Raizen threaded the mountain pass at full tilt, breath steady, eyes cutting the shortest line through broken stone. Between Reina vs. Tetsuo and Karui vs. Daichi, the calculus was clear: Reina could edge Tetsuo longer than Karui could stomach Daichi's grind. Help Karui first—even if, on paper, an elite should outclass a general.
But Daichi wasn't a paper opponent. He was a problem.
Raizen flared Web Sense; the world stitched into pulsing threads—heartbeats, footfalls, chakra wash—two hundred meters out and closing.
He arrived to find Karui already walking Daichi backward through the choke. Fast hands, sharper angles, low kicks that rattled slate. A thin red line on his cheek, bruising on his ribs; static hissed off Karui's knuckles in blue grains.
At first glance she was mauling him. At second, the ground told the truth—uneven shelves, hairline cracks, a half-collapsed ledge tilting left. Daichi was curating the ground, each retreat setting Karui on worse footing, stealing just enough balance to blunt power.
"He's good," Raizen murmured. "If he can't change the flow, he still loses."
As if answering, Daichi broke contact, skidding three steps back. Hands blurred through seals; his palm hit stone.
Earth Release: Tremor Palm (土遁・震掌 — Doton: Shinchō).
The pass shivered. Pebbles jumped. Slate under Karui bucked a fraction—just enough to ruin a plant.
She stumbled forward into Daichi's range.
"Now," he growled, knuckles stone-hard as chakra skinned over them.
Earth Release: Hardened Skin (土遁・硬膚 — Doton: Kōhifu).
He drove an uppercut to meet her fall—
—and hit timber. Karui flashed from existence with a crack of bark; the Replacement left a log to eat the blow and explode into splinters.
Karui slid back into view, heel skidding, eyes bright. "Clever for a general. But if you want to catch me, you'll need more than parlor tremors. I'm elite for a reason."
She went again—faster. The beat had told her what she needed: don't plant, cut. She sliced across Daichi's guard, shoulders loose, stance narrow, feet never dead. Stone-skin muted damage, but pressure stole his breath; body shots folded his frame, calf kicks clipped the root he tried to lay down. When he reached to clinch, she pivoted and made him pay.
Watching, Raizen exhaled. She had this—and pride would turn help into insult. The mission mattered more: Tetsuo's squad still hunted their scroll. Buying Reina time meant finishing the objective now.
He ghosted along the ridge, steps thin as thread, Karui's storm breaking over Daichi's rock behind him.
Rendezvous was a ridge away. Raizen brushed the sealed tube at his belt—deliver the scroll, lock the stage—and lengthened his stride—
—when a rushing whistle cut in at the wrong angle. He twisted. A spearhead screamed past, shaved a lock of hair, and quivered in the rock. A thin chakra cord hummed from its haft back into the mist.
What—
The cord sang, snapped taut, and yanked the weapon home to a bloody hand.
Tetsuo stepped out of the haze, beaten and bruised, one eye swelling shut, smile all teeth. Half-dead—and twice as dangerous.
"And where do you think you're going?" he rasped. "You've got something I want."
Raizen's stomach dipped. He'd gambled Reina could hold Tetsuo with Aika's help. "Did you beat them?"
Tetsuo laughed, wild and bright. "Worried about your team, huh? No. I read your little plan. Left the moment I could. If Mizue and Riku couldn't stop you, I will."
Knuckle guards slid on, dull silver nodes crawling with low, mean chakra.
He limped. He wheezed. Blood wet his ribs. An injured shinobi is the most dangerous kind, Raizen heard Takuma say. Still—Mizue's mist told him something: they hadn't understood his kit. If they didn't, Tetsuo didn't either.
Edge to me—if I don't get sloppy.
Tetsuo came grinning. Raizen let Web Sense bloom—hips, feet, breath—and slid under the first hook, rolled past the backfist, let the corded spearhead snap by to bite rock. Feints layered; nothing found him.
"Dammit!" Tetsuo snapped. "Hold still and let me hit you!"
He hammered a wide swing. Raizen slipped beneath, took two light steps back, and brought up two kunai. He clanged them together—kinnnn. The note lodged in Tetsuo's ear like a fishhook.
Raizen's fingers flickered through tight seals—then…nothing seemed to happen.
Tetsuo barked a hoarse laugh. "Are you an idiot? Failed your jutsu at the finish line? Pathetic."
Raizen only smiled, lit a thin charge along the kunai, and snapped them at Tetsuo—obvious, telegraphed. Tetsuo swayed, contempt easy, and bolted straight in.
"You know," Raizen said, voice lazy as he vaulted past Tetsuo's shoulder, "medical class teaches more than patchwork."
He landed behind him and kicked the bruise Reina opened. Teeth clicked; breath hissed.
"—we study anatomy," Raizen's voice came from the right as a cord lashed left and tore only mist, "what breaks, what shuts down—"
Tetsuo's backhand smashed through a body that burst into bark—Substitution raining splinters.
