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The sky was a churning maelstrom of yellow sand. Not only were Kakashi and the others unable to open their eyes, but even Itachi and Zetsu had been caught in the periphery of the blast and were forced to retreat, putting distance between themselves and the stinging, blinding grit.
"What do we do now?!" Choza yelled, clamping his hands tightly over his eyes to shield them from the invasive sand. This defensive measure could temporarily mitigate the effects of the sandstorm, but launching any kind of effective attack against Gengetsu under these conditions was proving virtually impossible.
"I'll go and take him down myself!" Guy declared, squeezing his eyes shut and preparing to charge headlong into the fray. He was immediately halted by Kakashi, who seized him firmly and yanked him back.
"Don't go! He's already initiated the Steam Imp Threat a second time!" Kakashi shouted. After dragging Guy back behind their defensive line, he executed the Earth Style Wall technique once more, and another thick, heavy rampart of earth surged up from the ground.
"If this just keeps repeating endlessly, how are we ever supposed to defeat Gengetsu?!" Guy demanded, his voice thick with frustration.
"The primary factor obstructing our offensive is the sand being whipped up from the beach. On ordinary, solid ground, this wouldn't be an issue. But the beach sand is soft and loose. After the explosion, the intense heat bakes the damp sand completely dry and hurls it into the air. If we can't solve this problem, mounting any kind of coherent, effective assault against him will be next to impossible," Kakashi analyzed.
"You must have a plan, don't you?" Choza pressed.
Kakashi fell silent for a moment. If they had access to something like Pain's Almighty Push, they could undoubtedly solve this problem in an instant. But right now... Almighty Push?!
A sudden spark of inspiration blazed in Kakashi's eye. "I've got it!"
"Got what?" Guy asked, bewildered.
"Wind Release! We can use the wind to—"
His words were abruptly, violently swallowed as the doppelganger detonated once more. The thunderous roar of the explosion drowned out Kakashi's voice entirely. The earthen walls, battered by the relentless shockwaves, shattered into crumbling debris. Chunks of soil and stone mixed with the swirling sand, drifting aimlessly upon the superheated updrafts generated by the successive blasts. Before Guy and Choza clamped their eyes shut, they had managed to read the shape of the words on Kakashi's lips.
In an instant, a powerful, directed gale surged to life. It merged and aligned with the natural sea breeze, blowing in a unified front towards the shore. Across the beach, it was as if an invisible wall of solid air had been erected. On one side of that wall, the air was clean and clear. On the other, it was an impenetrable, choking haze of dust. Kakashi was using his Wind Release to forcefully segregate the previously chaotic, swirling sand away from their position.
"Choza! Guy! Now!" Kakashi roared.
Choza, who had momentarily been caught off guard and disoriented, snapped back to full alertness. His body instantly compacted and curled into a massive, rotating sphere. He barreled forward, rolling directly towards the wall of wind and vanishing into the swirling grit beyond.
"Honestly... I practically laid out my weaknesses on a silver platter for you. How is it that you still can't manage to defeat me?"
As the doppelganger shrank rapidly back down in size, Gengetsu felt a wave of profound disappointment wash over him. As an elder and a predecessor, he naturally wished for the younger generation to surpass him. It would have been even more gratifying if the ones to defeat him had been shinobi of the Hidden Mist Village. But it seemed nothing was ever that straightforward. "Well, I can't be too hard on them. They aren't Kage-level shinobi, after all," Gengetsu muttered under his breath.
But just at that moment, a wall of wind erupted, reversing the course of the airborne sand and blasting it back towards him. Gengetsu felt a flicker of genuine surprise. He had written these shinobi off as helpless children, ripe for the slaughter. He hadn't anticipated them mounting an actual counter-offensive. Still, it wasn't nearly enough. This Wind Release technique could only blow the sand back at him.
It posed no direct, lethal threat. All it accomplished was buying them a brief moment to catch their breath. Soon enough, his doppelganger would swell and detonate again, allowing him to resume his assault. These younger shinobi might be able to withstand one or two more explosions, but the true, terrifying brilliance of the Steam Imp Threat lay in its capacity for infinite, perpetual repetition. It meant that these Hidden Leaf shinobi would eventually, inevitably, run out of the strength to resist and be forced to absorb the full, annihilating brunt of his attack.
Gengetsu sighed inwardly with regret. He genuinely, desperately wanted to know the true extent of the current generation of Kage-level shinobi's power!
Just as he was steeling himself to initiate the next phase of his assault, a massive, compacted sphere of flesh and bone burst violently through the wall of wind and came rolling directly towards him at terrifying speed. The shinobi's hair had been hardened into a bristling hedge of razor-sharp spikes that rotated with the sphere's motion, turning the entire mass into a lethal, spinning deathtrap.
