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Ilea watched the way the old man tightened his grip on his staff.
He hadn't given up yet.
Konoha's operatives still hovered around ready to attack. The two other Sannins were ready to make their entrance. Cale's shield shimmered in the air, pulsing like a heartbeat. And behind him, her two friends were also ready to enter if the needs called.
The ash at Ilea's feet whispered, warm against her skin. The Azarinth Core in her chest thumped, heavier with each breath. The whole room felt like a bomb ready to explode, and the old man was still flicking around the detonator.
"Tell your Hokage to stop." Ilea said quietly, close enough to Tsunade that the medic would feel her breath. Her eyes, though, were on Hiruzen over Tsunade's shoulder.
Tsunade's jaw locked. She didn't answer. Of course she didn't. Loyalty like that was bone-deep. Ilea understood. She'd fought hard for people she thought were wrong and still worth protecting.
Then, Hiruzen's chakra stirred. For the first time through this brawl it seeped into the air, twisting and whirling like an angry tide.
"ANBU." He said. The word cut like a knife this time. "New order. Take one. If they resist, break what you must. Bind them. We leave with a hostage."
There it was.
No more hedging. No more 'just questioning' bullshit. He'd stepped over the line she'd been watching.
The air behind her went very, very quiet. No one in the restaurant moved for a heartbeat before the world exploded.
Masks blurred forward. Three at once cut toward the bar, another pair angling for the kitchen gap, one more snapping straight for the demon server furthest from Cale's shield. Jiraiya and Orochimaru shifted with them, their motions loose but ready. Coverage for their Hokage if things went wrong.
Tsunade surged in at the same time, fist whipping toward Ilea's head, trying to pin her in place while the grab happened behind them.
Ilea didn't block.
She let the punch land.
Chakra Enhanced Strength met her face with a crack that would've liquefied normal skulls. But her body was anything but normal. The punch just landed on her jaw before screeching to a full halt.
The Azarinth power inside her thrummed, quickly fixing anything which was broken. Even if it was just a layer of skin.
Then Ash erupted. Not in the eco-mode it had been in until now. It was in racing mode. A rising, choking wall of grey that burst from her boots and shoulders at once, rolling out in a tight radius that stopped just before the bar, the shield, the nearby patrons.
The ANBU closest to her got pinned in the nearby woods, their momentum died as her ashes enveloped their legs, arms, faces, and slammed their body. Chakra flared from them on reflex. But it vanished, eaten.
Hiruzen's staff scraped the floor once, his weight shifting in surprise.
Ilea straightened, jaw realigning with a series of pops.
Her eyes met him across the rustling ash.
"I gave you the nice version." She said, her voice was calm like talking about a pebble on the street. "But you refuse to accept it."
She stepped.
The restaurant shook under her foot, boards cracking as she stopped pretending to be polite about pressure. Ash clung to her body like armor, her hands pulsing with primal power. The Azarinth Core poured power into her limbs; the world around her blurred as more of her stats were unshackled.
She reached the first ANBU, a man in a cat mask who had his hand half-stretched toward Vilera before Tsunade finished turning her head.
Ilea's fist hit his chest.
Not her full weight. Not all of her skills. Just enough to hurl him backward into his comrades like a thrown boulder. He smashed into another masked ninja with a thud, both of them slamming into the far wall hard enough to crack plaster and rattle hanging decorations. They slid to the floor in a limp, groaning heap.
The third ANBU by the bar froze, kunai halfway drawn.
Kashi's arrow kissed the back of his glove, the head of the arrow just a hair from his skin.
"Drop it." The Daeben said.
The kunai fell.
At the kitchen door, another masked ninja weaved between tables, eyes on Valerie. Cale's shield curved to cover, but there was still a gap. A human-sized wedge where a body rushing at full speed could still make it through.
Lightning burst from under the table.
Raon's little body surged forward in a streak of crackling white and blue, horns blazing. The bolt struck the ninja full in the chest, armor crackling. The child-dragon's magic crawled around the ninjalike water around a rock, biting into exposed nerves.
The masked man spasmed, then hit the floor in a smoking heap.
"Bad human." Raon declared, tiny voice breathless. "No touching Good Aunties."
"Good job." Cale muttered, sweat beading at his own temple as he thickened the shield in response to the shockwave. "Keep it non-lethal."
Across where Raon and Clae joined hands to attack. Lee Han squared up to another trio of Konoha operatives. One came at him low; another high; the third tried to flank. He moved with infuriating smallness. Half-steps, hip turns, flicks of the wrist. His punches weren't flashy. They were accurate.
A short chop to the elbow here, a heel to the thigh there. Knees breaking. Grips failed. In seconds, two ANBU were on the ground, gasping for air, the third clutching his shattered shoulder.
Though, compared to the devastation he made, he barely looked winded.
Orochimaru watched, eyes alight. "Fascinating," He murmured.
Then Ilea was back on Tsunade.
This time, she didn't take the blows. She wasn't measuring anymore.
