"Blood Release: Karibarai."
The sickle-shapes condensed from blood and launched forward, tracing the gaps in the formation with a precision that left no clean path for any of the four to move through.
The rotation that followed was autonomous, the blades completing their arc through the formation like something alive.
Two of them exploded into smoke on contact.
Yuji landed and a Hidden Mist ninja came in behind him immediately.
"Water Release: Water Prison Jutsu."
Water surged from the outstretched palm and closed around him in a cage, sealing him inside.
"Now, kill him!"
The second ninja came down from above with a katana, using the moment of restraint for the finishing strike.
Two drops of blood that Yuji had left outside his body before the trap closed shot outward like needles. Both Hidden Mist ninja dropped where they stood, the strikes passing through their skulls simultaneously.
The water prison collapsed. Yuji stood in the runoff, soaked, and looked around.
"One group left."
He was gone before the water finished draining from the rock.
Over the past two weeks he had been working from intelligence gathered by the Sunagakure operational network, running a systematic sweep through every identified Hidden Mist position in the zone.
The damage had been substantial, with heavy casualties across multiple squads and the infiltration network along this stretch of coast effectively dismantled for the time being.
He had left Pakura and the others at the Stronghold to run separate missions with other Sunagakure squads. Moving alone was faster, and speed was the point.
The cleanup was temporary by nature. The Hidden Mist would send more people eventually. But losing this many operatives in this short a window should produce a period of hesitation, enough to give the coastal villages some genuine quiet before the next cycle began.
He was heading toward the last identified Stronghold when he registered an approaching presence and turned.
A Sunagakure ninja, moving with purpose and a trace of anxiety in his expression.
"Captain Yuji. Captain Kazuma sent me. Please come with me."
"What happened?"
The situation was unusual. His squad operated independently from the zone's broader deployment. He held a temporary Jonin-in-charge designation focused on training, not integrated into the tactical structure the way the Iwagakure front had been. Kazuma's people shouldn't have needed to pull him into anything.
"A Hidden Mist squad broke through the Stronghold's defenses. Heavy casualties on our side." The shinobi kept his words tight and fast. "The one leading them is Yagura Karatachi.
Captain Kazuma has already gathered available personnel and is moving to intercept, but the numbers are thin. He wasn't sure they'd be enough. You were nearby."
Yuji stopped walking.
"Yagura Karatachi."
He processed the name for a moment, then changed direction. "Lead the way."
The future Fourth Mizukage. That particular face, young-looking in a way that consistently surprised people who didn't know him, and completely at odds with what he was actually capable of.
The Hidden Mist had sent him specifically.
Yuji turned the possibility over as he moved. Intelligence on this coast ran both ways. The Hidden Mist knew the Sunagakure's operational picture as well as Sunagakure knew theirs.
In the past two weeks he had almost single-handedly swept through the Hidden Mist's infiltration squads with overwhelming force, causing heavy losses to the Hidden Mist Village. So, did they specifically send a heavyweight player to reclaim their dignity?
The Hidden Mist had never intended formal war with Sunagakure. Small operations were their preference precisely because the investment was low and the returns reliable. Harass, extract, withdraw.
Repeat until the accumulated pressure produced something useful. It was a guaranteed profitable arrangement as long as the other side couldn't concentrate enough force to make the cost prohibitive.
That calculation had been disrupted.
The coastal deployment presented structural advantages for this kind of campaign. The border was vast, adjacent to open water, the terrain broken and complex. Strongholds were scattered and reinforcement was slow.
The Hidden Mist had read those conditions clearly and built their entire approach around them, relying on Sunagakure's post-war weakness to prevent any meaningful consolidation of response.
Sunagakure pouring its remaining top-tier combat power into a sustained grinding engagement along this coast was exactly what the Hidden Mist wanted.
It would deepen the village's recovery problems, exhaust resources that were already strained, and eventually open the door for the Hidden Mist to move more seriously once the attrition had done enough damage.
Then Yuji had appeared, stabilized the situation without requiring Sunagakure to commit its primary forces, and proceeded to dismantle the Hidden Mist's coastal network with enough efficiency to make the existing approach untenable.
The Hidden Mist played a card.
If Yagura removed Yuji, Sunagakure would have to respond by committing heavier assets, which fed back into the original plan. If Yagura simply won, the stabilizing presence was gone and the harassment could resume from a stronger position. The logic was sound.
Yuji worked through all of this as he moved, keeping pace with the reporting shinobi.
Konoha and Iwagakure had stayed quiet throughout his time on this coast. Instead, the first serious response had come from the Hidden Mist, and the piece they had chosen to play was the future Fourth Mizukage.
The man who would preside over Kirigakure's bloodiest period, whose Kage years would earn the village a name that people said with a different kind of weight. The man who had been Obito's instrument without knowing it.
He was not yet a Jinchuriki. His strength at this stage was real but not at the ceiling it would eventually reach.
Yuji's eyes narrowed as he ran.
Fifteen minutes brought them off the rocky beach and onto open desert. The sound of the engagement reached him before the visual did, and then both arrived together as he crested the terrain.
His expression settled into something cold.
He accelerated and drove forward.
...
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