CHAPTER 139: THE RULES OF HELL
"KONOHA HAS NO SHAME!"
"YOU BREAK EVERY RULE! NO BOTTOM LINE!"
"SENDING A JONIN TO MASQUERADE AS A GENIN? WHITE FANG, YOU DISGRACE YOUR NAME! SHAME! SHAME ON YOU!"
On the scorched and reeking battlefield, Suna's Elder Chiyo screamed her fury into the smoky air. Her voice, fueled by humiliation and the sight of her village's youth being butchered, was a weapon of pure vitriol. What kind of 'genin' butchered his peers like livestock? She didn't know this boy's face, but the sheer, overwhelming brutality… it echoed something dark and familiar in her memory. She didn't care about decorum anymore. In front of thousands of shinobi, she leveled her accusation at the Konoha commander.
But who was Hatake Sakumo? A legend forged in countless battles, the White Fang who had faced down Kage-level threats without flinching. He would not be swayed by the angry cries of a rival commander.
This was war. Not a duel. Not a game with honor codes. Victory was the only rule that mattered. If being called 'shameless' meant bringing his shinobi home alive, he would wear the label with pride.
"Elder Chiyo," Sakumo's voice rang out, calm and steady, cutting through her rage. "I respect you as an elder of your village. You may curse my name. But to accuse Konoha of breaking rules? On what grounds?"
"DON'T PLAY THE FOOL!" Chiyo shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the lone figure still moving amidst the carnage. "That… that thing! You dare claim he is a genin? What genin slaughters hundreds single-handedly? What genin unleashes an S-rank fire technique without seals? Are the eyes of every shinobi on this field lying?"
"Indeed, Hatake Sakumo," Onihira, the Iwa Kage's assistant, added his voice, cold and seething. "This is Konoha's treachery laid bare. It is despicable."
Sakumo didn't raise his voice. "He is a genin of Konoha. Registered, graduated, assigned. That is a fact. If your forces are found lacking, do not seek excuses in falsehoods, Elder Chiyo."
"He claims Konoha has no honor, no rules?" Tsunade's voice, louder and brimming with defiant pride, boomed from beside Sakumo. She took a step forward, hands on her hips, glaring across the field at Chiyo. "Then what do you call the Sand and Rock uniting to gang up on us? Is that your precious honor? Is that following the rules? Spare me your hypocrisy, you old hag! This is war! It's not won by whoever shouts the loudest!"
Her words were a spark to tinder. The Konoha forces, who had been watching in stunned awe, felt their blood heat. A fierce, defiant roar began to build in their throats. Their comrade—a genin—was tearing the enemy apart. Shameless? They'd show them shameless!
On the Suna side, a jonin leaned close to Chiyo, his voice low and urgent. "Lady Chiyo, what are your orders?"
Chiyo's face was a storm of fury and desperate calculation. Her eyes, burning with hate, remained fixed on Ragnar. "All jonin," she hissed, the words tasting of ash. "Remove your flak jackets. Infiltrate the field. Your sole objective: kill that Konoha 'genin.'"
"Lady Chiyo? The rules of engagement—"
"TO HELL WITH THE RULES!" she screamed, spittle flying. "If this continues, our genin will be exterminated! Our chunin will follow! That is not a genin! It is a wolf in sheep's clothing! KILL IT!"
Seeing Chiyo's move, Onihira gave a sharp, grim nod to his own commanders. Similar orders were silently relayed through the Iwa ranks. The fragile pretense of the 'genin phase' of the battle was shattered.
In response, a blur of motion erupted from the Konoha lines. Hatake Sakumo, Tsunade, Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and a dozen other elite jonin from Konoha's major clans appeared in a defensive line between their genin and the suddenly hostile field.
"Konoha forces," Sakumo commanded, his voice carrying absolute authority. "All genin and non-essential chunin, disengage. Withdraw to the battlefield perimeter and provide support from range. Do not advance."
The order was pragmatic, cold, and protective. He would not let the enemy jonin, now operating without restraint, turn their fury on Konoha's future.
"But… we haven't even fought yet!" Senju Nawaki muttered, his face a picture of crushed disappointment. He'd come to be a hero, not a spectator.
"Nawaki," Namikaze Minato said gently, though his own eyes held a similar frustration. "Listen to Lord Sakumo. What follows is a battle beyond our level. We cannot intervene."
"Fine," Nawaki grumbled, slumping.
The other Konoha genin felt the same deflated bewilderment. Had they come all this way just to watch? Their eyes, however, kept drifting back to the lone figure still dominating the center of the field. Shock was slowly being replaced by a fierce, burning pride. That was one of theirs.
As the Konoha youths began their orderly withdrawal, Minato took one last, long look at the distant, blurring form of Ragnar. He silently clenched his fists, his knuckles white.
Lord Ragnar… I will catch up. Next time, I will stand beside you, not just watch.
His resolve was firm, his spirit unbroken. Lesser shinobi might have been broken by the gap in power revealed today. For Minato, it simply defined the mountain he had to climb.
On the field, the butcher's bill was being tallied in blood and broken bodies. The ground was a charnel house. Ragnar hadn't used a blade; his was the violence of pure, focused impact. Bodies lay twisted, limbs bent at impossible angles, chests caved in, some simply burst apart by internal pressures from his Haki-enhanced strikes. It was not clean killing. It was demolition.
A terrible, sickened silence had fallen over the Iwa and Suna survivors who hadn't yet fled. The few dozen remaining genin and chunin stood frozen, their weapons trembling in hands gone slick with cold sweat. Some dropped their kunai entirely, the clatter loud in the quiet. The primal fear in their eyes had a name now: Devil.
Even the jonin from Iwa and Suna who had rushed onto the field skidded to a halt, their cold murderous intent momentarily checked by the sheer, visceral horror of the scene. This wasn't a battlefield; it was an abattoir.
On the command hill, Onihira's face was grim. The methodology… it was familiar. The brutal efficiency, the overwhelming physical power that shattered defenses… where had he heard reports of this?
Chiyo felt the same nagging dread. The style was different—no swords, no masks—but the sheer, terrifying result… it scraped against a fresh wound in her memory. She couldn't place it, but the hatred crystallized around it.
"DAMN IT ALL!" one of the newly arrived Iwa jonin roared, seeing the scale of the slaughter. "We're too late!"
On the Konoha side, Hatake Sakumo held up a hand, stopping his own jonin from advancing. He watched Ragnar. He saw not just power, but a terrifying joy in the exercise of it. This was Ragnar's crucible. His stage. To intervene now would be an insult. This was his battle to win, or to lose.
"Heh…"
A low, chilling laugh carried across the gore-streaked field.
Ragnar stopped his relentless advance. He stood amidst the carnage he had created, his clothes unblemished, his breathing even. He looked past the broken genin, past the terrified chunin, and locked eyes with the cluster of two dozen Iwa and Suna jonin who now stood between him and the rest of their army.
A wide, predatory grin split his previously impassive face. It held no warmth, only a fanatical eagerness.
"Please me."
He took a step forward.
"You weaklings."
Then he shot forward, not away from the jonin, but directly at them. A single genin, charging a line of two dozen of the enemy's elite.
The final, absurd rule of this day had been written: the genin phase was over. Now, it was simply hell, and Ragnar was its welcoming committee.
(End of Chapter)
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