The rain fell in relentless sheets, each droplet a cold, stinging reminder of the peril that loomed like a suffocating fog around the Kirigakure shinobi. It wasn't just a storm—it was a drowning, screaming sky; the heavens opened not with fury, but with cruel intent, as if mourning what was to come.
The ground beneath their feet had turned traitor, soaked beyond recognition, a glistening mire of churned mud and diluted blood. Thunder rumbled again, deep and mournful, shaking the earth as if the sky itself trembled in fear of the monster that had been unleashed.
At the very centre of the storm, standing motionless as if time itself bowed to him, was Renmaru.
He was an eerie silhouette at first—barely visible through the downpour and mist—but with every bolt of lightning that danced across the sky, he appeared clearer, more defined.
"So... these are the allies Konoha sends into the maw of war?" Renmaru's voice slithered through the air like thunder wrapped in silk. Smooth, deep, but with a hollow echo that sounded wrong, as if nature had to bend itself just to carry his words. His mouth barely moved, but his voice cut through the roar of the storm all the same.
"Pathetic."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
At his words, Ayame flinched—not physically, but within. Her heart constricted. She was a kunoichi hardened by two decades of war and survival in the blood-soaked Mist. But this—this was something different. Not the chill of fear. Something deeper. Something colder.
She stood just behind the front line, posture tense, lips drawn into a tight line, her soaked cloak plastered to her shoulders. Water dripped from her chin, mingling with the faintest smear of blood—someone else's—from a wound that barely registered anymore. Her hand gripped the handle of her chakra-forged blade, not for strength, but to stop herself from trembling.
It was not the rain that made her shiver.
'We shouldn't have come, she thought bitterly, eyes narrowing beneath her soaked bangs. We thought we understood the scale of this war. We thought... we were ready.'
Her jaw clenched as another thunderclap shattered the sky overhead.
'We thought, if anyone knew how to handle the brute force of Kumo, it was us. Years of border skirmishes. We've fought their storm-bringers, their sword saints, their beast tamers... But this isn't a shinobi.'
Her gaze flicked back to Renmaru, who now raised his hand toward the sky, his eyes half-lidded, as if barely interested.
'This is something else entirely.'
She cursed herself inwardly, the sharp taste of regret bitterer than any wound. Her plan had made sense. After all, Kirigakure had maintained a bloodied rivalry with Kumogakure for generations.
They knew Kumo's tactics, their terrain, their affinity for lightning-based warfare. When the proposal came from her superior to reinforce their lines, she had been the one to advocate for it in the Mizukage's war council.
"Let us take the vanguard," she had said. "Let us prove our mettle. Kumo shinobi bleed just like anyone else."
But Renmaru had proved otherwise. He did not bleed. He did not falter. He did not even seem interested. They even managed to drag him far from their base, but the monster brought the storm with him.
She gritted her teeth. Her squad, elite as they were, began shifting uneasily, the bravado of moments ago now hollow in their chests. She could see it—the question dawning behind every eye:
'What was the Raikage's intention in sending someone like this—before the war had even begun?'
The Kage-level assets were supposed to move only when the tides had turned, not before the first real blow had been struck.
'Was this a warning? A test? Or a message?'
Ayame didn't know. And that was the part that terrified her the most.
She took a deep breath, rain streaming down her cheeks like tears she would never allow herself to shed. "Steady!" she barked to her squad, snapping them from their thoughts. "Do not—"
Renmaru raised his hand, and the storm responded.
The heavens above swirled with terrible synchrony, like the sky itself bowed to his will. What was once rain became something unnatural—every droplet supercharged with static energy, each bead of water sparking as it fell.
"Tempest Field: Static Deluge," Renmaru intoned, his voice calm and almost reverent, like a priest delivering the rites of execution.
Then came the screaming.
Dozens of Kiri shinobi cried out in agony as the electrified rain struck their skin, their nerves seizing, muscles locking, and bodies convulsing. Every contact with the charged downpour sent arcs of blue lightning leaping across their flesh. Their chakra networks, normally defences against physical injury, became conduits—amplifiers of their torment.
Ayame grit her teeth as another wave of current surged through her body. Her fingers spasmed. Her knees buckled.
'Damn it...! He's using the storm itself as a weapon.'
Her eyes blazed with urgency. They needed grounding—now.
Her voice cracked with strain. "Mud Release! Now!"
Like a single organism, the remaining Kiri squad reacted. The sodden battlefield trembled as viscous walls of thick, heavy sludge erupted from the ground, forming a dome-like shield.
"Thoom!"
The electrified rain pelted the mud barrier, each strike crackling and snapping like live wires being quenched.
Steam hissed. Smoke rose. But the Kiri had found momentary sanctuary.
