Saiki had never seen a true battlefield before.
He had imagined a ninja war to be squads of elite shinobi lurking in the foliage, executing calculated ambushes and silent assassinations.
But as he descended the gentle slope at the foot of the mountain, the scene before him left him utterly speechless.
Both sides were clashing like common medieval infantry, charging into each other in a massive, chaotic brawl.
So much for the "way of the ninja" being about stealth and shadows!
In this disorganized carnage, the combat discipline of both sides seemed worse than that of untrained civilians.
Staring at the literal meat grinder where kunai and shuriken filled the air and explosive tags roared alongside Ninjutsu, Saiki turned to Shinku Yuhi.
"Captain, are we just... charging in? Is there no actual tactical objective?"
"The objective is simple," Shinku Yuhi replied, drawing a short blade. "Kill as many of the enemy as possible."
At that moment, Saiki just wanted to scream, "To hell with this! There isn't a single shred of strategy here!"
But there was no time for contemplation. Shinku Yuhi and his other two teammates were instantly swallowed by the surging crowd of the battlefield.
The Cloud ninja held a clear numerical advantage, and they didn't miss the arrival of the reinforcements. Before Saiki could even fully enter the fray, a target found him.
"Pissed your pants yet, kid? Has the Leaf really run so low on men that they're sending out toddlers now?"
Saiki stared at the massive Cloud brute before him. Without a word, he drew the chakra blade from his waist.
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
Blue lightning began to sing across the length of the steel, while simultaneously stimulating every cell in Saiki's body. He entered a state similar to the Cloud's signature Lightning Style Chakra Mode.
Seeing the brilliant, crackling blade, a glint of pure greed flashed in the giant's eyes. From the way the metal conducted the electricity, he knew it was an incredibly expensive, high-grade chakra blade.
Saiki didn't have many explosive tags or kunai left, and a dense, crowded battlefield was no place for wide-area destruction anyway.
In a place like this, survival was the only priority. Close-quarters combat was the most efficient way to conserve chakra for the killing blow.
Seeing Saiki remain silent, the Cloud brute tried to provoke him further to bait an opening. On the surface, he acted like he looked down on Saiki, but anyone who survived this long on the front lines knew better than to underestimate anyone.
Shinku and the others had already abandoned Saiki to support other sectors, clearly possessing absolute faith in the boy's lethality.
In the next heartbeat, Saiki struck.
Flash!
Saiki and the giant blurred past each other. Saiki's silhouette reappeared several meters behind the man, but he didn't even look back as he continued his charge into the heart of the battle.
The giant remained frozen in place. A second later, his head slid off his neck like a sliced melon, and his massive body crumpled into the mud.
In the pitch-black night, no one saw exactly what had happened. To any observer, it was just a flash of electricity followed by an instant kill.
The reality was simple: the brute lacked Saiki's raw speed, and he was entirely ignorant of Saiki's sinister ability.
The moment Saiki had moved, the man had raised his kunai to parry. But his arms were instantly clamped tight by hands sprouted from his own chest via the Flower-Flower Fruit, leaving his neck completely exposed for Saiki's blade.
Entering the fray was like a tiger entering a pen of sheep. Saiki became a streak of white-blue lightning, cutting through the chaos. With every pass, he saved a Leaf ninja and erased a Cloud operative.
He moved with savage efficiency. Cloud ninja—Genin and Chunin alike—were harvested like wheat before his blade. Yet, internally, Saiki felt a growing sense of numbness.
What exactly was he fighting for?
Who was he killing for?
Ending lives one after another only reinforced his perception of how fragile existence truly was. There was no glory here, no emotional satisfaction.
With Tsunade gone, Saiki's already weak sense of belonging toward Konoha had withered further.
The only thing keeping him from deserting right now was the knowledge that Nono'u and the orphanage needed the Leaf's protection. People like Genhai and Kurenai were here, and they truly loved this village.
