Chương 98: Tanking the Raikage? You’ve Got to be Joking

You've Got to be Joking

"[Guillotine Drop!]" The roar was a physical force. A towering silhouette, wreathed in a blinding mantle of lightning, plummeted from the sky. With a momentum that threatened to shatter the earth, a massive leg descended like a falling guillotine, aimed squarely at the skulls of Zhen and Kakashi. Zhen's reflexes were peerless. Grabbing Kakashi by the collar, he flickered away a heartbeat before impact. BOOM! The detonation was deafening.

Where they had stood moments before, a crater groaned into existence, the tremors rippling through the soil. The wretched Teoshi found no peace even in death; his corpse was driven deeper into the mire, half-buried as if the earth itself were eager to swallow the failure. The titan of lightning stared at the spot where he had nearly saved his comrade. Then, his gaze shifted to Zhen, eyes erupting with a predatory fury. This brat had dared to sever Teoshi's life right before his eyes.

Zhen and Kakashi stood their ground, their muscles coiled. Towering before them was the newly inaugurated Fourth Raikage of the Hidden Cloud—Ay.

"Whee! Yeah! Leaf shinobi, prepare to meet your doom! Lord Killer Bee is in the room! Fool, ya fool!" A second figure followed the thunder, landing with a rhythmic, eccentric cadence beside the Raikage. Clad in a white shinobi hood with skin the color of deep mahogany, the youth exuded a raw, untamed power. This was the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, the young Killer Bee. In this era, the "A-B Combo" was an inseparable force of nature.

A swarm of Cloud reinforcements crested the ridge behind them, only to falter at the sight of the carnage. Their brothers lay scattered across the valley like broken dolls. Toroi was dead. Teoshi was gone. The vanguard had been decapitated. Minato Namikaze signaled the Leaf forces to hold, then flickered to Zhen's side. Hiashi Hyuga joined them a moment later, his presence cold and imposing.

As the commander of the Northern Front, Hiashi knew he couldn't hide behind his juniors; to do so would be a stain on the Hyuga name that no amount of victory could wash away. The titans of both nations stood over a carpet of the slain, the atmosphere thick with a volatile, heavy stillness. One wrong breath would ignite a massacre. Yet, both leaders knew the score. A total war here would only leave the door open for the Hidden Stone to pick the bones of the winner.

Ay's brawny exterior was a deceptive mask; beneath the thunderous rage lay the calculating mind of a sovereign. Minato's expression was uncharacteristically grim.

"Gentlemen, we meet again."

"Meetings are for fighting, yeah! Fool, ya fool!" Bee's rhyming erraticism sliced through the tension like a dull blade, making the standoff feel surreal.

"Hmph!" The Raikage's snort was like a crack of thunder. His fury was real, but his mind was racing. To fight meant letting that old fox Onoki win. To retreat meant losing face. He needed a price.

"If you wish to avoid further bloodshed," Minato proposed calmly, "then take your men and depart. Today's business is finished."

"Finished?" Ay roared.

"You've butchered my vanguard, Namikaze! How do we settle that account?"

"This is a battlefield, Raikage-dono. Have your men not hunted our kin with equal fervor? If we follow your logic, the only resolution is the extinction of one of our villages. Is that the legacy you wish to begin your reign with?"

"Cloud ninjas do not retreat. If it's a war of attrition you want, the Leaf will break first."

"Then stop talking. Step forward." Ay narrowed his eyes.

"I have no desire to entertain Onoki's laughter. We will withdraw, but on one condition: hand over those two brats. They killed Teoshi. They must pay the blood price." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The demand struck the Leaf ranks like a physical blow.

"Preposterous!"

"Have you lost your mind?"

"We don't sell our own!" The valley erupted in a chorus of vitriol. Shinobi from both sides traded insults across the clearing, a war of words preceding the war of steel. The demand was, of course, insane. On a battlefield, death is the only objective. To demand the execution of the victors because the losers were kin was a height of hypocrisy—but it was a hypocrisy the Cloud had turned into a diplomatic art form. Zhen, however, found himself laughing.

"Raikage-dono," Zhen called out, his voice cutting through the din.

"Is there a possibility that you were the one who finished Teoshi off? Your 'Guillotine Drop' buried him before he was even cold. If you're looking for someone to blame for his death, perhaps you should look in a mirror."

"What did you say, you miserable whelp?" Zhen didn't flinch as the Raikage's lightning shroud flared.

