The battlefield was soaked in blood. The smell of iron, ash, and sweat drifted through the wind like a suffocating blanket. Corpses littered the ground—some burned to husks, some split in half, others left as nothing more than unrecognizable lumps of flesh. Smoke rose in black pillars across the desolate field, while distant cries of agony punctuated the silence between clashes of steel and bursts of chakra.
Kaito and Soka stood amidst this chaos, both breathing slowly, calmly, even though their bodies were smeared in blood that wasn't their own. Their crimson hair fluttered like banners of death in the storm of violence, making them unmistakable even from afar. They raised their hands—smiling faintly, their palms colliding in a sharp clap.
"Good work," Soka murmured, her lips curving into a weary but satisfied grin.
Kaito returned it with the same intensity. "Heh… You know what, Soka? It's addictive—this power," he said, his tone mocking, almost as if joking, but beneath the surface, his amber eyes gleamed with something sharper, darker.
Soka rolled her eyes and shook her head, though her lips twitched with amusement. "Addictive or not, you're covered in cuts. Sit down before you bleed out on me."
With practiced ease, she began weaving her chakra into her hands. A faint green glow spread across her fingers as she touched her own wounds first, sealing deep gashes and knitting torn muscle. The warmth of medical ninjutsu was something she had come to master over years of desperate training. Then, without hesitation, she turned to Kaito, placing her glowing palms over his chest and arms.
He winced lightly as chakra surged into him, closing the jagged wounds across his torso. "Tch. Always patching me up. One day I'll return the favor."
"You better," she smirked, continuing her work until the worst injuries faded to faint scars. "Otherwise I'll start charging you for every stitch."
Their laughter, rare and precious amidst slaughter, drifted like a fragile flame. But it was short-lived.
Elsewhere – The Kage's Chambers
Far from the blood-soaked fields of Ame, three villages sat in their lofty towers of power.
In the stone-walled office of Iwagakure, the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, scowled deeply as a messenger ninja bowed before him. A scroll had been laid open across his desk, filled with hastily written details. His lips trembled with restrained fury.
"…Seven hundred twenty-nine dead… Twenty-eight Jōnin… Two hundred eighty Chūnin… the rest Genin and Special Jōnin…" Ōnoki's voice cracked with restrained outrage. "All cut down in one night? Impossible. Who could—"
The messenger didn't dare speak.
Meanwhile, in Kumogakure, the Raikage slammed his massive fist against the table, cracking the thick wood as splinters flew. Lightning flickered around his shoulders like chains of wrath. His booming voice shook the chamber:
"WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?!"
The councilors trembled, but the report was clear: two red-haired children…
And in Konoha, the Sarutobi Hiruzen frowned, smoke trailing from his pipe as he read the same report brought by ANBU. His eyes narrowed, grief and worry colliding within him. Uzumaki children… survivors of Uzushiogakure… and now they are on the battlefield, drowning it in blood.
Silence consumed the three great villages. Their armies had been humiliated, slaughtered by two young shadows of a nearly extinct clan.
The war had grown darker.
Back in Ame – The Next Massacre
Kaito and Soka walked, step by step, across fields soaked in the blood of the previous slaughter. Their sandals squelched in the red mud. They carried no hesitation, no fear—only the steady calm of predators seeking their next prey.
The battlefield loomed ahead: another Ame war zone, still burning, filled with cries of agony.
Soka glanced at him, her eyes gleaming with excitement, a strange spark that only Kaito seemed to ignite. "So… how do we play this one?"
Kaito chuckled low. "Simple. A contest. Whoever kills more… doesn't have to cook for a week."
Soka's jaw dropped, then she burst into laughter. "Oh, you're on."
And then they charged.
The Butchery Begins
The first to fall were Genin—boys and girls barely older than Kaito and Soka, wearing the symbols of Konoha, Iwa, and Kumo. They didn't even have time to register the danger before their throats were slit, their bodies collapsing in pools of crimson.
