In the barren expanse, scattered with jagged rock cliffs both small and towering, the Shadow Guards stood firm against Obito's forces—ninjas grotesquely modified by the injection of Hashirama cells.
Navi, captain of the twenty-man Shadow Guard unit, stepped forward. The dry ground crunched faintly beneath his foot. His hands moved swiftly, forming two seals, precise and practiced. In his mind, he uttered the name of the technique he was about to release—Death's Strangle.
The moment the words settled in his thoughts, the earth before him ruptured.
Wood burst forth from the barren land, tearing through stone and soil alike, thick roots twisting upward as if alive. In an instant, they surged forward at terrifying speed, their targets locked—the fifty experimental ninjas, the results of Orochimaru's twisted work.
The enemy reacted immediately.
They scattered, bodies blurring as they leapt and twisted to evade the oncoming assault. No one was foolish enough to take such an attack head-on. Their formation broke apart as they spread wide across the rocky terrain—but the wooden tendrils pursued relentlessly, shifting direction mid-charge under Navi's control, adjusting, hunting. The target never changed.
A few among them, however, chose a different path.
Bold—or perhaps mad—they charged straight toward Navi and his advancing wood release. Some relied on raw taijutsu, fists clenched tight as they dashed forward. Others drew weapons, blades glinting faintly under the harsh light.
But one among them stood out.
His arm—one of them—was no longer flesh.
It resembled tree bark, rough and layered, veins of wood running through it like a living trunk. Without hesitation, he extended that arm forward. The surface split and shifted, and from it, sharpened wooden spikes began to grow, pushing outward with a faint cracking sound. Within moments, they reached nearly a foot in length, rigid and deadly.
Then, with a sudden thrust, he fired them.
The wooden projectiles shot forward, slicing through the air as they collided head-on with Navi's advancing wood release.
But Navi's wood release was far stronger.
The incoming spikes shattered uselessly against the surging mass, splintering on impact without leaving so much as a mark. The advancing tendrils didn't slow—they pressed on, relentless and alive.
In the next instant, those same wooden limbs coiled around the man with the bark-like arm.
They wrapped tight.
Before he could even speak—before he could gather the will to resist—his body jerked. A faint tremor ran through him as the wood tightened its grip. Then, suddenly, his chakra began to drain. It flowed out of him uncontrollably, pulled into the very wood that restrained him.
His eyes widened. What—?
But it was already too late.
Within moments, his chakra was completely sucked dry. The wooden coils constricted further, creaking as they tightened, and with a sickening snap, his body was crushed like a brittle twig.
As for the other four who had charged forward, they met no better fate.
One of them exhaled a burst of fire style, flames roaring as they surged toward the incoming wood. The heat scorched the surface, blackening parts of the tendrils—but only barely. Beneath that charred layer, the wood remained completely unharmed, pushing forward without pause.
Before he could react, a thick wooden limb wrapped around his waist.
It tightened instantly.
His breath hitched as the same sensation took hold—chakra draining rapidly from his body, slipping away no matter how hard he tried to hold onto it. Panic flickered across his face, but it lasted only a moment.
The pressure increased.
And then—crack.
His body broke under the force, just like the one before him.
Another attacker, wielding a sword, lunged forward with precision. With a sharp swing, he managed to slice through one of the advancing wooden branches. The severed piece fell—but even as it did, something unnatural occurred.
From the cut point, the wood began to grow again.
It split.
In a blink, two new branches sprouted from the same spot, writhing like living serpents. One shot forward like a spear, driving toward his left shoulder. The other coiled around his right arm—the very arm holding the sword—locking it in place with crushing force.
His grip faltered.
Before he could recover, more branches surged in from every direction. They wrapped around his legs, his torso, his neck—binding him completely. The sword slipped from his grasp, clattering uselessly against the stone.
Then the draining began.
He gritted his teeth, struggling, but his strength faded rapidly as his chakra was siphoned away. The wood tightened, layer upon layer, until his resistance ceased entirely—his body going limp as the life was drawn out of him.
Within a minute, all five ninjas who had dared to charge Navi and his wood release were completely destroyed.
