Hey guys, here is the new chapter hope you will liked and read thru everything.
If we hit 100PW I post a extra chapter
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Enjoy the chapter!
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The desert of Sunagakure's western zone was nothing like the rest of the Land of Wind. If the dunes surrounding the village were treacherous, the deep west was a literal death sentence. There, the sand was not golden; it had a grayish, ashen tone, and the wind blew with such a colossal force that it was capable of tearing the skin off any unprepared traveler. It was a forbidden territory, erased from trade routes and buried in the absolute oblivion of ninja nations.
Having left behind the comforts of the renovated Suna, three silhouettes advanced at full speed, leaping between gravity-defying rock formations in the middle of the sea of ash. Kisame, Kaito, and Baki formed a perfect spearhead. They did not speak. They were entirely focused on their mission.
Baki marched in the center, with the index and middle fingers of both hands raised in the confrontation seal. The veins around his albino eyes were completely swollen, throbbing to the rhythm of his heart. His Byakugan sliced through the density of the storm as if it were nothing.
"Stop," Baki ordered suddenly, raising a fist.
Kisame braked hard, slamming the tip of Samehada into the sand to secure his stance, while Kaito dropped into a crouch on a weathered rock, one hand resting on the handle of his Kabutowari.
"What's wrong, Baki?" Kisame asked, wiping a trail of gray dust from his lips. "Did we already find what we were sent to look for?"
"I don't see physical structures yet," Baki replied, without deactivating his Dōjutsu. "But the chakra flow beneath the ground is insane. There is a massive current of energy running directly below us. It's so dense that it's slightly interfering with my vision. It's heading northwest."
Kaito pulled out the ancient map Daigo had given him, spreading it over his knee while the wind tried to tear it away. With his other hand, he pulled out a special magnetic compass, whose needle spun out of control, pointing everywhere and nowhere.
"Just as Daigo-sama predicted," Kaito analyzed in his cold, calculating tone. "The electromagnetic field of the ancient city is altering the physical properties of the terrain. If the needle is going crazy and the Byakugan detects that density, it means we are close. According to these ancient records, the entrance to the lower levels of Rōran should be less than two kilometers in that direction. But look at the sky."
Kisame and Baki looked up. The horizon ahead of them had darkened completely. A wall of sand and static of giant proportions rose before them, blocking the path. It was no ordinary storm; inside the gray cloud, sparks of a flickering purple energy twisted, releasing snaps that echoed like dry thunder.
"Well, well..." Kisame laughed, his eyes wide with excitement. "That storm doesn't seem to want guests. Samehada is trembling... it feels like a massive chakra is approaching."
"Baki, you are our eyes. If we lose your trail in that storm, we'll be buried alive," Kaito warned, turning his gaze to the swordsman. "Kisame, prepare to use your chakra if the terrain collapses."
"Don't give me orders, Kaito," the shark-man replied with a fierce grin, hoisting the bandaged sword onto his shoulder. "Let's go see what this ghost city is hiding."
With a burst of speed, the three Shadows of the Desert launched themselves headfirst into the imposing purple sandstorm.
The impact of the storm was brutal. The wind howled with the force of a dragon, pelting their bodies with millions of grains of sand that felt like burning needles. The static in the air made their hair stand on end. Baki led the march, forcing his Byakugan to its absolute limit to identify the most dangerous wind vortices and guide his companions through an invisible labyrinth of deadly currents.
"To the right! Now!" Baki roared, his voice nearly swallowed by the roar of the wind.
Kisame and Kaito skidded in the sand, dodging by millimeters a violent funnel of wind charged with purple electricity that shattered the rock they had been standing on a second prior. The journey was a hell of pure endurance that lasted nearly half an hour, until suddenly, the pressure of the wind dropped drastically.
The group tumbled onto a hard, dusty, and cold surface. As they stood up and shook off the sand, they realized the sky was no longer visible. They were inside a chasm, a subterranean abyss carved out beneath the desert dunes.
In front of them, emerging from the gloom and dimly lit by the purple flashes of the static above, rose the imposing and historic silhouette of Rōran.