Ayame exhaled shakily, pressing her hand against the slick wall behind her.
'Good. The mud is grounding it. But how long will it last?'
From beyond the barrier, she heard a low hum—no, a growl, as if the very mist around them had become animate, angry.
Renmaru's silhouette appeared through the thinning veil of steam.
"Clever," he said, his voice echoing unnaturally, distorted through the storm. "But futile."
"Fwooom!"
He vanished.
The space he had just occupied imploded with suction. Then, before the Kiri shinobi could fully register it, he was among them.
A blur. A ghost.
Mist surged behind him like wings of thunderclouds. His body seemed to flicker, here then there, as his Tempest Cloak: Storm Aspect activated. He moved like a blade of wind—silent, blindingly fast, intangible until it was far too late.
"Tempest Barrage: Arc Cyclone Prison."
The mist detonated around.
A swirling cage of slicing winds and electrified vapour erupted outward. Several Kiri shinobi were caught inside. The trapped shinobi screamed as lightning tore through their chakra pathways, overloading their control, and rupturing their very nerves. The wind cut deep—tendon, flesh, bone—turning the prison into a blender of blood and vapour.
Ayame's mouth opened in a silent cry. She saw a young chūnin named Reiko implode—his body snapped backwards, electricity bursting from his eyes and mouth before he was launched into the mud with a lifeless thud.
"No... NO!" she roared.
"Fall back! Regroup!" she ordered, forming rapid hand seals as her remaining squad did the same.
They tried to scatter, retreating into the mist, leaping between the half-standing trees and rising walls of hardened sludge. But Renmaru did not give them the luxury of escape.
He raised both hands now. Lightning raced up his arms like serpents coiling toward the sky. The moisture in the air trembled, condensing at impossible speed, forming a lens of charged vapour at his palms.
"Tempest Release: Volt Vortex Cannon."
The battlefield lit up.
A beam of concentrated plasma—lightning compressed by wind and water into a column of destructive power—erupted forward.
The mud walls shattered in an instant, obliterated like sand before a tidal wave. One unfortunate jōnin took the blast full force—his body vaporized before he had time to blink.
Cries of pain echoed in the destruction's wake. The few Kiri shinobi who weren't directly hit were still thrown like rag dolls, crashing into the muck and debris with sickening crunches.
Ayame hit the ground hard, pain exploding in her ribs. Her vision swam as she dragged herself behind a shattered tree trunk. Her hands trembled as she formed a seal, attempting to stem the bleeding from her shoulder.
'This can't be happening...'
She looked around. Smoke. Ash. Screaming. The battlefield looked like the aftermath of a god's tantrum. And above it all, Renmaru floated, suspended by currents of wind and mist, untouched, uncaring.
He hadn't even used his full power.
Ayame clenched her fists.
"Stay together!" she croaked, blood flecking her lips. "He's conserving chakra. He thinks we're not worth the effort. That's our only chance—force him to overextend!"
"Understood!" barked one of her subordinates, weaving signs. "Mud Flood Burial!"
Several Kiri shinobi unleashed coordinated Mud Release techniques, launching hardened spikes of clay-like mud toward Renmaru whenever he paused, aiming for his breaks between attacks. They struck from all angles—diagonal thrusts, vertical pillars, splintered ground eruptions.
But Renmaru simply raised a single hand. Wind formed a vortex around him, the attacks deflected, redirected, or shattered in midair.
'He's reading us like open scrolls...'
Still, he made no counterattack. Not immediately. He was holding back, keeping his distance, measuring them like a butcher eyeing livestock.
In the silence that followed, the storm intensified again.
The clouds above swirled darker. Rain resumed its fury. Each drop was heavier, now infused with ozone. Mist churned unnaturally at ground level, guided by chakra. The air buzzed like the space before a lightning strike.
Ayame's senses screamed. 'Something's coming. We're not going to survive it.'
She braced herself, rising to her feet shakily.
Then—
"CRACK-KRAKOOM!!!"
A blinding flash tore across the sky.
Not from Renmaru.
From above.
A dozen spears of lightning descended—long, jagged, almost crystalline in structure—howling as they crashed down toward Renmaru in a staggered barrage.
KRA-KOOM!
BZZZZT-THOOM!
CRRRRAKOOOM!!!
Renmaru's eyes flared. His hands spun in a blur. "Tempest Cloak: Counter Phase!"
A barrier of wind and mist surged around him, redirecting several spears mid-flight. One collided, blasting a cloud of superheated vapour into the air. He grunted and forced back a step.
The Kiri shinobi blinked in shock.
Ayame looked skyward, heart hammering. A silhouette was descending, bathed in the afterglow of lightning, framed by black clouds and threads of residual chakra.
"Is that... a bird?" she whispered.
=====
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