At the summit of Raiko Drum Mountain, Mining Site No. 1.
Dark clouds churned like a massive black tide, spreading across the sky above the mountain and smothering the world in oppressive gloom.
Boom!
A thick bolt of lightning tore through the cloudbank like a raging dragon and slammed into the lightning rod planted at the peak. A deafening crack followed, as if the sky meant to pulverize the earth.
The thunder rolled again and again through the valleys, like the drumbeat of a war symphony. It intertwined with the constant roar of machinery inside the mountain, creating a nerve racking, relentless cacophony.
Deep in the damp mine shafts, rows of harsh white lamps brought light, and with it an indescribable, suffocating heat.
A Cloud shinobi wore his Kirigakure? No, his Kumogakure forehead protector. His upper body was bare, muscles washed clean and powerful. He controlled a giant cutting machine over two meters long, pressing it toward the jagged rock wall above, streaked yellow and blue.
The drill head was made of wear resistant high speed steel, massive in size. Beside the handle sat a square motor housing with a metal lattice frame. Inside it was embedded a deep blue crystal.
Crackle.
The Cloud shinobi's gaze sharpened.
Lightning nature chakra spread across his skin, then poured into the deep blue crystal in a rapid surge.
Hum!
The crystal brightened under the stimulation. The thunder force stored within it was immediately drawn out by the Lightning Release chakra.
Hummmm...
The giant steel wheel at the front of the cutter began to accelerate, faster and faster, emitting a frightening, warbling whine that gnawed at the nerves.
Sparks flew.
The shinobi slammed the machine into the rock wall. Firefly like embers danced across the wheel's surface as the hardened stone was carved open bit by bit.
Fragments of hard rock sprayed outward, rattling as they clattered to the tunnel floor.
The wheel spun violently, the silvery metal slowly flushing red with heat.
The shinobi immediately cut the chakra flow to the Thunderstone, exhaling hard.
"Water."
"Coming."
A shorter miner rushed up with a bucket and a ladle.
Hiss!
Cold water poured over scalding steel and boiled instantly, bursting into frothing bubbles and white steam.
At the bottom of the shaft, miners adjusted their helmets and dodged falling stones. Seizing the moment, they gathered the ore chunks that had dropped free, loaded them into baskets, and filed out in groups with the others carrying raw stone.
Huff. Huff.
The wind at the summit was vicious. Everyone who had been drenched in sweat inside the mine began to shiver uncontrollably. Before long, the sweat dried, leaving a coarse crust of salt on their skin.
Crash.
They dumped baskets of raw Thunderstone onto the ground, piling it into a small hill, then hurried back into the mine, panting.
Nearby, a Cloud shinobi operated a grinding wheel fitted with Thunderstone, polishing the rough ore and revealing the deep blue crystal within. Its shape and color matched the stone embedded in the machine perfectly.
The refined Thunderstones were then placed into a hollow, metal sphere.
A switch was thrown, and they waited.
Boom!
Lightning struck the rod at the mountaintop again. Inside the hollow sphere, countless arcs erupted at once. Blinding lightning light swallowed the crystals whole.
Only when the crystals began to shine with a dazzling electric glow did the shinobi cut the switch again. Once the light dimmed and the heat cooled, the sphere was removed and delivered to the warehouse for sealing and storage.
"This is!"
A young shinobi grinding ore nearby suddenly cried out.
In his hand, a fist sized chunk of raw stone had revealed something far deeper than blue.
It was pitch black.
"Ink Lightning Crystal! We finally dug another one out!"
The shinobi beside him recognized it immediately, eyes wide with excitement.
"Quick. Send it to Lord Yotsuki Tsuyoshi!"
"Got it!"
Cradling the precious Ink Lightning Crystal, the young shinobi didn't even bother with the remaining Thunderstone ore. He sprinted to the center of the mountaintop, stopping before a tent marked with lightning patterns.
"Lord Yotsuki Tsuyoshi, we found another Ink Lightning Crystal."
"Bring it in."
A hoarse, murky voice came from inside. The young shinobi swallowed nervously.
This lord had arrived at Raiko Drum Mountain only a few days ago. Rumor said he had once been an ANBU captain. He disliked being disturbed, so he stayed in his tent to train and rarely interacted with anyone.
The food runners said his temper was brutal and his memory was terrible. It was best not to provoke him.
Holding the crystal, the young shinobi stepped into the tent.
Inside.
Yotsuki Tsuyoshi sat cross legged on the ground, wearing a Kumogakure forehead protector. His eyes were fierce and lifted like a tiger's, heavy lidded and intimidating.
