A deafening roar of water erupted as the Amegakure jonin unleashed their techniques. Rain pounded the battlefield in relentless sheets, the sky itself weeping under the intensity of their chakra.
A storm of hand seals flashed in the darkness, fingers weaving through the air like phantom blades. Their chakra surged, an ominous pressure filling the battlefield.
Amatsu's dark eyes flickered, cold and calculating, memorizing every movement, every precise twist of their fingers.
One of the enemy jonin slammed his palm to the ground. "Suiton: Mizuame Nabara!"
A thick, sticky liquid spread across the battlefield, coating the ground in a treacherous trap. The moment it touched flesh, it clung like tar, slowing movement to a crawl.
Amatsu barely adjusted in time, his foot barely skimming the surface before he leaped atop a jagged outcrop. His sharp eyes analyzed the technique.
The second jonin moved instantly, rain merging into his chakra. "Ranton: Reizā Sākasu!"
Blades of laser-like rain slashed through the air, arcs of cutting light twisting unpredictably toward Ryojin.
"Fucking hell—" Ryojin spat, twisting mid-air. He flicked his wrist, Uzumaki chains bursting out to form a jagged barrier, but the beams sheared through them like a scythe through wheat.
One blade nicked his cheek. Another carved a burning line across his ribs. Blood dripped down his skin, hissing as it mixed with the falling rain.
A third jonin stepped forward, hands weaving through a rapid sequence of seals. His voice was calm, controlled, merciless.
"Suiton: Suidan no Jutsu."
A high-pressure column of water exploded from his mouth, a drill of liquid force tearing through the air. The sheer pressure alone could pulverize bones.
Amatsu had seen enough.
His hands moved.
A perfect mimicry.
"Suiton: Suidan no Jutsu."
A torrent of water erupted from his lips, mirroring the enemy's technique down to the most minute detail. The two waves crashed into each other, creating a spiraling vortex of destruction.
Water howled as it twisted violently, carving through the battlefield. The force of the collision shattered rock, uprooted trees, and turned corpses into drifting remnants in the flood.
The battlefield became a deathtrap.
Rain pounded down in thick sheets. Lightning slashed through the sky, illuminating the chaos in blinding flashes.
Thunder rumbled, a deep, guttural roar that shook the earth. The once-firm ground had turned into a battlefield of mud and blood, where every misstep could mean death.
The enemy jonin barely had time to react.
One was caught in the vortex, his body twisting unnaturally, bones snapping like brittle twigs before he was swallowed whole. Another attempted to leap away, but the violent flood surged forward, slamming him into jagged rock. A sickening crunch—his body went limp, his skull caved in.
The survivors scrambled to reposition, their eyes darting through the storm, searching for their target.
Amatsu was already gone.
A whisper of movement. A flicker in the rain.
Then—death.
The first jonin barely had time to register the shift in the air before cold steel parted his throat. A swift, precise strike—silent, effortless. Blood sprayed out, lost in the downpour. His body collapsed without a sound.
The second turned—hands forming seals, eyes wide in desperate realization.
Too late.
Amatsu materialized behind him in a blur, a phantom in the storm. Fingers wrapped around his wrist, twisting with brutal efficiency.
A sharp snap—bone shattered, muscle tore. The jonin's jutsu died in his throat, his chakra dispersing uselessly into the rain. He gasped—only for Amatsu's kunai to pierce his heart in one clean thrust.
Gone before he could scream.
Amatsu didn't linger.
Another shift in the storm—more enemy reinforcements. He caught movement in the periphery, chakra flaring as they wove new jutsu. Their hands flashed through seals, preparing to counter.
Amatsu vanished.
A flicker. A ghost.
He reappeared amidst them, his blade already slashing. The nearest jonin barely registered his presence before his vision spun—his severed head hitting the mud before the rest of his body followed.
The second staggered back, horror in his eyes. His seal sequence faltered, fear betraying his discipline.
A mistake.
