Pakura

Tsume Inuzuka was still conscious, but the burns on her right arm kept her from gripping her Kunai. Gritting her teeth, she braced her left hand against the ground and tried to stand, a hint of despair in her voice. "This smell... Scorch Release... You're Pakura!"

"So Konoha really was behind the changes in Rōran." Pakura spoke evenly, her gaze sweeping over Tsume as she lay on the ground. "Looks like you'll have to come with us."

Pakura raised her right hand, and the fireball split into four, shooting off in four directions. Rather than attacking directly, they scattered and struck the sand, exploding into four walls of fire that surrounded the group. The intense heat instantly warped the air, and flames licked at the sand with a dry, crackling hiss. The Sand Ninja tightened their encirclement in the light of the fire walls.

The two Chunin both gripped their Kunai, while Kuromaru lowered his front legs and growled.

The heat worsened Tsume's injuries, and she passed out, leaving the two remaining Chunin even more frantic.

Just then, Baiye moved.

After using Medical Ninjutsu and Kaidō to give Tsume's injuries emergency treatment and placing her on Kuromaru's back, Baiye stepped out from between the two Chunin and took his place at the front.

"I'll hold them off. Take her and go."

"What? No! At least let the two of us stay—"

"There's no time to hesitate. If Kuromaru carries her alone, he won't be able to deal with anything else that happens!"

"I have a secret technique I can use to escape. You'll only hold me back if you stay... Hurry!"

His tone left no room for argument. Yamada gritted his teeth, knowing there was no time to weigh their options. He and Sugimoto hurried to either side of Kuromaru and, braving the searing heat, rushed through a gap where the walls of fire had yet to close completely.

Pakura and her companions watched it all without immediately intervening.

As far as they were concerned, these people were already in their grasp.

"How touching. But you're a medical-nin... How are you going to stop all five of us?"

A fireball formed in front of Pakura, then shot toward Baiye as soon as she finished speaking.

"Hadō #31, Shakkahō!"

The Hadō was considerably weaker without its incantation, but its nearly instantaneous casting speed made it more than enough to intercept the Scorch Release fireball.

"Boom!"

The crimson fireball collided with the Scorch Release flames in midair, canceling each other out and bursting into a cloud of hot mist.

"Oh? Looks like you do have something up your sleeve."

Pakura's praise didn't make Baiye careless. He had kept Reiatsu Detection active the whole time and had long since noticed a Sand Ninja sneak around behind him in the confusion.

"Die!"

The Sand Ninja sprang out of the sand with a cruel smile, driving his Kunai fiercely toward Baiye's back. He failed to notice that Baiye's Tachi was already waiting for him there.

"Puchi."

His heart was pierced. The Kunai in his hand was less than ten centimeters from Baiye's back, but it could go no farther.

The last thing he saw before his eyes glazed over was Baiye's calm profile.

An instant kill. No wasted movement, no unnecessary sound.

"One."

The remaining Sand Ninja's expressions changed drastically. A medical-nin had killed a man with a single stroke?

Were Konoha's medical-nin all this good at fighting?

Pakura's pupils contracted. The smile vanished from her lips, and she raised her right hand to stop her furious comrades.

"Keep watch outside. I'll handle this one."

Four fireballs gathered around her, rotating slowly.

Scorch Release: Extremely Steaming Murder—each fireball carried enough heat to instantly dry out a human body. A single touch meant death.

She no longer dared treat this Konoha Ninja as a joke.

"Die!"

When Pakura charged, the four fireballs moved in sync with her. They burned distorted trails through the desert's dark red night sky, shifting their angles to cut Baiye off with every thrust of her Kunai.

Baiye didn't dare touch the fireballs. He spent most of the fight dodging with Shunpo—sidestepping, retreating, flipping through the air, finding a place to land each time as the fireballs grazed the edges of his clothes. Sparks from Tachi and Kunai clashing burst and faded again and again amid the sand and dust.

After several exchanges, neither could get the better of the other. Following one final clash, they both jumped back.

"That should be enough."

His teammates should have retreated far enough by now.

Across from him, Pakura also seemed ready to try another approach.

Now.

He gripped his sword with both hands. Its tip pointed to the sky, then slowly descended.

