Chapter 86: The Last Hand
Under the power of the Kirin, a survivor.
Ragnar's eyes narrowed fractionally behind the mask. He watched the figure struggle free from the charred, vitrified rubble. It was the elite jonin, Iwa Tsuchino. The strongest of them all, and now the last. The others—Hi no Ishi, Shimu—were gone, consumed by the lightning. Tsuchino himself was a ruin. Half his body was buried, his skin was a blackened, cracking crust, and the smell of cooked meat and ozone clung to him. He had moments left, clinging to the edge of the abyss by will alone.
Holding Yama, Ragnar walked forward, his boots crunching on the glassy ground.
"What are you doing?" Tsunade asked, her voice subdued.
"Cutting the root. Leaving no loose ends." His reply was as cold and final as the surrounding landscape.
Tsunade fell silent. She understood. The brutal logic of the shinobi world was carved into her soul as deeply as anyone's. Just hours ago, this man and his team had hunted her to exhaustion. The turnabout was stark, and life, in its cruel way, was indeed poetic.
Watching the masked ANBU approach, Tsuchino's eyes, one clouded, the other wide with dying fury, fixed on him. "Who… are you?" he rasped, each word a bloody effort. "A Konoha ANBU… captain?"
Ragnar stopped before him. He shook his head slowly. "No. Special ANBU Operative. Codename: Rakshasa."
Yama flashed downward, a precise, merciful strike to the heart. The light in Tsuchino's eyes guttered and died, his final question unanswered, his vengeance forever unclaimed.
Ding!
Eliminated Iwagakure assault team (32 shinobi). Gained 12,000 EXP.
*Total EXP: 17,800 / 50,000.*
The system's prompt was a sterile accounting of the carnage. Ragnar absorbed it without reaction. There was a time when a jonin seemed an insurmountable wall. Now, average jonin fell before him with grim regularity. Chunin and genin were little more than practice dummies. Only the elite, the pinnacle like Tsuchino, could offer a real fight, and even then, the outcome was never truly in doubt.
The Iwagakure hunter team was no more. Over thirty shinobi, erased from the board. It wouldn't shift the tides of the Second Great Shinobi War, but like his previous solo annihilation of an Iwa squad, it was a ripple that would grow. A statement.
BANG.
A soft chime, and a platinum treasure chest materialized before him, glowing with ethereal light. He didn't open it. Not here, not now. With a thought, he stored it away in the system's inventory.
"Who are you?"
Tsunade's voice pulled him back. She was staring at him, her expression a mix of awe, exhaustion, and intense curiosity.
"Lady Tsunade," Ragnar replied, his tone deliberately neutral. "The identities of Konoha ANBU are classified. Access is restricted to the Hokage and the Commander. You know this."
"With power like yours, you'd be at commander level," she pressed, wincing as she shifted her weight. "But I know of no one who combines such mastery of Fire and Lightning Release. And your fire… it's not normal ninjutsu. It's like a Kekkei Genkai. A codename like 'Rakshasa'… a shinobi like you shouldn't be a ghost."
"Lady Tsunade, you're injured," Ragnar deflected smoothly. "We need to move. That blast will have drawn attention from every faction within fifty miles. I'll carry you."
"Carry me? Fine. Tell me who you are, and I'll allow you to carry me," Tsunade retorted, a flash of her spirited, stubborn self breaking through her fatigue.
His Observation Haki pinged. Multiple chakra signatures were converging on their location from different vectors. Time for debate was over.
Without another word, he stepped forward, swept her into his arms again—ignoring her indignant squawk—and exploded into motion.
Shave!
"Hey! Let go! Who said you could—ow!" Her protest turned into a sharp gasp as the jostling aggravated her injuries. She glared at him but ceased struggling, settling into a grudging silence.
Yet, held against his armored chest, a strange sense of security enveloped her. In his arms, amidst the lingering scent of ozone and smoke, she felt an odd, profound safety. Her medical ninja instincts, her sensitivity to life force, kicked in. He's young, she realized with a start. His life energy… it's incredibly vibrant. I've only felt something like this in Grandfather. It was the vitality of a body constantly pushed to and beyond its limits, tempered by the subtle, transformative wash of natural energy he unknowingly drew upon through his Observation Haki, and the unique forging of his will through Haki itself.
