The moment the first Suna shinobi was killed, the rest finally snapped out of their daze.
Someone—no one even knew who—let out a furious roar.
And then the entire Suna force erupted.
Except for the ANBU who remained unnervingly calm, everyone else charged, shouting as they surged toward Senju Hikaru like a tide.
Hikaru himself didn't even bother figuring out what had "triggered" them.
It didn't matter.
He was here to fight.
His sensory field spread instantly, swallowing everything around him. The red pigmentation of mid-tier Sage Mode returned to his face.
In an instant, the battlefield felt like it had been placed in his hands.
He could sense every movement within ten-plus meters—every shift of weight, every twitch of muscle, every subtle intention.
The details were still imperfect.
But for him, it was already more than enough.
A kunai stabbed toward him.
Hikaru slipped aside at extreme speed, and the blade in his hand—wrapped in that azure chakra—cut through like a flash.
He didn't need to be picky about where he hit.
That sort of obsession belonged to the Uchiha.
For him, the rule was simple:
As long as that blade—coated in extreme Water Release chakra—connected, it was enough.
Sure enough, the shinobi it struck burst into a mist of blood and crumpled to the sand, unable to rise.
Hikaru's body turned like flowing light, leaving an afterimage behind as he leaned past a backstab that came from behind.
Then his sword swept sideways.
The Suna shinobi behind him died instantly.
His left hand rose—one-handed seal.
Halfway through the horizontal cut, Hikaru abruptly changed direction and thrust forward instead.
The blue-lit blade pierced straight through another Suna shinobi's body—
—and the Substitution Technique the man had prepared triggered silently.
Pfft!
The sound of a kunai entering flesh rang out—
but the one who got stabbed wasn't Hikaru.
It was an unlucky Suna shinobi.
And before the attackers could even process what had happened, Hikaru appeared behind them and erased them.
At this point, Hikaru genuinely felt like he'd walked into a sheep pen.
These enemies weren't weak.
But against him, they had no ability to fight back.
Speed.
Reflexes.
Strength.
Every category was a crushing gap.
Yes, Sage Mode was amplifying him—
but his own foundation had risen too. And when the base rose, Sage Mode rose with it.
He moved like a wraith, drifting through their encirclement.
Every time he "flickered," one or two Suna shinobi went down.
If they weren't dead, they were crippled—out of the fight.
"That's about enough…"
His sword slashed across a man's chest, and Hikaru's eyes swept the battlefield.
"This is the point where the ANBU should finally move."
The dune beneath him was soaked in blood.
At least twenty or thirty bodies were already down.
The remaining Suna shinobi looked terrified—yet still stumbled forward.
Hikaru stopped caring about them.
His senses were locked onto the ANBU squads instead.
They had split into multiple teams and were quietly tightening the noose around him.
As an ANBU himself, Hikaru didn't underestimate them.
He also saw a flare shoot into the sky.
A call for help.
The nearby garrison forces had been fully alerted.
If they poured in, the scene would become something else entirely.
Hikaru wasn't Hashirama.
He wasn't Madara.
If he tried to hard-fight a true mass formation head-on, there would only be one outcome.
And he had no interest in dying here and getting dragged back sixteen years later by Yakushi Kabuto in some grotesque "dream-fulfilling" revival.
Sure, if that happened, maybe he could mess around as a low-end imitation of Hashirama.
But why would he choose that?
With the System backing him, as long as he stayed alive, reaching that level wasn't a fantasy.
So why make life harder for himself?
Hikaru sidestepped a kunai thrust, seized the attacker's wrist, and rotated his body slightly.
The Suna shinobi lost control of his arm and stabbed his own teammate behind him straight through the chest.
The instant the blade sank in, Hikaru flexed his grip—
crack!
The sound of bone snapping.
Then Hikaru's sword rose from low to high, stabbing cleanly through the first man's chest.
Two more down.
And this time, Hikaru didn't give anyone—Suna or ANBU—a chance to react.
His chakra shifted.
His figure vanished.
When he appeared again, he was already outside the encirclement, and his hand had completed a one-handed seal.
"Sage Art: Earth Release—Earth-Rising Spears!"
Chakra surged like a flood.
Beneath the soft sand, countless sharp stone spikes erupted upward without warning.
The coverage was huge.
Scattered, but wide enough to blanket the entire combat zone.
Suna shinobi leapt instinctively.
Those who reacted a fraction too slowly weren't so lucky.
When the jutsu finally settled, the dune had transformed into a forest of jagged stone.
And under senjutsu chakra guidance—fed by Hikaru's shamelessly extravagant chakra supply—each stone spear had grown enormous.
Three meters tall.
Some leaning, some upright, all chaotic.
A few unlucky shinobi—along with wounded men already on the ground—were simply pierced through.
As the pillars expanded, bodies were lifted into the air like meat on hooks.
Blood dripped steadily from corpses.
Some of it splattered onto the heads and shoulders of the living below.
Watching comrades turn into hanging bodies in the blink of an eye, and die in such brutal ways—
the survivors were flooded with rage and hatred.
They wanted revenge.
They wanted to pay their comrades back in blood.
But as soon as those feelings rose—
their eyes caught the dangling corpses again.
And fear swallowed everything.
"Is… is this guy even human?"
"That speed… that chakra… can we really deal with him?"
