Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter, coming in right on time. Next three chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
Minato had no misconceptions. He did not stand the faintest bit of a chance here. He could feel it in the man's chakra. But any information they gathered would be an advantage for Sensei. Minato knew how fights between shinobi of equal strength worked. It was a game of learning—the first to discover a weakness would win, so they fought to learn their opponent's while hiding their own. If they could give Sensei some of the information he needed with no risk of him giving anything of his away, then that advantage could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
And while Minato had never had to worry about that before when Sensei was fighting, he knew the tales well. He had seen the Valley of the End. He knew what this man had been known to do. And if he had not lost a step since then, then they were going to be fighting a man who was almost an equal to the closest thing their shinobi world had ever seen to the Sage of Six Paths himself.
He breathed in, filling his body with breath before exhaling and forming his wind armour at full strength. By his side, Kushina pulled on even more of Gyuki's chakra. Four tails floated behind her now. Good. She was taking this seriously, but also knew that pushing this man too far would be a bad idea. They did not want him to push for the kill instantly.
"Will you come to me or will I come to you?" he asked.
"Perhaps the best—" Minato began before shooting forward in the middle of speaking, hoping to catch his opponent off guard. The Ghost of the Uchiha just smirked, weaving out of the way of his knife hand before his gunbai swept out, coming for his head.
Minato shifted his weight, strengthening his guard at the very last second and then taking the attack that would have rung his head like a bell against the back of his forearm. Strong, was Minato's first thought. Even through his wind armour, he could feel the strength of the attack. But his guard held. It was hard, but it held. And because it held, Kushina could move in. Two of her tails shot past him, seeking to bury themselves in their opponent's body. He kicked out, forcing Minato to jump backwards to avoid the attack, and then his gunbai was free to be turned to its broadside. Kushina's tails met the wood, and the wood held.
Not just that, but it felt like the tails were losing their form from the contact with it.
"Uchiha Reflection," the man said, and then he pushed out with the gunbai. It created a storm of hurricane-force winds. Minato formed a horse seal, jumping next to Kushina as he did so.
The wind parted around them like they were a ship cutting through water. And when the storm had passed, Minato felt a brief flash of victory, but that only lasted for a second because now he was in their midst.
"Talented, but inexperienced," Madara said, somehow managing to get between Kushina and himself.
He turned, just barely managing to lift his hands in time to block the kick that sent him off the building. It had torn through his wind armour somehow and snapped what felt like two of his ribs with the impact. He focused his chakra on his back, creating a wall of wind currents that slowed his momentum and let him hit the ground somewhat softly. A small win. At least his broken ribs weren't jostled all that much.
Yeah, this wasn't working. He briefly considered summoning Pa, but fusion would take too long. Minato pushed himself up from the ground, just barely managing to rise by the time Madara landed on the ground in front of him. He held Kushina by the neck. The tailed beast aura around her body had diminished to the point where it was barely visible to the eyes. Only one tail was behind her and it was a thin wisp more than anything. He was draining Gyuki's chakra somehow.
With a flex of his chakra, his wind armour roared into being once again. He would go all out from this point forwards. He drew eight kunai, four in each hand.
He pushed against the ground, each step propelling him further and faster, until he crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Madara himself had not been idle in that time, shifting his form so that Kushina remained between he and Minato. But Minato had mastered the wind armour for a reason. And it was not speed. Speed was the domain of lightning. Wind could go fast, but never that fast. He had mastered the wind armour for its ability to flow.
And flow he did. Did Madara even see what happened as Minato curved around Kushina's form and slammed a knee to his head? He did not know. It forced the man backwards some, but not enough. His grip around Kushina remained tight. Too tight for comfort. One of the kunai Minato had drawn slammed into the ground at his feet. Madara did not look. Instead, he sent out a punch from his other hand. It had no hope of reaching its target as Minato just flowed around it. Another kunai from point blank range tried to stab into the hand that held Kushina in its grip.
The other hand came up, slapping it away. Both hands occupied, Minato went for the kill. His wind armour pushed him forwards, and he tried to stab his blades into his opponent's chest, but Madara somehow managed to bring his arm back around in time, grabbing on to Minato's left wrist while his body shifted to the side to force the blade in the right to hit naught but air. The reflection on his kunai told him those eyes were still a stubborn charcoal.
He hadn't even earned a bout against that infamous mangekyou sharingan. How shameful.
His gaze met his opponent's now as the three of them were in range of the kunai that he had dropped at the man's feet earlier and his clones had finished their setup.
"Barrier Art: Mutual Denial of Nirvana," he said.
