As the main Leaf army bypassed the Cloud ambush site, movement finally erupted from the underground bunkers.
"Brother! The Leaf army has passed us. They didn't notice a thing. Time to move! Yo, yo, check it out!" The atmosphere was deathly serious, but Killer Bee still refused to skip his final rap lyric.
Those on the surface couldn't sense the depths, but those underground could easily track the movement of a massive army through the seismic vibrations of their footsteps.
A, still young and possessing a cooler head than he would in later years, nodded. He turned to a nearby operative. "Transmit the status back to Lord Dodai. Tell him to prepare for the main engagement. We are commencing the raid on the rear camp now. We will provide support as soon as the target is neutralized."
Perched high on a tree branch, Saiki looked like he didn't have a care in the world. His full attention was on the Flying Thunder God kunai.
Under the suppression of the Auspicious Cloud, he used his own chakra to activate Minato's formula. Although he couldn't actually jump, he could feel the specific spatial frequency and the corresponding shifts in the seals.
To learn the Flying Thunder God, one usually had to first memorize the space-time formula, then learn to sense it, and finally use the seal as a lever to move through space.
But Saiki was a cheat code. He was sensing the fundamental nature of the space itself. It was the difference between knowing how to use a smartphone and knowing how to build one from scratch.
If Saiki mastered space-time, the day would come when he wouldn't need a marker at all; he would simply walk through the folds of the world through sheer understanding.
The Flying Thunder God was fast. After a few jumps, Minato returned to the rear camp and delivered the intel to Tsunade and Shikaku Nara.
The camp was low on combat personnel, and the Cloud strike team numbered a hundred men. They couldn't allow a Jinchuriki anywhere near the medical tents. Tsunade and Shikaku quickly agreed on a plan: Tsunade would lead the remaining reserves to intercept them halfway.
Just as Tsunade's unit began to mobilize, the "rats" emerged from the earth.
Saiki, who had been deep in his study, lifted his head. He looked toward the approaching signatures and frowned. "This is getting a bit dicey. A Tailed Beast Ball is a nasty thing to deal with... and Tsunade and Shizune are still back there."
Saiki stood up. With a casual flick, he embedded the marked kunai into the branch at his feet.
Just as he hadn't wanted the mark on his skin, he had no intention of carrying it on his person. He was genuinely afraid that if Minato suddenly teleported next to him, he wouldn't be able to resist the urge to cut the man's head off.
Perhaps it was a "woman thing."
Saiki and Minato just seemed naturally inclined to dislike each other—a mix of conflicting philosophies and the natural repulsion between two apex prodigies.
Like a graceful predator, Saiki's silhouette became a blur, appearing on a distant branch. The branch he had just left didn't even shiver, a testament to his absolute physical control and agility.
With another flicker, he was gone. He was heading out alone to face a hundred-man Cloud strike team, including two of the world's most dangerous warriors.
Despite having bypassed the main army, the Cloud unit remained cautious. They moved through the forest in total silence, a column of ghosts marching steadily toward their objective.
"Water Style: Spiral Water Vortex!"
Saiki's unique cultivation system made his ability to hide his presence absolute. Not a single Cloud ninja noticed Saiki lurking on their right flank, waiting for the column to pass before striking from the rear.
"SHIT! LOOK OUT!"
It wasn't until Saiki prepped a massive, wide-area Ninjutsu that the surge of chakra became impossible to hide. The Cloud finally spotted him, but the warning was a second too late.
The Spiral Water Vortex was Saiki's fusion of the Rasengan's rotation with the Nature and Shape Transformation of Water Style. Because it required no hand signs, its activation speed was terrifying.
In three breaths, a catastrophic water cyclone formed in Saiki's palms.
With his current reserves, the power of this jutsu was firmly in the "Super S-Rank" category. Its raw destructive output was on par with a Tailed Beast Ball.
BOOM!
The moment the water vortex left his hands, it expanded exponentially. In a heartbeat, it became a gargantuan, hundred-meter-tall pillar of water, twenty meters wide.
Everywhere it touched, the top layer of the earth was shredded. Trees that took five men to encircle were snapped like toothpicks, sucked into the vortex, and twisted into wood pulp.
