The warped, folded crimson polyhedron flickered with red light, its edges sharp as ice fractures.
Beneath the protection of that light-screen, three slender water spindles hovered in midair, arranged in a precise triangle. They spun at high speed. At each tip, a vertical slit like a pupil opened calmly, spitting out a jet stream that drilled forward like a spinning auger.
Three high-speed torrents formed a perfect tri-cornered convergence, merging into a single terrifying beam that mercilessly bored through Kurosuki Raiga and the Ranmaru behind him.
The "laser" spraying from their backs was stained a brutal crimson.
Raiga's vaunted Lightning Armor, famed for its defense, turned to butter under that wind-water pressure stream. It could not even slow the cut before being cleanly split apart.
Clink.
Clink.
The twin blades drooped, powerless. Their tips tapped the ground and rang with crisp, hollow chimes.
Kurosuki Raiga, a hole punched straight through his chest, stood rigid as a living statue. Blood clotted in his eyes. Behind him, Ranmaru's pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, his mouth twitching unconsciously.
"R-run… run…"
The whisper was thinner than a mosquito's hum. Even if someone heard it, Raiga could no longer respond.
Because the instant the water cannon struck, both of them were already dead.
That high-pressure, high-speed torrent, laced with spiral force and mixed wind and water, was horrifying in power. The moment it pierced flesh, it churned the organs into pulp and pressed blood out like juice.
When the torrent blasted out from their backs with shredded viscera, it meant their chest cavities had already been hollowed clean. The "speaking" motion was only their brains failing to catch up, executing an order issued a second ago.
It happened too fast.
So fast there wasn't even time to feel pain before they were sent to the other side.
Pee, pee, pee!
A sizzling sound, like a red-hot branding iron plunged into ice water, gradually weakened. The spiral torrents lost strength, drooped, and painted a ruler-straight wet line across the ground.
The half-transparent crimson diamond folded inward, shrinking, then vanished into empty air.
The girl stood in white like fresh snow, silver hair drifting. Her pure kimono wasn't stained by even a trace of blood, and there wasn't a single bead of sweat on her face. The three long water spindles stopped spinning. Their vertical pupils shut tight as they floated above her head and along her shoulders.
What in the world was that?
Kakashi's right hand trembled slightly around his Raikiri. He couldn't stop the awe rising in his chest.
He wasn't marveling at the fact that Konome Taketori had instantly killed an elite jōnin like Raiga. The moment the Third Hokage admitted he couldn't teach Konome, Kakashi had already guessed she'd reached a level comparable to a Kage.
This only confirmed it.
What truly shook him was the endless stream of terrifying techniques she carried.
The self-recognizing chakra, passive absolute defense was one thing. But the floating water spindles, their sheer technical complexity, surpassed everything he thought possible.
He couldn't see how much chakra they contained through that barrier, yet the Sharingan's dynamic vision still caught the spindles' extraordinary details.
A body shape so smooth each edge felt exactly right. High-speed rotation that added spiral penetration to Water Release, and perhaps even accelerated energy charging.
Their midair suspension seemed to come from a turbine-like spiral structure at the back. The exact principle was unknown, but it clearly demanded Wind Release shape and nature transformation at the same time.
And that was only the shell.
Eye-like nozzles. A blended attack of airflow and waterflow. Insane firing speed. The internal structure had to be even more complex.
Compared to this, his proud S-rank Lightning Release ultimate, Raikiri, suddenly felt crude and primitive.
Like a stone axe beside one of Kirigakure's Seven Swords.
"How… is this even possible?"
Staring at those three masterpieces, a perfect embodiment of shape and nature transformation pushed to their limits, the genius Kakashi muttered to himself as if his entire worldview were cracking apart.
"Wind and water nature transformation," Konome said lightly, "plus just a tiny bit of shape change."
The chakra controlling the spindles dispersed on its own. The flesh-and-blood curse marks brimming with chakra calmed. Konome lifted her hand and pinched her fingers together, showing him a tiny "this much."
"I… I know that, but how can you…" Kakashi choked, neck stiff, unable to find words for the confusion exploding inside him.
Ninjutsu development requires trade-offs.
Those were the words of his teacher, Namikaze Minato.
There was no such thing as a perfect technique. The more complex the jutsu, the higher the demands on the user, and the harder it became to apply in real combat.
Take Raikiri as an example.
Pure Lightning nature transformation plus passable shape change. Exactly ten hand seals. In battle, it took less than two seconds to execute.
But Konome's water spindles, with that elaborate shape work and nature work, should have required twenty minutes of fine craftsmanship even if she used hand seals. If she tried to do it seal-less, two hours would be optimistic.
