Naruto: Rise of the Fallen Princess

The battlefield had claimed its first two victims. Masaru stood tall in his final breath of glory before being taken down by the elegance and cunning of Karuna Tsuchi. But the storm was far from over.

The mist did not part. Instead, it thickened.

Within that pale shroud, movement stirred anew.

<<<< o >>>>

Second Battle: Souta Kanbe vs. Genda Suirō

From the depths of the haze, a giant form charged forward. Genda Suirō, his frame a walking fortress, carved through the water with thunderous steps. The heavy plating of his ANBU armor was fractured in deliberate lines, like the cracked crust of ancient stone. His fists gleamed with hardened chakra, trembling slightly from the immense pressure they contained.

He moved like a battering ram, eyes locked on a single target.

"So you're the rock with legs they warned about," Genda scoffed, cracking his neck. "Let's see if that tin can you're wearing actually lets you hit back—or if you're just another slab of meat dressed for a funeral."

Souta stood at the edge of a shallow plateau just above the lake's mirrored surface. Beneath him, Kuro's earlier splashes had left ripples, now silent. His frame seemed immobile—until his arm moved to raise his blade, the steel humming like the grumble of shifting mountains.

"You're not wrong," Souta replied calmly. "This place is wrong for me. Too much water. But it won't matter."

Genda grinned, launched himself forward. "We'll see!"

His fist struck first. A powerful Tsuchiken: Kenkōsha punch meant to shatter defenses and leave opponents immobile. It connected against Souta's side—but the impact was absorbed into the layered ridges of the samurai's armor. The metal groaned, dented even, but Souta held firm. Compared to the explosive force Lady Hinata had unleashed on him during countless sparring sessions, this was almost tame—a breeze trying to shake a boulder.

Genda drew back in confusion—then saw it.

Souta was shifting his stance. The water beneath his feet trembled with subtle ripples, vibrations from his weight pulsing outward. The weight of his breath was like tectonic pressure building.

"Earth Breathing Style: First Form – Stone Fall."

He raised his sword high above his head and brought it down with terrifying force. The cut sliced down through air and mist, and even the lake's surface parted beneath it, splitting several meters deep into the water. The shockwave sent Genda stumbling, forced back by pure kinetic force.

"You call that a technique?!"

Souta responded with motion.

"Second Form – Rising Pillar."

This time, his blade came from low to high in a vicious uppercut. Just as the edge was about to connect, Genda roared and slammed his palms together. The Doton: Iron Skin Jutsu surged across his body in a flash of dull brown chakra. The blade still struck true, lifting him into the air and sending him flying. He crashed into the lake with a sickening splash, skimming across the surface before colliding with a tree embedded in the far side of the formation's edge.

Souta exhaled sharply. "I've dispersed Lady Hinata's explosive chakra with this armor. You are strong, but you're not her."

Genda growled and rose, bloodied but not broken. He barreled forward again, launching another earth-infused strike—this time cracking the front panel of Souta's breastplate.

"You're just metal and brute force!"

Souta rolled his shoulders, then moved in close.

"Third Form – Mountain Clash."

He twisted, used the full weight of his shoulder and plated armor to slam into Genda like an avalanche. The force was monstrous. Genda's rib cage gave way, his Iron Skin cracking under the compounded pressure of dense chakra and armor.

He collapsed to one knee. The mist swirled behind him.

Souta's voice came one last time, resolute. "You fell before the earth itself."

Genda Suirō collapsed unconscious, defeated by force, technique, and patience.

Victory: Souta Kanbe.

<<<< o >>>>

Third Battle: Kenshiro Uzumaki vs. Capitan Nibari Kenzan

The mist thickened around them, curling like a curtain preparing to reveal a new act.

From its depths stepped a tall, imposing figure. Nibari Kenzan, captain of the Iwa ANBU squad. His aura alone made the air feel heavier. A long stone mask covered his face, etched with old Iwa script, and a massive scroll hung across his back like a burden earned.

Across from him stood Kenshiro Uzumaki, his stance precise, his sword steady at his side. Decades of discipline radiated from him, the calm before a cyclone.

"You are a worthy opponent," Kenshiro declared. "Lady Hinata asked us to show mercy—but I know if I face you with anything less than my full strength, I won't survive."

Nibari's voice was dry and quiet. "Then die with dignity."

