The confrontation did not occur on a chosen battlefield, but was carved into existence by their colliding wills. It was in a high valley, where the Third Raikage found his prey. Hiruzen stood calmly near a rushing, ice-cold river that cut through the stone, his clothing still pristine despite the carnage he had sown. The air, already charged with the coming storm, now hummed with a new, more violent potential.
Ay did not announce himself with words. He announced himself with speed. One moment, he was a distant speck on the valley rim; the next, he was before Hiruzen, his body a blazing comet of blue-white chakra, his hand thrust forward in a straight, brutal lunge—the Hell Stab. The air itself seemed to tear around his fingertips with a sound like ripping canvas.
Hiruzen did not try to match the speed. He predicted it. Even as Ay moved, Hiruzen's hands were already forming a seal. His body was replaced by a log that splintered into a thousand smoking pieces under the Raikage's thrust.
The Kawarimi had been executed not at the last second, but a half-second before impact, a testament to Hiruzen's preternatural battle IQ. He reappeared fifty feet up the valley wall, already weaving another sequence.
"Tch. Tricks!" Ay snarled, his voice a low growl of thunder. He flickered again, a zig-zag of lightning that closed the distance in an eyeblink.
Hiruzen's response was a cloud of thick, grey smoke that billowed from his mouth, engulfing the area. It was a simple D-rank technique, the Smoke Screen Jutsu, but in the hands of the Hokage, it was a weapon. The smoke was laced with a subtle genjutsu, disrupting depth perception and chakra sense. Ay ploughed through it, his speed creating a vacuum tunnel, but Hiruzen was no longer where he had been. Ay's fist, aimed at empty air, struck the granite wall where Hiruzen had stood. The mountain shuddered. A crater five meters wide exploded into being, and a web of cracks shot up the cliff face like lightning frozen in stone.
This was Hiruzen's strategy: turn the Raikage's greatest asset into his greatest liability. He would not meet force with force. He would make Ay's own power and velocity work against him. As Ay tore through the dissipating smoke, three shadow clones of Hiruzen materialised around him. They didn't attack with lethal intent.
One unleashed a "Water Release: Water Dragon Jutsu," not to damage, but to drench the area.
The second followed with a "Wind Release: Gale Palm," sheeting the water across the rocky ground, turning it into a slick, treacherous sheet.
The third used "Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall," not as a shield, but as a ramp, materialising at an angle just behind the speeding Raikage.
Ay, his senses momentarily confused by the genjutsu smoke and his own momentum, hit the slick rock. For a being who moved at the speed of light, even a microsecond of instability was an eternity. His feet lost purchase.
His controlled charge became an uncontrolled slide, and the earthen ramp redirected his immense kinetic energy, sending him rocketing sideways into the valley's central river with the force of a meteor. The impact sent a geyser of water a hundred feet into the air with a colossal "KER-SPLOOSH!"
The Kumo shinobi who had gathered to witness their leader's triumph watched in horrified disbelief. The Hokage wasn't just holding his own; he was making the invincible Raikage look clumsy, using the environment as a series of traps.
Enraged, A erupted from the river, steam boiling off his Lightning Armour. "Stop running!" he roared, the sound echoing through the valley. He began moving in a new pattern, a relentless, unpredictable "Z" that made preemptive defence nearly impossible. This was the Raikage at his most terrifying, and it forced a shift in Hiruzen's tactics. The time for feints and misdirection was over. Now, it was about survival.
Ay flickered in front of Hiruzen, a straight punch aimed at his head. Hiruzen crossed his arms, layering them with the hardest earth release he could muster.
"BOOM!"
The impact was seismic. Hiruzen was hurled backward, his boots carving twin trenches in the stone as he skidded to a halt, his arms numb to the elbows. He had barely registered the pain before Ay was above him, dropping like a thunderbolt with an axe kick.
Hiruzen rolled, the kick obliterating the ground where he had just stood. He came up firing a point-blank
"Fire Release: Great Fireball," forcing Ay to momentarily shield himself.
