Aburame Tetsumaru's personal evaluation of the Attached Insect Limbs Bio-Armor was simple: it was barely functional. Compared to the original prototype from his memories, it was a pale imitation.
He had brought it out only because it was the most logical counter to the Kazekage. Its sturdy chitinous plating and internal interlocking latch system could withstand the crushing pressure and abrasion of Iron Sand. Its enhanced physical strength could shatter sand-based defenses, and the pre-loaded jutsu runes provided the instant-cast capabilities needed to suppress an enemy in short bursts.
Furthermore, this thing could fly.
Hidden behind the calves were Jumping Bugs, while the front of the shins housed a cluster of Thruster Bugs—the same propulsion units used by his Explosive Flight-Locusts. Additionally, two pairs of insect wings were tucked beneath the dorsal armor plating.
Tetsumaru didn't harbor any delusions that this crude "Bio-Armor" could actually defeat the Kazekage. However, by exploiting the advantage of asymmetric information, he felt confident he could trade blows and stall for enough time.
As for the risk of leaking intel on his gear? He wasn't worried. The next time he donned this armor, it would be upgraded beyond recognition. Whatever data the Kazekage gathered today would be obsolete by their next encounter.
The Bio-Armor was built for close-quarters combat. Tetsumaru leaped onto the crest of an Iron Sand wall and sprinted toward the Kazekage, closing the distance with heavy, thudding strides.
The Kazekage's eyes narrowed. He immediately raised a thick, reinforced wall of Iron Sand between them.
With zero intelligence on this strange new armor, the Kazekage adhered to the fundamental principles of combat: whatever the enemy wants to do, stop them from doing it.
Facing the rising iron wall, Tetsumaru opened his right hand and triggered the runes in his left leg. In an instant, he unleashed Wind Style: Air Cannon. Simultaneously, he opened his left hand, triggering the runes in his right leg to cast a near-instant Wind Style: Blade of Wind.
The two jutsus struck the wall in rapid succession, dealing significant damage. Before the Iron Sand could repair itself, Tetsumaru threw his entire weight into the breach. With a burst of raw physical power, he smashed through the remaining thickness of the wall.
He became a juggernaut, charging through successive barriers of Iron Sand with brute force alone.
As he ran, his feet sank half a foot deep into the shifting sand with every step. The Iron Sand immediately began to swarm up his legs, attempting to ensnare him.
The armor's strength exploded to its limit. Tetsumaru ignored the binding sand; running through it felt like wading through waist-deep water—there was resistance, yes, but his momentum remained largely unchecked.
Magnet Style: Iron Sand Drizzle!
Grains of iron in the air coalesced into a relentless barrage of black senbon, raining down like a localized storm.
The sharp needles struck the Bio-Armor's plating and bounced off. Only those hitting at a perfectly perpendicular angle managed to pierce the chitin, and even then, they only penetrated about half a centimeter. The senbon that struck the helmet—the hardest part of the armor—simply shattered upon impact.
Seeing that his needles were ineffective, the Kazekage ceased the wide-range attack. He cupped his hands as if holding an invisible sphere and thrust them forward.
Magnet Style: Iron Sand Spear!
Four-meter-long lances of iron shot forward with devastating force. Tetsumaru didn't dare take these head-on. He deployed the High-Frequency Blades from his wrist housings. With surgical precision, he slashed through each incoming spear; the intense, high-frequency vibrations caused the iron structures to crumble into harmless dust upon contact with the blade.
"Hmph." The Kazekage's expression grew fierce as his hands blurred through seals. "Drown in the tide of iron!"
Magnet Style: Iron Sand Waves!
The iron sand in the sky converged, forming a metallic flood that surged toward Tetsumaru like a breaking tsunami.
The Bio-Armor's four-ton strength was enough to ignore ankle-deep sand, but it wouldn't hold against a waist-deep torrent of churning metal.
Tetsumaru manipulated the armor to weave signs, activating a Body Flicker to blink past the edge of the flood.
Leaping out of the surge, Tetsumaru treated the surface of the sand like water, skipping across the shifting landscape and dodging successive waves until he was within striking distance of the Kazekage.
The Kazekage's face turned ashen. After donning that grotesque armor, the Konoha ninja had grown significantly larger, yet his movements had actually become faster. It was throwing off the Kage's predictive timing, causing several attacks to only graze the target rather than land a solid hit.
Worse, the armor's strength was absurd. With a simple flex, the ninja could shatter a coil of iron sand as thick as a man's thigh. Even when the sand managed to wrap around his waist, he simply braced his legs and leaped away, the sheer force of his jump snapping the restraints.
