{As I said before this and the next chapter combined are almost 8k words, so, take your time and read both of them together. I couldn't make one chapter too long and other shorter so I broke off this chapter at a slightly weird point, but these chapters are connected. You can think of it as 1 chapter 8k words long divided in two parts}
~~~
Kakashi was locked in close combat with Raiga Kurosaki, their movements sharp and practiced. Unlike the more overwhelming battle happening nearby, theirs felt like a standard shinobi fight, just faster, heavier, and cleaner.
Neither of them relied on flashy bloodline techniques or tailed beast chakra. It was pure skill, tactics, and speed. Raiga had the advantage of one of the Seven Swordsmen's mystical blades, the Kiba swords, while Kakashi, despite holding back for most of the mission, was finally fighting without restriction. He'd been told to avoid engaging unless necessary. Now, it was necessary.
Raiga came in fast with a vertical slash, and Kakashi sidestepped cleanly, dropping low beneath the arc. His hands blurred through a set of hand seals as he launched his jutsu.
[Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu.]
A burst of flame surged from his mouth at close range.
Raiga sensed the heat spike and moved instantly, planting a foot on Kakashi's leg to push off and vanish in a flicker of movement. But Kakashi had expected it and before Raiga could reorient, a volley of shuriken flew after him, forcing him down a tight and restrictive space.
Raiga twisted mid-air, flicking a kunai in a smooth arc. He knocked the shuriken aside with practiced movements, and as he landed, he already had his next step in mind, except Kakashi had already flickered behind him.
A clone appeared beside him. Both raised their hands in unison.
[Water Style: Water Bullet!] the clone called out, launching a dense, high-pressure shot.
Raiga's footing was still off from the deflection, and the water bullet landed cleanly, slamming him backwards.
The real Kakashi followed up immediately.
[Lightning Style: Lightning Fang!]
The crackle was sharp, and Raiga's eyes narrowed as the electric chakra surged forward.
With no time to spare, Raiga yanked the wrappings off the Kiba blades and swung them forward. Sparks arced between the twin swords as he brought them together, channeling chakra just in time.
He plunged the blades directly into the path of the incoming lightning, he forcefully took control of the attack and then whipped his arms downward, redirecting the energy into the ground in a loud crack of steam and scorched earth.
The air hissed from the residual charge. Raiga exhaled through gritted teeth, eyes still locked on Kakashi and stepped forward again, blades raised.
Sparks danced between the twin swords, and the scent of ozone hung heavy in the air. His stance was low, weight evenly distributed, one blade pointed forward, the other angled above his back like a coiled trap.
Kakashi didn't care much about Raiga's polished posture, he wasn't going to play in his usual style in this fight. The Sharingan wasn't in play as it was sealed for the mission, but that didn't matter now. His chakra reserves were huge for once, something he hadn't experienced in years, and his memory of jutsu was still as deep as ever. So he would obviously use these two things to the best.
Raiga moved first, closing the distance with a flash of movement, his right blade slashing wide while the left came in low. It was a textbook pincer, clean and efficient.
However Kakashi shifted back half a step and slammed his palm down.
[Earth Style: Mud Wall.]
A stone slab erupted from the sand, angled and narrow, not to block, but to deflect. Raiga's blades sparked against the edge as he twisted into a second strike, stepping around the wall mid-swing.
Kakashi ducked under the follow-up and swept a kick toward Raiga's legs. Raiga leapt over it cleanly and spun mid-air, bringing both blades down with force. Kakashi braced and caught the landing with crossed forearms coated in chakra, there was no damage, but the force pushed him a step back in the sand.
Before Raiga could press, Kakashi dropped a smoke bomb and flickered sideways. The smoke swirled, but Raiga didn't chase immediately. Instead, he drew the blades across each other, lightning crackling loudly.
"Let's see what you're hiding."
He slashed down, sending an arc of lightning through the smoke. Kakashi responded instantly.