Her fist hammered into Tsunade's forearm. Bones that had shrugged off earlier hits now screamed. The medic's blocking arm shot aside, deflected wide. Ilea stepped in, shoulder slamming into Tsunade's chest, ash detonating at the point of contact.
The Sannin flew.
She crashed through a pair of empty chairs and into a support beam, the wood cracking from the impact. Breath exploded from her lungs. For a moment, her limbs refused to answer.
Green chakra flared wildly as her body scrambled to triage the sudden surge of damage.
Not lethal damage. Not even close to what Ilea knew she could do.
But enough to put Tsunade out of position for the next ten seconds.
That was all Ilea needed.
Finally, the Hokage moved. She swore she could hear music playing in the background. Though, it's not as grand as final boss music.
For the first time, he stepped into her path.
His staff swept out, butt-end aiming for her temple. At the same time, his free hand flashed through seals with a speed that would've impressed a lot of people. She included.
Earth and wind this time. A slicing gust riding a jagged thrust of stone, aimed not to kill but to knock her back, to clear space, to remind everyone that the "Professor" was also called the God of Shinobi.
Ilea didn't dodge.
Ash rose around her like a second skin as the stone spike drove up from the ruined floor, the cutting wind hissing at its edges. The spike hit her midsection.
It shattered.
The wind howled around her, tearing at hair and clothes, but most of it died in the dense, hungry cloud of ash wrapped around her. Cuts opened on her arms and cheek, shallow, burning. They closed a breath later, skin knitting smooth.
The staff hit her just above the ear.
Her head snapped sideways again. More broken bones. More hot lances of pain. She moved through it.
Her hand closed around the staff.
For a moment, she and the Hokage were linked by that single, stubborn piece of wood. His chakra thrummed through it; her ash clung along the grain. They stared at each other over it.
"You hit harder than you look." She said.
"You're far too comfortable taking it." The old man answered.
He tried to wrench the staff free, but Ilea didn't let it go.
The Azarinth Core pulsed. Ash crawled down her fingers, onto the weapon, chewing faintly at the chakra lattice that reinforced it.
But just as Hiruzen felt it, the two students of his also felt it. They moved, flanking the Hokage and flying at her at the same time.
Ilea looked at them with amusement. It wouldn't be too hard for them to fight all of them at once. But to do that while keeping eyes on any sneaky ninja hungry for a hostage? She would need to unlock more of her stats.
Thankfully, those who she believed would share her burdens finally made their entrance. The sound of air being sliced echoed from her right. In the next moment, three pieces of flat and round metal glowing ominously flew towards the white haired Sannin.
From her left, a red lightning blitzed past towards the slithering Sannin. Air crackling moments later.
True to their title, the two Sannins reacted fast. Hands already weaving through seals, ninjutsu came to life a heartbeat later.
Jiraiya's hands blurred, fingers flashing through familiar patterns even as Kyrian's curse-discs screamed through the air toward him.
"Earth Style – Mud Wall!"
The floor heaved as a slab of thick, chakra-laced earth surged up between him and the incoming metal. The first disc bit into it with a nasty shriek, sinking halfway before stopping. The second ricocheted off at an angle. The third slammed into the top edge and buried itself there, curses crawling through the rock instead of his bones.
Jiraiya didn't wait.
He slapped both palms down on the new wall, chakra flaring.
"Swamp of the Underworld!"
The boards ahead of him liquefied. Wood and earth turned to a sucking morass that grabbed at Kyrian's feet. Metal hummed under the surface, but swamp won the first exchange—Kyrian's stance dipped as the ground tried to swallow him.
"Horseshit." Kyrian muttered.
From the side, a dagger whistled toward Jiraiya's face.
Kashi's doing this time. He was testing.
Jiraiya's head snapped aside. The blade nicked his cheek instead of his eye, drawing a thin line of red.
"Oi!" He snapped, peering around the edge of the mud wall. "We're having a moment here!"
He flicked a hand. A shadow clone puffed into existence beside him, already halfway through its own seals.
On the other side, Orochimaru's reaction to Trian's red-charge was different.
He didn't bother blocking with his hands. He simply vanished.
Substitution hit Ilea's spatial sense like a slippery echo. One moment Trian's shoulder crashed into Orochimaru's ribs; the next, the "body" burst into a chunk of cracked chair and splintered wood, collapsing under the impact.
The real Orochimaru slid out from under a nearby table, body uncoiling like a serpent from a hole. His sword whispered from his mouth, tip darting toward the side of Trian's neck.
Trian twisted, blood mana humming. The blade kissed skin, drawing a shallow line, but his own hand caught Orochimaru's wrist.
They grappled, strength against sinuous technique. Orochimaru's body seemed to bend in ways it shouldn't, joints flexible, bones too willing to twist. Trian's was simply unyielding, his vampyrist-granted resilience turning what should've been clean breaks into ground-out stalemates.