His hands formed a subtle seal. From the water beneath them, dozens of stone pillars burst forth in irregular patterns, forming a jagged field of vertical blades. Kenshiro dashed, the storm in his veins igniting.

But it wasn't over.

With swift, practiced gestures, Nibari followed up with a brutal assault.

"Doton: Tomb of Earth Spines."

From every pillar, countless razor-sharp earthen spikes erupted, slicing through the battlefield in all directions, each one aiming to impale and shred. It was a merciless move designed to end the battle in a single wave of devastation.

Kenshiro's answer was clear and immediate.

"Storm Breath – Seventh Form: Thunderclap."

A shockwave echoed as Kenshiro's form vanished, reappearing behind Nibari with impossible speed. 

"Storm Breath – First Form: Hurricane-Force Wind!"

His blade cut through the mist in a wide arc, creating a pressure wave that pushed the lake's water into ripples. Nibari activated Iron Skin Jutsu without hand signs, coating himself in chakra. Even so, he was knocked back, smashing through several of his own stone pillars.

Nibari stood slowly, his mask broken, blood on his lips. He saw Kenshiro anew.

"My name is Nibari Kenzan."

Kenshiro bowed slightly. "Kenshiro Uzumaki."

Recognition flickered in Nibari's eyes—Uzumaki. He barely had time to react before Kenshiro's hands formed a blur of seals.

"Suiton: Racing Waterfall Dragons!"

Three immense dragons of water rose behind the samurai and charged. Nibari dodged right, shattered one with a Doton barrier, then flipped as the third aimed to crush him.

Kenshiro appeared at his side.

"Storm Breath – Eighth Form: Lightning Strike."

His blade crackled with electricity as it pierced Nibari's defense. The Iron Skin cracked, then shattered. Nibari screamed, a sound lost in the mist.

Victory: Kenshiro Uzumaki.

<<<< o >>>>

Fourth Battle: Ayaka Fuyutsuki vs. Hoshigake Tenmu

The mist parted subtly—not with violence, but with silence. In its wake stood Ayaka Fuyutsuki, her breathing slow, her posture poised, blades drawn. She held twin short swords, perfectly balanced, designed for swift counterattacks and stealth movement. Unlike the heavyset Kenshiro or the towering Souta, Ayaka moved like a ghost through the field—soft, deliberate, lethal.

Across from her, emerging like a phantom from the dense curtain of mist hanging over the lake, was Hoshigake Tenmu, the stealth specialist of the Iwa ANBU. His mask shimmered faintly, etched with blue runes that pulsed with chakra. His robe seemed to melt into the watery fog, his every movement calculated, unreadable. His voice, when it came, was gentle—eerily so.

"A samurai assassin with no name in the bingo books. How quaint."

Ayaka didn't flinch. Her stance shifted—shadow breath forming around her body, cloaking her limbs in subtle darkness.

Tenmu's lips curled behind the mask. He had prepared for this.

The moment Ayaka moved, so did the world around her. A trap seal hidden on the water's surface flared blue, and a chain of exploding tags detonated in a synchronized arc. Ayaka twisted, flipped over the first pulse, and deflected the second with a blade, vanishing into the mist with grace—only to reappear behind Tenmu.

Her blade grazed his shoulder, but met hardened resistance. Fuinjutsu armor seal, Ayaka realized.

"You're good," Tenmu admitted, unrolling a pair of small scrolls from his sleeves.

From one, fire erupted—Katon: Flame Snare Technique, the burst spread like a net. Ayaka dodged, her cloak catching fire briefly before she discarded it mid-motion. The second scroll pulsed—Shadow Suppression Tag—a seal that latched onto her shadow and began pulling her movement into slow delay.

Ayaka gritted her teeth. She'd trained endlessly in hybrid stealth. Her breathing style allowed her to adapt, to strike in the half-second windows between heartbeat and hesitation. But her opponent was made for this kind of battlefield.

She feinted left—then dove into the water, disappearing under the mist.

Tenmu waited. Perfectly still.

Until a ripple behind him warned him a second too late.

Ayaka surged up, blades flashing. Her Shadow Breath – Piercing Veil strike narrowly missed his throat—but his trap activated first.

A burst of paper tags erupted in midair, wrapping her limbs mid-strike. A final chakra seal pulsed over her back as she fell forward, stunned.

A kunai, perfectly aimed, flew from Tenmu's sleeve and struck her cleanly in the chest as her body fell. The impact made a dry, cracking sound as Ayaka's form slammed into the lake below.

