The air in the Katabami mine wasn't air anymore. It was a pressurized wall of static.
The hair on Sasuke's arms stood straight up, tingling painfully as the charge built in the air.
Raiga Kurosuki stood knee-deep in the boiling mud, his arms spread wide. The Kiba blades were buried to the hilts in the slurry, acting as grounding rods for the storm swirling overhead.
"If I cannot bury the dead," Raiga shrieked, his voice distorting as electricity arced between his teeth, "then I will bury the living! I will turn this wound into a crater!"
The sky answered. A funnel of natural lightning connected with Raiga, turning his body into a blinding pillar of white fire. The mud around him hissed, flashing into steam instantly.
The light was so bright it cast sharp, black shadows that stretched violently away from him, flickering like a strobe light.
"Retreat!" Kakashi's voice cut through the thunder.
"He's going critical! Move the civilians! Now!"
Anko grabbed Tsurai and Karashi, hauling them back toward the ridge.
Sylvie and Naruto scrambled for cover behind the rubber-matted tower.
Sasuke didn't move.
He stood his ground, the wind whipping his hair into his face. He watched Raiga absorbing the storm. He watched the man becoming a bomb.
He's pulling it all in, Sasuke analyzed, his Sharingan spinning wildly, tracking the flow of electrons.
He's not controlling it.
He's acting as a vessel.
Sasuke could taste copper in his mouth, a sharp metallic tang that flooded his senses as his own chakra spiked.
Sasuke felt the Curse Mark on his neck throb—a hot, heavy pulse of approval.
A vessel has a limit, the thought came, cold and sharp. A battery explodes if you overcharge it.
"Sasuke! Move!" Naruto screamed from the cover.
Sasuke ignored him. He ignored Kakashi. He ignored the instinct to run.
He bent his knees. He channeled chakra into his left hand.
Chidori.
The birds began to chirp. But Sasuke didn't hold the power back. He fed it. He pushed more chakra into the technique than he had ever dared, letting the blue lightning turn jagged and violent.
The sound of the Chidori changed from a chirp to a scream—a high-pitched whine that threatened to shatter his own eardrums.
He didn't aim for the heart. He aimed for the circuit.
Sasuke launched himself.
He blurred across the boiling mud, screaming a war cry that sounded more like a snarl.
Raiga saw him coming. The Swordsman laughed. "You feed me? You fool! I am lightning incarnate!"
Raiga opened his guard, ready to absorb Sasuke's jutsu and add it to the detonation.
Sasuke hit him.
He slammed his left hand directly into Raiga's chest—not piercing through, but grabbing the Lightning Strike Armor.
"Drink this!" Sasuke roared.
He didn't strike. He pushed.
He emptied his reserves. He forced his own volatile, hate-tinged chakra into Raiga's already unstable network. He poured the Chidori directly into the Swordsman's meridian system like pouring gasoline into a grease fire.
A shockwave of pure force rippled out from the impact point, blowing the mud back in a perfect circle and exposing the dry, cracked earth beneath.
Raiga's eyes went wide.
The laughter stopped.
"Too much..." Raiga gasped. "It's... too hot!"
The blue of the Chidori warred with the yellow of the natural lightning inside Raiga's body. The feedback loop was instantaneous and catastrophic.
SCREEEEEEE.
The sound wasn't thunder. It was the sound of biology failing physics.
Raiga screamed. It was a long, ragged sound that tore his throat apart. The smell of cooked ozone and charred meat hit Sasuke instantly, sickeningly sweet and overpowering. His skin began to glow from the inside out. The bandages on his arms disintegrated. The veins in his neck turned black, then white, then ash. His body crumbled not like flesh, but like a burnt log in a fireplace—flaking away into grey dust.
"Sasuke, let go!" Kakashi yelled.
Sasuke didn't let go. He gripped Raiga's burning vest, his own face twisted in a manic grimace. He felt the man dying under his hand. He felt the resistance snap.
Burn, Sasuke thought, the Curse Mark spreading across his face. Burn it all away.
FLASH.
A shockwave of pure heat exploded outward.
When the light faded, Sasuke was standing alone in a circle of glassed earth.
The ground beneath his feet was fused into obsidian, slick and hot, radiating heat through the soles of his boots.
There was no body. Just a pile of grey ash and the two Kiba blades, glowing dull red from the heat.