Kaito dashed forward, chakra flaring through his legs. His hand flicked, and seals bloomed across the air like glowing kanji. With a snap, the Ryūtai-Fū activated, manipulating the air itself. The oxygen thinned slightly, draining stamina from everyone around them—but leaving him and Soka untouched. Enemy shinobi gasped, their movements sluggish.
Kaito's tanto—Kibō to Shinkō—sang as it sliced through a Genin's skull, cleaving him from jaw to crown. With a pivot, he spun, his blade carving a Chūnin in half, intestines spilling onto the mud.
Behind him, a massive fireball roared, launched by an enemy. Kaito raised his tanto, chakra flaring, and cut the flame in half. The fiery halves exploded on either side of him, scorching the ground but leaving him untouched.
"Pathetic," Kaito muttered. He thrust out his palm. "Wind Style: Violent Air Palm!"
Compressed wind burst forth like a cannon blast, shredding three shinobi into ribbons. The howling gales tore their skin apart in strips, blood spraying across the battlefield like rain.
From the corner of his eye, Kaito sensed movement—another blade flashing for his back. Instinct flared. His chakra pulsed, and suddenly—
The Mind's Eye of Kagura awakened, but twisted. For a heartbeat, the world expanded. Kaito felt everything—every chakra signature for kilometers around, every movement like threads in his mind. The assassin behind him was as clear as daylight.
He twisted, driving Kibō to Shinkō backward, the blade erupting through the enemy Jōnin's throat. Blood poured out as the man collapsed.
"…The Mind's Eye," Kaito whispered. "No… something more."
The vision vanished as quickly as it came, but his lips curved into a grin. A new power was budding.
Soka's Dance of Death
Meanwhile, Soka was elegance incarnate. Her chakra scalpel glowed faintly blue as she darted between enemies. Every swipe of her hands severed arteries, snapped tendons, pierced hearts.
A Jōnin lunged at her with a kunai—but she slammed her glowing hand into his chest, chakra burning through flesh, stabbing directly into his heart. His body seized, eyes rolling back, then fell limp.
"Too slow," she hissed.
Another Jōnin came, swinging a blade. Soka smirked, layering a Weight Seal across her scalpel. Gravity dragged it down violently, and with terrifying speed she plunged it into his spine. He screamed as his back shattered, collapsing with his legs twitching uselessly.
Then she deactivated the seal and turned, her fists raised. Each punch cracked bones, each kick crushed skulls. Her strikes were so strong that the air itself cracked around her blows, shockwaves sending dirt and corpses flying.
Four Jōnin converged on her, surrounding her with blades and jutsu.
Her eyes narrowed. "Fine. Come."
The first she broke with her bare fists, caving his ribs until jagged bone speared through his flesh. The second she outmaneuvered, stabbing a chakra scalpel directly through his brain, his body going limp instantly. The third fell when she kicked his head, the skull exploding in a rain of blood and brain matter.
The last tried to retreat, terror in his eyes. Soka tagged him with a heavy Weight Seal, rooting him in place.
"Burn."
"Water Style: Water Dragon Whip!" she shouted. A serpentine lash of water coiled around his throat, dragging him to his knees. Then she followed with—
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Flames engulfed him, the water boiling instantly, his flesh searing as he screamed and then fell silent, charred black.
Soka exhaled, her chest rising and falling, her face splattered in blood. She smirked, turning her head toward Kaito, who was still slicing through the battlefield like a crimson whirlwind.
The Eye of Reality
Kaito stood over another corpse, his tanto dripping crimson. The world around him was a storm of screams, blades, and chakra—but he felt calm. The brief awakening of that strange eye lingered in his mind. It wasn't just Kagura's Mind's Eye. It was sharper, deeper, as if reality itself had been laid bare before him.
"Mind's Eye of Reality…" he whispered, testing the words.
Then his lips curved into a feral smile. He glanced at Soka, who returned his grin, her red eyes blazing.
The massacre wasn't over. It had only just begun.