He felt the barrier form and then its rules took shape in the space it occupied. His chakra, the force that had previously answered his every whim, was now locked away from him. Madara stumbled backwards, dropping Kushina and looking like he did not understand what was happening. He glared in Minato's direction, a look he had no problem meeting now. The sharingan was no threat.
"What did you do?" the first missing-nin of the Hidden Leaf hissed at him.
"How does it feel? Not having access to your chakra. It must sting, no?" he asked with a smirk building. His work in denying elemental releases had led him to this point. A six-pointed barrier. One for the five basic elements and then one for yin and yang. No jutsu could be used within this field. And no chakra could be used either. It was the ultimate equaliser. One of his three trump cards and the only one that would give him a chance in this particular fight.
Because equal to the God of Shinobi or not? None could fight without chakra. Minato had just made all of them the equivalent of civilians.
"What is this? What sort of technique..." the man whispered while looking at his own hand as if he did not recognise it. Minato had only ever used this barrier with one other person, and while Sensei had a reaction to it, it was nothing to this extent.
It was to be expected, though. Sensei had been privy to his earlier experimentations with chakra denial barriers. Something like this would be strange for someone who had lived decades with their chakra, using it, relying on it, and living with it.
Kushina gasped for air on the ground near his feet, but he did not seem to pay her any notice, instead turning to Minato.
"Fuinjutsu. A barrier. A barrier that blocks all use of chakra within it. But for something like this to work..." he trailed off.
"Yup. I have no access to my own chakra either. Here, with no chakra, the two of us are equals," he said. But it was not all that true. For one, he had picked this battlefield for a reason.
He had trained for hours on end on how to fight without access to his chakra. He had seen the effect in a spar against Sensei. Someone who lost their ability to use chakra without having trained to fight in such conditions would quickly find themselves falling into very bad habits and situations. Chakra enhanced punches just became regular punches. Something as simple and fundamental as using chakra to absorb the force from moving quickly to save one's ankles from ripping themselves apart would not be an option either. And that was only some of it.
Conscious of his time limit, Minato dashed forward. There were two limits here. It was fair to assume that he would adapt either as quickly as Sensei had or just a bit slower. And even without chakra, Minato was not necessarily confident in his chances in a completely even battle—not of winning but of ending things before the second limit was hit. The second limit, and perhaps the more pertinent one, was the limit on the barrier itself. Something like this was not easy to form. It was chakra intensive as hell, and even storing the chakra for the barrier ahead of time did nothing to stop the natural wear. The stronger the effect a barrier had on reality, the more inherently unstable it was.
Reality wanted to be itself, and in reality, Madara could use his chakra. Creating a space where that was not true was not just expensive in terms of chakra, but also fragile in that reality wanted to re-assert its own rules over Minato's. Especially with something as integral as chakra.
So he would end it before it got there. He slashed out, Madara leaned backwards. The slash flowed into a stab, his opponent lurched to the side, avoiding the attack and then trying to grab a hold of Minato's wrist. Minato snatched it back and then spun before kicking Madara in the side of the head—or at least trying to. An armoured forearm managed to make it up at the last second, but that gave Minato a different sort of opening. He flicked his wrist, nailing Madara's chest with a kunai from his holster. Of course, with no chakra to enhance the throw, it was warded off by the Uchiha's armour quite easily.
But the impact still winded the man somewhat, making him lean forward just slightly from the strange sensation of pain without the effect of his chakra numbing the feeling. Minato pounced then, drawing another kunai. This one, Madara was forced to block by catching his wrist before the blade found home in his chest. They strained against each other, eyes locking. Blue on charcoal black.
Madara won, his muscles carrying the day over Minato's comparably lithe physique. He pushed Minato back and then began to push him towards the ground. Minato, having expected this, did not fight with all his strength. Instead, he moved his feet and kicked out at his opponent's knee. It buckled, shifting in the other direction, and disturbing Madara's footing enough that he could rip his arms out of the man's grasp. He reached for his waist then and drew it. The weapon came to life with a hiss.
He slashed out, trying to get his opponent in the brief second of shock that the weapon's presence on the battlefield gave him. Madara jumped backwards, retreating in the face of the Sword of the Thundergod. Minato smiled. The wariness he showed in the face of the weapon was justified. The Sword of the Thundergod was a masterpiece of fuinjutsu. Even in a world with chakra, it was a weapon in a class of its own. In a world without chakra though, it was victory.
Madara lifted his gunbai and took his stance, but the wariness in his gaze did not fade.
"That should not work here," he said.
"And yet it does," Minato said, not explaining that the weapon worked only because of a chakra battery inserted in its core that would give him maybe two minutes of use at the very best before it sputtered dead.