"You fought well. Just not long enough," Tenmu muttered, watching the ripples where she disappeared.

Whether she lived or died—remained unseen.

Victory: Hoshigake Tenmu.

<<<< o >>>>

Fourth Battle: Second Round — Souta Kanbe vs. Hoshigake Tenmu

The waters of the Valley of the End were still rippling from the last battle when a thunderous stomp echoed across the battlefield. Souta Kanbe emerged from the mist, his armored figure looming like a living mountain, eyes burning with rage. The impact of Ayaka's fall still haunted the edge of his vision—his lover, his friend, his comrade, perhaps dead beneath the lake. His anger smoldered like magma beneath stone.

From the opposite side of the clearing stepped Hoshigake Tenmu, calm and unreadable, his mask's azure runes flickering with fresh chakra. "Another toy soldier?" he mused. "How many will this girl sacrifice before she accepts her fate?"

Souta didn't answer. He stepped forward, each footfall sending low rumbles through the water below. The lake beneath them trembled with the weight of his advance.

Tenmu hurled twin kunai—tagged and laced with chakra. Souta raised a thick, gauntleted forearm, letting the projectiles burst against his armor harmlessly. Sparks and water droplets exploded around him.

Then Souta moved.

"Earth Style: First Form — Downward Cleave!"

He raised his sword and brought it crashing down. The weight of his swing split the mist and cleaved the surface of the lake for meters downward—slicing water and air alike with seismic force. Tenmu evaded with a burst of chakra-enhanced speed, but even that wasn't enough to avoid the shockwave.

From behind, a series of seals ignited, unleashing a flurry of shuriken and binding threads. Souta charged straight through them, his armor shrugging off the minor impacts. A flame seal detonated nearby—its explosion roaring across his right side—but Souta burst from the smoke, roaring in fury.

"Earth Style: Fifth Form — Seismic Step!"

The lake beneath Souta pulsed with sudden force as he lunged forward, his armored foot breaking the surface tension in a shockwave of concentric ripples. In the blink of an eye, he blurred ahead with crushing acceleration, a juggernaut of armored steel and earth-bound fury.

"Third Form — Mountain Clash!"

Harnessing the momentum of his charge, Souta pivoted into a brutal shoulder slam. The reinforced plates of his armor struck Tenmu's midsection with the weight of a landslide. The ANBU operative was flung backward through sheer force, smashing through a mist-shrouded boulder and disappearing into the churning water beyond.

The lake stilled again, steam curling up from where Souta now stood—his chest rising and falling with wrathful breath.

Whether Tenmu still breathed or not, he made no sign.

Souta ignored the fallen enemy. Without bothering to check his condition, he pivoted on his heel with such force that his armor groaned, surging forward at breakneck speed toward where Ayaka lay. The red-stained water marked her location, painting the lake as if he himself were wounded. Every step he took was a roar of steel and weight. His heart beat like a war drum, his fury barely restrained by the discipline that kept him upright. If Ayaka still lived, he would find her. And if not... someone else would pay the price.

Victory: Souta Kanbe.

<<<< o >>>>

Fifth Battle — Emi vs. Naka Hozuki

From the far side of the misty lake, the clash of steel echoed once more. Emi, light-footed and composed, faced his latest adversary—a jōnin named Naka Hozuki, a man clad in a dense earthen armor. Naka's face was shadowed beneath the curve of his ANBU mask, but his stance was clear—wary but confident. He held a short sword, not unlike Emi's own, though heavier and better suited to power.

Naka was no brute. His style was sharp, calculating—his primary edge lay in his unique Jutsu, "Uwagaki". With each strike Emi delivered, Naka mimicked more of his rhythm, adapting moment to moment. Though his movements weren't flashy, every slash he blocked improved his timing, shortening the window between prediction and counter.

Emi realized quickly his usual slicing precision could not pierce through Naka's Earth Armor Technique. Slashes that would have severed tendons simply rang against his opponent's dense plating. Still, Emi danced through the mist, redirecting Naka's increasingly familiar attacks with minimal movement. When he couldn't avoid it, his own finely-forged armor helped absorb or deflect the brunt—after all, he'd faced Souta's punishing strikes in training; nothing here compared.

He attempted a decapitation strike after an agile spin, invoking Water Breathing — First Form: Calm Surface Slash, but the blade stopped short at the reinforced collar of earth armor.

