This is bad.
Very bad.
Extremely bad…
That overwhelming sense of déjà vu made Kurotsuchi Raiga realize that the situation had completely spiraled out of control.
Cold sweat seeped down the grotesque face hidden beneath his mask.
"He's just an S-rank missing-nin… It's not like we've never hunted one before. So why is this one so troublesome?"
In the blink of an eye, the enemy had instantly killed an ANBU jōnin with extensive combat experience and sealed the chakra flow of the remaining three.
Although the failure could partially be blamed on flawed intelligence and a miscalculated battle plan, that level of taijutsu alone was enough to fill Raiga with deep unease.
That terrifying speed immediately reminded him of a certain figure clad in a green jumpsuit, his body shrouded in steaming vapor.
"Raiga, his Byakugan isn't being disrupted!" Ranmaru's young, anxious voice rang out.
"Ranmaru, get away from here! Now!"
Raiga hurled the boy into the distance and, in the same motion, slammed his twin blades together. Blinding lightning engulfed his entire body.
"Damn you… die!"
He roared, releasing an overwhelming surge of Lightning Release chakra. Electricity coursed through the twin swords, drawing in the storm clouds above.
Rooooom!
Amid the deafening thunder, two bolts of lightning crashed down from the heavens and flowed directly into the Lightning Swords: Kiba, causing Raiga's presence to explode with power.
"Lightning Release: Raiga!"
He spread his twin blades apart, unleashing a torrent of lightning that flooded the ground and surged violently toward Hazan.
"The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist… even with that disgraceful past, facing them head-on still demands caution," Hazan remarked with interest.
"Wind Release: Wind Curtain!"
He exhaled sharply. The air in front of him compressed into a dense wall of wind that advanced at high speed.
The lightning crawling across the ground struck the barrier and instantly dispersed.
"Wind Release naturally counters Lightning Release," Hazan said with a faint smile.
In truth, among the five elemental transformations, Wind Release was the only one he truly mastered.
During his time in the Hyūga clan, his access had been limited to the Gentle Fist. Later, at the Ninja Academy, he learned a large number of medical ninjutsu from Tsunade.
After that, he managed to acquire several widely circulated techniques, such as the Shadow Clone Technique and Summoning Jutsu.
Those techniques were common throughout the shinobi world and relatively easy to obtain.
Elemental ninjutsu, however, were a different matter entirely. Villages and clans guarded such techniques fiercely and rarely allowed them to leak out.
Without exposing his true identity, Hazan had almost no way of acquiring them.
His Wind Release came later, after signing a summoning contract with the Crane Ninja Clan, specialists in Wind and Water Release.
That said, techniques such as the Rasengan, Wind Release: Kaiten, and Wind Release: Rasenshuriken were already within his grasp before that.
After all, his natural chakra affinities were wind and fire.
"Lightning Release: Thunder Strike!"
Seeing the wind wall pressing toward him, Raiga immediately summoned lightning from the sky. Thick bolts crashed repeatedly against the barrier.
"I'll use you to get some practice… I'm seriously lacking real combat experience," Hazan said, his posture relaxed, clearly not taking the elite Mist jōnin seriously.
"Damn it! Don't look down on me!"
"Lightning Release: Dragon Tornado!"
A spiraling storm of lightning erupted around Raiga, taking the form of a thunder dragon that lunged forward with savage force.
"Interesting… Even among different chakra natures, some techniques are remarkably similar. Wind Release: Dragon Hurricane!"
A massive vortex of wind formed in front of Hazan, rapidly shaping itself into a wind dragon that collided head-on with the lightning dragon.
The two techniques were nearly identical in effect. The clash became a pure contest of chakra output and control.
Raiga quickly realized, in horror, that the wind dragon was far larger. Moreover, Wind Release inherently suppressed Lightning Release.
The lightning dragon was crushed without resistance.
"Completely overwhelmed… Since when does a Hyūga use ninjutsu like this?! Damn Konoha, they hid critical intelligence!"
The thought of retreat took root in Raiga's mind.
Having escaped death once before, he felt no psychological burden in fleeing again.
"Run!"
"I can't die here. I have Ranmaru… I finally found a reason to live. I can't end like this!"
Without hesitation, he activated Body Flicker and rushed back to the boy.
"Raiga…" Ranmaru looked at him, filled with guilt and worry.
"We're leaving!"
Raiga scooped him up and sprinted toward the Land of Water.
"Carrying extra baggage, you won't get very far," a mocking voice echoed from behind.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Burial!"
Raiga unleashed his strongest technique, one meant to send his enemies to their graves.
A colossal mass of lightning plummeted from the sky at extreme speed, eerily similar to Sasuke's Lightning Release: Kirin, a terrifying S-rank secret technique.
"Wind Release: Crushing Pressure!"
Hazan fired a sphere of ultra-compressed wind. Like a hurricane cannon, it obliterated the lightning mass and tore a massive hole through the storm clouds.
Sunlight streamed down through the opening, illuminating Raiga, who felt no warmth, only bone-deep cold.
"That monstrous chakra… Was he playing with me this entire time?"
"Lightning Release: Lightning Orbs!"
One lightning sphere after another shot backward.
Hazan dodged them effortlessly.
"Too slow."
The voice sounded right by his ear.
Raiga spun around and slashed.
Clang!
Hazan blocked the strike with his bare hand, chakra shaped into a razor-sharp blade.
Chakra Scalpel.
Raiga was blown backward. Hazan immediately closed the distance, both hands cloaked in chakra blades as he unleashed a rapid barrage of strikes.
They clashed at a speed no ordinary ninja could follow with the naked eye, sparks flying as chakra scalpels collided with lightning blades.
"He's actually pretty good at close combat," Hazan thought.
After all, much of the Seven Swordsmen's fame came from their exceptional swordsmanship.
"But it's still not enough against me."
Slice!
The chakra scalpel slipped through the gap between the twin blades and severed one of Raiga's arms.
The arm and sword spun through the air together, their bloody silhouette reflected in Raiga's pupils.
"So… this is the end?"
"Looks like your reinforcements are arriving. Then… die."
A knee strike launched him skyward, chakra surging through the blow and pulverizing his internal organs.
"Raiga!"
The last thing he heard was Ranmaru's desperate cry.
"So… I finally held my own funeral… with you by my side… that's not so bad… Ranmaru…"
"Raiga!"
To Ranmaru, the man who had rescued him from the village was everything.
With Raiga's death, the meaning of his own life vanished as well.
Ignoring the pain wracking his body, he crawled toward Raiga's corpse.
"When you choose the path of a shinobi, you must be prepared to die at any moment. Life and death partings are inevitable. This isn't a hot-blooded shōnen fantasy. Reality has no room for naivety."
Hazan walked toward him step by step.
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