"Iron Sand Drizzle!"
Iron sand erupted from the Magnet Release puppet like a storm of needles. Thousands of metallic projectiles screamed through the air.
The Kiri ninjas didn't stand a chance.
The iron sand tore through them in an instant. Bodies jerked as the projectiles hit, limbs separating, torsos punctured dozens of times. Blood sprayed in arcs across the ground. The surrounding trees fared no better, bark exploding into splinters as the iron sand shredded everything in its path. When the dust settled, several Kiri corpses lay scattered across torn earth. Not far away, a Konoha chunin sat on the ground with three injured genin, all of them gasping for air. Blood seeped from wounds across their bodies, staining their uniforms dark red.
"Don't bother cleaning up," the Magnet Release puppet said. "Take your team and retreat immediately. Medical-nin are standing by at camp."
"Y-yes!" The chunin forced himself to stand. He helped the wounded genin to their feet, supporting the ones who couldn't walk properly, and they started moving quickly toward the Konoha encampment.
The Magnet Release puppet remained in position. If Kiri reinforcements showed up, it needed to intercept them and buy time for the retreat.
Kiri had officially declared war on Konoha, and the border had turned into a constant battleground. With multiple fronts draining their forces, Konoha's military was stretched dangerously thin. They'd been forced to pull their defensive lines back into the Land of Fire itself, barely holding against Kiri's advance.
Once the puppet confirmed the patrol team had gotten far enough away, it prepared to return to camp.
Then information flooded in from Kenji's real body.
Interesting targets located.
The puppet's hands moved through seals.
After two second, space twisted. The puppet vanished from the clearing in an instant and reappeared on the opposite side of the battlefield, materializing next to Kenji's real body. The Swift Release puppet was already there, standing ready.
Three enemy ninjas stood facing them across maybe twenty meters of open ground.
"Oh? Another one coming to die?"
The speaker was a massive man with bright orange hair, his bulk radiating menace despite the fat. Kenji recognized him immediately from the original story. Suikazan Fuguki, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, wielder of Samehada. This guy would eventually get killed by Kisame, who'd take Samehada for himself.
To Fuguki's left stood a man with a gigantic blade strapped to his back. Biwa Jūzō, wielder of the Kubikiribōchō. On the right was someone with dark green hair, gripping a pair of oddly-shaped short swords. Kurosuki Raiga, current owner of the Kiba.
Three of the Seven Swordsmen, here at once.
Kenji raised an eyebrow. "The Seven Swordsmen like traveling in packs, huh? Only three of you showed up? Are the others dead already, or just too scared to come?"
Internally, he wondered if Might Duy had already kicked them into oblivion at this point in the timeline. He hadn't received any intelligence reports about that incident yet, so maybe it hadn't happened.
"To deal with you, I alone am enough!" Raiga snarled.
Lightning chakra erupted from the blades in his hands. His entire form shot forward like a bolt, closing the distance.
Kenji reached back and drew the short blade from his shoulder harness. Wind chakra immediately wrapped around the metal.
Wind countered Lightning. He knew that better than anyone.
Raiga came in with an overhead slash, his swords trailing arcs of electricity. Kenji sidestepped, letting the attack pass by his left shoulder. At the same moment, he brought his own blade up to intercept.
CLANG!
Sparks flew from the point of contact, briefly illuminating both fighters' faces. Kenji held the block steady, his wind chakra eating away at the lightning coating Raiga's weapons.
"You're slower than you think," he said, his face mere inches from Raiga's. "And way dumber."
Rage flashed across Raiga's expression, veins bulging on his forehead.
Behind them, the two puppets sprang into action. The Swift Release puppet blurred toward Fuguki, moving almost too fast to track. The Magnet Release puppet engaged Jūzō, iron sand already beginning to swirl.
Raiga disengaged from the blade lock and leaped backward, creating space. His hands moved through seals rapidly.
Chakra gathered at the tip of his right sword, condensing into a sphere of crackling electricity about the size of a basketball. He thrust the blade forward and the ball launched, tearing through the air straight toward Kenji.
But Kenji had already anticipated the technique the moment he'd sensed lightning chakra building. He kicked off the ground, launching himself backward. At the same time, he channeled more wind chakra into his short blade.
The blade's edge extended, growing from maybe thirty centimeters to several meters long, a massive construct of compressed wind that vibrated with lethal sharpness.
He swung.
The wind slash cut through the lightning ball. The sphere split cleanly in half, both pieces dissipating into harmless sparks that scattered across the ground. Before Raiga could even process that his technique had been countered so easily, Kenji's free hand flicked three kunai in rapid succession.
All three were aimed at Raiga's head.
Raiga brought both swords up to intercept.
CLANG! CLANG!
Two kunai were knocked aside, spinning off into the trees. He twisted his body to evade the third, which passed within centimeters of his ear and embedded itself in a tree trunk behind him. Lightning chakra surged through his blades again as he prepared his next attack.
"Fangs of Lightning!"
The air above them darkened. A bolt of lightning materialized from seemingly nowhere and crashed down toward Kenji's position.
