"Raiga! Behind you!"
Ranmaru's faint voice reached him just in time.
Raiga spun around and crossed his twin blades. Several bolts of lightning shot toward the incoming wind blades.
Wind Release had the advantage over Lightning Release, but destroying the lightning still weakened Naruto's attack.
Raiga slipped clear of the remaining blades.
"You're more trouble than I expected, boy."
He fixed Naruto with a murderous stare.
"Tell me your name. I'll give you a funeral no one will ever forget."
Naruto ignored him.
He had no interest in trading threats with someone he intended to kill.
Instead, he studied his opponent.
Those two swords amplify his Lightning Release enormously. The advantage they give him might be comparable to my [Wind God Form].
Raiga's attacks were powerful, but his weaknesses were becoming clear.
He was most dangerous at a distance. His movement and taijutsu were less impressive. If Naruto closed in, Raiga would be vulnerable unless he formed his lightning armor in time.
He also relied heavily on Ranmaru's perception.
But can Ranmaru's ability deceive my [Mind's Eye of the Kagura]?
After a moment, Naruto settled on a plan.
He brought his hands together.
Another hurricane roared toward Raiga.
"Ninja Art: Thunder Dragon Tornado!"
A whirling mass of lightning surged forward to meet it.
Even as the two techniques collided, Raiga began forming a second tornado.
He intended to overwhelm Naruto with sheer volume.
"Your Wind Release is strong, boy," he sneered. "But I've been fighting for years. I have more than enough chakra to wear you down!"
"Raiga! Above you!"
Ranmaru's warning interrupted him.
Raiga moved immediately, then glanced skyward.
Another Naruto had risen into the air. A second hurricane plunged toward him from above.
"Cheap tricks!"
Raiga directed his second lightning tornado upward to intercept it.
Then Ranmaru cried out again.
"Below you!"
This warning came too late.
Two hands burst from the ground, each wielding a wind blade.
Both blades swept through Raiga's ankles.
His feet were severed.
Raiga screamed and collapsed.
Even through the pain, his combat instincts held. He drove both swords into the ground and released a surge of lightning through the earth.
The shadow clone beneath him dispersed.
Ranmaru immediately activated his dōjutsu, concealing Raiga's position.
From a distance, Hinata focused her Byakugan on the area.
Instead of one enemy, she saw more than a dozen chakra signatures.
"What…? How are there so many of them?"
Each figure appeared to possess its own chakra network.
She had no way of knowing that Ranmaru's red-eyed dōjutsu could create false signatures capable of misleading the Byakugan.
"Hinata, stop relying on your Byakugan!" Naruto called. "The enemy can imitate chakra pathways and signatures!"
He swept both hands forward.
A massive wind blade struck the place where Raiga had been.
The ground exploded beneath it, leaving a deep crater.
Raiga was nowhere to be seen.
Naruto frowned.
So Ranmaru can deceive my perception, too.
…
Some distance away, Ranmaru clung to Raiga's back, pale and struggling for breath.
Raiga planted his swords into the ground one after the other, using them to support himself as he struggled forward.
He had used lightning to burn the wounds at his ankles shut and stop the bleeding.
Every movement brought fresh pain.
But his attention remained on the boy behind him.
"Ranmaru? Ranmaru, how are you holding up?"
Raiga was cruel to civilians and ruthless toward his enemies.
Ranmaru was different.
He was the companion Raiga cared about—the one person who depended on him as much as he depended on them.
"R-Raiga… I'm all right."
Ranmaru's voice was barely audible.
"Keep going… He'll find us soon."
Maintaining their concealment had consumed almost all his strength.
"Earth Release: Moving Earth Core!"
Naruto's voice carried across the distance.
The ground heaved.
Raiga lost his balance and fell, throwing Ranmaru from his back.
Neither dared cry out.
They could not afford to reveal their position.
They needed to escape, then find somewhere to treat Raiga's wounds.
But the upheaval did not stop.
The ground continued shifting beneath them, more violently with each passing moment. It felt as though the entire gold mine were about to collapse.
Deep fissures split the earth.
One opened barely a meter from Raiga.
He and Ranmaru exchanged a frightened glance.
They had narrowly escaped falling into it.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears!"
Naruto's voice rang out again.
Rows of earthen spears erupted from the ground, advancing toward their hiding place.
Raiga could not move quickly enough to avoid them.
He clenched his teeth and drove both lightning blades into the earth.
Electricity surged through the ground.
Lightning Release disrupted the Earth Release chakra beneath him. The approaching spears stopped forming around his position.
But the discharge had revealed him.
Naruto smiled.
Several powerful wind blades swept toward Raiga.
Raiga pulled his swords free and hurled two lightning attacks at them.
This time, Naruto had poured far more chakra into his blades.
They cut through the lightning and continued forward.
Raiga threw himself aside.
With his feet gone, it was all he could manage.
He avoided the blades themselves, but their impact blasted the ground beside him and sent him tumbling.
Ranmaru was caught in the shock wave.
The boy went limp.
"Ranmaru!"
Raiga's cry was raw with fear.
He began dragging himself toward him.
"Leaf Hurricane!"
Lee rushed in and swung a kick toward Raiga's head.
Raiga raised his arms instinctively.
Lee's kick struck his wrists, knocking both swords from his hands.
With his feet severed and his blades out of reach, Raiga was helpless.
Naruto stepped before him and looked down at the former member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
"Raiga Kurosuki. You've murdered innocent people. You deserve to die."
Then he gave a quiet laugh.
"But that's just an excuse."
His gaze remained cold.
"Our mission is to kill you. What kind of person you are changes nothing."
He reached behind him and drew the Sword of the Thunder God.
Its blade flared to life.
"It's over."
One stroke severed Raiga's head.
There would be no recovering from that injury.
Naruto was finding that he increasingly preferred cutting an enemy's throat or taking their head.
This world had too many ways of bringing the dead back. The Rinnegan was only one of them.
He did not believe those methods would work quite so easily on someone whose head had been removed.
Lee looked away from Raiga's remains.
"Naruto… What do we do with the boy?"
Naruto gave him an irritated look.
"He's an enemy. What do you think?"
Ranmaru's abilities were valuable.
But Naruto remembered how fiercely devoted he had been to Raiga in the original story. He had been willing to die for him.
Naruto had no intention of gambling on winning that loyalty for himself.
If Ranmaru wanted to remain with Raiga, he would grant that wish.
The blade fell again.
Ranmaru was beheaded.
Lee opened his mouth, but Tenten caught his arm.
"Lee," she said quietly, "don't forget that we're shinobi."
Naruto glanced at her and raised his thumb in approval.
Tenten had been one of the weaker members of the Konoha Twelve in the original story.
But she understood this much.
In the shinobi world, he had no patience for kindness offered to an enemy.