Koga Issho looked at the black-haired boy wearing a Konoha headband, who was preparing a dangerous lightning-based attack. The amount of chakra being accumulated far exceeded anything Issho had ever seen in his own village.
He was one of Cloud Village's undercover shinobi, operating as a rogue-ninja mercenary alongside his superior and team. His work involved gathering intelligence, manipulating events to favor the Cloud, and executing missions that the village couldn't be directly linked to.
This mission was one of those covert operations. His task: delay Konoha's forces long enough to prevent them from fully dominating Chokage and his men.
Based on the intel he had received, the Konoha presence was limited- three squads from the palace and one from the village itself. But even with those odds, the children in front of him far surpassed expectations.
'Two of them are clearly around chunin level, and that one… he's close to a special jonin. All three are dangerous. It's better to end the bud before it blossoms.'
Issho moved quickly, lightning crackling around his body to enhance his speed. He closed the distance before the boy could finish charging his attack.
Forming a hand seal mid-step, Issho pumped more chakra into his blade, lightning surged over its edge, sharpening its lethality and speed.
"Your techniques are good, you little monkey… but this is where it all ends," Issho snarled, swinging his sword down from just an arm's length away.
But the boy didn't panic. Instead, he stayed eerily calm, something that briefly confused Issho. Before he could understand what was off, the situation flipped in an instant.
Two shadow clones emerged out of nowhere, taking the brunt of Issho's attack while the real boy sidestepped the slowed strike.
And then came the sound.
Lightning crackled- so loudly it felt like the air itself was splitting open. The flash was blinding, the thunder near-deafening. In that moment, the darkness swallowed Issho's vision.
"Chidori…."
***
Before entering the battle, Yuichi had prepared two shadow clones and disguised them using the Transformation Jutsu, turning them into shuriken. It was one of his trump cards, a pre-emptive countermeasure for surviving lethal encounters.
Having assessed his opponent, Yuichi realized that prolonging the battle would only exhaust him further. The enemy was strong, and his instincts were sharp, there was a real chance he'd survive even a direct Chidori.
That's why the element of surprise was critical and the clones were the key.
As he created distance and began charging the technique, the overwhelming energy was enough to rattle the opponent mentally. When Issho made his move, the trap was already in place.
The disguised clones reappeared just in time to take the blow, giving Yuichi the crucial second to slip aside and retaliate.
"Chidori Flow!" Yuichi shouted, thrusting his blade forward with surgical precision.
The sword pierced Issho's chest directly at center mass, but that was only the beginning.
Lightning erupted violently from the blade, not in a line, but like an explosive surge. The raw voltage incinerated everything above the man's torso, vaporizing his body in a blinding burst.
Blood sprayed across the cave and splattered onto Yuichi, who stood still as the aftermath settled.
It was far more brutal than he had intended.
"Another failure… sigh… and it still damn hurts," Yuichi muttered, glancing at his left hand, the one that had channeled all that lightning.
Though the damage was far less than before, his left hand was still burnt from handling the high-voltage energy.
'I need to improve this technique further,' Yuichi thought, already analyzing the drawbacks.
Although inspired by a certain infamous technique, what Yuichi had developed was not a mere copy.
His Chidori used the unique lightning derived from his bloodline, which was far more destructive.
The power limit of his lightning depended entirely on his physical capacity to handle it. Furthermore, it only required a single hand seal, mainly due to Yuichi still learning the intricacies of chakra shape manipulation.
Flicking the blood off his katana, Yuichi inspected the weapon with a single glance.
It was lighter than expected, designed almost like a single-bodied blade, handle and blade fused as one.
The sword's lightning conductivity also far exceeded his expectations. Despite the intense voltage, it showed no signs of damage.
However, even with the improvements, it was not a technique he could spam or use repeatedly.
Sheathing his blade, he activated the Mystical Palm Technique on his injured hand.
Healing himself used very little chakra, as the technique accelerated the body's own recovery process, it was far easier to apply to oneself than to others.
Clenching his fist, Yuichi still felt a dull numbness. Although his hand was healed, the numbness due to lightning was still there, but that wasn't important right now.
He moved quickly toward Mio and Sakumo.
He gave Sakumo a quick patch-up, closing the wound temporarily. Since Sakumo was still conscious, that was enough for now. Yuichi needed to conserve chakra for Mio.
"Sakumo, can you move now?" Yuichi asked, already scanning his condition.
"Yup. I can move a bit—but don't expect me to perform any backflips or anything," Sakumo replied, adding a lame joke.
Yuichi gave him a flat look, sighing as he motioned with his hand.
"Just go and find Mio's detached fingers."
Sakumo nodded silently, making a weird face and moved off.
Meanwhile, Yuichi moved towards Mio, who lay motionless near the wall of the cave a little far from where the body of the Issho exploded. Her body was covered with Sakumo upper clothes.
As he sat near her to heal her, far off he saw the villagers trembling and cowering in a corner, fear-struck and paralyzed.