"What do you take the Kazekage for?!" "What do you think the Hidden Sand is?!" "Is the Third Shinobi World War a joke to you?!"
Rasa stared at Ikki—who was currently snoring peacefully, utterly oblivious to the Kazekage and his thousands of elite shinobi. Rasa's face turned a suffocating, livid purple.
If this had happened shortly after Ikki's sudden re-emergence into the world, Rasa might have simply laughed it off, assuming the legendary Iron Fist had gone senile in his old age. But after hearing the horrific reports of what he had done to the Stone and the Cloud? Rasa knew exactly what this was. This wasn't narcolepsy. It was weaponized disrespect. Ikki didn't view Sunagakure as a threat in the slightest. Only with absolute, dismissive arrogance would a man dare to sleep on such a solemn, high-stakes battlefield.
"Lord Kazekage, steady yourself. Do not be provoked by his slumber." Chiyo's tone had shifted. Thanks to Rasa's fierce display of backbone moments prior, she had dropped her casual disdain, addressing him with genuine, formal respect.
"It is a blessing that the Iron Fist has fallen asleep," Ebizō muttered, his own fury simmering just beneath the surface. "He isn't feigning it—he is genuinely out cold, the kind of deep sleep that requires a physical blow to wake from. Since he insists on looking down on the Sand, let us seize this opportunity to teach him a lethal lesson!"
Normally, Ebizō would be thrilled to see an enemy drop their guard, but against Ikki, the total lack of caution felt like a stinging humiliation.
"Magnet Release: Gold Dust!"
Rasa didn't waste another breath. His expression pitch-black, he thrust his hands forward.
BOOM!
With a deafening roar akin to a flash flood, a colossal tidal wave of heavy, crushing gold dust erupted from the desert floor, instantly swallowing the sleeping Ikki whole.
"He used it! It's Lord Kazekage's Magnet Release!" "That's the power that suppresses the One-Tail! Even a Warring States legend can't brush that off!" "He has no one to blame but his own arrogance!"
In the distance, Yashamaru and the Sand army watched the spectacle, their eyes lighting up in ecstatic triumph.
While it was true that Rasa had defeated Pakura for the Kazekage seat largely due to the political backing of the elders, a Kage still had to possess overwhelming strength. As the disciple of the Third Kazekage, Rasa had inherited the devastating Magnet Release. Time and again, whenever the One-Tail Shukaku went on a rampage, it was Rasa who single-handedly pinned the beast down with his crushing gold. The Sand shinobi who had witnessed his power practically worshipped him as a god.
"Uncle Ikki called it perfectly," Tsunade muttered from the shadows of a distant dune. "This generation of Kage really are more reckless than the last!"
"Shikaku," Choza whispered, peeking over the ridge, "the battle's broken out. Shouldn't we step in and help?"
Shikaku shot his teammate a deadpan look. "Choza, are you in a rush to hand-deliver your own severed head?"
"So we just sit here and enjoy the show?" Inoichi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course not," Shikaku replied lazily. "When the slaughter is over, the proud Ino-Shika-Cho formation will deploy immediately... to help Lord Ikki brush the sand and gold dust out of his suit and shoes."
Back on the battlefield, Rasa's offensive was only escalating. Wave after wave of dense, chakra-infused gold dust crashed down upon the spot where Ikki had stood.
"Magnet Release: Gold Dust Imperial Funeral!"
Refusing to give his opponent an inch, Rasa slammed his palms into the earth. First, he commanded the sheer weight of the gold to crush Ikki deep into the subterranean bedrock. Then, he focused a terrifying amount of Magnet Release chakra into the epicenter.
KABOOM!
The desert floor detonated as though struck point-blank by a Tailed Beast Bomb. The area saturated by the gold dust erupted in a catastrophic explosion. A shrieking hurricane of razor-sharp shrapnel and sand blotted out the sun, birthing a towering mushroom cloud of glittering gold that loomed over the border of the two nations.
"Gah!" "Fall back!" "We can't survive in this blast radius!"
Even from hundreds of meters away, Yashamaru and the Sand vanguard were hit by the resulting shockwave. Shinobi were either swallowed by the blinding dust storm or violently hurled to the ground. Fortunately, having lived in the brutal desert their entire lives and being intimately familiar with their Kazekage's jutsu, the army quickly executed evasive maneuvers. The entire formation scrambled backward, retreating over a kilometer before finally skidding to a halt. While many were left coughing up dirt, there were miraculously no casualties.
"Iron Fist..." Rasa breathed heavily, slowly rising from his stance. He stared into the swirling vortex of gold dust, a cold, arrogant smirk curling the corner of his mouth. "That is the price you pay for underestimating the Kazekage of the Hidden Sand."
Swish! Swish!
Chiyo and Ebizō flickered into existence on either side of him, flanking their leader. Staring at the devastated, gold-buried crater, a single, unified thought crossed the minds of all three Kage-level shinobi:
Even the One-Tail Shukaku would be completely immobilized by the Gold Dust Imperial Funeral. The Iron Fist took the entire attack head-on, completely unguarded in his sleep. Surely... surely he must be dead?
A/N: For this week, every 100 Powerstones will get ya'll an extra chapter! Thank you!