"Kyouki, take Shisui and Itachi and come back. I'm going on a killing spree."
"Yes, Master."
Kyouki's white cloud flickered, turning into a streak of black light and vanishing, then reappeared directly in front of Shisui and Itachi.
"Don't be careless. Be careful. We'll wait for your return."
"Me too, Gen-nii."
Shisui and Itachi were not fools; they trusted Gen's words and instincts. After a brief nod they jumped on the cloud.
"Don't worry. No one in this world can kill me. If I want to leave, no one can stop me."
Uchiha Gen finished speaking, gave a casual wave, and watched Kyouki's silhouette shrink to a black streak and disappear.
Gen leaped onto Shuryu, guided Shizukamaru down with a flick of his hand, and looked down at the frozen canyon with a laugh. "How unsightly, Raikage-sama."
"To have your subordinates interfere from the sidelines is one thing but you, a Kage, need to call in outside help?" the Fourth Raikage snarled. His face curled in disgust; words failed him.
The enemy's aptitude exceeded expectations.
Gen wielded strange, powerful abilities — constructs that could be moved between, unpredictable and devastating. Those were clearly two key talents from his Mangekyō Sharingan, and the Raikage's camp had been misled into thinking the movement came from something else entirely.
If they'd known Gen also had the Flying Thunder God ability, the whole ambush might have been called off; Gen had kept that card close for a reason, to harvest souls.
C crouched beside the Raikage, using Medical Ninjutsu to bind the bleeding arm while trying to keep the boss's dignity intact. "In a one-on-one, Lord Raikage would not be afraid, but you are four against one."
Uchiha Gen bellowed, laughing. "Hahaha. By that logic, should a jinchūriki or a pregnant woman fight be considered two-against-one? My Mangekyō powers are my skill — am I forbidden from using them? Should we all stop using Ninjutsu and settle disputes with rock-paper-scissors? Childish sophistry!"
He taunted C, then turned his gaze back to the Raikage. "So, Raikage-sama, how shall we resolve this?"
"Your subordinate broke the rules. He must atone with his life."
The Raikage refused to back down.
Gen shrugged. "You insulted Kumogakure and two more of my people died at the hands of your Uchiha. You're the ones who should atone."
Kumogakure tightened their guards. Raiden's death was still fresh, and tension hung heavy in the air.
Gen rode Shuryu to the canyon cliffs, then shot upward in a display that stunned the Cloud shinobi. "He's fleeing! He's running away — sound the signal to the ambush teams," the Raikage barked.
Signal flares bloomed from the ridges, crackling like thunder. The hidden Kumogakure shinobi pushed through snowdrifts and moved to their positions, hands warm from concealed pouches so sign-speed was unaffected despite the cold. They executed the plan with precise hand seals.
"Combined Lightning Release: Lightning Net!"
Blue-white bolts leapt from dozens of hands, linking in midair and knitting together into a great electric web that filled the canyon mouth. The sky brightened; thunder rolled as the net rose, trapping the space where Gen hovered on Shuryu. For a moment it looked like a cage had formed around him.
They had miscalculated. The attack looked impressive, but it was far too dispersed. That net could not hold the level of power Gen controlled. Shuryu opened wide and breathed a furnace of golden-white flame. The lightning net seared, a hole ripped open in the weave, and the dragon burst through.
Gen did not just rely on brute force. He drew on his Homies' natural energy and pushed into a weakened Sage art.
Sage Art: Nirvana Blood Hell.
He had not fully entered Sage Mode, but he siphoned natural energy stored in Shuryu and Kyouki to power a devastating variant of the technique. Snowflakes turned blood-red, not feathers this time but flurries of crimson that stained the sky. A gust of wind swept them down like a storm of petals turned to blood.
One by one the Kumogakure shinobi faltered, their eyelids heavy as if weighted, bodies wobbling as consciousness slipped. The genjutsu tapped into personal nightmares; few could resist, and those that tried took far longer than was safe.
Raikage A and Yugito moved fast, breaking the flow where they could and helping their subordinates pull free, but more than a hundred chūnin fell, backbone fighters for Kumogakure. Ghostly orbs rose out of them: translucent souls with faint white lights. Gen laughed, hands on his hips.
