Shuryu's jaws yawned wide.
Flame gathered at the back of the dragon's throat until it compressed into a burning red lance and then the beam ripped through the fog like a drill. In the same heartbeat, Shizukamaru lengthened from a short, lean blade into a silver streak, the tip punching through mist as cleanly as a bullet.
Suikazan Fuguki and Raiga had been skirting the rim of the valley, moving under cover of their own Hidden Mist. They never imagined Uchiha Gen could pin them down so quickly By the time danger prickled their nerves, their killer instinct honed by years of bloodshed, it was already too late.
Raiga twisted, feet braced, twin fanged blades crossing to take the strike. Fuguki wasn't as lucky; the fire beam hit Samehada head‑on. He planted a hand on the sword's spine, muscles bunching as he shoved back against the impact.
The condensed flame hammered both of them into the rock wall. Samehada howled, scales peeling with a grotesque grimace as it drank in the chakra baked into the fire and bled its power down to embers.
Stone boomed. Raiga's back slammed into the cliff, pain snapping up his spine. He grunted despite himself.
"Damn it," he spat between his teeth. "They can track us through the ninjutsu. Disperse the mist!"
"In your dreams," Fuguki shot back, eyes flicking skyward. "I don't have the hands to spare... move to the valley mouth!"
Humiliation burned hotter than the scorch along his shoulder. If the enemy had been reading their movements this whole time, then every step they'd taken was a fool's dance.
"Cover me. That blade is nasty," Raiga growled, rolling to one knee.
"You have no idea," Fuguki said, voice going flat. "That's Kusanagi. One of them."
Shizukamaru came shrieking down from the fog. Fuguki heaved Samehada up and batted the blade aside, then the pair of Mist swordsmen ran, chakra flaring at the soles of their feet as they sprinted straight up the cliff face.
"Come," Gen murmured.
He stepped into air. Shuryu wheeled back beneath him and he landed on the dragon's spine without looking, Shizukamaru snapping back into his waiting palm. His fingers were already moving, seal after seal, while, below, two figures hauled themselves onto the lip of the valley.
The cliff wasn't high, ten meters at most. For elite shinobi, it was a single breath.
Shuryu roared, exhaling a broad fan of orange‑red flame. Shizukamaru thrust forward again, a spear of moonlight.
And riding the flame came the real danger.
Fire Release: Exploding Flame Orbs!
The first sparks were the size of candies when they left Gen's lips, swelling to iron fists the instant they met air. A ring of tiny suns arced past Shuryu's breath and fell like meteors. The technique was his own: B‑rank on paper, murderous in practice, and only possible with ruthless control over fire nature chakra.
Cold shot down Raiga's back. Beside him, Fuguki's hands blurred.
Water Release: Water Formation Wall!
Two translucent walls surged up and fused into a single cataract. Flame hit water with a drawn‑out hiss, steam billowing into the mist.
A streak of silver cut the cloud in the next instant. Shizukamaru bloomed in Raiga's vision, point dead on for his heart. He didn't even have time to curse.
Fuguki's hair exploded outward, thick orange strands hardening with chakra. They twisted into a cable and snapped tight around the blade's midline, wrenching it off its kill path a centimeter from Raiga's chest.
Breath caught in Raiga's throat. "Tch—"
The orbs detonated.
The shockwave came first, then the heat, then the roar. The fused water wall blew apart. Both swordsmen were hurled like leaves in a gale.
Even flying backward, Fuguki's instincts never dulled. His hair coiled and lashed, hooking Samehada and a fallen Thunder Fang, dragging them back into reach as he hit the ground in a roll.
Steam boiled. Snow and mud pattered down. The valley filled with a low, twin hiss—escape of heat, scrape of breath—as both men dragged in air that felt like broken glass.
They were scorched, burned, bruised—and standing again in the next heartbeat, weapons in hand. Veterans didn't stay down.
"As expected of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen," Gen said softly, watching them through the thinning fog. "Stubborn."
He had, in truth, been gentle. If he'd wanted corpses, he would've taken them in the opening exchange. But killing them outright would waste the prize.
Souls of jōnin caliber were rare; elite jōnin are even more so.
Dense, rich, and nourishing.
A single one was worth dozens of faceless genin, the kind who died by the tens of thousands in the Fourth War, nameless and unremarked. Not the outliers blessed by fate but the fodder who filled casualty lists. An elite jōnin soul wasn't a hundred of those. But it was fifty. Seventy, even. Throwing that away would be a sin.
Shapes blurred through the last of the mist. Raiga squinted then froze.
"…A dragon?"
"How does a summon like that exist?" he rasped.
Fuguki only stared, expression stone‑still, fat lower lip drawn tight as if to keep his thoughts from spilling.
Gen stood on Shuryu's neck as if on a balcony, Shizukamaru loose and lazy in his hand. He smiled down, imperious.
"Nothing's impossible," he said. "Will you surrender?"
"Surrender?" Raiga barked a laugh. "When has a Seven Ninja Swordsman ever..."
"I'd rather die than crawl!"
"Then watch," Gen said, voice gone flat. "I'll turn you to charcoal."
Raiga lifted both blades. Lightning crawled along the metal, hungry for the sky. He never got the chance to call it down.
Two hands burst from the ground and clamped his calves. The earth went slick and soft as a bog.
Earth Release: Headhunter!
Raiga sank with a curse, swallowed to the neck in a blink. The thunder died on his fangs.
Fuguki hacked down with Samehada. Mud and slush blew apart in a dirty fountain but the mole had tunneled on.
