Dodai burst out of the building that had been hit by the explosion.
The moment he stepped outside, what entered his eyes was a village in chaos.
Civilians were screaming and fleeing in every direction. Shinobi were rushing back and forth through the smoke and flames, trying to restore order, but under such a sudden disaster, even Kumogakure had fallen into confusion for a brief moment.
Dodai's expression darkened.
Anger and urgency churned in his chest.
"Dodai, leave the rear to me. Go deal with the enemy at the front," one of Kumogakure's elders said calmly.
Unlike the panic around him, the old man remained composed. His sharp gaze had already locked onto the figure floating in the sky in the distance.
Those words instantly gave Dodai a clear focus.
The restlessness in his heart settled a little.
He nodded heavily.
"I'm counting on you here."
With that, Dodai immediately rushed toward the battlefield.
By the time he arrived, Kizaru had just finished unleashing Yasakani no Magatama.
He stood in the sky above the ruined streets, looking down over the battlefield like some untouchable calamity.
The scale of that attack had been devastating.
The Hidden Cloud shinobi caught in the barrage had suffered terrible losses. Many were already down. Some had lost the strength to fight. Others had lost their lives on the spot.
Dodai's fists clenched.
That bastard...
Unforgivable.
Suppressing the fury boiling in his chest, Dodai looked up and attacked without hesitation.
Since he had no means of flight, he formed hand seals from the ground and spat out a large mass of viscous molten material that resembled rubbery putty.
The substance surged upward and quickly expanded into a gigantic palm, reaching for Kizaru in the sky.
"Lava Release, huh?" Kizaru murmured, glancing down.
He made no attempt to move.
He simply remained there, floating in place, his body maintaining elemental transformation.
The giant molten palm shot upward at astonishing speed. Under the tense gaze of the surrounding Kumogakure shinobi, it reached Kizaru, wrapped around him, and clenched shut into a massive fist.
For an instant, cheers erupted.
"He got him!"
But unlike the others, Dodai did not relax in the slightest.
His eyes only sharpened.
He did not believe for even a second that an enemy capable of infiltrating Kumogakure alone and reducing half the village to this state would be caught that easily.
Then, just as expected, golden light began to leak from the giant molten hand.
A second later, Kizaru's figure reappeared atop it, perfectly unharmed, standing there casually as though he were stepping onto a platform.
"Oh my," Kizaru said, looking down at Dodai. "That's quite a troublesome technique."
Dodai's face twitched.
If anyone here looked like a monster, it was the man floating above his village after blowing half of it apart.
Still, he forced his anger down and shouted, "Why are you attacking Kumogakure?"
Kizaru tilted his head slightly.
"Who knows? Maybe I just felt like it."
That answer made the fury in Dodai's chest burn even hotter.
Around him were the bodies of his comrades, the wounded, the ruins of his village.
And this man was answering him like it meant nothing.
Dodai gritted his teeth and shouted to the shinobi around him, "The enemy's body is abnormal. Don't rely on direct attacks! Use ninjutsu! Use ranged attacks!"
It was his first real exchange with Kizaru. With almost no information, that was the only judgment he could make.
Hearing Dodai's order, the shinobi around him immediately began forming hand seals.
Most of them used Lightning Release.
Crackling arcs of electricity lit up the battlefield one after another.
But Kizaru had no intention of waiting politely for them to finish.
In a flash of golden light, he vanished.
Then he appeared directly in front of Dodai, so fast it looked like teleportation.
The brilliance around his body flared, forcing several nearby shinobi to shut their eyes from the sudden glare.
Kizaru glanced at Dodai from up close, voice light and almost conversational.
"Have you ever been kicked at the speed of light?"
The next second, he struck.
Unlike his usual sparring matches back in Konoha, Kizaru put real force behind it this time.
His right leg, wrapped in blinding golden light, slammed into Dodai's neck.
Crack.
Dodai's body was blasted away like a broken projectile.
Kizaru did not stop there.
As Dodai flew backward, Kizaru's raised leg fired a massive beam of light after him, swallowing his entire figure whole.
Boom!
Dodai crashed into the building behind him, and the resulting explosion tore the structure apart.