They had tried—each in their own way—to put up a fight. But it hadn't mattered. Navi's strength, his control over wood release, was overwhelmingly beyond anything they could have imagined. Against it, their resistance felt almost insignificant.
A faint silence lingered for a heartbeat, broken only by the subtle creaking of the wooden tendrils retracting and shifting across the fractured ground.
The other Shadow Guards did not waste that moment.
Seeing Navi take action—and the enemy forces scatter in response—the remaining members of the twenty-man unit moved immediately. Their targets were clear: the original fifty had now been reduced to forty-five.
In the next instant, they vanished.
Using Shave, their bodies flickered and reappeared across different parts of the battlefield, covering distance in blinks. One moment they stood in formation—the next, they were already among the enemy ranks.
This movement technique, Shave, had been created by Shanks with the assistance of Raphael, combining Shanks' exclusive movement method with a refined application of chakra. At its core, chakra was concentrated into the lower foot, compressing intensely at a single point. The moment it met the ground, a powerful reaction force was generated—like a coiled spring releasing all at once—producing a burst of propulsion that launched the body forward at extreme speed.
A sharp crack of displaced air echoed faintly each time they moved.
Shanks had named this technique Shave, one of the Six Powers of the Marines.
With such speed, the Shadow Guards reached their intended targets almost instantly.
Steel flashed.
Most of them wielded swords, blades cutting clean arcs through the air as they struck without hesitation. A few, however, preferred a more direct approach—fists clenched tight, bodies moving with precision as they engaged in close combat.
Across the battlefield, figures appeared and attacked in the same breath—some with cold, precise sword strikes, others with raw, controlled force—each Shadow Guard executing their assault with deadly intent.
The speed of their strikes—their movement—was overwhelming.
They appeared, attacked, and vanished in the same breath, their presence flickering across the battlefield like shadows given form. Even when a blow managed to land and injure one of Obito's soldiers, it rarely lasted. The wounds began to close almost immediately, flesh knitting back together under the influence of Hashirama cells.
But the same held true for the Shadow Guards.
If any of them had been injured, they would have recovered just as quickly.
The difference, however, was simple—none of Obito's soldiers could actually harm them.
With the Shave technique, the Shadow Guards moved too fast, their bodies shifting and slipping past incoming attacks with fluid precision. Blades cut through empty air, fists struck nothing but afterimages. And beyond that, every single one of them possessed Observation Haki.
They knew.
They knew where each attack would come from, the direction, the timing—everything. Before an enemy even completed their motion, the Shadow Guards had already adjusted. To the soldiers of Obito, their attacks became meaningless—swung into nothingness, avoided as if predicted before they even began.
This… is impossible…
Among the Shadow Guards, those who fought with their fists stood out the most.
They were the bolder ones.
They did not bother to evade every attack—not because they relied on recovery, but because they simply didn't need to. To them, most attacks weren't even worth dodging.
The same Shadow Guard who had earlier shattered a rock cliff with the sheer force of his twin-fisted strike now stood at the center of three of Obito's soldiers.
His upper body was completely coated in Armament Haki.
A deep, absolute black covered his torso and arms, the hardened layer gleaming faintly under the harsh light. Every exposed inch of his upper body carried that same impenetrable defense.
He didn't move.
He let them come.
The three soldiers attacked him head-on—blades, fists, and chakra-infused strikes crashing against his body in rapid succession. The impact echoed dully, force meeting something unyielding.
Not even a scratch appeared.
Their attacks failed to penetrate the defense of his Armament Haki.
For a split second, hesitation flickered in their eyes.
That was enough.
His counterattack came instantly—his fists moved with brutal force, each strike carrying overwhelming power. One soldier was sent crashing back, his body twisting unnaturally mid-air. Another took a direct hit to the torso, the impact folding him inward as the air was driven out of his lungs.
And the third—
The Shadow Guard stepped in, closing the distance in a blur, his hand snapping forward.
He grabbed the man's neck.
For a brief moment, their eyes met.
Then—
Crack.
With a single, ruthless twist, the neck broke.
The body went limp instantly, collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
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