The rain poured endlessly, a steady curtain of gray that soaked the battlefield.
Blood seeped into the water, mingling until the ground seemed painted in dark crimson.
In the puddles of rain and blood floated broken corpses, faces frozen in unwilling disbelief, and scattered limbs—an image so gruesome it twisted the stomach.
Leo stood motionless, blade still raised. Rain dripped from his sword, flowing down the steel edge in thin streams.
His young face, though still bearing traces of youth, was hardened—calm and indifferent. The downpour traced the lines of his cheeks, yet his gaze was steady, unshaken by the hellish scene before him.
Beneath his blade, a surge of black sword aura had swept across the field moments earlier, cutting down multiple chūnin in an instant. The survivors were left crippled—missing limbs, writhing in agony.
Those who moments ago had been ready to fight to the death—Yamanaka Haiichi, Tsukikage Jihuo, and the others—could only stare, utterly stunned.
They knew Leo was a prodigy, one of the brightest of Konoha's rising generation, undefeated in ten matches on the ANBU shadow list.
But this—this was beyond anything they had imagined.
The enemies were all elite chūnin, hardened veterans. And yet Leo had wiped them out with a single swing. It was terrifying, incomprehensible.
Even the two jōnin leading the Iwa-nin squad stood frozen, disbelief etched into their faces.
They glared at Leo, trying to discern the face hidden behind that demonic Rakshasa mask.
The injured chūnin were trembling, fear overtaking pain. Some whimpered; others could only groan in despair.
Under the relentless rain, Leo's mask—black, twisted, and fierce—seemed to drip with blood, a visage from hell itself.
The Demon Rakshasa, the merciless ghost of death.
They had no idea what kind of power Leo had just unleashed.
No hand seals, no incantations—just a single slash, and the world split apart.
It was beyond reason.
But these were no ordinary shinobi—they were elite chūnin. Though bleeding and battered, they quickly regrouped.
One of the Iwa-nin jōnin, Oishi, spoke in a deep voice:
"Akatsuchi… such swordsmanship—there's only one in all of Konoha who could possibly match this!"
The other, a burly man with bare arms, frowned.
"You're right… but it's not White Fang. His movements are different."
"It doesn't matter who he is," Oishi barked. "With that kind of strength, he's no ordinary chūnin. At least jōnin level. If we can take down someone like him, it's worth it!
Don't get close—everyone, attack from range! Drown him in ninjutsu!"
About a dozen chūnin remained, wounded but still able to fight.
In the next heartbeat, their hands flashed into seals.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!"
"Water Release: Raging Torrent!"
"Earth Release: Tremor Technique!"
"Earth Release: Shattering Rock!"
"Earth Release: Earth Dragon Technique!"
A chorus of jutsu echoed as the ambush unit unleashed their combined might.
Water and earth chakra fused into a roaring deluge. The heavens seemed to collapse—waves towering like mountains, earth shattering beneath them, a massive earth dragon erupting skyward with a thunderous roar.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
This time, it was Captain Tsukikage Jihuo who struck back!
Fire against water—but his flames, fierce as they were, vanished instantly within the colossal torrent.
The Ninth Squad was a reconnaissance team, not a front-line combat unit.
Yamanaka Haiichi and Aburame Shimura lacked heavy offensive ninjutsu.
"Leo, Haiichi, Shimura—listen!" Jihuo shouted, voice sharp through the storm. "I'll use fifty eEXPlosive tags to cover your escape. Run—if even one of you survives, that's enough!"
He knew. Against two jōnin and a dozen chūnin, with no backup coming, this was a death trap.
Better to die buying his teammates a chance to live.
Recon teams like theirs never had reinforcements. They could rely only on each other.
"Captain, if we go—we go together!" Yamanaka Haiichi yelled back.
"We're not afraid to die," Aburame Shimura said calmly.
Leo spoke then, his tone quiet yet resolute.
"No one is dying today."
The tidal wave crashed down—massive, unstoppable, devouring the earth. The earth dragon coiled through the air, tearing everything apart.
But Leo did not move to evade.
He held Enma at his side with one hand, while the other clenched into a fist, Armament Haki coating his forearm in obsidian sheen.
"Monster Strength—Spiral Force…"
He breathed in. The world seemed to still.
"—Slash!"
With a flash-step skyward, Moon Step, Leo's body blurred into the air. Haki flared along Enma's blade as he roared—
"Thirty-Six Calamity Wind!"
A slash brighter than lightning tore across the battlefield, a rift of night splitting the storm itself.
The wave—cut in half.
But Leo didn't stop.
He sheathed Enma on his back, kicked off the air again with Moon Step, and dove straight down. His right arm—fully coated in blackened Haki—swelled with monstrous power, energy spiraling within.
Then—he punched.
Invisible shockwaves ripped through the air, twisting it into a spiraling current.
From the eyes of the stunned Iwa-nin, Leo's blackened fist seemed to eEXPand—to fill their entire world.
And then—
BOOM!
The earth dragon shattered. The ground eEXPloded.
The earth trembled. The heavens quaked.
Those standing below staggered, thrown off balance, some tumbling outright.
In that chaos—
Shave!
Leo vanished.
In a flash, he reappeared behind a wounded chūnin—his blade fell, and a head rolled into the mud, eyes wide with disbelief even in death.
Shave, at Level 3.5, covered nearly eighty meters in an instant—almost like teleportation.
To the enemy's eyes, Leo was nothing but a blur.
He moved among them like a reaper, Enma carving arcs of darkness through the rain. Heads fell. Blood sprayed. No screams lasted longer than a breath.
By the time the two jōnin realized what was happening, their squad was already annihilated—bodies everywhere, the battlefield painted in red.
Yes—against chūnin, Leo now cut them down like weeds.
Absolute speed. Absolute strength. The unmatched edge of Enma.
There was no equal.
In mere moments—the battle was over.
The elite Iwa-nin assassination squad had been completely destroyed.
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