By the time the smoke cleared, there was nothing left to recover.
Dodai was dead.
The entire exchange had happened so quickly that most of the surrounding shinobi had not even recovered from the flash of light.
Only a few Hidden Cloud ninja farther away saw everything clearly.
"Lord Dodai!"
Their voices broke with grief and rage.
Then, without caring for their own lives, they charged at Kizaru all at once like men throwing themselves into certain death.
Facing the enemies surging toward him from every side, Kizaru stepped forward instead of retreating.
His right arm darkened as Armament Haki wrapped around it in a black metallic sheen.
Then he punched.
The shinobi in front of him exploded into a cloud of blood mist on the spot.
The others did not back down.
Teeth clenched, eyes bloodshot with hatred, they kept coming. Some gripped kunai. Others wreathed themselves in crackling Lightning Release chakra as they lunged.
Once Kizaru landed on the ground, he calmly watched several attackers leap at him from different directions.
His right leg lit up again.
Then he kicked.
A crescent-shaped slash of light tore through the air.
Several bodies were severed at once.
The halves dropped heavily to the ground, one after another, and fresh blood splashed across the battlefield, even staining Kizaru's clothes.
Kizaru glanced at the blood that had landed on his shoulder and gave a faint sigh.
"How troublesome."
Then, still smiling, he drew his left hand across the back of his right.
Golden particles gathered and condensed into a blade.
A sword of light appeared in his hand—
Ama no Murakumo no Tsurugi.
Kizaru lifted his gaze.
More Hidden Cloud shinobi were already rushing in from every direction to reinforce the battlefield.
Without a word, he swung.
A golden slash surged forward, carrying terrifying force, cutting through everything in its path.
The reinforcements had no time to evade.
Several were cut down instantly.
And Kizaru did not stop after that first swing.
He kept moving his arm, slashing again and again, releasing more than a dozen golden arcs in rapid succession.
Each slash harvested lives.
Each slash destroyed buildings.
By the time the final wave of light faded, the area around Kizaru had been reduced to ruins. Within his line of sight, almost no one was left standing unscathed.
After the continuous barrage, Kizaru's breathing grew a little heavier.
He dismissed the light sword, transformed into a streak of gold, and rose back into the sky.
Looking down at the devastation below, he seemed fairly satisfied.
He did not remain where he was for long.
Instead, he flew to another section of Kumogakure.
This area had not yet been reached by the fighting.
The buildings were still standing.
The streets were still mostly intact.
Below, the Hidden Cloud shinobi who spotted him immediately began hurling volleys of kunai and shuriken into the sky.
Kizaru looked down at them and slowly raised both hands again.
The next moment...
Yasakani no Magatama.
Countless bullets of light rained down from above, blanketing the area in relentless explosions.
The ground shattered.
Buildings collapsed.
The shinobi below were swallowed by fire and ruin.
Once the bombardment ended, Kizaru landed atop the highest point of the wreckage, hands in his pockets, wearing that same easy smile.
"You devil!"
"You bastard! I'll kill you!"
Some of the surviving shinobi, wounded and barely able to stand, forced themselves upright with weapons still in their hands.
They glared at Kizaru with naked hatred.
If looks alone could kill, he would have been torn apart already.
Kizaru did not care in the slightest.
After two assassination attempts from the Hidden Cloud, Kizaru had no interest in being generous.
If they wanted to curse him, they were free to do so.
But once a fight had reached this stage, sympathy was just another useless luxury.
And Kizaru had never been particularly fond of useless things.
Toward enemies like these, Kizaru had only one answer—
Crush them completely.
Body and spirit alike.
"Oh my," Kizaru said with a mild smile. "That's a rather frightening glare."
As he spoke, he slowly raised his right hand.
His index finger extended.
A golden flash pierced through the forehead of the shinobi cursing him the loudest.
One beam.
One corpse.
Then Kizaru's glowing fingertip began to move again and again, each flicker of light as neat and precise as a reaper's blade.
At first, the curses only grew louder.
But after the fifth beam, the voices began to weaken.
After the tenth, they started disappearing altogether.
And by the time Kizaru lazily swept his finger one last time, the battlefield had fallen completely silent.
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