Chapter 444: Enter Might Guy
Elsewhere on the chaotic battlefield, the very air distorted, warping into violent, shimmering waves of oppressive heat.
"Huff... huff..."
Chojuro's breath tore through his lungs in ragged gasps. He gripped the twin handles of Hiramekarei with such desperate force that the skin stretched taut and white over his knuckles. Sweat poured down his forehead, but the blistering temperature baked the moisture away before it could even reach his chin, leaving behind gritty, stinging flecks of salt against his skin.
Hovering just inches above the scorched earth across from him, Pakura stared down with dull, ash-gray Edo Tensei eyes. Her expression held nothing but open, biting scorn.
"So this is the current generation of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist?"
With a lazy, almost dismissive sweep of her hand, the air ignited. Three colossal Scorch Style fireballs materialized, screaming through the distorted air in a tight, triangular formation.
"You are a disgrace to the name of the Hidden Mist."
A suffocating wave of thermal pressure slammed into his face before the flames even reached him. Chojuro ground his teeth together, a sharp spike of panic widening his eyes. He could not block this. The ambient temperature was already so absurdly high that any standard Water Release jutsu would boil into nothingness before taking shape.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
Driven by sheer survival instinct, his fingers blurred through the hand-seals. A torrent of water erupted from the cracked earth, rising into a defensive barrier. But the instant the Scorch Style spheres made contact, the wall violently detonated into a blinding cloud of white steam. The fiery orbs punched straight through the vapor without losing a fraction of their momentum, slamming brutally into Chojuro's shoulder.
A raw scream tore from his throat. The sheer kinetic force lifted him off his feet, hurling him backward through the air until his spine cracked sickeningly against a jagged boulder.
"Chojuro!"
From a distance, Mei Terumi's alarmed shout cut through the din of battle. Locked in a desperate, deadly dance with Hanzo of the Salamander, her momentary lapse in focus nearly cost her everything. The heavy, rusted blade of Hanzo's kusarigama whistled past her throat, missing her jugular by a fraction of an inch.
"Eyes forward."
Hanzo's voice was a cold, mechanical rasp beneath his respirator. A dense, sickeningly sweet cloud of purple poison gas billowed outward from his position, instantly sealing off Mei's avenues of escape.
Pakura drifted closer, her feet touching the blackened soil as she watched the young swordsman struggle violently to push himself up from the rubble.
"It is over, brat."
Her voice carried no pity, only the cold certainty of a veteran from a bloodier era.
"In this cruel Ninja World, weakness is the ultimate sin."
She brought her hands together, fingers locking in a sharp clap. Instantly, every ambient fireball lingering in the vicinity rushed toward a single point above her head, converging into a blinding, miniature sun over five meters wide.
"Scorch Style: Great Evaporation Kill!"
The apocalyptic heat radiating from the sphere was so intense that the jagged rocks beneath Pakura's feet began to glow red, slowly melting into bubbling slag.
Slumped against the cracked stone, Chojuro gasped for air that burned his throat like swallowed glass. The edges of his vision swam with dark spots.
'Am I going to die here?'
The thought echoed hollowly in his mind. Flashes of his past flickered behind his eyes—always standing in the background, always hiding behind Lady Mei's protective shadow, always so painfully useless when it truly mattered.
His fingers twitched against the handle of his sword.
'I cannot fall.'His jaw locked. A fierce, unfamiliar heat began to burn in his chest, completely separate from the scorching air around him. If he collapsed into ash here, he would not just be disgracing the legacy of the Hidden Mist. He would be disgracing Lady Mei herself.'How can I lose to a rotting corpse?'
A sharp, violent hum vibrated through the air.
The once-dim, heavy twin blades of Hiramekarei suddenly erupted. A blinding, torrential geyser of pure blue chakra exploded from the weapon, illuminating the darkened battlefield.
Chojuro jerked his head up. The lingering panic in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a feral, unyielding glare.
"Stop talking like you know everything..."
He planted his feet, the ground cracking under his sudden shift in weight.
"...you old hag!!"
Chakra violently flooded the weapon's twin holes. In a fraction of a second, Hiramekarei tripled in mass, the dense blue energy solidifying into a colossal, glowing hammer of pure destructive light.
"Hiramekarei: Release!"
With a guttural roar that tore his throat raw, Chojuro kicked off the ground. The bedrock beneath him shattered into a spiderweb crater as he shot skyward like a human cannonball, hurtling directly toward the blazing sun.
"Suicidal fool," Pakura snorted, her hands thrusting downward.
The titanic fireball plummeted to meet him.
But this time, there was no water to evaporate. There was only raw, concentrated power. The massive hammer of light, packed with an impossibly dense concentration of chakra, smashed head-on into the burning heart of the sphere.
"Break... damn you!!!"
A raging storm of azure chakra collided violently with the blinding orange heat in mid-air. The shockwave ripped outward, flattening the surrounding debris.
The apocalyptic standoff lasted for exactly one second.
Jagged, glowing fissures spider-webbed across the surface of the miniature sun.