The city was a breathtaking architectural spectacle. Impossible high cylindrical towers connected to one another via stone and metal bridges crossing the void. Buildings of an ancient, stylized design—completely alien to the traditional constructions of the great nations—extended as far as the eye could see. However, there were no signs of life. No vegetation, no water, not the slightest sound. It was a massive corpse of stone and bronze buried deep beneath the desert.
"So this is the famous Rōran," Kisame muttered, looking down into the abyss opening beneath the bridges. "It's huge. Building this down here must have required a ridiculous amount of power."
"This isn't just stone," Kaito intervened, kneeling to examine the ground they stood on. It was made of a metallic alloy covered in layers of dust. "The entire city was designed like a giant piece of machinery. An infrastructure created exclusively to house and distribute a massive force. Daigo-sama was entirely right to categorize this as an absolute priority. If the Sand manages to control the foundations of this place, our village's industrialization will put the other nations to shame."
Baki walked toward the edge of the main bridge leading to the central plaza of the subterranean city. His white eyes scanned the dark structures of the towers. Suddenly, the veins at his temples tightened even more, and a look of alarm crossed his usually stoic face.
"We have a serious problem," Baki warned, stepping back and drawing the thin needle of the Nuibari. "The city is not uninhabited."
"What do you see, Baki? Rogue ninjas?" Kaito asked, instantly unhooking his Kabutowari.
"No. There are no human chakra signatures," the Byakugan user replied, pointing his weapon toward the shadows of the nearest towers. "But there is movement. Hundreds of mechanical objects are activating in the lower levels and inside the buildings. They have small cores of energy flowing in their chests. They don't have a chakra pathway system, which prevents me from seeing their pressure points. They are heading this way. Fast."
A metallic, dull, and rhythmic sound began to echo throughout the underground chasm. Clack. Clack. Clack.
Out of the darkness of the corridors and the windows of the cylindrical towers, figures began to emerge. They were puppets. But they looked nothing like the traditional puppets used by the ninjas of Sunagakure; they required no external chakra threads to move. They were stylized structures made of bronze, reinforced wood, and dark metal, with expressionless faces carved from white wood. In the center of their chests, a small, glowing purple gem emitted a constant hum, releasing the residual energy that kept them functioning after generations of abandonment.
In a matter of seconds, the main bridge and the upper platforms were surrounded by hundreds of these autonomous puppets. Some deployed mechanical blades from their forearms; others altered the shape of their limbs to convert them into crossbows loaded with iron bolts.
"The city's defense system," Kaito deduced, stepping into a combat stance alongside Baki. "They detect our presence as an intrusion. Their programming must be to eliminate any living organism that tries to approach the core."
"Ha! This just keeps getting better!" Kisame exclaimed, letting out a wild laugh. The Mist ninja swung the gigantic Samehada through the air, ripping some of the outer bandages to reveal the bluish scales that began to flutter with a thirst for battle. "Puppets that move on their own thanks to chakra... Let's see if their metal cores taste any good!"
Before Kisame could launch an attack, a wave of puppets in the vanguard raised their arms. A collective hiss tore through the air as hundreds of iron bolts and mechanical projectiles were fired simultaneously toward the three Shadows.
"Earth Style: Earth Wall!" Kaito roared, slamming the hammer of the Kabutowari into the metallic floor, imbuing his chakra into the joints of the structure.
A wall of solid rock emerged from the ground, blocking the rain of projectiles that slammed against the surface with the force of a deadly hailstorm. The bolts buried themselves deeply into the rock, but the wall withstood the initial impact.
"Baki, Kisame, we can't stay on the defensive on this bridge!" Kaito ordered from behind the wall, his analytical mind working at a thousand miles per hour. "If they surround us in such a tight space, sheer numbers will crush us. We must break their center line and advance toward the open plaza beneath the main tower. We'll have room to use area-of-effect techniques there."
"Understood!" Baki replied.
The tracker slipped around the side of the wall with blinding speed. Unable to use the traditional Gentle Fist due to the lack of chakra pathways in his mechanical foes, Baki completely altered his fighting style. Using the Nuibari, he began to weave a mesh of ultra-resistant steel threads among the approaching puppets. With surgical movements, Baki dodged the strikes of the bronze blades, threading the sword's needle right through the joints of the mechanical guardians.
"Water Style: Exploding Water Colliding Wave!" Kisame shouted, leaping over Kaito's defensive wall.
