The Raikage's Office
Ay, the Fourth Raikage, sat in his white robes, his Raikage hat resting on the desk. He was currently curling a massive dumbbell with his right arm, stretching his muscles while listening to the latest intelligence report.
"According to the latest updates from the Bounty Stations, the mysterious ninja who killed Kainu has already cashed in his corpse for the reward." Mabui stood holding a file, her voice calm and professional.
CRACK!
Before Mabui could finish, Ay brought his palm down with such force that the reinforced ironwood desk snapped clean in half.
"This is an insult! That despicable bastard!" The Raikage's eyes were wide with fury, though a sliver of calculated coldness remained beneath his rage.
Ay growled, "What is the probability that Konoha staged this themselves?"
He had sent a Special Jōnin expert in infiltration under the guise of an envoy to "negotiate peace." In reality, the mission was to kidnap the Hyuga Princess and secure the Byakugan for the Hidden Cloud. If caught, the envoy was to become a martyr, forcing a diplomatic crisis where the Cloud could demand reparations from Konoha. It was a "win-win" gambit.
But then, this masked intruder appeared, killed the envoy, and dumped the body in the Hyuga compound—framing the very clan the Cloud intended to rob. Ay knew exactly what his own men had been doing, so he didn't buy Konoha's "mysterious third party" story for a second. He assumed they were just protecting the Hyuga.
"The possibility exists," Mabui said, narrowing her eyes. "Any ninja capable of pulling that off inside Konoha's walls isn't a nameless nobody."
As the Raikage's secretary, Mabui was brilliant at analysis. She knew the global landscape too well to believe a ghost had simply wandered into the strongest village on earth.
"However..." Mabui's blue eyes sharpened. "Konoha is digging in their heels. By insisting it was a mysterious ninja, they are signaling they will protect the Hyuga at all costs. If we keep pushing, they won't hand over a 'culprit' that doesn't exist to them."
"Hmph! Then we keep fighting! We fight until Konoha begs for mercy!" Ay's face contorted, his left fist cracking as he squeezed it tight. He looked ready to lead the vanguard into the Land of Fire himself.
"Raikage-sama, the village cannot sustain a prolonged war." Mabui sighed, forced to be the voice of reason. "We haven't even breached the Land of Fire's borders. Our forces have been locked in a stalemate in the Land of Frost and Hot Springs for months. Everyone is exhausted. This war needs to end."
She glanced at the splintered wood on the floor. "Also, that is the third desk you've broken this month. High-grade ironwood isn't cheap. The repair costs will be deducted from your stipend."
"Do whatever you want!" Ay snapped, indifferent to the cost.
He continued his curls, but as he looked out the window at a strange, dark bank of fog rolling in, a prickle of unease touched the back of his neck.
'What is Bee doing now?' Ay's first thought was of his foster brother, the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki. Bee had been banned from leaving the village for years due to his obsession with rap and his status as a strategic weapon.
BOOM—!
Suddenly, a deafening explosion ripped through the lower levels of the Raikage's Office!
The entire mountain-peak structure shuddered violently. Timber groaned and stone groaned as if the foundations were about to give way.
"Who dares?!" Ay roared. He hurled the dumbbell aside, shattered the office window, and leapt straight out into the abyss.
"Raikage-sama!" Mabui cried, following him down.
The two landed on a lower reinforcement platform. Below them, nearly half of the Raikage Building's lower infrastructure had been vaporized. If it weren't for the massive supports anchoring the building to the surrounding peaks, the entire tower would have collapsed into the ravine.
Ay's eyes scanned the wreckage, searching for a target.
Tap—
Footsteps echoed through the settling dust.
"Who are you?! You have a lot of nerve bringing a fight to the Hidden Cloud!" Ay was incandescent with rage. In the decades since its founding, no one had ever successfully breached the heart of the village.
Through the billowing black smoke, a silhouette emerged. As the haze thinned, a white, three-eyed fox mask shimmered into view.
"Cheap parlor tricks!" Ay's body erupted in a violent flare of purple lightning as he activated his Lightning Style Chakra Mode. He glared at the figure. "Come out and die!"
Ay flickered, moving with the speed of a lightning bolt.
"Lariat!"
"Lightning Style: Heavy Violence!"
Arcs of electricity gathered around Ay's elbow as he lunged with bone-shattering momentum toward the mysterious intruder's mask. Just as his strike was about to connect—
SHING—!
The sound of cold steel sliced the air.
A massive black scythe swung out from the smoke, cleaving the haze apart. It collided with the metal vambraces on Ay's forearms with a deafening CLANG, sending a shower of sparks flying.
In that split second, Ay felt a massive portion of the chakra concentrated in his elbow simply... vanish.
"What?!" The Raikage's strike was parried, his momentum broken. He immediately leaped back to create distance.
"Raikage-sama!" At that moment, the Raikage's guards—Darui and Cee—arrived alongside Mabui. They fanned out to either side of Ay, dropping into combat stances.
"Who are we dealing with?" Darui gripped his cleaver, his eyes locked on the three masked figures now emerging from the smoke.
As the fog cleared, they saw two additional figures hovering in the air. On the right was a woman-like figure with silk ribbons dancing behind her. On the left was a figure in a black robe, wielding the very scythe that had parried the Raikage. Both hovered like ghosts.
Ay stared at the scythe-wielder. He could still feel the phantom ache where his chakra had been siphoned.
"That mask!" Mabui's pupils shrank. "That's the ninja Konoha reported—the one who killed Kainu!"
"What?!" Darui and Cee were stunned. As high-ranking Cloud officials, they had dismissed the report as a Konoha fabrication.
"I thought it was a clumsy excuse from the Leaf," Darui muttered, his face darkening. "I didn't think he was real. And it looks like he didn't come alone."
"A-da!" A shout came from above.
Killer Bee, carrying his seven swords, landed on the platform with a heavy thud. "Yo~ Brother, you okay? No need to pray~"
Bee glanced at the three masked intruders. "Yo~ kid from before~ why the sudden war? What you hatin' for~?"
Menma's sensory abilities were wide open. He could feel the chakra signatures of the entire village surging toward their location. Within seconds, dozens of Cloud shinobi landed on the surrounding rooftops, surrounding him in a sea of hostile intent.
"Did the Cloud ask for a reason when they attacked others?" Menma's voice sounded low and hollow behind the fox mask.
"Today, I am simply returning your own tactics to you." Menma gestured to the two Nine Masked Beasts behind him. "Eliminate the small fry."
Tennyo lashed out with her silk ribbons, and the Death God raised its obsidian scythe.
They lunged forward from the left and right.