Not for the first time, Raidou looked subtle in the face and told it to sit and spin. He splintered his chakra, breaking it apart into a dozen clones, and scattered them through his half of the village. The peeled away from him like teeth from a shark, and ripped the people from their beds.

Screams filled the air and made his bones shiver.

When the villagers didn't move fast enough, he warped his clones and created demons. They prowled on four legs and long claws, baring teeth longer than a kunai. The crowd panicked, losing their minds with fear. They ran. More than one man tried to fight back. Raidou smashed them down.

Lights burned out as lanterns shattered, spilling tarry oil. Sparks caught. Flame licked across timbers and set into dry wood, casting up a leadstone pall of billowing smoke. Raidou stopped it only when the blaze threatened penned cattle, pulling water from the well to extinguish what was fast becoming an inferno. Metal bristled from his hands, waiting for a throat to slice. The echo of flame twisted across his face, lighting unscarred skin.

He hammered into his people like a wrathful hellgod, and drove them to the barn. Demon clones snapped at their heels, ripping out chunks of flesh. They avoided the wailing children, but spared no one else. Screams became a solid wall of noise.

In the middle of the crush, he found one man with a gilt chain around his neck, and grabbed him by the throat. "Takahiro?"

The man turned purple under his grip, eyes bulging. Raidou loosened his fingers a fraction.

"D-demon!" the man gasped.

Raidou snarled at him. "Messengers of children. Are you Takahiro?"

The man just stared and scrabbled at his fingers. Raidou shook him, and then dragged him by the neck into the barn, roaring at people still not moving fast enough. Behind him, wild-eyed clones barred the doors.

He threw the man to the floor and stood in a widening circle of panicked villagers. Those that could move scrambled away, hitting the walls. Those that couldn't shivered on the floor.

Raidou bared his teeth, and raised his voice above the noise. "Is this man Takahiro?"

Nothing but fear answered him.