around his fists, a sputtering counterpoint to his fury.
"Even if we break these puppets, what stops you from just butchering us the moment we're spent?!"
The bet reeked of cruel mockery, a cat playing with cornered mice before the inevitable pounce.
Renjiro – the original, still standing calmly amidst his silent army – chuckled, a dry, unsettling sound. "Fair? My dear Raiju, fairness is subjective." He spread his hands, a gesture of mock magnanimity.
"You wanted to gang up on me, five against one. I'm merely… returning the sentiment. Levelling the playing field, as it were. Think of it as Konoha hospitality." His grin was razor-sharp, devoid of warmth.
"Besides, where's your Kumo fighting spirit? A little challenge never hurt anyone… permanently."
He didn't give them time to formulate a retort, a strategy, or even a coherent thought as five clones detached from the phalanx. They moved not with blinding speed, but with unnerving, synchronised purpose, each one gliding towards a specific target: Raiju, Shirakumo, Kano, Kurotsuchi, and the indistinct Shadow.
"In the spirit of true fairness," Renjiro's voice echoed, "a reminder: each clone possesses only one per cent of my total chakra. And I promise…"** He paused, "… there'll be no ninjutsu used."
For a fraction of a second, a flicker of desperate hope ignited in the Kumo shinobi. One per cent? No ninjutsu? Perhaps… perhaps they could endure, break through, find an opening in the barrier or against the clones themselves.
Then, the clone approaching Kurotsuchi raised its hand. Not for a punch. Silver chains erupted from its palm.
"CRACKLE-SHINK!"
They snaked through the air with viper speed, not aimed to pierce, but to entangle, wrapping around the haft of Kurotsuchi's crackling weapon before he could swing.
"You said no ninjutsu!" Shirakumo gasped, her tactical composure cracking.
"Chakra Seinou," five Renjiros replied simultaneously. "Its an innate ability. Not taught, not learned. Like breathing. Hardly violates the spirit of the bet, wouldn't you agree?"
The clone yanked its chains. "SCREECH!"
Kurotsuchi, caught off guard by the sheer, unexpected force behind the pull, stumbled forward, his defensive stance broken.
Chaos erupted. The clones surged. True to Renjiro's word, they used no fireballs, no lightning bolts, no earth walls. Their assault was a terrifying ballet of pure taijutsu, augmented by the Sharingan's predictive precision and the devastating versatility of the Adamantine Chains.
The sensory hub became a shambles. Metal rods were crushed underfoot or slammed into by bodies. The orange barrier vibrated constantly with the impacts. It wasn't long before the structural integrity of the watchtower's upper level gave way.
Kurotsuchi, driven back by a powerful chain yank from his clone, slammed into a load-bearing pillar.
"CRACK-THUNDER!" Metal groaned, buckled, and then the floor beneath them tilted violently.
"Get Ready!" Shirakumo screamed, uselessly, as the world lurched.
With a rending shriek of tearing metal and shattering glass, the entire section of the watchtower housing the sensory hub collapsed outwards. Renjiro's clones reacted instantly, using their chains to anchor themselves and their opponents, controlling the fall. They didn't protect the Kumo shinobi from the debris, but ensured they didn't plummet to their deaths. Chunks of masonry, twisted metal beams, and shattered equipment rained down as the group crashed onto the roof of a lower administrative building, then rolled and tumbled down its sloped side in a cascade of destruction, finally landing in a debris-strewn plaza near the centre of Miyahira.
Dust choked the air, mixing with the smoke from Minako's distant fire. The clones immediately re-engaged, their chains gleaming in the dusty dawn light, herding the battered, bleeding Kumo elites away from the worst of the rubble but keeping the pressure relentless.
The fight spilt into the streets. Clones used chains to swing from lampposts, to trip opponents over cobblestones, or to yank them into market stalls. Miyahira's central district, already scarred by Renjiro's battle two years prior, was being systematically dismantled around them.
Raiju, bleeding from a cut above his brow, his lightning aura flickering weakly, blocked a chain strike with a crackling forearm.
"CLANG-SPARK!"
He risked a glance around, seeking an escape route, a vulnerable clone, anything. His eye swept over the surrounding buildings – houses, shops, a small tea house. And he froze, a cold dread washing over him that had nothing to do with the clone pressing him.
'Silence.'
Not the silence of stealth. The silence of absence. The windows were dark. Doors hung open or were shattered. No faces peered out in terror. No cries of civilians seeking shelter. No panicked crowds fleeing the destruction raining down in their streets. The plaza was empty except for the combatants and the swirling dust.
Where were Miyahira's people? Evacuated? Hidden so well that not even the chaos drew them out? Or… removed? The chilling implication – that Konoha and Kiri had somehow silenced or displaced the entire civilian population before the attack – created a microsecond of paralysing horror.
It was a microsecond too long.
Renjiro's clone, sensing the lapse in Raiju's focus, struck. Chains lashed out, not to entangle, but to strike. One wrapped around Raiju's lightning-coated wrist with crushing force, disrupting his chakra flow. Another snaked around his ankle and yanked brutally.
"WHUMP!"
Raiju hit the cobblestones hard, the breath knocked from him. Before he could recover, three more clones converged. Chains pinned his arms to his sides, another coiled around his throat – not choking, but applying terrifying pressure. A fourth clone stood over him, a foot planted firmly on his chest, pressing down with enough force to make ribs creak.
Raiju struggled, lightning sputtering uselessly against the adamantine bonds, his single eye wide with fury and the dawning certainty of defeat. The other Kumo elites were similarly overwhelmed nearby, pinned, unconscious, or barely conscious under the implacable silver restraints.
Suddenly, the world changed.
The dusty, smoke-hazed dawn light vanished. Not into darkness, but into an oppressive, blinding white-blue radiance that seared the eyes. The air itself screamed, ionized and burning. A pressure descended, a thousand times heavier than Renjiro's chakra field, carrying the primal fury of a thunderstorm given sentient form.
"CRACKLE-FZZZZT-OOOOOOM!"
A sphere of pure, condensed lightning, easily twenty feet across, slammed down from the heavens like the fist of an angry god. It didn't strike the clones or Raiju directly. It impacted the centre of the devastated plaza, with the force of a meteor.
"KRA-KOOOOOOOOOM!!!!"
The shockwave was cataclysmic. Cobblestones vaporized. Buildings surrounding the plaza that had survived the initial collapse and the taijutsu brawl simply disintegrated, pulverized into dust and flying shrapnel.
Renjiro's clones, caught in the periphery of the blast, were obliterated instantly vanishing in puffs of white smoke as the overwhelming energy overloaded their limited chakra reserves. The chains binding Raiju and the others dissolved into silver motes.
Raiju, shielded from the direct blast by the clone that had been standing on him (now gone), was still hurled backwards like a ragdoll. He slammed through the remnants of a wall, agony flaring through his battered body. Through the ringing in his ears and the blinding afterimage of the lightning, he saw a figure standing in the heart of the smouldering crater.
He was massive, broader than Kurotsuchi, with dark skin etched with old scars and wild, spiky white hair. Lightning crackled around him in a constant, furious nimbus, hissing and spitting like a living entity
The Third Raikage had arrived. And his fury had just rewritten the battlefield.