CHAPTER 136: ONE AGAINST THE ARMY
"Hah… it begins."
Ragnar stood in the Konoha formation, watching the dark masses of Iwa and Suna genin pressing in from two sides, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. The rain plastered his hair to his forehead, but his eyes were clear and focused.
Beside him, Senju Nawaki swallowed hard, his knuckles white where he gripped a kunai. Before the deployment, Tsunade had pulled him aside and told him in no uncertain terms: Stay near Ragnar. Watch each other's backs.
He was about to ask Ragnar what he was thinking, to share a moment of nervous camaraderie, but when he turned his head, the space beside him was empty.
Ragnar was already gone.
He was now standing a full twenty yards ahead of the entire Konoha genin line, a solitary figure against the backdrop of a thousand enemies.
In the command post, Jiraiya's eyes widened. "What in the blazes is that kid doing? Charging ahead like that is a suicide run! Does he have a death wish?" Despite his earlier bluster, Jiraiya held a protective fondness for Konoha's young talents. He'd wanted to train Ragnar once, after all.
But Hatake Sakumo only watched, a small, knowing curve on his lips.
Beside him, Orochimaru let out a soft, sibilant chuckle. "Interesting…"
WHOOSH!
There was no flashy technique, no puff of smoke. One moment Ragnar was in the ranks; the next, he was simply there, at the vanguard. The speed was so casual, so effortless, that no one saw him move.
"Ragnar!" Namikaze Minato's voice was a mixture of shock and disbelief from within the Third Regiment.
"This guy! What is he thinking?!" Nawaki shouted, his fear momentarily eclipsed by sheer confusion.
The battlefield was a tense, breathing entity. Nearly a thousand genin from three nations formed a seething, nervous ocean, separated by a killing field of mud. The pressure was a physical weight. On the flanks, the chunin forces continued their own deadly dance of skirmishes and probing attacks. The genin clash was the main event, but it was not the only one.
In such a battle, no single shinobi, no matter how skilled, was supposed to break ranks and face the enemy tide alone. Not until the lines had crashed together and dissolved into chaos. To stand apart was to become the sole target for an entire army.
And yet, there he was.
Among the hundreds of Konoha genin, one figure had stepped forward, placing himself far, fatally ahead of the safety of numbers.
He was a single sheep who had wandered into the open, and the wolves of Iwa and Suna were already salivating.
Instantly, a thousand eyes locked onto him.
"Why would he do that?"
"An emotional charge? It's pointless if you don't follow orders!"
"He's too green. This isn't how a war is fought!"
The temporary captain of the Third Regiment, a stern Hyuga clansman, shook his head in grim resignation. "It's too late to retrieve him now."
Many of the more experienced genin watched with pity or scorn. In their view, this was a tragic, stupid waste. Strength meant nothing against organized volleys. Discipline was life.
On the opposing side, laughter and jeers rippled through the Iwa and Suna lines.
"Who's the brave idiot?"
"Does he think he's the Hokage?"
"Fine! If he wants to die first, we'll oblige him!"
They saw him as a free kill, a morale-boosting appetizer before the main course.
At the center of it all, Ragnar felt a profound, icy calm settle over him. A strange, exultant pride surged in his chest. He recalled fragmented, almost mythical visions—of a man with wild hair and armor, standing alone against a legion of ten thousand, sending the allied forces fleeing in disarray. That was scale. That was power.
I can't match that… not yet, he thought. But this… this is a start.
On a hillside overlooking the sprawling battlefield, the earth shifted. Two figures coalesced from the mud and shadow.
One was the split-faced, plant-like abomination of Black and White Zetsu, fused together.
The other, leaning on a gunbai war fan, was a figure of legend and decay: Uchiha Madara.
Though his body was withered and sustained by the Gedo Mazo's chakra, his presence was undimmed. A war of this magnitude was a spectacle he would not miss.
"Hmph. The boy has spirit," Madara observed, his Rinnegan fixed on the solitary figure.
"Hee hee! Konoha plays dirty," White Zetsu chirped. "Sneaking a Kage-level ANBU demon into the genin ranks? The rock and sand kids are in for a world of hurt, Lord Madara!"
