"Wh... what kind of ninjutsu is this?!"
Sasuke stood at the center of the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals.
His Two-Tomoe Sharingan spun frantically.
His gaze swept back and forth across the twenty-one crystal-clear ice mirrors around him, each radiating a bone-chilling cold.
Every mirror reflected the boy wearing a Kirigakure Pursuit Squad mask.
There were no openings.
The Sharingan's perceptive power seemed to have failed him at that moment.
All Sasuke could see was the exact same chakra flow in every mirror.
He could not distinguish the real body from the illusions at all.
Haku's voice echoed through the frigid air.
It seemed to come from every direction at once, with an ethereal quality utterly devoid of inflection.
"Don't waste your effort."
"Within this formation, I move at the speed of light."
"Your eyes can't keep up."
Before his words had faded, Haku moved.
Whoosh!
Sasuke did not even see how Haku left the ice mirror.
He only sensed a white afterimage flash before his eyes.
Then a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his shoulder!
Thunk!
Two slender ice senbon drove viciously into Sasuke's right shoulder!
Blood instantly stained his sleeve red.
Sasuke grunted and reached back to pull out the senbon.
He immediately pressed his back against an ice mirror, trying to reduce the area exposed to attack.
"So fast!"
But he had barely leaned against it.
A hand suddenly reached out of the ice mirror behind him.
Several more senbon mercilessly pierced his back!
"Argh!"
Sasuke staggered and pitched forward.
Enduring the excruciating pain, he rolled across the ground and regained his footing.
Haku's voice rang out again.
This time, a trace of condescending pity entered his tone.
"It's useless."
"I can move instantaneously between these mirrors."
"Your so-called 'control' is nothing but a laughable joke before absolute speed and a kekkei genkai."
"Konoha's genius? Is that all?"
Those words drove like a poisoned thorn into Sasuke's proud self-esteem.
Sasuke roared, his hands rapidly forming hand seals again.
He refused to believe it!
He would never admit that his desperate training over the past few days had been meaningless!
"Shut up!"
"Stop looking down on me!"
"Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
Sasuke took a deep breath and spat out dozens of small fireballs in succession.
The flames were like scattered balsam seeds.
They bombarded the ice mirrors indiscriminately in every direction!
He wanted to force Haku's real body out with a wide-ranging attack!
Yet another despair-inducing scene unfolded.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Haku's figure darted between the ice mirrors at high speed.
He moved so fast that streaks of white light trailed through the air.
He did not even make any particular effort to dodge the flames.
He simply flung countless ice senbon with casual flicks as he sped along.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
The Phoenix Flower Fire flames were struck with precision by the ice senbon in midair, frozen, and shattered!
The remaining senbon poured down on Sasuke like a dense, all-encompassing rain of ice!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sasuke swung his kunai, desperately parrying.
But there were far too many senbon, and they were far too fast!
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
His thighs, arms, abdomen, calves...
One ice senbon after another pierced Sasuke's defenses.
The ice senbon mercilessly sank into his flesh.
An extreme chill seeped into his body through the wounds.
It made his movements increasingly sluggish.
His chakra flow also grew sluggish and obstructed.
"Hah... hah..."
Sasuke knelt on one knee, gasping for breath.
His body was already covered in ice senbon.
He looked like a wretched hedgehog.
Blood dripped down his body onto the cold bridge.
It quickly froze into red ice crystals.
The Sharingan he took such pride in.
Now it, too, had lost its luster from the intense expenditure and overwhelming exhaustion.
Haku appeared in an ice mirror directly above Sasuke.
He looked down at Sasuke, who had already lost the ability to resist.
He held three ice senbon, thicker and longer than before, gleaming with a deadly cold light.
"It's over."
"For Mr. Zabuza's ambitions, please die here."
The icy verdict fell.
Haku sharply flicked his wrist!
Three deadly ice senbon tore through the air with piercing whistles.
They shot straight toward three fatal points: Sasuke's throat, heart, and the spot between his brows!
In the distance, Kakashi noticed the danger while fiercely clashing with Zabuza.
His eyes stretched wide with anguish, and he tried to rush over to help.
But Zabuza's Kubikiribōchō hounded him like a rabid dog, refusing to let him go.
"Sasuke!!!"
Zabuza laughed wildly, his attacks growing even fiercer.
"Kakashi! Your opponent is me!"
"Watch your student get killed right before your eyes!"
"Hahahaha!"
Sasuke watched the ice senbon rapidly grow larger in his pupils.
His mind went blank.
