Land of Birds. An Iwagakure stronghold.
The siege was underway.
Sunagakure forces pressed the perimeter while the Stone's defenders held with practiced efficiency. Earth Release was built for this — offense and defense in equal measure — and the stronghold's walls absorbed punishment without buckling.
Then Rasa dropped from the sky.
He landed in open ground, surveyed the fortification, and ran through seals at speed.
Magnet Release: Gold Dust Wave.
The earth trembled. Countless particles of gold dust erupted from the soil, surging upward like water breaching a dam. Under Rasa's control, the mass shaped itself into a towering wave — dense, glittering, impossibly heavy.
It crested and crashed down on the stronghold.
Screams. Stone shinobi caught beneath the wave were pulverized instantly — crushed to nothing under the sheer mass. The fortification buckled, groaned, and collapsed in on itself with a thunderous boom.
"Lord Rasa!"
The Sand's forces roared.
Rasa allowed himself a thin smile. He didn't press the attack. One technique had been sufficient.
The surviving Stone shinobi had no choice but to retreat. With their stronghold reduced to rubble and Rasa hovering overhead, holding position was suicide.
The Sand gave chase. Of the full garrison, seven shinobi made it back to the Stone's main camp alive.
"It wasn't your fault."
Kakko — the Stone's field commander for the Land of Birds theater — addressed the survivors without recrimination.
He was formidable in his own right: Earth Release, kenjutsu, genjutsu — a top-tier jōnin by any measure. But Rasa was stronger. That gap had put Iwagakure on the back foot since the campaign began.
"Ideas?" Kakko looked at his assembled jōnin.
Silence. They exchanged glances. None of them matched Kakko's combat level, let alone Rasa's.
Requesting reinforcements from Ōnoki had already been attempted. Iwagakure was stretched to breaking — over four thousand committed against Konoha, a defensive garrison protecting the homeland against potential Cloud aggression. There was nothing left to send.
The Land of Birds front could hold, barely. Minor setbacks were tolerable. A collapse was not.
"Lord Kakko. I have a proposal."
A voice from the back. A middle-aged man — one of the seven who'd fled the destroyed stronghold.
Kakko recognized him. Katsutaro, a jōnin specializing in Earth Release and trap construction.
"Since Rasa arrived, he's made a habit of appearing on active battlefields to tip engagements in the Sand's favor." Katsutaro spoke carefully. "His speed — Magnet Release flight — lets him respond anywhere on the front. The results have been devastating."
Kakko nodded. He'd wanted to employ a similar roving-response strategy himself, but lacked the mobility. Rasa's gold dust flight gave him a decisive edge in rapid deployment.
"We beat him at his own game. Choose a high-value target, leak its location to the Sand, and set a kill-trap."
"Concept is sound. Execution is the problem." Kakko frowned. "With this many positions to defend, how do we predict where he'll appear?"
"We don't predict — we dictate. Leak the location of a supply route. Supplies are high-priority, and the route passes close to our main camp, which means Rasa has to strike fast. Both factors guarantee his personal involvement."
"The Stone can absorb losing one supply line." Kakko considered. "But the core question remains: how do you kill a Kage-level combatant in a trap?"
"Target his Magnet Release." Katsutaro's confidence didn't waver. "Bury gold dust pre-mixed with explosive tags beneath the engagement zone. When he pulls the dust up for his wave technique, the tags go with it. He detonates his own weapon."
Kakko stared.
The simplicity was almost offensive. But the logic held — Rasa's signature technique involved drawing gold dust from the surrounding earth. If that earth was already seeded with explosives...
He hesitated. Then agreed.
Doing nothing guaranteed a slow defeat.
"Katsutaro — the trap is yours. If you kill Rasa, the credit is the highest the Stone can give."
"Yes, Lord Kakko."
The following day.
Katsutaro was escorted to a stronghold positioned along one of Iwagakure's supply routes — a critical transit point.
His task: prepare the kill zone.
He formed seals, activated Earth Release: Hiding in Rock Technique, and sank into the ground.
He descended until he found an open cavity beneath the surface. Extended his hand.
Projection Magecraft.
Chakra surged. Gold dust materialized — grain by grain, ton by ton — filling the cavity and spreading through the surrounding soil.
Because Katsutaro was Natsuki.
It was now April.