"Interesting technique." Orochimaru hissed. "Not chakra. Something more."
"Not yours." Trian growled, knee driving toward Orochimaru's gut.
The Sannin replaced himself again at the last instant; a broken piece of table leg took the knee instead, snapping cleanly. Orochimaru reappeared a step back, hand already flicking a trio of kunai wreathed in snakes toward Kyrian's partially-trapped form.
Kyrian's curse answered.
The discs stuck in the mud wall spat threads of sickly magic along the chakra-churned ground. The curse seized the incoming kunai, dragging their flight a few degrees off. Instead of skewering Kyrian's ribs, they clanged off Cale's shield with an ugly spark and bounced away.
Behind the earth wall, Jiraiya's clone finished its jutsu.
"Fire Style – Flame Bullet!"
A glob of flame arced over the wall toward Trian and Kyrian's position, aiming to turn the cursed, swampy patch into a boiling trap.
Raon barked.
A spray of red lightning met the fire mid-arc, detonating it into a shower of steam and harmless embers before it could land. The little dragon hissed, wings flaring, smoke curling from his nostrils.
"No burning family!" He shouted.
All of that registered in Ilea's peripheral awareness. Then, she refocused on the the man whose staff she still gripped.
She felt Tsunade pushing herself up behind her. The medic's chakra flared, trying to reassert order in a body that had just been treated like a battering ram. Bones were mostly intact. Muscles tore and were stitching. Her seal on the forehead pulsed once, a banked sun refusing to spend itself yet.
She could get back into the fight.
If Ilea let her.
Ilea didn't.
Her grip on the staff tightened. Ash chewed deeper along the lacquer, finding the channels where chakra usually flowed and making them her own. Hiruzen's fingers twitched, his body trying to decide whether to hold on or let go before the conduit turned against him.
She ripped the staff free.
The old man released the staff at the last instant. The wood spun in her hands with obscene ease. She reversed it and drove the butt into the wrecked floor, pinning it upright like a flag in claimed ground.
For a moment, all three Sannin had shown why they were feared—quick substitution, solid elemental jutsu, dirty tricks, creative use of terrain. They hadn't just fallen over.
They'd been met, tested, and then overwhelmed by opponents who were not playing on chakra's terms.
However, by the time Ilea ripped Hiruzen's staff away and planted it, the Sannin were already being forced down. Not instantly, not without resistance, but decisively.
Hiruzen stood empty-handed.
The ANBU were already paying the price for his last order.
One lay half-concussed against a pillar, mask cracked down the middle, breath wheezing. Another clutched a leg bent at an angle knees weren't meant to go, teeth bared in a soundless scream. Raon's lightning victim twitched occasionally on the boards, muscles still trying to fire without coherent instruction.
They'd live. Ilea knew that much just by the way their mana and chakra still swirled. Ragged, leaking, but stubborn. But they'd remember.
She stepped closer to Hiruzen.
"You're done." She said.
His gaze didn't drop. "Not while I stand."
Typical. She admired it on some level. Hated it on another.
"Look around." She said.
He did.
ANBU on the ground, some groaning, some unconscious. Jiraiya half-crouched, one arm wrapped around his side where Kyrian's cursed discs had sent pain singing along his ribs. Orochimaru was pinned more by Lee Han's presence than the blood mage's earlier hit. ee Han's fists seemed to be in the right place, small, efficient blows that never quite landed hard but always threatened the chance to.
The worst of Lee Han's opponents lay at his feet.
One ANBU's arm hung useless, shoulder visibly broken, collarbone likely shattered. Another wheezed, blood frothing at his lips from at least one fractured rib piercing something important. The third stared at the ceiling with wide eyes, breathing shallowly, each inhale a struggle. His chest rose. Fell. Clung.
Lee Han hadn't killed them.
He'd stopped exactly where their bodies were forced into the decision: either get better or stay broken.
Ilea's Ash approved.
She understood that kind of brutality.
Cale's shield still shimmered, a faint dome over the staff and the cluster of Tempest workers. Raon sat on the table just behind it, tail lashing, small hands clenched into fists, sparks hopping between his horns in angry little bursts. The cat at Cale's ankle arched, fur standing on end.
Ilea see Hiruzen's eyes took everything.
His chakra stirred, like an old beast dressing its wounds and considering a last lunge.
Ilea stepped into his space.
Ash flared along her arms. Not enough to burn skin, but enough that the air itself grew hot between them.
"You came here for leverage." She whispered, but clear enough that the nearest tables heard. "You thought hostages would give you that. You had your chance. You spent it."
Her eyes were flat now. No grin. No teasing.
"You lost."
His jaw clenched. "For now."
"You lost." She repeated. "Full stop."
Tsunade staggered closer, blood at the corner of her mouth, chakra clinging to her like a second skin. "If you touch him—"
"If I wanted him dead." Ilea said without looking at her, "You'd already be stepping over the body."
The medic stopped.
Seemed like that knowledge hurt more than any of her punches.
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