Am I going to die?
Die like this, at the hands of some unknown Kirigakure ninja?
My revenge...
My oath to restore the Uchiha Clan...
Will it all end here?
In the thousandth of a second before Sasuke closed his eyes to await death.
A lazy voice, tinged with impatience, suddenly rang out within the empty ice-crystal formation.
It shattered the suffocating deathly silence.
"What a sorry sight, Sasuke Uchiha."
"Is this what you call 'control'?"
"Being used for target practice-there's something rather artistic about it."
With that voice, a figure in black casual clothes appeared.
He strolled leisurely, as though walking through his own back garden.
He walked in through the gap between two ice mirrors.
No hand seals.
No burst of chakra.
Not even the sound of footsteps.
He simply appeared before Sasuke, abruptly and without warning.
Sasuke struggled to open his eyes.
He looked at the back of the figure standing in front of him.
His voice was so weak that his breath seemed ready to give out at any moment.
"Shen... Shengu Xuan..."
In midair, Haku's pupils contracted sharply behind his mask.
He had not sensed how this boy entered the formation at all!
This was the absolute defensive formation he was so proud of!
"Who are you?!"
But it was already too late to stop!
The three deadly ice senbon were already less than half a meter from Shengu Xuan's face!
Haku gritted his teeth and increased his chakra output.
"Die!"
Yet, faced with this deadly strike powerful enough to pierce steel.
Shengu Xuan did not even lift his eyelids.
He merely raised his right hand slowly, then...
Snap!
A crisp snap of his fingers.
Those three ice senbon, carrying terrifying momentum and an extreme chill.
At a point just one millimeter from Shengu Xuan's fingertips.
Abruptly, without any warning... stopped.
Like a film frame put on pause.
Haku cried out involuntarily.
"What?!"
A mocking smile curled Shengu Xuan's lips.
He gently pinched two fingers together.
Crack!
Between his two fingers, the incredibly hard ice senbon.
Instantly shattered like fragile glass tubes into a cloud of ice fragments.
The fragments drifted away on the wind.
Shengu Xuan brushed the ice off his hands.
He turned his head and looked down at Sasuke, who lay collapsed on the ground, covered in blood.
"Playing with needles?"
"Who do you think you are, Rong Momo?"
Shengu Xuan mocked mercilessly.
"What a useless piece of trash."
"You can't even handle such child's play, yet you're always going on about being a 'genius.'"
Sasuke trembled all over with rage.
But he no longer even had the strength to retort.
"You..."
Shengu Xuan crouched down and reached out a hand.
He pressed his hand against Sasuke's shoulder.
"But since you're still of some use, it'd be a shame for you to die now."
"Open those useless eyes of yours wide and watch."
"See what true... 'control' means."
The instant his words fell.
Hum!
A gentle white light, brimming with boundless vitality.
Burst forth from Shengu Xuan's palm!
Horse Talisman!
Healing Divine Authority, activate!
That white light was like the purest spring water.
It instantly enveloped Sasuke's entire body.
What happened next left Haku, suspended in midair, utterly stunned!
Kakashi, who had been watching out of the corner of his eye, was equally shocked!
With a series of hissing sounds.
The dozens of ice senbon embedded in Sasuke's body.
Actually, the instant they touched that white light.
Melted and evaporated like snow and ice beneath a blazing sun!
Immediately afterward, the wounds on Sasuke's body, each deep enough to expose bone.
Began healing at a speed visible to the naked eye!
Muscles reconnected!
Skin regrew!
Even his frozen chakra pathways were instantly cleared by that warm power!
In less than three short seconds.
The white light faded.
Sasuke stood where he was, completely unharmed.
Not only were all his injuries gone.
Even his depleted chakra and stamina had returned to their peak!
He stared blankly at his hands, their skin smooth and unblemished.
It felt like a dream.
Haku let out a scream of disbelief from within an ice mirror.
On that delicate face beneath his mask.
An expression called fear appeared for the first time.
"Th-this is impossible!!!"
Instantly healing fatal wounds?!
This had completely surpassed the realm of Medical Ninjutsu!
This was a miracle only a god could perform!
Shengu Xuan slowly rose to his feet.
He paid no heed to Sasuke's shock.
Instead, he turned his gaze toward the surrounding ice mirrors radiating cold.
"All right, treatment's over."
"Next..."
Within those eyes that had been pitch-black as ink.
Two points of dark red light began to flicker.
As wild as a volcano on the verge of eruption.
"It's time to clear away these damned eyesores of ice."
Before you continue