The air in the ravaged clearing had turned to glass. Each molecule seemed frozen, charged with a lethal potential that made the very act of
The air in the ravaged clearing had turned to glass. Each molecule seemed frozen, charged with a lethal potential that made the very act of breathing feel like a provocation. The splintered trees, the scorched earth, the deep furrows torn into the ground, and the two men standing at its heart, locked in a silence louder than any battle cry.
Renjiro's world had narrowed to the titanic figure of the Third Raikage. The man didn't just stand there; he occupied space, a mountain of muscle and willpower that seemed to bend the light and gravity around him. The faint, ozone scent of his Lightning Release Chakra Mode prickled the air, a static buzz that set Renjiro's teeth on edge.
His own Mangekyo Sharingan whirled violently, drinking in the light, painting the world in the enhanced, hyper-detailed clarity that was both a blessing and a curse. It showed him everything—the minute twitch of the Raikage's finger, the shift of weight on the balls of his feet, the terrifyingly calm and focused fury in his eyes—and it screamed a single, undeniable truth:
'Danger. Imminent, catastrophic danger.'
"So," a deep rumble was heard, cutting through the ringing in Renjiro's ears and the ominous hiss of cooling rock, "this is why that bastard Hiruzen trusts you so much. Not just an Uzumaki. Not just a sensor. An Uchiha with the Mangekyo…"
Renjiro's brain, fueled by the unnatural processing power of the dojutsu, was a vortex of panicked calculations and silent, vehement curses.
'What the actual fuck is happening?!' The thought was a primal scream inside his skull.
'The plan was clean. Meticulous. Get in, extract Miyahara, get out. A ghost operation. Kumo shouldn't have even known we were here until tomorrow, let alone have the fucking Raikage himself showing up here.'
The discrepancy was terrifying. It implied a catastrophic intelligence failure, a leak, or worse—a level of foresight and counter-intelligence from Kumo that Konoha had severely underestimated. His mind raced, trying to find the flaw, the broken thread in their tapestry of plans, but it was impossible under the weight of that oppressive, violet-eyed gaze.
His Chakra Seinou had worked overtime, but Renjior was in no condition for another fight. The analytical part of his mind, the part that had survived a previous life and the horrors of this one, delivered another cold, hard fact.
'Even at my absolute peak, fresh and fully charged, I wouldn't be confident against this monster. The man fought ten thousand shinobi for three days and nights. He's a force of nature. His only known weakness is himself, his own unstoppable spear piercing his own unbreakable shield. And I am in no condition to try and engineer that paradox.'
The Raikage's voice cut through his internal maelstrom, calm, deep, and measured, each word a stone dropped into a still pond, sending out ripples of menace.
"But something confuses me," the Raikage began, his head tilting a fraction. The motion was almost casual, but it held the poised threat of a cobra. "Hiruzen is not on perfect terms with the Uchiha Clan, yet he favours you a great deal. He trusts you with… delicate matters." A pause, heavy with implication. "Or is it just the Uzumaki part that he finds useful?"
Renjiro's face remained a carefully neutral mask, but internally, it was like a key turning in a lock.
'Of course.' The thought was icy.
'Konoha has its spies in Kumo, and Kumo has its eyes in Konoha. The dance of shadows never ends. The Kages all play the same game, moving pieces on a board that spans continents. He knows about the clan tensions. He knows about my heritage. He's trying to dissect my loyalties, to understand the weapon before he breaks it.'
He offered no response. Any word could be used, twisted, turned against him or his village. Silence was his only shield.
The Raikage's eyes narrowed slightly, the calm beginning to harden into something colder, sharper.
"But to send you here," he continued, his voice dropping, the first hint of a rumble entering it, like distant thunder, "to my country… to destroy my villages…" He paused, and the air itself seemed to grow heavier, denser. He released a sigh that was not one of exasperation, but of pure, unadulterated anger, a venting of volcanic pressure.
