The Kage of this era, you really couldn't look down on them. If the first generation of Kage built everyone a nice house to live in, then the second generation were the ones paving the highway to the future. Whether it was Mu's Dust Style or Shamon's Sand Manipulation, these guys were the real pillars of their villages.
"Sand Manipulation Jutsu..." Shirou glanced at the yellow sand clinging to his ankle, then at the storm of water bullets hurtling towards him. He simply stretched out his palm.
A wall of fire, dozens of meters high, erupted in front of him, turning the countless water bullets into a pathetic puff of steam. The wall then morphed into a massive fire dragon and charged.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second!" the Second Mizukage, Gengetsu Hozuki, yelped, his eyes wide. "Two S-rank Fire Style jutsu without a single hand sign? That's... that's not right!" This was a bit too terrifying, wasn't it?
"Can't dodge," the Second Kazekage reluctantly abandoned his sand-binding attempt. With a flip of his hands, the ground turned into a sea of yellow sand, which rose to form a flowing wall, just barely blocking the fire dragon. A series of crackling sounds filled the air as the sand was instantly burned into glass.
"Hey, bandage-man," the Mizukage called out, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He looked up at the sky, ready for the Tsuchikage to continue the long-range assault.
"I know, Dust Style: Detachment..." Mu's hands came together again.
But Shirou's jutsu was faster. A bolt of lightning shot straight into the sky, striking Mu directly. Lightning Style was the fastest of all ninjutsu, and combined with Shirou's no-hand-seal casting, Mu had zero time to react. The lightning hit, his body went rigid with paralysis, and he started to plummet.
"Not good!" the Mizukage yelled.
The Kazekage scrambled to send tendrils of sand to catch his falling teammate, but the sky suddenly opened up. Dense droplets of water began to fall, turning the sand into a heavy, waterlogged mess, impossible to control. Even the Kazekage himself had to land.
"He'll be fine from that height," Shirou said calmly, watching Mu's body fall. "I once treated a guy who fell off a mountain. His internal organs were basically soup, but I still saved him."
"Don't say such terrifying things!" the Mizukage shrieked.
Fortunately, the paralysis wore off just in time. Mu managed to use the Light-Weight Rock Jutsu to float safely to the ground.
But he didn't dare fly high again. Instead, he vanished. "Dustless Bewildering Cover." Mu's unique invisibility jutsu, which could even fool chakra sensors. A true invisibility. Now, he could wait for the perfect moment to strike.
"Playing that trick again?" the Mizukage grumbled, but he knew it was necessary.
"You draw his attention, I'll cover you, and he'll prepare the final blow," the Kazekage quickly formulated a strategy.
"Got it," the Mizukage nodded reluctantly. The Kazekage's sand was useless in this rain. A rain that Shirou had created.
"It's the rising airflow from that crazy fire jutsu," the Kazekage explained, having studied weather patterns in his own arid land. "But this weather should be a huge advantage for a Water Style user." He looked pointedly at the Mizukage.
But they didn't have time to discuss it. Because Shirou, with his infinite reanimated chakra and no need for hand seals, was already more at home in this weather than the Mizukage could ever be.
Before they could finish their chat, a series of water dragons slammed down on them. The Kazekage could only barely form a sand wall to give them a sliver of safety.
"Alright, let me handle this!" the Mizukage shouted. "This kind of weather is what clams like the most! Ninja Art: Summoning Jutsu!" A giant clam appeared, its hard shell opening to release a thick mist. "I'll use the clam's illusion to block his sight..."
A hurricane suddenly roared through the sky, blowing the mist away before it could even form a proper illusion. Then, the ground turned to mud, surging up and wrapping around the clam. No, the ground was collapsing. The giant clam, about to be suffocated, vanished in a poof of smoke.
"Huh?" The Mizukage could only stare, dumbfounded. His trump card, the jutsu that let him fight a hundred men at once, was dismantled before it even got started.
