Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)- it's completely free to access. What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) and read the next three chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read.
I was right. I could feel the power as it flowed from my lips to my mouth, and then down the rest of my body. The tiny bits of nature chakra latched on to my own chakra, expanding it far beyond its natural limits. I didn't need this enhancement to be permanent. I just needed a feeling, and I got it right then. The feeling of nature energy. The thing Kurama had me spending hundreds of clone hours working on had fallen straight into my lap, and now that I could feel it within my body, I could feel it everywhere.
I turned my focus to my internal reserves, feeling the nature chakra begin to break down some of my cells from their actions as they forcibly expanded my chakra capacity. I took a breath and claimed control of the chakra and began to guide it across my body. It wasn't just expanding my chakra, it was coursing through my body itself, making me stronger, faster, more alert, and taller? Yes, I was taller. Shino had been tall enough that I reached to about his shoulder. Now, I met him eye to eye.
He took a step back. Good, he was competent enough to realise that something here was different.
"Did you think me a fool like the rest?" I asked, even as I turned my attention to my body. It felt like being in the two-tailed stage, except without feeling my body be subsumed by kurama's chakra and unable to utilize fine control, it was undoubtedly the opposite here. Being in this sage mode made my chakra, which so readily responded to my will feel even easier to control— maybe this was why Naruto had needed sage mode to figure out throwing the rasenshuriken in the first place.
The best part? This was just the beginning. I'd get better with time. I just had to put my head down and train.
"Don't answer that. I couldn't care less. Our bargain is complete. Now thank me for my services, so I may be on my way" I said,
XXX- THE FENCESITTER
It has to be some sort of mistake, he thought to himself as he stared down the message written to him in the hand of Wu, one of his Jounin. Wu was the stable sort, not the kind to be taken in by flights of fancy or to repeat something without verifying it first. He was also bullheaded as any and not the sort to retreat if there was a battle that could be won.
And yet, regardless of all that, Wu had reported the impossible to him.
"It should not be possible" He settled for saying, tossing the scroll to his most trusted advisor and rising from his seat to look at his village. He had no illusions regarding how things were proceeding. He had only three rules in life that he followed above all: Love family, Be the Stone the village needs, and never lie to yourself— or to her. She would know if he lied to her.
"And yet, the report is here" His trusted second said the words that she knew he was thinking.
"What would you have me do, Nemuri? Surrender? Quit the battlefield because another Senju has decided to make himself an army destroying threat? Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama both fell with time. This Shorirama will be no different".
"Of course, except that Hashirama and Tobirama never did the impossible the way their descendant seems to do so. Our reports say that he was made a jinchuriki not even a month ago. To go from that to being adjusted with the Bijuu enough to kill Han is something unthinkable. Even worse, he's done that while killing an army with some sort of high-speed movement jutsu never before seen" She added. She knew these were thoughts he had, but she was bringing them to light so he could come to terms with them. After decades together, it was a dance, the two of them were more than familiar with. She, the young Secretary in training, and he, the Kage's apprentice. A match made in heaven— or hell, depending on whom you listened to.
"Teleportation. Tobirama Senju had some unholy teleportation jutsu up his sleeve, I remember. I just don't remember it ever taking this sort of form" he said, before turning away from the beautiful Iwa skyline to his even more beautiful wife.
"So something like his Granduncle's technique then. All that on top of all the other information about him." She said speculatively.
"A troublesome shinobi by all means" He said.
"And what will we do about him?" She asked, already seeing where his mind was going.
"I wish I could say Kitsuchi was ready for a fight like this one, but after that showing against the Yonbi, and spending months in care, I wouldn't dare. No, there is only one person in our village with the power to put down the threat he represents for good"
"So you will finally take to the battlefield then"
"I must. The Hokage and Raikage are busy taking their pounds of flesh from each other in Frost. Our offensive in Rain is gone. Sand is out of the game as a threat for the time being, and now we've been pushed out of Taki without finding the village, and without drawing troops away from her Konoha front to weaken them for our allies of convenience. No. There is only one thing that could be done. I will take charge of our offense in Grass. We will annihilate whatever remains of that hidden village, and when Shorirama Senju is sent to stop me, I will leave nothing but dust." He said, meaning every word. He would never forget the insult that Konoha had paid both he and his sensei. Madara Uchiha might be dead, but the village he had helped build still stood, and as long as it did, his pride would never be sated.
XXXXXX- UZUME UCHIHA
"Surprised?" She asked with a smirk, turning to the girl she had just saved.
"I had her" Uraume said with little heat. An obvious lie. She merely lifted an eyebrow. Izuku had had the ability to say paragraphs with naught but his facial expressions, and she had inherited that.