"Hmph." It was the most dangerous sound Renjiro had ever heard.
"That is… is more than just disrespect."
The sentence ended. And with its end, the world exploded.
There was no puff of smoke, no blur in the conventional sense. One moment, the Raikage was ten yards away. The next, the space where he had been standing crackled with the aftershock of displaced air, and he was simply behind Renjiro. It wasn't speed; it was teleportation fueled by pure, raw velocity. His eyes saw it—a predictive trace, a ghost-image of movement—but it was like seeing the lightning flash a microsecond before the thunderclap hits. The warning was useless.
Pure instinct, honed by a hundred life-or-death fights and screamed into being by the Mangekyo, took over. Renjiro's body flared with chakra, and he shunshined sideways in a desperate, panicked flicker.
"FWOOM."
He reappeared twenty feet away, stumbling, his right hand clamped over his left shoulder. Agony, white-hot and searing, lanced through him. He hadn't been fast enough.
Not nearly.
In that infinitesimal window between the Raikage's arrival and his own escape, a hand clad in crackling lightning had brushed against him. Not a punch, not a grab.
Just a casual, almost dismissive touch. It was enough. The potent Lightning Release chakra and the impossible physical power behind it had torn through the freshly healed tissue like it was wet parchment, reopening the wound in a spray of blood and a grotesque shrick of tearing muscle fibre.
'I need to get out of here! NOW!' The thought was no longer analytical; it was a survival imperative, screamed from every cell in his body. He was a scalpel facing a sledgehammer. A trickster facing a god of war. This wasn't a fight; it was an execution.
The Raikage turned slowly, his expression unchanging. The display of speed, the effortless violence—it was a statement. That was me not even trying.
'I need to live to fight another day!' Renjiro vowed, the thought a final, desperate anchor.
There was only one way. His right hand flew up, forming a single, familiar hand sign—the Ram seal. He focused, pouring the dregs of his chakra into the technique, calling out to the contract, to the distant sanctuary that was his only hope.
A familiar, comforting blue glow began to envelop him, the complex formulae of the Reverse Summoning Jutsu starting to spin around his body. The world began to warp and fade, the oppressive presence of the Raikage starting to dissolve into the welcoming void of trans-dimensional travel.
For a glorious, heart-lifting second, he thought he had made it.
But the universe disagreed.
The impact was not like a punch. It was like being hit by a tidal wave made of solid granite. Something moving at an impossible velocity slammed into his chest, a blunt, world-ending force that utterly disregarded the forming summoning chakra. There was a sound like a thousand panes of glass shattering simultaneously as the jutsu was violently, brutally dispelled. The chakra surrounding him didn't fade; it detonated outwards in a concussive wave of failed energy.
Renjiro was lifted off his feet and thrown backwards like a ragdoll, skidding and tumbling across the broken ground for what felt like an eternity before coming to a painful, crumpled stop against the splintered stump of a tree.
"Trying to escape?" The Raikage's voice was a low growl, devoid of mockery, filled with a finality that froze the blood in Renjiro's veins. "Reverse Summoning won't help you. Nothing will."
Renjiro stared, true, gut-wrenching fear finally taking hold.
The Raikage took a single, deliberate step forward, the ground cracking under his foot.
"You came here," he said, the words dropping like tombstones, "and you destroyed my village. You killed my shinobi." Another step. The static in the air grew sharper, biting into Renjiro's skin. "I am not even going to kill you because you are Hiruzen's pawn, a foolish child doing his Kage's bidding."
He stopped, now standing over Renjiro, his shadow engulfing him. The Raikage's face, for the first time, showed a raw, unfiltered emotion. It was a deep, ancient, and vitriolic hatred.
"I am going to kill you," he whispered, the quiet words carrying more weight than any roar, "because you are an Uzumaki."
He leaned in closer, and Renjiro could see the storm of fury in his violet eyes.
"And I hate Uzumakis."