Yet reality was this: the lightning orb was still mid-flight, and she had already gathered chakra, shaped it, transformed it, charged it, and fired, completing an entire chain of absurdly complex steps.
That wasn't normal.
The question marks floating above Kakashi's head were practically about to fly out of the Land of Waves.
"Just assume I'm gifted," Konome said, waving him off with a casual excuse.
This super S-rank technique was called Floating Water Cannon, or Suspended Water Cannon, or Wind-Water Floating Cannon.
It was the hyper-evolved version of a high-pressure water blade, what she considered the seventh generation of her water blade arts.
The earliest version of the water blade had been something Konome created while practicing shape change.
It was slow to cast, had a long wind-up, average power, and a pitiful range of five meters. All flaws, with only one redeeming point: the high-pressure nature transformation and compression method were decent.
In the shinobi world, stronger Water Release techniques were countless, and water was already less aggressively lethal than wind, fire, or lightning. Even Konome, the original developer, rarely used it in actual combat. It was little more than a practice piece.
Until later, at Raigōzan, one of her Yang Release clones had a spark of inspiration and combined Wind Release with Water Release to create the second generation water blade.
But one crucial issue remained.
The more complex and advanced the shape and nature transformation, the more operations were required.
With wind and water combined, just charging the water sphere and wind component took three full seconds. It also occupied both hands. As her taijutsu grew stronger and stronger, that "slow" ninjutsu became increasingly useless.
If she kept increasing the power, the changes would only become more complex, and the shape construction and charging time would only grow longer.
To fit her nin-taijutsu combat system, the technique's potential seemed to end there.
Then a saying proved true:
You nurture flowers with care and they refuse to bloom, yet a willow grows lush in a place you never meant to plant it.
Every problem that frustrated her was solved the moment the flesh-and-blood curse marks appeared.
As long as her body still had space to bear the script, and the logic inside the script remained rigorous, she no longer needed to split her attention to control wind-water nature and shape changes.
She only had to suffer once, carving the curse script into her body. After that, feeding it chakra would trigger automatic release through the marks.
And so the Floating Water Cannon gained its foundation.
Third generation: She replaced the unstable high-pressure water sphere with a spindle structure that was easier to calibrate. A turbine was added at the back for hovering, freeing both hands. The turbine could also spin the spindle to add a spiral effect.
Fourth generation: Several micro inscriptions were embedded inside for charging, pressurizing, and more, reducing the pre-cast delay.
Fifth generation: Using wind to shear water for tearing force, she created micro-nozzles smaller than 0.01 mm, strengthening range and power.
Sixth generation: The nozzle mimicked mammalian eyeball structure, allowing free control of lateral movement, contraction, and rotation.
Seventh generation: Razor-thin wind filaments were evenly mixed into high-pressure water. Power multiplied geometrically. It was more effective and lighter than adding sand or metal to the stream, and the water flow could also mask the whistling sound produced by Wind Release transformation.
For five years, countless "Water Release clones" iterated the technique again and again. Its learning and casting difficulty had long surpassed ordinary S-rank ninjutsu. The number of inscriptions carved into it was beyond counting.
Without curse mark support, even at six seals per second, it would take at least twenty minutes to cast.
Now she could fire it three times in one second with no seals at all.
No exaggeration: the flesh-and-blood curse marks were like an industrial revolution for the shinobi world. They turned ninjutsu from meticulous handcraft into automated machinery. As long as chakra was sufficient, even the most complex techniques could be mass-produced.
Compared to this, ordinary elemental ninjutsu in the shinobi world now suffered a technological gap against the Floating Water Cannon.
High tech versus primitives.
The result was inevitably overwhelming.
"I handled the enemy alone. That means the spoils aren't yours," Konome said, ignoring Kakashi's existential crisis as he clutched his Raikiri.
She walked to Raiga and Ranmaru, who had collapsed at some point, and began collecting her rewards.
Their chests were wide open, their faces pale.
The exposed cavities were rinsed clean by the torrent, leaving no messy blood behind. Their hearts and lungs were simply gone. Only the spiral scars gouged into the bone around the openings looked vicious.
Their deaths were almost peaceful.
At least the Red Eyes and the Thunder Swords, those precious inheritances, were still intact.
Splash.
Two water whips rose from Konome's back, lifted the twin blades into the air, and held them for her to examine slowly.
Ever since Dazuna's severe injuries, she tried to use her body less in daily life.
The Lightning Blade Kiba was a pair of twin swords.
Their overall shape resembled lightning or canine fangs. The blades were jagged and irregular like branching bolts. The hilts were short and wrapped with anti-slip bandages. Aside from the strange blade design, they didn't look particularly mystical.