On the main front in the Land of Earth, the Konoha-Stone war had settled into equilibrium. With neither side able to gain decisive advantage, Natsuki had shifted his attention to the Land of Birds.
The infiltration had been precise. When Rasa's assault destroyed the Stone stronghold the day before, Natsuki had seized the chaos of the rout to blend in among the survivors — replacing the real Katsutaro seamlessly.
The choice wasn't random. Katsutaro's specialization in trap warfare made it natural for him to propose exactly this kind of operation. No suspicion from Kakko.
One week later.
A supply convoy arrived at the stronghold from the Stone's interior.
The moment the two forces linked up, the air split apart.
Razor-edged wind blades screamed through the gaps between the rocks, slicing into the convoy from every angle.
"ENEMY CONTACT!" Natsuki bellowed. "Protect the supplies!"
He ran through seals and raised an earth wall. Wind blades hammered into it, the stone shuddering under the barrage.
Screams behind him. Katsutaro was a jōnin — his reflexes were fast enough. But the genin and chūnin in the convoy weren't as fortunate. Several went down in the first volley.
Other jōnin reacted within seconds. Earth walls erupted in a defensive ring, cutting off the Sand's initial assault.
"LORD RASA!"
The Sand's forces shouted in excitement.
Rasa arrived — exactly as predicted — descending from above, silhouetted against the sky.
The supply route's importance was self-evident. Its proximity to the Stone's main camp demanded a rapid engagement. Both factors made his personal intervention inevitable.
Magnet Release: Gold Dust Wave.
The earth shook. Gold dust erupted from the ground beneath the stronghold, surging skyward in a massive column before pooling above Rasa's position. The shadow of the forming wave blotted out the sun, engulfing the stronghold in premature twilight.
Terror crossed every Stone shinobi's face. If that mass came down, they were dead.
Rasa paused.
There was far more gold dust responding than he'd expected. The volume was enormous — as if an entire vein of raw ore lay beneath the surface.
A gold deposit? Lucky.
He didn't question it further. Extra material simply meant less chakra expenditure. Magnet Release could create gold dust from raw chakra, but manipulating existing dust was far more efficient. A welcome bonus.
Except every grain of that extra gold dust had been placed there by Natsuki.
Projected through Projection Magecraft.
Which meant every grain could be detonated through Broken Phantasm.
Natsuki extended his hand.
The world turned white.
Every projected particle exploded simultaneously — the entire suspended wave detonating in Rasa's face before he could bring it down. The blast was instantaneous, cataclysmic — a sphere of fire and superheated shrapnel expanding outward at impossible speed.
Rasa vanished inside the detonation.
Flames and concussive shockwaves formed a monstrous firework in the sky — visible for miles.
Natsuki charged directly into the inferno.
Observation Haki.
He found Rasa in under a second.
The explosion's power had been formidable, but the projected gold dust was only a fraction of the total mass. Rasa had created the majority himself, and the instant the detonation hit, he'd pulled that portion into a protective shell.
The shell had been two-thirds formed when the blast arrived.
Not fast enough. The unshielded third of his body was shredded — a bloody ruin of torn flesh and shattered bone. But the shield had held enough to keep him alive.
Barely.
Rasa's eyes focused through the smoke and blood. He saw a figure approaching.
Katsutaro's face.
He didn't recognize it. But he knew — with absolute certainty — that this was the enemy.
He raised his hand.
Then froze.
The world shifted around him. Smoke and fire vanished. He stood in a barren wasteland — and embedded in the earth around him, stretching to every horizon, were swords. Thousands upon thousands of blades, stabbed into the ground like grave markers.
"You're Natsuki."
The realization hit like a physical blow.
Tsumukari Muramasa.
Every sword in the Reality Marble collapsed inward, merging into a single blade of absolute destruction.
Natsuki swung.
Rasa — broken, bleeding, reeling from shock — had nothing left.
The Marble dissolved.
Rasa was dead.
Natsuki moved instantly. A cascade of explosive tags flew outward, detonating in rapid sequence. The new explosions layered over the still-fading aftermath of the gold dust blast, erasing what remained of Rasa's body.
At the same time, he discarded Katsutaro's corpse into the inferno — letting the real body become just another unrecognizable casualty.
No trace of either man survived.
