Meanwhile, on the other side, Renjiro also faced Hisamichi Nara alone the entire time.
He recognized him immediately, the second in command of the ANBU, whom he had once met before the war.
Back then, they'd hinted that he and Kanae would eventually have to deal with Renjiro directly once it started.
It felt almost ironic now, seeing that same man here as an enemy.
Renjiro grinned faintly, his pulse steady, eyes sharp.
"Guess you didn't get your wish after all," he muttered to himself.
He could already tell he had the upper hand, at least one-on-one.
Hisamichi might have burned through some chakra during the Daimyō Palace operation, but he wasn't injured like Shinsuke.
Still, this was no easy opponent.
The man had a reputation and rank for a reason.
Renjiro felt the thrill rising facing this unknown Nara elite.
Once, he had dreamed about being part of ANBU, about proving himself worthy of their ranks and then growing stronger through them.
Now, thanks to Ryusei, he saw through it all.
And now he was fighting one of their best to a standstill so soon, without their help, also in large part thanks to him. It felt right.
His body moved like lightning, literally.
The first two Gates opened, energy pulsing through his muscles as he vanished and reappeared across the battlefield.
Lightning chakra flared on his legs for a flicker, from time to time, amplifying his already unpredictable and fast Hatake footwork.
His white sabre sliced through the air in sharp, efficient arcs, each swing humming with precise Lightning Release flow.
He constantly suppressed his own chakra signature, utilizing his sensory knowledge, while fighting on top of his breathwork.
The eyepatch over his left eye hid more than a scar; behind it lay a sealed Byakugan, grafted and stabilized through Ryusei's design.
It gave him a perfect sense of spatial positioning and chakra flow, seeing through Hisamichi's strange, shadowy jutsu, especially traps, also letting him target potential weak points with surgical accuracy himself.
Hisamichi caught on eventually.
His expression darkened the moment he realized what Renjiro was using the entire time.
"A Byakugan? You—traitor. You'll be captured and dissected for this," Hisamichi spat, his voice carrying genuine outrage.
Renjiro only smirked, tightening his grip on the hilt. "Then you'd better catch me first."
Hisamichi moved fast, hands flashing through signs.
Shadows twisted beneath him, spreading outward like a living tide.
He realised that his first attempt, basic Shadow Imitation, failed quickly.
Renjiro's speed was too high, his chakra flicker too erratic, and the Byakugan made it impossible for any blind spots to exist.
So Hisamichi shifted tactics.
He slammed his palms down.
Shadows surged outward, merging into one massive domain.
The ground quickly blackened in every direction, from his as the epicenter, as his strongest and most chakra-intensive Shadow Imitation Field Technique took form.
It was the advanced version of his clan's art, wider reach, more control, and no escape routes.
Inside it, everything was still connected to him and his spatial jutsu shiki, and his power multiplied.
Inside his own shadows, or any external ones linked to his technique, he could temporarily hide and move with near-impossible speed, slipping through them as if the darkness itself bent space for him.
As if it were his dimension. To anyone watching, it wasn't movement anymore; it was teleportation.
Renjiro watched him carefully with his lone Byakugan, his expression calm.
"So this is the Nara clan's next level," he thought, a bit looking forward to challenging himself with this, adjusting his stance.
He didn't underestimate that major clan.
Hisamichi, meanwhile, didn't waste a second.
Within the darkened field, he vanished, slipping into the shade itself through that spatial Hidden Jutsu: Shadow Rift Step.
His presence flickered with ultra-fast speed, and a heartbeat later, his black, shadow-coated kunai sliced toward Renjiro's back.
But Renjiro was also already moving back fiercely, having slipped just beyond the edge of the shadow field, before it fully hit him, his Byakugan vision letting him anticipate it before it even came to him.
He still turned at the last instant, but Hisamichi created and linked his field to another shadow behind him, sending another attack from that angle.
Renjiro twisted aside again, guided by the full range of his Byakugan and sharp close-range instincts, his blade meeting the strike in a burst of lightning.
The kunai carried a faint black aura enhancement and layer, expanding the kunai to match the tanto, full of paralyzing Yin Release, infused directly from his weapon as the base.
Each time their blades met, that dark energy tried to negate his blade's chakra and then even crawl further into Renjiro's chakra network to disrupt it, before Renjiro separated.
The speed was insane.
Despite Renjiro being faster overall, Hisamichi's movement through shadows allowed him to match unpredictability with unpredictability.
His rhythm and timing mirrored Renjiro's lightning bursts, each strike offsetting the other.
Then Hisamichi tried to end it quickly.
His shadow field surged outward again, doubling its radius in a gamble to trap him.
Renjiro's Byakugan flared beneath the eyepatch, veins standing out on his temple as he tracked every line of shadow in the terrain.
He slammed his hand into the earth.
Lightning Release: Spider Web
A surge of blue-white lightning spread across the ground like a massive net, crackling outward in all directions.
The electricity laced through the field of shadows, burning through them and forcing Hisamichi to be unable to surface for a while.
Renjiro rose, breathing evenly, lightning still crawling over his limbs.