Of course, by then the barrier would have run its course either way. That was why he had not used it from the very beginning. He raced forwards, preparing to bring an end to this fight. Madara watched his approach and his grip on his gunbai and kama tightened. Neither of those would be as dangerous without the chance to run chakra through them. Minato did not need Sensei. He would win this on his own.
XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
Kiri was different from Konoha in every way that counted. While Konoha had since transcended its limits as a ninja village to become something closer to a city that competed with the Fire Capital in terms of prosperity, Kiri was still stuck in its origins. No. A better way to put it was to say that Kiri was still committed to remaining tied to its origins. This was nothing less than intentional—this decision to ignore every possible lever for development. Walking around the city told me more than a million spy reports could have.
Spy reports said the village was poor and struggling. Walking around told me the people here lived a hard life, but it was not one that they scorned. Far from it. It was actually the opposite. Commerce here was fish, vegetables, and some artisan weapons. Everything else was handled by the State. Shinobi lived and died by their missions.
If what had happened to Suna in canon happened to Kiri, then the village would stop existing in a year. That also explained part of the motivation for attacking Uzu. Granduncle's correspondence had revealed that Uzushiogakure was in talks with the Water Daimyo to begin taking missions for the court. If that had happened, Kiri would have lost a lot of revenue. With that context, could I even blame them? I would do the same if Konoha was faced with a similarly existential threat.
In some ways I would do even worse. Of course, things like this would no longer be the case when I began to rule. Kiri had so much potential and I just could not wait to begin to harness it. She could be the jewel of an Empire. My empire. Because where my spies had seen squalor, I saw opportunity. Starting from scratch here would be easy because there was much less to rip out to make the space I needed.
I turned my attention towards the Mizukage tower, one of the few modern buildings in this village, and sighed. The person I had been seeking had left soon after I arrived. I would still infiltrate, of course. But the prospects of an epic battle for the fate of the shinobi world had been much reduced. Well, it depended on if he came back or not, I guess.
A clone popped, filling me with knowledge, and I buried the urge to smile or even change how I walked. I passed through an alley and then another before I came out with a different appearance. A man who had left the tower not too long ago.
The Mizukage's tower was different from the Hokage's. For one, it was a fortress both in appearance and deed. Shinobi could not just walk in and out. Every entry was heavily guarded and none entered without a special pass and passcode. The pass had been easy to filch. The passcode, much harder. I'd had to follow this man all the way to his house to interrogate it out of him. Now, I had my way in.
Wearing another's face, I stepped through the doors. The security measures, while elaborate, did nothing to stop a skilled shinobi with enough determination. Of course, the prototype seals that allowed me to completely obfuscate my chakra from sensors was probably the only reason the whole village hadn't swarmed down upon me the second I teleported in, but not every shinobi had as much chakra as I did. And this defence would not have stopped a lot of them either.
It was only when I was in the tower proper that I realised the second defence. The place was a maze. The lower floor was a winding mess of hallways and sharp turns. Walking through them looking lost was one way to ensure that one got caught out in a matter of seconds. I activated my byakugan, taking special care to ensure the veins remained hidden with the henge.
My target wore dark shades at least, so that was one advantage. I began to make my way to the stairs. Whoever had been communicating with Michizane was most likely in the upper floors. And while I moved for them, I noted the difference between in here and outside.
Once I made it to the third floor, everything was suddenly much more frantic. That answered one question at least as I avoided notice with the meisaigakure jutsu. The village was not a mess because someone was suppressing news of the fact that their kage was dead. Such suppression was not active here, and people seemed to be losing their minds.
As much as Shinobi administrators could lose their minds at least. Only the fast paced movements, writing, and the disturbed chakra networks gave it away to an observer. I marched on to the top of the building without being accosted, marvelling at just how easy all of this was. Konoha had Hyuga, Aburame, Inuzuka, and Yamanaka, that meant something like this would be far from easy, but I still got the urge to review our security protocols. If Kiri had a Kage, assassinating him would be even easier than I had imagined.
When I reached the passageway that led to the final floor, the Mizukage office, I was met with my first locked door. A fuinjutsu lock even. I scoffed internally and ran my fingers over it. Of course, all that amusement died when I realised it was an Uzumaki seal. Stolen. Stolen from my people. The people they had pillaged and killed. The killing, part of me understood. This? This I never would. The theft was just a step too far.
I rearranged the seal almost with a wave of my hand. Ink spread from my fingers, countering a lock I had seen too many times to count, and the door clicked open, revealing the stairwell.
A/N: Of course, Shori fails to remember that he did much the same thing he hates Kiri for with Iwa. Who doesn't love some good ol' hypocrisy. Of course the contexts are different, but still. Next chapter comes on here by Wednesday night/Thursday morning most likely. Next three chapters up on patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.