An endless sea of sand stretched beneath the blazing sun.
A perfectly ordinary Suna squad trudged through the desert, escorting a backpack stuffed with scrolls toward the border.
At least, that was how it looked.
The jōnin at the front suddenly halted.
With a small wave of his hand, the three Chunin behind him froze as well, tension instantly rising in their faces as they scanned their surroundings, dropping into a guarded stance.
Whoosh.
A kunai appeared out of nowhere, tearing through the air straight toward the leading jōnin. With a thought, he raised one hand; a surge of sand erupted from the ground, forming a wall that intercepted the incoming blade.
"What was that?! Is the enemy invisible?!"
"I didn't hear anything at all… is this the 'ghost of Konoha'?"
"Don't look around—watch the ground!"
The squad leader's low bark snapped the panicking Chunin back to their senses. They shifted their gaze downward, scrutinizing the sand—until they finally saw it:
Faint, shallow footprints.
The empty air above those prints slowly peeled back, like a mirage dispersing, and Uchiha Feiyu's figure appeared in front of them. He let out a small, helpless sigh.
"This is why I hate the Land of Wind," he said. "Sand everywhere. It's a pain hiding your tracks."
He muttered to himself:
"One day I am upgrading Light-Weight Rock Technique to Ultra Light-Weight Rock. Once I can fly, that'll be true 'no trace, no presence.'"
"The ghost of Konoha… you finally show yourself."
The sand-controlling ninja stared at Feiyu, his expression grave—but with a hint of joy in his eyes.
"You destroyed nearly half the supplies meant for the front lines, and you've killed over a hundred of our shinobi. This time, you'll repay that blood debt."
"Yeah?" Feiyu tilted his head. "I've killed that many Suna already? Doesn't feel real. All I remember is eating sand for over two months straight."
He scratched his cheek lazily.
"And what's with 'ghost of Konoha'? That nickname sounds kind of… low-budget."
His gaze shifted to the man in front of him.
"Still, a shinobi who manipulates sand… looks like you're Suna upper crust."
"Though if all you've got is that sand-control trick, I don't see where your confidence comes from. If you've got backup, you might as well call them out now."
Sunagakure had the fewest varieties of bloodline clans among the major villages—but "few" didn't mean "rare."
The Sand-controlling Clan was one of the largest bloodline families in the Land of Wind—possibly one of the largest in the entire shinobi world.
Their signature was sand manipulation—sand techniques formed from a fusion of Wind and Earth chakra. Strictly speaking, it was a degraded bloodline limit: Sand Release.
By Naruto-world standards, it should be classified the same way as a kekkei genkai.
But the truly famous bloodline in Suna wasn't Sand Release.
It was Magnet Release.
The two were a progression: sand-control was essentially a weakened form of Magnet Release. Both were Wind + Earth chakra mixed into one nature.
Yet that tiny difference in quality meant a chasm in actual power. Magnet Release was vastly stronger, which was why Suna merely referred to "Sand Release" as a sand-control secret art, not a full-fledged kekkei genkai in its own right.
Just as every Raikage came from the Yotsuki line, the Kazekage almost always arose from the sand-controlling family.
Even so, despite their large numbers, only around twenty shinobi in the entire clan could truly master the sand secret arts—each of them holding significant standing in Suna.
Feiyu had been butchering Suna logistics teams for weeks. For a sand-controller to appear here of all places…
There was no way this was just another convoy.
The most likely explanation was obvious:
A trap.
The sand-user sneered.
"You're just a cheap trickster relying on invisibility. Did you really think that sort of—"
He never finished the sentence.
Feiyu blurred.
A flicker—then he was gone in a straight-line burst, a streak of motion faster than most eyes could track. The sound of steel clashing rang out in rapid succession, like a storm of wind and lightning unleashed in an instant.
Then Feiyu was once again standing where he'd started.
The sand jōnin's face, however, cracked like dry clay and fell off in chunks, scattering to the ground as sand.
It was only a shell—a sand armor clone.
But the jōnin's expression was uglier than before, because when he turned his head—
All three Chunin behind him had their throats laid open.
Thin, clean cuts.
Blood sprayed like red mist. Their hands flew to their necks, fingers clawing at the wound as their throats made wet, choking sounds. Despair filled their eyes as they crumpled into the sand.
"…I underestimated you," the sand-user said grimly. "I didn't expect your speed to be this high."
Sand scraped and hissed as it flowed back up his face, filling the cracks and restoring his features. He pulled the backpack from his shoulder and drew out the scroll inside.
"But against a high-speed shinobi like you… yes, I can't keep you here alone."
He snapped the scroll open.
"But this time—you truly have no way out."
With a series of bang, bang, bang explosions, multiple figures appeared in puffs of smoke, spread out across the battlefield.
The scroll hadn't contained supplies.
It was a one-use summoning medium for shinobi.
Clearly, Sunagakure had decided that this time, they would eradicate Konoha's "ghost" no matter the cost.
Among the summoned, the one in front drew Feiyu's gaze immediately.
She was a striking woman—green hair tied in a high bun, with two orange-highlighted strands in front. Her eyes were a vivid orange, her figure voluptuous, her outfit a sleeveless, backless battle suit that showed both skin and intent.
Even with the subtle differences between two-dimensional memories and the three-dimensional reality in front of him, Feiyu recognized her in an instant.
Pakura.
The famed "Scorch Release user" of Sunagakure.
The unlucky hero Suna would one day send to Kirigakure as an "alliance offering"—which was really just a death sentence wrapped in diplomacy.
In this era, though, she was probably the strongest of Suna's younger generation short of the future Fourth Kazekage. To earn the title of "hero of Suna," she had to at least be quasi-Kage—if not already at true Kage level.
The other three shinobi radiated pressure that put them squarely in jōnin territory.
Including the sand-controller responsible for the convoy, that made four jōnin plus one shadow-level or near-shadow-level monster.
That kind of lineup was enough to hunt a Kage.
Feiyu whistled softly.
"So it's Pakura of the Scorch Release, huh? I'm flattered. You people must really rate me highly. What, did Suna just forget about its Kirigakure front?"
His tone was solemn, but his face was relaxed, entirely devoid of fear.
Pakura's expression remained calm.
"Those bandits in Kirigakure will, at most, wreak havoc along the coastline. They don't dare venture deep into the Wind Country desert," she said. "Compared to them, defeating Konoha is far more important."
As she spoke, the other shinobi moved without a word, fanning out into position and encircling Feiyu in the sand.
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