"Darui! Cee! Take a squad and deal with those two flying ninjas!" Ay, the Fourth Raikage, issued tactical orders with lightning efficiency.
"Watch out for the one with the scythe!" Ay added, sharing the intel from his brief exchange. "That thing seems to absorb chakra!"
"Bee! With me! Let's show this arrogant brat what happens when you step into our house!"
As the world-renowned 'AB Combo,' they had been an unstoppable force during the Third Shinobi World War. Their sheer physical dominance had gone unchallenged until they encountered the 'Yellow Flash,' Minato Namikaze, whose superior speed finally suppressed them.
But with Minato Namikaze dead, the Fourth Raikage stood alone as the fastest man in the shinobi world. No one dared to question the lethality of the AB Combo.
Darui and Cee immediately led separate squads of Cloud shinobi to surround the two hovering intruders. They moved with extreme caution—not just because the enemy had the audacity to strike at the heart of their village, but because flight was an exceedingly rare ability in the ninja world. Aside from the Third Tsuchikage, Ohnoki, such a feat was virtually unheard of.
Cee, the handsome youth with short blond hair, was the first to engage the Tennyo.
Several Cloud ninjas under his command performed Earth Style jutsu, causing jagged stone spears to erupt from the ground in an attempt to impale the maiden or pin her down. Cee and three other Jōnin used these rising pillars as springboards, leaping into the air as the crackle of Lightning Style illuminated the smoke.
However, the Tennyo's silk ribbons were as elusive and deadly as vipers. They could extend indefinitely and possessed a molecular-thin sharpness that sliced through steel. For an ordinary ninja, a single strike meant certain death or permanent mutilation.
The Maiden moved like a dancer, her ribbons swaying in an elegant, macabre "performance." One by one, Cloud ninjas were either impaled or sent spiraling backward, coughing up blood. For the moment, the Cloud's finest couldn't even get within striking distance.
On the other side of the battlefield...
The Death God swung its obsidian scythe, meeting Darui's squad head-on.
"Water Style: Water Bullet Drill!" A group of specialists wove signs, launching high-pressure spheres of water toward the soaring reaper. These drills packed enough kinetic force to punch through reinforced iron plates.
The Death God drifted effortlessly through the barrage, closing the distance to Darui.
"Storm Style: Circus Laser!" Darui's hands blurred into a complex seal.
Bright halos of blue light erupted, firing over a dozen arcing beams of electrified water. These 'lasers' moved as if guided by a tracking system, swerving through the air to converge on the Death God from multiple vectors.
In response, the Death God spun its scythe.
Several blades of compressed wind sliced through the smoke, weaving a gale-force net that tore the Storm Style beams apart—and then began to feed on the remaining energy.
"What?!" Darui watched in horror as his pride-and-joy technique was casually dismantled.
The wind blades didn't stop. They surged forward, striking several Cloud ninjas who were too slow to evade.
"Gah!" The ninjas cried out as they were hit.
Darui rushed to check on them, but to his shock, their bodies bore no physical wounds. Instead, they lay on the ground like hollow husks, unable to even lift a finger.
"Careful!" Mabui shouted a warning from the sidelines. "That scythe absorbs chakra directly! Do not let it touch you!"
Her keen analytical mind had quickly connected the Raikage's earlier warning to the current scene. Shinobi were entirely dependent on their chakra reserves; once drained to zero, the result was almost always death or total incapacitation.
"I'll pin him down! Mabui, organize the long-range support!" As the man destined to become the Fifth Raikage, Darui didn't hesitate to use himself as bait.
He scaled the side of the Raikage Building, gaining height before launching himself at the Death God.
"Lightning Style: Black Panther!"
Vast amounts of dark-purple electricity coalesced around Darui, taking the form of a predatory beast that lunged through the air. As the panther reached its target, Darui triggered the second stage, causing the black lightning to expand into a massive, inescapable net!
Facing this web of crackling darkness, the Death God simply set its scythe into a high-speed spin. Like a high-powered vacuum, it inhaled every scrap of lightning chakra that touched its blade.
"Impossible!" Darui hung in mid-air, speechless at the sight.
The Main Battlefield
The battle between the AB Combo and Menma had reached a fever pitch.
Ay, in his full Lightning Style Chakra Mode, was a blur of violet light, his Nintaijutsu strikes hitting with the force of falling mountains. Beside him, Killer Bee moved in a chaotic, synchronized dance with his seven blades. Like his namesake, the 'Killer Bee' struck with lethal precision while his constant, buzzing rap provided a maddening psychological backdrop.
Yet, the mysterious intruder parried Bee's fluid, seven-sword style using nothing more than a single kunai, all while weaving through the Raikage's thunderous assaults.
Though this was their first encounter, Ay and Bee felt a chilling sensation—as if this masked man knew their every move before they even made them.
"Lariat: Horizontal Thousandfold Chop!" Ay concentrated his chakra into his palm and leapt, diving down with an overhead hand-sword strike. It was a legendary move honed through years of bone-breaking discipline.
Simultaneously, Bee's blades wove a cage around the intruder to prevent any escape.
"Spiraling Ring: Minor!"
Menma held Bee at bay with his kunai in one hand, while his other hand manifested a sphere of dark-purple energy. He slammed it directly into the Raikage's diving hand-sword.
Despite the 'Minor' designation, the technique was no smaller than a Wind Style: Rasenshuriken.
BOOM!
The collision of pitch-black chakra and violet lightning produced a high-pitched, ear-splitting scream.
In the end, Menma's Spiraling Ring proved superior. The dark energy, infused with wind-style cutting force, acted like millions of microscopic blades, shredding through the Raikage's lightning armor.
The violent energy lashed against Ay's forearms, carving deep, bloody gashes into his battle-hardened skin.
"Gah! Damn you!" Ay snarled in pain, forced back several meters. His heavy metal vambraces were shredded, the edges glowing with residual heat.
Only a body as tempered as the Raikage's could have survived that hit; a lesser Jōnin would have been disintegrated.
"Yo~ Brother, you okay? Need a medic today~?" Bee retreated to Ay's side, his tone turning serious.
"Bee! This guy is on another level! Use the Tailed Beast transformation!" Ay realized that their current tactics were insufficient. It was time to go all out.
"But Brother... we're in the village... the Eight-Tails will wreck the place~" Bee hesitated.
"Mabui!" Ay roared.
But when he turned his head, his heart sank. Over a dozen Cloud ninjas lay dead or dying in the distance. Darui and Cee were barely holding their own in a desperate struggle against the Masked Beasts.