A massive amount of water erupted from the swordsman's mouth, creating a violent tide in the middle of the underground desert. The wave crashed across the entire main bridge, sweeping away dozens of puppets and throwing their advance into chaos. Kisame dropped into the middle of the carnage, swinging Samehada with devastating force. Each strike of the giant sword shattered the wood and bronze of the puppets, and its scales tore into the purple cores in their chests. However, Samehada seemed unable to consume the chakra properly.
"Damn it! These things don't have chakra that can be stolen normally!" Kisame complained, smashing a puppet that was trying to impale him with a spear. "That purple energy is too heavy for Samehada to eat!"
"Don't focus on stealing their energy, focus on destroying their joints!" Kaito shouted, advancing right behind him.
The Sand strategist displayed impressive physical strength. Using the Kabutowari, he shattered the shoulders and leg connections of the puppets. The design of his combined weapon was perfect for this type of clash: the axe bit through the bronze defenses, and the hammer delivered a traumatic impact that rattled the automatons' internal gears, leaving them completely useless.
Despite the undeniable combat superiority of the three Shadows, the number of enemies seemed endless. For every ten puppets Kisame smashed or Baki snared with his steel threads, another twenty emerged from the lower tunnels of Rōran. Furthermore, the fallen puppets began to release the residual energy of their damaged cores, causing small explosions of purple static that saturated the plaza's atmosphere.
Baki, using his Byakugan to cover the group's rear, executed a swift maneuver. He yanked hard on the Nuibari threads he had previously anchored to the structure of an adjacent building.
"Kaito, the upper platform's support is giving way!" Baki reported urgently. "I'm bringing the structure down to block the reinforcements from the left flank!"
"Do it!" Kaito approved, delivering a violent hammer blow that split a puppet in two.
Baki channeled wind chakra through the Nuibari threads and pulled with a supreme effort. The weakened stone columns of the ancient building groaned violently before collapsing into a massive shower of debris. Tons of rock fell directly onto the secondary bridge, crushing dozens of puppets and temporarily sealing off one of the defenders' main access routes.
Taking advantage of the distraction and the blockage, the three Shadows finally managed to break through to the city's central plaza—a massive circular esplanade surrounded by the foundations of Rōran's tallest tower. In the center of the plaza, an enormous circular seal carved into the metal floor emitted intermittent flashes of a highly intense purple light.
Kisame placed his back against the remains of a column, breathing heavily but keeping the grin on his face. Kaito and Baki flanked his position, watching as the remaining puppets of the city began to encircle the circular plaza, gathering in a massive formation but maintaining a careful distance, as if they did not want to damage the central seal on the floor.
"It seems we've secured the main perimeter," Kaito said, analyzing the behavior of the automatons. "They aren't approaching the central seal. They're afraid of damaging the energy source, or their programming forbids them from fighting on top of here."
"It's the perfect place to hold our position," Baki agreed, wiping the thin blade of the Nuibari, though keeping his Byakugan active to monitor the mass of metal surrounding them. "Daigo-sama gave strict orders not to explore the deep levels on our own. We only need to keep this point secure."
Kisame rested Samehada on the ground, letting out a snort as he stared intently at the purple glow emanating from the central subterranean seal.
"Well, the dirty work is done," the shark-man commented, crossing his arms over his chest. "We found the damn ghost city and cleared the lobby. Now it's the boss's turn to come deal with this energy storm. Kaito, prepare the communication scroll. Let Daigo-sama know that the Shadows of the Desert have taken control of the gates of Rōran."
Kaito nodded seriously, pulling a special summoning scroll from his gear. With a swift sequence of hand signs, he sealed their coordinates and the confirmation of the mission's success into the paper, biting his finger to activate the transmission jutsu that would send the signal directly to the Kazekage's office in Sunagakure.
"The signal has been sent," Kaito announced, looking out at the vastness of the metal and stone towers surrounding them in the gloom. "From here on out, everything is in Daigo-sama's hands."
In the depths of the chasm, beneath the mystical flickering of the desert's ancestral energy, the three Shadows stood firm in the central plaza, guarding against the hundreds of mechanical keepers that remained motionless in the shadows.
End of Chapter