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The lightning pierced the first layer of iron like butter. Sparks exploded in every direction, illuminating the battlefield. The sound was deafening. Minato gritted his teeth and pushed deeper.
But he didn't break through. The sphere was layered and thick... multiple shells, each magnetically reinforced. His arm stopped halfway, submerged up to the shoulder in black metal.
Inside, Saoi staggered as the vibration reached him. The piercing force was incredible. His iron sand armor was pierced. He was fortunate enough to make it thicker than 2 meters.
So he pierced the outer layer that easily? I underestimated him.
Minato felt the resistance. His mind raced. He only had few minutes before he fell due to the aftereffects of the green pellets and poison. Then, like a flash of inspiration, he altered his chakra shape. The lightning in his hand elongated, turning thin and deadly.
"—Chidori Eisō (Chidori Sharp Spear)!"
A concentrated beam of lightning erupted forward, compressing its power into a fine spear that extended through the remaining iron layers. It punched through Saoi's chest and out the opposite side of the cocoon.
The Saoi's eyes widened. His breath hitched. For a moment, he simply stared at the blue light emerging from his chest. Then the light flickered and died.
The iron sand lost its cohesion. The great sphere collapsed like dust, raining black metallic grains across the desert.
Minato withdrew his arm slowly. His breathing was ragged now. Every inhale hurt. He could feel the sand grinding in his lungs, like breathing through shards of glass. He was inhaling the finest of the iron sand that kazekage prepared when he teleported away after his cheek was scratched.
He coughed, and a faint black mist escaped his lips.
Saoi fell to the ground, knees buckling. His vision was fading fast. He looked down at the wound... a clean line through his chest but it missed the heart by inches, maybe the poison worked. Blood dripped onto the black sand, dark and heavy.
He managed a faint smile. He collapsed, the magnetic field around him fading to nothing.
Minato didn't move immediately. He stood there, staring at the kazekage a few meters away. His knees gave out, and he sank to the ground, hands trembling.
He could feel the fine iron dust inside him now. Each breath rattled. His body refused to cooperate. His chakra control was collapsing. The poison and the dust together were killing him faster than he could think.
He could feel Kushina's mark... still active, still calling to him somewhere far away, she seems to be always on move. He didn't know why.
He wanted to teleport. He wanted to see her, even for a second.
But his vision dimmed. The poison was in his brain now... slow, dull, suffocating. His chakra flared one last time, but it sputtered out halfway through the hand seal.
His body slumped forward, the desert wind carrying away the last traces of lightning.
A faint smile lingered on his lips.
Sorry… Kushina.
--
Across a shallow ridge, two white-eyed figures moved in perfect sync... Hiashi and Hizashi Hyuga. Hizashi's pale robes were torn, streaked with dust and faint burns, but their stances were still precise, the flow of chakra through their tenketsu tight and deliberate.
For the last half hour, they had been circling with one of Suna's legends. Chiyo had already burned through three scrolls of spare parts. Her puppets... the Mother and Father pair... clicked and shifted in unison, wooden limbs groaning under strain. They were a decade old, yet Chiyo handled them like extensions of her own body. She had studied the Hyuga's defense patterns the same way she once dissected enemy corpses: with patient, cruel curiosity.
Every time the brothers activated their Byakugan, a net of chakra vision expanded, searching for the threads. But Chiyo's wires were too fine, thinner than human hair, laced with a faint chakra of their own. Only when they focused both sightlines at one exact angle could they glimpse the shimmer. By the time they did, the next trap was already set.
Still, the brothers adapted. Hiashi covered the front, Hizashi the rear. They alternated offense and defense without needing to speak. The desert around them was scarred by their Hakke Kūshō (Air Palms)... crescent dents in the sand where invisible force had struck and littered with shattered puppet fragments that refused to stay dead.
Chiyo's sharp eyes darted between them. Her breath was steady, but her fingers trembled slightly from constant chakra strain. They're coordinating well, she thought. Almost like mirror.
Her gaze flicked to Hizashi's right arm. The earlier skirmish had left a thin gash there, not deep but precise... she'd made it intentionally. Blood dried along the sleeve, dark against white fabric. She had noticed the slight difference in how each twin favored one over the other, how one led the rotation slightly earlier. The one with the wounded arm… is trying to protect the other one.
To Suna... The Byakugan's potential was rated as "strategically invaluable." Two eyes could be studied, dissected, maybe even replicated into puppets. But only if the optic nerves were intact. The branch family's cursed seal would self-erase the dojutsu on removal. Chiyo couldn't afford a mistake. Then her fingers flexed over the puppet controls.
Five hundred meters away, Pakura, descended through the smoke and landed beside Chiyo. The woman's green eyes burned, but her movements were measured... less wild than before. The antidote had steadied her blood after the Aburame's poison earlier. She bowed her head slightly.
"Lady Chiyo."
Chiyo glanced sideways, still watching the Hyuga brothers. "You've recovered."
Pakura nodded. "The Poison has subsided and chakra flow's stable."
"Good. Then listen carefully." Chiyo leaned closer, voice barely above the whisper of sand. She recited the plan to pakura in a few breaths.
Pakura understood immediately. She'd been raised under Suna's doctrine of practicality... mercy had no place here. But she also knew Chiyo's phrasing: Capture, not kill. This was about eyes.
"Yes, Lady Chiyo."
"Create space between them. Force them apart."
Pakura turned, palms igniting with orange light. The heat shimmered. She took off at a sprint, sand exploding behind her.
Chiyo's fingers twitched; one of her puppets rotated its arm unnaturally. The elbow joint snapped back, releasing a hidden compartment. Instead of shrapnel, a thin stream of Dokugiri (Poison Mist) hissed into the air, swirling into a violet cloud. It rolled toward the Hyuga brothers, glowing faintly in the setting sun.
Hiashi's eyes widened. "Lo-- Hizashi... now!"
They leapt opposite directions, flipping away just before the gas engulfed their position. The cloud hissed where it touched the sand... acidic. The air around it shimmered, distorting vision. They landed twenty meters apart, coughing lightly but unharmed.
That single dodge, though, gave Pakura her opening. She appeared between them, heat spiraling from her hands.
Shakuton: Shinkū Gyoku (Scorch Release: Incinerating Sphere)... two spinning orbs of compressed heat shot outward. The first exploded near Hiashi, the second curved midair toward Hizashi. The ground melted into glass where they struck, forcing both Hyuga to retreat in opposite directions. Their perfect rhythm fractured.
Chiyo smiled thinly. "Good. I will begin the extraction of the eye."
Now her focus shifted to the uninjured one... Hiashi. His brother was too far to coordinate with him.
"Pakura, hold the other one off. Don't kill him yet."
The younger kunoichi nodded, already engaging Hizashi in a deadly dance of heat and air palms, her scorch orbs vaporizing the sand around them.
Chiyo adjusted her control threads and whispered, "Let's end this."
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A/N: The Konoha vs Suna is about to end in about 3-4 chapters.