Naka's riposte was swift—a downward slash intended to cleave into Emi's shoulder. Emi ducked and twisted, using the rotation to build into Water Breathing — Second Form: Water Wheel, an upward diagonal arc that cracked hard against Naka's side, sending tremors through the hardened earth.

Still not enough.

In a fluid motion, Emi let go of his main blade in mid-turn and reached for his wakizashi. Before Naka could register the shift, Emi's shorter blade thrust upward in a tight arc—piercing directly through the eye slit of his opponent's mask.

The tip was embedded into Naka's skull with surgical precision. The jōnin jerked, then fell limply into the water, his mimicry silenced.

Emi retrieved his fallen weapon as ripples spread from the sinking corpse.

Victory: Emi

<<<< o >>>>

Fifth Battle: Second Round — Emi vs. Karuna Tsuchi

Emi stood, blades drawn, his breathing controlled but fierce. The impact of Lord Masaru's fall still echoed in his memory—a warrior cut down by surprise. Emi's fists clenched tighter around the hilt of his blade. He would not let that sacrifice go unanswered.

Ahead of him, the mist warped again, and the air chilled. Karuna Tsuchi stood over the rippling water, her mask now cracked from the previous encounter, her presence cold and calculating. With a wave of her hand, she activated a Jutsu already in place.

From the mist, multiple illusions of masked kunoichi emerged—dozens of ghostly forms that glided across the lake with deadly purpose.

Emi narrowed his eyes. "You still have a chance to leave this place," he warned, calm yet solemn. "This doesn't need to end in blood."

Karuna didn't answer with words. Her illusions encircled him, weaving a false tapestry around the battlefield.

But Emi had trained under waters deeper than silence. He closed his eyes and let the world speak.

"Water Breathing: Twelfth Form — Ripple Sense."

With his senses sharpened, the water beneath him became his ally. Every displacement, every twitch of chakra upon the surface revealed the true enemy.

A blur of movement.

"Water Breathing — Alter Second Form: Inverted Water Wheel!"

With a pivot and a rising arc of his blade, Emi slashed upward with the reverse of his blade, air cracking like thunder. The impact struck true—the illusion shattered, and Karuna herself was hurled backward by the force, crashing into the lake with a gasp of pain and disbelief.

She didn't rise.

Emi lowered his blade, water misting from his armor.

Victory: Emi

<<<< o >>>>

Sixth Battle — Mitsue vs. Takiji Hiruzen

The fog that draped the Valley of the End was thick and unnatural, a mist designed by Jiren's formation to disorient and ensnare. Takiji Hiruzen, the sensory specialist of the Iwa ANBU unit, wandered through this cloaked battlefield, his perception narrowed, his focus razor-sharp. The seals carved onto his brow emitted a low glow as he swept his awareness through the chakra field, searching.

What he found instead was dread.

High above, perched regally atop a beast cloaked in shadows, sat Hinata Gin—the so-called Iron Princess. Her blind gaze didn't seem to need sight. At her feet, a great black wolf—Kuro—watched Takiji with an eye that glinted like ice, a predator's joy flickering in the glint of that gaze.

Takiji's breath caught in his throat as, just for a moment, the fog of concealment parted—not around Hinata or Kuro—but around something far worse.

A spiritual pressure, deep and ancient, cracked open beneath the water's surface.

It was a glimpse. Nothing more. But it was enough. Enough to know that what slithered below was no mere animal.

Mitsue, in her compact serpentine form, shimmered through the lake like a streak of white lightning. Takiji's mind screamed at him to move, to escape, but the water had grown sticky—no longer a battlefield, but a trap.

The serpent's coils closed around him with surgical precision. In an instant, he was entangled—dragged toward the central platform where Hinata sat astride Kuro, silent, regal, omniscient.

She spoke, not looking at him, but addressing him as if she'd been watching all along.

"You are the sensor, aren't you? Of this little ambush team… You can feel them now—what's left of them."

Takiji trembled. His senses flared outward despite himself—and he saw it:

Six jōnin had entered this battlefield. Two were dead. One—Nibari Kenzan, their captain—was gone, consumed by a strike of lightning and blade. Three others clung to life by threads.

Only three samurai stood. Two were grievously wounded—but alive.

Hinata's voice became quieter, but no less powerful. "You're going to walk away. Go tell your people what you saw. Next time… I will not be so kind."

Takiji didn't argue. He bowed low, his hands shaking.

Victory: Mitsue