Zero Training Ground, eastern sector.
The sun was sinking, yet the light filtering through the forest was far from dim.
Lightning chased the howling wind, speed clashing against swiftness in a final, desperate contest.
Zzzzt zzzzt zzzzt!!
High-voltage lightning tore through the air, filling it with a sharp, scorched stench.
Lightning-wreathed fingers formed a hand blade that vibrated at insane frequency. In the frame of Yotsuki Isao's massive body, that savage knife-hand looked like a colossal axe falling from the heavens, chopping straight toward Kazama Etsu.
Lightning Rampage: Horizontal Thousandfold Dance!
It was one of the Yotsuki clan's secret taijutsu arts, designed to be used together with Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
Lightning was compressed and focused along the edge of his hand, vibrating at high frequency. With power more than ten times that of an ordinary strike, it unleashed a truly devastating blow.
Most people had to leap into the air and rely on gravity to add force before they could even use this move. Yotsuki Isao, blessed with his unnaturally towering frame, only needed to stand on the ground and swing. It had been his signature technique back in his youth, the move that made his name.
Countless souls had died beneath that high-voltage hand blade.
Facing that terrifying strike, Kazama Etsu formed hand seals that looked slow yet finished impossibly fast.
Wind Release: Gale Body Flicker.
Whoosh.
Etsu's comparatively lean figure dissolved into a harmless gust of wind. The ferocious knife-hand vented its rage on an afterimage, slicing it into tatters.
That was all it managed to hit.
Yotsuki Isao clicked his tongue in regret, then turned, looking back at Etsu, who had somehow already circled around behind him.
"You run pretty fast, wind brat."
Kazama Etsu did not respond.
His killing intent locked firmly onto Yotsuki Isao's body, and his hands never stopped weaving seals.
Hum.
The distinctive low hum of Wind Release sounded in front of him.
An invisible slash wave swept across the forest, a vacuum edge roaring toward Yotsuki Isao's chest.
Clang!
The Wind Release struck his left chest, producing an ear-piercing clash like metal on metal.
Boom rumble rumble!
Massive banyan trees that were caught by the wind blade shifted sideways as if pushed by some invisible titan, then toppled outward, smashing into the ground and throwing up clouds of dust.
Within the billowing yellow-brown haze,
Yotsuki Isao sneered.
The cords of muscle across his chest stood out clearly, every fiber defined. Kazama Etsu's ninjutsu had left only a faint white mark on his chest.
Etsu stared at Yotsuki Isao's unconcerned expression, the green of his eyes darkening further.
Fragments of pain churned in his mind. That towering, lightning-clad figure overlapped with a nightmare on the battlefield.
It had been a brutal encounter.
Back then, Team Three had been assigned as a patrol squad on the Konoha–Kumogakure front, ordered to scout the southern war zone. How they encountered the enemy, how the fighting even started, every detail had long blurred with time.
He did not even remember clearly how he escaped the pursuit, how he was rescued.
In his broken memory, only one scene remained.
"Etsu! Kill him!!"
His kind, introverted teammate was holding his own intestines in, dragging them along the ground as he clung desperately to the enemy's legs, eyes full of pleading as he looked toward Etsu.
The girl whose abdomen had been run through by an arm had her opponent locked around the neck with a jūjutsu choke. Lightning was charring her body black, and her once beautiful face twisted like a vengeful spirit.
"Only your Wind Release can cut through his lightning! Do it!"
"No…"
"Do it! Kill him!"
"You'll…"
"I said do it!!!"
Under the desperate shouts of his comrades, he unleashed the one ninjutsu he knew back then.
Wind Release: Vacuum Slash Wave.
Hum.
The invisible slash cleaved through both ally and enemy alike.
Lightning and severed limbs spun through the air.
Protected by his Lightning Release, the enemy emerged without a scratch. Only his comrades' shattered bodies were scattered across the ground, writhing and screaming in agony.
His sensei, who had already lost the ability to fight, collapsed in despair.
The young Kazama Etsu could only sit dumbly on the ground, mind blank.
The painful memory surged up from the depths, dragged to the surface by Yotsuki Isao, like a flood bursting through a long-suppressed dam.
Yotsuki Isao's body overlapped with that nightmare enemy. For a moment, Etsu felt as if the dream itself was pinning him down, impossible to break free.
"Still spacing out in the middle of a fight?"
The enemy's roar exploded beside his ears.
Lightning Release Chakra Mode flaring, Yotsuki Isao closed in again, knife-hand raised.
The incoming hand chop carried fierce wind pressure. Etsu's expression tightened.
His hands moved on their own, muscle memory taking over as he formed seals at lightning speed.