And behind the ash... Ranmaru.
The child had been thrown clear by the blast. He lay in the mud, staring at the pile of dust that used to be his universe.
Ranmaru didn't scream. He didn't cry. He just stared, his red eyes wide and empty, as if his soul had been cauterized along with Raiga.
Sasuke stood panting, smoke rising from his left hand. His arm was numb. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Smoke curled from his fingertips, grey and wispy, vanishing into the sudden, deafening silence.
He looked at the ash. He looked at the silence.
He turned around.
He expected awe. He expected relief.
The team had gathered at the edge of the crater.
Sylvie was standing with one hand over her mouth, her other hand trembling as she pointed at the ash.
Sylvie swallowed hard, the sound audible in the quiet, as she fought the urge to retch.
She looked sick.
Naruto was gripping his fists so hard his knuckles were white. He wasn't looking at Sasuke; he was staring at the ground, his teeth gritted.
"I did it," Sasuke wheezed, straightening his back. "I stopped the explosion."
Nobody cheered.
Anko stepped forward. She wasn't looking at the victory. She was looking at Sasuke's eyes. She was looking at the lingering embers of the Curse Mark on his skin.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sasuke snapped, the adrenaline turning into defensiveness.
He swept his arm toward the pile of ash.
"I FINISHED IT! I STOPPED THEM! IT WAS ME."
"Not... like... that..." Naruto whispered. The words sounded like they hurt.
"He was going to kill everyone!" Sasuke shouted, his voice cracking. "I saved you! I saved the miners! I won!"
"No," Anko spat.
She walked up to him. She didn't pat his shoulder. She looked him dead in the eye, and for a second, Sasuke saw genuine fear in the Special Jōnin's gaze.
"You didn't win, Uchiha," Anko said, her voice low and dangerous.
"You tortured him. You burned him alive because you wanted to see him pop."
Anko's voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a judge passing a sentence.
She gestured to the traumatized, silent Ranmaru.
"Look at the kid," Anko hissed. "Look at what you did."
Sasuke looked at Ranmaru. He felt nothing. The boy was an enemy combatant. A tool. The tool was broken. That was war.
"I did what was necessary," Sasuke said cold, turning away from them. "If you're too weak to do the math, that's your problem."
He walked past them, heading toward the mine exit.
His boots crunched loudly on the salt crust—crunch... crunch... crunch—a lonely rhythm that marked his departure.
As he passed Kakashi, the Copy Ninja didn't stop him. Kakashi just watched him with a sad, singular eye.
They don't get it, Sasuke thought, the isolation settling over him like a cloak. They play at being ninjas. But when the monster shows up, they hesitate.
The wind picked up again, blowing the pile of ash across the mudflat, erasing the last trace of the man he had killed.
He clenched his burned hand.
I didn't hesitate. I am the only one who can do this.
(Kumogakure (The Hidden Cloud Village))
SLAM.
The desk cracked down the middle.
Dust puffed up from the papers on his desk, dancing in the sudden vibration.
The Fourth Raikage, A, pulled his massive fist back. Steam curled from his shoulders.
"The Land of Rivers?" A roared, his voice shaking the windows of his office in the high peaks.
Thunder rumbled outside, shaking the glass in its frame—rattle-rattle—as if the sky itself was answering his anger.
His assistant, Mabui, didn't flinch. She adjusted her glasses, holding the scroll steady.
"Yes, Raikage-sama. A massive electrostatic discharge was detected two hours ago. The signature matches the Kiba blades. But... it was erratic. And then it vanished."
"Raiga," A grunted, pacing the room like a caged tiger. "That Mist trash has been squatting on my border for months."
"The report says Konoha ninja were seen in the area," Mabui added quietly.
A stopped. He turned, his muscles tensing.
"Konoha?"
He walked to the window, looking out over the thunderclouds that perpetually shrouded his village.
"First they ally with Suna. Now they're cleaning up Mist's garbage in a neutral buffer zone?"
A narrowed his eyes.
"Hokage... you are getting bold," A growled. "If the Leaf thinks they can police the world, they are going to get burned."
He turned back to Mabui.
"Send a team. I want the swords. And I want to know exactly which Leaf dog pissed on my fence."
He crushed the scroll in his hand, the paper groaning under the pressure of his grip.