[send power stones please]
"How's the situation up front?"
Inside the border outpost at the edge of the Land of Wind, the garrison's overall commander squinted into the drifting yellow sand. He tugged his hood lower, then turned to question his subordinate.
As the overall commander, he couldn't just sprint to the battlefield.
He had to stay here and keep the whole situation stitched together.
Besides—
the mission he'd been handed was dangerous, troublesome, and frankly absurd.
Pulling border defense units off their posts to capture a single Konoha ANBU?
This was the first time he'd seen something this ridiculous.
To him, it was outright irresponsible—toward the Land of Wind, toward Sunagakure's border, toward everything.
This kind of mobilization could handle a real conflict.
Not a "small incident."
A war.
High-intensity clashes between armed shinobi forces, not some low-intensity skirmish.
The commander had an ugly metaphor stuck in his mind:
It felt like a dog had run into a field packed with buried explosive tags—
and now they were being ordered to rush in and "save the dog," like idiots.
The comparison wasn't perfect, but the feeling was uncomfortably close.
"Sir, all units have received the orders," the shinobi beside him reported immediately. "They're moving toward the engagement zone. But there were already over a hundred shinobi in the area—honestly, even without reinforcements, it should've been enough to solve it."
"Mm. That's what I thought too." The commander nodded.
Because he couldn't imagine anyone calmly dealing with a hundred-plus shinobi head-on.
In his memory, only the Cloud's Third Raikage had ever done something like that—fighting tens of thousands for three days straight—
and even then, the Raikage died from sheer exhaustion.
That was Kage territory.
For anyone else? Forget it.
And this time they weren't even facing a Kage—
just Konoha ANBU.
Sure, the target supposedly knew Flying Thunder God.
But that just meant he could run fast.
If you surrounded him and cut off his escape, then the end result was obvious:
Death.
"Sir!"
While the commander was still thinking, someone slammed into the room.
A messenger—panting, eyes wide, face pale with panic.
"What is it?" The commander frowned. His voice hardened. "What happened? Why are you in this state?"
"Our unit… our unit…" The messenger tried to speak several times, but couldn't get it out. He was too winded—too frantic.
The commander's aide moved quickly, took the letter from the messenger's hands, and passed it forward.
The commander unfolded it—
and the moment he read, his vision went dark.
The letter described the engagement zone's current situation.
And one line, in particular, practically burned through the paper:
Nearly a hundred border shinobi killed by a single person.
The commander felt like vomiting blood.
What the hell was happening?
Wasn't it just one Konoha ANBU with a space-time technique?
Could a space-time technique erase that many people?
And then, abruptly, something clicked—
a memory tied to Konoha's Fourth Hokage.
"…Don't tell me…" the commander muttered, voice turning hollow. "Is the legend… real?"
As a Suna shinobi, he'd never believed enemy-country myths.
He'd always dismissed them as propaganda.
Especially after Namikaze Minato became Hokage—he'd been sure the stories were simply built to inflate the man's prestige.
But now—
reality was cracking his assumptions apart.
"Move!" The commander sucked in a breath and forced himself back into command mode. "Get this to the village—now. Let the village decide how we proceed!"
"Yes, sir!"
The aide spun to leave—
but before he reached the door, another messenger crashed in.
"Sir—bad news!" the shinobi shouted. "The village is under attack! It's chaos over there—we can't contact the village at all. What do we do now?!"
"…What?"
The commander's head throbbed.
No contact with the village meant no clear decision chain, no confirmation, no authority.
And worse—
he was terrified of issuing an order that contradicted the Kazekage's intent.
The Kazekage's initial order was clear:
Capture the Konoha ANBU alive, unless absolutely impossible—then kill.
At first, the commander hadn't cared much. Capturing meant interrogation. Simple.
But now he understood.
If this man truly had Flying Thunder God…
then extracting that technique could transform Sunagakure's future.
But the current situation made "alive capture" feel like a fantasy.
The target was a demon.
Almost a hundred shinobi—slaughtered.
And yet, if they killed him, even if they took the head back and tried to extract information from the brain…
death still damaged the brain. That damage was irreversible.
And it would make extraction vastly harder.
He didn't dare make that call lightly.
He also wasn't sure the call would even matter.
BOOM—!
The ground shook violently.
A vast, overwhelming chakra pressure washed over the outpost like a wave.
Buildings trembled. Objects crashed to the floor.
It took several breaths before the shaking finally stopped.
"…What was that?" the commander asked, stunned.
Then he bolted outside.
His subordinates stared at each other and followed.
The outpost courtyard was packed now—everyone had been pulled out by the quake.
The commander didn't speak.
