Kwaaanng!
A massive wind blade sliced clean through the sand dune, sending a violent eruption of dust and sand billowing into the air.
'Saburo' leaped backward as a massive gash tore open the earth directly in his path. The moment his feet touched the ground, three puppets burst from beneath the sand, circling him at blinding speed. They unspooled heavy iron chains, binding him to the spot in a split second. Only 'Saburo's' quick reflexes—bracing his kunai against the links and wrapping his body in a dense coating of chakra—prevented the constraints from crushing him entirely.
As the dust settled, twenty figures emerged from the haze. Though every single one of them was bloodied and battered from the previous clash, their chakra signatures remained dense and their breathing steady. Leading the surviving jonins was Sakai, the veteran jonin who had questioned the imposter earlier and commanded the remaining Suna forces during the ambush.
"Where are you heading in such a hurry?" The old man shook his head, his eyes widening in pure rage. "Who are you, imposter? Don't try to fool me! You are not Saburo-sama!"
The remaining Suna jonin glared at 'Saburo,' their weapons drawn and their puppets poised to strike.
'Three puppeteers, sixteen jonin, and one elite jonin,' the imposter calculated silently, sizing up the threat.
"Answer me!" Sakai demanded.
At his word, the iron chains began to violently constrict against the imposter's chakra, grinding harshly against his kunai as the surrounding puppets exposed their hidden, poisoned blades.
The imposter remained silent, his eyes locked onto Sakai as metal scraped against metal.
"So be it, then." At Sakai's signal, the puppets retracted their chains back into their chassis, using the tension to launch themselves straight toward the imposter with their hidden blades extended.
"Wait!" the imposter exclaimed, his eyes widening in apparent panic.
Puchi!
The blades converged simultaneously, skewering his chest and puncturing his heart from three different angles.
Instead of spraying blood, however, the imposter's body violently detonated into a roaring inferno, destroying the three puppets on the spot. It was a Fire Shadow Clone.
"!" Sakai's eyes snapped wide as he spun around. "Watch out! It's an ambush!"
Before the warning could register, the real imposter burst from beneath the sand directly beneath the Suna ranks. Driven by explosive speed, his sword impaled the center puppeteer through the heart, killing him instantly. In the same fluid motion, his off-hand drove a kunai deep into the neck of the puppeteer to the left.
The second puppeteer collapsed into the dirt, desperately clutching his throat with both hands as bright, pressurized red blood squirted through his fingers, quickly turning into a dark crimson flood. The assailant didn't pause; ripping his sword free, he seized the first puppeteer's corpse, using it as a meat shield to absorb a barrage of defensive kunai and shuriken thrown by the final puppeteer. With a brutal heave, he launched the dead body straight at the survivor.
Panicking, the final puppeteer hurriedly shoved his comrade's corpse aside to brace for the next strike. He failed to notice the glowing paper talisman slapped onto the dead man's chest.
Boom!
The dust from the explosion had barely settled before the remaining seventeen Suna shinobi moved into formation.
"Form the perimeter! Don't let him breathe! Tire him out" Sakai roared, his voice cutting through the ringing echo of the blast.
Though horrified by the quick slaughter of their puppeteers, the sixteen battle-hardened jonin didn't hesitate. They fanned out across the rim of the crater and their hands blurred through a series of hand seals.
Futon: Daitoppa 風遁・大突破 (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)Doton: Tobi Tsubute 土遁・飛び礫 (Earth Release: Flying Thrown Stones)
...
The mixture of jutsus formed a crushing wall of earth spikes and a lethal net of wind blades, all converging on the imposter's position to crush and suffocate him. However, the imposter's hands mirrored their speed.
Doton: Doryūheki 土遁・土流壁 (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall)
A thick, fortified barrier of earth rose from the desert, absorbing the brutal elemental barrage.
"Continue the assault! Take turns and wear him down!" Sakai commanded as ten jonin began rotating their attacks to exhaust their target.
As the relentless barrage pressed on, a figure suddenly burst from the ground behind the Suna line.
"Hah!" Two jonin reacted instantly. They used the Body Flicker Technique to vanish, reappearing right next to the figure and drove their kunai deep into its torso. A triumphant glee flashed across their faces.
"Yes!" the Suna shinobi cheered.
But their victory was short-lived.
Bzz-zzt!
