The teleportation had been near-instant.
One moment, Kakashi Hatake and his elite squad stood within a fortified ridge near the Konoha-Kumo border, tense, alert, braced for incoming reports.
The next
A shift in pressure. A crack of displaced air.
And space itself folded.
Then unfolded.
They stood in Kumogakure.
In the enemy's stronghold.
Before them stretched the chaos of an active battlefield. Warning bells rang. Fires raged in distant watchtowers. Screams echoed through the stone corridors. The Hidden Cloud's shinobi scrambled like ants beneath a sudden boot.
But Kakashi wasn't looking at the battlefield.
He was looking at Hajime.
Hajime was already moving.
He hadn't said a word. No signal. No tactic. No glance back.
He simply marched forward, into the heart of a fortress, alone, armored like a god of war, each step splitting stone, as if this land itself had earned his wrath.
From behind a scorched wall, Genma whispered through his senbon, "Tell me I'm not dreaming."
"You're not," Tenzo murmured beside him, his voice hollow.
Raido exhaled slowly. "So this is the kid that took out Root…"
Yugao narrowed her eyes as Hajime crushed a shinobi with a backhand that pulverized his armor. "That's not a kid. That's a siege weapon in human skin."
They weren't wrong.
Lightning Release jutsu flashed across the air, plasma nets, crackling kunai, lightning-charged fists, all striking Hajime's armor to no effect. He didn't dodge, didn't parry.
He walked through it.
Each blow either glanced off or was returned with earth-shaking force. The battlefield didn't slow him. It shattered beneath him.
Genma crouched behind a smoldering balcony, watching blood mist bloom into the sky.
"So… are we gonna help?" he asked.
Kakashi's eye never left Hajime.
"No need."
Not a single Kumo ninja had even noticed them.
They were too busy dying.
Tenzo stepped back as a Raiton explosion lit the ground just meters away, deflected by Hajime's shoulder.
"We're not support," Tenzo said grimly. "We're just here to witness."
Then it escalated.
Yugito Nii arrived. The Two-Tails jinchūriki.
They all felt it, the shift in chakra. The temperature rising. The feral hum of bijū chakra singing against their senses. Her form glowed with blue flame and crackling thunder. Her claws lashed out faster than lightning itself.
She was terrifying.
And Hajime caught her one-handed.
Raido muttered under his breath, "No. Freaking. Way."
The team watched as Hajime's frame grew broader, psychic muscle enhancement flaring from within. The seams of his armor screamed, strained. The metal visibly warped under the bulging mass within.
Then came the swing.
BOOOOM.
The halberd's blunt side hit Yugito like a battering ram fired from a mountain. She vanished into the distance, crashing through half a forest.
Yugao shielded her eyes from the flying debris.
"She… she's not dead, right?" she asked.
Kakashi didn't answer.
The battlefield was silent.
More than two dozen elite Kumo shinobi lay broken or bleeding.
Matatabi's chakra had vanished.
And Hajime stood in the center of it all, gauntlets steaming, armor cracked, but unmoved.
Genma crouched lower. "Did he even use a ninjutsu?"
"No," Tenzo said softly. "Not one."
"I think, He just… wanted to test himself," Yugao said. "He wanted to test his physical prowess."
Raido shook his head slowly. "Remind me never to piss off Tsunade-sama. This is her apprentice."
"He didn't need us," Yugao added.
"He brought us anyway," Kakashi said.
Kakasi continues "It's more like he brought us here, to do the cleaning and assessment"
End of Chapter 93 – Witnesses in the Storm