He leapt up onto the lookout tower—
and when he saw the colossal silhouette in the distance, towering like a mountain…
his mind went blank.
...
"Count on you, Lizardmaru."
Standing atop Lizardmaru's head, Hikaru looked down at the Suna shinobi scattered by the summon's arrival. A few unfortunate ones had been crushed flat under its bulk.
Hikaru laughed softly and patted Lizardmaru's head.
"Hold them. My shadow clone will stay with you. Can you manage that?"
"Why do you always attract this much trouble?" Lizardmaru grumbled. "And why is it that every time you summon me… it's because you're trying to retreat?"
"Don't sweat the details." Hikaru's tone stayed light. "I'm counting on you."
"Leave it to me," Lizardmaru replied calmly. "You can relax."
Lizardmaru really was reliable—more reliable than most people Hikaru had ever met.
Once it agreed, it would do the job properly.
No slack. No excuses. No half-measures.
Last time, Hikaru only needed "some" stalling against Sasori—
and Lizardmaru had ended up smashing who-knew-how-many puppets.
According to the smaller lizards afterward, it had destroyed hundreds.
Sasori lost a fortune.
Hikaru didn't care about Sasori's losses.
But Lizardmaru's loyalty and power?
That made him genuinely pleased.
After giving his instructions, Hikaru swept the area with his sensory field to confirm no one was watching too closely.
Then he formed a shadow clone—
and locked onto one of the small lizards he'd marked earlier.
The entire battlefield center was flooded with summoning smoke. Even without checking, Hikaru knew no one would notice small movements inside it.
Still—better safe than sorry.
He made a quick seal.
His real body vanished from Lizardmaru's head.
And when he reappeared, he was already outside a small town—
four to five kilometers away from the engagement zone.
His chakra boost let him stretch Flying Thunder God farther than before.
But he didn't push the range too hard.
Insurance mattered.
What Hikaru didn't expect was that the moment he arrived at the town entrance, he sensed something immediately.
"A barrier?"
Hikaru frowned.
This wasn't a core location. It was barely a town at all.
For Sunagakure, maintaining a true sealing team wasn't easy—
and based on ANBU intel, Suna's sealing corps was small to begin with.
"So they sent the sealing team here to intercept me?"
The thought made Hikaru smile.
For most shinobi, this would be a nightmare.
A barrier on a mandatory route meant you couldn't pass cleanly—
and even if you forced your way through, your location was exposed.
Endless pursuit would follow.
One misstep, and you'd die.
But for Hikaru?
This was good news.
Because he could wipe them out.
And if he wiped out Suna's sealing team—
the blow to Sunagakure would be far more severe.
Which meant more credit waiting for him back in Konoha.
Of course, if they dared set a barrier here, they wouldn't be alone.
There would be protection.
But still—
if he didn't try, he'd regret it.
So Hikaru guided his small lizards into motion and began probing the barrier with his sensory field.
Breaking a barrier was never easy—especially without knowing its structure.
Normally, you needed the barrier's passcode to slip through, like Uchiha Itachi returning to Konoha after the Chūnin Exams.
The other method was the Pain method:
Don't solve it.
Smash it.
Crude, brutal—effective.
And unless something changed, that was exactly what Hikaru would do.
Not because he couldn't slip through quietly.
He had Flying Thunder God, and he'd already sent lizards inside.
He could simply teleport past the barrier via a marked lizard and vanish before anyone reacted.
But Sunagakure clearly hadn't accounted for one thing:
Hikaru didn't just have sensory abilities.
Flying Thunder God itself was tied to sealing.
They were playing barrier games against the wrong opponent.
Hikaru waited at the gate until all his controlled lizards had entered the town.
Then he moved.
He walked straight in—
as if he had no idea the barrier existed.
A moment later, faint chakra ripples spread outward like rings on water, racing to alert whoever maintained the seal.
Hikaru tried to trace the source with his sensory field.
No luck.
Whoever set the barrier knew what they were doing.
But his lizards were already moving—those little bodies were perfect for tracking the ripple's aftertaste.
And if the sealing team had guards, those guards would move to intercept him.
His lizards could track their chakra signatures too.
"Here they come."
Hikaru lifted his head.
He could already sense multiple chakra presences rushing in.
Not long after—
a squad of Suna ANBU, masked and silent, appeared in front of him.
Their chakra was thick.
And the leader's chakra stood out even more.
Hikaru never judged strength purely by chakra volume—
but as a reference, it was useful.
His own chakra began to stir.
He drew his blade.
This time, he intended to end it quickly.
Because the flare in the sky had already told him something:
His time wasn't unlimited.
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