"What kind of monster is this?!"
Some of them were already losing their will to fight.
One man, alone, against this many—still unscathed.
It was completely one-sided.
It was beyond what their minds could accept.
Especially the speed.
They couldn't even see him clearly.
Only a streak of light—then someone fell.
And the most terrifying part?
He still hadn't even used Flying Thunder God.
Too strong.
Too horrifying.
When did Konoha's ANBU produce a monster like this?
More than a few Suna shinobi found the same thought crawling up from the bottom of their hearts:
…Is this man actually ANBU Commander?
They only knew their target was Konoha ANBU. No one had explained more than that.
It was only natural for their minds to reach for the worst answer.
"Watch out! Don't freeze—he's coming again!"
A shrill scream snapped them back.
And in the next moment, they saw it—
Kunai. From every direction.
...
"What… exactly is he?"
Hidden nearby, Chiyo watched everything in silence.
More than once, she'd nearly stepped in.
More than once, she forced herself to stop.
It wasn't because she didn't want to help.
She valued Sunagakure more than anything. Facing a man like Hikaru, her hatred was real.
But she was also clear-headed.
Right now, blindly joining the fight wasn't the most important thing.
The most important thing was understanding him—
so they could capture him, or kill him, properly.
Even if she wanted information about Sasori from him—
even if her longing and worry ran bone-deep—
those things were still secondary to the village.
And watching Suna shinobi being butchered, watching the stone forest rise…
Chiyo's rage was almost impossible to restrain.
But after rage came clarity.
And then her expression grew heavy.
Because the more she watched, the more she realized something absurd:
She was gathering plenty of "information"—
but none of it seemed useful.
Nightingale was unbelievably fast.
Fast enough that even Chiyo herself couldn't read his movement.
And it wasn't only speed.
His physical power was immense.
His chakra quantity and quality were both extreme.
And his Earth Release and Water Release…
were stronger than they had any right to be.
Chiyo could tell what that blue chakra coating was.
It wasn't some gimmick.
It was Water Release—applied in a way that turned a blade into a killing line.
Using Water Release of that quality in a desert…
his mastery was terrifying.
And his Earth Release was just as outrageous.
"…Does this man have no weaknesses?"
Chiyo murmured.
Because she also knew—
he hadn't even revealed Flying Thunder God yet.
Chiyo never expected she'd face a shinobi like this.
A man she couldn't find a flaw in.
And from his build—even through cloak and mask—she could tell he wasn't old.
A young shinobi who had already become one of Konoha ANBU's three captains…
his future was obvious.
"Why is heaven always so biased toward Konoha?"
Chiyo sighed, bitterly.
The Land of Fire already had the best geography—fertile land, easy travel, resources everywhere.
And the Fire Daimyō wasn't stingy; Konoha had the money to develop.
Money meant training.
Training meant talent—and Konoha kept producing it.
From Sakumo Hatake…
to the Sannin…
to Kakashi…
and now this Nightingale.
If even one of these people had been born in Sunagakure, Chiyo would've been overjoyed.
But in Suna?
Right now, no one truly shone.
Maybe Maki counted.
But compared to the man in front of her…
Chiyo could only sigh again.
"I have to find a way to keep him here."
Her eyes turned cold.
Yes, she understood that fighting him directly would be difficult.
Yes, she understood what it would mean if he got close.
But she was a Suna shinobi.
She would not sit still and die.
And as a veteran—
she understood one truth better than most:
Shinobi were professionals.
They used everything.
"Hmm?"
Chiyo's gaze sharpened.
Nightingale moved.
He pulled a sealing scroll from his pouch.
With the seal released, dozens of kunai appeared in both hands.
Blue chakra flowed over the metal—
and he fired the kunai into the stone forest, targeting scattered Suna shinobi.
In that instant, Chiyo understood:
He was about to go all the way.
Sure enough—
the moment the kunai entered the stone forest, Nightingale vanished.
In the upper-left section of the stone forest, one kunai hadn't even hit the ground yet—
and Hikaru appeared beside it.
He cut down a Suna shinobi who hadn't even reacted.
Then, without leaving, he extended his sword forward—
and struck another man with perfect accuracy.
"He's over here! Watch out!"
The Suna shinobi in that section finally reacted, shouting as they rushed in formation toward him.
They didn't even get close.
Hikaru vanished again.
He appeared in another section, and his blade sank into another body.
Before they could respond, he disappeared once more.
"Aaah—!"
"Aaah—!"
Cries echoed through the stone forest like a chorus.
Hikaru was playing to his advantage at the absolute limit.
Those kunai were Flying Thunder God anchors.
Even with stone pillars crisscrossing and blocking line of sight, it didn't matter.
His sensory field still covered everything.
He could pinpoint every Suna shinobi's position within the area.
Every appearance meant someone died.
Every swing of his blade meant a body fell.
Some shinobi managed to dodge the kunai.
Some even fled out of the stone forest.
Hikaru didn't chase those who had already escaped the forest.
He didn't need to.
Anyone who had dodged but remained within reach—he could simply run down with speed.
Under that extreme pressure, the Suna shinobi were being crushed twice over—
body and nerves.
For the first time, perhaps they understood what Iwa shinobi once felt.
Because you never knew when—
a reaping ghost would appear at your side.
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