BAD NEWS:
If this story advances 30 chapters without a supporter on Kofi, it's gonna be shelved!!
Happy reading!!!
***
In the dense forest far from the chaotic battlefield, a single figure stood upon a high branch, observing the distant clash of armies. The orange spiral mask seemed to drink in the fading light. Uchiha Obito watched, a cold smirk playing beneath the porcelain.
"Just keep fighting like this," he murmured, his voice a low vibration. "The more desperate, the more brutal… the easier my plan becomes."
His gaze swept over the field, pausing on the diminutive figure of the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura. The Three-Tails' jinchūriki moved with a rigid, controlled efficiency—a perfect puppet dancing on Obito's Mangekyō strings.
"Fight, fight! Spill your blood and exhaust your chakra for me," Obito chuckled, a sound devoid of warmth. The space around him began to distort, swirling inward like a silent vortex. "While you're all distracted… it's the perfect time to collect the rest."
He had already sent the order. Nagato and the Akatsuki would move. The One-Tail, Shukaku, was the first target. With the Hidden Sand's forces committed here, their village was a hollow shell.
Why confront a Kage head-on when you could simply take their prize from an empty home?
Efficiency, after all, was key.
Back on the battlefield, a hush had fallen over a sector of the allied forces. All eyes were drawn upward, where Namikaze Raimon walked upon the air as if strolling through a garden, his steps causing ripples in the very atmosphere. His path led inexorably toward the floating figure of Ōnoki, the Third Tsuchikage.
"What in the world…?" Ōnoki's bushy eyebrows shot up. "Since when could he fly?!"
The Raimon of old would have considered such a continuous, chakra-intensive technique wasteful. But the Raimon of now, brimming with power that seemed to have no bottom, operated on a different logic entirely.
Why walk when you can float? Why conserve when you have infinity?
"Ōnoki-jii," Raimon called out, his tone deceptively light, almost conversational. "I asked you a question. How's that old back of yours holding up?"
As he spoke, he casually raised his right hand. Chakra erupted with a deafening, high-pitched whine. A monstrous drill of coalescing wind and crackling lightning materialized in his grip, its spiraling form thicker than a tree trunk and humming with devastating energy. The very air around it shimmered with heat distortion.
"Fūton Raiton: Taijutsu Ōgi – Fūrai Rasen Shōshō Denkō Dokuryū no Doriiru… Sen'nen no Shi!"
(Wind Release Lightning Release: Taijutsu Secret Art – Wind Thunder Spiral Ascension Electric Light Poison Dragon Drill… Thousand Years of Death!)
The grandiose, ridiculous name was delivered with absolute deadpan seriousness. The sight of that horrifying drill, its tip focused with pinpoint intensity, made Ōnoki's blood run cold. Every instinct, every memory of past battles (including a certain traumatic encounter with a much larger, fan-wielding opponent), screamed at him. His entire body, particularly one specific area, clenched in reflexive dread.
"A drill that size will send a man to the pure land!" Ōnoki hissed, cold sweat beading on his temple.
He could fly with his Light-Weight Rock Technique, yes. But in a contest of pure speed, who in the entire shinobi world could hope to match the legacy of the Yellow Flash? Escape was impossible. His only options were to fight or… to not fight alone.
"Raikage! Mizukage! Danzō! Don't just stand there! Help me!" Ōnoki's voice, usually full of gravelly pride, held an unmistakeable tremor. Facing Uchiha Madara had been a nightmare, but there was a grim honor in it. This? This was just undignified!
He propelled himself toward the ground, beelining for the other powerful figures. Seeing the imminent threat, the four on the ground sprung into coordinated action.
"Raiton no Yoroi!" (Lightning Release Armor!) The Fourth Raikage's body erupted in a crackling blue sheath of lightning, his muscles bulging.
"Kikō no Tate!" (Mechanical Shield!) Chiyo, the veteran Sand elder, manipulated a heavy puppet that unfolded into a massive, segmented shield planted before her.
Danzō, wasting no breath, drew upon his stolen Sharingan and wind nature. "Fūton: Renkūdan!" (Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!)
A barrage of compressed air bullets shot skyward, not aimed to hit Raimon directly, but to corral him, to limit his angles of approach.
Ōnoki, having reached relative safety among the group, began weaving hand signs with furious speed, a miniature, terrifyingly bright white cube of light starting to form between his palms—the pinnacle of Kekkei Tōta, Jinton: Genkai Hakuri no Jutsu (Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique).
Yagura, his eyes glazed under Obito's control, moved with eerie silence. "Suiton: Suikyō no Jutsu!" (Water Release: Water Mirror Technique!) A perfect, watery duplicate of Namikaze Raimon—complete with a shimmering, less-substantial version of the dreaded drill—rose from a puddle to face the original.
"Hold him! Just for a moment!" Ōnoki grunted, the Dust Release cube swelling in his hands.
Under the combined suppressing fire and the mirror clone's interference, Raimon's advance did seem to stall. Yet, the calm never left his face. He simply watched, an amused spectator to their panic.
Biu—
A line of pure white light, the annihilation of Dust Release, lanced through the space where Raimon had been hovering. It erased everything in its path, leaving a void of nothingness.
