Chapter 388: Onoki's Wrath
Iwagakure.
The air hanging over the hidden village felt thick enough to choke on. Ever since the devastating strike against the Hidden Cloud Village outpost, the entire Land of Earth had been thrust into the highest state of martial law.
High inside the Tsuchikage Building, Onoki hovered a few inches above the floor. A sharp, stabbing ache radiated from his lower back, forcing the elderly Kage to maintain his levitation just to keep the agony at bay.
"Where is Han?" Onoki demanded, his weathered face set in a grim scowl as he glared down at the kneeling Anbu operative.
"Reporting, Tsuchikage-sama." The masked operative kept his head bowed. "Lord Han is currently training at the canyon grounds just outside the village perimeter. He stated that with the threat of war looming, he must calibrate his Steam Armor to absolute peak condition."
Onoki frowned. As the Jinchuriki of the Five-Tails, Kokuo, Han had always been an aloof and solitary figure. The immense, volatile chakra sealed within his body naturally kept the ordinary villagers at a fearful distance, pushing the man further into isolation.
"Tell him not to wander too far," Onoki ordered, lifting a hand to massage his throbbing temples. "Remind him that these are critical times. He is our ultimate weapon, and he must be ready to deploy to the front lines at a moment's notice."
"Understood!"
The Anbu vanished in a swirl of leaves, using the Body Flicker Technique.
Left alone in the quiet office, Onoki drifted toward the expansive window. He stared out at the oppressive, slate-gray sky looming over the rocky peaks of his village. A cold knot of dread tightened in his chest.
'Konoha...'The name tasted like ash.'Uchiha Akira... do you truly intend to swallow the entire ninja world whole? If so, what will become of Iwagakure's future?'
Five kilometers beyond the fortified walls of Iwagakure.
Deep within a desolate, rocky canyon, ragged, heavy breathing echoed against the stone walls. It was accompanied by the sharp hiss of pressurized white steam venting from the joints of thick, crimson armor.
This was Han, the Five-Tails Jinchuriki. Across the elemental nations, he was feared simply as the Steam Ninja. Away from the fearful gazes of his peers, he was pushing his monstrous physical limits in the absolute solitude of the gorge.
Without warning, Han pivoted and threw a devastating right hook toward a towering boulder.
His knuckles never even made contact.
In the microsecond his arm extended, the heavy thrusters mounted on the back of his armor roared to life, violently venting a blast of scalding, high-pressure steam. The raw, monstrous strength of his blow, exponentially amplified by the sudden jet propulsion, generated a terrifying shockwave of kinetic energy.
The massive boulder disintegrated as if it were made of fragile tofu, exploding into a blinding cloud of pulverized stone and dust.
Slowly retracting his fist, Han stood amidst the settling debris and regulated his breathing. The internal furnace of his armor quieted to a low hum. He despised the concept of war. Yet, he was not blind to the suffocating tension gripping his home. As a living weapon, he had to remain sharp at all times.
A sudden shift in the air currents made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Who goes there?" Han barked, pivoting sharply to scan the jagged ridges behind him.
"As expected of the Five-Tails Jinchuriki." The voice was smooth, carrying a hollow, mocking echo. "Your senses are quite sharp."
As the last syllable faded into the wind, a solitary figure stepped out from the shadows of a rocky overhang. It was a man clad in the distinct, dark battle fatigues of the Konoha Anbu. Obito walked forward with a slow, measured gait.
Han narrowed his eyes beneath his heavy helmet. He instantly dropped into a low, defensive stance. The steam valves on his back began to hiss, building pressure for immediate release.
"A Konoha rat?"
Obito came to a halt atop a slab of broken rubble. Beneath his swirling mask, his single visible eye locked onto the towering Jinchuriki with absolute indifference.
"A pleasure to meet you," Obito said, his tone dripping with false politeness. "I have been dispatched by Hokage-sama with a special request. You are formally invited to be a guest in Konoha."
Looking down from his elevated perch, the crimson Sharingan glowing in Obito's eye socket began to spin lazily, radiating cold mockery.
Han let out a harsh, guttural sneer. The furnace strapped to his back roared, vibrating with explosive intent.
"A guest? Is sneaking across borders and trespassing into sovereign territory Konoha's new standard for hospitality? That Uchiha Akira is far too arrogant for his own good!"
Refusing to waste another breath on the intruder, Han attacked. The solid bedrock beneath his heavy boots completely caved in from the sheer force of his launch.
"Boil Release: Unrivaled Strength!"
A deafening, piercing whistle of superheated steam tore through the narrow canyon. Han vanished from his original position, breaking the sound barrier as he launched himself upward like a crimson meteor, his iron fist aimed directly at Obito's skull.
Obito did not flinch. He remained perfectly still, making absolutely no effort to evade the catastrophic blow.
Just as the crushing weight of Han's iron gauntlet was about to cave in the masked man's face, a chilling realization washed over the Jinchuriki.
There was no impact.
His fist simply phased through empty air, gliding directly through the enemy's head as if striking a phantom.
'What kind of trick is this?' Han thought, his eyes widening in shock.
Unable to halt his immense forward momentum, his entire armored body passed cleanly through Obito's torso. He crashed violently into the sheer rock wall behind the Anbu, burying himself deep into the stone.
"Is this all you have to offer?" Obito asked, not even bothering to turn around. "Iwagakure's ultimate weapon is truly disappointing."
The embedded rubble exploded outward.