"—and we study toxins."
Another kunai clanged on stone—kinnnn—the same pitch. Tetsuo spun toward it on instinct.
Raizen rose on his blind side and puffed a violet mist from a thumb-cracked ampoule. Metallic, bitter air kissed Tetsuo's face.
He coughed, blinking. "What the—Raizen! Did you—poison me?"
"Listen to the lesson," Raizen said, close and far at once. "Dilated pupils. Vestibular irritation. Thirty minutes of blur unless you sit still. Ten if you breathe and don't force it."
Edges smeared. The cord wavered. He planted to blast the haze away—
—and Raizen was there, striking where it hurt: temple tap, shin kick, ankle rake, then a bright scratch of lightning-laced steel across already-ruined ribs. Pain ripped a yelp from the bigger boy.
Sight tunneled. Ten percent clarity. Maybe less.
"Half-blinded is hard, isn't it?" Raizen murmured. "Consider it even for every time you called me useless."
Lightning flickered at Raizen's fingers. Conduction Threads—hair-thin lightning-chakra filaments—leapt to life, snaring the spear cord, wrapping Tetsuo's wrists and shoulders. He lifted him just enough that feet couldn't root, and drew his gaze.
"You're strong," Raizen said, steady. "But you keep looking down on people. Learn something today."
"Please…" Tetsuo swallowed, voice smaller. "The antidote."
"Already in the mist," Raizen said. "It burns out fast. Don't fight it."
He pulsed chakra down the threads. The shock was clean, measured—enough to take Tetsuo out without cooking him. The cord went slack. Tetsuo sagged; Raizen let him drop.
Raizen hadn't poisoned him. The violet was dyed smoke; the blur was Genjutsu: Mist Veil, anchored by that first Whisper Thread ring in his ear. Two calm breaths and a chakra check would've snapped both—but Raizen kept him angry and moving.
He knelt: pulse, breaths, pupils—strong, slow, recovering. "Good," he said, and meant it.
Then he adjusted the scroll at his belt and slid down the pass toward the rendezvous, footfalls thin as thread.
A rope ward circled a small camp. A proctor in grey stepped out as Raizen entered the perimeter.
"First arrival," the proctor said, eyes flicking to the seal tube. "Report."
Raizen bowed. "Ambush on approach. Supported two separate engagements, then advanced with the scroll to secure the objective. Tetsuo intercepted after being pushed back by Reina and Aika; I neutralized him nonlethally and proceeded here."
"Hold position," the proctor said. "We'll brief when your team arrives."
Raizen waited. Wind sketched cold lines through the pass.
Shapes broke the treeline—shadows with weight. Reina leaned on Karui's shoulder. Aika trailed three paces back, pale as paper.
Up close the smell hit—iron, wet cloth, torn bark. Reina's sleeve shredded; a welt ringed her ribs. Karui's forearms were striped with wire bites. Aika's hands trembled with chakra-tremor, the space behind her eyes hollowed out by too many summons.
Tetsuo did this. And still had gas to come looking for me after. The thought landed cold. Raizen pushed it aside. Work first.
"Down," he said, guiding Reina to a tarp. "Karui, perimeter. Aika, sit—sip, don't gulp."
He checked pupils—reactive—taped a tight band across Reina's ribs. Alcohol met Karui's cuts; she hissed, and he blew once, set a butterfly bandage, drew a quick Checksum Knot to hold the wrap. Aika got sugar water, salt, a fingertip test—warm, shaky, present.
Only then did the tremor in his hands show. He made a fist and it stopped.
"We take the recovery window," he said, steady. "Tetsuo's squad is no joke."
Karui nodded once. "Next time, we hit first."
Reina exhaled, a ghost of a smile. "Next time, we make him miss."
Night thickened. The fire was a careful, low coil. Wind talked in the pines.
Much later, footsteps rustled the muffle's edge—measured, no attempt to hide. A paper lantern pooled gold between trunks. Principal Kanzo stepped into camp with two grey proctors, eyes moving over them the way a carpenter checks a frame.
He didn't waste words. A waxed scroll came out—red seal, tamper-lines glittering.
"Phase advance," Kanzo said quietly. "Your next objective begins at first light."
Raizen took it with both hands. The seal's stamp bit his thumb—Barrier Corps red. High risk.
"Rendezvous?" Reina asked, already pushing up on an elbow.
Kanzo's mouth ticked—approval of the question, not the effort. "Brief inside the seal," he said. "For now: eat, sleep, and do not die in the next four hours."
The proctors melted back into the trees. The lantern's gold shrank and vanished.
Raizen stared at the red wax a heartbeat, set it by his kit, and checked them each once more—Reina's band, Karui's wraps, Aika's hands finally stilling—then lay back.
Dawn would come fast. So would the next hit.
He closed his eyes and listened to their breathing until it matched.