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Chapter 76: The Weight of a Fist, The Weight of a Request
The silence after the Conqueror's Haki strike was profound, broken only by the hiss of rain on cooling blood. The six remaining Sand-nin stared, first at their catatonic comrade, then at the boy who had rendered him so with a look.
"Captain⊠Yomon, he'sâŠ" one stammered.
Sajiro's face, striped with dark red war paint, tightened. The initial shock hardened into cold, tactical assessment. "He's a shinobi. A strange one. Squad formation! Eliminate them. All of them."
Orders snapped the squad from their stupor. Hands flew into seals.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter!"
"Fire Release: Great Fireball!"
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire!"
"Wind Release: Breakthrough!"
A barrage of mid- to low-level ninjutsu erupted. Individually, they were the techniques of chunin and genin. Combined, they became a storm. The wind blades fanned the flames, the fireballs fed on the gale. The elements synergized, merging into a roaring, fifteen-foot tall column of intertwined fire and slicing air that roared toward the cave mouth, painting the rainy clearing in hellish orange light.
Yahiko and Konan had never witnessed such concentrated, violent power. The heat washed over them, the roar deafening. Konan flinched, a small cry escaping her lips. Yahiko's bravado evaporated, leaving only primal terror.
Ragnar simply stepped forward, placing himself between the children and the oncoming cataclysm.
His expression was utterly calm. He didn't weave seals. He didn't summon a jutsu. He just balled his right hand into a fist.
It was a simple movement, but the intent behind it condensed the very air around his arm. Level 4 Armament Haki sheathed his limb in that profound, crimson-veined black. Beneath it, the Spiral Force he'd been cultivating coiled tighter and tighter, compressing his physical power to a single, impossible point at his knuckles.
He drew his fist back, then punched. Not at the fire. He punched the space between him and the fire.
BOOOOOOM!
The sound was not of an impact, but of a localized world breaking. An invisible, spiraling piston of pure concussive force exploded from his fist. The ground directly in front of him didn't just crack; it vaporized in a ten-foot wide trench that shot forward like the wrath of a god. The air itself screamed, compressed into a visible shockwave.
The magnificent, fused pillar of wind and fire met this wall of absolute force. It didn't explode. It was erased. Snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. The shockwave continued, shredding the rain in its path, slamming into the line of Sand-nin.
They froze, their ninjutsu cut off mid-cast, their bodies buffeted by the concussive afterwash. Sajiro's eyes bulged. This wasn't ninjutsu. This was⊠raw, world-breaking power. A feeling he'd only ever had facing the Third Kazekageâa Kage-level monster. Impossible! his mind screamed, even as his soldier's instinct shrieked a new command: FLEE!
But it was too late.
Ragnar was already moving. Shave. Lightning-natured chakra, guided by Sakumo's principles, sparked along his nerves, supercharging his cells. He didn't run; he teleported in crackling bursts of white-blue light.
In his right hand, chakra condensed and shaped, morphing with the fluidity of Lightning Release transformation. A sword of pure, buzzing lightning solidified in his grip.
He became a storm of precise death.
Flash. A Sand-nin's head separated from his shoulders, cauterized arteries spraying steam, not blood.
Flash. He appeared behind another, the lightning sword piercing through a heart before the man could turn.
Flash. A horizontal sweep bisected a ninja at the waist.
Two, three breaths. It was over for everyone but Sajiro. The clearing was now a charnel house painted in brief, violent strokes.
Sajiro stumbled back, his heel catching on a root. "Y-you⊠demonâŠ" he choked out, his voice raw.
Ragnar's mind was a pool of perfect clarity. The principles of the White Fang's swordplay merged with his own brutal efficiency. The lightning-chakra sword in his hand hummed, an extension of his will.
"Lightning Cutter: Extension."
With a mental command, the crackling blade elongated, stretching to a terrifying seven or eight meters of concentrated lightning. It lit up the clearing like a captured bolt of storm.
He swung.
A horizontal slash, faster than sight.
Sajiro's hands flew into his strongest defense. "Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!" A thick slab of rock erupted from the mud before him.
