Night. A thunderstorm.
The rolling "boom—boom—boom" of thunder and the crash of torrential rain drowned out footsteps and screams. Lightning flashed again and again, ripping the darkness open and turning night into day for a heartbeat at a time.
In those brief bursts of light, you could make out three Konoha shinobi in green flak jackets sprinting in a line—front to back—through a stretch of terrain. Every one of them wore the same expression: panic, urgency, and raw fear, like some monstrous predator was right on their heels. They looked like they'd trade anything for an extra pair of legs—anything to squeeze a little more speed out of bodies already at their limit and reach safety.
By rule, whether you were combat troops or support, every squad operated in groups of four. If someone died, the village assigned a replacement. If only one person remained, they'd be reassigned to another undermanned unit or temporarily placed in support. Barring special circumstances, four was non-negotiable.
So if only three were running, it meant one teammate was already dead.
BOOM—!
Lightning split the sky again, turning night into glaring white. The thunder hit like a hammer.
And when the thunder faded, the fear on the Konoha shinobi's faces deepened.
Because now there were only two.
Another one had fallen behind.
Rewind to the instant the lightning tore the night open—
Pshk—
The sound of thunder landed almost on top of the sound of a blade biting flesh.
The Konoha shinobi running last—the one covering the retreat—had barely registered the sudden daylight when his eyes caught a ninja sword coated in flowing water. Pain stabbed his neck and heart at the same time.
A heartbeat later, his head separated from his body. His vision spun—and then the world went black.
Two Rain shinobi stood there: both wearing gas masks. One held the blade. The other kept a hand seal—a genjutsu sign.
After that clean kill, both Rain shinobi melted into water and vanished, resuming the chase after the final two Konoha shinobi.
From the strike to their disappearance took under three seconds—perfectly timed with the thunder fading.
By the time the second Konoha shinobi noticed the teammate behind him had dropped, he'd already leapt far ahead. He tried sensing chakra—found nothing. No teammate. No enemy.
He understood immediately: another assassination.
And the most crushing part?
Even his sensing couldn't lock onto the enemy's chakra.
Still—he was a shinobi. A professional.
So he slowed down, deliberately making himself bait to buy the last teammate time.
Once he accepted death, his mind oddly steadied.
He kept his sensing hand seals… but inside his body he deliberately scrambled his chakra flow.
His expression snapped.
He yanked a kunai from his pouch and hurled it toward eleven o'clock.
A bolt of lightning flashed right then, lighting up a Rain shinobi less than three meters away.
The kunai struck—but there was no impact sound.
The Rain shinobi dissolved into a puddle.
Water clone.
The Konoha shinobi's instincts screamed. He jumped—
—and the back of his neck pricked.
Several water senbon, hidden by the rain, hit their moving target with surgical precision.
Then a hand tapped lightly through the thick flak jacket.
BOOM—!
The detonation of a tag and the crack of thunder overlapped perfectly.
As fire swallowed him, he saw three figures chasing after his remaining teammate.
His mind went heavy. His vision blurred.
Somewhere through the haze, he caught one last image—someone with a ninja sword… taking his head.
"Damn it!"
The last Konoha shinobi—running in front—felt it almost immediately.
He knew the two behind him were dead.
The moment their hiding spot had been discovered, the moment the first teammate was assassinated, he'd already expected this outcome.
He wanted to stay and fight side by side. Die together. Take someone with them.
But logic—and shinobi discipline—wouldn't let him.
In the enemy's home field, three versus four wouldn't even guarantee a single trade. In weather like this, you couldn't even bet your life to wound them.
So you run.
If you're lucky, someone survives.
If nobody survives, you still drag it out—pull the enemy toward your side, buy time for reinforcements. Maybe a miracle happens. Maybe one squad trades for another.
Just like that Konoha shinobi who once screamed at Hatake Sakumo that the mission mattered more than saving him.
These inheritors of the Will of Fire didn't fear death.
They feared dying without meaning.
But what he never expected was how fast the enemy's knives were.
The distress signal had barely gone out before his other two teammates were erased. This wasn't some ordinary assassination cell.
Lightning cracked again, turning night into day—and the last Konoha shinobi froze.
Four Rain shinobi had appeared sometime during the chaos, standing in a clean four-point formation that boxed him in.
With only one target left, the Rain squad clearly wasn't interested in stealth anymore.
They wanted him to die slow, helpless, and aware.
He didn't beg.