"What?!" Both jonin's eyes widened in horror. Their prey violently dissolved into pure electrical currents, surging up their weapons and shocking them into paralysis. A Lightning Clone.
The jonin who had paused their assault prepared to resume their positions, but a sudden whistle cut through the air. A series of mid-flight shuriken collided against one another, sharply redirecting their trajectories directly toward the Suna lines. Two ninja, blindsided by their angles, took the blades straight through their skulls, dying instantly. Five others managed to dodge enough to save their lives, but found their joints—shoulders, ankles, and wrists—brutally neutralized by the shurikens. Only three reacted in time to leap completely clear.
Before they could even land, the imposter vanished. Uchiha Shinichi appeared directly in front of the surviving three, a lightning-coated sword held firmly in his right hand and a folded Fuma Shuriken gripped in his left. With a violent thrust, he drove the blade straight into the desert floor, sending a dense network of electrical currents surging across a hundred-meter radius.
Raikenhō : Kaminaridenryū 雷劒法・雷電流 (thunder sword law : Lightning current)
"This...?" Sakai flinched as the blue network of lightning flooded the ground like a glowing spiderweb. His boots touched the current, yet it didn't burn; he felt nothing but a slight, rhythmic tingling sensation.
But then Sakai looked up. He watched as Shinichi casually unfolded the massive Fuma Shuriken. A disturbing, primitive chill ran down the veteran's spine as he saw the teenager's eyes glow a fierce crimson glint.
Then, with a violent crackle of electricity, Shinichi vanished.
In a literal blink of an eye, the massacre began. Sakai watched in utter helplessness as Shinichi's silhouette flashed next to a Suna jonin, the man's head instantly caught between the snapping jaws of the Fuma Shuriken. With another spark, the silhouette reappeared beside two more ninja, their limbs cleanly severed before they could even scream. Bodies fell into the sand like discarded ragdolls.
Sakai could only trace the blinding afterimages as Shinichi systematically flickered through the battlefield. The slaughter was over before it could be processed. Suddenly, Sakai felt a slight, heavy tug in the center of his own chest.
He lowered his eyes. The jagged tip of the Fuma Shuriken was protruding from his chest. Oddly, he felt a strange, stinging itch—but no pain equivalent to a wound of this fatal magnitude.
Then, the Uchiha spoke.
"Have you not found it strange, Sakai?" Shinichi asked in eerily calm voice. "You only felt suspicious of Saburo's actions, yet you were never once compelled to actively dispel him from a genjutsu, even after fighting against our clan? Did you never wonder why you gathered all the surviving Suna shinobi to this exact spot just to ambush the imposter?"
Sakai's eyes widened in agonizing realization. It wasn't that Konoha had perfectly infiltrated Suna's high ranks. He had been placed under a subtle, deep-seated genjutsu the moment the battle began. The illusion hadn't controlled his thoughts; it had simply suppressed his instinct to inject chakra into 'Saburo' to check for a genjutso or even a Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Technique). He had actively led his own men to their slaughter to keep the disguise intact.
It all made sense now. But it was far too late for him, and far too late for the Suna home guard.
As Sakai's body collapsed limply onto the stained sand, Shinichi walked back to his sword. He gripped the hilt and pulled it smoothly from the earth, causing the blue electrical web to instantly dissipate.
He sheathed the blade, a quiet thought crossing his mind. 'Should I invest in a secondary sword? Or perhaps a tanto?'
raikenhou : Kaminaridenryu 雷劒法・雷電流 (thunder sword law : Lightning current) was a S-rank ninkenjutsu he was still actively developing. By driving his sword into the ground, he could emit a widespread field of low-voltage lightning current across a hundred meters—and up to a full kilometer at maximum output.
The currents didn't inflict immediate damage, but they subtly infiltrated the nervous systems of anyone standing within the zone, paralyzing them step by step. More importantly, the electrical field served as a massive, continuous conduit. It allowed Shinichi to instantaneously teleport to any exact coordinate within the lightning field without the heavy sensory restrictions of his other lightning kenjutsus, which required him to manually track conductive, low-energy oxygen pockets in the air with his sharingan. If he invested enough chakra into the blade, he could maintain this deadly domain for up to a full hour.
With the field cleared, Shinichi cast one final look at the graveyard of the Suna home guard, then turned his eyes toward the horizon. There were still more preys for him to hunt down today.