Borrowing the Updrafts to Form Ice Wings; Piercing the Sky Through the Rubble to See the Night

Falling.

Falling without end.

The gale tore at their ears with a piercing howl, as if countless vengeful spirits were wailing over the destruction of this steel tomb. Countless burning rocks and twisted steel beams hurtled past them like a meteor shower from hell, bringing waves of scorching air.

Haku's consciousness was nearly gone.

Mizuki Han's one good arm clamped tightly around her as their bodies tumbled uncontrollably through the weightless abyss. She couldn't see or hear anything. The whole world had become a chaotic nightmare, plunging rapidly downward.

Despair surged from all sides like the deepest ocean, crushing her small body until even breathing brought a stabbing pain.

As they plunged toward their doom, deep in the darkness where even light could not reach, she suddenly felt the arm that had been clamped around her like an iron vice loosen.

Wind rushed in.

She and his battered body drifted slightly apart in the raging currents.

Haku's pupils dilated. She instinctively reached out, wanting to grab hold of something, but caught nothing but emptiness.

Was he... going to abandon me?

The thought struck like the most vicious curse, shattering the last of her mental defenses.

Yet amid this endless fall and despair, a pair of eyes pierced through all the darkness and smoke, fixing firmly on her.

They flickered between firelight and shadow, still cold, still devoid of emotion. Yet they were like two nails, pinning her crumbling soul firmly in place.

Mizuki Han's lips moved. His voice was so hoarse it was almost impossible to make out, yet it cut cleanly through all the roaring and howling and reached Haku's ears.

"Grab me. With all your strength."

It wasn't a request, nor was it reassurance.

It was an order.

A cold, unquestionable order in the face of the apocalypse.

Before the words had even faded, an intensely pure, ice-blue chakra erupted violently from Mizuki Han's battered body!

There wasn't much of it; in fact, it was weak. But its purity was enough to make one's heart pound!

It was the last reserve of chakra inside Mizuki Han's body, held back to save his life in an emergency!

Without hesitation, he wrung out every last drop of hope.

"Urgh..."

Pain engulfed his consciousness like a rising tide. The strain of forcing his chakra to its limits made his already near-collapse network of chakra pathways groan under the unbearable burden. The crystallized wound at the stump of his left arm throbbed with excruciating pain, as though countless needles were churning his marrow.

But he didn't stop.

Rather than taking on an offensive form, the ice-blue chakra spread across his back like living vines.

It didn't create something out of nothing. Instead, it seized and absorbed everything around it with near-greedy hunger!

The superheated steam from the explosion, the damp mist in the air, even the drops of sewage tossed up by the shock waves... Anything containing water was forcibly seized and assimilated by the ice-blue chakra in that instant!

"Crack... crack..."

Amid the deafening roar, the faint, crisp sound of ice crystals forming rang out strangely.

A sight Haku would never forget was reflected in her eyes.

Behind Mizuki Han, sheets of ice, thin as cicada wings yet incredibly hard, were crystallizing, layering over one another, and expanding at a visible rate!

They weren't pristine white wings in the traditional sense. Their design embodied both brutal beauty and absolute practicality. Each "feather" was a sharp-edged blade of ice, glinting with a dark blue light. Layer upon layer of Ice Blades formed a pair of fearsome yet magnificent Ice Wings, with a span of over five meters, at precise angles suited to aerodynamics!

They weren't the wings of an angel.

They were weapons with which a demon could tear the sky apart!

"Hold on tight!"

The cold command rang out again.

The Ice Wings beat sharply!

"Vmmm—!"

The enormous wings didn't generate upward thrust. Instead, as they plunged with tremendous momentum, they caught the scorching updraft roaring from the broken energy pipes below, like the finest glider in existence!

Their downward momentum came to an abrupt halt!

A powerful upward lift took effect on them both!

"Boom!"

Not far beneath their feet, a block of concrete the size of a house hurtled down with tremendous force into the endless abyss below, not even an echo reaching them.