The moment he realized he couldn't escape, despair in his eyes hardened into resolve. His hand slid toward his pouch, ready to draw, ready to form seals, ready to die properly.
In the thunder and darkness, nobody moved. Everyone waited for the right timing.
Maybe the atmosphere itself demanded it—
Less than ten seconds later, a massive bolt of lightning ripped the night again.
Three Rain shinobi shifted—about to unleash their finishing move.
And then the Rain shinobi still holding the genjutsu seal suddenly shouted:
"Retreat!"
And vanished without hesitation.
Just like the Konoha team had turned and run the instant their first member dropped—only this Rain shinobi's reaction was even more extreme.
That overreaction made the other three hesitate.
Bzzzzzz—
The shriek of high-frequency electricity reached them—far at first…
then suddenly close.
The three Rain shinobi looked toward it and all three vanished at once.
The Konoha shinobi who'd been seconds from dying felt his chest unclench.
And in the lightning-bright world, a figure wrapped in black crackling current appeared—flickering forward like teleportation, crossing the distance in a few blinks.
The electricity wasn't coming from his body.
It was roaring from his right palm—
a black-and-white lightning mass, screaming like a thousand chirping birds.
"Yoru-sama—!"
The Konoha shinobi barely got the name out before that figure disappeared from his vision again.
He abandoned any thought of running and turned to follow.
He tried sensing—
caught Yoru's chakra for a split second—
and then it vanished beyond his range.
So he sprinted full-speed toward the last point he'd sensed.
Near that spot, he found a corpse split cleanly in two—not one of his teammates.
A Rain shinobi.
The face was frozen in terror, like he'd seen a monster. There was even confusion left in the eyes, like he didn't understand how he'd died.
The Konoha shinobi couldn't sense Yoru anymore. He stared at the glass-smooth cut and muttered in awe:
"Just over a month… and Yoru-sama's movement is even faster. And Black Lightning's destructive force is stronger, too."
The scene jumped to the other three Rain shinobi—
If you could view the battlefield from above, the chase would look like a grotesque racing game: a supercar letting three beat-up scooters scatter and get a head start, then catching them one by one and smashing them into scrap.
Unlike the Konoha squad that had tried to keep formation, the Rain shinobi scattered the moment they heard the warning.
Everyone for themselves.
They knew there'd be no rescue. No time.
All they could do was pray the monster didn't pick them.
They used everything: Water Body Flicker, Hiding in Water, Water Clones—some even used Shadow Clones to further confuse the pursuit.
It didn't matter.
Before they could get far, the sound of a thousand chirping birds reached them.
Then pain ripped through their bodies.
A black-and-white lightning spear punched through them faster than their nervous systems could react.
Even those who managed to Water Substitute and reform—before their bodies fully reconstituted, the lightning spear swept sideways and cut them in half.
It didn't feel like a spear anymore.
It was a laser, like Storm Release—
except far more powerful.
A graze was enough. Flak jackets and armor tore like paper.
The last Rain shinobi died the most brutally.
The black-and-white beam skewered him and kept going into the ground.
Then the beam rose—splitting his upper body clean in two.
Even the ground where the beam had entered was cleaved, the cut surfaces smooth and straight.
If not for the lingering lightning traces, you'd almost think it wasn't physical or energy-based at all—more like a rule carving reality apart.
In under two minutes, the Rain assassination squad—scattered and sprinting at full speed—was hunted down and killed.
The entire time, Yoru didn't cast a single visible ninjutsu.
He simply gripped a mass of nature-transformed lightning and used shape transformation to form a laser-spear, controlling its movement at will.
But that level of nature + shape transformation was already a technique in its own right—an A-rank Lightning Release: Chidori Senbon Spear—better known as Chidori Sharp Spear.
To outsiders, it looked like a "Black Lightning" secret art.
To War-Arc Kakashi, it would've looked like a Kamui-empowered Chidori—Kamui Raikiri and Kamui Chidori Sharp Spear.
But for Gojō Yoru, it had only one true name:
Time–Space Release: Chidori
Time–Space Release: Chidori Sharp Spear
It had been over a month since the second evolution ended.
Yoru returned to the battlefield about half a month ago—and his power was terrifying. Day or night, Rain shinobi began to panic at the mere rumor of him.
And his fame spread again across the four-nation battlefield.
Because—
Yoru had become stronger.
Already recorded in every nation's shinobi handbook, already bearing the titles Black Flash and Fastest in the Ninja World, his body flicker speed was in the tiny top tier of the entire era.
