Chapter 26: Tearing Through Fire
The arena was a cacophony of competing loyalties. Shinra's fan club screamed his name in a frenzy, while a larger, more vocal contingent of boys roared their support for Uchiha Shota. In their eyes, Shinra, the outsider who shattered expectations, had become a public enemy.
The two combatants took their positions, performing the Seal of Confrontation.
Uchiha Shota looked at Shinra, a mocking smirk already twisting his lips. "Waste. I'm going to show you what a true Uchiha—"
His words died in his throat.
Shinra was gone. He hadn't waited for the taunt to finish, hadn't bothered with any pre-fight banter. He'd just… attacked.
He's not following the script! Shota thought, momentarily thrown. Then his smirk returned, wider and crueler. "Since you're in such a hurry to lose, I'll oblige you!"
Faced with Shinra's blistering speed, Shota didn't panic. His confidence was absolute, rooted in the power thrumming behind his eyes. If Masaki was the clan's public genius, Shota was their secret weapon, kept under wraps by the clan head's orders. But Masaki's humiliating defeat had stained Uchiha honor. Now, it was his turn to step into the light. He would use this upstart's crushing defeat to remind everyone—to remind Konoha—of Uchiha's invincible supremacy.
Shunshin!
Shinra reappeared, a phantom materializing behind Shota. A hand, edged with that now-familiar, ominous white glow, chopped down towards the base of his skull with lethal intent.
And then, Shota's eyes changed.
Dark irises bled into a vibrant, spinning crimson.
Sharingan.
His body flowed, moving not on conscious thought but on the Sharingan's predictive instinct. He twisted, the glowing hand-chopping slicing through empty air where his neck had been a split-second before.
A collective gasp swept the audience. Shinra's trademark one-hit victory had been… dodged.
In the stands, the Uchiha Patriarch allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.
"Hah! See that, boy? Under these eyes, you've already lost!" Shota crowed, his arrogance inflating.
Shinra just smiled. A cold, humorless curl of the lips.
"Oh? Have I?"
BOOM.
The ground beneath Shinra's feet seemed to detonate. He vanished again, but this time the afterimage was sharper, the displacement of air more violent. His speed hadn't just returned; it had escalated.
"Damn it! He can go even faster?!" Shock jolted through Shota. He stopped taunting, his focus narrowing. The Sharingan spun furiously, tracking the blur.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
He didn't wait for another close assault. Chakra gathered, heated, and erupted from his mouth in a roaring tsunami of orange flame. The C-rank technique, a hallmark of Uchiha prowess and a skill usually mastered by chunin or higher, filled the front half of the ring. The intense heat wave washed over the front rows, making spectators flinch back. The stone of the ring blackened and cracked.
"A C-rank technique! From a student?!"
"By the Sage!"
The audience erupted in awe and shock. This was firepower beyond their level.
Shota sneered internally. The fight was over. No one in the academy, not even Namikaze Minato, could face this head-on and survive. He'd win. He'd win spectacularly.
WHOOSH-BOOM!!
The colossal fireball surged forward, an avatar of destruction aimed at the spot where Shinra had been.
"SHINRA!!" Kushina's scream was raw with panic. This wasn't a sparring technique; it was a battlefield kill.
Hiruzen and Danzo leaned forward, expressions intent.
To the utter disbelief of every single person watching, Shinra did not retreat. He didn't sidestep, didn't weave. His face remained an impassive mask, as if the raging inferno bearing down on him was a summer breeze.
He charged straight into it.
"Idiot! You're committing suicide!" Shota spat, a glint of genuine killing intent flashing in his crimson eyes.
The referee tensed, ready to intervene but knowing it might already be too late.
Then, the impossible happened.
As Shinra met the leading edge of the Great Fireball, his right hand snapped up, transforming from a fist into a rigid knife-hand. The faint white aura around it intensified, humming with palpable, destructive energy.
His eyes, cool and focused within the hellish orange light, narrowed.
"SHATTER!"
He slashed downward with his glowing hand.
CRACK-BOOM!!!
The sound wasn't of fire meeting flesh. It was the sound of the air itself fracturing violently. A visible shockwave of pure concussive force erupted from the point of impact, distorting the very light around it.
The chief examiner on the sidelines felt the tremor in his bones.
The air didn't just part; it shattered in a web of white light.
And the fire… the towering, C-rank Great Fireball Technique…
It was torn apart.
Not extinguished. Not dispersed.
Ripped in two by the sheer, brute vibrational force, the flames scattering into harmless, dying embers that flickered out before they could even singe Shinra's clothes.
He stood unharmed in the suddenly clear, smoke-tinged air, his white-knuckled hand still extended, the last echoes of the tremor fading around him.
Silence, thicker and more profound than any before, blanketed the stadium.
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