Chapter 103 — When Water Cuts the Sky
The sky over Rōran was a living thing — seething, bright with the unnatural light of the Dragon Vein and the terrible presence that rode above it. Down on the sand-strewn plaza, the fight had already become a storm.
Naruto and Sasuke moved like two halves of a single blade. Naruto's body was a blur of taijutsu — spins, palm strikes, and sudden boots that sent sand scattering like silver rain. Sasuke danced beside him, every step a calculation, his body a lattice of killing intent and cold patience. They flowed together, but each time they staggered back, the same truth hammered them: this enemy was not like anything they'd cut before.
Above them, Mitsutsuki Otsustuki stood barely touching the ground, golden Byakugan blazing. He did not fight like a shinobi. He taught the air to obey him. Where his palm moved, the world changed.
Divine water erupted at his command — a torrent that took form and will. It did not fall like ordinary water. It formed blades of shining blade-water that sliced through chakra itself: any jutsu thrown ahead was cut as if a string were severed. A shadow-fire Rasengan would meet a water-edge and die, exploding into harmless vapor. Nin just bent and broke like weak reeds.
Naruto hurled himself forward, Rasengan blazing, but the water-blade parted the air between them and swallowed the jutsu whole. He rolled, threw a combination of taijutsu that might have staggered a jinchūriki before, only to find the water's edge striking like a blade that knew each joint's weakness. A strike that should have killed a normal man only staggered Mitsutsuki, who laughed with a voice that carried metal.
Sasuke's Rinnegan flared; he opened paths within the gravity of the ground to unbalance the creature. He pushed a gravity pulse into the sand, trying to twist the Otsustuki's stance — but the golden-eyed being bent space like an indifferent god and the gravity snapped back, the pulse folded inward. Sasuke grunted, blood at the corner of his lip. He answered with taijutsu; he used his blade not for slashing but to destabilize, to bait and to find a human opening. None came. Each time a joint was exposed it closed in the next heartbeat.
At a distance of ten, twenty kilometers, on the ridge where Akira had been watching, his Byakugan peeled the scene apart in crystalline focus. The sight was wrong: the energy signatures of both Naruto and Sasuke were jagged, raw, the exhaustion of a long fight carved into their chakra. Akira had never expected his friends to be losing; he had expected them to burn like suns and push the enemy back. Instead they were cornered — exhausted and bleeding — and the enemy's power ate their techniques.
Akira didn't hesitate. He formed a shadow clone in a heartbeat, the replica folding into existence and standing like a placid mirror at the ridge. Then, with a fine, practiced motion, Akira activated his right-eye teleportation and vanished. The clone remained, ready to answer Minato's questions and buy the others time.
Minato felt the disturbance first like a note out of tune. As a Flying Thunder God user he had an instinct for the way space breathed. He glanced back automatically — the ridge shimmered and a silent, pale figure stared where Akira had been. He didn't speak aloud; instead he tightened his grip on his kunai and stayed alert. He could sense the tear in space, the echo of urgent travel. Nothing more showed; Minato had seen enough to be wary.
In a blink Akira was beside the two warriors, arriving inside the battlefield's ring like a gust of wind. The teleportation left a faint scent of ozone, and sand hissed where his feet struck the earth.
Sasuke's eyes — still fierce — met him. "Why did you come here?" Sasuke breathed, the question half accusation, half relief. Both men's faces showed the toll of the fight: scratches, blood, ragged breath. Naruto's chest heaved as he righted himself; his palms shook.
Akira didn't answer with words first. He simply looked up and his left Byakugan flashed gold. The eyes of the desert cut the sky like twin suns. Mitsutsuki's golden Byakugan found him immediately and his thin smile widened into something like amusement.
"Ah," Mitsutsuki said, his voice drawing the light out of the air. "Another relic of the old line. Come to see the children play with death. How quaint." He laughed then — and the laugh was a thing of ice. It didn't simply chill the skin; it lowered the warmth in the chest, made old memories ache and teeth feel brittle. The chill touched will itself.
Akira's gaze did not flinch. With his left eye he tugged on a place not of this world; the dimension behind that pupil shivered and opened. From it spilled two tiny beings — bright as moonflowers — like fairies out of a child's careless dream. They hovered in the air next to Akira, wings trembling with a soft glow. Each exhaled a fine thread of warm light that smelled faintly of rain and sunlit soil.
Mitsutsuki's golden gaze tilted, mild surprise flickering for the first time. "You summon… aid," he said. "Such power in such a small thing."
Akira's voice was quiet, almost gentle. "Two healing fae. They restore and mend. They will keep them standing. That is all." He pushed his palm forward; the fairies darted like hummingbirds and kissed Naruto and Sasuke with threads of light. Where the threads touched, torn flesh knit, breath steadied, and raw exhaustion eased.chakra could match many techniques; this was quiet restoration — a calm settling of the storm inside.
Naruto felt the warmth and his eyes cleared; the world re-anchored around him. Sasuke's breath smoothed, his hand loosening on his blade. Strength returned in small increments — not a flood, but a steadying stream. The healing did not replenish their bank of chakra fully, but it gave them the one thing they'd lost: time and perspective.
Mitsutsuki's expression dropped into a mask of contempt. "Hmph. Useful," he said with a hiss. "It seems you have little tricks, relic. You are not utterly useless." His voice grew a notch colder. "But for every trick, there is an answer. For every faerie, there is a storm."
His hand opened and water gathered — not a blade this time but a living river coiled into a spear. The air between them carved like glass. "You will be an annoyance for a brief moment," he said to Akira, voice soft as smashed glass, "and then… you will be nothing."
Akira's jaw set. He did not flinch; he did not shout. He simply moved. The two fairies wrapped themselves like scarves around Naruto and Sasuke, their light knitting wounds and steadying chakra channels. Akira stepped between them and Mitsutsuki with a calm borne of habit and quiet fury.
The first blade of water fell.
Akira did not leap away.