c135: Playing With
Seeing the scene where his hardened bone spear had pierced straight into the opponent's skull yet caused no real harm, only for a flaming dragon claw to lash back at him, the battle-hungry and bloodthirsty jōnin of the Kaguya clan faltered for a split second in disbelief.
Bang! The Kaguya was knocked off his feet by the fiery claw, his body tumbling several times across the ground.
Luckily, the Shikotsumyaku bone armor he had created across his chest absorbed the blow. With his unnaturally durable body, a trait of the Kaguya line that once followed Kimimaro's legacy, he was left largely uninjured. But now his once-pristine form was smeared with mud, ash, and grass, his appearance reduced to a miserable state.
Zhu Rong's body, forged entirely from searing flame chakra, made him an opponent that ordinary taijutsu or katon-based attacks could barely harm. Unless an attack reached an overwhelming threshold on par with elite jutsu or legendary weapons, it was akin to scratching an itch.
The most effective counters against Zhu Rong were suiton or hyōton techniques, just as water style had historically overpowered fire style in countless shinobi clashes. Other chakra natures only proved marginally useful by comparison.
Staring down the Kaguya who had fallen into the dirt, Zhu Rong opened his maw and spewed forth a rolling wave of flames. The soil hissed, the blaze rippling forward like a wall of molten waves.
The Kaguya jōnin was reckless to the core, true to his clan's deranged legacy. Instead of retreating from the roaring inferno, he allowed his obsession with close combat to take control. His entire body erupted in jagged white bones sprouting outward, and a pale blue chakra shell enveloped him, his form spinning into a rotating drill of sharpened bone spurs, charging headlong into the flames.
The wall of fire shattered apart, and from within burst the spinning figure, bone spurs aimed straight for Zhu Rong's flaming forehead.
Yet Zhu Rong only shrank his form at the last moment, the strike slicing empty air. The Kaguya landed heavily, his hair singed, skin scorched, carrying the acrid scent of charred flesh.
He ignored the pain. Pain was nothing to the Kaguya; their very bloodline had adapted to agony through generations of bone manipulation. What drove him mad was his inability to land a killing blow.
"Ahh!"
"Tianjō! This cursed summon is too much for our Kaguya bloodline! Switch with me now!"
For a clan defined by savage hand-to-hand combat, their frustration at failing to strike true was unbearable.
"Tsunashige! Fine, but you hurry!"
But Tianjō, another of Kirigakure's jōnin, was already bleeding from multiple wounds. He hadn't even been able to form seals for ninjutsu. Against Wu Sheng's blade speed and shifting angles, reminiscent of legendary flying sword techniques described in myth, he was barely holding on.
The moment Tsunashige tried to move, Zhu Rong's draconic jaws fired off a barrage of crimson orbs, each more devastating than a standard explosive tag. While a tag typically affected a single meter radius, Zhu Rong's bombs blasted craters two to three meters wide with every impact, scattering molten flame like artillery shells.
Even the bone-armored Kaguya could not endure such repeated punishment. Bare flesh, no matter how resilient, was still flesh.
Tsunashige was forced to retreat in frantic desperation, unable to switch in.
The two Mist jōnin were caught, hopelessly entangled. At this rate, they would fall to Zhu Rong and Wu Sheng without escape.
At that moment, Gen Uchiha emerged from the river valley, Thunder Fang blade in hand, having drained the soul and lifespan from the jōnin poisoned by Orochimaru's toxins.
Unlike the ordinary twin blades once wielded by Kurosuki Raiga, this Thunder Fang now bore inky-black sealing lines across its surface. These were contract seals.
Kirigakure's Seven Swordsmen had always reclaimed their blades, summoning them back like summoned beasts if stolen. Unless sealed in another space or bonded to a new master, the sword would vanish into a scroll back in the village.
To counter this, Gen had branded Thunder Fang with a contract isolation seal, similar to the one once used by Namikaze Minato to sever Obito's link with Kurama. In this way, his prize could not vanish.
He even wondered: could Thunder Fang's abilities be copied into Wu Sheng? If his sentient sword could inherit powers from other ninja tools or even the Sage's treasured relics, its growth would be limitless.
"It's time to end this."
Gen tossed Thunder Fang to a shadow clone rising from the earth. The clone smiled grimly, channeling nearly all its remaining chakra into the blade. With one swing, Thunder Fang roared, drawing down two massive bolts from the heavens, as thick as tree trunks, guided precisely by Gen's Sharingan prediction.
The twin lightning strikes slammed into the two jōnin, frying nerves and bodies alike, leaving them twitching, smoking, and unconscious. Had Gen employed sharpened raiton chakra nature, their hearts would have stopped instantly.
The clone handed Thunder Fang back before dispersing in a puff of white smoke.
Gen rejoined Wu Sheng, allowing the drained sword spirit to retreat into its sheath. Turning his pale Sharingan glow upon the fallen Mist ninja, he layered hypnosis with life-drain, consuming their remaining souls and years.
He plucked the Kaguya jōnin's body from Zhu Rong's flaming maw, absorbing him as well, before saying coldly:
"Let's return to Orochimaru-sensei."
Mounting Zhu Rong with both Thunder Fang blades in hand, Gen urged the dragon forward. Four blazing flame clouds ignited beneath its claws, propelling it at terrifying speed.
"Damn! Tsunashige and the others are down reinforcements are incoming!" The Pufferfish Ghost of the Hōzuki line, leading the Mist force, cursed as he saw Gen approaching with the fiery dragon. With half his jōnin already gone, the battle would become a massacre.
"Retreat immediately!"
The retreat order spread, Mist shinobi scattering. Yet Uchiha Gen pursued relentlessly, hunting down the nearest jōnin with Orochimaru's snakes and Konoha's elite joining in. Only the lower-ranked Konoha shinobi refrained, wary of being ambushed by the Mist's organized withdrawal.
The pursuit stretched dozens of miles, driving Kirigakure's remnants eastward into the Land of Whirlpools.
On the return march, Konoha's jōnin repeatedly glanced at the blazing Zhu Rong and Uchiha Gen with awe. Even Orochimaru's massive serpent summon, Manda, slithered in silence, its yellow eyes narrowing with curiosity at the fiery beast beside him.
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