Meanwhile, riding the raging updraft, Mizuki Han and Haku shot toward the breach overhead, red with firelight and still collapsing, like falcons flying against the current!

"Th-this is..." Haku's small hands clutched the tatters of Mizuki Han's clothes. Her mouth hung open, but not a sound came out.

Fear, shock, and a fervor she hadn't even realized she felt—something close to worship—twined together in her heart.

Halfway down the plunge into hell, he had forced his wings open and ridden the winds of destruction skyward!

What kind of mad imagination did that take? And what kind of terrifying resolve to carry it out?

"Shut your mouth, unless you want a piece of rubble to punch through your throat."

Mizuki Han's voice remained cold. He showed no trace of satisfaction; all his focus was on making minute adjustments to the Ice Wings.

The ascent was far more perilous than he'd imagined.

The updraft created by the explosion was highly unstable, now raging, now weak. More deadly still, countless rocks and steel beams were raining down from above, forming an impenetrable curtain of death.

"Left!"

Mizuki Han's pupils contracted sharply. He steered the Ice Wings into a hard, extreme-angle bank to the right!

"Whoosh—"

A massive steel beam, over half a meter in diameter, its tip melted by the heat into a spear point, shot past so close it nearly scraped his nose! The scorching gust even singed some of the black hair over his forehead.

But the danger wasn't over!

Their extreme evasive maneuver had briefly taken them out of the strongest updraft, and their ascent slowed sharply.

And right above them, a vast "dark cloud" of concrete chunks and steel beams was already bearing down!

There was no way to dodge!

Haku instinctively shut her eyes.

But the impact she expected never came.

A ruthless glint flashed in Mizuki Han's eyes. Instead of dodging, he beat his Ice Wings sharply and charged straight at it!

"Ice Release: Scatter!"

The enormous Ice Wings shattered in an instant! They became tens of thousands of rapidly spinning, razor-sharp Ice Blades, surging upward like a storm of blades and crashing into the falling "dark cloud"!

"Clang, clang, clang—bang, bang, bang!"

A dense clatter erupted, like a downpour striking a metal roof!

The Ice Blades sliced through countless chunks of rubble and sent them flying! The deathly cloud was blasted open by this force from within, tearing a gap through it!

The moment the Ice Wings disintegrated, Mizuki Han used the last of his chakra to form a small platform of ice beneath his feet. Riding the recoil from the collision, he shot through the gap he had forcibly ripped open like a cannonball, carrying Haku with him!

Pff—

Mizuki Han spat out a mouthful of blood he could no longer hold back. It scattered into a cloud of mist in the air.

The chakra inside him was utterly spent.

His body had truly reached its limit.

But they had made it out!

They burst through layer upon layer of the curtain of death, woven from flames, smoke, rubble, and darkness.

A cold night wind, reeking of blood and gunpowder, blew into their faces.

The world opened up before them.

It was the boundless... night sky, something they could never have seen underground.

A waning moon hung high above, stained an eerie crimson by the dense blood-colored mist that never dispersed.

They had made it out.

From that sunless hell on earth, they had returned to a world that was wider—and more cruel.

Mizuki Han weakly beat the Ice Wings, which had formed again but were now in tatters, hovering with Haku nearly a hundred meters above the ground.

He lowered his head and looked down at his handiwork with the cold, godlike gaze of a deity.

An area nearly a thousand meters across, centered on the Anbu headquarters, had been reduced to a burning wasteland. A massive crater gaped like an ugly scar in the earth, bottomless and still belching smoke and fire.

Countless Kirigakure Ninja swarmed around the ruins like ants from a disturbed nest, running about in panic as they gathered into groups.

Shrill alarms echoed throughout the Village of the Bloody Mist.

The whole village had descended into utter chaos in the wake of this sudden, unprecedented catastrophe.

"Success..."

Mizuki Han's lips parted slightly as he spoke the two words.

There was not a trace of joy on his face.

Because he knew that escaping underground was only the beginning.

Now that he was back above ground, what was happening in Kirigakure? How would the higher-ups react to an explosion of this magnitude?