As the towering insect-man closed in, the Kazekage unleashed a massive, 360-degree shockwave of iron sand, intending to blow his opponent back.
Tetsumaru dropped into a low horse stance. Three spikes retracted from his right heel, anchoring him into the bedrock beneath the sand. He lunged forward in a lunge-punch, the serrated blade on his right wrist vibrating so fast it created a shimmering blur.
The High-Frequency Blade sliced through the iron flood like it was air, parting the wave as Tetsumaru forced his way into the gap. Despite the sand battering his armor, he used the claws on his feet to maintain his grip against the current.
He thrust his left palm toward the Kazekage's face. At a distance of barely twenty centimeters, he fired a high-pressure stream of Corrosive Acid from his palm nozzle.
At the very last millisecond, a thin mask of iron sand rose to intercept it.
The sand was instantly eaten away, releasing a foul-smelling, yellow-green smoke.
Tetsumaru's left hand shot upward, the wrist blade snapping out as he brought it down in a diagonal cleave. The Kazekage, caught mid-seal for a high-level jutsu, stared in shock as the blade bit in. The Kage was sliced from his right shoulder to his left waist, his hands severed, his left arm cut into three pieces.
I won? No, that's not right.
Doubt flickered in Tetsumaru's mind, but he didn't stop. He continued to blur his hands, shredding the body into pieces.
Definitely not right. The resistance is off. It's too hard.
He looked at the surrounding sand. The pressure of the iron flood was actually increasing, confirming that the man he had just cut wasn't the real Kazekage.
Tetsumaru decisively curled his body and launched into a "carp-leaping-from-water" jump, vaulting out of the iron torrent.
Sure enough, the "Kazekage" he had shredded turned black and crumbled into a pile of metallic dust. A Sand Clone.
Unbelievable. I didn't even see him cast it. Top-tier ninjas are a nightmare to deal with.
Tetsumaru sighed. While dodging the iron waves, he scanned the area at full power. Two seconds later, he spotted the Kazekage standing thirty meters away.
"Truly incredible," the Kazekage said, his voice level but cold. "To think you can not only hold off an army but possess this level of individual combat power. I don't need to wait for the future; you are already a primary threat to Sunagakure."
The Kazekage glanced in the direction the three Genin had fled. "Those three... they are your disciples? To stay behind and fight to the death just to protect them... Konoha's 'Will of Fire' has certainly done me a favor today."
"Hmph. You're joking, Kazekage," Tetsumaru replied. "Leaving those three kids behind would have been pointless. Facing you alone or with them makes no difference to the outcome."
"You're right. It's a dead end either way. Though perhaps your sacrifice might actually let one or two of them escape."
"Your stupidity is truly profound," Tetsumaru countered. "It's no wonder you've led Suna to the brink of ruin. You can't catch me, and your men won't catch my students."
The Kazekage's eyes turned bloodshot. "You brat... you're asking for a slow death."
"Then come and try it."
Two minutes left.
During the exchange, the Bio-Armor finished its internal recalibration, venting waste gases through the dorsal ports with a low, whistling hiss.
With the armor's power restored, Tetsumaru initiated another assault.
That brief clash had taught him a hard truth: the Kazekage's Magnet Style had reached a level of mastery where he could cast near-instantly. Tetsumaru would never be able to retreat safely while the Kage was at full strength.
The only way out was to force the Kazekage into a high-intensity exchange, draining his chakra until an opening for escape appeared.
Realizing he had accidentally given his enemy time to recover, the Kazekage's fury boiled over. With veins throbbing on his forehead, he slammed his hands together.
Magnet Style: Iron Sand Prison!
Tetsumaru's charge was cut off by rising walls of iron. He instantly fired two jutsus to blast a hole in the barrier and thrust his arm—blade and all—into the breach.
But the Iron Sand Prison cast via hand seals was vastly thicker than the seal-less versions he had faced before. His blade and half his arm were swallowed by the sand, only to find that the wall was thicker than the combined length of his limb and weapon. He couldn't punch through.
By the time Tetsumaru yanked his arm back, four identical, massive walls had risen, boxing him in completely.
He leaped upward, aiming for the open ceiling, but a colossal rectangular block of iron sand slammed down from above, sealing his only exit.
Magnet Style: Iron Sand Block!
"Damn it!" Tetsumaru realized he was trapped. His mind raced, processing every scrap of lore he knew.
What's next? What comes after the box? Iron sand... sand... gold dust... Third Kazekage, Fourth, Gaara...