[Wind Style: Gale Palm.]
The blast of air cut through the smoke and blew the lightning aside, kicking up sand in a wide burst. As the visibility cleared, both shinobi reappeared, twenty feet apart, back to square one.
Raiga narrowed his eyes. "You're not behaving like the copy ninja who I've heard about. Can you not copy me? Or can you not use the Sharingan anymore?"
Kakashi didn't respond. His stance just lowered slightly, hands at the ready.
Seeing no reply Raiga came in again, this time feinting high and cutting low, blades sparking across the ground. Kakashi leaned out of range and slid a kunai under Raiga's guard, but Raiga deflected with the hilt and pivoted into a shoulder check.
Kakashi absorbed the impact and retaliated with a headbutt, quick and unexpected. Raiga staggered a step, but followed up with a blade swing, and Kakashi barely rolled out of the way as it carved into the beach.
Both of them stepped back, breathing a little harder now, not exhausted, but aware of the margin.
Kakashi formed a quick seal.
[Water Style: Hiding Mist Jutsu.]
Mist began to roll in from the shoreline. Raiga's smile returned.
"That won't help you. You'll never win with the hiding in the mist jutsu especially not from a Mist shinobi."
"I don't need to win, do I?" Kakashi replied.
For a few seconds, only the sound of waves and footsteps echoed in the fog. Then sparks flared again, Raiga slashed out with a wide arc of lightning, illuminating the mist briefly.
Kakashi's shadow moved behind him. Raiga turned too late and faced Kakashi's attack.
[Fire Style: Phoenix Flame.]
Kakashi erupted in a flurry of small fireballs. Raiga slashed through them with minimal effort, lightning dispersing most of the heat, but then there was another Kakashi who had already switched positions, it was then that Raiga realized Kakashi used a shadow clone and the real him was launching a wind-enhanced kunai from the opposite side.
Raiga caught it with one blade, and the other grounded the charge.
There were more sparks and then yet another pause.
Again, they stood facing each other, neither significantly damaged, neither reckless.
Raiga rolled his shoulders once. "You're not the guy I heard about. You're worse."
Kakashi adjusted his gloves, calm as ever. "I've had little time to improve."
Their movements reset again, stances neutral, footing solid and the fight continued like that; strike, counter, shift, reset.
Elemental jutsu traded with swordsmanship, chakra control matched with raw pressure. Every clash sent up sparks or mist or shards of stone, but nothing stuck long enough to break the deadlock.
Each of them adapted faster than the other could finish a move. Each tested, feinted, pushed but never overextended.
It was a shinobi duel in its purest form no transformations, no special bloodline, nothing. Just pure performance of what a real shinobi is like.
~~~
The ocean roared behind Kisame, whitecaps rising and falling in chaotic rhythm as the battlefield stretched out across the broken shoreline. The mist had long since vanished, burned away by the heat of a dozen firestorms.
Ren and Kisame's battle had been going on for quite some while but unlike their previous battle where they both engaged in hand to hand and closed range combat this time they were engaged in a long distance ninjutsu based fight.
Kisame stood ankle-deep in seawater, Samehada resting lazily over his shoulder, scales twitching like they were breathing. His eyes scanned the scorched terrain ahead, chunks of melted rock, scorched sand, and spiraling columns of black smoke. It looked less like a beach and more like a battlefield carved from two natural disasters colliding.
Ren stood thirty meters away atop a jagged stone outcrop, hair pushed back by the heat, cloak already in tatters. His expression was calm, almost clinical. The Fifth Gate had closed minutes ago, but he didn't need it right now. Not for this kind of fight.
Not when he had fire.
Kisame spat seawater to the side. "I thought you types liked to fight up close."
Ren exhaled. "I adapt."
Keeping his reply to minimum he moved, hands flashing through seals at a pace that most jonin would struggle to follow.
[Fire Style: Dual Great Dragon Flame.]