"Fine. She had me. But why help me?"
"We're comrades" She said like that explained everything. She was not going to tell her that if she didn't help, then Uraume would have died and then Shorirama would have become a boring mess while mourning her death.
She spotted the approaching situation from the corner of her eye. Uraume had already deactivated her byakugan— either despair or exhaustion. She picked up the girl and jumped out of the way as her sensei landed on the ground where they had stood. He rolled with the fall and flipped to his feet right in time to dodge out of the way of a piercing stab from the Raikage's fingers. For the first time, they were in close proximity, and her first thought was— 'he's massive'. The Raikage was taller than Sensei, who was already one of the tallest in all of Konoha, and almost twice as bride. His muscles had muscles. The raikage moved again for the next attack, as she struggled to keep track of him with her eyes.
Sharingan or not, both Sensei and the Hokage managed to react before she could. Sensei formed a single seal and the ground rose in a wall that stopped the Raikage for not even half a second, but that was enough time for the Hokage's staff to extend so quickly that it released a sonic clap. It slammed into the Raikage mid-lunge, and somehow the man had still been quick enough to turn in time to block with his arms raised.
He flew backwards for a second or two, and then his feet were dragging against the ground until he came to a halt.
"Extend Enma" She heard the Hokage's voice bark, but the staff did nothing but strain against the Raikage's crossed arms. The man was the epitome of physical power, and it showed.
Sensei was in the fray again, Chakra saber lashing out to aim at the Raikage's neck. The man did not even move, and the saber caught itself against the lightning cloak that covered the muscular man from head to toe and did not bulge. Her eyes narrowed. Sensei's saber could cut through anything, she knew. Especially when he used it as he did, with his chakra clinging to it in white flashes.
The Raikage heaved and then uncrossed his arms, sending the staff into the air, before he turned back to Sensei. One of the most dangerous men in Konoha, Sensei was far from being a pushover, but when the Third Raikage's full force turned against him, it was all the man could do to backpedal. The third Raikage was not just pure offensive power like his build suggested, she surmised. For one, he was fast. Faster than most without doujutsu would even be able to track. Add to that the fact that he was so strong that he could not be blocked, only redirected, plus the ungodly durability he exhibited with stopping Sensei's saber cold against his neck of all places. If there was any man to be described as the perfect weapon, it was this one.
And as he chased Sensei's backpedalling form, the ground beneath him turned to mud that began to push him backwards. She was reminded that this perfect weapon fought against Konoha's greatest scholar. He landed a few meters back, and was instantly bathed in flames. A dragon flame bullet so hot that she had been able to feel her hair sustain damage even from this distance. The explosion died out, and the Raikage remained there, smirking.
"That the best you can do, Hiruzen? And they told me you were better than your Sensei. If this is the limit of your power, then Tobirama Senju must have been a truly pitiful man" The Raikage said, taking a step forward. He looked around, and she realised that he was only just noticing the losses he was experiencing while the Hokage and Sensei led him around by the nose. He didn't seem to care either way though, just smirking before shooting off again. She noticed that his hand, which had previously had all fingers pointing straight, had shifted position so the thump and pinky were held down while the other three pointed outwards.
Sensei slammed his hands on the ground and two enormous walls rose faster than she had ever seen anyone succeed with the jutsu. Still, they might as well have never been there for all the protection they offered. Still, they obscured the Raikage's view for a fraction of a second, and that was all Sensei needed to pull off his substitution.
The body the Raikage crashed through dissolved in a storm of cutting winds that did nothing to penetrate the armour, even with their elemental advantage. Sensei came in from behind, slashing his saber through the air and unleashing an arc of white cutting power that flew towards the Raikage. The man stared at the attack for a second before going almost horizontal to dodge the attack and then landing on his feet again to come face to face with another Karyu endan. She ignored the twinge she felt at seeing Omoikane's uncle use one of their clan's signature techniques. A signature technique that her classmate and dare she say it, friend would never get to learn.
The Raikage dove through this attack as well, but the Hokage had planned for it. Behind the fire came a series of wind bullets that the muscular kage was forced to cross his arms into a shield to block. The slammed against his lightning cloak and achieved nothing but making it flicker even more erratically. Suddenly, Sensei was there after chaining two body flickers with a substitution and unleashed another arc of cutting power from the Raikage's blindspot.
Once again, the burly tank of a man stood there and took an attack that would have killed anyone else to the face with no effect. The Hokage weaved handseals faster than she had ever seen anyone apart from Sensei and Shori manage before the ground began to shake and heave beneath the Raikage. The man looked down, visible disdain on his face, before looking up at Sarutobi Hiruzen. In a flash, he was off, but it was too late. The earth flipped on itself with him in the middle, slamming him into a crushed paste like hands coming together to clap a mosquito to death. Or, at least, that would have been the case if the Raikage even qualified as human. He charged through the crushed earth, unstoppable force, brought face to face with a very moveable object. The Hokage's staff retracted to a more manageable length as he brought it to bear.