A spark of realization hit him.
I get it. You trap the target to use a crushing technique.
"Is it Gaara's Sand Burial? Or the Fourth's Gold Dust Great Burial?" Tetsumaru muttered to himself. He curled into a tight ball and activated the Spider Heart beneath his chest plate.
As the biological heart pumped, the hydraulic pressure within the Bio-Armor skyrocketed. The interlocking latches between the chitinous plates ground together and locked into place under extreme tension.
The armor was now a rigid, spherical shell designed specifically to withstand the crushing and grinding forces of Magnet Style.
I'm betting the next move is compression, not giant spikes.
CLANG!
The iron block smashed the spherical armor into the ground with a metallic roar. The Bio-Armor deformed slightly under the impact but held its shape.
Tetsumaru swallowed hard, trying to clear the ringing in his ears.
Through his compound eyes, he saw the block and the four walls disintegrate into a sea of loose iron sand. The light vanished as he was buried under a mountain of metal. Complete darkness followed.
Perfect. It's a crushing or grinding move. Now the question is: can I survive it, and how do I get out?
My chance comes when the light returns, or when the other Suna ninjas—oh, crap.
Magnet Style: Grinding Hell!
The iron sand began to rotate at violent speeds. The spherical Bio-Armor was caught in the vortex, tumbling and spinning uncontrollably. The friction of the iron sand against the armor threw off showers of sparks that flickered like dying stars in the darkness.
The rotation accelerated. Tetsumaru felt like he had been tossed into a high-speed industrial blender. He was bounced off the "walls" of the sand vortex, the world spinning until his brain felt like it was pressing against his skull.
A long-forgotten sensation welled up in his gut.
Oh no... I'm motion sick. This is miserable... ugh...
One minute left. Just hold on... just keep it together...
The Kazekage maintained Grinding Hell for several minutes, even as the main body of his army caught up and the scouts returned empty-handed from their hunt for the Genin.
He had been grinding the Konoha ninja for five straight minutes. Logically, the man should be dead, but the Kazekage hadn't felt that satisfying "squelch" of a body being pulverized. It made him hesitate.
Is that strange armor really still intact?
He kept the grind going until his chakra consumption exceeded his comfort zone and his own men began to look at him with questioning glances. Finally, he stopped the jutsu.
The Kazekage stared at the silent, iron-covered ground. He flicked his finger upward.
The sand churned, and a large cluster was spat out onto the surface. As the loose iron fell away, it revealed a chitinous shell covered in deep gouges and abrasive scarring. The Kazekage's heart sank.
Despite how battered it looked, the shell was still a perfect, uncracked sphere. The internal structure was intact.
He was still alive!
The iron sand surged to re-wrap the sphere, but it was too late.
The armor unfurled. Tetsumaru leaped clear of the sand's reach, flickering instantly to the side of a Suna ninja. He threw a single punch that shattered the man into pieces.
A puppet? Then the operator is underground.
Tetsumaru didn't hesitate. He bent low and smashed his fist into the ground, creating a five-meter-wide crater. Blood sprayed from the cracks in the earth. The hidden puppeteer was almost certainly finished.
Tetsumaru used another Body Flicker, weaving through a hail of iron shuriken and Suna senbon.
When he landed in a crouch, his shoulder plating slid open. He launched twenty-four Flight-Locusts in a single volley—one for every Suna ninja in the vicinity, with six dedicated to the Kazekage.
While the enemies were distracted by the explosive bugs, Tetsumaru popped his helmet seal to vent a mouthful of... "substances" he had been holding back during the spin. Then, the Jumping Bugs in his legs reached full tension.
A violent explosion of kinetic energy launched the Bio-Armor twenty meters into the air.
The Jumping Bugs were a one-time use; the sheer recoil of the leap shattered their bodies instantly. As Tetsumaru reached the apex of his jump, the Thruster Bugs in his calves ignited. Flames erupted from his heels, propelling the armor away from the battlefield at high speed.
"Retreat! Everyone, get back!" the Kazekage roared. "This man is beyond you!"
The battered Suna ninjas, realizing they were only a hindrance to their leader, scrambled for safety, leaving the theater to the Kage and his prey.
Twining streams of Iron Sand shot into the sky, weaving a net that eventually snagged the flying armor and dragged it back down to earth.
Tetsumaru landed back in front of the Kazekage. To the Kage's surprise, the Konoha ninja looked remarkably composed—almost relaxed.
"Given up?" the Kazekage asked. "Realized you can't run?"
Remaining time... wait, I'm already six minutes over the goal.