The blazing sun hung high in the sky, scorching the endless stretch of the Gobi Desert.
Several figures darted swiftly across the arid wasteland, their sandals grinding against the coarse sand.
The terrain had eroded most of their footwear by now. Though the Land of Wind was a domain of deserts, the border region wasn't yet fully swallowed by the sands.
Still, the ever-shifting dunes made every step a burden.
And yet, among them all, Ren, who seemed the physically weakest, appeared the most at ease.
His immense mental energy allowed him to resist fatigue with ease.
With just a sliver of chakra, he manipulated the wind beneath his feet, allowing him to glide forward without friction — his soles barely touching the ground.
"Little Ren, you've been using chakra to travel this whole time. Are you sure you're okay?" asked Matsushita, his brows furrowed with concern.
"No problem. I was born with overwhelming mental strength. The rate I consume chakra is way slower than how fast I recover. What, you guys can't do that?"
Ren's innocent grin made him look as if every ninja in the world could naturally pull off this feat. That smug cuteness only deepened everyone's inferiority complex.
At the front of the group, Hyūga Sōji suddenly clasped his hands together. It had been about five minutes — the set interval he allowed himself to open his Byakugan in order to conserve chakra.
"Byakugan — activate!" he murmured, his veins bulging around his eyes as his dōjutsu flared to life.
But what he saw this time wasn't like before. His entire field of vision was drowned in an overwhelming ocean of blue — chakra signatures, spreading in all directions.
Beneath the ground. To their left. Right. Rear. Front. Everywhere. It was suffocating.
"RETREAT!! EVERYONE FALL BACK!!" Hyūga Sōji roared.
His panicked scream immediately alerted the rest. An ambush. Just as they turned to flee, the earth beneath their feet groaned and shuddered violently — a one-thousand-meter radius trembling like a sea in storm.
With a deafening boom, the terrain gave way to massive waves of water erupting from below, crashing over them like a tsunami. Muddy geysers erupted, and a churning sea swallowed the battlefield.
Sōji and Ren were the first to react. Chakra burst beneath their feet as they stood atop the waves, balanced and composed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Hatake Fan and Matsushita weren't so lucky — the sudden shock had delayed their response, and the surging waters swept them into the depths.
Even Uchiha Canon Fodder 1, though late to react, managed to leap onto the water's surface after a few chaotic seconds, standing awkwardly with soaked robes and an embarrassed expression.
SPLASH! SPLASH!
Hatake Fan and Matsushita surfaced moments later, drenched and gasping for breath, scrambling to rejoin the team with uncharacteristic urgency.
"What the hell? An ocean in the middle of the desert?! Did the Mizukage show up himself!?" shouted Matsushita, his face pale.
"No... not even the Mizukage could summon a sea like this in the Wind Country. I observed it with my Byakugan — the water isn't soaking into the sand. That means they're using a barrier technique!" Sōji explained.
"A barrier?"
Ren's eyes narrowed. Who the hell had enough time on their hands to develop a water containment barrier in a place like this?
What Ren didn't know was that this exact Suiton: Water Enclosure Barrier had been custom-developed by Kirigakure for Wind Country operations — designed to maintain large volumes of water in desert regions, using layered fuinjutsu and chakra stabilization points to prevent absorption.
"Can it be destroyed?" Hatake Fan asked, his tone sharp.
"Yes. It's not particularly complex to set up or maintain. All we have to do is destroy the chakra keystone at the center. Once it's gone, the barrier collapses. But…"
"But you'll never reach it alive, right? Am I correct, Hyūga jōnin of Konoha's ANBU?" a silky, mocking voice echoed across the artificial sea.
Ren's pupils contracted. Even with his mental power far surpassing any average shinobi, he couldn't sense the speaker's presence.
"Impressive," he muttered. "Only the Elite Jōnin of the Yuki Clan from Kirigakure could pull off a genjutsu and chakra masking combo like that… but to create an entire ocean?"
"Bullshit!" another voice shouted. "That was MY doing!"
A second figure surfaced beside the first, his body condensing out of the water like molten mercury.
The man grinned, half his torso formed from liquid, and two shinobi in Kirigakure flak jackets appeared beside him, their faces cold and blank — clearly Elite.
"Oi, look at my brother Hōzuki Getsumei. He's PISSED. Do you know how long it took him to make this sea?"
"Don't call me your brother, you annoying wench," Hōzuki Getsumei snarled, glaring at the Yuki kunoichi. "After I slaughter Konoha's trash, I'm coming back to shut you up for good."
With that, the water beneath him exploded, and he launched forward like a torpedo.
But just as Getsumei reached mid-range—
"WAIT!" a voice thundered through the air.
Everyone froze.
Getsumei halted instinctively, blinking in confusion at the small figure standing ahead of him — Ren.
"Mist-nin, right? Hōzuki clan? Yuki clan? Give me a face... and surrender."
"…The fuck?"
Getsumei scratched his head, confused. He looked at the Yuki kunoichi beside him, who burst out laughing with a mocking smirk.
"Oi, you little brat," he growled. "You dare MOCK Hōzuki Getsumei?! I'm gonna use you to paint the ocean red!"
In a flash, Getsumei's body turned to water again, disappearing under the surface.
The next second, he burst out from behind Ren — kunai in hand, gleaming with chakra-enhanced sharpness, aimed straight at Ren's spine.
Swoosh!
A sickly green light shimmered through the air.
With one smooth movement, Ren spun around and slashed upward with his Chakra Blade. The strike was precise — clean.
Getsumei's arm — and weapon — were bisected in one slice, his liquified body reeling back as droplets sprayed into the air.
Ren landed in a half-crouch on the water's surface, blade clenched in his right hand. His eyes burned with a dangerous gleam — fierce, focused, and utterly merciless.
"Now! Engage!" he shouted, his voice like thunder across the artificial sea.