"Let us watch the performance," Madara said flatly, though his gaze remained intently on Ragnar. For a fleeting second, he saw a ghost of his own younger, more defiant self in that lone stance.
On the field, under the incredulous stares of friend and foe alike, Ragnar took a step forward.
Then another.
His pace quickened from a walk to a jog, then to a full, relentless sprint directly at the heart of the enemy formation.
"HE'S INSANE!"
"HE'S CHARGING THE ARMY ALONE!"
The cries came from both sides—Konoha in horrified disbelief, the enemy in mocking triumph.
"KILL HIM!" an Iwa chunin squad leader roared.
A wave of two dozen genin broke from the Iwa front line, kunai drawn, howling as they rushed to meet this lone madman.
Many Konoha shinobi couldn't bear to watch, turning their heads. This was a warrior's death, reckless but brave. They would honor his memory.
"Ragnar…" Minato whispered, his analytical mind rejecting the scene. This isn't like him. This isn't logical.
THUD!
The first scream tore through the air. It did not come from Ragnar.
A leading Iwa genin, his kunai thrust aimed at Ragnar's heart, found his wrist caught in a grip of iron. There was a sickening crunch, then Ragnar's other fist, sheathed in an invisible, crushing force, drove into his chest. The boy was lifted off his feet and hurled backward into his comrades like a discarded ragdoll.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Ragnar moved. He didn't weave; he blinked. Shuriken and kunai whistled past where he had been a microsecond before, clattering harmlessly into the mud. He was a phantom of violence, appearing amidst clusters of enemy genin. Each movement was economical, brutal. A hardened fist to a jaw shattered it. An elbow to a sternum caved in a ribcage. A sweeping kick swept the legs from three Suna-nin at once.
They were like practice dummies, flung aside broken and bleeding. For all their numbers, they couldn't lay a finger on him. His movement was a higher dimension of speed—Shave (Soru) refined to an art, combined with the predictive clarity of Observation Haki. He saw the attacks before they began, and was simply no longer there.
BOOM!
Ragnar stopped blinking and planted his feet. He drew his right fist back, his entire arm momentarily glinting with an oily, black sheen that vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"Armament Haki."
He drove his fist into the rain-soaked earth.
The ground didn't just crack. It exploded. A shockwave of pure physical force radiated out from the point of impact, rippling through the mud like a stone thrown into a pond. A dozen Iwa and Suna genin standing within fifteen feet were launched into the air, bones snapping, before crashing down in broken heaps.
The Iwa-nin stared, their jeers frozen on their faces.
The Suna-nin gaped, their confidence evaporating.
The Konoha forces watched in stunned, disbelieving silence. This wasn't a battle. It was a one-sided demolition.
In just a handful of breaths, over thirty enemy genin lay dead or crippled around Ragnar's feet. The casualty count was climbing not linearly, but exponentially.
[EXP +180]
[EXP +200]
[EXP +150]
[EXP +250]
...
The system's notifications chimed in his mind like a macabre melody, a rapid-fire tally of the carnage. The sound fueled him, a cold confirmation of his purpose. Let it rise.
His display of raw, unstoppable power sent a tremor of primal fear through the Iwa and Suna ranks. Was this what Konoha's genin were like? A monster among children?
But some, driven by pride or fury or sheer stupidity, refused to be cowed. A Suna genin, face twisted in rage, let out a scream and charged, a wind-enhanced kunai in each hand.
Ragnar didn't move to meet him. As the boy lunged, Ragnar's hand shot out—not to block the kunai, but past them. His fingers closed around the Suna-nin's throat.
He lifted the struggling, choking boy into the air with effortless strength, holding him aloft for both armies to see. The rain streamed down Ragnar's impassive face, his eyes holding a cold, imperious light that seemed to swallow the gray daylight.
He stared into the boy's bulging, terrified eyes, his voice cutting through the sudden, eerie quiet of the battlefield, cold and clear.
"Do you want to dance?"
(End of Chapter)
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