Rows of shuriken whistled through the air, their steel edges glinting under the dim light as they converged on the Konoha youths. For a breathless moment, it looked as if Uchiha Shigure's teammates would be skewered where they stood.
But just then, Kakashi—still limping from his injuries and leaning on Obito for support—sprang forward and drew Hatake Sakumo's famed White Fang short sword. The blade flashed like quicksilver.
"Clang! Clang!"
Each strike deflected another projectile, knocking shuriken after shuriken harmlessly to the ground.
Hyūga Akane stirred on Obito's back, her crimson hair shifting as she blinked awake.
"What… what's going on?" she whispered groggily, struggling to make sense of the scene.
Kakashi's sharp gaze swept the ring of dark‑clad figures encircling them. His grip tightened. "There are so many… who are these people?"
"They're not Konoha shinobi," Rin explained quickly, her voice taut with panic. "We were ambushed."
Seventeen enemy ninjas moved almost in unison, their hands flashing through seals. The torrent of syllables echoed like a storm chant. Moments later, more than a dozen Water Style jutsu roared to life, surging forward like blue serpents ready to tear their young prey apart.
The crashing deluge split the earth and battered everything in its path. Any one of those jutsu could cleave through a person like paper.
"Damn it!" Kakashi hissed. Even he, with his cool tactical mind, felt his stomach knot. "That many jutsu at once—!"
On Akane's pale face spread raw dread. "How can we defend against this? Someone has to know a barrier jutsu, anything!"
Kakashi steadied his breath, forcing authority into his tone. "Do what you can—defend yourselves! There's no running from this!"
Obito threw himself in front of Rin, bracing his body to shield her. His voice strained as he shouted, "Wish us luck, Rin!"
Their enemies laughed cruelly. "Brats of Konoha… you'll die here."
And then the world split with a thunderclap.
A single note sang through the battlefield.
"Flying Thunder God: Guiding Thunder!"
Space itself rippled. In the blink of an eye, Shigure stood among them, his kunai blazing with the unique formula of the Flying Thunder God Technique. He flung it with precision, and in that instant the raging tide of water jutsu warped, then vanished entirely, siphoned away into the void of space‑time.
The Konoha youths stared, dumbfounded. Water strong enough to drown them all had been erased as if it never existed.
The enemy ranks faltered in shock. "Impossible… seventeen of us… and our combined ninjutsu just… disappeared?"
Akane and Kusuo shouted in unison, relief flooding their eyes. "Shigure!"
Obito's fists clenched in elation. Rin's eyes brimmed with tears of relief. After all, Shigure had been the one left behind to fight their pursuers—yet here he was, alive.
Even Kakashi, still struggling to stand, straightened, whispering, "Uchiha Shigure…"
Shigure turned towards his worried comrades. "Kakashi. Akane. You're safe… good. Leave the rest to me."
He stepped forward to face the seventeen foes, his expression calm, almost mocking.
One enemy sneered. "There are more than a dozen of us, boy. Do you think you can win alone?"
Before Shigure's comrades could protest, Kakashi barked sharply, "Don't try to prove yourself pointlessly, 'Uncle.' If we attack together, we've got at least some chance—"
Shigure cut him off with a sharp laugh. "Kakashi, my techniques aren't for competition. They're for killing." His eyes flashed with an intensity beyond his years. "Since you called me uncle, then fine… this time, watch carefully. I'll show you my real strength."
His voice dropped to a growl. "Two minutes. That's all I'll need."
Akane and Kusuo exchanged uneasy looks, torn between disbelief and unshakable faith. Shigure had created miracles before. Perhaps he would again.
And so Shigure advanced alone, his footsteps steady against seventeen professionals.
"Where's Kaguya Kanbei?!" one enemy demanded. "What happened to our jonin?"
Shigure tilted his head, his tone dismissive. "That man? Dead. As for you—those are your last words."
The enemy force bristled. "Arrogant brat! Kill him!"
Shigure didn't flinch. He threw a spread of kunai with perfect precision, forcing the nearest shinobi to retreat a step.
"Throwing knives?!" scoffed another. "Is that the best you've got against seventeen?"
"Of course not."
Shigure's hands twitched, and fine filaments gleamed faintly in the moonlight. The kunai were tethered to near‑invisible wires threaded around each of his fingers. He pulled sharply, wires slicing through the air like a puppeteer commanding steel.
"Trap wires—watch it!" an enemy warned.
But Shigure barely continued the attack. With a sudden seal and a shout, he invoked new power.
"Shadow Clone: Kunai Multiplication!"
The world flashed white with vapor. In a heartbeat, the battlefield transformed into a storm of kunai. Each blade replicated again and again, filling the ground, the air, every direction. Swarms of steel descended like metallic insects, weaving in unpredictable arcs guided by Shigure's wires.
Dozens. Hundreds. Each etched with the seal of the Flying Thunder God.
The seventeen shinobi's composure cracked.
"This… this is endless!"
"Kunai shadow clones? Not like this! This density is inhuman!"
They tried desperately to defend, but each strike rang with fresh steel, each parry revealed another blade behind it.
Amid the chaos, Shigure's voice rang out, steady and cold. "Time to end this."
Five of the kunai flared with chakra, bursting apart into shadow clones—Shigure's very form duplicated from steel illusions. Each clone raised their hands, forming spirals of rotating chakra with lethal intent.
"Rasengan!"
The enemy, focused on the incoming barrage of kunai, never saw the switch. Before they could even process the clones' emergence, the spiraling spheres slammed into bodies with brutal force, tearing through defenses and launching men screaming across the field.
At least five fell instantly.
And Shigure himself was everywhere at once.
Teleporting between his marked kunai, his form blurred in and out of existence. One moment a whisper behind them, the next a flash before their eyes.
"Flying Thunder God!" Fwoosh!
"Rasengan!" Impact!
Again and again, the sequence repeated. A sudden strike, a wet crack of bone, a rain of blood falling to stain the dirt. Each appearance took a life, each disappearance left only silence and corpses.
The blood splattered across his pale skin, streaking his cheeks like war paint. His eyes gleamed bright and merciless, a vengeful specter darting through the night.
By the sixth kill, some enemies staggered in panic. By the tenth, dread had curdled into terror.
One screamed, "He's a demon! A Shura!"
And still the slaughter raged on.
In two minutes, the battlefield was unrecognizable.
Seventeen foes reduced to bodies sprawled in grotesque heaps, crimson soaking the soil. The kunai lay scattered like grave markers, each one a sigil of death.
Shigure stood at the center, chest heaving faintly, blood dripping from his chin. He didn't wipe it away. He only lifted his gaze to the horizon as if already searching for the next enemy.
Behind him, not a soul dared speak. His teammates trembled—not from fear of him, but from awe.
Obito murmured in disbelief, "Seventeen… all of them…"
Kakashi's hand tightened on the White Fang. His usual stoicism faltered for a heartbeat, replaced by something half‑admiration, half‑unease.
Shigure turned back to them finally, his voice hoarse but sharp. "You see now. In front of me, numbers don't matter."
But as the wind carried the scent of blood across the night, a distant chakra presence stirred—dark, heavy, suffocating. Much stronger than the men he had just slain.
Shigure's head lifted, Sharingan shimmering faintly in his eyes. "No. This massacre was only the beginning."
--
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