The name hung in the air, but it meant nothing to the shark-like man.
"Namikaze Raimon?" Kisame Hoshigaki grunted, his grip tightening on Samehada. "Never heard of 'im."
This was by design.
After Raimon's legendary, final stand against the Four Great Shinobi Nations, a quiet agreement had been reached among the villages. They systematically sealed away all but the vaguest intelligence on him.
The goal was simple: they couldn't have a new generation of shinobi growing up in fear, too terrified to accept missions that involved Konoha if they knew the full story of the monster it had once produced.
"The older brother of Konoha's Yellow Flash," Uchiha Itachi clarified, his voice low and tense, his Mangekyō Sharingan never leaving Raimon's form.
At the mention of the Fourth Hokage, Kisame's eyes lit up with recognition.
"The Yellow Flash? Minato Namikaze? Is this guy stronger than him?" Minato's reputation as the fastest shinobi alive was known to every Kage-level fighter.
Itachi's expression was gravely serious.
"Minato Namikaze would be humble in front of him." It was a staggering claim. Minato fought with speed and overwhelming, head-on power. The man currently smirking at them was a different kind of predator altogether—one who specialized in crippling, humiliating, and utterly demoralizing attacks, with a particular fondness for rear-end assaults. "He's the one who kicked Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage, in the back so hard the old man couldn't stand straight for a week."
"This person once single-handedly faced the combined encirclement of the Four Great Shinobi Nations," Itachi finished, his tone leaving no room for doubt.
"That powerful?" Kisame extended his tongue, licking his shark-like teeth in anticipation. A fierce grin spread across his face. "Now that's a fight worth having!"
He channeled a burst of his immense chakra into the bandaged sword in his hand. "You hear that, Samehada? Aren't you excited?"
Usually, the sentient blade would writhe and tremble with glee at the taste of his chakra and the prospect of a feast. This time, however, it remained utterly still and silent.
Samehada's Internal Monologue: Excited? Who the hell is excited?! I remember that chakra signature! I don't want to get splinters from that drill again! Play dead, just play dead!
"Samehada? Are you asleep?" Kisame shook the greatsword, but it remained as limp as a dead fish.
"Tch~ Coward!" he spat, deciding to proceed without his partner's enthusiasm.
Abandoning caution, Kisame's hands flew through a rapid series of hand seals.
"Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu!" (Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!)
He no longer cared about the collateral damage or who the massive jutsu would attract. If this man was as dangerous as Itachi claimed, holding back was suicide. A torrential flood of seawater erupted from his mouth, a veritable tsunami that swelled rapidly, crashing through the trees and roaring towards Namikaze Raimon with the force of a natural disaster.
"Heh~ Now that's a wave!" Raimon commented, sounding more impressed than concerned.
In the heartbeat before the deluge hit, a flash of yellow light was the only warning. Raimon vanished and reappeared beside the group of terrified genin—Sakura clutching the unconscious Sasuke, Naruto, and the others.
"Field trip's over, kids," he said casually, and with another flicker, the entire group was gone, teleported to safety far from the battlefield. In the next instant, he was back, standing calmly in the path of the oncoming tidal wave as if he'd never moved. Might Guy, for all his speed, could only watch in awe; in Konoha, only a user of the Flying Thunder God could move like that.
Raimon made no effort to dodge. The colossal wave crashed over him, submerging him in a newly created lake. He simply stood there, unaffected, under the water. This Edo Tensei body had no need for oxygen.
"As expected of the 'Tailless Tailed Beast'," Raimon mused, genuinely impressed by the sheer volume of chakra. "This much water would probably take fifty Kakashis working in shifts to produce."
But he, too, had an advantage now—infinite chakra.
I really have to wonder where this Edo Tensei's bottomless chakra supply actually comes from, he pondered, a philosophical thought for a less pressing moment.
Seeing his opponent just standing there, Kisame decided to up the ante. Slapping the water's surface, he channeled more chakra. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" (Summoning Jutsu!)
A school of fifty massive, summoned sharks materialized in the chakra-infused water, their sleek bodies cutting through the waves as they homed in on the motionless Raimon with predatory intent.
"I wonder if Kisame's sharks would make for good chopped chili fish head?" Raimon wondered idly. He then dismissed the thought. "Nah, I heard sharks pee through their skin. Disgusting."
"Mr. Itachi, this guy isn't as powerful as you said!" Kisame boasted, seeing Raimon remain still. He assumed the man was stunned into inaction by the display of raw power.
"It's not over yet. Don't let your guard down!" Itachi warned, his Sharingan tracking every minute detail, his sense of foreboding growing.
But Kisame was confident. "Mr. Itachi is too cautious! Trapped in my water prison, not even the Sage of Six Paths himself could escape me!"
"Like I said, I'll pass on the shark-meat," Raimon's voice cut through the water, clear as a bell.
Then, he was gone. Not even a ripple. The Hiraishin (Flying Thunder God) was a cheat code that allowed him to go wherever he pleased. No one in the modern ninja world could contain him. (His last stand against the four nations didn't count; that was a different kind of battle entirely.)
