Kiyohara did not answer Kurenai's question.
He simply didn't have the spare focus to speak. While the Radical Spirit guided the intricate conversion of chakra into magnetic force, Kiyohara had to manually maintain the rotational output.
He initiated the Magnetic Field Rotation.
Crackle!
A physical coil composed of dense, black iron sand materialized, spiraling rapidly around Kiyohara's extended right arm. Invisible magnetic forces warped the air.
Simultaneously, violent pale blue electric currents erupted along the coil. From a distance, it didn't look like Magnet Release at all; it looked as if Kiyohara was wielding a highly concentrated Lightning Release jutsu.
But the electricity wasn't dancing randomly. The arcs were perfectly aligned, locked into a specific geometric track.
"This is..."
Standing right beside him, Kurenai could feel a terrifying amount of chakra condensing in Kiyohara's hand. The ambient air pressure dropped. The wind picked up, whipping Kiyohara's long dark hair wildly around his Konoha headband.
His handsome face was set in utter, icy concentration.
Yet, every survival instinct in Kurenai's body was screaming at her. She felt an overwhelming sense of danger radiating from his arm.
"Kurenai. Step back," Kiyohara exhaled, his breath turning to white steam.
His spiritual energy was massive, allowing him a terrifying degree of hyper-focus. The Spirit provided the theoretical blueprint, but Kiyohara was the one acting as the living engine.
"Genma! Step back, now!" Kurenai warned, grabbing her teammate's arm and dragging him away from the buildup of static electricity.
Kiyohara narrowed his eyes, locking onto the chaotic battlefield seven hundred meters away.
'Scorch Release is the fusion of Wind and Fire,' Kiyohara observed, watching Pakura fight.
To awaken such a Kekkei Genkai, she had to possess monstrous talent and flawless proficiency in both basic natures. With a casual wave of her hand, her super-heated wind currents neutralized incoming Konoha jutsu, baking the surrounding trees to ash in seconds.
'No wonder she is the Hero of the Sand. But I don't need to engage her in close combat.'
Pakura was fully occupied trying to vaporize Katsuyu's incoming acid streams, leaving her right flank momentarily exposed.
It was the perfect opening.
Kiyohara's right thumb and index finger firmly pinched the heavy iron sand coin. The invisible magnetic field around his arm distorted violently, constructing a frictionless, electromagnetic acceleration track.
BANG!
A streak of black light tore through the night sky.
It was accompanied by an ear-splitting sonic boom and a blinding flash of blue static. The projectile moved at a speed impossible for the naked eye to track.
It crossed seven hundred meters in barely over a second, aimed directly at Pakura's right shoulder!
"Magnet Release: Electromagnetic Coin!"
Although chakra limitations prevented the Radical Spirit from forming a highly aerodynamic, spindle-shaped projectile, the sheer blunt-force trauma of the compressed iron coin was devastating.
At the very last microsecond, Pakura's battle-hardened instincts flared. She felt a hair-raising, lethal threat locking onto her. She subconsciously twisted her torso.
Puchi!
The black iron coin grazed her right bicep.
Just the grazing friction was enough to tear a bloody trench through her skin. The intense kinetic shock and the numbing bite of the residual electricity made Pakura grunt in pain, causing her Scorch Release orbs to momentarily flicker.
Pakura's intuition saved her life.
But the Suna ninja standing fifty feet behind her was not so lucky.
SPLAT.
The iron coin punched straight through the Suna ninja's skull. His head simply exploded like a dropped melon, spraying blood and brain matter across the courtyard.
The chaotic battlefield experienced a brief, stunned lull.
What just happened? Was that friendly fire or an enemy attack?
After dodging another wave of Katsuyu's acid, Pakura snapped her head around. Her sharp eyes pierced the smoke and flames, tracing the trajectory of the sonic boom. Finally, on an elevated ridge nearly a kilometer away, she spotted a dark-haired Konoha boy. Blue electricity was still smoking from his extended arm.
'A sniper?!' Pakura gritted her teeth, clutching her bleeding arm.
Up on the ridge, Genma almost swallowed his senbon.
He and Kurenai stared at Kiyohara in absolute shock. For a fleeting moment, Genma wanted to drop to his knees and beg Kiyohara to take him as a disciple.
'He killed a man with a coin from seven hundred meters away?!' Genma thought hysterically. His thrown senbon had, at maximum, one-tenth of that range!
Down in the courtyard, Tsunade, who had her eyes squeezed shut, heard Shizune gasp.
Tsunade slowly cracked an eye open. Seeing the headless Suna corpse and the pooling blood, a wave of nausea hit her, and she quickly squeezed her eyes shut again.
But in that brief glance, she caught sight of the sniper on the ridge.
'That brat...' Tsunade realized. It was the same kid who had sold her two jutsu, only for her to lose all the money at the casino five minutes later. Orochimaru had mentioned him in passing.
'It was a bit off,' Kiyohara thought to himself, lowering his smoking arm.
He was responsible for the manual aiming. For his first time firing the railgun, it was acceptable. At least it grazed the primary target.
He looked forward to optimizing it. 'If I can refine my shape manipulation to forge a true aerodynamic spindle, the muzzle velocity and piercing power will skyrocket.'
But for now, brute force would have to do.
The black iron sand immediately began coiling around his arm again, condensing a second coin.
'This is incredibly chakra-intensive,' Kiyohara calculated. Even with his expanded reserves, he could fire this technique at most four times. One shot consumed roughly the same amount of chakra as Kakashi's Chidori.
"Don't let Pakura escape!" Shirakumo Hayama roared.
Holding his longsword with his unburned arm, he rallied the dozens of Konoha ninja. If they could capture or kill the Hero of the Sand here, it would be a massive strategic victory.
The summoned Katsuyu continued her relentless acid barrage. Her massive form had shrunk significantly as she divided into hundreds of miniature slugs, scattering across the compound to heal the wounded Konoha ninja.
BANG!
A second sonic boom shattered the air.
The iron coin, launched at six hundred meters per second, crossed the battlefield.
Another Suna ninja's chest caved in, blowing him off his feet. Pakura, trying to cover her disciple, suffered another grazing wound to her ribs. This one was deeper.
Pakura frowned deeply, her breathing ragged.
The situation was terminal. She was surrounded by Konoha Jonin. A Sannin was present with a massive boss summon. And somewhere in the dark, a sniper was firing untrackable, supersonic projectiles that hit like a battering ram.
If she only had to fight the vanguard, she could maneuver. But dividing her attention to protect Maki while constantly dodging Mach-speed sniper fire was impossible.
"Let's go!"
Pakura made the tactical call. She endured the agonizing pain in her shoulder, grabbed Maki by the harness, and hurled a dozen smoke bombs at the ground.
As the thick smoke erupted, she instantly channeled Wind Release to violently propel the smokescreen outward, covering her frantic retreat into the night.
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