The screaming started almost immediately.
Men slipped on the ice, weapons clattering uselessly from numb fingers. Others tried to form hand signs, only to find their breath fogging thickly in front of them, chakra stuttering as the cold seeped into muscle and bone.
The bandits, accustomed to dealing with the powerless and weak, had no way of dealing with the sudden cold. Their bodies shivered as the unforgiving temperature sapped their strength.
While shinobi could use their chakra to combat the cold, civilians—bandits or not—had no such ability.
Room by room, meter by meter, the castle turned from their safe hideout into an unforgiving freezer; a cold, dark tomb as fires died out and light extinguished.
Slave.
Servant.
Bandit.
It didn't matter; the cold took them all the same, leaving the fortress cold, dark, and silent.
Thankfully, my Byakugan allowed me to see everything. I saw the shinobi—all of them gathered in one large room—and I could see them light grand fires to hold the cold out.
They were ready for me, or as ready as they could be.
With the slightest smirk on my lips, I kept walking toward where they were hiding. That head was worth a lot of money, and I wasn't about to leave it unclaimed.
It didn't take me long before I reached a set of heavy doors—a large set of double doors of iron, strong, imposing, and covered in thick ice.
Had it not been for how easy it was to smash your way through a wall for a jōnin, it would have been a viable strategy to leave them to freeze to death in there.
But if Takeda Shōsa wanted to leave, it wouldn't be all that difficult. Whether it was blowing out a wall or just using some Earth Style to open the doors themselves.
For now, he had no intention of leaving his stronghold, which meant I had to continue through those doors.
I extended a boneblade from the palm of my hand and slashed at the frozen door, cutting clean through ice and steel.
The heat hit me immediately.
Grand fires burned in braziers and pits across the hall, fed recklessly with furniture, tapestries—anything that would burn. The genin and the single chūnin stood clustered around them. Even then, they still shivered.
And the reason for their shivers was clear: rime and frost were already starting to cover the floor and walls. Even their fires couldn't stand against the cold of my Ice Release.
And at the far end of the hall—
Takeda Shōsa sat upon a throne.
It was a crude thing, assembled from stone and metal dragged from the fortress itself, reinforced and scorched until it resembled something halfway between a seat of power and a furnace casing. He lounged in it like a king, one leg draped over the armrest, an iron cup dangling loosely from his fingers.
He was grinning.
"Well," he said, voice carrying easily over the crackling fires, "aren't you an impressive one."
His henchmen flinched at his calm, glancing back at him in disbelief as if expecting orders—anything—but he didn't look at them. His eyes were locked on me alone, bright with anticipation.
"A Yuki kunoichi… you are far from home, aren't you? A long way from Kirigakure, I'd say." He grinned as he pulled out a bingo book and started to look through it, acting like he wasn't cornered, like he wasn't facing down an enemy.
"Kaguya-hime, a rogue kunoichi of Kirigakure, and a member of the Kaguya clan, known for your mastery of the Shikotsumyaku Kekkei Genkai," he started reading. "I imagine few people know the truth, eh? That you have dual kekkei genkai."
He let out a loud laugh and threw the book into the nearest fire. "No wonder you ended up going rogue. I can only imagine how troublesome it must be to be the child of two bloodline clans."
He eyed me as if looking at a rare animal or a precious gem, a valuable treasure. I could see the greed in his eyes.
I understood his misunderstanding, and how he came to it. The world believed me to be some missing-nin from Kiri, a member of the Kaguya clan. And now that I had shown the Ice Release kekkei genkai of the Yuki clan as well…
Well. Who wouldn't think that I was some kind of love child of the two clans? Someone who had inherited both bloodlines.
I wouldn't be the first example of something like that.
The future Mizukage, Mei Terumī, was another example of someone with two kekkei genkai.
Naturally, I had no connection to the Yuki clan, but their bloodline—their kekkei genkai—was vastly different from something like the Byakugan or the Shikotsumyaku.
Those were mine, bits of my blood, my power passed down.
Ice Release… that was just using chakra. It was something anyone talented enough could pull off. Only those kekkei genkai belonging to my own bloodline couldn't be copied with skilful use of chakra.
Not that I intended to explain any of that to him.
I just snorted and stepped inside, frost creeping outward from my feet as the stone beneath me hissed and cracked. The nearest fire guttered, shrinking visibly, its flames turning pale and weak.
Takeda laughed.
A deep, genuine sound.
"Oh, I like you already," he said. "That trick of yours? Freezing my whole fortress?" He shook his head. "That's art."