Amatsu struck like lightning. His kunai plunged deep into the jonin's ribs, a brutal upward thrust that pierced the lung. The man gasped, choking on blood as Amatsu wrenched the blade free.
Cold. Unstoppable.
The battlefield was his.
Behind him, Higanbana stood still, untouched by the chaos.
The rain wove through her long black hair, strands clinging softly to her pale skin. Her crimson eyes, deep and luminous, reflected the storm, the flickering lightning, the blood-soaked battlefield. Yet, in their depths, there was no fear—only quiet, unwavering observation.
The scent of iron and rain mixed in the air, but she remained untainted by the violence. Amidst the corpses and shattered earth, she stood like a flower blooming in ruin—delicate, ethereal, yet eerily out of place.
Higanbana lifted her hands, her crimson eyes gleaming with an eerie, unspoken knowledge.
A breath. A whisper.
"Higan Technique: Higan no Saku."
The battlefield twisted.
From the rain-drenched earth, flowers bloomed—crimson, fragile, glistening like freshly spilled blood beneath the cold drizzle. Their petals swayed weightlessly, untouched by the chaos of battle. An unnatural beauty. A quiet omen.
The Amegakure jonin hesitated.
A mistake.
The shift in the air was imperceptible at first, but then it sank in—heavy, suffocating. The scent of wet steel and burning chakra was swallowed by something sickly sweet. An invisible poison. A creeping death.
The petals scattered.
A single breath.
One of the jonin's body jerked. His chest heaved in a desperate, silent gasp. His pupils shrank, veins blackening like ink spilling beneath his skin. A strangled sound tore from his throat, but no words came—only blood, leaking from his nose, his mouth, his eyes.
Then, he collapsed.
A poisoned garden. A death field.
Amatsu watched, his expression still as the storm above.
He had seen all kinds of jutsu. Techniques forged through discipline, refined through practice. He had stolen them with his own hands, learned them.
Yet, she—
She had never learned a single technique.
And still, she raised her hands, spoke a name, and the world obeyed.
His mind turned, sharp and methodical, breaking apart the impossibility before him.
There were only two explanations. Either she had been trained in secret—an unlikely thought, given her past—or there was something else at play.
Something he did not yet understand.
Could it be that certain techniques did not need to be learned? That, somehow, power could exist within a person, waiting to be drawn out instinctively?
The idea was absurd.
And yet, he could not deny what he was seeing.
If such a thing existed, if there were people who simply knew their own power without effort—then that meant—
His eyes narrowed.
It meant there were depths to this world still hidden from him.
A quiet realization. A dangerous possibility.
And if it was true—
Then he would find a way to take it for himself.
Amatsu wasted no time.
His figure blurred, a flicker in the storm. He moved like a shadow through the battlefield, his blade flashing, cutting, severing. No wasted movement. No unnecessary effort.
One jonin turned—too slow.
Amatsu's kunai found the soft flesh beneath his jaw, piercing upward, silencing him instantly. Blood sprayed across Amatsu's arm, but his eyes remained devoid of emotion.
Joji's sharp gaze flickered with understanding.
Amatsu wasn't just strong. He was a monster in human skin, devouring jutsu, replicating them with chilling precision. Worse—he was using the enemy's own techniques against them, forcing them into the very chaos they sought to control.
Joji's mind raced. They had underestimated him. They had underestimated all of them.
But it wasn't over.
"Seal the field!" Joji's voice was like a blade itself. "Fūinjutsu formation—NOW!"
Four remaining jonin leaped into position. Hands blurred. Chakra flared.
Amegakure's signature barrier technique ignited, black rain merging into the forming seal. Chains of liquid energy erupted, forming a dome of inescapable water. The air trembled with suppressive force. The battlefield became a cage.
Amatsu glanced up, his mind already dissecting their strategy.
This wasn't a simple barrier. The sealing chains fed off their chakra, suppressing jutsu, locking them within a killing zone.
Ryojin clicked his tongue. "Tch. Annoying bastards."
Joji's expression remained steel. "You're not leaving here."
Amatsu exhaled. Not in frustration. Not in anger.