Two massive dragons of roaring flame burst out from either side of him, spiraling across the battlefield in coordinated arcs. The air itself shimmered with the heat. Kisame's grin widened.
"Finally."
He slammed a hand into the water.
[Water Style: Five Hungry Sharks Jutsu.]
The ocean behind him exploded as five massive water sharks erupted upward, jaws open wide. They collided with the twin dragons midair in a thunderous crash as steam blasted outward in all directions, boiling mist rising in choking clouds.
Ren was already on the move again.
Two clones were made and all three of them had same hand signs. Each one moved to a different elevation across the terrain.
[Fire Style: Scorching Vortex Barrage!]
A wide net of spinning flame domes launched from above, crisscrossing over Kisame's position like falling meteors. Each one left a trail of vacuum behind it, heating the air to near-combustion levels.
Kisame responded without flinching. He slammed his blade into the surf and knelt.
[Water Style: Water Encampment Wall!]
A massive dome of dense rotating water rose around him, spinning like a whirlpool turned on its side. The flaming vortexes struck it one after another, some dispersed, some exploded, but none penetrated.
The force alone blasted away the surrounding sand, revealing wet rock and shell fragments beneath.
Ren didn't stop as another clone formed and more hand seals were made.
[Fire Style: Grand Phoenix Curtain.]
A horizontal sheet of flame surged toward Kisame's position like a wall sweeping across the beach, low and fast. It wasn't meant to kill, it was a visibility kill zone.
Kisame ducked back, then retaliated.
[Water Style: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!]
A tsunami erupted from the ocean behind him, overtaking the shoreline in seconds. The entire beach vanished under a wall of churning sea foam. Ren leapt to a higher vantage, riding a fire-style propulsion burst straight into the sky to avoid the crushing tide.
All the clones dispelled due to the tide, feeding chakra back into him.
He landed atop a crumbling boulder and launched the next volley immediately.
[Fire Style: Twin Eruption Pillars.]
Two geysers of flame shot out from the ground beneath Kisame as the explosion shot seawater sky-high.
Kisame emerged from the smoke with burns on his arms, steam rolling off his skin. Still grinning.
"Alright, brat," he called over the roar of fire and waves. "You're better than I thought."
Ren replied, "Oh you have no idea how good I am."
His grin was also returning back slowly as he launched yet another S-Rank Fire Style Jutsu.
[Fire Style: Burning Fang Wave.]
A wave of searing chakra rolled forward like lava, low and aggressive. Kisame spun through seals and responded with a whip-fast counter.
[Water Style: Wild Water Wave!]
A compressed jet of high-pressure water cut straight into the fire wave, carving through it, but not stopping the heat. Steam burst outward again, clouding the battlefield once more.
Ren crouched and slammed a hand to the ground.
Seal.
Clone.
Two more Ren copies surged to different angles, both launching fire-style jutsu from oblique positions. The result was a pincer barrage, angles designed to press Kisame into exposed positions.
But Kisame wasn't just standing there either. He flickered forward, breaking into a sprint, surfing across water with terrifying speed. His blade cut through the fire as he closed the gap, water coiling around his legs like armor.
[Water Prison Shark Dance Technique!]
A massive dome of rotating water formed around him and began expanding outward, devouring the terrain as it grew. Ren didn't try to block it. Instead.
[Fire Style: Eruption Scythe.]
A high-speed spiral of flame burst from his hand and twisted forward like a drill, carving a narrow path through the water dome, buying him a narrow escape vector.
He flickered through it just in time, soaked but unharmed. His skin sizzled slightly from the residual heat.
From the outside, it looked like chaos. Waves, firestorms, clouds of mist, it was hard to tell where the environment ended and the battle began.
But Ren's fighting style hadn't changed all this while, he was blasting S-rank jutsu like they were basic academy jutsu, not at all caring for chakra. However he truly didn't care for chakra, he had too many chakra batteries in the form of his clones which he could dispel any time he wished so he truly didn't care about how much chakra he pulled and was just busy blasting S-Rank fire style jutsu at Kisame.