They were long gone when the first scouts arrived.
A team of a dozen shinobi stared at the apocalyptic scene—the glassed earth, the sporadic arcs of dying lightning, the few horrific remains.
"Lady Chiyo," one reported, kneeling by the mostly-intact corpse of Tsuchino. "Identity confirmed. Iwagakure Jonin, Iwa Tsuchino."
The woman he addressed, Chiyo of Sunagakure, was in her late thirties, her eyes sharp and calculating behind lines of experience. A master puppeteer and medical ninja, a legend in her own right, currently making Hanzo of the Salamander's life difficult on the Rain front.
"Tsuchino… I've heard of him. Onoki's favorite blunt instrument. To die here… the Tsuchikage will be livid." Her gaze swept the miles of devastation. "What Lightning Release user could do this? Hatake Sakumo?" She shook her head. "No matter. This is a nest of scorpions now. We leave. Let the other fools fight over the carcass."
She led her Suna-nin away, a tactical retreat. The battlefield would soon be crowded.
Konoha Forward Camp, Land of Rain
Hatake Sakumo sat in the command tent, his face etched with concern. The distant, world-shaking thunderclap still echoed in his mind. It had come from Tsunade's last known location. He could only hope.
The tent flap swished open with a puff of white smoke.
"Captain Hatake." Orochimaru's voice was a dry, sibilant whisper.
"Orochimaru," Sakumo stood. "Report. How is Jiraiya?"
Orochimaru's serpentine eyes were flat. "Critical. The Sanshouuo poison is advancing. Without the antidote… his time is measured in hours. Tsunade is our only hope. Has there been word?"
Sakumo sighed, running a hand through his silver hair. "An ANBU extraction team was dispatched."
"A team?" Orochimaru's voice dipped, a dangerous chill entering it. "Against a force that could corner Tsunade? You've sent them to die. And in doing so, you've condemned Jiraiya." A sinister, cold aura began to leak from the Sannin. The pragmatic, often cynical ninja was revealing a core of loyalty to his teammates that ran deep.
Sakumo held up a placating hand. "Not a team. One operative."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed to slits. A cruel, disbelieving smile touched his lips. "One? Captain, are you sacrificing them for political expediency? I thought you were different."
"He is different," Sakumo said firmly, meeting Orochimaru's gaze. "This operative recently eliminated over twenty Iwa-nin single-handedly, including two jonin."
"Rakshasa?" Orochimaru mused, the name unfamiliar. As an ANBU captain himself, he knew the roster. This codename was new. "I know of no such operative."
"You do, actually," Sakumo said, a faint, almost rueful smile touching his own lips. He turned to look out at the grim Rain Country landscape. "You just don't know it yet."
Orochimaru was silent, processing. "Who is he?"
Forest Outskirts, Near a Stream
The perpetual rain had returned to a gentle drizzle. Tsunade, her distinctive blonde hair plastered to her scalp, leaned against a thick tree trunk. Some strength had returned, but her chakra reserves were a barren well. Once they refilled, she could heal herself properly.
But her focus wasn't on her injuries. It was on the masked figure by the stream.
He'd just… caught fish. With his sword. The legendary, demonic blade Yama was now a makeshift skewer, impaling several large trout. He'd gathered wood and lit a fire with a snap of his flaming fingers. The juxtaposition of supreme, world-ending power and mundane survival skill was jarring.
Who is he? The question was a drumbeat in her mind. The familiarity was a ghost at the edge of her memory, frustratingly elusive.
"Thank you," she said finally, the words formal. She tried to push herself up, but her legs buckled, and she had to catch herself on the tree.
"Hn." Ragnar acknowledged her thanks with a grunt. He focused on rotating the fish over the flames, the scene almost peaceful if not for the blood drying on his armor and the distant memory of thunder.
Poor Yama, one of the twenty-one Great Grade Swords, a blade of legend and demonic aura, had been reduced to a campfire rotisserie. How the mighty had fallen.
(End of Chapter)
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