Pre-Chapter A/N: Welcome to September, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
XXXXXX- CEE
Only the fact that he could still sense the Raikage's stalwart chakra kept him from bemoaning their situation. The fact that he could also sense the chakra of Shorirama Senju was some cause for concern. Not as much as the Raikage's when sheer quantity was considered, but somehow, he had him beat when it came to quality. Cee struggled to put it into words, but he knew that if their chakra was placed on a scale, drop for drop, then one drop of the Senju's would be worth two of the Raikage's. Still, the Raikage would win. No one could match him, and Shorirama Senju would be no different.
The only problem was that Cee had a feeling it wouldn't happen in time. His breath came in sharp stabs as he jumped away from another building that exploded beneath his feet. That one hadn't even been from a Konoha shinobi. He'd carelessly triggered one of the explosives Iwa had set in their defiance. This was quite literally the worst thing that could have happened. Konoha was attacking Kumo, and now that Konoha was here, Iwa was coming out of the woodwork to stab at them as well. Okay, it was the second-worst thing. It would have been the worst thing if Konoha and Iwa had the good sense to leave their animosities aside. Instead, they killed each other whenever they came into contact.
That was the only thing preventing the Kumo force from being overrun. The Kumo force that should have been bolstered by their Special War Powers—their monsters—but Konoha had come with monsters of their own. The Hyuga girl had gone straight for Sora, and while the magnet release user was likely to come out victorious considering what he could sense from that battle, it would not be one he would leave unscathed. She'd already blocked more than a few of his chakra points.
Kinkaku and Ginkaku, brutes that they were, could not even make themselves useful. Four Konoha shinobi had fallen on them, and they were struggling to adapt. The brutes would have won if it was a fight of raw power—they had that in spades. But the Konoha shinobi never allowed them to bring their power to bear. Two of them wielded insidious genjutsu that they layered over the so-called Gold and Silver brothers so thoroughly that even Cee struggled to break them out remotely. And then there were the other two: one with insects and the other with shadows that lashed out like needles.
If that was all, then Cee would have been more confident of their odds. But he couldn't be. Killua was struggling to pin down the Hokage's students. That troublesome trio would be the death of him. It was only a matter of time. And then Cee felt it as it happened. A flash of sharpened intent. A whisper of wind, and Yui's head fell to the ground. The Uchiha girl stood victoriously over her for a second, and then she was gone.
Cee tossed caution to the wind, and even knowing that doing so would broadcast him to every sensor keen enough to feel, he reached for Kinkaku and Ginkaku and snapped the genjutsu covering them.
"Focus," he snarled into their heads, forming a connection with his yin chakra. This was not an ability he had broadcast before. It was one he and the Raikage kept to themselves—the fact that he had managed to reverse-engineer the famed Yamanaka mind walk with nothing more than his wits and an idea.
"What? Is that you, Cee?"
"How the hell are you in our heads?"
"He's in our heads?"
"Get out of our heads, Cee."
"Shut up, you lackwits!" he nearly screamed.
"We're losing. Now, I know the two of you don't enjoy taking things so seriously, but the Raikage will kill you himself if he comes back to find his army slaughtered," he said.
"Sounds like his problem," Silver yawned.
"NO. It's your problem." Now Cee used his yin chakra to force the concept of pain into their heads.
"Focus. Use the tailed beast chakra. Kill the Konoha army. Do it, and I will see the two of you rewarded beyond your wildest imaginations: Ryo, women—whatever it takes."
"Like you can do that."
"Yeah, as if."
"You know what my name was before I became Cee. You know the resources I have at my disposal. Do this, and I will see you rewarded."
"Brother?" Gold called.
"Might as well. I was getting bored playing around with these fools," Silver replied. Cee breathed a sigh of relief.
The whole conversation had passed at the speed of thought, but still, by the time Kinkaku opened his eyes, a blade was shoved in his gut. The Konoha shinobi stared straight into his eyes.
"That was a mistake," Cee heard him snarl before Cee was suddenly shoved from their minds. Still, he sensed the noxious chakra of the nine-tails—the chakra Kinkaku and Ginkaku had consumed in their youth. Cee sensed the backhand send the first one flying and then sensed the reaction of the Uchiha girl. She pulled back from Sora's position, heading straight for the brothers. Good. That should turn things in their favour somewhat.
Cee felt the two Konoha shinobi that had been stalking him prepare to trigger their trap. He twisted his chakra, threading it with theirs. Then he snapped his fingers.
Both of them body-flickered from opposite ends of the rooftop and, in less than a second, had run each other through with their blades. He retreated from their chakra systems, not all that interested in feeling their deaths. He knew how death felt well enough already. He twisted his position, heading towards Killua. He hated the Yatsuki and his reckless ambition, but apart from the Raikage, and maybe the brothers when they fought as one and did not hold back, he was the strongest threat on Kumo's side.
XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
I felt Kurama's chakra flood his system for a second before it began to head straight to the wound, spurring my regeneration, accelerating my passive healing factor, and knitting the ribs together such that they were almost fully repaired by the time my body hit the ground. I rolled with the hit, returning to my feet in a matter of seconds as I refused to allow him the upper hand. He had gotten me off guard with the sudden escalation to the second stage of his armour after pulling that feat off. I felt for my markers.
"An abomination. Sacrilege," I heard Kurama begin to roar in my mind. It was so distracting that I barely managed to teleport to a marker to avoid a straight chop from the Raikage. I teleported again even as Kurama continued to scream.
'Can you calm down, man? You're being kind of distracting,' I asked, even as I barely dodged another attack.
'CALM DOWN? CALM DOWN?' And now it seemed asking him to calm down had made him even more infuriated. I teleported away from another attack. 'Okay, what's the problem? In case you can't tell, I'm kind of in the middle of something,' I said. If he wouldn't stop, then I'd just have to deal with whatever was getting on his nerves.
'Someone dares use my chakra,' he said.
'Someone that is not me?' I asked.
'Most likely those foul brothers who consumed my innards. What were their names again? Kinkaku and Ginkaku,' he said.
Okay, that I could handle. 'And you want the chakra back?' I asked.
'No. I want them dead,' he said.
'Okay, okay. Can you just let me finish with this, and then I'll turn to that?'
'No. Deal with my issue first.'
'Can you at least try to be reasonable?'
'I will not suffer this indignity for a second longer,' he said, and it was all I could do to avoid the next set of attacks from the Raikage.
I decided ignoring Kurama's most definitely unreasonable request was the best thing to do and decided to focus on the fight in front of me. He was getting closer and closer to hitting me. I twisted my chakra, a rasengan forming in either hand after less than half a second of concentration. And then they popped of their own volition. I barely managed to teleport out of the way.
'What the fuck, man?' I called, nearly screaming.
'Don't ignore me. Go kill them.'
'You're being such a pain in the arse, you know that right?' I nearly snarled.
'I don't care. I want them dead, and I want them dead now. We had a deal. You fight my enemies and I fight yours, remember?'
'Oh, fuck you. Any signs as to where they are?' I said, even as I continued to play speed tag with the fastest person I'd ever fought.
'Next to your Uchiha mate,' he said.
'You sure as hell know that Uzume and I aren't—' I started but just sighed instead.
"Okay, can you give me a second?" I asked the Raikage. He looked at me, confused, but before he could reply or even understand what was happening, I was off, teleporting right next to Uzume. She had been dancing between the forms of the gold and silver brothers. It was impossible to make them out beneath the deep red that signified the version two form. I sighed again, feeling for my reserves of natural energy and committing more of it to the battle, shifting my ratio to 50:50.
Perfect sage mode saw me grow another few inches as I felt the strength to break the world build in my muscles. One of them tried to swipe at me. I stepped forward into the attack, grabbing its arm and twisting it in one fluid motion. I heard the snap even as I felt the hand try to fix itself and the bone try to pop back into place, but I did not let go.
I ducked underneath a tail aimed at my head and lanced my hand straight into his chest, disrupting his chakra flow for a second. The noxious tailed beast chakra both fixed the popped heart and reopened the chakra point in less time than it had taken me to land the attack. Of fucking course. This was going to be so annoying.
"Eight Trigrams: One Handed One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Palms." With my hand still holding on to the broken arm, there was no way for him to escape as I savaged his chakra network, closing all ninety-two chakra points in his midsection and then closing some twice even as his healing tried to force them back open. The tailed beast chakra around him thinned enough that I could make out the blonde hair. Which one had blonde hair again? Ginkaku? Yeah, probably. G for gold.
He tried to kick at my head, and I caught the kick in my grip as well. Sage mode's enhanced size was the only thing that made the position I held his body in possible.
There were two ways to beat an opponent with a strong healing factor. Either slowly overcome it by ramping damage up consistently or just do damage the healing factor could not fix. I was a believer in the second more than the first. That was why I held his body in front of mine and slammed my foot against his gut. He grunted from the impact, but I wasn't done. I left my foot there, pushing out with it, even as I dragged both his arm and his leg in opposite directions.
Ginkaku's screams nearly burst my eardrums, so I cloaked them in chakra and then kept pulling. More, more, more. I felt bones shift, break, as his body warped under my ministrations. The tailed beast chakra did its best, but I would not be denied. With a snap, his body gave way, ripped into two halves.
"Kinkaku!" I heard the scream come from the other one. Oops. So that wasn't Ginkaku. Tough. He left whatever he was trying to do with Uzume to jump right at me. I lifted a hand, silently telling Uzume not to intervene as I caught his flying form by the neck and slammed him straight into the ground. The tails rose and tried to stab into my skin. I twisted, allowing them to sail through naught but air, and then I tightened my grip before lifting Ginkaku? Well, if the other one was Kinkaku, then this was most definitely Ginkaku.
