A cold gleam flashed across the blade in Shimizu's hand as he swung it down toward a Sunagakure shinobi.
Clang!
The enemy barely managed to raise his kunai in time, blocking the strike by a hair's breadth.
"So this is all you've got…?" the Sand ninja gritted out, though a bead of cold sweat slid down his cheek. He could feel it clearly—the opponent's strength far surpassed his own.
Still, the wind blade forming in his right hand had already taken shape. If he could just land it, this arrogant Konoha ninja would regret ever stepping onto this battlefield…
Their unit—a full Sand battalion composed of nine teams, thirty-six shinobi in total—had encountered these two Konoha ninja not long after entering the city.
They had expected an easy, one-sided slaughter.
Instead… the reality was the complete opposite.
The two Konoha shinobi moved at terrifying speeds. Every flicker of lightning and flash of azure light meant another life taken—another comrade falling.
Wait…
Azure light?!
A sudden surge of turquoise radiance flooded his vision—
"Seventh," Shimizu murmured.
The unexpected arc of azure light pierced straight through the man's chest, clean and merciless.
Another life ended.
The look of disbelief and unwillingness in his opponent's eyes… Shimizu had seen it far too many times by now.
With a blade infused with Wind Release chakra, he could strike from distances far beyond what his enemies anticipated—turning even the smallest opening into a fatal blow.
As long as he caught them off guard and struck a vital point, he could end a fight in an instant, using the bare minimum of chakra.
Right now… he couldn't afford to fight prolonged battles centered on large-scale ninjutsu.
"Be careful! Their weapons are chakra-enhanced—don't engage them at close range recklessly!" the Sand captain barked a warning.
So they're not all idiots… Shimizu thought, realizing that from here on out, things would become more troublesome. An alert enemy was always harder to deal with.
He cast a glance toward Orochimaru.
A brilliant flash of lightning burst forth—and in the next instant, Orochimaru, wielding the Kusanagi blade, cut down another opponent.
That made six.
At the same moment, two Sand shinobi who had just begun to retreat after hearing their leader's warning—
Suddenly exploded.
Their bodies burst apart like overinflated balloons, instantly reduced to a spray of blood and shredded flesh.
The sheer brutality of it stunned everyone present.
Even Shimizu hadn't seen Orochimaru form hand seals—nor could he tell what kind of technique it was.
He could only guess from the effect… it had to be some form of Wind Release.
And yet, in Orochimaru's hands, even the most ordinary Wind Release technique became a weapon of absolute slaughter.
The timing was what made it truly terrifying.
Those two shinobi had died in the very next instant after Orochimaru struck down the previous one—
A seamless chain of attacks, with no gap in between.
That brought Orochimaru's kill count to eight.
Twenty-one enemies remained.
But against these two… numbers like that meant very little.
Among the remaining forces, only three were jonin.
A fully staffed battalion with three jonin could already be considered a main combat force.
However, the backbone of any ninja army was still its chunin.
And unless their numbers reached an overwhelming scale, only jonin could pose any real threat to shinobi of Shimizu and Orochimaru's caliber.
Because the gap between chunin and jonin was enormous.
For the two of them, cutting down chunin had long since become routine—almost inevitable.
And in less than two minutes, the entire battalion lay dead.
Corpses littered the battlefield.
"Uzuki-kun, your swordsmanship is truly remarkable—even I fall far short of it," Orochimaru said, flicking the blood from his blade as he began walking toward the next area of combat.
Shimizu swept his gaze across the battlefield.
Seventeen kills—all achieved through sheer speed and the lethal reach of his Wind Release blade.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, had slain twelve with his sword—but the rest had fallen to his uncanny, almost invisible Wind Release techniques, including two jonin.
That kind of attack… was the true definition of unavoidable.
The enemy wouldn't even know when they had been struck, or by what technique—
"Orochimaru… your Wind Release is the truly terrifying one."
To see a living person reduced to nothing more than a cloud of blood in an instant—who wouldn't be horrified?
Especially the last two jonin from Sunagakure. Their will to fight had all but collapsed.
Perhaps… they had recognized Orochimaru himself?
The Wind Calamity… the title was clearly well-earned.
"You flatter me, Uzuki-kun. These are merely trivial tricks," Orochimaru replied lightly.
"You're being modest," Shimizu said out of courtesy, though he had no intention of following the same path.
Wind Release… his talent in it was limited, and time even more so.
Being able to use Great Breakthrough proficiently, and wield his chakra-infused blade with flexibility, was already enough for him.
A person had to know when to be satisfied.
He glanced ahead in the direction Orochimaru was heading. Flames soared into the sky in the distance—there was undoubtedly a fierce battle unfolding there.
And that weighed heavily on his mind.
Shukaku's defeat hadn't slowed Sunagakure's advance in the slightest. If anything, their resolve seemed even more desperate, more all-in.
Or perhaps… Shukaku had merely been a vanguard?
Then again, it was far more likely that they had never imagined something as powerful as Shukaku would be the first to fall from the battlefield.
As time passed, Kikyo Castle's defenses had gone from a single breach… to near-total collapse across the entire line.
It wasn't hard to imagine what would happen once tens of thousands of Sand shinobi flooded through—
This city would drown in blood.
The two of them quickened their pace, cutting down scattered Sand ninja along the way.
Yet despite killing dozens more enemies, their expressions only grew heavier.
Because within Kikyo Castle…
Corpses were everywhere. Blood flowed like rivers.
And every time they came across a large cluster of bodies, it was always the same—
Konoha's side had been completely wiped out.
Five times now.
Not once had it been different.
Hundreds of comrades… gone, just like that.
On some of their faces, Shimizu could still see the lingering traces of unwillingness.
They had died with their eyes open—some even with bloody tears streaking down their cheeks.
They hadn't died in peace.
They couldn't.
"They're too fragile," Orochimaru remarked coolly.
"Yes… Sunagakure shouldn't have this many elite fighters," Shimizu agreed, sensing something deeply wrong.
In this kind of brutal urban battle, the absence of enemy corpses was glaring.
Konoha wasn't this weak.
And Sunagakure wasn't this strong.
Something… had gone beyond their expectations.
"We need to move faster," Shimizu said suddenly, a flicker of concern for his teacher surfacing in his heart.
"Yes… we'll have to take another risk," Orochimaru replied, sharing the same thought.
Shimizu couldn't help but glance at him.
For a moment, it felt as though Orochimaru wasn't quite as cold-blooded as he had once believed.
After all, both of them were running dangerously low on chakra—even after taking soldier pills.
And low chakra meant cautious tactics.
Yet now, they were choosing to push forward aggressively, despite the risks.
It was… unexpectedly human.
Thinking back on all his interactions with Orochimaru so far, Shimizu began to wonder—
Perhaps the man wasn't as monstrous as he had once assumed.
"Who's there?!" Shimizu suddenly barked.
Even without maintaining a wide-range sensory field, his awareness on the battlefield remained razor-sharp.
A dangerous glint flickered in Orochimaru's eyes as well, clearly growing impatient with whatever was lurking nearby.
After all, they had already encountered several ambushes like this from Sunagakure.
Shimizu's left hand quietly rested on the hilt of his blade. The slightest hint of hostility—
And he would strike like thunder, eliminating every threat in an instant.
"Senpai! It's me!"