Chapter 130: This Is Hell
The crowd trailing them had grown.
Kakashi ran a rough count. Close to a hundred Kumogakure ninja now, all of them silent, all of them keeping pace — eyes cold and expressionless as drawn steel.
Even the Raikage, with his cast-iron composure, registered that something had shifted. He glanced at Darui.
Darui spoke quietly.
If none of this had happened in the open — if they'd been able to quietly maneuver the main force into a blocking position before anyone saw anything — there would have been options. Ways to recover Shi without anyone losing face.
But this had played out in front of nearly a hundred witnesses. Their leader, the Fourth Raikage, being led around on a leash by a Konoha girl. Not daring to act.
Wartime. And in wartime, there was one thing worth less than anything else.
A human life.
If any of them got captured — would the Raikage do this for them too?
Three ways this ended cleanly.
One: Shi killed himself.
Two: they killed Shi.
Three: the enemy killed Shi.
Even if they somehow managed to rescue him, people would die in the attempt. And those deaths would land on whose ledger? People would say Shi's life was treated like gold, something the Raikage himself had to handle with care.
If Shi walked away from this, the things people said about him — the whispers, the resentment — would be worse than what jinchūriki endured. And the Raikage would be tainted by association.
The words landed on the Raikage like a physical blow. Whatever had briefly eased in his chest dropped back down to somewhere cold.
His face contorted.
Shi had grown up in front of him. He'd personally ordered the boy's training. A rare talent — sensor-type and genjutsu-specialist both, in one person.
And now—
Shi had to die.
Shi was in agony.
Not the physical kind. His arms hurt, his jaw hung useless — but that wasn't what was tearing him apart.
He forced himself to look back at the growing crowd of his fellow ninja.
He wasn't foolish. Whatever Darui had worked out, he'd worked out too.
He was young. He'd been handpicked by the Raikage himself, brought into his personal guard just recently — a future that should have been bright and long.
But now—
This is hell.
Tears ran down his face.
He thought about the day he'd been sworn in as the Raikage's guard.
Defend Kumogakure's honor unto death.
I—
I—
The Raikage caught the look on his face instantly.
Something lurched in his chest. His eyes widened slightly.
He was past forty. Never married. No children.
Shi had been the closest thing.
Don't—
His hand moved without thinking, reaching out.
"Hrraaaghh—!"
The sound that came out of Shi's open jaw was not language. But the tears streaming from his eyes were clear, and the expression that crossed his face — pain and absolute resolve fused into one — needed no translation.
The pink-haired girl looked at him immediately.
Something had already been nagging at her. She'd been moving too fast, not thinking clearly — wrong route. The crowd around them kept growing—
"HRRAAHH—!"
The gentle, refined eyes she'd seen earlier were gone. Red-veined now, face flushed dark.
The physical torment he was in simply didn't matter anymore. He had made his last decision.
Sakura glanced at him calmly.
She was the strongest medical ninja alive outside of Tsunade. Even if he slit his own throat, she could bring him back before he finished dying.
But that was the problem, wasn't it.
She was already managing three things simultaneously — carrying him, monitoring her surroundings, watching the Raikage at her back.
Her mind was being stretched in too many directions.
"SHI—!"
The Raikage roared and threw every agreement out the window, exploding forward.
"Boss—!"
Darui was stunned for half a second — then immediately tried to intercept, to stop the Raikage from doing exactly what Shi was counting on him to do.
If Shi died here — captured enemy, choosing death over burdening his comrades — the effect on troop morale would be extraordinary. Ten parts fighting spirit becoming eighteen. And Shi would not be remembered as an embarrassment. He would be remembered as a hero.
The Raikage moved. Every Kumogakure ninja present surged forward with him.
Shi looked at Sakura.
One final look. The resolve in his eyes was total.
The Raikage's guard was the pool from which the next Raikage was chosen. But Shi had never wanted that. He'd only ever wanted to follow that man.
The day he was sworn in, he'd thought about many things.
Including: what if I'm ever captured?
He'd already had his answer.
Blood ran from Shi's seven orifices.
The light in his eyes went out.
For the Raikage, time stopped.
He watched the golden-haired boy fall — slowly, impossibly slowly — from the air to the ground. The rictus on his face eased as he dropped, the tension leaving him, until what remained looked almost like the gentle, composed young man he'd always been.
A lifetime of memories played without permission.
Watching him grow up. The day he finally joined the guard.
The day the Raikage had asked him whether he ever wanted to become Raikage himself.
The young man had smiled — that quiet, unhurried smile — and said:
"I know my own strength. I only want to serve at your side, Lord Raikage. That's enough for me."
Sakura stared.
Her brain had gone somewhere blank and cold.
On reflex she reached out with her medical sensing — and found what was spreading through Shi's body near his heart.
Earth spiders?
It came back to her, distantly. Hadn't there been something — the Raikage trying to annex the earth spider clan, one of his men getting hit with their secret technique, which somehow eventually led to the arm-wrestling match with Tsunade—
There was still time. She could save him. Given enough time, a proper surgery — Shi could survive this.
But the Raikage was not going to give her time.
"AAAAAAHHHH—!"
Grief. Agony. Watching the boy he'd raised as a son choose death right in front of him — it tore through the Raikage like something was being ripped out.
It felt like losing his father all over again.
He'd told Killer Bee to stop crying. Told him grief was useless. Put on the face that strength required.
But who had ever seen what the nights looked like?
This is hell.
After grief: fury.
Endless, consuming, mindless fury.
Lightning erupted across his body in waves that had no ceiling. That massive frame became something that didn't look entirely human as he drove toward Sakura.
"LIGHTNING PLOUGH HOT KNIFE—!!!"
The speed was nothing like before.
This is what he was holding back.
This is what Minato faced.
"Enma—!"
Sakura had felt it the instant Shi died — wrong, wrong, wrong — and called out immediately.
But how long was immediately?
Two seconds?
One?
Half a second?
A tenth?
The Raikage was already in front of her. His shadow swallowed her completely. Grief and fury with no bottom, unleashed through one fist aimed directly at her face—
She couldn't react.
She genuinely could not react.
And then a voice rang out in the back of her mind — irritable, untamed, not asking permission.
"Switch."
(Chapter End)
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