From the moment Shimizu successfully cast Wind Release: Great Breakthrough to steady himself in mid-air to the instant he unleashed the no-seal Lightning Style: White Lightning, only a heartbeat had passed.
The crowd below felt a sudden, violent gale sweep over them; before they could even blink, a blinding blue radiance filled their vision. In that same breath, the long blades of two puppets were sheared clean through by the lightning!
"—!!"
Shock rippled across the battlefield as every gaze turned toward the white-haired shinobi who had descended, impossibly, into the very center of the clash.
How…?
Konoha had calculated countless possibilities before finally deducing that Sunagakure might strike Kikyo City from underground.
Yet no matter how many times Suna had run their own projections, they could never have imagined that Konoha's reinforcements would arrive…
From the sky.
"It's a Konoha shinobi!" one Suna ninja shouted, spotting the forehead protector gleaming beneath the moonlight.
"Kill him!"
Rasa reacted instantly.
"Earth Release: Sandstone Current!"
The ground surged as vast amounts of sand and stone rushed toward the white-haired figure, seeking to bind and entomb him where he stood.
But—
The torrent of sand never so much as brushed the hem of his clothing.
He vanished.
"Be careful!!" Chiyo cried out, her voice sharp with alarm.
That striking white hair.
The instantaneous lightning.
And that young face she had seen before—
Her brother, Ebizō, had long overseen Sunagakure's intelligence network, maintaining countless covert lines across the great nations. For the sake of future wars, they had compiled exhaustive dossiers on every emerging prodigy across the shinobi world.
And some… received special attention.
Shimizu was one of them.
In Ebizō's classified records, his name was etched with chilling clarity:
Shimizu Uzuki. Konoha jōnin. Rose to prominence following an S-rank mission in the Land of Grass, Year 43.
During the war—late Year 43 to early Year 44—caster of Water Release: Hard Whirlpool Water Blade on two occasions… resulting in over a thousand Suna casualties.
Involved in the January 20th explosion in the southwestern mountain range, Year 44… causing several thousand more losses.
Note: Suspected to be the same person as the elite Konoha ANBU "Kūryū."
In the span of a single thought, Chiyo's shock turned to fury.
"It's him—Shunshin Shimizu!!"
Once, the one she had hated most was the man known as the White Fang of Konoha—the terrifying flash of a white blade who had taken her son's life.
But now—
That hatred had shifted.
To the young man before her.
In just over half a year since his name first surfaced within Suna's intelligence circles, the destruction he had wrought had already surpassed that of any top-tier Konoha powerhouse in the past.
Among Sunagakure, he had earned a name whispered like a curse—
The Reaper.
Rasa, too, knew that name. Realizing he could not immediately capture such an opponent, he chose instead to finish off the one already within his grasp—Maruboshi Kōsuke.
"Magnet Release: Lapis Glaze Shatter!"
Golden sand constricted tighter, compressing inward with crushing force. It was a technique designed to trap and pulverize its target—Magnet Release's answer to a sand burial, suffocating the enemy beneath overwhelming pressure.
Rasa gathered his chakra—
Then suddenly—
Every hair on his body stood on end.
A warning screamed through his instincts.
He's coming!
Without hesitation, he drew the gold sand back in a defensive surge, forming a barrier at his sides.
"BOOM—!!"
Two arcs of lightning slammed violently into the golden wall, shrieking against it with a piercing hiss as sparks scattered in all directions.
"Rasa, be careful of his seal-less techniques!" Chiyo warned, already directing the Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu to encircle and intercept.
Around them, the Suna shinobi finally reacted, raising kunai, forming hand seals—
But before any attack could be completed—
Shimizu's figure vanished once more.
"—!!"
The tempo of the battle had accelerated beyond comprehension.
"He's above!!" Chiyo's voice rang out again, sharp with urgency.
In truth, Chiyo's warning had been unnecessary. Rasa had not relaxed his guard for even a moment—because the suffocating sense of death pressing against his skin had never once faded.