"Haha… this feels great! It's been too long since I felt this." His voice echoed across the blooded sky.
The canyon below was littered with motionless Cloud shinobi. C's handsome face shrank pale as he ran among them. "Their chakra… it's already dissipated."
"How can this be the work of one person?" Darui breathed, shock and anger fighting on his features. If he hadn't been snapped out at the last moment, he, too, might have been swept away. He pledged to himself to harden against genjutsu after this day.
"Bastard—if you've got guts, come down and fight!" A roared, muscles trembling. He looked like a man who'd never felt such fury.
Gen, brushing a messy curl out of his face, called back, amused. "Heh heh. I got to the sky by my own skill. Why should I come down? You set an ambush — you brought this on yourselves."
The insults and the altitude were maddening. Yugito couldn't take it anymore. She poured out Yin–Yang chakra in a rush and shifted into the Two-Tails' form, a massive blue-furred demon. She reared back and fired a huge, screaming ball of flame.
Shuryu snapped sideways as Gen twisted the dragon's horn — nimble as a living fighter — and avoided the blast. Gen grinned like a child. "Can't hit me, can't hit me. What are you going to do now?"
The Cloud forces felt their blood boil. Yugito exhaled again, a torrent of flame like rat-tail balls — a barrage of fire-energy missiles. Shuryu inhaled and answered with a white-gold torrent that made Yugito's attacks evaporate instantly. Fire met fire; the white-gold of Gen's breath devoured the red bolts without a ripple.
"You dare play with the Uchiha?" Gen mocked. "The Two-Tails—pretty, but not qualified, big sister."
The insults drove Yugito to pour out even more chakra. She formed and swallowed a Tailed Beast Ball — a compact, devastating blast — and shoveled it from her maw.
Shuryu sensed the fluctuation and shrank to a slender, evasive posture. The Tailed Beast shot past with terrifying speed for a moment, but Gen dodged with a playful wink. Again, he was unreachable.
The Raikage's fury peaked. "I've never been this angry in my life!" everyone felt. Still, fury burned chakra and time; both sides were bleeding reserves.
At that moment Kyouki returned as a black streak from the horizon, having delivered Shisui and Itachi to safety. The Raikage made a quick decision. "Collect the bodies later. Split up and retreat, Yugito and I will cover the withdrawal." Orders were barked and obeyed.
Shadow clones fled, skittering across the white with plastered breath; clones could fool many sensors, but not soul perception. Gen watched each black dot disperse with a cold smile. The Fourth Raikage and Yugito were too important to risk killing, their deaths would spark full-scale war.
Gen wasn't willing to drag Konoha or the world into that ruin just for power. But the rest, the expendable backbone, would not get mercy.
He sat cross-legged on Kyouki, closed his eyes, and touched his forehead: Soul extraction.
A fragment of spirit shot out like a living figure; a quarter of it remained attached, while three-quarters separated and split into eight streaks of light. Each streak dove down through the storm, hunting for fleeing forms. The spectral tracers locked on and plucked the souls that had not escaped.
From the ground, more faint lights detached from the fallen chūnin and lifted toward the sky — Gen collected them one by one. It was a terrible, clinical harvest: floating white orbs rising, then dissolving into Gen's aura.
He chuckled, the sound traveling far. "There. That's how a proper appointment should go."
Below, the Raikage and Yugito gathered the survivors and dragged the bodies into a hard, bitter retreat. The Hidden Cloud elders and jonin who had plotted the ambush began to comprehend the cost of their treachery; a hundred lives gone in minutes, their chūnin corps shredded.
"Bastard," Darui spat, his jaw tight. "If this is your idea of 'honor,' we will remember it."
Gen studied the dispersing figures in the distance, eyes half-lidded, but his expression was unreadable, a mask that made allies uneasy and enemies sick to their stomachs. He had won the fight he wanted and preserved the few people he didn't intend to take. The canyon whispered with wind and damp earth; the storm that had rained blood-red flakes reddened the snow for days.
He rose, folded his cloak, and on the cloud above the ravaged field he glanced back once more — to the retreating figures, to the ruined ambush, and to the ghosts of the chūnin he had taken. Then he turned his face to the north and vanished on Kyouki's back, the white cloud a streak against the gray sky.