"Dance—Sode no Shirayuki."

The instant the sword descended, its blade, guard, and hilt all turned pure white. The guard was oval, with six openings that let a cool, clear light shine through. The pattern at the front of the hilt glimmered faintly in the moonlight, and the white ribbon at its end stirred without wind. Ice crystals poured from the tip, covering the ground for several meters in front of him. The surrounding temperature plummeted in an instant.

Pakura instinctively sensed that something was wrong. Baiye's presence was completely different from before.

She had never seen a move like this. It didn't even feel like Ninjutsu to her, but a more fundamental, purer power.

She turned to warn her teammates to scatter, but Baiye burst into motion before she could speak.

Shunpo at full speed. Baiye's figure vanished, appearing behind a Sand Ninja the next instant.

"First Dance: Tsukishiro."

The tip of Sode no Shirayuki traced a circle around the Sand Ninja. The circle glowed an icy blue under the moonlight, and everything within it froze in an instant—the Sand Ninja's Hand Seals stopped in midair as a thin layer of white frost covered his body.

"Two."

Baiye didn't stop. He stabbed the sword tip into the ground at several points, and cold air erupted from them all at once like an avalanche.

"Next Dance: Hakuren."

The second Sand Ninja had no time to react. He was struck head-on by the icy mist, his entire body encased in ice crystals.

"Three."

Another Shunpo. The third Sand Ninja—the last one besides Pakura—barely stepped back half a pace to dodge Baiye's thrust. He hurriedly began forming Hand Seals, attempting to counterattack.

"Third Dance: Shirafune."

Moisture condensed, extending the blade. A length of ice crystal shot out from the Tachi's blade in an instant, passing his hands and piercing his chest.

Only a few seconds had passed from the drawing of his sword to the three kills. By the time Pakura reacted, all four of her teammates had fallen.

Her expression finally changed completely.

"Die—!"

The four fireballs gathered above her head, the extreme heat of Scorch Release compressed to its limit between her palms. She could no longer worry about whether she would be caught in it herself. This man was far too dangerous; he had to die here!

"Hadō #4, Byakurai."

A bolt of lightning shot from his fingertip and pierced Pakura's shoulder. Though it wasn't a vital point, the numbness made her hands falter as they came together, and her control over the fireballs slipped for half a beat.

For Baiye, half a beat was enough.

Sode no Shirayuki swept through a complete arc, slashing diagonally from Pakura's right shoulder to her left ribs.

"Absolute Zero."

The fireballs gave one final hiss as they went out, and then everything fell silent. Pakura's body froze into an ice sculpture, standing where she was with her eyes wide in fury and her arms raised with the fireballs.

"Five."

Baiye sheathed his sword. The frost on the blade slowly dispersed in the desert night wind. The bodies of four Sand Ninja lay scattered across the dunes, while Pakura's ice sculpture shone coldly in the moonlight. Five Sand Ninja, and not one of them would leave this stretch of sand alive. Only then did the shock pent up in his chest slowly begin to rise.

A chill, like Sode no Shirayuki's ice crystals seeping into his veins, spread from his chest to his fingertips.

It was as if he himself would be frozen solid the next instant.

Sode no Shirayuki's ornate beauty could not conceal its deadly danger, whether to its enemies or to its wielder.

Baiye breathed out, releasing some of the chill in his chest.

His first time killing, and he had killed five.

The hand that had held a scalpel in Konoha Hospital had now held a Zanpakuto and killed five people. Baiye looked down at his hand. In the moonlight, Sand Ninja blood stained its back—the blood had already frozen into dark red ice chips in Sode no Shirayuki's cold, and his palm remained perfectly still.

He had never considered himself a savior. From his first day in this world, he had only one goal: to survive. After all this time, his goal had never changed. There were simply more people he wanted to survive alongside now—Hayate, Minato, Kushina, Gai, Sakumo, Tsunade...

He wasn't naive enough to think he could achieve his goal without paying any price.

Getting a little blood on his hands was all it was. In this cruel world, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Baiye could still tell whether it should be his friends or his enemies who bled.

"At least the village you protected didn't get the chance to betray you."

