The blizzard howled, cold wind cutting like knives.
In temperatures dozens of degrees below freezing, even hardened ANBU shivered, teeth chattering as the gale clawed through their gear.
"That bastard… he really played us!"
Kurosuki Raiga's temper, never good on normal days, was boiling now. Just thinking about how they'd been dogging Uchiha Sogetsu's footsteps like half-frozen strays for days made his blood spike.
"Let me find him," he snarled, "and I'll kill that bastard myself."
"Less barking, Raiga."
Jūzō Biwa hunched deeper into his cloak, neck tucked against the cold. His voice came out low and dry. "You didn't forget how Suikazan Fuguki died… did you?"
Raiga's eye twitched. Whatever swagger had been puffing up his chest vanished without a trace.
Especially when he pictured it—Fuguki, that cruel, bloodthirsty monster, ending up a "suicide." The whole thing felt wrong. And more than a little ironic.
"Hmph. He wasn't completely useless," Raiga muttered, forcing some heat back into his tone. "At least he helped us learn something about Uchiha Sogetsu's tricks. With this many of us here, as long as we don't fight him one-on-one, there's no reason to be scared of his Sharingan."
Jūzō glanced sideways at him, an old ache moving behind his eyes.
Once, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist had been a legend—names that made the world flinch.
Now five blades were gone, and only two swordsmen were left to carry the title.
Bitterness rose like bile. Jūzō felt a strange, hollow sorrow, a fox mourning another fox.
"I just hope this time," he said quietly, "we make it back alive."
"Jūzō-sama, Raiga-sama—found something!"
A sensory-nin skidded back through the snow, pointing ahead. "The chakra traces say Uchiha Sogetsu headed that way!"
They followed his finger.
A vast, frozen lake lay in that direction, white and still under the storm.
"That… doesn't feel right."
Jūzō's brows drew together. Something about that heading clawed at his memory.
A lake…
His pupils shrank. The thought hit like a thunderclap.
"Shit."
His face drained. Terror punched the air from his lungs.
"Everyone, move! With me! We have to stop Uchiha Sogetsu—now!"
He didn't waste time explaining. Chakra burst under his feet and he shot forward like a thrown spear, cutting through the blizzard.
"Hey, wait up, Jūzō!"
Raiga barely had time to swear before instinct took over. Whatever Jūzō had realized, it was bad—and Raiga trusted his read more than his own temper. He pushed off, chasing hard.
The blizzard roared in their faces as they accelerated, the others gritting their teeth to keep up.
Raiga finally drew level with Jūzō. "Calm down! We don't even have a plan yet—charging in helps him more than us!"
"There's no time, Raiga!"
Jūzō's jaw was clenched so tight it hurt. Fear leaked into his voice despite himself.
"He's going to destroy Kirigakure's leash. If we don't stop him right now… the whole village is finished!"
Chakra detonated again at his feet; his speed spiked. The squad behind them cursed under their breath and burned what strength they had to stay on his heels.
Trees blurred past. The lake grew in their vision—broad, glassy ice stretching out in all directions, only one dark figure standing at its center.
"There!"
Jūzō exhaled a fraction. "We're not too late."
Not yet.
But it was far from safe. His gut churned.
"Faster," he snapped. "We have to stop him before—"
"Leave it to me."
Raiga's brows knotted. He still didn't know exactly why Jūzō was panicking, but the urgency—and the fear—on his face told Raiga all he needed to know.
No more holding back.
Lightning chakra erupted around him, arcing and snapping along his limbs.
"Lightning Release: Violent Thunder!"
Bang.
He slammed a foot into the ice.
In the next heartbeat, Raiga turned into a bolt of lightning, ripping through the storm, covering tens of meters in a flash.
Cracks spiderwebbed beneath him. The ice bucked like a storm-tossed sea. Exploding arcs of lightning shattered the surface, flash-boiling it into clouds of steam.
"Lightning Release: Thunder Dragon Vortex!"
Closing in on Sogetsu, Raiga raised his twin blades—Kiba—and called the lightning down.
In an instant, the gathered charge spun into a howling column, a storm-twister of thunder. The violent winds wrapped themselves around pure destruction, twisting into the shape of a dragon rearing into the sky.
Its roar shook the air as it lunged, unstoppable, tearing across the lake toward the lone figure at its heart.
RRRROOOOM!
The Thunder Dragon's winds screamed, pulverizing ice into shards.
Light burst white-hot—and then came the explosion.
Water surged up in towering sheets as the surface detonated. Lightning raged through the blast zone, annihilating everything in its path.
The waves came crashing back down in a series of hammer blows.
Boom.
Huge plates of ice shattered. Spray fountained.
"Come out, Uchiha Sogetsu!"
Raiga's grip tightened on the Kiba blades, gaze locked on the point of impact. No arrogance now—only a hunter ready for the counterstrike.
"I know you're not dead."
Sure enough, a figure stepped calmly out of the steam and mist.
Uchiha Sogetsu.
Jūzō and the remaining ANBU skidded to a stop beside Raiga, chests heaving.
"Right on time," Sogetsu said as he looked them over, a small, satisfied smile touching his lips. "Just like I calculated. Since all the actors are here… we can begin."
"Calculated? Begin what?"
Raiga frowned, thrown. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I mean—are you ready?"
Sogetsu nudged his glasses up with one finger. Light glimmered in his eyes.
"My methods are a little rough," he said conversationally. "And that guy has a nasty temper when he gets woken up. So I hope you'll bear with it."
"You don't mean…"
Jūzō's face went corpse-white. Pure horror spiked through his voice.
"Fall back! Everyone, fall back!"
The warning came an instant too late.
RRRRRUMBLE—!
The ice for hundreds of meters around them convulsed, a deep shudder running through the lakebed.
The frozen surface split like paper. From far below, bubbles surged up in thick streams. The entire lake began to seethe, waves heaving as if something enormous were forcing its way upward.
Something was coming.
The message slammed into every mind present, written in instinct, not words.
Panic and dread rose from their guts like black water.
A crushing pressure fell over them—a wordless, suffocating weight that clamped around each throat like an invisible hand.
The ice kept breaking. The lake churned harder.
Currents slammed into each other, spun, collided. Vortices formed, converging, power winding tight like a coiled spring.
And when that power peaked—
It erupted.
"Run!"
Jūzō's shout tore from his lungs.
The sound vanished under the roar that followed.
BOOOOM!!!
The lake—and the surrounding forest—erupted.
The earth buckled, split open by the force blasting upward. It was like watching a dragon break free from a mountain of stone.
A titanic shadow rose from the depths.
The creature's monstrous body was wrapped in armored plates, thick and black, each one spiked like a row of blades. Its sheer mass blotted out the blizzard; it loomed over them like a fortress wrenched from the sea, exhaling a stream of white vapor that became hurricane winds, whipping the snow into wild, spiraling walls.
"ROAAAAR—!"
The bellow ripped through the storm, tore the clouds apart, and punched a hole in the snow-choked sky.
"The Three-Tails… Isobu…"
Raiga tumbled end over end, thrown like a leaf by the shockwave. When he finally skidded to a stop and looked up, every drop of blood in his veins turned to ice.
"Uchiha Sogetsu, you—are you completely out of your damn mind?!"
The giant turtle-beast lifted higher from the shattered lake, eyes blazing, its awakening rage rolling across the world like a second storm.
And Sogetsu, standing calmly on the wrecked ice, watched it with unreadable eyes.
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