It had happened too fast. The Sand's forces hadn't had time to intervene — and couldn't have regardless. Kakko and the Stone's jōnin had emerged from concealment the moment Rasa engaged, surrounding the Sand's troops completely.
Only then did the Sand realize: the supply convoy, the stronghold, the route — all of it had been bait from the start.
"Kill them!" Kakko didn't hesitate.
The engagement became a slaughter.
While the two sides clashed, Natsuki was already gone — relocated to a concealed position, out of sight.
He was about to activate the Door-Door Fruit when text materialized in his vision.
[Congratulations — Sōsuke Aizen Template Ability 3: Kyōka Suigetsu has been unlocked.]
Right on time.
A ninja sword materialized in his outstretched hand — condensing from nothing, emerging fully formed.
Unlike the Unohana template's Minazuki, which he'd had to forge independently, Kyōka Suigetsu was delivered directly by the system. Given the unlock difficulty — requiring the death of a Kage-level combatant — the shortcut was warranted.
Killing Rasa had been almost anticlimactic.
The phrase "ninja battles are intelligence battles" applied just as firmly at Kage level. Rasa's absolute confidence in his Magnet Release had been the vulnerability — and it had never crossed his mind that Natsuki, supposedly locked in the Land of Earth's front lines, would appear in the Land of Birds disguised as a Stone jōnin.
From that angle, his death wasn't unfair. He'd simply been outmaneuvered.
Natsuki sheathed Kyōka Suigetsu.
In its sealed state, the blade was simply a sword. Its true power — the practically invincible genjutsu — required Shikai release. And Shikai required completing two conditions: controlling Kirigakure, and establishing the Espada.
The Espada had two members so far: Terumī Mei and Ringo Ameyuri.
Who next?
A name surfaced immediately: Hōzuki Mangetsu. Suigetsu's older brother, renowned as the prodigy beloved by the ninja swords — the only shinobi capable of summoning and wielding all seven blades of the Mist.
The current Kirigakure had lost every one of those swords, but Mangetsu's raw talent for kenjutsu remained unmatched.
Most importantly, like Ameyuri, Mangetsu was fated to die young from a terminal illness. The same method would work — the Blood Curse could convert him into a demon, cure the disease, and bind him to the Espada in a single act.
Natsuki shelved the thought and opened an Air Door.
He stepped through into the Kazekage's office.
Pakura didn't flinch. She was accustomed to his arrivals by now. She set down her document without hurry.
"Rasa is dead. Just now."
Straight to business.
"Details?"
He gave her the abbreviated version.
"That was... fast." She shook her head. "I expected a prolonged fight."
"Now I'm genuinely curious how strong you actually are." A smile found her lips.
Rasa's death sounded simple. It wasn't. The setup, the infiltration, the exploitation of Magnet Release's own mechanics — and then a single sword strike to end it. Whatever that technique was, it had to be terrifying.
"You'll see eventually." He paused. "With Rasa gone, the Stone will press hard. What's your contingency?"
"Before Rasa deployed, the Sand's frontline commander was Otokaze. My standing order to him: if Rasa falls, contract the battle lines immediately and shift to a defensive posture."
Sound strategy. The Stone's Kakko was competent, but he wasn't Natsuki — he couldn't collapse the Sand's position overnight. And without Rasa, defending was all the Sand could do.
Casualties were inevitable. But the Stone wouldn't pursue too deeply. Konoha was behind the Sand, and overextending risked a war on yet another front.
For Kakko personally, killing Rasa — even through a trap — was an enormous merit. Enough to satisfy Ōnoki for the time being.
"What do you need from me next?" Pakura looked at him. "Maintain the current lines? Or escalate to relieve pressure on Konoha?"
"No rush. Let's see what the Cloud does first."
The Third Raikage hadn't moved yet. In the original timeline, he'd famously fought ten thousand Iwagakure shinobi alone for three days and nights. The official story was that he'd been covering a retreat. The truth was simpler — the Third Raikage was reckless by nature, the kind of man who'd take a small strike force deep into enemy territory on sheer confidence.
The approach mirrored the Mist sending the Seven Swordsmen to ambush Konoha. Both gambles had ended in disaster.
A leopard couldn't change its spots. Natsuki fully expected the Third Raikage to try the same thing again.
The man had too much faith in his own invincibility.
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