---Previously---
"You are exceptionally skilled," Rōshi said, turning slowly to face the retreating boy. His voice remained entirely unchanged, as though being impaled by a frozen sword had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience. The wound in his side hissed, paper-like ash swirling as the Edo Tensei immediately began to knit the flesh back together. "But you are wasting your effort. Against something that does not die, something that does not end… what is the ultimate value of precision?"
Haku landed lightly on a patch of untouched earth, his breathing slightly heavier now, his chest rising and falling in a controlled rhythm.
"…Efficiency," Haku stated simply, his voice devoid of despair. "It's kind of unfair, two reanimated Kage-level shinobis ganging up on a Jonin like me."
Han attacked again. "Nothing's fair."
This time, the armored giant didn't aim to hit Haku directly. He aimed to break the very space Haku relied upon.
Steam exploded outward in a massive, omnidirectional radius, distorting the air so violently that the ambient moisture Haku used for his Zero Friction footholds began to violently destabilize and melt.
'Shit...!'
---Now---
The Land of Waterfalls - Elemental Nations
'Shit...!'
For the very first time in the engagement, Haku's absolute mobility faltered. His boot slipped on a dissolving patch of ice.
Han was already there.
The strike landed.
It wasn't a full-force blow, merely a glancing hook that clipped Haku's side as he attempted to twist away.
But against the sheer mass of the Five-Tails, a glancing blow was more than enough.
"Ugh!" Haku grunted, his body lifting completely off the ground as his ribs compressed painfully under the impact. He was thrown violently backward, crashing heavily through the trunk of a dying tree before skidding across the damp, muddy earth.
Haku lay perfectly still for half a second.
Then, he inhaled sharply.
The metallic, unmistakable taste of blood filled his mouth.
He swallowed it, refusing to spit it out and give his enemies the satisfaction of seeing him bleed.
"…That was careless of me," Haku murmured, pushing himself up slowly from the mud, his teal kimono stained and torn. "But thankfully... I managed to set everything up while you were distracted."
The ground around him began to shift.
He didn't wait for them to press the advantage.
"Ice Release: Ice Rock Dome of Magnificent Nothingness."
The air froze instantly.
A massive, highly transparent dome of incredibly dense ice formed around him, sealing the space in a near-perfect defensive barrier just as...
Han struck.
BOOM.
The steam-powered punch collided with the dome. The impact shook the entire crystalline structure, the sound echoing like a cracked bell.
Deep, jagged fissures spread across the surface of the ice from the point of impact.
But the dome held.
Rōshi followed immediately, unwilling to let the boy recover.
A colossal surge of lava crashed into the opposite side of the dome... the outer layers of the ice hissed violently as the searing heat met the absolute cold. A massive explosion of thick, blinding steam erupted outward, further obscuring the battlefield.
Inside the quiet, freezing sanctuary of the dome, Haku closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
'I cannot win this through attrition,' Haku analyzed, his mind racing through the variables. 'Their chakra is infinite. Their bodies cannot be killed by conventional means. Precision strikes and decapitations will only buy me seconds before they regenerate. To defeat a reanimated...'
He opened his eyes, a serene, unyielding clarity settling over his features.
"Ah... I understand it now."
The dome shattered outward, purposefully dismantled by Haku's own will.
Haku stepped forward into the steam.
"Secret Technique: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals."
The battlefield changed instantly.
Massive, towering mirrors of pristine ice erupted outward from the earth in a wide, sweeping dome, completely surrounding the entire clearing and trapping the two Edo Tensei within. Their polished surfaces gleamed faintly in the low light, reflecting both the glowing heat of the lava and the swirling mist in a thousand distorted, overlapping images.
Haku vanished, his reflection simultaneously appearing in every single mirror.
From one mirror, a barrage of hyper-compressed senbon fired.
From another, a high-speed, localized blade strike aimed at a joint.
From another, a phantom feint designed to draw attention.
Han turned, swinging a massive, steam-fueled fist at the nearest reflection, but he hit nothing but hard, unbreakable ice, his fist sliding off the frictionless surface.
Rōshi, beginning to grow genuinely annoyed by the relentless, buzzing harassment, flared his chakra and released a massive, omnidirectional wave of lava meant to melt the entire structure to the ground.
However, Haku had already calculated the trajectory of the eruption.
"Ice Release: Mirror Step."
The molten surge struck a specific mirror... and instead of melting it, the lava bounced.
It was cleanly redirected by a sudden shift in the mirror's angle, splitting into multiple, conflicting paths that aggressively disrupted its own spread, causing the lava to cool and harden into useless, jagged obsidian.
For the first time since the battle began, the two immortal Jinchūriki slowed their advance.
Haku's attacks shifted.
He was no longer aiming for kills, no longer seeking to sever limbs or pierce hearts. He was aiming entirely for absolute control.
"Water Style: Shark Bomb - Ice Infusion."
