The heavens were drowning. As Ebizo unleashed his jutsu, the violent winds of the desert were sucked upward, converging into a singular, lethal vortex above his head.
To an ordinary observer, there was only the terrifying gathering of the gale—a hidden, creeping malice. One would feel the hair on their neck stand up in primal fear, yet have no inkling of when or from where the killing blow would strike.
But within the infrared sensing of the Cursed Sharingan, the reality was bone-chillingly clear.
Ren Uchiha saw them—the countless Wind Style: Blades of Wind coalescing within the storm. They were invisible, colorless, and hidden by the gale, yet each carried a piercing power no less than that of a tungsten armor-piercing shell.
In the next breath, Ebizo's fingers snapped into the final 'Dragon' seal.
The sky froze for a heartbeat.
Then, a deluge of wind blades erupted, shrieking as they rained down upon Ren! They fell in a dense, suffocating sheet, like a torrential downpour where every single raindrop was a razor sharp enough to cleave the world.
"Holy crap!"
Ren's pupils dilated. His scalp went numb, and his mind momentarily blanked. Suspended in mid-air, he was a sitting duck with nowhere to hide.
"Wind Style: Air-Vaporizing Vacuum Wave!"
Gritting his teeth, Ren formed the 'Dragon' seal with his left hand. He thrust his palm toward the sky, unleashing a violent shockwave of ultrasonic air. The recoil acted like a thruster, slamming him back toward the desert floor.
But it was a futile struggle. Under Ebizo's master-class control, the wind blades acted like hounds on a scent, curving sharply in mid-air to pursue him.
As he plummeted, Ren's mind raced at a frantic speed. He realized that simple Fire Style wouldn't be enough. While fire naturally countered wind, Ebizo's mastery was too profound. A standard fireball would be pierced through effortlessly by the extreme density of those blades.
To survive this, he needed something equally condensed. He needed a flame that could cut.
A manic glint ignited in Ren's serpentine eyes. He cut the airflow from his palm and twisted his body in mid-air to face the oncoming storm.
With a flick of his finger, he pulled the wire. The Kusanagi Sword flew from the sand and into his grip. Ren slammed the hilt against his chest, right over his heart, igniting the scorching flames of his inner resolve.
"HRAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
He flooded his Fire Style: Chakra Mode with every last drop of his chakra. This time, he didn't manifest a dragon or extend the blade. He took that soul-burning fire and crushed it—compressing it entirely into the steel of the sword.
Not a single spark was allowed to escape. The blade glowed brighter and brighter until it turned a blinding, incandescent white.
BOOM!
Ren slammed into the desert floor, back-first, kicking up a massive pillar of sand.
Then, the leaden rain of wind blades arrived.
Tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk!
The desert surface was hammered as if by a heavy machine gun, a relentless barrage of firepower saturating every inch of the zone where Ren had fallen.
"Die! You brat!" Ebizo roared, his face contorted in a mask of savage triumph. "End your short life in this silent, raining gale!"
The battlefield fell into an oppressive silence, broken only by the rhythmic thudding of wind blades boring deep into the earth.
Ebizo used his Air Current Wild Dance to slow his descent and landed gracefully. He began to pant heavily, sweat dripping down the deep furrows of his aged face. An S-Rank composite jutsu of this scale was an immense burden, even for him.
"Hah... I really am... getting old."
"Less than half my chakra remains. But it's enough to cut through the barrier and leave."
Ebizo wiped his brow and waved his hand, using a gust of wind to clear the settling dust. In his mind, no one could survive that. This wasn't rain; it was a storm of blades sharper than any steel. By now, the boy should be nothing more than a pile of minced meat.
But the veteran's caution compelled him to check.
As the dust cleared, Ebizo's breath hitched. His heart skipped a beat, and his body turned to stone.
"This... this is impossible!"
There, amidst the crater and the lingering rain of whistling blades, a blood-soaked youth stood.
He gripped a longsword that shone like a miniature sun. He was dancing. He was stepping through the storm, swinging the incandescent blade in great, wheeling arcs. Like a hot knife through butter, the white-hot steel cleaved through the incoming wind blades, shattering them into harmless gusts.
Flashes of wind occasionally pierced his defenses, tearing new holes into his flesh, but the boy didn't slow down. He was charging. He was closing the distance with a terrifying, mindless ferocity.
Within those crimson snake-eyes, there was no longer a trace of human emotion.
The vertical pupils flickered toward Ebizo, cold and manic—an exact mirror of Orochimaru's legendary madness. He looked like a serpent bathed in blood, rushing toward its own death.
Ebizo felt as if he had been struck by a Genjutsu. His heart felt as though an invisible hand had squeezed it. His gaze fell upon the boy's right arm.
It was new. It was whole.
How?! Ebizo remembered clearly—the boy's arm had been gone! His intelligence stated the brat didn't have the power of limb regeneration. He could stitch wounds and heal fast, but this?
Panic flared in the old man's chest. This wasn't a human. This was a monster.
"I can't let him get close... I can't beat him in Taijutsu!"
Ebizo ground his teeth, a dull ache throbbing in his jaw where Ren had struck him earlier. The memory of the beating sent a shiver through his entire frame.
He reached into his scroll pouch and pulled out a specialized summon. Biting his thumb, his hands moved in a blur: Bo-Dog-Bird-Monkey-Ram!
"Puppet Summoning: Three Giants of Chikamatsu!"
POOF!
Three puppets clad in white robes bearing the kanji for 'Buddha', 'Dharma', and 'Sangha' appeared. Ebizo's face twisted into a wrathful expression, resembling a fierce Acala.
"Three-Machine Performance: Dance of the Chaotic Blades!"
Chakra threads extended from his ten fingers. The three puppets unheathed blades from their limbs and soared forward, hurtling toward Ren.
Even as he controlled the puppets, Ebizo began forming more seals. He stood his ground like a heavy artillery battery.
"Wind Style: Great Vacuum Cannon!"
"Wind Style: Blade of Wind!"
"Wind Style: Scythe Weasel!"
A relentless stream of wind blades and air cannons erupted from his mouth. The night of roaring winds had truly begun.