Whoosh.
The Gale Body Flicker that he had drilled down into his very bones saved him again. His figure once more dissolved into wind, slipping past Yotsuki Isao's blistering assault.
"Gh…!"
He reappeared some distance away and clutched at his chest in pain.
He looked down.
The flesh on his chest had been charred black, fused to what remained of his clothing.
The black-red crust of burned flesh was horrifying to look at, and beneath the smell of scorched cloth, there was a faint scent of cooked meat.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Kazama Etsu glared at his opponent.
Yotsuki Isao's Lightning Release Chakra Mode was simply too strong. His body had only grazed the edge of that highly compressed lightning chakra. He had not even been hit by the knife-hand proper before the concentrated electrical current had burned him.
He rolled his shoulders.
The current had numbed his nerves temporarily.
The scorched wound had sealed itself shut, with no blood flowing out. That at least was a small blessing.
Confirming that the terrifying injury on his chest did not affect his movements, Etsu once again used Gale Body Flicker, dodging the lightning-charged kunai that came flying at him.
Boom!
Empowered with Lightning Release, the kunai bored through the gale, punching through several tree trunks in a row before vanishing from sight.
"Breathe. Breathe."
Reappearing on a breeze, Kazama Etsu panted hard, chest heaving.
Under the enemy's relentless assault, his stamina was being burned away at an alarming rate. The burning pain of his skin and the faint throbbing in his breastbone drenched him in cold sweat.
He had specifically created Gale Body Flicker to deal with Kumogakure's high-speed taijutsu specialists.
Years of training had turned it into pure instinct.
He no longer needed to think.
Whenever danger came, his body simply formed the seals on its own, clean and efficient.
Back when he fought Haori, if he had not underestimated her, that absurd girl, no matter how strong, would never have managed to so much as scratch him.
But right now, things were bad.
The enemy's high-speed assaults simply did not stop. Every single blow was lethal enough to cleave this "frail, delicate" ninjutsu-type jonin clean in half.
The opponent's attacks were taijutsu empowered by Lightning Release, with relatively low chakra cost.
Kazama Etsu, on the other hand, was relying purely on ninjutsu-style Wind Release.
Their chakra expenditure was not even in the same league.
His reserves had already been heavily drained by Yotsuki Isao's merciless pursuit.
Ordinary Wind Release techniques could not break through the Lightning Release Chakra Mode at all. In this situation, if he just dragged things out, he would either run himself completely dry,
or stake everything on one final gamble.
He had only one choice left.
Only that jutsu.
Etsu's eyes hardened. Strange, unfamiliar hand seals appeared between his fingers.
"Oh? Not running anymore?"
Step. Step.
Yotsuki Isao walked forward, the blue glow at his feet radiating pure despair. In the sunlight, his bulky frame cast a tower-like shadow on the ground.
To him, Kazama Etsu's resistance was nothing but a pointless struggle.
The defensive power of Lightning Release Chakra Mode was far beyond what some ordinary jonin could scratch. If the other party had not specialized in slippery Wind Release, this farce would have ended long ago.
He wondered how things were going for "Beast" on the other side.
He had to finish this pesky fly quickly. Capturing the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki and the Byakugan heiress was what mattered. It was pointless to waste time on a wind-type jonin.
"If you are done running…"
Lightning crackled brighter across Yotsuki Isao's dark skin. His arm straightened, four fingers pointing at Kazama Etsu like the tip of a drawn bowstring, radiating crushing pressure.
"This next strike will finish you."
"That is exactly what I was going to say, trash from the Cloud."
Etsu's robes whipped around him as the wind he had gathered swirled and condensed between his shifting hand seals.
It was the only Wind Release ninjutsu he had ever created in his life.
His resolve made manifest.
The setting sun at the horizon burned red like blood.
Wind and lightning filled the forest.
The two figures faced each other across the clearing, chakra surging around them in nearly tangible torrents.
Yotsuki Isao had a mission from Kumogakure and could not afford to be delayed. Kazama Etsu's chakra was nearly spent and he had no choice but to go all in. For different reasons, both men arrived at the same conclusion.
They would decide it in a single move.
Etsu's gaze became blade-sharp, as if his eyes alone were enough to carve bloody holes into Yotsuki Isao. Chakra surged up from his heart, refined again and again into razor-edged Wind Release that clung to his arms.
"Finish you? With that flimsy excuse for Wind Release?"
Yotsuki Isao laughed once, open and disdainful.
He had once served as a bodyguard to the Third Raikage. He had killed so many "ordinary jonin" like Kazama Etsu that he could not even remember their faces.
