The battlefield was burning red, the air so thick with ash it could choke a god.
Amamiya Raizen stood atop a slope, watching the last of the Tōjū Clan rally under their banner — desperate, doomed, yet still swinging blades that would never reach him. Their patriarch, Tōjū Masaki, shouted orders, his voice cracked from blood and smoke. Even now, he was still trying to mobilize the remnants.
Raizen exhaled through his teeth. "Still resisting, huh? Guess some people really want the 'die standing' achievement."
In the Warring States era, clans didn't usually go this far. Pride meant nothing when you could still crawl away and rebuild. The smart ones surrendered early, offering up loyalty to survive another day. That was the ninja way — shadows bow when the fire burns too close. Honor was for samurai and tombstones.
But the Tōjū were different. They were either too proud or too stupid to kneel.
Raizen's eyes narrowed. "Then die for your pride."
His tolerance for this had already worn thin. Normally, he'd take surrendering families in — turn them into allies, add them to Konoha's foundation. Unity by practicality. But the Tōjū had crossed every line, provoked one too many warnings.
Now there would be no second chances.
"Even if the Sage himself drops from heaven," Raizen muttered, chakra flaring around him, "he's not saving you tonight."
The Susanoo's bow thrummed again — a massive, spectral weapon drawn by a skeletal titan. Fire ignited at the arrowhead, the dark flame of Amaterasu hissing like molten hatred. When it fell, the world went white-hot.
Screams erupted as black fire ate through men and walls alike.
"Demon!" someone shouted.
Raizen almost laughed. "You just noticed?"
The Tōjū ninja surged forward anyway, faces lit by the flames that would end them. Their jōnin fought like cornered beasts, but to the complete Susanoo, their efforts were little more than sparks hitting armor.
"This is what weakness feels like," Raizen said flatly, his voice echoing within the giant's skull. "You think rage makes you stronger. It doesn't. It just burns slower."
The Susanoo's sword swept across the field. A single arc — and half the enemy line was gone, erased beneath searing chakra.
Bodies fell like autumn leaves.
"End it," Raizen whispered. "Maybe that's mercy."
He lifted both hands, chakra focusing into a deadly stillness. The air vibrated. A thin, pale light began to bloom between his palms.
From below, the remaining Tōjū ninjas stared upward, frozen between awe and despair.
"Dust Release… Detachment of the Primitive World Technique."
The words left his lips like a sentence passed.
A humming cube of light formed between his hands — expanding, devouring the night.
"Wh–what is that?" someone screamed.
Masaki's eyes widened as black marks crawled across his skin, spreading like ink. He gasped, fighting something invisible, something trying to claw its way out from inside him.
Then it did. A dark mass burst from his body and evaporated in the air, leaving him pale and human again — just long enough for his gaze to soften.
He looked at his dying clan, the home he couldn't protect, and whispered something Raizen couldn't hear before falling face-first into the dirt.
The light fell.
The Tōjū lands vanished in an instant — no screams, no flames, just silence.
When the white brilliance faded, there was only a crater where the clan had once stood.
A people who had survived from the era of the Sage of Six Paths, who once ruled the northern front, were now nothing more than dust carried by the wind.
Raizen lowered his hands slowly, his breath shallow, his chakra ebbing like a tide.
"…So much for history," he muttered, eyes half-lidded. "Guess that's one less flag on the map."
He turned away from the ruins — just another ghost added to the world's growing list.