Chapter 63: Shifting Earth, Shattered Stone
"Earth Release: Rock Chain Binding!"
The moment Ragnar used Moon Walk to ascend, Iwa Jonin Oishi reacted with veteran instinct. His hands, already weaving the next sequence of seals, slammed together. The trembling earth responded. Thick chains of solid rock, woven from the very ground, shot upwards like angry stone serpents. They wove a cage in the air, aiming to entangle Ragnar, to bind the demon who defied gravity.
It was a fundamental tenet of ninja combat: a target in the air, with no purchase, is vulnerable. It was a basic, almost reflexive counter. And often, the most basic tactics, executed with flawless timing by experienced shinobi, were the deadliest.
Multiple rock chains closed in from all sides, a skeletal fist of earth aiming to crush its prey.
But under the disbelieving eyes of the two jonin, Ragnar didn't fall. He walked. His feet found invisible platforms in the empty air, each step producing a concussive boom that scattered the rain. He moved with an eerie, casual grace, sidestepping one chain, ducking under another, as if navigating a dense forest rather than a deadly jutsu mid-air.
"He's... walking on air?!" Akazuchi blurted out, his brain struggling to reconcile the sight with every law of shinobi combat he knew. It was impossible. It defied logic.
Yet, there it was. Ragnar strolled through the lattice of rock as if it were a gentle drizzle, not a prison of stone.
Then he vanished.
Shave.
The air cracked. One moment he was twenty feet up, dodging chains. The next, he was directly in front of Oishi, having covered the distance faster than the eye could track—faster, even, than most shunshin.
A cold, predatory smirk was hidden behind the Rakshasa mask. His right arm, sheathed in that dark, crimson-veined Level 4 Armament, pulled back.
Oishi's eyes widened. He wasn't a taijutsu specialist like the Cloud ninja. His speed was competent, not superlative. At this range, evasion was impossible. All that was left was defense.
His hands flew into a cross-guard over his chest, the seals for his strongest defensive technique already forming. "Earth Release: Super Hardening Technique!"
A layer of dark, glossy rock erupted from his skin, coating his arms and torso in a carapace that looked as durable as fortress walls. It was a defense that could turn aside a storm of kunai, that could blunt the edge of a chakra blade.
But it was not prepared for Ragnar.
The red glint in Ragnar's eyes flared. Armament Haki, monstrous physical strength, and the spiraling, compressive force of his Strange Power training fused into a single, unified whole within his fist. The air around it wailed.
"Iron Fist."
The punch was simplicity itself. A straight, world-ending drive.
BOOM-CRACK!
The sound was not of impact, but of catastrophic failure. Oishi's formidable rock armor didn't just crack; it exploded into gravel and dust. The force transmitted through the shattered defense was undiminished. Oishi's body left the ground as if launched from a catapult. A strangled gasp, followed by a spray of crimson, escaped his lips before he even knew he was hit. His eyes rolled back, consciousness flickering out mid-flight.
"Oishi!" Akazuchi roared, his hands slamming to the ground. "Earth Release: Giant Rock Hand!"
A massive palm of earth surged up, catching Oishi's limp body before it could slam into the canyon wall. "Are you alive?!" Akazuchi yelled, his voice frantic.
Oishi, cradled in the earthen hand, coughed, each hack bringing up more blood. His vision swam, focusing with immense effort on his partner. "Aka...zuchi... be... careful—!"
The warning was a second too late.
Akazuchi felt it—a killing intent so sharp it felt like ice being drawn down his spine. He started to turn, his body instinctively initiating a substitution jutsu.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Ragnar. The ANBU had already closed the distance behind him. There was no flourish, no grand technique name. Yama was simply drawn back and then swept forward in a horizontal cut. It was a swordsman's basic strike, perfected to an absolute degree.
But in that moment, to Akazuchi, it was the only thing in the world. The gray rain, the bloody mud, his dying friend—all of it faded. There was only the approaching black line of the blade, silent and inevitable.
He poofed away in a swirl of leaves and chakra, his Substitution Jutsu successful.
Oishi, still slumped in the rock hand, had no such recourse.
The black slash wave passed through the earthen appendage and the man it held without a whisper of resistance.
A terrible, perfect silence held for a fraction of a second.