Dozens of Thunderstones glimmered on the ground around him. Dense sealing marks connected them into a web, forming a domain of lightning that surrounded his body.
Crackle. Crackle.
Arcs exploded across Tsuyoshi's skin. His massive muscles trembled, swelling into thick, brutal lines of power.
So strong...
The young shinobi stared at Tsuyoshi's bare upper body, eyes burning with admiration.
Using Thunderstone for training was notoriously hard to control.
With his job's convenience, he could use thumb sized Thunderstones to practice the Lightning Armor at best, and even then only in small batches. Greed meant death.
But Tsuyoshi was training Lightning Release Chakra Mode with this many stones at once. The control difficulty and danger were absurd. Only the Yotsuki clan, famous for their extreme lightning resistance, could use such a method.
"Put it on the ground," Tsuyoshi said, glancing at the fist sized Ink Lightning Crystal in the young shinobi's hands.
"Yes."
Hearing the tone wasn't too harsh, the young shinobi quietly exhaled in relief. He placed the black crystal down and turned to leave.
"Wait."
Tsuyoshi endured the tearing pain of lightning across his body, but still called him back. The young shinobi visibly flinched, and Tsuyoshi's brow tightened.
"What is it, my lord?"
"Late autumn's coming. Tell the kitchen to make more meat, and serve it with alcohol. Let the brothers warm themselves."
"Yes!"
The young shinobi's face lit up as he moved toward the entrance.
"One more thing."
He froze again.
Tsuyoshi called him back a second time, irritation rising as he looked at the way the kid shrank.
"Am I that scary?"
"N No, my lord."
Staring at Tsuyoshi's face full of hard muscle and fierce lines, the young shinobi answered against his own conscience.
"A Cloud shinobi shouldn't look like a coward. If you keep acting like that, I'll beat you into the ground."
"Yes!"
The young shinobi snapped his chest up, standing straight. After a moment, Tsuyoshi closed his eyes and continued training. The young shinobi turned and left again.
"Last thing!"
Third time.
The young shinobi sighed softly and turned back. Now he finally understood what the food runners meant by "his memory is terrible."
"Go bring Dakui here."
The young shinobi nodded and stayed a moment, watching Tsuyoshi sit there in silence.
"You still here? Got something else?"
Tsuyoshi stared at him, confused.
"No."
"Then go!"
"Yes, yes!"
Startled by the sudden roar, the young shinobi instantly shrank back into that timid posture and fled out of the tent.
Tsuyoshi forced his temper down and drew back the chakra he'd been using to trigger the Thunderstones.
The stones on the ground slowly lost their glow.
Thunderstone from Raiko Drum Mountain could store enormous amounts of electricity. It was essentially a natural, ultra high output battery.
Whether it was natural lightning or a shinobi's Lightning Release chakra, it could absorb and hold it. Using it was simple too. You only needed Lightning Release chakra to guide the current out.
Its hardness rivaled the toughest granite, and it endured heat as well.
Their tests showed that even temperatures under two thousand degrees couldn't change it. In fact, at high temperatures, the current it released became even stronger.
Whether as a power source for weapons or as training support for Lightning Release Chakra Mode, Thunderstone was a top tier treasure, a strategic material for Kumogakure.
Its only flaw was control. When it released energy, the precision was poor.
Charging machines was fine. Using it for cultivation was extremely dangerous. At present, the only ones able to use it on a large scale for training were the Yotsuki clan.
But if that was all, Tsuyoshi would never have come all the way to this border mountain.
He stood, rolled his thick neck, and his bones cracked like beans popping in a pan.
At the tent entrance, he picked up the black crystal still dusted with stone chips. His eyes grew heavy.
Ink Lightning Crystal.
A rare mutated crystal that could only be found deep in the Raiko Drum Mountain vein. On average, you needed fifty cubic meters of pure Thunderstone to yield a single fist sized Ink Lightning Crystal.
As for what it could do...
Tsuyoshi spread his hand and gripped it hard.
His heart pounded. Lightning nature chakra surged into the crystal in an endless stream.
Hum!
The ink black surface lit with strange patterns, radiating an ominous black glow.
Pure deep blue chakra was converted by the crystal into void like Yin Release power. It mixed with Lightning Release and began absorbing both, blending them together.
The more chakra it absorbed, the dimmer the patterns became.
After a short while, the patterns vanished completely. The crystal returned to pure black, even deeper than before, like a terrifying black hole leading to another dimension.
Crackle!
Black lightning suddenly spilled off its surface and struck Tsuyoshi's palm.
"Gah!"
Even with the Yotsuki clan's absurd lightning resistance, Tsuyoshi screamed in pain. His whole body locked up in paralysis, unable to move.