Staff and man clashed, neither managing to overpower the other in the first second before they disengaged and crashed into one another again. For a second, she wondered how he was able to so easily keep track of the Raikage who she struggled to see even with her fully matured sharingan, but a closer look at the fight made it clear what was happening. The Hokage was reacting to the Raikage's movements even before he made them. That was interesting. Very fascinating, she thought to herself. Some kind of precognition?
She watched as he pushed the staff against the Raikage's chest as the man lunged in an all out attack on the Hokage's position, clearly unused to being held in taijutsu for so long. That exchange was what made her certain of her theory. The Hokage was a quick man, and a very crafty one, but those things were not being used to fight the Raikage directly. They were instead being used to hide the fact that his staff was responding to the Raikage and predicting his moves even more reliably than the Sharingan could.
The adamantine staff won the exchange, as the unstoppable force was forced to take a step back to prevent his chest caving in. Hiruzen Sarutobi saw his advantage, and credit to him, he took it better than most could. He formed the seal with the hand obscured by the staff and moved his chakra in a way that Uzume had never seen before to create a unique type of wind release. It wasn't wind release made of compacted or concentrated air, but wind release made of the absence of air itself. Like it pushed air out of its way to make its presence known to the world.
Once again, the Raikage opted to take the attack rather than dodge it, and this time the wind release exploded when it hit his body, sending the usually unflappable man sailing backwards in the air. Not allowing the advantage slip for a second, Sensei pulled out one of his trump cards. She watched his chakra spike as he opened the first of his eight inner gates and in a flicker of pure speed, he appeared behind the horizontal form of the Raikage. He unleashed a kick so powerful it caused a shockwave as it sent the Raikage flying into the air. He followed from behind, kicking against the air itself with legendary chakra control that would have put even the best medics to shame. Bandages from a sealing scroll began to wrap around the man as Sensei guided them with chakra threads so thin that none without eyes like hers would have been able to understand them.
Enclosed and bound, the Raikage could do little as he was spun through the air and planted into the ground like a seed from a seed planter. Sensei landed on the ground a few steps away, facing away from the explosion, just like Shori always insisted cool guys do. The dust began to clear, and it became apparent that celebrations had been far from warranted.
The man dusted his broad shoulders by tapping at them with each arm— never mind that each tap looked like it could have removed a regular man's head from his body. He was unscathed. Not even a scratch on him. His lightning cloak had died out, but there was no damage sustained. Nothing. Not even a damn bruise.
"That almost tickled, Monkey" he said with a laugh, directing his words at Sarutobi rather than Sensei. He wasn't even considering Sensei as a threat, and that rankled at her. Was it pride? It had to be. Even with all the power she'd gotten recently, she couldn't imagine being able to just casually disregard a man like Sensei. His bag of tricks was endless, and his mind was somehow even craftier than his tricks, plentiful. He didn't know a thousand jutsu or anything, but he could use every jutsu he knew in a thousand ways.
Sensei was the first to break the seeming deadlock, speeding into the Raikage's space with the first gate open and moving to remove his head from his shoulders— Sensei never failed to aim from the head, he was efficient like that. The dark skinned, hefty man stopped the blade with his fingers stretched to, catching it so precisely as if to say that Sensei's speed did not compare to his. An arc of white chakra flowed from the blade but broke against the Raikage's body without effect.
"That's a nifty trick with the staff. The monkey is a sage, huh? I would not have expected to find another practitioner of the ancient, rightful arts in a place like this one, but well enough. We shall see whose traditions reign superior, Sarutobi" The Raikage proclaimed to the world and his body exploded with a new chakra cloak. Black lightning encased him from head to toe, and in a blur she failed to track, he sent Sensei flying with half his ribs broken, and his chest caved in.
"You might know some tricks, monkey. But you've never had black lightning before."
A/N: Guess what Monkey Sage mode does? In this story (and kind of in canon), every form of sage mode will come with other collateral advantages. Snake Sages can animate and manipulate inanimate objects, Toad sages have Frog Kumite, and as for Whale Sages, I guess we'll see. Is black lightning senjutsu? Sasuke's lightning release turns black when he uses it with the curse mark, and we know that involves nature chakra in some way. Kakashi's lightning turned black under Sage of six paths power amps so who knows? It's Senjutsu in this story, deal with it. And yeah, I couldn't resist the meme. As always, the next three chapters are up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not necessarily the daily updates available with a regular patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!