Should he activate the transmission?
Kitsuchi hesitated for a few seconds before ultimately giving up.
First, because he hadn't seen Ryosuke himself yet. If everything before his eyes wasn't Ryosuke's doing and he sent a false report, it could bring devastating consequences to the other fronts.
Second, Kitsuchi still had confidence in his own strength.
Not that he believed he could defeat Ryosuke.
He was almost forty, no longer the arrogant youth he once was.
The longer one lived, the clearer one understood just how terrifying true geniuses could be.
Kitsuchi simply thought, even if Ryosuke was that powerful, he had spent most of his life training, and with over a thousand mercenaries and four hundred samurai at his side, surely they could at least get one message out, right?
'I can't win, can't escape.'
'But I can at least yell, can't I?'
Kitsuchi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, all hesitation was gone. "We can't keep circling around like this."
The warship's carrying capacity was limited. To load enough weapons and ammunition, they couldn't bring too much fuel. After all, the distance from the Fire Country border to the Land of Hot Water wasn't that far.
But if they kept blindly circling like this, the fuel would eventually run out.
Not just the fuel, the crew's morale too.
The eerie fog, the sea of blood, the severed limbs, the mad fish, they were eroding everyone's courage and sanity.
If this continued, before the enemy even showed up, chaos would break out on the ship first. They'd start killing each other.
"Turn the ship around. We're heading for the center. I want to see what kind of monster is pulling us in!"
"Yes, sir!"
The warship turned and headed toward the center.
Whether it was an illusion or not, the closer they got, the thicker the fog became.
Feeling stifled, Kitsuchi stepped out of the control room onto the deck. He clenched his fist tightly, ready at any moment to activate the White Zetsu spore in his palm.
"Look!"
A lookout standing at the highest point, holding a telescope, pointed ahead.
Everyone followed his finger, and saw a man standing atop the sea.
The thin mist swirling around him blurred his appearance. They couldn't see his face, only that he was throwing some shiny objects into the water.
Countless fish of all shapes and sizes gathered around his feet, mouths wide open, waiting to be fed.
The moment those ordinary fish ate the glittering things the man tossed down, their eyes took on an eerie glow. Their mouths opened and closed, murmuring guttural sounds, like they were chanting the scriptures of some abyssal demon.
The sight was so horrifying that the entire ship fell dead silent, you could hear a pin drop.
As the warship approached, the gusts stirred by its movement blew away some of the fog ahead, finally revealing the man's face.
One of the samurai gasped, "Ah!"
He was the same samurai who'd been in charge of registering the suicide squad. He recognized Ryosuke.
"His name's Ike," the man muttered.
"That's Ryosuke," Kitsuchi said in a low voice.
He had met countless powerful people in his life, but never had anyone made his entire body tense up just by standing there, his heart thudding uncontrollably.
With that kind of presence, who else could it be besides Ryosuke?
Kitsuchi didn't hesitate anymore. He immediately channeled chakra into his palm. A White Zetsu clone appeared.
The clone looked around, quickly grasped the situation, and jumped off the deck toward the sea. As long as it could reach the seabed, it could burrow underground at incredible speed and deliver news about Ryosuke's presence in the Land of Hot Water.
The clone leapt anxiously, terrified it might be blasted out of the air, but Ryosuke didn't even look its way. He acted as if it didn't exist.
Then...
Thud!
The clone hit something solid, like a steel wall.
Though the seawater surged and rippled, it couldn't enter at all. Before it could try again, several ocean currents surged up and tore it to pieces.
Kitsuchi swallowed hard. Chakra filled his eyes as he looked again, faintly seeing waves of distortion rippling through the mist and seawater.
He had been wrong.
Not only could he not win or escape, he couldn't even send out information.
The world that looked open around them was already sealed, this place had become a prison of death!
The warship drew a little closer.
Now Kitsuchi could see what Ryosuke was using to feed the fish, they were discs, each one etched with a human face.