But in understanding.
He stepped forward, letting the sealing energy crackle around him. He extended his hand, feeling the weight of the chakra chains, the precise frequency at which they pulsed.
And then—he copied it.
A fraction of a second. A sliver of movement. His fingers twisted subtly, mimicking the micro-adjustments of the enemy's seals.
Then, without hesitation, he placed his palm against the chains.
"Fūinjutsu: Kyōka Enkan."
The sealing formation pulsed, its chakra chains coiling tighter, their intricate patterns glowing like veins of lightning against the storm-lit battlefield.
Then, it cracked.
A violent ripple of chakra tore through the space, distorting the rain-soaked air. The jonin's confident expressions flickered with something rare—fear. The chains convulsed unnaturally, the formation warping under an unseen force.
Joji's eyes widened.
"What—"
The barrier shattered.
A backlash of energy erupted outward, sending jagged shards of chakra-infused debris through the air. One jonin stumbled back, clutching his arm as deep cuts split his flesh. Another barely had time to react before a shockwave hurled him into the ruins, his scream cut short by the sickening crunch of stone meeting bone.
Amatsu exhaled slowly. His voice was cold, indifferent, like he had expected nothing less.
"You assumed I couldn't reverse it."
Joji's breath hitched.
He barely had time to react. Amatsu was already there.
A shadow in the storm—silent, precise, merciless.
Joji's instincts screamed at him to move, to counter, to think—but his mind, so used to predicting, to strategizing, was too slow against something as simple, as raw, as sheer killing intent.
Steel flashed.
Pain exploded in Joji's shoulder as Amatsu's kunai pierced flesh, twisted deep. The agony was immediate, white-hot, but the true horror was how efficiently the strike had been placed—not to kill instantly, but to cripple.
Joji gritted his teeth, but Amatsu gave him no chance to counter.
A shift in weight. A slight change in balance.
Joji felt his own momentum turn against him—his body wrenched forward, dragged into the next attack.
A second kunai.
Straight through the ribs.
Joji gasped, a wet, gurgling sound. Blood surged into his throat, spilling from his lips in crimson streaks. The blade had pierced deep, angled with surgical precision—it had punctured a lung.
A perfect strike.
A strategist's death.
Joji's mind raced, even as his body failed him. He needed a counter. He needed to think.
But Amatsu's grip tightened, and with a cruel, calculated push, he buried the blade deeper.
Joji shuddered. His body convulsed violently, his vision swimming between the battlefield and the cold, encroaching darkness.
He couldn't breathe.
He was drowning in his own blood.
The storm raged on, uncaring. The rain fell heavier, washing away the crimson that poured down his chest.
Joji's lips parted—not for a strategy, not for a counter.
A whisper.
"…Ryojin…"
Amatsu yanked the kunai blade free, and Joji collapsed.
The world tilted around him, his body slamming against the wet earth, fingers twitching weakly. He felt the warmth leaving him, slipping into the cold mud beneath.
His vision blurred—but he could still see him.
Ryojin.
Standing amidst the carnage, golden eyes burning like embers against the dark.
Joji's lips trembled. His fingers clawed at the ground, his failing body still trying to reach out, to grasp something long lost.
"…Sorry…"
Ryojin took a step closer, his expression unreadable.
Joji's breath hitched, his pulse weakening. The battlefield faded—the sound of rain, the distant cries, the lingering scent of blood.
Only one thing remained.
A memory.
A girl's lifeless body.
Ryojin's rage.
His own helplessness.
"For the… girl…"
His voice broke.
His mind filled with regret. Not for his death, but for his failure.
"I… I couldn't save her…"
"My...Sister...."
The world darkened.
Joji's fingers stilled.
His eyes, once filled with calculation, foresight, brilliance—dimmed forever.
The storm moved on. The battle continued.
And Joji—Amegakure's greatest strategist
Dead.
Amatsu didn't even spare them a glance. His mind had already moved on.
The path was clear.
The prison cells awaited.
Chaos was about to begin.