Konome poured her Byakugan into them.
With no Ranmaru interference, she could see the curse scripts carved within the metal.
These inscriptions seemed to have been embedded at the instant the blades were forged, fused almost seamlessly into the chakra metal itself. After studying them, she recognized them as specialized scripts that enhanced Lightning Release.
When she returned to Konoha, she could copy these onto her real body's arm and see whether they could strengthen her Lightning nature transformation.
She set the twin blades behind her for now. Then her fingertip flicked, forming a purple chakra scalpel, and she reached for Ranmaru's blood-red eyes.
She didn't actually need the "Byakugan killer." Its ability to block Byakugan overlapped with barrier techniques, and she already possessed more than enough ocular abilities.
But she had spent so much chakra and still hadn't found Haku or Ice Release.
She wasn't willing to leave empty-handed.
So she decided to use these Red Eyes for damage control, at least for now.
Only after Konome had already begun cleaning up the loot did cheers erupt from the far side of the plaza.
These people had seen the power of shinobi. They were extremely cautious.
Even after watching the enemy get pierced by that bizarre attack, their eyes only brightened and they didn't dare make a sound. It wasn't until they saw Konome step forward and pick up the enemy's twin blades that they finally dared to celebrate loudly.
"We won!"
"Shinobi-sama! Kurosuki Raiga is dead!"
The people of the Land of Waves erupted. Some danced with joy, crying openly as tears streamed down their faces.
The "funeral" and Raiga's lightning judgment had shattered their mental defenses. Even after Naruto and Sasuke saved them, the endless electric glare still made it hard to breathe.
Now that Kurosuki Raiga was dead, smiles finally returned to faces that hadn't known relief in far too long.
Dazuna's left hand trembled as he slapped his thigh again and again, eyes red, unable to hide his joy.
"Hah…" Kaiza, captain of the militia, let out a long breath.
Even with Naruto and Sasuke brimming with confidence, Kaiza hadn't dared relax. He gathered the militia to capture the Kurosuki men because if Raiga won, he wanted to see whether he could trade these prisoners' lives for a way out for the defeated Konoha shinobi.
Thankfully, the worst did not happen.
Raiga's tyranny was over.
With Kaiza finally relaxing, Tsunami's ordinary face softened into a smile. And Inari, who hadn't endured the trauma of losing his stepfather like in the original tragedy, still wasn't the stubborn, awkward, brave little brat he would have become.
Now he only bounced in place, eyes bright and crystalline as he stared at Naruto and Sasuke's forehead protectors.
"How much strength do you think Konome used just now?"
"Three points at most!"
"I say two and a half."
"You really had to shave it down, didn't you!"
Naruto and Sasuke didn't notice the kid staring at them. They were arguing about the fight.
Just like Kakashi, they never believed Raiga could be Konome's match. As for her using ninjutsu to instantly kill him, that was only natural.
That was Konome Taketori.
Konoha's greatest genius in history. A monster-class taijutsu specialist. The Third Hokage's private disciple, never publicly acknowledged.
Instantly killing Kurosuki Raiga was nothing. She hadn't even used taijutsu, which meant she hadn't been serious at all.
In their minds, Konome was still only in "Boss Phase One."
You had to break that indestructible barrier first, then survive the ninjutsu bombardment and successfully close the distance to trigger the despairing second phase, where ninjutsu and taijutsu fused together.
And since Naruto was the Nine-Tails jinchūriki and Might Guy's eldest disciple, he insisted there was a third phase with a tailed beast cloak and a fourth phase with the Eight Gates.
So by that logic, Konome using a quarter of her strength naturally became "two and a half points."
"Fair," Sasuke admitted.
Even Sasuke had to concede that Naruto's classification system was oddly rigorous. At the same time, he secretly wondered what a "tailed beast cloak" was supposed to be.
After Sasuke pressed him again and again, Naruto finally answered with a wicked grin.
"It's the thing she used when you challenged her in practical class," Naruto said, then burst out laughing. "When she caught your Great Fireball with her bare hands. Hahaha!"
That old humiliation resurfaced, and Sasuke's mood instantly soured.
He ignored Naruto's idiotic laughter and stared at the twin blades behind Konome, wondering what he could possibly offer to trade for them.
Then he noticed something.
Konome stopped what she was doing.
She lifted her head and looked toward the distant sea where waves surged and rolled.
What is she looking at?
A flicker of doubt crossed Sasuke's mind. His eyes immediately turned scarlet as he looked out as well.
At some point, over that endless ocean, an enormous wall of fog abruptly rose without end.
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