The air hung thick and damp, tasting of salt and despair. Perched on a wind-lashed cliff overlooking the churning, grey expanse of the ocean, the Kumo outpost was less a fortress and more a grim sentinel.
It was a miserable posting, far from the main fronts, its purpose solely to watch for the threat from the mist-shrouded islands of Kiri.
Two Kumo shinobi, Daiki and Kenji, huddled under a makeshift awning trying to escape the worst of the drizzle.
Daiki, grizzled and scarred, sharpened a kunai with rhythmic sounds that fought the ocean's din. Kenji, younger, leaner, restlessly scanned the misty horizon through chapped binoculars.
"Still think we're winning this mess, old man?" Kenji asked, his voice weary.
Daiki didn't look up. "Course we are. Lightning always strikes hardest. We've got shinobi with guts." He spat onto the wet stone. "Konoha? They got legends gathering dust and a Hokage who smokes more than he fights."
Kenji frowned. "They got the Sannins…"
"Pfft!" Daiki scoffed, the sharpening stopping abruptly. "What have they done in the last few years?"
"What about Fugaku? They are calling him the 'Wicked Eye'? Or Minato, who they are also calling the 'Yellow Flash'? They say he moves faster than sight."
Daiki resumed scraping the kunai. "Fugaku? Scary eyes, he's an Uchiha after all. But Ayy-sama's fists crack mountains. Minato's fast, yeah. But Bee? Bee is our own lightning wrapped in rhyme. There's no contest." He paused, a grim smirk touching his lips. "And then there's the real reason we're in this mess. That Uzumaki brat. Renjiro."
Kenji shifted uncomfortably. "They say he killed Tani-sama… the Two-Tails jinchuriki."
"Allegedly," Daiki grunted, the word heavy with unspoken doubt. "Village says he did, so we fight. But think about it, kid. If this Renjiro bastard was just some nobody, would the Raikage really throw us into a war over it? Would Konoha even need to protect him so fiercely?"
He tapped the kunai blade thoughtfully. "There's power there. Dangerous power. Maybe power that scared someone enough to–"
"Intruders!"
The raw, terrified scream ripped through the outpost, cutting Daiki off. It came from the watchtower, from Hoshi, their sensory ninja. His voice, usually calm and measured, was a shriek of pure, unadulterated panic. "SOUTH CLIFF! MULTIPLE HIGH-CHAKRA SIGNATURES! KIRI! IT'S–"
His voice cut off with a wet, gurgling CHOKE, followed by a sickening THUD from the tower above.
Daiki and Kenji were on their feet instantly, kunai drawn, hearts hammering against their ribs. The ocean's roar seemed to fade, replaced by the frantic pounding of blood in their ears. The mist, thick and clinging, suddenly felt alive with menace.
"WHOOSH-CLANG!"
The heavy wooden gate, reinforced with steel bands, didn't so much explode as disintegrate. Not from explosive force, but from a single, terrifyingly powerful horizontal slash.
Splinters the size of spears flew inward as a massive slab of blackened steel, wider than a man, cleaved through the barrier. Standing framed in the wreckage, hefting the monstrous Kubikiribōchō with terrifying ease, was Konno Momoe.
Her expression was impassive, her eyes cold and assessing as they scanned the stunned defenders scrambling in the courtyard. Blood – fresh blood – dripped from the Executioner's Blade's impossibly sharp edge.
"Too loud," Momoe stated flatly, her voice cutting through the sudden chaos like ice.
Before the Kumo shinobi could fully react, blue-white lightning erupted from the swirling mist behind Momoe.
"ZZZT-CRACKLE!"
Sakurai Yuji blurred past her, a manic grin splitting his face, the twin blades Kiba humming with lethal energy.
"Dance time, fog-breathers!" he cackled. He didn't aim for bodies; he aimed for panic.
"ZZAP!"
A bolt of pure lightning arced from one blade, striking a chuunin and raising a water jutsu seal. The man convulsed, smoke rising from his clothes, collapsing in a twitching heap.
"ZZT-SLASH!"
Yuji spun, the other Kiba blade severing the arm of a shinobi lunging at Momoe's flank. The scream was drowned by Yuji's laughter.
"Feels like home!"
Daiki roared, gathering Raiton chakra in his fist, aiming a lightning-enhanced punch at Yuji's back.
"Raiton: Jintori!" (Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder). Before his fist connected, emerald green chakra lashed out like whips.
"SCHLINK!"
Thick bands of energy wrapped around Daiki's wrist and ankle. He gasped, his chakra flickering and dying as the bindings squeezed.
Tengan stepped calmly from the mist, Hiramekarei's twin hilts crossed before him, the bands extending from them.
"Hasty," he murmured, a hint of disappointment in his tone. A flick of his wrist.
