With Toroi dead, Natsuki lingered where he stood, waiting.
No new character template triggered.
He wasn't surprised—only faintly disappointed. Toroi and Rasa overlapped too much in role, and more to the point, the man had simply been too weak.
Natsuki glanced at the three Snake Princesses. They'd dispatched their own opponents just as easily.
After a moment's thought, he decided against destroying the corpses. He sealed the bodies of Toroi and the other three into a summoning storage scroll. Disguised as Toroi, he could get close enough to kill two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. And when the time came to leave, he could stage the deaths of Toroi and his squad to look like the work of Hidden Mist ninja.
Once the Snake Princesses had scrubbed away every trace of the fight, Natsuki dispelled the Concealment Barrier. The battle had ended so quickly that the Hidden Cloud ninja stationed nearby noticed nothing. The isolated island settled back into stillness.
Natsuki and the three Snake Princesses walked into the stronghold. Now came the waiting—though not idle waiting. The Snake Princesses had already dispatched serpents from the Ryuchi Cave to pin down the movements of the remaining two Swordsmen.
A week passed.
As the Hidden Cloud offensive pushed forward, the stronghold lost its strategic value, and Toroi's squad was recalled to the main camp.
Natsuki took in his surroundings. For a Konoha ninja to walk alone into the heart of the Hidden Cloud encampment was, without question, a singular experience—especially with more than a thousand Cloud ninja packed into the camp. If they discovered him, he'd be swarmed. But at his current strength, that wasn't much of a concern. And he wasn't truly alone; the three Snake Princesses were with him.
They soon reached the command tent.
"Wait for me here," Natsuki told them, then stepped inside.
The first thing he saw was a heavily muscled, imposing man—the Fourth Raikage, Ay.
Worth noting: Ay wasn't a name so much as a title, passed down within the Hidden Cloud to the strongest of each generation. In this generation, that was clearly him, even if he hadn't yet formally taken up the mantle of Raikage. A number of Cloud Jonin filled out the rest of the tent.
"Lord Ay." Natsuki inclined his head.
After killing Toroi, he'd used the Mangekyou Sharingan to strip the man's memories. The commander of the Cloud forces here was Ay—the Third Raikage, evidently, blooding his son in the field. And Ay had proven himself capable; his sheer power had won over the Cloud ninja quickly.
"Toroi, I have a new mission for you." Ay gave a nod, and one of the Jonin stepped forward to hand Natsuki a scroll.
Natsuki unrolled it and read.
The mission was simple. The Hidden Mist would be moving a shipment of supplies the following day, and Toroi was to hit it—ideally, to seize the cargo outright. The supplies were primarily ninja tools.
It was a mission tailor-made for Toroi. Two other squads would be running the operation alongside his. But what caught Natsuki's attention was the ninja overseeing the transport: Munashi Jinpachi.
Munashi Jinpachi wielded the Blast Sword: Shibuki.
Shibuki was no ordinary blade. It resembled a scroll more than a sword, its surface layered thick with explosive tags, so that every one of Jinpachi's strikes detonated on impact. It made perfect sense that he'd be moving ninja tools—explosive tags counted among them, after all, and such tools were a critical strategic resource in wartime.
"I'll go prepare at once." Natsuki rolled the scroll shut, turned, and left.
He and the three Snake Princesses returned to their assigned tent.
At nine the next morning, they linked up with the other two squads at the camp's entrance. Natsuki swept his gaze over them: both squad leaders were Jonin, the rest Chunin. Drawing on Toroi's memories, he recognized the two Jonin at once.
After a round of curt greetings, the group set out, following the map south. Two hours later they reached their target—an island that lay squarely along the Hidden Mist's supply route.
"Set the ambush," Natsuki said, waving a hand.
The two Cloud squads scattered instantly. Those skilled in Water Release slipped beneath the waves.
Time crawled by.
At last a ship appeared on the horizon, drawing steadily closer. The moment it slid into range, Natsuki drew out Toroi's shuriken—giant things, half his own height and unwieldy to look at. Truthfully, the speed Toroi could wring out of them with Magnet Release was fast enough, and yet somehow never fast enough.
Armament Haki.
Invisible chakra armor bled across the four blades.
Cherry Blossom Impact.
The instant Natsuki loosed them, he snapped his fists forward and hammered into them. Raw power detonated outward, and the four shuriken screamed away like lightning.
"Enemy attack!"
They were less than ten meters out before the Mist ninja on deck registered the incoming blades—and the warning dissolved into screams. The giant shuriken plowed through the crowd, and bodies flew.
"Who is it?" Jinpachi's vision blurred; the deck ran red. He understood at once that whoever had struck was no minor threat.
"Beautifully done!" Spurred on by the carnage, the two Cloud squads surged into their own attacks. The sky seemed to ignite, ninjutsu erupting from empty air to rain down on the transport.
Jinpachi swung Shibuki. The explosive scroll along the blade unfurled, and a storm of tags tore loose like wind blades.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ninjutsu and explosive tags met and burst apart in rolling walls of fire.