Shunshin Shimizu… wants my life.
This time, Rasa acted without hesitation. Golden sand surged at his command, instantly wrapping around his body in a dense, protective shell.
A heartbeat later—
Two streaks of lightning flashed down from midair.
A sharp, chilling shhk cut through the battlefield.
The blue lightning pierced straight through the golden defense as though it were nothing, and from within the sand came a muffled groan.
"Die!!"
Suspended in midair with no footing, Shimizu seemed momentarily exposed—and Chiyo seized the opportunity. Four of her puppets locked onto him at once, their blades flashing forward in perfect synchrony, aiming to cut him down in an instant.
Yet Shimizu showed no sign of retreat.
As if oblivious to the danger, he pressed the attack instead—flicking two strange kunai, each glowing faintly with blue light, toward the Suna formation below.
"Get back!!"
"BOOM—!"
"BOOM—!"
Twin explosions erupted in rapid succession, the shockwaves forcing everyone to shield their eyes.
And when the smoke cleared—
The figure in the air had already been torn apart into scattered droplets of water.
A water clone?!
When had he switched?!
Or… had that figure in the sky been nothing more than a clone from the very beginning?
Then where… was the real one?
The answer came with a sound—
A thousand birds crying in unison.
Chidori.
In the fleeting instant when every eye had been drawn upward, Shimizu had already moved. With a single breath's worth of distraction, he unleashed his fastest, most lethal Lightning Release—piercing straight through the golden sand that had bound Maruboshi Kōsuke and shattering it from within.
"It really is you, Shimizu..." Maruboshi Kōsuke exhaled, the tension draining from his body.
Moments earlier, as the crushing gold sand closed in around him, he had thought this would be the end. But then—without warning—wind and lightning had torn across the battlefield, and from the heavens had descended that familiar white-haired figure, like a fragment of hope falling from the sky itself.
Now, standing once more on the edge of survival, he allowed himself a faint, relieved smile.
"You finally made it."
"Sensei, take care of—… Tsunade-sama?!" Shimizu's voice faltered for the first time as he recognized the blood-soaked figure he had just saved from the puppets' blades.
One of the legendary Sannin… brought to this state?
Just how far had things deteriorated?
From what he had glimpsed while descending, Sunagakure still seemed to be assaulting the city. So how had Tsunade and his teacher nearly died here, in the very heart of Kikyo?
How had the enemy infiltrated this deeply?
What had happened?
Questions crowded his mind—but this was not the time.
The battle was not yet over.
"Be careful of that old woman," Kōsuke said quickly. "She's Chiyo. Those puppets are full of hidden mechanisms—and they're poisoned."
"And that young man… he's a Magnet Release user."
"Ah… a kekkei genkai from Suna." Shimizu gave a light, almost casual smile, the confidence in his voice unmistakable. "I've been meaning to test myself against one."
His earlier lightning strikes had already eliminated three enemies. That left four Suna shinobi… along with Chiyo—and Rasa.
The golden sand encasing Rasa slowly fell away.
He was injured.
Two ghastly wounds marked his abdomen, blood flowing steadily from them, darkening his already shadowed expression.
Rasa raised his hands.
At once, the gold sand roared upward, forming a towering wall dozens of meters high before crashing forward like a tidal wave, surging toward the three remaining Konoha shinobi.
At the same moment, Shimizu lifted his hands.
A spiraling current of blue water surged upward in response, gathering in an instant into a dense, resilient wall.
Gold met blue.
Sand collided with water in a deafening crash, the impact echoing across the battlefield as the two forces ground against each other, neither yielding.
Yet Shimizu's raised hands were not merely for defense.
They were preparation.
Two more streaks of lightning burst forth—instantaneous, unstoppable. They pierced clean through the blue water wall, then tore through the golden sand beyond without resistance.
And then—
Shimizu vanished once again.