The Eight-Tails, Gyuki, threw its head back and roared.
The words "blood for blood" thundered through the night sky, so loud it felt like the ground itself trembled.
A harsh alarm blared.
The Hidden Cloud Village jolted awake in a panic.
"Emergency squad, assemble, the Eight-Tails is rampaging!"
"The monster's gone berserk again!"
The village fell into chaos, and the Eight-Tails' Chakra, thick with malice and poison intent, rolled out like wildfire in the wind. Every Cloud ninja who felt it had their stomach twist tight with dread.
Rampages weren't new. They'd happened before.
But usually it was only a partial leak. Their sensory warning teams would raise the alarm immediately, the heavy hitters would arrive, and they'd suppress the Jinchuriki before the damage spread.
A full rampage, right in the middle of the village, was something else entirely.
The first time.
"So that's a complete tailed beast…" Orochimaru murmured, almost admiring, as he pressed a sealing jutsu onto Blue B's forehead.
It would make extracting information easier later.
While Gyuki raged toward the sky, Orochimaru guided the Kusanagi Sword with calm precision and carved off a chunk of flesh.
Then, with Blue B's corpse as Konoha's prize, he moved.
Fast.
"Kurama clan genjutsu… interesting."
The Eight-Tails was in a state of absolute fury, cursing the Hidden Cloud while its tentacles slammed down again and again, demolishing nearby buildings as if an enemy were hiding inside the rubble.
Even when the Kusanagi Sword clipped it, Gyuki only tilted its head, barely acknowledging the pain, never shifting its attention toward Orochimaru.
Time to leave. Genma said he can't hold this for long…
Orochimaru's sleeve stirred. A large snake slid out and swallowed Blue B's body whole.
At the same time…
Danzo Shimura drove Wind Style: Vacuum Blade straight through the Head Ninja Hizashi had marked earlier, impaling him cleanly.
Around him, the rest of Anbu tore a hole in the Hidden Cloud's outer defenses.
In this terrain, under cover of night, with the Byakugan feeding them perfect intel, it wasn't even a fight.
It was a flawless, silent slaughter.
By the time Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Genma Kurama regrouped and formed a tight moving formation, expecting an ambush at any moment as they pushed forward…
Nothing.
Not a single obstacle.
Danzo's people had already cleared the route so thoroughly it felt eerie.
"Mission went smoothly?" Danzo asked, voice low.
"Smoothly," Orochimaru replied with a light laugh. "You're surprisingly competent. How about we take a few of these Cloud ninja with us? Their ranks aren't bad. There should be intel."
Danzo's face darkened. "I don't need you telling me. We're already doing it."
Damn Orochimaru.
Back when Root still existed, the man had been a soldier under his command.
Now he was clinging to Hiruzen, and he couldn't even bother to call Danzo "uncle" once, acting like he had the right to critique Danzo's work.
Arrogant little brat.
You'll regret this, Orochimaru, Danzo snarled silently.
And yet his body did exactly what it was supposed to. He pushed Anbu to gather the bodies, to erase their tracks, to bury everything clean so no pursuers could follow.
This isn't the time to waste on petty fights. Do the job first. Then I'll find a chance to report him to Hiruzen properly, make it hurt.
Orochimaru shot Danzo a brief, curious look.
He didn't bite back?
Hiruzen really had hammered some restraint into him.
I'll have to watch Danzo Shimura more carefully. He's grown a little brain.
Then Hizashi spoke suddenly, voice tight.
"The Eight-Tails is moving… is that a Tailed Beast Bomb?"
Everyone looked back toward the Hidden Cloud Village.
In the distance, Gyuki gathered Chakra in its mouth, something heavy and wrong building in the air. Blood-red particles compressed at terrifying speed, the sphere swelling larger and larger.
Danzo's eyes lit up.
If that thing detonated inside the village… it would be like setting off a giant firework right in their face.
But a figure wrapped in crackling lightning shot forward, fast as a bolt.
"The Third Raikage…" Danzo breathed, a flicker of pleased surprise in his eyes.
If he took the blast head-on…
What happened next was even crazier.
The Third Raikage charged straight into the forming Tailed Beast Bomb and drove his hand forward like a blade, detonating it early, as if he'd chosen to blow himself up just to stop it.
"Is he trying to die?" Hizashi whispered.
"He can't let it keep growing," Orochimaru said calmly, eyes tracking everything. "The larger it gets, the wider the blast radius."
Light erupted.
For a heartbeat the night turned to day.
The shockwave hit like a wall, and even the Konoha squad, already retreating, felt the pressure slam into their bodies.
Then the flare thinned.
The aftershock faded.
Hizashi stared. "He's not dead. He can still fight?"
Gyuki roared, furious beyond words, and the Third Raikage, lightning Chakra flashing across his body, charged again.
Man and tailed beast collided.
Not with ninjutsu.
With flesh.
They tore into each other like monsters.
The Third Raikage's body was beyond what a shinobi should be able to achieve. It was like he'd hammered himself into something inhuman.
"Damn…" Jiraiya muttered, genuine awe in his voice. "That guy's a monster."
"That level of Lightning Style Armor…" Orochimaru licked his lips, eyes bright. "You'd need extremely refined Wind Style to cut through it. A composite Wind Style technique might work even better."
He watched the Third Raikage trade blows with Gyuki, and something hungry stirred behind his smile.
His body was that tough.
But what about his soul?
There was always a way in.
"I'll talk to Sensei," Orochimaru murmured.
He thought back to sparring with Hiruzen, to the Iron Skin he'd used, the full-body coverage.
Could Sensei train something like Lightning Style Armor too, with the way his body is now?
Then he immediately grimaced inwardly.
Maybe that's asking too much. He's younger, sure, but he's still old.
Still, seeing that level of strength made Orochimaru's pulse rise.
The shinobi world wasn't stagnant.
Powerful figures kept appearing, one after another.
If you stopped improving, the enemy would catch you.
Beside him, Danzo narrowed his eyes.
The Third Raikage's strength was more than he'd expected, and it lit a warning in his chest.
Danzo wasn't weak. In Wind Style, he'd always been proud, even confident Hiruzen couldn't match him.
Even against the Third Raikage's lightning armor, with enhanced Wind Style through his summons, he believed he could injure him.
But a fight wasn't just "cast a jutsu."
Could the summon survive? What happened if the enemy closed the distance? How did you trade, how did you bait, how did you win the gamble?
Those were the real problems.
If I want to be Hokage, I can't slack on strength either… damn it, Hiruzen, you've been training in secret.
But he was right.
Against the Hidden Cloud, assassinating the Jinchuriki alone wasn't enough.
They needed to expand the results, just like Hiruzen said.
Those Cloud ninja brains… they're the best material we'll get for analyzing the Third Raikage.
The thought rose, and Danzo immediately shook it off.
He could learn the essentials of being Hokage, sure…
But he couldn't go around agreeing with Hiruzen on everything. He needed independent thinking.
Danzo reminded himself of that, hard.
After the team slipped back into Konoha unseen…
Blue B's body, along with the corpse of the Hidden Cloud Head Ninja, was delivered to the analysis unit. Yamanaka Clan shinobi began pulling information from their minds.
Ten days later.
Konoha, Hokage Tower meeting room.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat with a file in hand, reading with such focus it looked like the rest of the world had stopped.
Lightning Style Nintaijutsu.
He waited for Orochimaru and the others to arrive.
.....
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