He was winding up for another strike when the ninja tools scattered across the deck lurched into the air and hurtled at him. He caught himself—and suddenly understood exactly who his attacker was. The Cloud's Magnet Release ninja. Toroi.
Jinpachi went taut with focus. Shibuki answered his will, sweeping every last tool from the air. Scanning the shore, he found Natsuki at once—standing openly on the beach, no disguise at all, directing the barrage from a distance.
Jinpachi launched himself forward without hesitation.
The Cloud ninja held the advantage of ambush, but they were badly outnumbered. Cut down Toroi—the one real threat—and the Mist could still turn the tide.
Mid-leap, Jinpachi raised Shibuki high and brought it down like a giant axe, straight for Natsuki.
Natsuki swept both hands up. A giant shuriken rose to meet the blade.
Boom!
Shibuki struck the shuriken, and the explosion flung it away.
Jinpachi pressed in, closing the last of the distance. He drove Shibuki into the ground and swung.
Boom!
A chain of detonations ripped outward, scorching flame rearing up like a tidal wave and crashing toward Natsuki.
Natsuki threw up both hands again. Two giant shuriken slammed into place before him—but the heat glowed them cherry-red in seconds, and he was forced to give ground.
Jinpachi seized the momentum and vaulted into the air, Shibuki sweeping out. The scroll snapped open, and explosive tags fell over Natsuki like rain.
Boom!
The blast dwarfed everything before it. The ground shuddered, flame spilling outward until it swallowed Natsuki whole in a sea of fire.
"So a Magnet Release ninja is nothing more than this." A grin spread across Jinpachi's face. Toroi carried real renown—killing him would be no small honor.
The shriek of splitting air.
A single giant shuriken burst out of the flames. Jinpachi arched a brow and slashed to meet it—
—and realized his mistake too late.
The shuriken exploded on contact. Caught flat-footed, he took the full force of it, fire and shrapnel driving into his body. His eyes went wide. Stunned, he dropped out of the air.
At that exact moment, a dense hail of kunai streaked out of the flames.
Natsuki's doing, of course. He stood untouched at the heart of the inferno, ringed by a wall of ice—but the flames were too thick, and Jinpachi never saw it.
There was no time to care about the ice now. Watching the kunai close, Jinpachi knew death when he saw it. In that final breath, he roared and gripped Shibuki with everything he had left.
The scroll unfurled completely. Every tag detonated at once. Even Shibuki itself shuddered and split with cracks.
This was Jinpachi's ultimate technique—or rather, Shibuki's—one that consumed the sword itself to fuel the blast.
But in the next instant, a hand closed around the blade.
Jinpachi stared at the Natsuki who had appeared out of nowhere, disbelief carved into his face.
"This sword doesn't get to break."
Natsuki wrenched Shibuki free, stepped back, and vanished into an Air Door.
"How do you know space–time ninjutsu?" Jinpachi couldn't stop the question.
He never heard the answer. The explosion took him, blowing him to pieces. More than that—with him at its center, the earth heaved and split, gouging deep craters into the ground. The thunder of it rolled on for nearly half a minute before it died.
Natsuki resurfaced a distance away, Shibuki stowed. He looked toward the epicenter and found nothing—not a scrap of Jinpachi left. In that state, extracting memories was hopeless.
As for the Door-Door Fruit, he'd used the sky full of firelight as cover, and with the other Cloud ninja locked in their own frantic fighting, no one had caught the trick.
Natsuki shook his head. Magnet Release paired with ninja tools really wasn't much. He'd still had to cripple Jinpachi with a surprise Broken Phantasm before he could finish the job. Had the man not tried to blow up Shibuki, Natsuki wouldn't have needed the Door-Door Fruit at all.
Then again, it worked in his favor. He wouldn't have to invent some excuse for Ay and the others—he could simply say Shibuki had self-destructed.
With Jinpachi dead, the surviving Mist ninja fell quickly. Natsuki leaped aboard the ship.
"Is Munashi Jinpachi dead?" a Cloud Jonin asked, almost reflexively.
"You even have to ask? After a blast like that, there won't be enough of him left to bury." Another Jonin paused, then added, "Lord Toroi, you killed Munashi Jinpachi—Lord Raikage will reward you handsomely for this."
In truth, Toroi killing Jinpachi was well beyond anything they'd expected. His fame rested entirely on his Magnet Release; his actual combat record held nothing remarkable. He'd never once put down an enemy worth naming. Jinpachi was the first—and one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen at that, a name that outstripped the vast majority of Jonin. They could already picture how far Toroi's standing in the Hidden Cloud would climb after this.
"The credit isn't mine alone. Everyone had a hand in it," Natsuki said with a faint smile. "Let's move out before Mist reinforcements show up."
"Yes, sir!" the group answered as one.
Battered as it was, the ship still ran. They turned it toward the Cloud's main camp. To avoid drawing friendly fire—it was, after all, a Mist vessel—Natsuki sent a runner ahead to alert Ay.
