The water wall surged upward, enclosing Shimizu completely within its protective embrace, a shimmering barrier that withstood the relentless barrage of attacks pouring down from outside like a torrential storm.
But that first wind blade—the very first strike from the hidden Sunagakure shinobi—had misled him.
It gave him the illusion that there was only a single enemy.
And so his instinct had been to evade, to conserve chakra.
In an open field, dodging a single blade of wind would have been trivial.
But here, within the suffocating confines of a narrow mountain tunnel, evading dozens at once was nothing short of a fantasy.
By the time Shimizu realized this, it was already too late.
Even though his Water Release required no hand seals, even though the wall had risen swiftly—
Three wind blades had already found their mark.
One across his abdomen.
One across his chest.
One across his thigh.
The wounds were savage, torn open with brutal precision, and the blood that flowed from them would not stop.
In that moment, his heart sank into darkness.
His chakra was nearly exhausted.
His body was injured.
Time—precious, merciless time—continued to slip through his fingers.
He… would not make it back.
Who could have anticipated this? That Sunagakure would lay an ambush here, of all places.
How could they have known so quickly that someone was coming?
The previous squad—eight shinobi strong—had been eliminated cleanly, without a single survivor.
And those hawks…
Could they truly have flown that fast?
These mountains were no illusion—they were vast, towering barriers.
Through his sensory perception, Shimizu counted them.
More than twenty enemies lay in wait.
And beyond them, some four hundred meters away, reinforcements were already rushing closer.
So… it was a hastily arranged ambush, he concluded grimly.
If I had activated my sensory field sooner, they would never have had the chance to strike first.
He had been careless.
But even without these injuries… as long as they delayed me here, even for a moment… I wouldn't have made it back in time anyway.
The truth was inescapable.
He simply did not have enough time.
The earlier encounter had already cost him too much.
At this point, regret was meaningless.
If returning was no longer possible, then the only question that remained was—
How to survive.
Break through?
Impossible.
The enemy had already completed their encirclement outside the tunnel. In his current condition—wounded, with barely any chakra left—escaping across an exposed mountain ridge was nothing more than wishful thinking.
No.
His only option was to retreat deeper into the tunnel.
But before that—
He would make them pay.
Lightning Release: White Lightning!
Two streaks of blue lightning pierced through the water wall in an instant, striking down two Sunagakure shinobi before they could react.
Their screams tore through the air.
Panic spread immediately among the enemy ranks.
"Take cover!"
"Watch out for his jutsu!"
Their attacks had been relentless, yet futile—completely nullified by his defense—while he, from within that ironclad barrier, could strike them down at range.
The frustration was suffocating.
As the enemy scrambled for cover behind rocks and stone pillars, Shimizu moved.
Hand seals flashed.
"Earth Release: Rock Lodging Destruction!"
With a thunderous rumble, massive slabs of stone tore free from the tunnel ceiling and came crashing down.
The earth shook.
Dust and debris filled the air.
When the echoes faded, the result was clear—
The ambushing force had been split apart.
Relentless cascades of rock sealed the passage completely, cutting the group in two.
On Shimizu's side, aside from the two already fallen, five enemies remained.
The rest were trapped beyond the collapse.
Shimizu let the water wall dissipate.
At this point, conserving chakra was no longer a choice—it was a necessity.
He stood there, blood seeping from his wounds, his breathing uneven, yet his voice remained calm.
"Nothing to say?" he asked.
"For example… how did you know I'd be coming?"
The five shinobi did not answer.
They had already taken cover, their bodies hidden behind jagged rocks and stone columns, their breathing heavy, their eyes fixed warily on him.
The memory of that instant-cast lightning still lingered in their minds like a shadow of death.
Silence filled the tunnel, broken only by the sound of those five labored breaths.
Shimizu gave a faint shrug.
"Doesn't matter if you don't answer. I was only asking out of curiosity."
His gaze hardened.
"Either way… you're going to die."
"Blame your luck."
This battle would not be easy.
Not now.
Not in his current state—his body torn, his chakra nearly gone.
In truth, very little of his energy had been spent on combat.
