Zander
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Chapter 88 - He’ll crawl home
🕑 Added 2025-07-07 00:54:18 +0000 UTCChapter 88 - He’ll crawl home
The forest near the border was dense, quiet, and soaked in a stillness that felt like a held breath.
Deep within its heart, hidden by slope and seals, Toroi stood at the edge of a makeshift Kumo hideout, arms folded and jaw tight. His men, those who remained from their last failed border push, were nursing wounds and bruised pride.
His Magnetic Release had deflected most of Kakashi’s assault, but the damage to morale was done.
“That Hatake bastard was faster than I thought,” one grunt muttered.
Toroi grunted. “He’s not the threat. It’s the village behind him.”
One shinobi asked, “What do we do now? Wait for recall?”
Before Toroi could answer, a ripple of chakra warned them. A second Kumo strike squad arrived, stepping silently from the trees like knives from shadow.
Their leader was a veteran, cold-eyed, tactical, precise. No name was given. Only orders.
The sealed scroll was opened before the fire.
“By the Raikage’s direct command,” the leader read, “you are to attack and destroy a known Konoha outpost on the border. This is a live mission. It is to be denied if discovered. If captured, you were never sent.”
One of Toroi’s bruised shinobi coughed. “We barely made it back last time”
“We weren’t serious last time,” Toroi snapped. “We tested the shell. Now we crack it.”
The second squad leader’s brow twitched. “This is meant to provoke. Not a war declaration.”
Toroi scoffed. “It’s the same thing.”
And without waiting for further delay, Toroi led the merged squads deeper into Fire Country...
The Kumo strike force moved in tight formation, suppressed chakra, scattering scent and sound.
Ahead lay a small Konoha outpost, a defensive extension built on a ridgeline. Only three visible watchtowers. It looked under-defended.
“On my mark,” Toroi whispered.
But before they could launch the first jutsu
The wind stopped.
A pressure fell over the clearing like a mountain being lowered from the sky.
Then
“You brought this to yourself. Now die.”
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
Chakra signatures flared suddenly, not from the outpost, but from the trees surrounding the Kumo force.
Ambush.
Leaf shinobi burst from hidden positions. Genma’s senbon whistled. Yugao’s blade glinted in a dive. Raido slammed a suppression seal into the ground, cutting off escape paths. Tenzo reshaped the terrain, raising earth walls to trap.
And behind them all came thunder.
BOOM.
The forest split.
Hajime landed like a falling star.
The psychic pressure alone knocked half the Kumo team to their knees.
Toroi’s eyes widened as the armored juggernaut emerged through the smoke. His halberd flared with crackling psychic energy. His blue-lit visor scanned the battlefield like a predator.
He stood 2.32 meters tall in full armor, plated in matte silver-gray with psychic etchings glowing faintly along the pauldrons and vambraces. A great halberd hung across his back. The inscription on his chestplate shimmered faintly, unreadable to all but him.
The Kumo shinobi didn’t know who or what he was.
Only that he wasn’t here to talk.
One of the attackers raised a jutsu, too slow. Hajime moved.
Fast.
He rammed the blunt end of his halberd into a shinobi’s gut, shattering ribs. Spun, cleaved through a second’s neck. Parried lightning with his armored forearm and deflected it back into the trees in a burst of white heat.
Then
His right gauntlet hissed.
The plating slid open.
Revealing a weapon built into the forearm, shaped like a coiled beast of steel and thought.
The psychic cannon.
Blue plasma charged silently, then roared.
KZZZZZZAKKK—
A focused cone of compressed blue psychic force erupted forward, disintegrating trees, rock, and shinobi alike in a shrieking vortex of annihilation.
Three Kumo ninja died instantly, two reduced to ash, one vaporized mid-hand sign.
The rest screamed, scattering.
Toroi shielded himself just barely with magnetic chakra, his coat scorched, hair singed.
He looked around in disbelief. His squad was breaking. The ambush was too clean. The damage too fast.
He turned, trying to flee
Hajime blinked.
He reappeared beside Toroi in a ripple of warped space and slammed his gauntlet into the man’s chest.
CRACK.
Toroi’s ribs shattered. His body hit the ground without sound.
The rest tried to run, but Kakashi’s team moved with precision. Genma disabled two with a hail of senbon. Yugao cut down another in mid-sprint. Raido used his seals to pin the legs of fleeing shinobi like binding vines.
By the time the trees fell silent again...
No Kumo shinobi stood.
One survivor, barely breathing, lay half-buried in a ditch. Hajime approached, then turned away.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Spare him?”
“He’ll crawl home,” Hajime said. “That’s all he needs to do.”
Kakashi said nothing. His team stood in the clearing, blood smoking in the grass, weapons still drawn.
“What happens now?” Yugao asked.
“They’ll come again,” Hajime answered. “But now they know the cost.”
The wind shifted again, carrying the scent of scorched pine and ash through the broken valley.
And the hand that struck... had not even begun.