But the instant before the lightning could hit, Kenji's figure vanished.
He'd already placed a Flying Thunder God seal on one of the kunai that had been knocked away. Space twisted, and suddenly he was standing right beside Raiga, less than a meter away.
Raiga's eyes went wide with shock.
Kenji's blade swept horizontally, aimed at shoulder height.
The blade cut through Raiga's left arm. Flesh and bone parted cleanly, offering no resistance against the compressed wind edge. The severed limb fell to the ground, still gripping one of the swords.
"GAH—!"
Blood sprayed from the stump in arterial pulses. He opened his mouth to scream properly, but Kenji was already moving again.
The short blade reversed direction, coming back in a diagonal slash from right shoulder to left abdomen. It carved through Raiga's torso, cutting deep. More blood erupted like a fountain, painting the ground red.
Raiga collapsed, his body hitting the dirt.
Kenji reached out and caught the falling swords before they could hit the ground. Without breaking his motion, he brought one of the blades around and separated Raiga's head from his shoulders.
From the first exchange to the killing blow, maybe forty-five seconds had passed.
Across the battlefield, both Fuguki and Jūzō saw the decapitation. Their expressions shifted immediately. Raiga had been one of the weaker members of the Seven Swordsmen, but to be killed that quickly meant this Konoha ninja was more dangerous than they had anticipated.
Both of them had the same thought simultaneously: retreat.
Kenji had already sensed their intent through the shift in their chakra signatures. He shot forward, targeting Jūzō specifically.
Jūzō had been fighting the Magnet Release puppet for the last minute and was already frustrated as hell. Every swing of Kubikiribōchō was intercepted by walls of iron sand. Meanwhile, the puppet's attacks came from every direction at once, forcing him to use the blade's sheer size as a shield. He couldn't find an opening to counterattack, couldn't build any momentum.
Then suddenly Kenji was there.
His short blade came in fast.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The sound of metal striking metal rang out in rapid succession. Kenji pressed the advantage that came with a shorter weapon, moving in close. The Kubikiribōchō was powerful for wide, sweeping strikes, but in close quarters it was too unwieldy.
Kenji's blade danced. Every strike came from a different angle. Jūzō was forced onto defense, using the flat of his blade as a shield and desperately trying to create space. The few times he managed to launch a counterattack, Kenji had dodge while simultaneously landing cuts across his arms, chest, and legs. Nothing fatal yet, but the wounds were accumulating.
Blood was beginning to drip steadily from multiple lacerations.
Then, he saw an opening. Kenji's blade was slightly out of position after a thrust, creating maybe a quarter-second window.
He committed to an overhead slam, putting all his strength behind it.
Then Kenji disappeared.
Jūzō's eyes widened.
The Magnet Release puppet appeared directly in front of him, less than three meters away. It had switched positions with Kenji.
He felt a sudden spike of terrifying chakra building in front of the puppet. His instincts screamed danger. He immediately raised the Kubikiribōchō horizontally, holding it in both hands to block whatever was coming.
The air in front of the puppet's palm distorted. Heat haze rippled outward. Then the sound hit.
BOOM!
A miniature sonic boom exploded from the puppet's hand. A crimson projectile, superheated iron sand compressed into a solid mass and accelerated to hypersonic speeds, shot forward in a streak of red.
The iron sand projectile hit the Kubikiribōchō.
The metal didn't just pierce through. It melted. The sheer kinetic energy and heat caused the blade's molecular structure to fail. A glowing red hole appeared, expanding rapidly as the metal around it liquefied and vaporized.
CRACK!
The Kubikiribōchō snapped in half.
The projectile continued through and punched into Jūzō's chest. It carved a hole the size of a bowl through his torso, the edges instantly cauterized by the intense heat. His blood and internal organs were vaporized before they could even spill out.
Jūzō's body was lifted off his feet by the impact. He flew backward, hit the ground, and slid several meters before coming to a stop.
He stared up at the sky, his vision already fading. Blood leaked from his mouth.
"I didn't think... I'd die here..." he muttered, looking at the broken halves of his sword lying nearby. Then his eyes went glassy and consciousness left him.
Kenji turned his attention to Fuguki.
The massive man was being driven backward by the Swift Release puppet. Every time he tried to bring Samehada to bear and use its chakra-absorption properties, the puppet would attack from a blind spot, forcing him to defend instead. The legendary sword's abilities were useless if he couldn't connect.
Kenji and the Swift Release puppet advanced on Fuguki from both sides, flanking him. When Fuguki's eyes landed on Jūzō's corpse, he knew he was probably going to die here.
"Who are you?" he demanded, gripping Samehada tightly. "You can't be some nobody from Konoha! What's your name?"
"The dead don't need to know."
Kenji had no intention of revealing his identity. Once enemies knew his name, they could prepare countermeasures against Yamanaka clan techniques specifically.
"Damn it!" Fuguki roared. "Hair Needle Senbon!"
His orange hair suddenly hardened, every strand transforming into a steel-like needle. They shot outward in all directions, thousands of projectiles filling the air and leaving absolutely no space to dodge.