Raiga didn't waste breath hating the enemy. A shinobi fought with what they had. His fury was for himself. He'd let his guard slip. He had yet to land a single Lightning Release.
Shame made his scalp prickle.
Fuguki's gaze kept flicking, earth, sky, earth, measuring every ripple of chakra, every shadow. With Raiga's head in the dirt, there was no one left to snap him out of a genjutsu. If those red eyes caught his for even a heartbeat.
He made the call. The flare arced up and burst.
Gen watched it go, eyes hooded. He could've plucked it from the air. He chose not to. Let Orochimaru share the fun. Let more prey come running to the slaughter.
Across the field, six Kiri jōnin hemming in Orochimaru and Manda cursed in unison when the signal popped. Two of the Seven already choking on a single Uchiha and now begging? Shameful.
Still, ignoring a commander's plea wasn't an option unless they planned on defecting. If Fuguki lived through this and learned they'd left him to die, he'd hunt them through the mists.
The decision was quick and ruthless; the Kaguya‑clan jōnin and their weakest man would peel off to support. Orochimaru's pressure eased the moment they split; Kiri's line screamed under the added strain.
They could only hope Fuguki finished fast and came back. If not, they'd be the ones running.
Gen dipped Shuryu's head.
"Down," he murmured.
They fell like a hawk stooping.
Ninja Art: Thousand Strands!
Fuguki slammed Samehada's butt to the ground, fingers lacing. His hair surged outward in a halo, then hardened, each strand a needle. The storm of orange spines launched with a whistling hiss.
Shuryu answered with fire. Gen's skin darkened, the Hardening Technique armor‑plating his body to a deep, earthen brown.
Hair even infused with chakra was still hair. Flame chewed it to cinders in the air. Strays struck Gen and snapped like twigs against granite.
If this were Sage Art: Needle Senbon, he thought, I wouldn't be playing.
Fuguki sprang away. The fire fell too wide, too many drops of hell to outrun.
Raiga screwed his eyes shut, jaw clenched for the burn. He felt a brutal yank instead, as if someone had grabbed his hair and tried to scalp him.
"Kill me if you want," he snarled. "But don't..."
He opened his eyes.
Scarlet tomoe rolled into focus.
The Sharingan took him.
Gen didn't need to speak. Terror bloomed on its own, primal and choking; the kind that didn't listen to logic, only to old fear. It hollowed Raiga out.
His soul and life bled away in a smooth, pale stream, sinking into Gen with a sweetness only he could taste. The body slumped, empty.
Fuguki's breath went cold. Hair bristled along his massive arms. A genjutsu married to soul‑theft, this was a predator's art.
"I wasn't trying to humiliate you," Gen said to the corpse as he let it thump to the dirt. "Your hair was just the best handle."
He looked up.
Fuguki looked down.
He kept his gaze a fraction low, refusing the eye‑line, every nerve tight as wire. Shuryu's shoulders dipped under Gen's palm, the dragon crouching to spring.
Gen shifted left, obliging Fuguki to lift his chin or be forced into eye contact. He shifted right. Again.
Rage boiled in Fuguki's gut, hot as tar. He swallowed it as he needed the mist.
Hidden Mist might not blind a sensor‑type like this Uchiha, but it would fog the eyes enough to deny genjutsu. He started to weave seals...
Support landed at his side.
Two Kiri jōnin, one Kaguya, bones bright beneath his skin, the other lean and hard with a katana over his back, fell into guard.
"Commander." The ordinary jōnin's voice was tight. "Report?"
He took in the corpses. He took in the dragon. His mouth thinned.
Fuguki's eyes rolled once, slow. "Raiga got careless," he said, voice low and sour. "That dragon is a summon, it flies, breathes fire, hits like a siege weapon."
He jabbed a finger. "Do not look at the Uchiha. Keep the mist up, no matter what."
"You two hold him. I'm reinforcing Jūzō. Without you, he'll be taking the brunt."
Before they could argue, Fuguki blurred away, his bulky silhouette already melting into the trees.
Gen watched him go, amused. Running, commander?
Let him. Snapping the head off this snake too early might spook the whole nest. If the Mizukage was already Obito'puppet then this front would hold. And if not, well… the blood would keep flowing for a while yet.
Either way, Fuguki wouldn't hide forever.
"Hold him," the ordinary jōnin snapped, dropping into a stance. "I'll set the technique."
The Kaguya didn't hesitate. He exploded forward, footwork sharp, body fainting and weaving in a rhythm that would've slipped past most eyes.
Gen's weren't most eyes.
Shizukamaru flashed out, a white line on black canvas. To anyone else, it looked as though the Kaguya sprinted straight into the blade.
Clang.
Bone flowered out of the man's forearm, a spear of ivory meeting steel. He smashed Shizukamaru aside with both hands, sparks blooming.
The sword spun end over end, then leveled in midair as if gripped by an invisible hand. It snapped toward the second jōnin who now knelt and was forming seals, lengthening hungrily as it flew.
The man aborted his jutsu, chakra scattering as he threw himself backward. Shizukamaru hammered into the earth with a dull thud and a cough of dust, then recoiled, orbiting for another pass.
Steel kissed steel. The jōnin's katana met the immortal blade in a flurry of ringing blows. Every time he knocked it away, it circled back, relentless as a hawk.
"What sword is this?!" he shouted, teeth bared.
On the other side of the field, the Kaguya skidded, eyes never leaving the dragon.
"And what summoning beast is that…?"
Shuryu's answer was a low, rolling growl that vibrated the bones.
Gen smiled without warmth.
"Come find out."