Then, the giant rock hand split cleanly in two. Oishi's body, bisected at the torso, slid apart in a grotesque, wet sigh, tumbling into the mud below.
The slash continued, unimpeded, flying into the distance. It tore through the curtain of rain, sliced a swath through the dense forest at the valley's edge, and finally sheared the top clean off a small hillock before dissipating. The power of Yama was a direct conduit for Ragnar's will—a will now hardened by Level 4 Armament. It was a blade that had scarred Kaido, the "Strongest Creature." A mere earth-release defense was like paper before it.
"OISSSSHIIII!"
The grief and rage that tore from Akazuchi's throat was primal. He reappeared thirty feet away, his face a mask of twisted fury and pain. They had come to ambush, to harvest Konoha ANBU for information and morale. Instead, they had lost an entire chunin squad and a jonin partner. The cost was a catastrophic, personal failure.
He can't have endless chakra! The thought was a desperate anchor in Akazuchi's storm of emotions. That speed, that power… it has to have a limit!
"Pathetic," Ragnar's voice cut through the rain, flat and devoid of emotion. The jonin before him felt weak. Compared to the relentless, lightning-enhanced ferocity of Kumo's Armani, these two were sluggish, their tactics predictable. Their strength was a full tier lower.
Ragnar wasn't thinking about escape anymore. The calculus had changed. This remaining jonin was no longer a threat to be survived; he was experience to be harvested, a stepping stone on the path. Just as Namikaze Minato would soon dominate battlefields with the Flying Thunder God, Ragnar would carve his own legend with speed and overwhelming force.
"You bastard! I'll bury you here!" Akazuchi screamed, his hands a blur. "Earth Release: Rock Thorns Barrage!"
The ground beneath Ragnar's feet erupted. Not just a few spikes, but a forest of jagged stone spears, bursting upward in a chaotic, impaling frenzy meant to shred anything standing there.
Ragnar didn't move. He simply stood, his Observation Haki flaring to life. The world became a web of intent and trajectory. He saw not just the spears, but the slight variations in their angles, the microseconds of difference in their emergence. To the panicked eyes of Akazuchi and the stunned Team Nine, Ragnar merely took a few casual steps—a shift to the left, a slight lean back, a turn of his shoulder. Dozens of deadly stone spikes missed him by inches, some grazing his cloak without touching skin. He navigated the erupting death trap as if it were a lightly inconvenient garden path.
"Impossible!" Akazuchi's horror deepened. This wasn't luck. This was preternatural perception.
Tiring of the dance, Ragnar decided to end it. He raised his right foot, the Level 4 Armament sheathing it in that dark, vein-shot black.
He stomped.
BOOOOOOM!
The effect was not a crack, but an annihilation. The shockwave propagated through the earth itself. Every single rock spear in a twenty-foot radius disintegrated into harmless gravel. The ground didn't just shake; it sank, pulverized into fine powder in a concentric wave centered on Ragnar's foot. The black, Haki-laced energy of the impact rippled out visibly, a wave of pure destructive force that reached Akazuchi's feet, making the ground beneath him buckle and shudder.
Such power defied the ninja arts. It was raw, world-breaking strength.
Shave.
The aftermath of the stomp was still settling when Ragnar appeared at Akazuchi's side. History, cruel and swift, was repeating itself.
"Earth Release: Absolute Hardening!" Akazuchi bellowed, channeling all his chakra. His skin didn't just coat in rock; it became stone. His entire body transformed into a dark-gray statue, the pinnacle of Iwagakure's defensive earth techniques. If the Cloud had their Lightning Armor, the Stone had their Mountain's Skin.
Ragnar looked at the petrified jonin, a sense of absolute certainty settling in his gut. He could kill this man. His speed was beyond him. His power could break him.
His left hand came up. Blue chakra, wild and swirling, erupted into his palm with a high-pitched whine. But it didn't stop at a chaotic ball. As it formed, a shell of pitch-black Armament Haki, threaded with those same dark crimson veins, hardened over it like a spherical exoskeleton. It was the Rasengan, but caged and amplified by the ultimate hardening force.
"Armament Haki: Rasengan."
He thrust the black, buzzing sphere of annihilation into the center of Akazuchi's stone chest.
(End of Chapter)
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