"Every Cloud ninja rotting in this valley died by your hand. If you hadn't ordered this invasion, they'd be home eating dinner. Your ambition killed them. If I were a Cloud ninja, I'd be wondering why I haven't stabbed you in the back yet." The Leaf shinobi stared at Zhen in stunned silence. The logic was... twisted, certainly, but undeniably sharp. It was a masterpiece of psychological warfare. Ay let out a low, guttural laugh.

"Heh. A silver-tongued brat. I wonder if your hide is as tough as your mouth."

"I hold my own. And honestly, I didn't need your help to kill Teoshi, but thanks for being so 'helpful' with that burial. I won't be sending a thank-you note."

"Is that so? Then I'll give you a chance. If you can survive three strikes from me, I will withdraw. We spare our men the slaughter, and the Stone gets nothing. Do you have the courage to stand for your village, or are you just a coward who hides behind words?" Minato stepped forward instantly.

"Raikage-dono, have you no dignity? A kage challenging a child?"

"Dignity? On the battlefield, there are only shinobi. No ages, no titles." Zhen considered the weight of the earlier strike. Ay was not yet thirty—he wasn't the perfected engine of destruction he would become in a decade. Zhen wanted to gauge his own ceiling. He had coasted through the war thus far; he needed to know where he stood against the peak of the world. And if things went south... he could always fly.

"Deal. I'll take your three strikes." The silence that followed was absolute. Kakashi's dead-fish eyes actually widened. Is this guy a lunatic? Does he have a death wish too?

"Zhen, don't be a fool!" Minato commanded.

"This isn't a game!"

"Trust me, Minato-senpai. I know exactly what I'm doing." Zhen flashed a Flying Thunder God kunai from his pouch. Minato saw the hidden anchor and relented. He would stay poised to intervene. The standoff shifted into something primal. The soldiers of two nations became the audience for a duel between a Titan and a fledgling. Zhen exhaled, his features sharpening as he entered Sage Mode in a heartbeat. Minato's brow twitched.

He felt a familiar yet alien frequency radiating from Zhen—a roiling, natural power that felt both ancient and dangerously potent.

"Are you ready to die, boy?"

"Are you ready to be embarrassed, Raikage-dono? Coming up short in three hits... your men might start looking for a replacement." Ay didn't answer. He surrendered to his rage. The Lightning Style Chakra Mode erupted into a blinding corona, his presence becoming a literal storm. He intended to end this in one.

"[Guillotine Drop!]" He surged upward and descended like a thunderbolt. He chose the same move Zhen had dodged before, a test of pure speed and power. Try dodging this time, brat! Zhen didn't dodge. He planted his feet and raised his arms.

"[Sage Art: Water Style—Crystalline Serenity!]" A diaphanous, pale-blue sphere of pressurized chakra encased Zhen. Within the shield, the water swirled with a violent, fluid grace, interwoven with filaments of white Sage energy like predatory fish in a stream. Ay's heel slammed into the barrier. The shield groaned, denting inward under the tectonic pressure, but it did not shatter. The Leaf burst into a frantic, disbelieving cheer. A boy had just tanked a direct hit from the Raikage.

It was a feat that defied the laws of the shinobi world. Ay's eyes narrowed. The surprise was a physical sting. He realized the boy hadn't been boasting; he possessed a defense that rivaled the absolute. I have to kill him now, Ay thought. If he grows, he will be another Hashirama Senju—and far less polite. For the second strike, Ay gathered every spark of his lightning into his right arm. He lunged, his body a blur of ionized air.

"[Horizontal Lightning Chop!]" Zhen's stance remained unchanged, but the nature of his shield shifted.

"[Sage Art: Wind Style—Wind King's Barrier!]" The sphere turned translucent, the roiling water replaced by shearing blades of gale-force wind. It was a spinning vortex of compressed air, filaments of white light weaving a mesh so dense it looked like a giant, stationary Rasengan. Wind against Lightning. The ultimate elemental counter. Ay's arm struck the barrier and felt as though he had thrust his hand into a thresher of steel needles.

His lightning armor was being stripped away, ground down by the sheer friction of the wind. As his chakra waned, a sharp, biting pain lanced through his skin. He realized with a jolt of horror that if he pushed any further, his arm would be shredded before the barrier broke. What is this? he thought, his mind reeling. What kind of monster has the Leaf been hiding?