When they reached the island where the main camp sat, Ay and the others were already waiting on the shore.
"Toroi—outstanding work!" Ay laughed heartily. "With Jinpachi gone, things get a great deal easier for the Cloud."
Jinpachi hadn't looked like much, but he'd been genuinely dangerous. To the Hidden Cloud, he was the thorniest of the Seven Swordsmen—Shibuki could turn a battlefield to ruin, sowing wholesale destruction and chaos with ease.
That said, Ay set the others to boarding the ship and unloading the ninja tools while Natsuki followed him into the camp and laid out the mission in detail—above all, the fight with Jinpachi. He left out the Broken Phantasm and the Door-Door Fruit, saying only that Jinpachi had died in Shibuki's self-destruction. As for how he'd triggered it, he chalked it up to Magnet Release: he claimed he'd fixed explosive tags to kunai and struck the sword's scroll with them, setting off the chain reaction.
"That was a razor's edge you walked." Ay exhaled in admiration when he'd finished. In raw power, Toroi had been the weaker of the two—but Shibuki was a double-edged weapon, its tags as happy to consume the wielder as the enemy. In the end, Magnet Release had carried the day.
"I'll report this to Father so he can see you rewarded." Ay paused and smiled. "If there's something you want, name it."
Whatever else was true, Toroi had killed Munashi Jinpachi. That was a considerable achievement.
Natsuki caught himself—a good question, that. At his current strength and rank, the only thing in the whole of the Hidden Cloud that interested him was the Lightning Release Chakra Mode. But that technique belonged solely to the Raikage's own bloodline. Even if Toroi asked, he'd be refused. He simply wasn't there yet.
"There's nothing I want," Natsuki said, shaking his head.
"Then we'll mark it down for later." Ay went on, "You've earned your rest. Go on, get some."
Natsuki turned and left.
In war, rest rarely lasted long.
Two days later, Toroi's squad drew a new assignment—a solo one this time: take a Hidden Mist stronghold.
Natsuki saw his opening. He couldn't afford to linger in the Cloud too long. If he was heading out anyway, he might as well go straight for the Twin Swords: Hiramekarei.
The source material never named the blade's first wielder—but Natsuki had a name for him all the same. After transmigrating, he'd learned it: Yuzuru.
Reaching him was simple enough. After Jinpachi's death, Toroi had become a thorn in the Hidden Mist's side. Let Yuzuru catch wind of Toroi's whereabouts, and he'd come tearing after him without a second thought.
Ten in the morning.
Natsuki and the three Snake Princesses took a Hidden Mist stronghold without trouble. But they didn't withdraw—and moments later, two Mist squads closed in around them.
"Toroi—today's the day you die!" The sight of Natsuki set Yuzuru laughing.
Natsuki raised a hand. Drawn up by Magnet Release, a flood of ninja tools launched forward.
Gripping Hiramekarei, Yuzuru batted them aside, then poured chakra into the twin blades. The swords shuddered, spitting out spheres of condensed chakra light.
Natsuki hurled a giant shuriken—but the instant it touched a sphere, it was flung away. The light lanced into a beam and slammed toward him. At the last second he threw a shuriken up to guard, and even then the impact rocked him, driving him back a step he couldn't hold.
Yuzuru pounced. Hiramekarei came down like a slammed door, the massive blade crashing toward Natsuki. Natsuki threw up his arms—and the blow sent him tumbling backward.
"Looks like killing Jinpachi was pure luck." Yuzuru shook his head. He'd expected far more from Toroi; a few exchanges in, he was thoroughly let down.
He stepped in and brought Hiramekarei smashing down—
—and his pupils shrank. Natsuki's hand shot up and caught the blade mid-swing.
Yuzuru instinctively hauled back, only to find Toroi's grip impossibly strong; Hiramekarei didn't shift so much as a hair.
The scream of parting air.
Ninja tools tore up off the ground, one after another. Locked in the struggle over Hiramekarei, and with the tools closing at that terrifying speed, Yuzuru registered the danger far too late—his body was already run through.
Disbelief flooded his face. He couldn't fathom how a fight he'd so plainly controlled had turned on him in a heartbeat.
Then, in that same instant, he felt the strength leave Natsuki's grip.
Without hesitation, Yuzuru spent the last of his own to raise Hiramekarei and bring it crashing down on him.
Boom!
The earth bucked, the very mountains seeming to sway. Toroi was smashed to pulp.
Yuzuru closed his eyes, at peace.
Natsuki reappeared and stowed his newly claimed Twin Swords: Hiramekarei. It had cost him some effort, but he'd finally staged the scene he wanted—Yuzuru and Toroi dead by each other's hand. And with Toroi's skull crushed, no one would be pulling memories from that corpse.
The remaining Mist ninja were nothing. Kill them, wipe a stretch of memory, done. To his surprise, one of them turned out to be a Medical Jonin—which spared him having to go hunting one down later.
With that, Natsuki left, the three Snake Princesses at his side.
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