———
With Ryosuke's power, it didn't matter whether there were two warships or twenty. If he wanted, he could destroy them all effortlessly.
He didn't even need to blast them apart, just use the Dragon-Snake Pearl to stir the sea with Ripple and natural energy, and a single tsunami could wipe out both ships.
One wave, and maybe only Kitsuchi would survive. Everyone else would die in the sea.
Even without using the ocean's power, if he had someone release "Youthful Passion" and waited a bit, both ships would probably be wiped out all the same.
But that would be too wasteful.
Ryosuke wanted soul fragments.
And he wanted to protect the Land of Hot Water.
He didn't want the Land of Hot Water becoming an enemy army's rest stop or supply base.
Killing these two thousand people wasn't enough, behind them was a force of nearly a hundred thousand soldiers. Ryosuke couldn't guard this place forever. So he needed "others" to guard it for him.
The guardians Ryosuke chose were the fish living in these waters.
He took the memories and jutsu discs of everyone on the decoy ships and had the White Snake inscribe an order on them, "Remain in these waters. Attack any ships attempting to approach the Land of Hot Water."
Ordinary fish couldn't harm a warship, but those that accepted the jutsu discs… some could. Most couldn't handle it, but just like how Iggy awakened a Stand, some animals with strong enough spiritual power could. Those ones could release ninjutsu and taijutsu corresponding to the discs they'd absorbed.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The pounding under the hull grew fiercer. Cracks appeared in several spots, seawater began seeping in, and the rear propellers had already been smashed apart.
The ship had lost power. Sinking was only a matter of time.
"H-He…"
The mercenaries, sharp as ever, quickly realized the connection between the corpses, the discs, and the mad fish. Their faces turned ashen, their bodies cold with dread.
Manipulating souls.
Summoning mist.
Controlling the ocean.
Commanding animals.
Was this even a human?
No, this was a demon from hell itself.
And now, that demon's eyes were on them.
Ryosuke tossed the last disc in his hand into the sea, clapped the dust off his hands, and met their eyes. His calm voice echoed over the waves, "A thousand isn't quite enough."
"With you all added, it should be just right."
His indifferent tone wasn't a declaration of war, it was a death sentence.
Kitsuchi looked around. The mercenaries and samurai were all staring blankly, their eyes hollow. After so many terrifying revelations, they had lost the will to resist, like lambs waiting for slaughter.
No. It couldn't end like this.
Someone had to stand up.
"Ryosuke!"
Kitsuchi roared, hands flying through hand signs before slamming down onto the deck.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Core!"
The seawater surged upward. Under Kitsuchi's jutsu, the ocean floor suddenly rose, forming a football field–sized stretch of solid ground right out of the sea!
As an Earth Release ninja, Kitsuchi's full strength came only when he stood on solid land.
"Earth Release, Rock Fist!"
His fists turned to solid stone. Leaping high into the air, he dove toward Ryosuke like a falling meteor, shouting, "Anyone who wants to live, fight with me!"
The dazed samurai and mercenaries snapped back to reality.
They weren't rookies, they knew that fear only hastened death. The more dangerous the enemy, the harder you had to fight.
One by one, they drew their swords and hurled kunai.
Nearly fifteen hundred men, packed tightly together, charged toward Ryosuke standing on the water, their killing intent burning bright.
But Ryosuke, surrounded on all sides, merely raised one hand and tilted his head slightly to look at the onrushing Kitsuchi.
"Star Platinum: The World!"
Time stopped.
Star Platinum stomped hard onto the sea surface.
Waves exploded upward. Ryosuke waved his hand lightly, sending countless droplets of water flying forward, suspended in midair, each one freezing a few centimeters before reaching the charging Kitsuchi, the mercenaries, and the samurai.
"Time, resume."
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!
No one saw what happened. They only felt something spear through their bodies, robbing them of control. One by one, they fell helplessly into the sea.
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