Kisame also noticed this as he snarled, "You're spamming jutsu like a spoiled academy student, it's to such an extent that I, myself doubt my chakra reserves. That how they train you in the Leaf now?"
"No," Ren replied. "They train us not to talk to a dumb shark for long, especially not someone who was about to kill their friend."
He raised a hand again.
[Fire Style: Great Blaze Storm!]
An enormous swirling firestorm emerged above him, spiraling outward before dropping down like a furnace lid over Kisame's position.
Kisame didn't even try to dodge. He let Samehada coil around him and extended both palms.
[Water Style: Water Severing Wave!]
A compressed, high-density arc of water shot upward and punched straight through the center of the blaze. The pressure scattered the firestorm into a million embers. Most of them rained harmlessly into the sea, but the heat continued to rise.
Kisame stepped forward again. His burns were healing slowly as Samehada was feeding him some reserve chakra bit by bit but he wasn't regenerating fast enough to ignore the hits completely.
He wanted to close the gap a bit but he knew Ren didn't need to close the distance.
Ren wasn't aiming to overwhelm him with one jutsu. He was literally cooking him.
One layer at a time.
Seeing the fight progression Kisame's grin faltered just slightly.
He couldn't figure out how many times Ren could regenerate his chakra to full level immediately, however from what he observed he didn't show any signs of slowing down. Though this wasn't really a problem for him, as he had way too much chakra and ocean to support him, for some reason he got the feeling he should end this early otherwise things might spiral out of control.
Ren didn't know what Kisame was thinking however even if he knew he wouldn't change his plan for blasting Kisame with S-Rank jutsu till his goal was achieved. This was also a great opportunity for him to test the full extent of his ninjutsu, after all ever since he began his shinobi life he never really got to use ninjutsu on such a large scale so he was slowly blasting Kisame using all fire jutsu he knew and all those were S-Rank ones.
It had to be said, Konoha had way too many S-Rank fire jutsu, the scroll that Yoru had given him included S-Rank Jutsu of other elements too however all of them combined still couldn't compare to the number of S-Rank fire jutsu.
So, without waiting anymore he blasted yet another jutsu at the shark.
~~~
A short distance away, hidden in the forest near the shore, Tenzo remained concealed, waiting for his signal. Ren had told him to hold position until the right moment, but hadn't explained what that moment would look like.
He stayed still, perched inside a tree hollow, senses spread, but uncertain.
Then the ground below shifted.
Slowly, silently, a patch of soil just beneath his perch cracked open, and a head emerged from it, it was Utakata. He rose without disturbing the branches above and looked up at Tenzo.
"Tenzo," he said quietly, "I need you to spread a root network under the entire beach. Can you do that?"
Tenzo blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected Utakata, of all people, to appear when he saw Yugao taking him away, especially not from the ground, but he understood instantly. This was the opportunity Ren had mentioned.
He nodded once and dropped from the tree.
Landing softly, he placed a hand against the soil and exhaled slowly. Chakra flowed from his palm into the earth. In seconds, thin, fibrous roots began to spread, growing outward and downward beneath the sand, weaving into a hidden network but he didn't let them breach the surface.
It was more difficult that way, using Wood Release to manipulate roots only, without triggering full tree formation, but he managed it. The network pushed deeper into the beach, spreading beneath the battleground undetected.
Utakata stayed silent all this while and once Tenzo's work had taken root and stabilized, he gave a slight nod and sank back into the earth, disappearing without a sound.
~~~
As Ren and Kisame's battle continued the battlefield was practically steaming.
Saltwater hissed as it clashed with fire. Jagged stone outcrops jutted from the scorched beach like broken fangs. The tide had receded unnaturally far, pulled back by repeated elemental collisions, revealing a wide plain of damp, unstable sand.
