Thunder rumbled. Ye Zi's rapid steps slowed to a halt as a tall, broad-shouldered man blocked his path.
The clear ring of a blade leaving its sheath was swallowed by the storm. Lightning flared across Ye Zi's body, arcs crackling around him; several thick bolts scorched black marks into the ground at his feet.
No Sage Mode. No black lightning. Only ordinary Lightning Release flowing through his body.
Ye Zi held his long sword and stared coldly at the man descending from the air, Kitsuchi.
He remembered this one. They had crossed paths once before in an inn within the Land of Earth. White Zetsu's intelligence had included his name and background: Kitsuchi, son of the Tsuchikage Ōnoki. One of Iwagakure's strongest shinobi, who nearly matched his father's power. Someone worth a brief moment of attention.
"Revenge, is it…" Ye Zi thought silently. He already knew why Kitsuchi was here.
Having left the battlefield behind, Kitsuchi had come for one reason alone, to avenge his wife's death at Ye Zi's hands. When the sensory unit detected Ye Zi and reported it, Kitsuchi had rushed over immediately.
This was his only chance. He would never let it pass.
Whether he could win or not didn't matter. In this moment, this was what he had to do.
"Earth Release: Heavendrop Stone Dome!"
Without a word of warning, Kitsuchi formed hand seals.
Above Ye Zi, a massive slab of rock, twenty meters wide like a gigantic pot lid, materialized and began to descend.
At the same time, Kitsuchi's hands flashed through another string of seals, his expression hard as stone. He pressed one hand to the ground.
"Earth Release: Moving Earth Core!"
Ye Zi tilted his head slightly, watching the falling rock with detached calm. He prepared to step aside, but the ground suddenly began to quake beneath his feet.
"He's fast at weaving signs. As expected of one of the top shinobi in his village," Ye Zi noted inwardly.
The ground beneath him heaved upward, lifting him toward the descending stone lid. The violent shaking could have thrown anyone off balance, but Ye Zi channeled chakra into his soles, adhering firmly to the earth. The tremors failed to disturb him in the slightest.
Then, he swung his sword upward.
A flash of pure light streaked through the center of the massive boulder. Without even a sound, the giant rock split cleanly in two, crashing down to either side with a thunderous roar.
The Heavendrop Stone Dome was cleaved in a single stroke. The upheaved earth halted its rise, the tremors fading.
Kitsuchi's face showed no surprise. As expected, this was a terrifying opponent.
In his battle with the White Zetsu clones earlier, he had refrained from using large-scale Earth Release techniques, conserving chakra by coating his arms with stone instead. Each punch had crushed a clone, achieving the greatest effect for minimal cost.
But against Ye Zi, he hadn't held back at all. Two mid-to-high-level Earth Release techniques right from the start, and they'd been shattered effortlessly.
More than anything, what unsettled him was...
He isn't using black lightning… or Sage Mode.
Is he… underestimating me?
Information about Ye Zi had long since been shared by Konoha with all the major villages. His signature techniques, Sage Mode and the deadly Black Lightning, were what made him so feared, giving him unmatched solo combat ability.
Yet the man before him used neither. His aura resembled that of the Fourth Raikage, pure Lightning Release cloaking his body.
Ye Zi had no idea what was going through Kitsuchi's mind. He simply didn't want to waste chakra needlessly, or time.
Madara's unexpected release from Edo Tensei had only made him more desperate to revive the Ten Tails as soon as possible.
I can't waste even a single minute here.
His eyes grew cold. With a smooth motion, Ye Zi flipped his wrist and slid his long blade back into its sheath.
Barely ten seconds had passed since he'd drawn it... one cut, one strike, and it was already back at his side.
He had made up his mind. His hands flashed through seals at high speed.
Seeing this, Kitsuchi's focus sharpened to its limit. He knew coming alone to confront Ye Zi was reckless, but he also knew there were reasons he had to do it.
Precisely because he understood how powerful Ye Zi was, he dared not relax for a moment.
"Wood Release: Wood Clone."
With a soft thud, a duplicate formed beside Ye Zi.
"One-tenth of my chakra should be more than enough for you."
Ye Zi glanced sideways at his clone, then back at Kitsuchi. That clone carried exactly a tenth of his chakra, left behind to deal with Kitsuchi so he wouldn't have to waste another second.
"Arrogant!"
For the first time, the always-composed Kitsuchi's expression changed. Rage burned in his eyes. He had restrained that fury since the moment he saw Ye Zi, forcing himself to stay calm for the fight.
But hearing those words, learning that Ye Zi thought a mere fragment of his power was enough to defeat him, he could no longer contain it.
He admitted that Ye Zi was strong. The intelligence from Konoha and the Cloud made that clear. But even so, he refused to belittle himself. To face an opponent who believed one-tenth of his strength was sufficient was an insult his pride could not endure.
Ye Zi, however, couldn't have cared less. To be blunt, he didn't even consider Kitsuchi worth noticing. Even if Ōnoki himself appeared before him, it would make no difference.
Call it arrogance if one must, but for someone with absolute power, it was simply confidence.
"One-tenth of my chakra… I wonder how long it'll take Kū to refine that much again," Ye Zi thought idly. He ignored Kitsuchi entirely and continued walking forward.
This war was the most critical, and final step of his plan. Even a slight waste of chakra could twist the outcome in a disastrous way. He couldn't afford that.
Next, he needed to find Kushina as quickly as possible, releasing Edo Tensei coffins along the way so Orochimaru could distribute the forces strategically.
Not much time had passed since the battle began, but Ye Zi already knew that the clone army alone couldn't hold off the Five Nations' coalition. The limited number of Edo Tensei had to be placed carefully across the fronts. In the end, the main Edo Tensei force led by the First Hokage would crush the Allied vanguard, that battlefield was "Front 1." Once it fell, that army would march onward with the remaining clones to "Front 2," advancing step by step.
Kitsuchi saw his reflection absent from Ye Zi's eyes, he wasn't even seen.
Drawing in a deep breath, he turned his anger into momentum and charged straight at Ye Zi's real body.
Naturally, the wood clone stepped in to block him.
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