There were plenty of shinobi in this world who could break Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
But this piece of trash in front of him was definitely not one of them.
"You will understand soon. I created this technique specifically for people like you."
Etsu's eyes were unwavering.
The battlefield of the Cloud war replayed endlessly in his dreams, but he was no longer that helpless boy. Decades of relentless training in Wind Release nature transformation had forged his chakra into an edge far keener than anything he once possessed.
His heart pounded like a war drum.
Chakra thicker than blood itself surged through his veins.
Rumble rumble.
Condensed Wind Release chakra spiraled around his forearms, growing so dense it rumbled like distant thunder.
Yotsuki Isao's eyes narrowed.
He had never seen this Wind Release technique before, but that extreme nature transformation made nerves honed by a lifetime of killing go taut.
This cutting, lethal feeling…
His body screamed warning after warning, and along with it came a fierce excitement.
Everyone knew the Yotsuki clan of Kumogakure were battle maniacs by nature.
Even by their standards, he was considered a fanatic.
His aging, heavy body seemed to find new life in the face of that roaring Wind Release. Lightning Release chakra gathered at his fingertips, glowing even brighter than before.
Yotsuki Isao's expression turned grave. The spear of lightning that symbolized his strongest thrust had locked onto Kazama Etsu's position.
Hell Stab: Four-Fingered Spear.
It was the Third Raikage's signature technique. Even the mighty Eight-Tails had once been forced to bow before the edge of that jutsu.
Ever since Yotsuki Isao mastered it, he had never suffered defeat.
"To die under this move is the greatest honor you will ever know."
Kazama Etsu no longer had the breath to speak.
He held the raging Wind Release tight around his arms, shaping it into two massive tornadoes.
This was the Wind Release technique he had created on his own, combining extreme shape and nature transformation. Its difficulty had already reached the S-rank.
Zzzz…
The raging wind carved fine cuts across his arms.
Blood spattered.
Etsu endured the pain, driving the wind to an even more extreme state.
"So it is only an unfinished ninjutsu after all?"
Yotsuki Isao shook his head in disappointment.
The excitement he had begun to feel vanished the moment he saw the wounds on Etsu's arms.
Ninja battles were not children's games. To use an incomplete ninjutsu in real combat was like taking an unfinished blade onto the battlefield.
You would not even know how you died.
"Rrrraaaah!"
Yotsuki Isao's contempt ignited Etsu's fighting spirit.
With a roar of pain, veins bulged on his forehead.
Hum.
With a dreadful buzzing, the twin cyclones shrank, compressing into two long, needle-like drills spinning at insane speed. The skin on his arms peeled back inch by inch, and the raging Wind Release was dyed red with his blood.
The Wind Release ninjutsu he had never been able to complete before now materialized under Yotsuki Isao's overwhelming pressure.
The price was horrific.
Crimson muscle fibers were exposed to open air, glistening tissue fluid and yellow fat mixing with the blood into a grotesque mess.
Yotsuki Isao watched the spectacle, all trace of contempt gone from his eyes.
His opponent's strength and resolve had finally won his respect.
"Wind brat, tell me your name."
"You do not need to know it."
The green of Kazama Etsu's eyes flushed red at the edges. Rapid chakra consumption and severe blood loss had pushed his fatigue beyond words.
Yotsuki Isao did not mind the hostility. To him, only strength could earn respect.
And Kazama Etsu undeniably had it now.
Konoha really did produce monsters. Even a simple academy instructor held such a terrifying Wind Release secret art in reserve.
"Then at least tell me the name of that ninjutsu."
He leveled his four fingers at Etsu, a faint appreciation in his gaze.
"Before I kill you."
"This move never had a name…"
Etsu panted, chest pumping like a bellows, every word forced out between ragged breaths.
"That is truly a shame."
Lightning Release chakra condensed at Yotsuki Isao's fingertips, burning into a blinding white. In the glare of his full power, his features were almost impossible to make out.
"It does now."
The tip of the blood-red wind drill tightened, signaling that the final stage of shape transformation was complete.
"Wind Release…"
The bloody lance roared as it hurtled forward, smashing down toward Yotsuki Isao.
"Thunderbreaker Drill!!"
Kazama Etsu spat out each word, and the last syllable was nearly a scream.
The terrifying scarlet spear spun like a drill, twisting the very air around it with its unleashed wind.
"Good! Come!!
Hell Stab: Four-Fingered Spear!!!"
Facing the incoming attack, Yotsuki Isao roared without a hint of fear. The Lightning Release he had long since gathered erupted in an instant.
In the blink of an eye,
Two blood-colored drills slammed into the spear of lightning.
Boom!