Most of it had been consumed by the repeated unsealing of explosive tags—an act that drained chakra far more heavily than it appeared.
After all, each release had summoned over a hundred thousand tags—hundreds of kilograms in weight.
Even for him, that was no trivial burden.
He formed hand seals once more.
"Water Release: Water Colliding Wave!"
A roaring column of water erupted into existence around him, spiraling upward like a raging cyclone. Within moments, it expanded outward, swelling into a surging torrent that crashed forward like a waterfall unleashed, roaring straight toward the Sunagakure shinobi.
In an instant, water flooded the entire tunnel, rising visibly with terrifying speed.
The technique itself did not deal significant direct damage to the Sunagakure shinobi—after all, they had already taken cover, their positions well concealed—but Shimizu had no intention of engaging them in close combat. In such a confined space, his greatest advantage—his speed—would be severely restricted.
So instead, he continued pouring chakra into the Water CollidingWave, sustaining it, amplifying it, forcing more and more water into existence.
There was another factor at play.
The tunnel sloped naturally—high in the north, low in the south—and the southern end had already been sealed off by his earlier earth technique.
Which meant…
The water had nowhere to go.
Within moments, it climbed to waist height. Movement became sluggish, heavy, every step a struggle against the rising current.
"Charge through!"
"He's trying to drown us!"
"Go! All at once!"
But it was already too late.
The water surged higher, swallowing them whole. And without air… how long could a man endure?
Panic seized them.
Fear, raw and suffocating, clawed at their minds as they struggled desperately, swimming toward the higher ground where Shimizu stood, all for a single breath of air.
They did not know—
That he was already waiting.
Kunai in hand, moving like something born of the water itself.
Five swift strikes.
Clean.
Precise.
Merciless.
Victory came without suspense.
Seven more enemies eliminated.
And still, time slipped away.
By now… the far end of the tunnel must have been sealed.
Within this ten-kilometer passage, only he remained—
He and the cold, silent mass of explosive tags.
One final seal remained unopened.
Shimizu paused briefly, gathering what little chakra he could, before releasing the last batch of tags. Then he retraced his steps, returning to the site of the earlier battle to recover his custom-made kunai and shuriken.
And, of course, to search the bodies.
A shinobi's professionalism.
At last, unwilling to give up hope, he returned to the original entrance—
Only to find it sealed completely.
Not a single gap.
He had expected it.
And yet, seeing it with his own eyes, an indescribable bitterness welled up within him.
If not for all the unforeseen complications… he would have already withdrawn by now.
They had all left.
Gone.
Even that giant snake—what had become of it?
…The snake.
For a moment, his thoughts stilled.
Then suddenly—
A spark ignited in his eyes.
Hope.
In the original story, Sasuke Uchiha had escaped certain death by summoning Manda and hiding within its body.
If Sasuke could do it—
So could he.
He didn't have the Sharingan, but that didn't matter. The snake didn't need to cooperate—it only needed to swallow him.
After all, it was nothing more than a mindless beast.
At that moment, a tremor rippled through the tunnel.
Someone was outside.
Sunagakure.
They were trying to break through.
"Let's do this then."
There was still blood flowing from his wounds—no need to bite his finger again.
He formed the seals.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
With a thunderous crash, the giant snake reappeared, its enormous body filling the entire tunnel.
But this time… it was battered.
Dozens upon dozens of wounds marked its scales—nearly a hundred in total. Clearly, Sunagakure had unleashed overwhelming firepower upon it.
Shimizu met its gaze.
"Come."
The snake stared back, its presence heavy, its breath reeking with a foul, suffocating stench.
"Water Release: Water Wall!"
A perfect sphere of water enveloped him—three hundred and sixty degrees, without a single blind spot.
And just as he expected—
The snake lunged.
One bite.
And he was swallowed whole.
"Detonate."
In that instant, nearly a million explosive tags ignited simultaneously.
"BOOM—!!"
The explosion was cataclysmic.
The mountains themselves trembled under the force, rock collapsing in waves as the entire tunnel was buried beneath an avalanche of stone.
Even the snake's massive, thirty-meter body seemed insignificant—fragile—before the overwhelming violence of it all.
...
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