But the moment his body seized, the chakra transfer naturally stopped. The crystal's black glow dimmed rapidly, and the strange black arcs withdrew and vanished.
Huff... huff...
Tsuyoshi stood there for a long time before he regained control. His powerful body trembled as he set the crystal down, then he pressed a hand to his forehead and sank back to the ground.
That was the Ink Lightning Crystal's power.
On top of Thunderstone's ability to absorb lightning, it could also absorb Yin Release and fuse the two into terrifying black lightning.
That black lightning could strike directly at the mind and will. Even the soul could be paralyzed.
The Third Raikage's secret technique, Lightning Release: Black Panther, had been created by imitating this very power. By fusing Lightning Release and Yin Release, he birthed a Black Lightning secret art whose might was no weaker than Storm Release, the fusion of Water and Lightning.
If not for its flaws, if it could be engraved into a chakra "seed" and passed down reliably, it would have qualified as a unique kekkei genkai.
The numbness in Tsuyoshi's soul faded gradually. Control returned to his body.
The black lightning hadn't damaged his lightning tempered physique at all, but the pain and paralysis that reached into his soul still left him shaken.
And then came the fire in his chest.
His father was dead.
Killed by a child from Konoha's ninja academy. That was what Konoha's spies had reported back.
Tsuyoshi knew his father's strength better than anyone. Even if old and plagued by past injuries, his father could still trade blows with Tsuyoshi.
There was no way he'd been killed by some academy student.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's trick was obvious. Fabricate a so called peerless genius to stir morale, to relieve the pressure brought by the Uchiha clan's massacre.
Nothing new. Everyone understood the game.
But Tsuyoshi couldn't accept it.
His father was dead, and he couldn't even confirm who the murderer was. He refused to swallow that ending.
So he resigned from his position as ANBU captain, begged for the Third Raikage's Black Lightning training method, and traveled over mountains and through brutal terrain to Raiko Drum Mountain.
He would use Thunderstone and Ink Lightning Crystal to sharpen his secret art.
Once his Lightning Release Chakra Mode rose to a higher level, and once he mastered Black Lightning, he would go to Konoha, uncover the truth behind his father's death, and personally take the enemy's head.
Footsteps.
Suddenly, there was movement outside the tent.
A tall, blond, blue eyed man strode in quickly.
Dakui, one of the two jōnin stationed at Raiko Drum Mountain besides Tsuyoshi.
"Captain!"
"I'm not an ANBU captain anymore."
"You'll always be Captain to me."
Tsuyoshi looked at the stubborn Dakui and felt a helpless irritation. This was his subordinate back in ANBU. When Tsuyoshi resigned, Dakui quit too and followed him here.
Stubborn as a rock.
"Have there been more disappearances in the mines lately?"
"That's exactly what I came to report. Not only have they not stopped, they've increased. Last night, two more chūnin went missing."
"Any traces at the scene?"
"Same as before. Clean and efficient. No clues left behind, not even signs of a fight. The mines are already deafening with machine cutting, voices, and thunder. Nobody heard anything strange."
Dakui's tone hardened.
"Raiko Drum Mountain has one main Thunderstone vein and four branches. That's why we set up five mining sites.
Last month, the missing people were concentrated at Sites Four and Five near the base. Fifteen ordinary miners vanished, along with two genin and one chūnin. We reinforced security there.
This time, the disappearances are concentrated at Sites Two and Three. Five miners are missing, and two genin and two chūnin as well.
Anyone who can erase two chūnin without a sound is at least tokubetsu jōnin level.
Raiko Drum Mountain is riddled with limestone caverns. Passages run everywhere. Combined with the tunnels we've dug over the years, catching them is... like trying to grab smoke."
Tsuyoshi's face darkened, his thick brows locked tight.
He hadn't come to Raiko Drum Mountain only because it was convenient for training.
The Fourth Raikage had given him a task as well: investigate and resolve the miners' disappearances. Mission difficulty: B rank.
At the time, he'd been consumed with vengeance. He hadn't even looked at a mere B rank mission.
He never expected that after an entire month, they would still have no lead.
Even Dakui, one of ANBU's best trackers, couldn't find a trail. Tsuyoshi, who wasn't a tracker at all, felt the weight of it even more.
"Looks like there's only one way."
"What way?"
Dakui lifted his head, confused. The Yotsuki clan were all brute force attackers, and his captain was no exception. Intelligence and tracking were not his strengths.
Tsuyoshi bent down and picked up the Ink Lightning Crystal. Its polished black surface reflected his tiger eyes.
"Fishing."
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