Wind and lightning exploded outward.
Countless banyan trees were severed and set ablaze, turned into charcoal in an instant. The storm of wind wrapped in thunder almost tore the entire forest apart.
Hum hum hum!!!
The spinning drills bored endlessly against the razor-sharp spear.
Zzzzt zzzzt zzzzt!
A shrill screech filled the air. Under the assault of extremely condensed Lightning Release chakra, the blood-hued vortex began to show signs of collapse.
"You think you can break lightning? You are not even close!!"
Yotsuki Isao grinned viciously.
Massive quantities of chakra surged into his fingers.
The terrifying Lightning Release was like a cluster of steel needles, stabbing deep into the core of the drill.
Before his eyes,
The blood-red Thunderbreaker Drill began to fray.
An incomplete ninjutsu still could not surpass the legendary strongest spear.
"Raaaaaaah!!"
Kazama Etsu's unwilling scream shook the mountains and forest, drowning out even the clash of wind and thunder.
He could not accept it.
He would not allow that scene from back then to repeat itself.
His will broke past his physical limits. His spirit surged like a storm, flooding the chakra pathways and ripping more energy from his faltering body.
"I will not lose again…"
Bloodshot spiderwebbed across the green of his eyes.
Creak creak.
The drill's rotation sped up once more, its color darkening into a harsh black-red. Flesh and bone in his arms began to tear apart, the raging Wind Release no longer fully under his control, backlashing right into him.
"That resolve… I acknowledge you, brat! I will grant you the most perfect execution!!"
Yotsuki Isao too was roused by Etsu's madness. Eyes reddened, he dragged every last drop of chakra in his body into his hand, determined to crush this final attack completely.
Now.
Sanity flashed through the frenzy in Kazama Etsu's gaze.
The blood-red drill abruptly shifted, slipping past Yotsuki Isao's thrust and instead driving toward his left chest.
He had never truly lost himself in anger.
The enemy's ninjutsu was an extremely condensed lance of Lightning Release. The more chakra he focused into his hand, the stronger its piercing power.
At the same time, the rest of his body was bled of chakra, his defenses drastically weakened.
You could not have an unbreakable spear and unshakable armor at the same time.
Boom!
Offset blows of wind and lightning struck home. Two figures passed each other in a blur, and bloody fragments steeped in raging chakra flew through the air.
The forest plunged into sudden silence.
Drip.
Drip.
Blood streamed from the torn wound on Yotsuki Isao's chest. The old, horrific scar across his torso had been ripped wide open again by the Wind Release.
Thud.
Kazama Etsu's body swayed, then toppled. Both of his arms were gone, burned away from the shoulders. Only scorched bone protruded where they once connected.
"What a disappointment. I take back what I said earlier."
Zzzzt.
Lightning crawled across his hand as he cauterized the torn flesh on his chest, searing the wound closed.
Yotsuki Isao looked down at the man sprawled on the ground, his face full of regret.
People said wind trumped lightning.
He had been truly looking forward to testing that unfamiliar Wind Release against his own lightning.
But in the end, Kazama Etsu had changed course at the last moment, aiming for his old chest wound in a bid for mutual destruction. Yotsuki Isao had been forced to switch his spear to a knife-hand, chopping both of Etsu's arms off at the root to stop the attack.
"Lis… cough cough…"
Face in the dirt, Kazama Etsu struggled to stand using only his legs.
Losing his arms did more than keep him from using ninjutsu. He could not even balance properly on his feet. He fell again and again, finally managing only to slump back against a toppled tree, gasping for air.
"You do not even have the courage to face me head-on, and you think you can break lightning? What a joke."
Yotsuki Isao finished tending to his wound and walked toward him, lightning once more gathering in his hand.
"Hah… hah…"
Massive blood loss had blurred Kazama Etsu's consciousness. His green eyes turned up toward the sky.
The fiery sunset filled his pupils, a streak of blood-red painted across a slab of jade.
"I am no longer… hah… that boy on the battlefield.
I am a teacher at the Academy now. My obsession with breaking lightning… and your recognition… cough cough… none of that matters as much as my students…"
He stared vacantly at the sunset, mumbling to himself.
The green in his eyes had already begun to fade.
Seeing that his opponent had passed out, Yotsuki Isao let the lightning in his hand die away. He too raised his head to look at the sky.
Only a few remnants of sunlight remained, the sun itself almost gone. The giant bird circling above him was still clearly visible against the dimming clouds, pointing his way.
He had already wasted enough time on this man.
Once night fell and he lost the elephant-bird's guidance, even he would not be able to pinpoint the Nine-Tails' location with certainty.
He could not afford another delay.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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