"Masaka! (Impossible!)" Kisame's eyes widened. His sharks circled aimlessly, their prey having vanished.
"Looking for me, shark-breath?"
The voice came from directly behind him. Kisame spun his head around, a feat of neck flexibility born of pure terror. "When?!"
His blood ran cold. Namikaze Raimon was squatting on the water's surface right behind him, as casual as a man feeding pigeons. And in his hand, crackling with wind-natured and lightning-natured chakra, was a horrifyingly familiar, high-speed rotating drill. It was aimed with unerring accuracy.
"Mr. Itachi, save me!" Kisame cried out, his instincts screaming at him to flee. But the drill was a vortex of inevitability.
"Fūton Raiton: Taijutsu Ōgi – Fūrai Rasen Shōkō Denkō Dokuryū Dori: Sennen Goroshi!"(Wind Release & Lightning Release: Taijutsu Secret Art – Wind Thunder Spiral Ascension Electric Light Poison Dragon Drill: Thousand Years of Death!)
The thirty-centimeter-long corkscrew of concentrated agony struck its target with surgical precision. The combination of upward force and violent rotation was catastrophic.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAH! MY BUTT!"
Kisame was launched into the air, not in an arc, but in a rapid, uncontrollable spiral. He was a grotesque, screaming drill-bit himself, helicoptering skyward purely on the momentum of the impact. The horrifying realization dawned that he could no longer feel anything in the region where his buttocks used to be.
In Itachi's Sharingan, the entire event was a blur of motion too fast to fully track. He saw the afterimage of the attack and the devastating result.
High in the air, Kisame gasped, trying to draw breath to cope with the phantom pain, but the nauseating spin was churning his insides. He felt his brain sloshing in his skull like soup. The world became a dizzying, painful swirl of blue and green before everything went black. As he lost consciousness, the massive body of water, deprived of his chakra, lost its form and began to drain away into the nearby river.
Itachi leaped up, catching the spiraling, unconscious form of his partner. He landed lightly, his gaze fixed on Namikaze Raimon, more solemn than ever.
'From what I saw earlier, Sasuke and this man's nephew are close. Perhaps I don't need to worry for his safety in Konoha anymore.' A small weight lifted from his heart. 'But I still need to create an opening to escape. I must intimidate him, make him think twice about pursuing us.'
"Yo~ Uchiha's little paragon of filial piety," Raimon taunted, watching the play of emotions on Itachi's face. "What's going on in that messed-up head of yours? You're making quite the face."
"Lord Raimon," Itachi began, his voice steady despite the situation. "I acknowledge your strength. But do not make the mistake of underestimating the ocular power of the Uchiha."
As he finished speaking, the three tomoe in his eyes spun and melted together, transforming into the sinister, pinwheel pattern of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Amaterasu!"
A trail of black blood trickled from his eye. Using the Mangekyō's power was a heavy burden, especially for his illness-riddled body. On Raimon's left arm, black flames erupted into being. They didn't spread like normal fire; they simply clung and burned with an unholy persistence, the very air around them wavering with heat.
"Heh heh~ From what I hear, this little party trick has only managed to burn one measly snake to death," Raimon remarked, observing the black flames on his arm with clinical detachment.
"The Edo Tensei body is so convenient for everything... well, except for that one thing." He sighed theatrically.
Then, with a swift, decisive motion, he brought his right hand down in a chop, severing his own left arm at the shoulder. The disembodied limb fell to the ground and crumbled into ash.
Itachi's brow furrowed. 'He sacrificed a limb to survive Amaterasu? A desperate move.'
But then, particles of dust and paper began to swirl around Raimon's shoulder, coalescing, reforming. In moments, a brand new, fully functional left hand had regenerated.
"Masaka! (Impossible!)" Itachi breathed, his composure cracking. He had never seen or heard of the Edo Tensei, and its properties defied all logic.
'Am I going to die here today?' The thought was ice-cold. 'If I can't leave Konoha... Sasuke... my plans...'
"You leave me no choice!" Itachi snarled, a rare display of raw emotion. He knew petty tricks were useless.
Tears of blood streamed more freely from his eyes now. A monstrous, crimson skeleton of energy erupted around him, the first stage of the Uchiha's ultimate defense and offense: the Susano'o.
He knew that to escape Konoha, he first had to defeat the man who could teleport. A man who felt no pain and could not die.
"Oh crap! I overdid it!" Raimon thought, a flicker of genuine concern crossing his mind. While his Edo Tensei body wasn't afraid of death, he knew the legends of Itachi's Susano'o—specifically, the ethereal weapons it could wield. The Totsuka Blade, a sword of sealing, was a direct counter to an immortal body like his.
A core principle of Namikaze Raimon's combat philosophy flashed in his mind: Strike first to gain the upper hand, strike last to suffer! This wasn't a friendly spar. He would not give Uchiha Itachi the chance to fully manifest his ultimate technique. He would nip this danger in the bud, right here, right now.
"Itachi," Raimon said, his voice losing its mocking tone and becoming deadly serious. "A word of advice. Remember to take a deep breath."