Cloud Shinobi Village's administration building was a strange, half-floating fortress carved into the cliff face. Inside, a middle-aged man with dark skin and coarse black hair sat hunched over his desk, glaring at a stack of reports like they were personally responsible for all his problems.
He didn't get long to brood.
BANG BANG BANG—!
The door slammed so violently the frame rattled.
The man startled so hard he nearly flipped his chair.
When he saw which idiot had burst in, his face darkened like a thunderhead.
"Turlock! How many times have I told you—act like a shinobi, not a panicked housewife!"
The small office shook with his roar. He wasn't big, but his voice rolled like thunder across the plateau.
Turlock, however, ignored the scolding entirely. He was pale, sweating, and breathing like someone who'd sprinted uphill.
"Leader Ai! It's bad—really bad! First Hokage from the Land of Fire… he's here!"
Ai's anger snapped shut like a slammed door.
"…what did you just say?"
Turlock swallowed.
"A suspicious figure was sighted near Thunder Valley. About twenty years old. According to the scouts, they believe it's First Hokage Amamiya Raizen of Konoha!"
Ai froze.
Amamiya Raizen.
A name already whispered across nations.
A man who had personally taken multiple tailed beasts.
A man who fought like the second coming of a mythical disaster.
And now that monster was in his territory.
Ai leaned back slowly, eyes narrowing. Despite looking irritated enough to smash his desk, his mind was spinning sharply.
He was the leader of Cloud Shinobi Village.
He called himself Ai, and was already considered the strongest shinobi the Land of Thunder had produced in generations.
He was also the first man to propose founding Cloud Shinobi Village—though they hadn't finished unifying all clans yet, and thus he hadn't taken the title of Raikage.
But this threat…
This was unacceptable.
He glanced at the reports again—the ones describing how Raizen had seized One Tail right out of Wind Country's grip.
So the rumors were true. He's collecting tailed beasts…
And now he was walking straight toward Thunder Valley.
Toward Eight Tails.
"There's only one reason First Hokage would come here."
Ai slammed the report onto the desk.
"He's here to steal Eight Tails."
The Response of Cloud Shinobi Village
A burly shinobi with a dark face and a thick moustache stepped forward.
If Raizen were standing here, he'd immediately recognize the man—
the future Second Raikage.
But for now, he was just Ai's most trusted guard.
"Leader, Amamiya Raizen's strength is unknown," he warned. "For him to claim the title of strongest in the Warring States… he must be terrifying. We should take time to plan—"
Turlock cut him off anxiously.
"There is no time! If we wait, he'll take Eight Tails and vanish!"
Ai nodded sharply.
"You're right. We don't have the luxury of strategy—not with a monster already at our door."
He slapped a heavy hand on the shoulder of the future Second Raikage.
"Prepare the elite force. Mobilize twenty of our top Jōnin. And bring me the Gold and Silver Brothers."
The room fell silent.
Turlock blinked, stunned.
The moustached guard's jaw tightened.
But Ai's voice only grew colder.
"Amamiya Raizen dares step into my land? Good. He won't leave unscathed."
Even by Cloud standards, this was extreme.
The Gold and Silver Brothers—elite Jōnin infused with Nine Tails' chakra—were monsters even among monsters. Combined with two future Raikage-tier fighters and twenty elite Jōnin…
Not even the Second Hokage had escaped unscathed from such a force.
This was one of the deadliest strike teams the Thunder Country could field.
And Ai was deploying them immediately.
Turlock saluted sharply, excitement shaking his voice.
"At once, Leader!"
Cloud Shinobi Village erupted into motion.
Meanwhile—Thunder Valley
Raizen didn't know Ai was assembling an entire death squad.
And honestly? He wouldn't have cared.
Because he had already bumped into a different group of trouble.
He approached a narrow rocky pass overlooking the gorge—where a line of shinobi waited behind stone barricades, watching the valley below.
A scouting outpost.
A surveillance point.
Raizen snorted.
"Cloud Shinobi… monitoring Eight Tails. Figures."
He stepped out of the shadows.
A Cloud ninja barely had time to gasp before Raizen blurred, and a sharp pain blossomed in his throat. The shinobi dropped, twitching.
"E-enemy attack!!"
The rest didn't hesitate. Cloud was many things—reckless, stubborn, loud—but never cowards. The moment they saw a comrade fall, they launched themselves at Raizen in coordinated formation.
Raizen sighed.
"You're not even worth a warning."
He raised one hand.
"Universal Pull."
The air twisted violently.
Cloud shinobi were yanked forward like puppets with cut strings, dragged straight toward Raizen's outstretched arm.
As one man flew within reach—
A black receiver grew from Raizen's palm, expanding into a barbed spike of hardened chakra metal.
The Cloud ninja was impaled before he even understood what was happening.
Raizen flicked his wrist, sending the corpse tumbling aside.
"Yin–Yang Release… functional enough."
His voice was unimpressed.
"Still needs refinement."
The black rods dissolved into chakra and reabsorbed into his body.
More Cloud shinobi advanced.
Raizen's expression didn't change.
He simply stepped forward.