A massive, terrifyingly dense shark composed of water and jagged ice surged from beneath the ground, tearing through the unstable, muddy terrain toward Rōshi. Its body was heavily reinforced with freezing chakra, and it collided directly with the lava-user, forcing the man backward and drastically lowering his ambient temperature.
BOOM.
Han moved to intercept the shark, intent on shattering it with a steam punch.
But Haku appeared in the air directly above him, a jutsu already fully cast. "Ice Release: Ice Hammer."
A massive hammer formed instantly in his grasp, its heavy, crystalline head as large as a tailed beast's skull. It descended with overwhelming, crushing force...
CRASH.
Han raised his armored arms and blocked the blow.
Barely.
The ground beneath the armored giant completely shattered, buckling under the sheer, transferred weight of the impact.
For the first time… Han stopped moving forward.
Haku landed on the ground several meters away.
He staggered slightly, his boots skidding in the mud.
He was breathing significantly heavier now. The rapid, continuous chaining of high-level elemental ninjutsu and the relentless spatial shifting of the mirrors was burning through his chakra reserves exponentially faster than the Ashura's Crest could passively regenerate it.
Rōshi watched him, his black-sclera eyes narrowing as he evaluated the boy's fatigue.
"…You are reaching your absolute limit," Rōshi said quietly, the pity returning to his voice. "Your mortal body will fail long before our infinite reserves do. You fight beautifully, child... but why continue this futile dance?"
Haku straightened his spine, refusing to bow under the weight of the exhaustion.
"…Because I haven't finished the equation yet," Haku whispered softly. A thin, fresh trail of blood traced faintly along his jawline from a glancing piece of shrapnel. He offered a small, terrifyingly calm smile. "And besides... my Sensei will beat me left and right if I lose in a fight I had the tools to win."
"What tools would you have to win against an opponent that doesn't die?" Han didn't offer a comment, choosing instead to surge forward, his armor hissing as he prepared a final, devastating blow.
"Sensei?" Rōshi smirked, a spark of genuine combat curiosity lighting up his dead eyes as he also moved in for the kill. "I must admit, I'm incredibly curious about this sensei of yours who breeds such stubborn monsters!"
The battlefield collapsed into violent chaos once again.
Lava surged in burning, destructive waves.
Steam exploded, shattering the air and cracking the earth.
Mirrors shattered into glittering dust under the onslaught.
And instantly reformed.
Shattered again.
Haku moved effortlessly through it all... he was undeniably slower now, the fatigue pulling at his limbs, but his mind was sharper, his movements vastly more precise, shedding any remaining wasted energy.
Until he stopped.
Just for a single, pivotal moment in the center of the clearing.
Both Edo Tensei closed in on him simultaneously from opposite sides. It was too fast, and their combined mass was too much to block or evade.
Then, Haku moved. He didn't retreat away from the pincer attack. He moved directly forward.
Zero Friction surged to its absolute, breaking limit as his body blurred into a streak of pure teal light.
He appeared perfectly centered between the two charging titans, dropping to one knee. His bare hand struck the muddied ground.
He flared the absolute entirety of his remaining Ice Release chakra.
He had been meticulously, painstakingly preparing this specific, multi-layered jutsu throughout the entire fight, weaving invisible ink into every mirror he formed and every spike he shattered, just in case he ever encountered an opponent that refused to die. He hadn't yet had the opportunity to test it in a live-fire scenario, but it seemed he would get to do so now.
"Ice Release: Magnificent Stillness."
The eruption wasn't wide, nor was it chaotic or violently destructive. No... it was beautifully, terrifyingly controlled.
Massive pillars of flawless, diamond-hard ice erupted from the earth, encasing both Han and Rōshi instantly. But the ice did not merely freeze them; complex, intricate black sealing formulas ignited deep within the crystal structure, glowing with a dense, paralyzing light. The seals, which Haku had been laying down during every moment of his movement, locked onto the foreign chakra animating the corpses.
Han froze mid-motion... a massive burst of steam attempting to explode outward from his armor, but it was absolutely contained, trapped within the unbreakable, sealed ice. Rōshi's lava surged outward to melt his icy prison, only to be seamlessly reflected inward and violently disrupted by the dampening seals, hardening the magma into dead stone.
"..."
Absolute silence reclaimed the forest.
Haku stood up, his legs trembling violently. He leaned heavily on the hilt of his Kusanagi to keep himself upright.
His breathing was uneven, his chest heaving as he stared at the two frozen, sealed statues of the legendary Jinchūriki.
His body was trembling slightly from the severe chakra depletion, a cold sweat matting his dark hair to his forehead.
"…That," Haku whispered softly to himself, a dry, exhausted chuckle escaping his lips as he wiped the blood from his jaw, "was incredibly inefficient."
He let out a long, shuddering sigh of profound relief, staring at the glowing black seals holding the dead at bay.
"Damn... it's a very good thing I actually bothered to study Fuinjutsu."
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