The very next instant, the hammer violently ruptured the sphere. The flames scattered into a harmless rain of embers as Chojuro broke through, his upward momentum completely unchecked. The massive hammer of light descended, crushing directly into Pakura.
"What?!"
Genuine shock finally cracked her impassive, dead features. How could a child possess this much raw power?
The colossal hammer slammed her body into the earth with the force of a falling meteor. The ground instantly caved in on itself, violently displacing tons of soil and rock to form a massive crater dozens of meters across.
A thick cloud of pulverized dust billowed into the air, slowly settling to reveal the devastation. Pakura's reanimated form lay in tatters at the epicenter, the paper-like Edo Tensei debris already swirling and attempting to knit her broken body back together.
Chojuro did not give her a single second to recover.
"Sealing squad!!"
The air whistled sharply. Several Leaf Village sealing-nin, who had been waiting in the shadows for exactly this opening, dove into the smoking pit.
Scrolls snapped open with sharp cracks. Ink-black Sealing Jutsu formulas erupted from the parchment, slithering over Pakura's regenerating limbs like iron chains, locking her firmly in place.
"Brilliantly done, Lord Chojuro!" one of the Leaf shinobi cheered, rapidly tying off the final hand-seal.
His adrenaline finally receding, Chojuro dropped to one knee. He leaned heavily against the oversized, glowing mass of Hiramekarei, his chest heaving as he dragged oxygen back into his lungs. He watched the black talismans crawl across Pakura's face, sealing her away completely.
Slowly, he raised a trembling hand and wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth. A genuine, exhausted smile broke across his face, flashing his rows of sharp, shark-like teeth.
"The Mist Village of today..." he breathed out, his voice steady. "...is a lot stronger than it was in your time."
...On the other side of the battlefield, the situation had deteriorated into something far grimmer.
"Cough... cough..."
Mei Terumi clamped a hand over her mouth, her shoulders trembling violently as thick crimson seeped between her pale fingers. The blood dripping onto the scorched earth carried a sickly, faint purple tinge.
Even as the Mizukage, a master of both Lava and Boil Releases, she found herself fundamentally outmatched against Hanzo of the Salamander—the man once hailed as a demigod of the shinobi world. Her elemental mastery meant nothing against the insidious, pervasive toxin that had already infiltrated her bloodstream.
"You are finished," Hanzo declared.
He stood imperiously atop the massive, leathery skull of his giant salamander, Ibuse, gazing down coldly at the wavering Mizukage.
"Your Bloodline Limits are undeniably impressive," Hanzo continued, his voice echoing hollowly through his respirator. "But before my poison, all living things are equal."
He slowly raised his kusarigama. The bloodstained steel glinted mercilessly under the fractured sunlight.
"Konoha's reinforcements will not arrive in time to save you. Take your regrets to hell."
Hanzo vanished.
It was the Body Flicker Technique, executed with the blinding, flawless speed of a true legend. Mei's poison-addled eyes could not even begin to track his movement. Driven by sheer, desperate instinct, she whirled around, spitting a corrosive volley of acidic mud at the empty air behind her.
It hit nothing.
"Goodbye."
The whisper brushed against her ear. The icy, rusted hook of the kusarigama already kissed the delicate skin of her neck. The absolute, paralyzing chill of death swept over her, freezing the blood in her veins.
At that exact instant—
A violent green blur tore through the battlefield, accompanied by a deafening, hot-blooded roar that seemed to shake the very heavens.
"Leaf Strong Whirlwind!!!"
A spinning heel-kick, carrying the kinetic force of a localized hurricane, smashed brutally into Hanzo's wrist. The sheer physical impact deflected the deadly scythe away from Mei's throat and forced the legendary demigod to skid backward several paces, his boots carving deep trenches into the dirt.
Freed from the blade's edge, Mei immediately leapt away, gasping for breath as she stared at the figure who had just violently inserted himself between her and the reaper.
She took in the sight of the skin-tight, eye-searing green spandex jumpsuit. The bright orange leg warmers. The immaculate, gleaming bowl-cut that somehow perfectly caught the sunlight.
Mei froze, her mind struggling to process the sheer absurdity of her savior.
The green beast turned to face her. A blindingly bright smile stretched across his face, his perfectly white teeth flashing with an almost literal sparkle as he shot her a vigorous thumbs-up.
"Lady Mei, are you all right?!" he bellowed, his voice practically vibrating with boundless energy. "Fear not! Konoha's proud Noble Blue Beast, Might Guy, has arrived!!"
For a moment, the entire battlefield seemed to hold its breath, stunned into absolute silence.
Hanzo steadied his footing, his dark eyes narrowing as he assessed the utterly ridiculous-looking man standing before him. Aside from the aggressively absurd outfit, there was no massive chakra signature, no subtle shift in the atmosphere that suggested a master of ninjutsu.
"A mere taijutsu user?" Hanzo sneered, the chain of his kusarigama rattling as he began to spin the heavy sickle in a lazy, deadly arc. "Against my poison, taijutsu types die the fastest."
The giant salamander beneath him let out a low, rumbling hiss, venting more toxic purple gas into the air.
"One deep breath of this air," Hanzo promised coldly, "and your lungs will rot inside your chest."
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