"Be careful!" the Kazekage yelled, yanking the Mizukage aside with a chakra thread just as a barrage of water dragons crashed into the spot where he'd been standing.
Outside the battlefield, the peanut gallery watched, their mouths agape. It was clear to everyone that Shirou was just toying with them.
He was effortlessly spamming ninjutsu, while the three Kage were scrambling just to stay alive. His jutsu were ridiculously powerful, too; a single hit could take a Kage out of the fight.
"It all depends on Lord Mu's attack now," Onoki said, his brow furrowed.
The rain intensified, turning into a downpour. More water dragons formed in the air, relentlessly smashing down on the two Kage, forcing them to dodge like frightened rabbits.
"My jutsu is completely useless here!" the Kazekage yelled, his face grim.
"Is today's weather... rainy?" the Mizukage muttered, barely blocking another dragon. Their defense was starting to crumble.
Then, the Kazekage's expression changed. He looked at Shirou, who stood with one finger raised in the downpour. "No, he's been casting Water Style this whole time! He's the one filling the air with water vapor!"
"He's not just doing it to limit you, is he?" the Mizukage said, a horrified realization dawning on him. He looked up at a blank area in the sky, where the rain was washing over an invisible shape. Mu's outline was becoming visible.
"He's looking for the bandage man's position!" the Mizukage screamed.
"This is a bit... extravagant," the Kazekage said, his face pale. All those water dragons, all that power, wasn't for them. "The attacks on us were just incidental. He's been doing all this just to find the Tsuchikage!"
Shirou's eyes lifted. "Found you," his voice was light. "The rain is weighing you down. Your speed is constantly decreasing. Now, you have nowhere to run." He raised his palm. A purple bolt of lightning shot into the sky, striking the outline, which fell and dissipated. A clone.
Swish! A blade flashed in the rain, coming from behind Shirou. Mu had been hiding there all along. After going invisible, he had split himself in two. One body acted as a decoy, while the real one hid, waiting for Shirou to take the bait. This was his true strategy. Sneak attacks were his specialty.
"I realized it long ago," Mu's voice was firm as his blade swung. "Even with Dust Style, I could never be faster than your casting speed!"
"Well done, bandage man!" the Mizukage cheered, seeing the sneak attack. This was it! All the pressure they'd endured had been worth it!
"We should have won," the Kazekage breathed a sigh of relief.
But Shirou, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, simply swerved, dodging the blade. In one fluid motion, he snatched the sword from Mu's hand and drove a fist into his abdomen, sending the Second Tsuchikage to his knees.
"What on earth is that guy doing?" the Mizukage covered his face, mortified. "This is too embarrassing. To think I'm on the same level as that guy."
"It's not his fault," the Kazekage said, his eye twitching. "His invisibility didn't fool Lord Emiya's perception. His plan was on the verge of succeeding, but... if he was being watched the whole time..." The whole elaborate sneak attack just looked... pathetic.
"How is that possible?" Mu knelt, clutching his stomach in disbelief.
"I was just wondering," Shirou looked at him, his expression even more baffled than Mu's. "How could there be two of you on the battlefield? And I could sense that both were the main body..."
The Second Tsuchikage looked like he was about to collapse into the mud.
"You lost," Shirou said, quickly supporting him and even starting to heal him. "It should be fine. I controlled my punch. It was just enough to make you lose your ability to move."
"Don't say anymore," Mu mumbled, too ashamed to even lift his head. "Please, just don't say anymore." Why was this medical ninja's sensory ability also so broken? It made his whole strategy look like a joke.
"Your ability is very excellent," Shirou praised him softly. "If you had hit me with that Dust Style just now, I probably would have lost."
[S-Rank Request: Defeat the Second Tsuchikage Mu of the Stone Village, obtain the Kekkei Tota Dust Style.]
"A split body can't use Dust Style," Mu said, his face a mask of helplessness. He glanced at his two teammates in the distance, a flicker of resentment in his eyes. "If they could have just held him back for a little longer, maybe I would have had a chance."