Gengetsu immediately retreated at high speed upon seeing the incoming threat. But the sphere pursued him relentlessly, matching his evasive maneuvers with uncanny precision. For a brief moment, he found he could not shake it off. "Well, this is somewhat interesting," Gengetsu admitted, a spark of genuine intrigue finally igniting within him. Just as the sphere was about to slam into him, Gengetsu shifted his position, moving away from his doppelganger. The doppelganger, in turn, braced itself and took the full, devastating force of the impact head-on.
After crashing into the doppelganger and sending it staggering, Choza Akimichi lost control of his own momentum and toppled heavily onto his back. "Not bad at all. You've finally managed to genuinely surprise me," Gengetsu remarked. Choza immediately whipped his head around, only to see Gengetsu standing right beside him, his index finger pointed directly at him. "As a token of my appreciation, allow me to send you on your way," Gengetsu said with a cold smile.
"Stop right there!"
A shout rang out from directly behind Gengetsu. The moment he spun his head around to face the source, a shinobi was already airborne, a devastating roundhouse kick sweeping directly towards his skull. The blow connected with brutal force, sending Gengetsu hurtling over ten meters through the air. Before he could even begin to rise, his attacker was upon him again. A relentless, lightning-fast barrage of punches and kicks, each blow slamming squarely into his body, left him momentarily overwhelmed and unable to mount any defense. He found it virtually impossible to create even the smallest gap of separation.
Might Guy's assault was as furious and unrelenting as a raging storm. But to truly defeat an opponent of Gengetsu's caliber, Guy knew he would have to unlock the Inner Gates. However, Gengetsu was, after all, a former Mizukage. He would never politely grant Guy the time and space needed to open those gates. Put another way, the instant Guy attempted to begin the process, Gengetsu would almost certainly flee. Guy needed someone to provide him with covering support during that critical window. And that person was none other than Tsume Inuzuka!
As Guy maintained his blistering, uninterrupted offensive, Tsume had already maneuvered into position. In perfect synchronization with her ninken partner, Kuromaru, she unleashed the Fang Passing Fang technique, a spiraling, twin-pronged assault aimed directly at Gengetsu. However, just as Might Guy was preparing to initiate the opening of the first Inner Gate, Gengetsu employed the Body Flicker Technique. In a flash, he cleanly disengaged from Guy's relentless assault, causing the Fang Passing Fang to slice through nothing but empty air.
"Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm a complete idiot. Yes, your coordinated assault genuinely caught me off guard. But that doesn't mean I'm just going to lie down and let you defeat me. If you want to beat me, you'll have to dig considerably deeper!" Gengetsu tilted his head back and flashed a wide, challenging grin. "Still, managing to actually break through my Steam Imp Threat... you should feel a genuine sense of pride for that accomplishment!"
"Is it really appropriate for you to be darting around and fleeing like this? After all, you are our esteemed senior and predecessor," Kakashi stated, his eyes locked intently on Gengetsu. The Second Mizukage was refusing to fight according to any predictable pattern. By abruptly widening the distance between them, he had single-handedly thrown Kakashi's entire meticulously crafted plan into complete disarray.
"No. Pursuing and catching me is precisely what you ought to be doing. You can't possibly mean to tell me that if an enemy retreats, you simply let them go, do you?" Gengetsu retorted with infuriating, righteous logic.
Kakashi had not anticipated Gengetsu countering with such a statement. His Lightning Cutter was already primed and crackling in his hand, poised to strike. Yet, because he couldn't close the gap to Gengetsu, he was utterly unable to unleash the attack. The sheer humiliation of it was almost unbearable. Gritting his teeth, Kakashi channeled a surge of Lightning Release chakra directly into the soles of his feet.
He exploded forward in a blinding burst of speed, relentlessly pursuing Gengetsu. He could accept defeat, but he absolutely could not accept losing in this manner. As Kakashi closed in on him, a glint of genuine admiration flickered within Gengetsu's eyes. The distance between the two men fluctuated wildly, shrinking and expanding, as they weaved deeper into the forest.
Then, without warning, a glob of viscous, orange-red liquid dropped silently from the branches of a tree directly above Gengetsu's trajectory. It was plummeting straight towards him, and at the very last fraction of a second, he was forced to hurl himself aside to evade it. The spot where the liquid splashed onto the ground was instantly, terrifyingly corroded. "You've got to be kidding me! A sneak attack?!" Gengetsu exclaimed in genuine alarm.
Before he could recover, a rope condensed from Water Release chakra lashed out and ensnared his ankle in a vice-like grip. Gengetsu's head snapped upwards. Standing atop a thick tree branch, staring down at him with icy, unyielding eyes, was none other than Mei Terumi.