"CRUNCH-SNAP!" The bones in Daiki's wrist and ankle shattered simultaneously. He collapsed with a strangled cry of agony.
Kenji, seeing his mentor fall, didn't hesitate. He flung a barrage of shuriken, not at the swordsmen, but into the air above them, channelling chakra.
"Raiton: Raijin no Yari!" (Lightning Release: Spear of the Thunder God).
Lightning coalesced around the shuriken, forming crackling spears aimed to rain down. Before the first spear could fall, a near-invisible strand of wire snaked around Kenji's throat from behind. Another looped around his wrists.
Kubota Jurou materialized like a phantom, his needle-like Nuibari gleaming.
"Tsk, tsk. Predictable," he whispered, his voice devoid of emotion. A sharp tug on Nuibari's hilt.
"SNAP-THWACK!"
The wires pulled taut. Kenji's lightning spears fizzled out. His eyes bulged, a choked gurgle escaping his crushed windpipe. Jurou gave another precise flick, sewing Kenji's wrists tightly together behind his back with impossible speed. The young shinobi collapsed, writhing silently, immobilized and suffocating.
The massacre was swift, clinical, and utterly brutal. A Kumo jounin tried to unleash a massive fireball at Kase Seiji, who merely stood observing the chaos, Samehada bandaged on his back.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"
"WHOOSH-BOOM!"
The fireball roared towards him. Seiji didn't move. As it neared, the sword awoke, its shark-skin maw gaping wide.
"CHOMP-GULP!"
The fireball vanished into its gullet. Samehada shuddered, scales glowing faintly red, emitting a low, burbling of satisfaction. The jounin stared, dumbfounded. Seiji took one step, and swung Samehada almost lazily. The scales tore through the jounin's guard and torso with horrific ease, shredding his flesh.
It was over in minutes. The five Swordsmen converged in the centre of the ruined outpost, standing amidst the carnage they'd wrought.
Yuji flicked gore from Kiba, the lightning humming softly.
"Tenth one now," he complained, the manic energy fading into petulance. "Seriously, how many of these soggy little pimples does Kumo have on its coast? It's getting boring." He kicked a severed hand aside. "Same drill every time. Smash the gate, smash the guards, smash the comms seals. Thanks to the boss's fancy fuinjutsu blocking their long-range squawking, Kumo won't even know this place is painted red for days."
Momoe rested Kubikiribōchō's point on a corpse, watching the chipped edge instantly reform. "Efficient," she stated flatly. "Boredom is irrelevant."
Tengan calmly rewrapped Hiramekarei, the green chakra fading. "The purpose is served. Each outpost removed is a nerve severed. Kumo's coastal awareness bleeds out."
Jurou meticulously coiled his chakra wire, ignoring the muffled whimpers from the man he'd sewn face-down to the wet cobblestones. "The stitching is always unique," he murmured, almost to himself. "There is artistry in the variation. Boredom is a failure of imagination."
Seiji simply stood, Samehada once again bandaged and silent on his back, though visibly thicker, sated. He offered no opinion.
"Artistry?" Yuji scoffed, twirling Kiba. "Sewing guys to rocks? We're Swordsmen! We should be carving up proper targets, not swatting flies on a wet rock!"
"Silence."
The word wasn't loud. It cut through the damp air like a physical blade, colder than the ocean spray. Jinpachi's eyes swept over the Swordsmen and the carnage they'd created, showing neither approval nor disgust.
"Boredom is a luxury," Jinpachi stated "A sign of stupidity. You see only the outpost." His scarred lip curled in a semblance of a sneer. "Look beyond the blood on your boots."
He stopped before them, "Kumo bleeds on two fronts now. Their hammer," he gestured vaguely northwest, towards the Land of Fire, "Ayy and the Eight-Tails are occupied. Stretched thin."
He paused, letting the implication sink in. "The Raikage remains in Kumo. A final shield. The only shield left on this coast strong enough to stop us." His one eye gleamed with cold calculation. "But if we bleed Kumo enough here… if we make the losses here sting enough… the Raikage will have to make a move."
Tengan's eyes narrowed slightly. Yuji stopped twirling Kiba, a flicker of understanding replacing his boredom. Momoe's grip tightened on her sword's hilt.
Jinpachi's rasp deepened, "And that… is precisely what Lord Mizukage desires. When the Raikage moves…" A grim, scarred smile touched his lips. "...all the other Kage move. The board resets. The great game begins anew. Our strikes here are not about this rock," he kicked a dismembered Kumo helmet, sending it clattering across the stones, "they are the lever that pries open the world." He looked at each Swordsman in turn, his gaze lingering on Yuji.
"Bored now, Lightning Dancer?"