I stared into his eyes. What an interesting person. I gathered my chakra in my hand, forming a Wind Release: Rasengan in my grip, and then began to slam it into his chest. I ground through the protective chakra layer of the version two tailed beast cloak, then through skin, then through flesh and bone, and then down to the organ within. The Wind Release: Rasengan worked differently from the regular rasengan in one key way. Instead of just grinding through its target like the regular rasengan—though it did that as well—it also destroyed what it ground apart at a molecular level. When I reached his heart, I ground through it just as surely. Then I teleported to a Flying Raijin marker I'd left at the base of the mountain. I let go of the rasengan, commanding it to expand. And then I returned to the plains outside Iwa where I'd left the Raikage. Of course, he wasn't still there.
'You owe me big time for that,' I growled at Kurama when I spotted the Raikage's distinct chakra network tearing through my troops. I reached for my nearest marker, the one I had on Kizuru. Good thing I did, because I appeared next to him just as the Raikage chose him as his next target. Instead of avoiding him like I'd been doing earlier, I stepped forward to meet the physical challenge. I slammed my fist against his. The ground around us shattered as I felt my knees nearly buckle from the force that flowed through them.
Ay narrowed his eyes straight at me as we clashed.
"You've grown stronger," he said.
"Indeed. Ready to pick on someone your own size?"
"You went to kill my subordinates, so I decided to make it even by killing some of yours," he said, gesturing about with his other hand, even as our dominant hands strained against each other for dominance. I was already sweeping the area with my byakugan. It probably said something about me that I breathed a sigh of relief when I failed to recognise any of the bodies. Sometimes, I wished I could love them just because they wore the Konoha headband, but that was not the kind of person I was. Sure, I valued them as shinobi and I would protect them with all I had if I could, but I would not mourn their deaths.
"Get out of here," I said.
"Bold request. No," he said.
"I wasn't talking to you," I said instead, as I felt a shadow detach from my own and begin to creep away. I had no idea what Shikahime had up her sleeves that she felt would be able to make a difference in a fight between two Kage, but I did not want to find out. I had confidence in her, but this man... this man was not someone you took risks with, and my cousin's life was too great a risk to take. With Kinkaku and Ginkaku dead, I knew Uzume would be rushing over here as quick as she could. I just hoped she'd secure Uraume's victory before doing so.
Tired of the pissing match, I took a step backwards, detaching my fist from the Raikage's before lashing out with a spartan kick that caught him straight on the chest. The shockwave levelled the building behind him, but he did not budge. Instead, he grabbed on to my foot, pulled me closer, and then speared me straight through two buildings. I barely felt the impacts against my back, but I had definitely felt the one on my ribs.
My feet found the ground as I used chakra adhesion to stop our motion. And then I grabbed on to his midsection and lifted his body such that his legs were on my shoulders. Good thing my sage mode made me much wider. Trying this in my base form would probably have failed in spectacular fashion.
"Liger Bomb!" I screamed, slamming him straight into the ground, stealing the jutsu from his son while I did so. Our eyes met, and he looked far from impressed. He was on his feet a second later.
"Where did you learn that jutsu?" he asked, his tone quietly dangerous.
"You mean your son's move?" I asked, feeling like this was the right thread to pull.
"Yes," he nearly screamed that word.
"My spies watched him practice it so many times that I guess it just stuck. I'm sure they're watching him practice it right now. He trains all afternoon, yes? Noon to nine p.m., if I remember correctly?" I ventured, mixing truth and fiction. I'd never managed to get any spies close enough to the Raikage's son, Ay, but then again, we had been able to get some version of his daily schedule.
There was a flash, and Ay was in my face again. I bent away from the punch by sheer instinct. My return rasengan to the head did not make him flinch, even as I expanded and exploded it by twisting my wrist. Instead, he caught on to the offending wrist. He tried turning it to break it, but I kept my arm straight. Sage mode strained against Lightning Armour, and neither won as we remained deadlocked, at least until four shuriken with wind release running through them curved around me and ground against the armour. I ripped my hand from his grip and grabbed both sides of his head, bringing my knee up to his face. There was another massive shockwave. Ay reached up, grabbed my waist, and then slammed me straight into the ground.
"Liger Bomb," he said with audible menace. Only for him to take a sun to the face. Uzume's fire release rasengan slammed into him, and I watched it warp in slow motion. I reached out, grabbing her by the ankle before getting us both the hell out of dodge.
A/N: And so we get the first part of Shori v The Raikage. If you notice, Shori is brawling a lot more than he usually would here. That is because grappling with the Raikage at least forces him to move, and punching him does some blunt force trauma at least. Using the gentle fist would prove less effective because the armour refuses to be penetrated. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.