Saiki was a bolt of lightning that refused to be grounded. Neither Chunin nor standard Jonin could stand against him for a single exchange. Naturally, the Cloud command took notice.
"What is that?! Who is that kid?!"
"Kill him! Kill him now!"
"He's too fast! Don't engage him in close quarters! Use wide-area Ninjutsu to bury him!"
It wasn't just the Cloud; even the Leaf ninja were staring in awe. Saiki's killing efficiency was simply grotesque.
He had been on the field for less than a minute, yet he had crisscrossed the sector like a sentient thunderbolt. Every time he pivoted, a Cloud ninja hit the dirt. In sixty seconds, he had already claimed nearly twenty lives.
The Cloud ninja in his immediate vicinity abandoned their current duels, choosing to retreat and cluster together. They were terrified that if they stayed engaged with other Leaf ninja, Saiki would appear behind them to deliver a silent, lethal slash.
A lone boy stood in the center of the clearing, facing down over twenty enemies.
Shinku Yuhi watched from a distance, his jaw practically hitting the floor. He knew Saiki was a monster, but seeing twenty battle-hardened ninja back away from a nine-year-old in pure terror was a sight he never expected to witness.
He wasn't just a prodigy; he was a goddamn slaughterhouse machine.
Once the Leaf ninja had cleared the area to give Saiki space, the twenty Cloud operatives didn't hesitate. They launched a saturation-style Ninjutsu barrage intended to erase him from the map.
"Water Style: Raging Waves!"
A massive torrent of water erupted from the Cloud ninja. In an instant, the ground around Saiki was submerged, turning the dirt into a shallow, mucky pond. It was designed to hamper his speed and set him up for the follow-up.
"Lightning Style: Lightning Pillar!"
"Lightning Style: Grateful Wave!!"
Lightning exploded into the night. Electricity tore through the air and conducted through the water on the ground. The two jutsu synchronized to seal off every possible escape route Saiki had.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Simultaneously, a dense cloud of shuriken rigged with explosive tags whistled through the air like a lethal iron net. The sky seemed to rain kunai, descending upon Saiki's head.
Was a single boy worth this much effort? Absolutely.
The Cloud were the masters of Lightning Style. They didn't have anyone who could match Saiki's speed outside of their Third Raikage's Lightning Armor, and they understood how terrifying that velocity was.
Saiki was clearly a fledgling genius of the Leaf. If they could snuff him out here for the price of a few tags and kunai, it was a bargain.
Faced with this unavoidable, lethal storm, the nearby Leaf ninja turned pale and used their Body Flicker to flee as far as possible from the impact zone.
"Saiki! Run! Get out of there!" Shinku Yuhi screamed, his heart sinking. He thought the boy had finally overreached.
In the past, an attack of this magnitude would have forced Saiki to scramble for a defense. But after his breakthrough with Tsunade, he didn't feel a shred of fear.
He formed the Tiger seal with his left hand. An ethereal, pure white cloud drifted out from his crown, hovering directly over his head like a divine canopy. If one looked closely, a gentle, misty rain began to fall from the cloud.
"Behold the Sage's Demeanor: the Auspicious Cloud Rain-Curtain. A miracle of the Dao that renders all worldly techniques void," Saiki whispered to himself, his voice lost in the roar of the coming storm.
Zzzzt!
The Lightning Pillar struck first. The violent, blinding bolt slammed into the paper-thin curtain of rain—a barrier that looked like it could be broken with a single finger. Yet, the moment the lightning touched the mist, it vanished into absolute nothingness.
The electricity conducting through the water on the ground seemed to hit an invisible wall, swerving around Saiki as if repelled by a magnetic force. Not a single spark touched his skin.
The legendary Cloud Lightning Style couldn't even cause the rain-curtain to flicker, let alone stir a breeze against his face.
To the Cloud ninja, the sight was beyond comprehension. Their brains immediately tried to rationalize the impossible.
"He used the cloud to absorb the lightning! In nature, clouds and lightning are one—that cloud must be a specialized conductor!"