Han burst from the crater, his aura shifting from pressurized steam to something far more sinister. A suffocating, dark red chakra violently erupted from his pores, bubbling and searing the air around him. The dense, corrosive energy of the Tailed Beast Cloak enveloped his thick armor, and five ethereal, thrashing tails materialized behind him, whipping wildly against the canyon walls.
He had entered his Partial Tailed Beast Transformation.
"I don't care what kind of ghost you pretend to be!" Han roared, his voice distorted by the demonic chakra.
At his open jaws, positive black chakra and negative white chakra began to gather at a terrifying speed, compressing into a dense, jet-black sphere of annihilation. A Tailed Beast Ball.
Obito watched the apocalyptic sphere forming with bored detachment. He merely shook his head. In the blink of an eye, the masked Uchiha vanished from his perch.
The next second, he reappeared directly in front of the charging beast.
"Wood Release: Cutting Technique!"
A sickening series of wet thuds echoed through the dust. Countless razor-sharp wooden spikes erupted from Obito's extended palm, shooting forward like javelins. The jagged branches pierced violently into Han's armored body.
Even the highly corrosive defense of the Tailed Beast Cloak offered no resistance. Wood Release was the absolute, natural nemesis of all Tailed Beasts.
The moment the timber made contact with the demonic energy, the spikes reacted aggressively. They sprouted and multiplied at a terrifying rate, feeding directly off the Five-Tails' chakra to fuel their own rapid growth.
Han let out a garbled, mournful shriek as his strength was rapidly siphoned away. The wildly expanding thicket of branches wrapped around his limbs, dragging his heavy frame down and pinning him ruthlessly to the shattered earth.
"Wo... Wood Release..." Han gasped, his vision blurring as the suffocating wood drained the last of his stamina.
"Sleep now," Obito commanded.
He stared down at the struggling Jinchuriki, his single eye locking onto Han's fading gaze. A powerful Genjutsu washed over the armored man, plunging his consciousness into darkness.
The complex Mangekyo pattern in Obito's eye spun rapidly.
"Kamui."
A spiraling spatial vortex tore open the fabric of reality. The twisting gravity gripped Han's unconscious, bound body, sucking him entirely into the alternate dimension within seconds.
The canyon fell dead silent. The battle had ended as quickly as it had begun.
Obito stood alone, casually surveying the devastated landscape of scorched earth and shattered stone. Reaching into his tactical pouch, he retrieved a handful of kunai. These were not generic weapons; they were standard-issue Konoha blades, the distinct leaf symbol proudly engraved into their metal rings.
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed them. The blades embedded themselves deeply into a prominent, surviving rock face, leaving an unmistakable calling card.
His task complete, Obito's form began to warp and spiral inward, vanishing from the canyon without a trace.
Half an hour later.
Dozens of high-speed figures descended into the ruined gorge. Leading the vanguard was the short, floating elder—the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki. Flanking him closely were his trusted aides, Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi, followed by a full squad of Iwagakure's most elite Anbu operatives.
"We are too late..." Onoki muttered, his heart sinking like a stone in his chest.
The canyon was a disaster zone. Massive boulders had been pulverized into gravel, and the earth was heavily scorched, bearing the clear burn marks of high-temperature steam explosions. And yet, there was something else.
"Grandpa! Look at this!" Kurotsuchi called out. She was kneeling beside a jagged crater, pointing at a strange residue clinging to the torn earth.
Onoki floated over to her position. Lying amidst the destruction were several thick, unnaturally grown tree branches.
"This is..." Onoki reached out, his calloused finger gently brushing the freshly severed wood. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. "Wood Release. Konoha..."
Heavy footsteps approached as Akatsuchi lumbered over, holding a piece of black metal. He offered it to the elderly Kage.
"Tsuchikage-sama, my team found this embedded in the rock wall over there."
It was a standard-issue Konoha kunai.
If the sudden appearance of Wood Release could somehow be dismissed as a bizarre mutation or an impossible coincidence, this weapon shattered that delusion. The kunai, the terrifying presence of Wood Release, and the overwhelming power required to completely subdue the Five-Tails Jinchuriki in mere minutes without triggering a massive alarm—every single clue pointed in one singular, damning direction.
Konoha.
"Where is Han?" Onoki demanded, his eyes darting frantically across the wreckage, desperate for any trace of his missing ninja.
There was no blood. No corpse. The massive, heavily armored man seemed to have evaporated into thin air.
'To possess the power to utterly crush and capture a Jinchuriki alive in such a terrifyingly short window of time...'Onoki's fists trembled.'Did Uchiha Akira personally cross our borders to make a move?'
The surrounding Iwagakure Anbu stood frozen in stunned silence. The air pressure around the elderly Kage began to drop drastically. They could physically feel the volcanic rage boiling just beneath the surface, threatening to erupt from their leader.
"Very good," Onoki whispered, his voice trembling with absolute fury. "Uchiha Akira. You have finally crossed the line. To dare stretch your thieving hands right under my very nose!"
The Tsuchikage's chakra flared, cracking the loose stones near his feet.
"Do you truly believe that my Iwagakure is so weak that you can trample us like mud?!"
Seeing the murderous aura radiating from her grandfather, Kurotsuchi quickly stepped forward, grabbing his arm to ground him.
"Grandpa, please, calm down!" she pleaded, her sharp mind racing. "Could this be a deliberate trap? Think about it—if Konoha truly orchestrated this strike, why would they be so careless as to leave behind such obvious evidence?"
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