His chakra flared then—violent, aggressive, the air around him shimmering faintly with heat as he leaned forward on his throne.
"If you stop it, I might even let you live after I'm done playing with you." He sounded as confident as ever, as if nothing I did had any meaning.
I tilted my head slightly, studying him as one might a curious insect.
"Let me live?" I repeated softly.
The cold surged.
The frost that had been creeping along the floor suddenly leapt upward, racing across stone, iron, and flesh alike. One of the genin cried out as ice snapped around his ankle, freezing him in place mid-step. Another stumbled backward into a brazier, only for the fire to gutter and die as the metal rim flash-froze beneath his hands.
Takeda didn't look at them.
His eyes never left mine.
"You misunderstand," I said calmly, continuing forward. Each step was deliberate, measured, the sound of ice cracking beneath my feet echoing through the hall. "This isn't a game. And I didn't come here to negotiate."
The chūnin finally snapped.
"Boss—!" he shouted, panicked and fearful, and started to weave hand signs—some Earth Style ninjutsu from the looks of it.
But he never had a chance to finish. The ice rushed toward him, reaching him in the blink of an eye, and a moment later an ice statue was all that remained as he was trapped in chakra-rich ice.
Far beyond what a chūnin like him could break out of.
Takeda laughed again.
"Good!" he barked, finally rising from his throne. Heat rolled off him in waves now, his chakra roaring openly, pushing back against the cold in a violent clash that made the air itself hiss and scream. "That's what I wanted to see!"
He rolled his shoulders, cracks of heat flashing along his arms as faint sparks danced in the air around him—tiny, controlled ignitions, kept alive by sheer will rather than environment.
"You hear that?" he said, spreading his arms wide. "That's the sound of a real fight!"
I stopped.
Not because I had to—but because I wanted him to have this moment.
"You really do believe that," I said. "That this is what strength looks like."
I raised one hand.
The temperature dropped again—not explosively, not dramatically, but absolutely. The fires shrank to embers. Frost crawled up Takeda's throne, racing along the stone until the seat cracked with a sharp report.
His grin faltered for the first time.
"Your explosions," I continued, my voice steady, almost bored, "are a trick. A clever one. You found a way to imitate power, and you built a kingdom around it."
Ice formed in the air itself now, tiny crystals hanging like suspended glass.
"But tricks fail," I finished, "when the conditions change."
Takeda's eyes burned with something new then—not fear, not yet—but irritation. Rage.
"Shut up," he snarled, thrusting his hands forward.
My Byakugan allowed me to see a small amount of fine powder fly out from his sleeves and shoot toward me as he quickly started to weave hand signs.
Snake.
Ram.
Monkey.
Boar.
Horse.
And finally, Tiger.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" There was no pretense, no fancy tricks. He put his full strength into it.
Despite how little effect it had when Sasuke used it in the anime and manga, it was a relatively useful C-rank ninjutsu. After all, one would have to either dodge or use something like a water wall or earth wall ninjutsu to block.
Getting hit—well, getting hit would harm even a jōnin, not to mention this one having been fed plenty of chakra, allowing it to reach a size of ten meters in diameter.
"Ice Release: Ice Wall!" I didn't even bother to weave hand signs; I only called out the name to let him know how pointless everything was.
I could see right through his fireball and my ice wall. He was grinning as if he had won.
And I knew why.
Because moments later, the fireball ignited the blasting powder, causing a large explosion.
The explosion tore through the hall in a violent roar.
Fire and pressure surged outward, ripping across the frozen stone, blasting chunks of ice free as the detonating powder finally found ignition. The shockwave slammed into my Ice Wall—
—and stopped.
Not shattered.
Not breached.
Stopped.
The ice absorbed the force, layered and dense, the explosion bleeding its strength into a structure designed not just to block heat, but to drink it in. Steam hissed violently as fire met cold, the resulting cloud flooding the hall in a blinding white fog.
Takeda laughed through it.
"HAHA—!"
"You see that?!" he shouted, voice raw with exhilaration. "That's what happens when you get sloppy!"
Through the mist, I could see him clearly.
He was already preparing another detonation, more powder spilling from hidden seams in his clothing, chakra surging as he tried to turn the entire hall into a blast chamber.
I snorted and waved my right hand forward—and the wall of ice that had effortlessly blocked his attack suddenly exploded without warning, sending sharp shards of ice flying up toward him.
Forcing him to abandon his attack as he used the Body Flicker Technique to hide behind his throne. The stone-and-metal construction was taking a heavy punishment as chunks of stone splintered off and metal dented visibly from the assault.
"You talk too much."
(End of chapter)
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