The lightning blade met the stone. There was a high-pitched SCREEEE as it cut through without slowing. The wall split neatly in two. So did Sajiro behind it, his body falling apart in two smoking halves.
The rain, held back by the violence, began to fall again, hissing on the hot, carved earth and cooling corpses.
Behind Ragnar, silence. Yahiko and Konan stood as if carved from the same stone as the cave. The transition from utter despair to overwhelming, incomprehensible victory had been too fast. The boy who had shared their fire, accepted their half-apple, was a force of nature wearing human skin.
"R-Ragnar⊠youâŠ" Yahiko finally managed, the words sticking in his dry throat.
Konan just stared, her violet eyes wide, her hands clenched into fists so tight her knuckles were white.
Ragnar turned. The cold killer's mask was gone, replaced by the same faintly amused expression from before. "Well," he said, a slight shrug in his shoulders. "I did say I was a ninja. You didn't believe me."
"You were a ninja⊠I thought you were joking!" Yahiko blurted, his mind reeling. The gulf between them, which moments ago had been about age and survival skill, now felt like the chasm between a pebble and a mountain.
Ragnar glanced at Konan and offered another small shrug. I tried to tell you.
As the shock subsided, a new, colder fear trickled into Yahiko's heart. Ragnar was a ninja. A powerful, secretive one. The Sand-nin had tried to kill them for seeing their location. Would Ragnar� His eyes darted to Konan, and he took an involuntary step back.
Konan saw the step. She understood the fear. But she didn't move. There was no point. If Ragnar wished them dead, they were dead. She simply met his gaze, her own filled with a complex whirl of gratitude, awe, and resignation.
Ragnar saw the shift. He was silent for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle that held no malice. "Stop overthinking," he said, his voice matter-of-fact. "Gather your things. We can't stay here anymore."
The tension shattered. Yahiko sagged in relief, the air rushing from his lungs in a whoosh. He was still alive. Konan was alive. The monster was still⊠Ragnar.
Konan's pale face regained a hint of color. She bowed her head slightly. "Thank you," she whispered, the words thick with emotion she couldn't fully express.
Ragnar shook his head. "No debt. Ninjas are not a monolith. Some are hunters. Some are⊠something else."
They moved quickly. Yahiko, with a grim determination that surprised even himself, helped Ragnar drag the Sand-nin bodies into a pile. A stray Fire Release tag from a pouch provided a quick, cleansing pyre. The cave, their home, was now a tomb and a crime scene.
Guided by Ragnar's preternatural senses, they found a new spot deeper in the forest, a small clearing by a swollen stream. With Ragnar's strength and Yahiko's scrappy ingenuity, they had a crude but serviceable log cabin erected before true night fell. Ragnar found himself briefly, absurdly, missing the convenience of Wood Release. A three-bedroom bungalow jutsu would be handy right now, he mused.
No sign of Nagato. Ragnar wasn't surprised. The Rinnegan bearer was undoubtedly under layers of observation, by Zetsu if no one else. His path would cross theirs when fate, or a certain orange-haired idealist, dictated.
Inside the new shelter, the dynamic had irrevocably shifted. Konan, moving with a new, respectful care, brought Ragnar a cup of water she'd collected from the stream. "Ragnar," she said softly, offering it.
He took it with a nod. "Sit, Konan."
She did, folding herself neatly onto a pile of blankets, watching him with attentive eyes. The easy camaraderie was gone, replaced by the deference given to power. It was uncomfortable, but it was the way of their world.
Yahiko sat across the small fire pit they'd built, fidgeting, his earlier bravado replaced by a nervous energy. He looked at Ragnar, then at the floor, then at Konan, his thoughts practically visible above his head.
Ragnar waited, sipping the water. He knew what was coming.
Finally, Yahiko couldn't hold it in. He leaned forward, his orange hair almost catching the firelight, his eyes blazing with a desperate, sincere hope. "Ragnar," he said, his voice earnest, pleading. "Please. Teach us. Teach Konan and me⊠ninjutsu."
The cabin fell silent. The crackle of the fire was loud. Konan held her breath, her hands tightening in her lap, her own hidden longing laid bare in her wide, hopeful eyes.
The request hung in the air between them, heavier than any sword.
(End of Chapter)
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