"Did we get him?" The Raikage growled, not lowering his guard for a second.
No one celebrated. They had faced him before, in greater numbers. They knew better.
"Where is he?!" Chiyo barked, her puppet's sensors whirring.
The five masters instinctively formed a tight defensive circle, backs to each other, eyes scanning in all directions. Even the watery Raimon-clone mimicked the posture.
Then, without a sound, a sixth figure was simply there, standing in the very center of their circle.
"Raikage-dono… catch!"
Raimon's voice was a cheerful whisper in A's ear. The real drill, humming with malice, was already thrusting toward its intended target.
ZZZZZZZZZCRACKLE—!
The drill met the Raikage's legendary Lightning Armor in a shower of violent sparks. The screech of grinding energies was deafening. For a moment, the armor held, but under the relentless, concentrated rotation, it began to thin, to warp. Raimon leaned in, applying more force.
"Hnnggrrhh! You think something like this will work on me?!" The Raikage bellowed, his face a mask of strain. "I've trained this body for decades! My glutes are invincible!"
With a titanic, full-bodied clench that would have shattered granite, the Raikage's powerful muscles contracted. CRUNCH. The wind-and-lightning drill shattered into dissipating motes of chakra, the resulting mini-explosion forcing Danzō and Chiyo to leap backward.
Raimon was already gone, a flicker of yellow light.
"Raikage-dono… impressive buttocks," Raimon's voice echoed from an unknown direction, laced with mock admiration. "But… how will you handle this?"
He reappeared in a different vantage point, his right hand already alight. A new drill formed, but this one was different. It was darker, denser, the chakra compressed to a terrifying degree. And it… pulsed.
With a menchanical CLANG-PSHHH, the drill's length violently extended nearly a foot, then retracted, then extended again, like a piston driven by malice.
"Fūton Raiton: Taijutsu Kyūkyoku Ōgi – Jakkuhamā Fūrai Rasen Shōshō Denkō Dokuryū no Doriiru… Sen'nen no Shi!"
(Wind Release Lightning Release: Taijutsu Ultimate Secret Art – Jackhammer Wind Thunder Spiral Ascension Electric Light Poison Dragon Drill… Thousand Years of Death!)
The sight of the pulsating, jackhammering drill made the Raikage's confident sweat turn cold. His invincible glutes had met their match. This wasn't about external pressure; this was about… penetration and internal devastation.
"Damn it! Why didn't I wear the Anti-Raimon-Class Buttock Guard Ninja Tool?!" he roared in frustration. He'd been so confident in his own training! But this was an escalation he hadn't prepared for!
His eyes darted across the battlefield. There! A Cloud shinobi, locked in combat with a Konoha chūnin, was wearing the standard-issue, Chakra-metal reinforced protective plate.
"You! Give it here!" The Raikage blurred with Shunshin, appearing beside the shocked ninja. In one fluid motion, he ripped the prized piece of equipment from his subordinate's rear and secured it over his own.
Channeling his potent lightning chakra into the metal, he felt a surge of defensive power merge with his own. He stood straighter, a renewed, metallic-clad confidence swelling within him. That pulsating drill suddenly looked… manageable.
***
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Uchiha Sasuke, his Sharingan spinning as he dispatched an Earth Grudge Fear puppet, caught a glimpse of the pulsating drill in Raimon's hand. His eyes widened.
"That shape… that compression… and the alternating extension… It's not just form! It's chakra nature transformation and shape transformation, pushed to an extreme and then given a rhythmic, penetrating function!" The epiphany hit him like a lightning bolt. He froze, his mind racing, the world around him fading.
"Sasuke! What are you doing, you bastard?!" Uzumaki Naruto's voice broke through his trance, just as a Sand shinobi lunged at Sasuke's exposed back. A Rasengan sent the attacker flying.
"Are you trying to die?!" Naruto yelled, frustration clear on his face.
But Sasuke wasn't listening. A wide, almost manic grin spread across his features. "Hahahaha! I see! I understand now!"
Chakra, sharp and brilliant blue, erupted in his palm. The thousand-birds screech of Chidori filled the air, but then… it changed. The chaotic, explosive scream of the lightning softened, refined, becoming a focused, deadly hum. The wild electricity straightened, elongating from his fingertips into a spear of pure, condensed lightning.
"Raiton: Chidori Eisō!" (Lightning Release: Chidori Sharp Spear!)
He thrust his arm out. The lightning spear lanced forward, its razor edge passing a hair's breadth from Naruto's cheek to impale another puppet sneaking up behind them.
"SASUKE! YOU IDIOT! YOU ALMOST TOOK MY HEAD OFF!" Naruto screamed, clutching his face where he could still feel the static heat.
Sasuke dismissed the Chidori, shooting a sidelong glance at the fuming blond. "Stop your whining, dead-last. Look behind you." A faint, reluctant respect colored his next words. "…Thanks."
Naruto's anger vanished, replaced by a brilliant, sunny grin. "Shannaro! No problem! From now on, you can call me 'Senpai,' I'm taking you under my wing! Senpai will protect you! And if I can't beat 'em," he declared, puffing out his chest and pointing a thumb toward the sky where Raimon hovered, "I'll just call my great uncle!"