[Changed fate—Sunada (death), Fate Points +10]

[Changed fate—Araya (death), Fate Points +10]

[Changed fate—Kazama (death), Fate Points +10]

[Changed fate—Doi (death), Fate Points +10]

[Changed fate—Pakura (death), Fate Points +80]

The system panel flashed in the corner of his vision. Before Baiye could look down at it, the sand beneath his feet suddenly shook.

In the direction of Rōran, a dazzling pillar of purple light shot into the sky. The Dragon Vein's energy had finally erupted. A shockwave swept a sandstorm outward from the city center, blotting out the sky and moon. Baiye instinctively turned his head and raised a hand to shield his eyes.

[More than 100 Fate Points obtained at once. Special reward triggered: Lottery Ticket ×1.]

"Use it."

Then the world changed.

A gray-white sky, parched yellow earth, and a few ruined stone pillars. A strong wind whipped at the hem of his clothes. An enormous figure stood with his back to him, with brown-black fur, heavy plate armor, and a massive Zanpakuto longer than Baiye was tall resting on his shoulder.

Sajin Komamura.

The giant wolf turned and lowered his head, his enormous eyes gleaming darkly beneath the gray-white sky. "My heart alone still bears fangs. For as long as I live, I will never cease to fight."

His voice was deep and solid, like a beating drum, yet also like an echo from distant mountains. "Young man, why do you wield a sword?"

Baiye looked up at the giant wolf before him but gave no answer.

Komamura's gaze rested on his face for several seconds. Then he nodded slightly.

"So be it. I see neither doubt nor arrogance in your eyes. Since you have your own sense of 'righteousness,' I shall lend you this power. Watch closely."

He took the Zanpakuto from his shoulder and gripped its hilt with both hands. The blade was heavy, with no unnecessary ornamentation; only faint forging marks glimmered along its spine.

"Bankai—Kokujō Tengen Myō'ō."

Reiatsu erupted from Komamura and surged upward. The ground behind him shook violently, cracks ripping through the yellow earth as boulders bounced and rolled away. An enormous armored giant rose from the fissures—several times taller than Komamura himself, its entire body covered in heavy black armor with dark red light shining through the joints. Its right hand held a gigantic Zanpakuto proportionate to its size, and deep darkness filled its helmet. It had no eyes, but Baiye could feel it looking at him.

The pressure did not come from the strength of its Reiatsu, but from its sheer size. It was so immense that his instinctive reaction was not to fight, but to freeze, as if holding his breath at the foot of a mountain that had suddenly risen before him. Baiye stared up, forgetting to blink for a moment.

"This is yours now."

Komamura returned the Zanpakuto to his shoulder. The giant did not disappear. It was waiting.

Baiye instinctively repeated the movement. He gripped his sword with both hands and raised it overhead. He could feel another pair of invisible hands gripping the hilt too—behind him, farther away and much higher up, the giant armored hands rose in sync with his. The instant he swung down, he felt the sword pull his entire arm with it, but the end of his blade did not strike the ground—the giant's blade left a deep gouge in the yellow earth without kicking up any rubble.

He swung the sword, and Myō'ō followed.

The sensation was both strange and natural, as if he had been born with it.

The gray-white sky began to fade. The ruined stone pillars, the parched yellow earth, Komamura's figure—all of it gradually blurred like ink diluted by water.

[Lottery complete. Obtained: Sajin Komamura: Kokujō Tengen Myō'ō (Bankai).]

[Uses: 1/1.]

[Additional rewards: Soul Strength +100 (618), swordsmanship experience +1000 (B rank), Hakuda experience +1000 (C rank).]

Baiye opened his eyes.

The dune was still the same dune. The sandstorm was still churning in the distance, and the purple pillar of light above Rōran was gradually fading. Pakura's ice sculpture stood silently beside him, still holding its fireball-raising pose. Only an instant had passed in reality during that mental illusion. He glanced down at his palm—the blood on the back of his hand had frozen into ice chips.

Sode no Shirayuki's use had ended, and its blade had returned to normal, but the hilt seemed to retain a trace of icy cold.

There probably wasn't much time left to deal with Rōran, so he had to move faster.

Baiye returned the sword to its sheath and fixed on the direction of Sunagakure. Reiatsu and Chakra burst beneath his feet, and his figure disappeared into the churning wind and sand.