Ren stood at the edge of the surf, his cloak now fully gone, bare arms soaked with sweat and spray. His breathing was even an controlled. His chakra reserves had dipped earlier, but now they brimmed again as his clones had done their job.
Kisame rolled his neck, shoulder flexing beneath the weight of Samehada. His skin was red in places, blisters already beginning to fade from slow regeneration. He was still grinning, but not as wide.
"Still standing, huh," Kisame muttered. "You Leaf kids really don't know when to stop."
Ren shot back, "Well, I'm a bit of a special case you see."
He formed a half-seal and suddenly blurred forward, not toward Kisame, but past him.
Kisame's grin disappeared instantly. He spun around, slamming Samehada into the wet sand, sending up a spray as he launched in pursuit. "You think you can just run-"
But he was cut off as Ren hadn't run away. He'd just repositioned.
Now, from a higher elevation, he was just a few dozen meters behind Kisame so Ren began launching fresh jutsu, no longer aimed to burn, but to push Kisame back.
[Fire Style: Pressure Flame Torrent!]
A wave of compact, focused fire chakra surged in a cone, not meant to kill but to drive Kisame back into the open. The heat pushed against the moisture-heavy air, amplifying the pressure, forcing Kisame to step away from the surf.
Ren didn't let up as he continued with his next jutsu.
[Fire Style: Ash Cloud Scorch!]
A rapid blast of superheated ash rained across Kisame's side, forcing him to leap away again, closer to shore this time.
Kisame landed heavily, knees bent, water still clinging to his arms. He growled. "Tch! What are you playing at?"
He dug his feet into the sand and retaliated.
[Water Style: Exploding Shark Bullet!]
A compressed water shark launched from his palm, barreling toward Ren with vicious speed. Ren sidestepped, letting it explode harmlessly against a stone ridge. A second shark followed, then a third. Ren was driven back slightly but not deterred.
Then he changed he abruptly changed his elements and began using making the hand signs for S-Rank Lightning Jutsus now.
[Lightning Style: Piercing Wave Barrage!]
A series of high-speed lightning arcs burst from Ren's position, crackling across the beach like jagged spears of light. Kisame raised Samehada to block, but this time the blade shuddered. Lightning chakra didn't feed the sword the way normal chakra did. Samehada could absorb direct chakra flows however it couldn't do anything about highly explosive chakra and ever since the fight had begun Ren had been doing the same.
Lightning Style: Arc Conductor Net!]
Thin strands of lightning chakra scattered across the ground and snapped upward in a dome, forcing Kisame to leap away from the sea entirely to avoid getting grounded and fried.
The moment his feet hit dry sand, Ren was already in motion again.
[Lightning Style: Skycurrent Lance!]
A spear of raw lightning surged from above, summoned through residual ion buildup in the storm-like field Ren had created. Kisame swung Samehada upward and absorbed a portion of it, but sparks still jumped to his arms and shoulders, grounding painfully through his legs.
He staggered a step and his feet dug trenches into the sand.
Ren's eyes narrowed. Kisame was slowing reaching the position he intended for him to reach. He already knew that Utakata was planning something with the help of his Hyperfocus and it was likely something that could seal Kisame for a while, so ever since the second part of the fight began he began pushing for Kisame to reach that location.
His plan had also mostly succeeded, either because Kisame truly didn't care about any traps Ren might have set up or because he was unaware of a hidden Fuinjutsu trap.
Either way, Ren's work was about to finish but he didn't stop there. He launched a final wide-range jutsu.
[Lightning Style: Static Field Reign!]
The entire shoreline lit up in an invisible dome as chakra fields layered with low-frequency static currents. It was not so much as damaging, but destabilizing. The kind of field that interfered with large-scale water jutsu molding, distorting the edge of chakra formations mid-cast.
Kisame growled again and took a step forward, Samehada still hissing from residual charge.
That step was however, was his mistake that would cause him regret for years to come.
~~~~~
{I'll write an aux chapter explaining things once this arc is finished.}