Earth counters Water—the Cloud ninja who reacted in time frantically cast Earth Style defenses. But it depended on the "tier" of the jutsu.
A foot-thick, ten-foot-tall mud wall was nothing more than a child's sandcastle before the onslaught of a skyscraper-sized tsunami.
The water vortex showed zero mercy. It swallowed everything in its path, grinding the Cloud unit into the earth. When the water finally dissipated, all that remained was a trench fifteen meters wide and several meters deep.
Dozens of kilometers away, Minato Namikaze teleported to the tree branch where he'd left his kunai. Finding the blade pinned to the wood and Saiki long gone, he was momentarily baffled. Did the Cloud find him and take him out?
The thought was laughable. A second later, a massive spike of chakra erupted in the distance. Minato looked up and saw a pillar of water reaching for the heavens. He finally understood what was happening.
After Minato had reported back, Tsunade—terrified that Saiki would do something reckless—had ordered Minato to head back to his side immediately. Saiki was proving to be even more "reckless" than she had feared.
Minato didn't have time to process the shock. A column of terrifying, crimson chakra shot into the sky, clashing against the remains of the water vortex.
MOOOO!
ROAR!!
The primal scream of a beast shattered the silence of the vast forest, sending clouds of birds into the sky and causing every wild animal for miles to flee in terror.
It was that familiar, suffocating chakra—wicked, freezing, and violent. A predatory grin spread across Saiki's face. He drew 'Thunderstorm', his body coiled for the kill.
The Eight-Tails had entered its own high-speed rotation, successfully generating enough centrifugal force to offset the water vortex. But the cost was heavy. The ambush had wiped out nearly a third of the strike team instantly. Gyuki itself had been shredded by the high-pressure water blades; its body was slick with chakra-blood, and several of its tentacles had been severed.
Tanking a Super S-Rank jutsu with one's body was a miserable experience, even for a Tailed Beast. Killer Bee dropped the transformation and collapsed to his knees, gasping for air.
Thanks to the beast's protection, A and half the unit had survived relatively unscathed.
"BEE! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!" A roared in a fit of protective fury.
"I'm fine, Brother... just... winded." Most of the damage had been absorbed by the beast, but as they shared a single life-force, Bee was still feeling the feedback.
While the two were putting on a display of brotherly concern, a mocking voice drifted down from above.
"You two have such a touching relationship. Why don't you just get married and get it over with?"
Hearing the biting, mocking sarcasm, A whipped his head toward the source. His eyes bulged with a celestial fury, his dark face turning a shade of purple-red as his temper exploded.
A handsome, smiling boy stood on a massive branch, idly holding a longsword.
The sight caused a momentary glitch in A's brain. Despite the boy's physical development, the lingering youth in his features marked him clearly as a child. A couldn't understand how a kid could be this arrogant.
"You?!" Killer Bee rasped.
"Oh, long time no see, you Tailed Beast moron." Saiki continued his cheerful mockery.
Saiki wasn't rushing the engagement. Now that the ambush was over, his tactical advantage was gone. Facing both A and Bee simultaneously was a heavy burden, even for him.
Furthermore, he sensed Minato Namikaze closing in at high speed. Brawling was fun, but getting injured for no reason was a poor investment.
Killer Bee usually tossed around insults like "fool" and "bastard" himself, but being called a "Tailed Beast moron" by a brat sent him into a blinding rage. His previously weakened aura reignited with a violent heat.
"Who the hell are you calling a moron, you brat?! Bakayaro!"
Looking at his brother's near-aneurysm, A asked with mounting curiosity, "Bee, who the hell is this kid?"
"Brother, that's Saiki Shiroya. I can't believe the bastard is still alive." Bee explained. Hearing the name, a dark, heavy grin spread across A's face.
During the night raid, with the Leaf ninja interference and the darkness before dawn, A hadn't gotten a clear look at the boy's face. But with Bee's identification, the memory of the "Thunder Fang" clicked into place.
"Oh? So the Great Lord A didn't even remember me? I guess I'll have to give you a memory that sticks today."
With those words, Saiki transformed into a blur of motion and launched his attack. Minato was almost here; he needed to start the show.