The wind screamed across the barren ice plains, carrying razor-sharp flakes that stung like glass.
Team 7 marched forward in a tight diamond formation. Princess Yukie walked in the dead center. Her head was bowed. Her thick fur coat was pulled tight against the biting cold, but her compliance was absolute. Kenji’s words in the ice cave had stripped her of her arrogant persona entirely. She didn't complain. She didn't try to run. She just placed one foot in front of the other, trusting the dark-haired genin who had completely dominated her psychological defenses.
The silence of the march was deafening.
Then, the snowpack thirty yards ahead violently exploded.
Two massive geysers of crushed ice and frozen dirt shot into the sky. Two blurs of white mechanical armor dropped from the jagged glacial cliffs above, landing on the trail with a bone-rattling crash.
Nadare Rouga and Fubuki Kakuyoku. They were back. And the killing intent rolling off them melted the snow around their boots.
"You killed Mizore," Nadare growled. He slowly stood up to his full height. The mechanical chakra core embedded in the center of his heavy chest plate hummed with a high-pitched, vibrating whine. "You won’t be getting a peaceful death."
Kakashi immediately reached for his headband, his lone eye narrowing. "Formation! Protect the client! Their armor absorbs—"
Sasuke didn't wait for Kakashi’s orders.
He didn't care about the formation. He didn't care about the client. His dark eyes were locked entirely onto the enemy in front of him.
I need to prove myself, Sasuke’s internal monologue screamed. The humiliation from the docks was a festering wound in his chest. I won't be outdone by that idiot Naruto. And I won't be looked down on by Kenji.
Sasuke blurred forward, moving at the absolute limit of his physical speed. His Sharingan spun furiously to life, the two tomoe tracking every micro-movement of Nadare’s armor.
His hands moved in a flawless, blinding blur. Tiger. Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger.
He drew a massive breath, his lungs expanding as chakra superheated inside his chest.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Sasuke exhaled violently. A massive, roaring sphere of intense orange flame erupted from his mouth. The heat was instantaneous and suffocating. The inferno swallowed Nadare completely, creating a massive wave of hissing steam as the surrounding snowpack flash-vaporized.
Sasuke landed on a patch of black, scorched earth. He smirked, his chest heaving. It was a direct, unavoidable hit.
The heavy curtain of steam slowly parted.
Sasuke’s smirk vanished.
Nadare stood exactly where he was. He didn't even have a scorch mark on his white armor. The glowing mechanical core on his chest was spinning furiously, emitting a blinding red light. It acted like a localized black hole, violently sucking the remaining wisps of fire directly into the metal node.
"Warm," Nadare mocked, brushing a droplet of melted water off his shoulder pad.
Sasuke froze. His eyes widened in absolute shock. A C-Rank Fire Style jutsu, delivered at point-blank range, didn't even singe the man's eyebrows.
Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in Sasuke's veins. He needed more power. He needed raw, piercing lethality.
Sasuke grabbed his left wrist with his right hand. He channeled every ounce of his remaining chakra downward. Blue lightning sparked to life. The sharp, deafening screech of a thousand birds ripped through the howling blizzard. Uncontrollable arcs of electricity lashed out, scoring black, jagged burns into the ice beneath his feet.
He charged. His speed doubled. The Chidori trailed behind him like a comet of pure destruction. He thrust his hand forward, aiming the lightning blade directly at Nadare's heart.
"Die!" Sasuke roared, putting all of his weight, all of his pride, into the strike.
His lightning-coated hand slammed into the center of Nadare's chest plate.
There was no explosion. There was no piercing crunch of metal and bone.
The screeching sound of the birds instantly died. The blue lightning simply vanished. The armor’s core whined louder, absorbing the high-density A-Rank jutsu like a dry sponge soaking up a spill.
Sasuke hung there, his arm extended, his hand pressed harmlessly against cold metal. His ultimate attack, the technique Kakashi had trusted him with, did absolutely nothing.
Nadare chuckled. It was a dark, pitying sound.
He reached out and wrapped his massive, armored hand directly around Sasuke’s throat. He lifted the Uchiha clean off the ground with one arm, choking off his air supply.
"Is this the last of the legendary Uchiha?" Nadare sneered, leaning in close so Sasuke could see the mocking glint in his eyes. "Pathetic."