Only a handful could compare: Gojō Yoru, Hatake Sakumo, the Third Raikage.
With Flying Thunder God, Yoru was the fastest—like Tobirama reborn.
His infamous silent step + chakra concealment + earth submersion + lightning-stimulated body activation made him a nightmare assassin—some even called him second only to Hanzō.
After all, Sakumo didn't have the "injured the salamander" feat.
That speed was already at the edge of what the shinobi world believed possible.
And then Yoru came back from his "leave" looking like he'd shed his skin.
He was faster. His chakra climbed from "special jōnin baseline" to a true all-round jōnin standard—stunning countless people.
But the most absurd change was his Lightning Release.
During his leave, it looked like he'd undergone brutal lightning training.
Before, his lightning stimulation produced only a few arcs.
Now electricity flooded his entire body—boosting speed while forming an attack-and-defense shell similar to the Cloud Village's Lightning Chakra Mode, a fusion of nature and shape transformation.
On top of that, he'd developed close-range and mid-range Black Lightning techniques—Chidori and Chidori Sharp Spear.
His "Black Lightning secret art" was no longer rumor. It was confirmed.
But unlike the Third Raikage's Black Lightning—diffuse, agonizing, with paralysis potential—Yoru's Black Lightning trait was destruction.
He could even merge it into ordinary lightning, giving it cutting and piercing force close to the Kusanagi-like blade itself.
Armor didn't matter. It tore.
After returning, Yoru rarely used Flying Thunder God or classic assassination tricks.
Most of the time, he fought head-on with pure movement and lightning.
Only then did some strong fighters realize his weakest area—sensing—had improved too.
With faster reflexes and unrivaled movement, he almost seemed like a sensor: he'd dodge attacks and techniques at the last possible instant without needing teleportation.
The lightning shell around him also made genjutsu specialists—who once countered him—feel helpless.
Anyone he targeted alone—chūnin or jōnin—if their neural response couldn't keep up, they became a wooden dummy waiting to be cut down.
He could do this before, but never this easily—never this long.
This return, Yoru displayed true dominance.
There's no official rank called "elite jōnin"—it's a label for the strongest jōnin, the village's Ace-class.
They can defeat multiple jōnin, threaten Kage, kill Kage. They hold famous nicknames. Everyone knows them.
The Five Kage are simply Aces with the title "Kage."
And now Gojō Yoru was one of them.
The next morning—
In Amegakure's tower, Hanzō listened to reports.
"Hanzō-sama… last night's assassination tally was thirteen enemy kills. But we lost six assassins. One full cell was wiped out."
Sagawa knelt and reported.
"Before the mission I ordered them to retreat immediately if they sensed strong chakra. Even then, a full cell was annihilated. In storm nights like that, only someone with overwhelming body flicker speed could make an assassination squad unable to escape. I suspect it was Konoha's Black Flash."
"And now we're losing people every night…" Hanzō murmured. "What did that boy go through to grow this much in such a short time?"
Then he asked the real question:
"How long can our supplies last?"
Sagawa's face tightened.
"Two months, maybe a little more. But at this burn rate, production can't keep up. Even without accidents, support can only resupply twice a month."
"If this continues… we can't hold past next year."
For once, Hanzō's eyes held something like uncertainty.
He looked down at Sagawa and asked quietly:
"Tell me… did I make a mistake?"
"You didn't, Hanzō-sama. We're all willing to die for you," Sagawa said, unwavering.
"…Is that so?"
Hanzō smiled faintly and waved him away.
After Sagawa left, Hanzō finally let his mask slip.
"Not even two years… is this the difference between small nations and great ones? Is a small country's fate truly impossible to change?"
"Top of the ninja world… demigod…"
He laughed under his breath.
"What a joke."
For the first time, the fire in Hanzō's heart sank.
His old ambition—to lead Ame, break the great nations' oppression, change the world—was being crushed by reality.
A demigod was still not the God of Shinobi. He couldn't pacify the era like Hashirama.
One man's strength wasn't enough. Konoha could tie him down with one front, grinding him into helplessness until he starved himself out.
Even if he shattered this front, what he'd have left wouldn't be enough to invade the Land of Fire.
If his salamander couldn't take the whole world down with him, Sand and Stone would probably have already kicked him while he was down.
The war wasn't decided yet—but Hanzō knew it in his bones:
Ame—and he—had already lost.
And for the first time, the word forming in his mind wasn't "victory"…
It was withdrawal.
Not surrender.
Withdrawal.
~~~
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