Kumogakure's assault was a masterclass in high-speed, high-voltage destruction. They hadn't just attacked Sunagakure; they had attempted to delete the southern coastline from the map in a single, overwhelming burst of kinetic energy. The AB Combination, A and Killer Bee were the spearheads, moving so fast that Suna's initial sensory pings couldn't even register their coordinates before the fortifications were already reduced to cinders.
The opening skirmish was a total system failure. Coastal patrols were being wiped out by the Cloud's brutal Taijutsu and Lightning-flicker movement scripts. Our early-warning sensors were essentially ddosed by the sheer volume of high-frequency chakra signatures. But just as the Suna line reached its terminal breaking point, the "Elite Patches", the village's highest-tier shinobi finally arrived to stabilize the kernel.
"Scorch Release: Extreme Steaming Murder!"
A cry like a razor-edge cut through the static of the battlefield. I saw Pakura, the Scorch Release master blur through a group of Cloud Chunin. Orange orbs of concentrated, high-thermal radiation drifted from her palms. The second they touched a Cloud ninja, the victim didn't just burn; they were flash-boiled from the inside out as the jutsu forced a phase-change in their cellular water. In seconds, a dozen elite Cloud soldiers were reduced to blackened, mummified husks. To my analytical mind, she was a high-output thermal script that ignored traditional defensive hardware.
On the left flank, a younger Baki was holding a corridor using high-pressure Wind Release. His Wind Cutter was surgical, carving through the Cloud's lightning-enhanced armor like a diamond-tipped saw, while his Great Breakthrough whipped up a sandstorm that acted as a visual smoke-wall. He was essentially creating a "low-visibility zone" to stall the enemy's high-speed advance.
Then there was Karura and Yashamaru. I watched Karura's sand move with a fluidity that made my own puppet-control look laggy and jerky. She raised massive, logic-defying barriers to shield the wounded, her chakra signature acting as a complex fluid-dynamics engine. Yashamaru, a shadow in her wake executed precision strikes with poisoned senbon and exploding tags. They were a perfect "Shield and Dagger" duo, an integrated hardware-software package that was holding an entire Cloud assault squad at bay.
But the "Core" of the defense, the central processor holding the whole system together was at the very center of the cratered coast.
"Magnet Release: Gold Dust Lattice!"
The ground itself seemed to roar as the desert was reformatted. Millions of grains of Gold Dust (Au-silt) erupted from the dunes, forming a massive, shifting rampart that slammed into the Cloud's vanguard. Gold is heavy, dense, and arguably the most conductive material available for Magnet Release. Rasa was using it to "ground" the Cloud's Lightning jutsu, absorbing their high-voltage strikes and crushing their momentum under sheer atomic mass.
Rasa stood at the center of the gold-tide, his crimson hair a flag of defiance against the blue lightning. He wasn't the Kazekage yet, but he was the only unit on the field with the "bandwidth" to handle the processing load of the AB Combination. His arrival sent a surge of morale through the Suna ranks. The "Mainframe" was back online.
Team Iryō skidded to a halt at the edge of the engagement zone. The scene was a nightmare of scorched earth, ozone, and the coppery scent of blood.
"Status report! Squad diagnostic!" Iryō barked, though I could see his hands trembling as he looked at the Eight-Tails' chakra flaring in the distance. The energy signature coming from Killer Bee was so massive it was causing a feedback loop in my proximity sensors. "The line is holding, but only just. Shiori, Lucado find a defensive node and reinforce it! Sayo, look for weak points in the Cloud's flanking maneuvers! We need to alleviate the pressure on the Elites before they hit thermal exhaustion!"
I performed a quick "Battlefield Audit" through the eyes of my Spider drones. Rasa was pinning down the AB Combo, but the Cloud's secondary strike teams were attempting a pincer maneuver to cut Pakura off from the main force.
"Captain, I'm taking the right flank," I said, my voice cold and analytical, my thirty-year-old engineer soul taking full control of the "Sayo" interface. "I have the 'Mirage' units ready. I can provide high-speed harassment and aerial reconnaissance. I'll act as a mobile sensor relay for Pakura."
Iryō looked at me, then at the massive, reinforced scroll strapped to my back. He'd seen me grow from a "sick kid" to a Chunin-level asset, but he still didn't know the full specs of my hidden projects. "Go. Don't let your system get deleted, Sayo."
I didn't wait for a second ping. I unsealed the Great Spider MK 2.
Poof.
The puppet appeared in a cloud of white smoke. It was a masterpiece of composite engineering: dark, matte-finished wood reinforced with Iwa-grade alloys, its eight legs tipped with Magnetic-Levitation pads. With my upgraded Natural Energy Core humming in my chest, I didn't just guide the puppet, I synced with it.
I leaped into the cockpit cage, connecting the chakra threads to the primary bus. My Magnet-Levitation runes activated, and the 200-pound puppet chassis suddenly felt like it weighed less than a gram. The repulsion field between the puppet's legs and the iron-rich sand created a frictionless "air cushion."
"Boot sequence complete," I whispered. "Mirage Protocol: Online."
I slammed the control levers forward. The Great Spider didn't walk; it glided. We shot toward the flank like a black bolt of data, moving at a velocity that traditional mechanical puppets couldn't even simulate.
As I approached Pakura's position, I saw a Cloud Jonin preparing a long-range Lightning bolt. I didn't use a hand seal. I used the "Lever." I manipulated the magnetic field around the Spider's chassis, generating a counter-frequency that acted as a lightning rod.
The Cloud ninja's strike hit my magnetic shield and was instantly grounded into the sand.
"Anomaly detected," I muttered, my eyes locking onto the target. "Commencing cleanup routine."
My own battle had begun. I wasn't an Elite yet, but I was the only one on this field with a "Magnet" specialized for stealth and high-speed mobility. The Cloud had come to delete Suna, but they were about to find out that our shadows were just as dangerous as our gold.