This was peak combat form for the Professor. Every micro-calculation was a matter of life and death. He used Earth to cushion impacts, Water to extinguish the residual lightning burns that crawled over his robes, Wind to deflect the concussive force of near-misses. He was a master fencer against a battering ram, and a single mistake meant being pulverized.
Yet, even as he fought for his life against the incarnate force of the storm, Hiruzen's grand strategy never wavered. While he engaged Ay, his shadow clones—those that Ay hadn't already vaporised with glancing blows—were at work.
One clone appeared at the base of a Kumo relay tower, its hands slamming into the foundation.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Core!"
The ground beneath the tower liquefied, and the massive structure tilted with a groan of protesting metal before collapsing in a cloud of dust and shattered chakra crystals. Another clone, flanked by Enma, targeted a supply depot.
The Monkey King was a whirlwind, his Adamantine staff meeting the Kumo elite guards' lightning-enhanced blades with a symphony of shattering steel.
"CLANG! SHING! CRUNCH!"
He was an immovable object, a golden fortress that allowed Hiruzen's clone the space to work. The clone unleashed a "Fire Release: Flame Bullet," compressing the fire into a white-hot needle that shot through the depot's ventilation shafts. A moment later, the sealed explosive tags within detonated in a chain reaction, the series of "WHUMPS" culminating in a fireball that bloomed against the mountain sky.
Ay saw it all from the corner of his eye. The sheer, galling audacity of it was staggering. This man was not only fighting him, the Third Raikage, to a standstill, but he was simultaneously burning Kumogakure's war effort to the ground around them.
The valley was becoming a testament to his multi-layered genius. The very ground was scarred with craters from Ay's missed attacks, glassy from Hiruzen's heat, flooded from diverted water, and littered with the wreckage of Kumo's infrastructure.
Ay final, furious lunge from the Raikage. The "Lightning Release: Lariat." He became pure velocity, a closing guillotine of light and force. Hiruzen met it not with a counter, but with the ultimate defense.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall."
But he created three, one after another, at slightly different angles. The first wall vaporized. The second shattered into gravel. The third, thicker and angled, cracked but held for a crucial fraction of a second, deflecting the Lariat's trajectory just enough. Ay shot past Hiruzen, carving a trench a half-mile long into the valley floor before skidding to a halt.
He stood there, his chest heaving, not from exhaustion, but from pure, undiluted fury. He turned, his Lightning Armour flickering like a distressed star. He could see the fires spreading. He could hear the distant collapse of another structure. He could feel the eyes of his men, not just on him, but on the destruction the Hokage was effortlessly weaving around their duel.
And in that moment, the warrior in him was overruled by the Kage. The realisation was a cold dagger to his pride, but it was inescapable. To continue this head-on fight was to play directly into Hiruzen's hands. Every second he spent trying to pummel this infuriatingly evasive strategist was another second Konoha's God of Shinobi spent dismantling the logistical backbone of the Kumo army. He was winning the battle but losing the war.
His jaw clenched so hard the muscle bulged. The aura of lightning around him died down, though the anger in his eyes burned hotter than any jutsu. He looked at Hiruzen, who stood calmly, already preparing his next sequence of seals, his expression one of weary resolve, not triumph.
"This isn't over, Sarutobi." Ay's voice was a low, dangerous rumble, carrying across the shattered valley.
Hiruzen simply nodded. "It is for today."
With a final, seething glare that promised a future reckoning, the Third Raikage turned. "Kumo forces!" he bellowed, the order tasting like ash. "Full tactical withdrawal! Secure the secondary defensive line! Protect the remaining supply caches!"
It was not a retreat from a man. It was a retreat from a strategy. The strongest shield of Kumo had been outmanoeuvred, not out-muscled. And as he led his bewildered, battered forces away from the valley of ruin, the Third Raikage knew with chilling certainty that the man standing behind him had not come to win a duel. He had come to win a war, and he was terrifyingly close to succeeding.