He flicked several lightning-charged shuriken from his sleeve.
They scattered across the ground and walls, pulsing with delayed detonation tags.
Hisamichi scowled, recalling his shadows and shrinking the field to conserve chakra.
Now both men stood across from each other again, wary but unyielding.
The field between them steamed, torn by lightning and shadow burns.
A stalemate.
Renjiro smirked faintly. "Not bad for the second most dangerous man in ANBU," he said under his breath, his tone dry.
Hisamichi exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing. "You talk too much for a rogue."
Renjiro's grin widened. "And you think too much for a fighter."
They both moved at once, lightning and shadow colliding again.
They kept clashing, lightning and shadow tearing through the cracked earth again and again.
At times, through the haze of battle, Renjiro's Byakugan caught glimpses of the distant fight, Ryusei locked in a ferocious duel against the Edo Tensei of Sakumo Hatake.
His idol. His clansman. The most illustrious Hatake in Konoha's history.
For a brief moment, something twisted inside him.
It was strange to watch the man he once admired as a child now standing as Ryusei's opponent.
But deep down, Renjiro understood.
Even if Ryusei told Sakumo everything, how Konoha betrayed their own, how the elders pushed him to suicide, none of it would have mattered.
Edo Tensei was a curse, and Sakumo was just another weapon being forced to fight.
So he didn't feel pity. Only resolve. Ryusei sealing him away would be setting him free from the same people who caused his death.
Still, watching the brilliant arcs of Sakumo's blade light up the battlefield stirred something within him.
Those long streaks of white lightning cutting through the darkness, the very symbol of the Hatake name.
Renjiro clenched his jaw, his focus sharpening.
And then, in the middle of that chaos, he finally understood it.
The rhythm, the chakra control, the intent behind it all.
His own blade flared, glowing bright white for the first time.
Lightning hissed across the edge, not just coating it, but extending from it, shooting outward in a radiant arc that tore through the ground and shadows alike.
Hisamichi's eyes widened, but it was too late.
The new technique wasn't as sharp as close-range direct hits, but it covered a much wider area, making Hisamichi's teleporting shadows useless.
No matter where he flickered, the blade's expanding reach cut through him.
Renjiro pressed the assault, lightning bursting outward again and again, each strike more refined than the last.
Finally, the last arc split through Hisamichi's defense, burning through his chest and dispersing the shadows that had wrapped around him.
His body staggered once, the kunai dropping from his hand.
He fell to one knee, blood spilling as the world dimmed.
His thoughts grew sluggish, disbelief settling in.
"So this is how it ends…"
He never imagined he'd die like this.
He, the Nara clan's prodigy, the best talent in his generation, and among the best ones in the village, the one who was supposed to surpass even many other strongest Nara of the past.
The Nara, leaders among the old Ino-Shika-Cho alliance, the clan with one of the greatest influences in the village.
Their pharmaceutical industries supplied the entire Leaf— medical pills, chakra recovery pills, soldier pills, and even the secret Three-Colored Pills of the Akimichi.
They even owned that private forest on the outskirts, the source of it all.
And yet, he was dying here, far from Konoha, one of the village's most influential figures despite his age of not even twenty, a rising pillar of the Hokage's faction, cut down by the very traitor they all despised and isolated.
By Renjiro Hatake.
Hisamichi's lips twisted in bitter scorn.
In his final breath, he spat the words out weakly, almost like a curse.
"Damn… you… Hatake… and that Senju bastard…"
Renjiro stood still for a moment, in front of his body, chest rising and falling heavily, lightning fading from his limbs, the aftershock of his last strikes still crackling faintly around him.
He was nearly spent in chakra, due to those external flashes the Hatake called the "White Flash Arcs", but for the first time in a long while, he felt genuinely proud of himself fully.
This had been the strongest opponent he'd ever defeated on his own.
And now, he could also finally say he'd reached that stage Ryusei once described, the Quasi-Kage level, the threshold separating the elite from the exceptional.
He still looked down at Hisamichi's fallen body and thought quietly.
The Nara clan wasn't just another noble family.
In fact, it came perhaps third, only after the Hyūga and Uchiha, who were miniature villages within the village itself, with their own industries, research, and production lines that supplied everything from shinobi tools to medicine.
In truth, the Nara were even stronger than the Sarutobi, who had only recently risen so much, propped up by Hiruzen's influence.
The same went for the "clans" of Danzo, Homura, and Koharu, wealth built through favoritism and political ties, not heritage or strength.
Meanwhile, the Aburame and Inuzuka had been quietly pushed down by those same power blocs, finding uneasy solidarity with the Hyūga instead.
And above them all, the Uchiha still towered, the most powerful, the most feared, their reach extending all over the Fire Country to secure their own supplies and influence.
Renjiro tightened his grip on his sword. "It's always been clans like the Nara," he thought, "those at the center of the Hokage's faction, that suppressed the Hatake and other smaller clans beneath them so much in recent years."
He gave one last look toward the fallen ANBU officer, his voice low but steady.
"But now, a Hatake killed their best talent fair and square. Guess that proves it again, true power in this world definitely isn't about politics."