Nadare drove his heavy, mechanical knee directly up into Sasuke’s ribs.
CRUNCH.
The sickening sound of bone fracturing echoed over the ice. Sasuke spat a glob of blood, his eyes rolling back in excruciating pain. Nadare casually tossed him aside like a broken doll. Sasuke hit the hard snow, skipping twice before coming to a halt. He gasped desperately for air, clutching his shattered ribs. He couldn't move. He was completely outclassed. Utterly humiliated.
Across the battlefield, the fight took a wildly different turn.
Fubuki launched herself into the air using her mechanical wings. She released a deadly, high-speed volley of razor-sharp ice swallows that rained down like shrapnel.
Naruto didn't freeze. He didn't panic. The hesitant, loudmouth kid was gone.
He calmly crossed his fingers.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Five clones spawned in a circle around him. Not fifty. Just five.
They didn't charge blindly, screaming about becoming Hokage. They moved with terrifying, synchronized precision. Three clones dashed to the left, throwing a coordinated barrage of shuriken. Fubuki scoffed, raising her armored arm to manifest a thick hexagonal ice shield. The weapons deflected with sharp clangs.
But the shield created a blind spot.
The remaining two clones dropped low, sliding on their knees across the slick ice directly under the shield's line of sight. They swung their legs in a perfect, dual sweep aimed right at Fubuki’s mechanical boots.
Fubuki noticed at the last second. "Predictable!" she shouted, activating her wing thrusters to jump backward and evade the sweep.
She landed gracefully on the ice. But her eyes widened as she looked up.
The real Naruto was already ten feet in the air directly above her. He had used the clones' ground assault as a pure decoy. He twisted his body, driving his heel down in a brutal axe kick aimed squarely at the back of her neck.
SMACK.
Fubuki didn't have time to absorb the blow. Naruto's heel connected hard with her unarmored shoulder. She was driven face-first into the frozen dirt, her mechanical wings sparking violently from the impact.
It was tactical. It was efficient. Kenji’s harsh mentorship had fundamentally rewired the Jinchuriki's combat instincts.
Back with Sasuke, Nadare slowly walked over to where the Uchiha lay gasping in the snow.
"Time to die, kid," Nadare grunted. He raised his heavy, mechanical boot, aiming right for the downed Uchiha's skull to crush it like a melon.
Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut. His body refused to obey his commands. He waited for the crushing impact of death.
It never landed.
CLANG.
A sound like a temple bell being struck echoed through the clearing.
Kenji stood over Sasuke. He didn't have a weapon drawn. He had casually reached out and caught the crushing, mechanical boot with a single, bare hand. His skin shimmered faintly with the invisible, iron-hard coating of Armament Haki.
"My turn," Kenji said softly, not even looking at the Snow Ninja.
Kenji casually flicked his wrist upward.
The sheer kinetic force transferred through the boot. Nadare was violently thrown backward off his feet, skidding ten yards across the ice and digging a deep trench in the snow before he managed to right himself.
Kenji looked down at Sasuke.
The Uchiha was trembling in the red-stained snow, clutching his broken ribs. His dark eyes looked up at Kenji. His pride was shattered into a million jagged pieces. He had failed. Again.
"Why..." Sasuke gasped, blood leaking past his teeth. "I saw his movements. I hit him with everything I had."
Kenji crouched down. His eyes were cold, completely void of any sympathy, camaraderie, or pity.
"You are not weak, Sasuke," Kenji whispered, his voice cutting clearly through the howling wind.
Sasuke looked up. A tiny, desperate flicker of hope sparked in his dark eyes. He was starving for validation. He needed someone to tell him it was just bad luck, just an unfair matchup.
Kenji smirked, delivering the killing blow to the Uchiha's fragile ego.
"Worse. You are obvious."
Sasuke’s Sharingan widened in sheer horror. The words hit him harder than Nadare's knee. The red glow in his eyes slowly deactivated, fading to black as he slumped back into the snow, completely and utterly crushed.
Kenji stood up. He cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders as he turned his gaze back to Nadare, who was revving his armor's core for another charge.
"Now," Kenji grinned, a dark, predatory thrill lighting up his eyes. "Let me show you how to properly break a toy."