"Jiraiya-sensei," Lock said quietly, his tone calm even amidst the roar of the battle. "I'm heading to the front."
As the commander-in-chief, Jiraiya could not risk personal involvement; his duty was to oversee the entire field and prepare for emergencies. Lock, however, had no such restraint. As long as he survived, he was free to move and strike where he pleased.
"Are you sure about this?" Jiraiya asked, his expression solemn.
Lock smiled faintly. "You've seen me fight before, Sensei. I can handle myself. I'll thin out their numbers—and be back before they realize what happened."
Without waiting for a reply, he vanished into the smoke and chaos ahead.
Lock's speed wasn't the greatest among the shinobi of Konoha, but when cloaked in his stealth technique, he was nearly impossible to detect. Unless a sensory ninja was actively searching for him, he was nothing more than a whisper in the wind.
He darted through the battlefield, silent as a shadow. Explosions echoed around him—fire, wind, and earth clashing in violent bursts—but Lock ignored them, his focus sharp and unwavering.
He didn't attack the first Iwa-nin he saw. Instead, he moved methodically, eyes scanning for the most isolated targets. Killing for the sake of chaos would expose him; precision was the key to survival.
When he finally struck, it was clean and unseen—a kunai through the heart from behind an enemy engaged with a Konoha shinobi. The man fell without a sound.
The Konoha ninja he had just saved blinked in surprise, only realizing what had happened when he spotted Lock's Konoha forehead protector glinting faintly through the drifting smoke. Lock gave no acknowledgment, already gone before a word could be spoken.
This was his rhythm: appear, strike, vanish.
In minutes, a dozen Iwa-nin had fallen—each kill swift and deliberate. Most were chūnin, some only genin—but every death caused ripples through the enemy line.
And those ripples soon turned into waves.
Within the Iwa forces, a group of elite shinobi had begun to gather, their attention fixed on the spreading zone of chaos where comrades kept falling.
"That one," muttered a muscular man with a heavy frame, his eyes sharp as stone. "The reports were true—Konoha's phantom. The one who infiltrated our territory and crippled our scouts."
He was Kurotsuchi's elder cousin—Huangtu, the son of the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki. Barely in his twenties, yet already a renowned elite jōnin and one of the commanders of Iwagakure's invasion force.
Beside him, a sensor-nin knelt, forming a sequence of hand seals. "It's him. The same chakra signature that wiped out Lord Daicheng's entire reconnaissance team. He's moving fast—no pattern. Almost like… a ghost."
Huangtu's expression hardened. "Then we root out the ghost. He's disrupting formation and killing morale. Send two sensory teams, both led by jōnin. I don't care if they kill him or not—just don't let him roam freely."
"Yes, sir!"
Lock sensed the shift instantly. The chakra currents in the battlefield changed—two strong sensory signatures began sweeping the area, searching.
He had barely shifted positions when the earth beneath him split apart with a thunderous crack. The ground he'd been standing on erupted upward, nearly throwing him off balance. Two Iwa-nin burst from the fissure above, launching a barrage of earth-style attacks.
Chunks of stone and sharpened rock rained down. Lock moved reflexively—his body flickering out of sight just before a massive boulder crushed the spot he'd occupied.
They're coordinating through sensors, he realized. Impressive response time.
He reappeared behind one of the attackers, blade flashing once—a quiet, efficient strike straight through the man's back.
The Iwa-nin had fortified his body with Earth Release, his skin hardened like stone—but Lock's chakra-enhanced blade pierced through with a faint cracking sound, the concentrated chakra along its edge shattering the defense as if it were brittle clay.
The man collapsed instantly.
Before the other could react, Lock vanished again, reappearing behind another target several meters away. A silent flicker, another flash of steel—and another Iwa-nin fell without ever seeing his killer.
But their comrades were already adapting. A series of earthen walls erupted from the ground, forming barriers across the field. The Iwa-nin pressed their backs to them, protecting their blind spots.
Lock clicked his tongue softly. "Clever."
His dagger hummed faintly with chakra as he focused his energy, then vanished once more. He struck at the base of one wall, his blade shearing through stone and cutting down the shinobi behind it in a single motion.
And then—before the next ambush could form—he activated his Flicker Step, his body dissolving into a blur of chakra and reappearing several hundred meters away.
When he came to a stop, he found himself face-to-face with a tall figure in Iwa armor, standing calmly amidst the chaos.
The man's chakra presence was immense—stable, heavy, suffocating. A veteran jōnin.
Lock tightened his grip on his dagger. The jōnin smiled grimly, raising his hands in a slow, deliberate seal.
"So… you're the shadow haunting our troops," the man said, his voice like grinding stone. "Let's see how fast a shadow can move… once it's buried."
Lock said nothing. His stance lowered, muscles coiled, eyes gleaming with sharp focus.
The next instant, they vanished—clashing in the storm of war.
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