A/N: Take a deep breath ;)
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The jutsu I was about to pull off was nothing short of a divine feat. Since my overall ninjutsu arsenal was limited, I had plenty of time to train obsessively on this specific technique. In the beginning, I had no idea how I would ever cast it again given its incredible chakra cost. But then I had an idea, miniaturization. By practicing the jutsu on a much smaller scale, I could refine its mechanics without draining my reserves. I had spent years fine-tuning my control, and now it was finally time to show the fruits of that grueling labor.
Relying on my strongest asset, chakra control, I began to emit lightning chakra into the air, doing my absolute best to mask its volatile signature as I wove the first hand seal.
"Ox."
The bear paid no mind to what I was doing. Instead, he launched himself forward with explosive speed, the stone pier shattering into dust beneath his immense legs. The ANBU did not hesitate. Several of them wove through hand signs in perfect synchronization, slamming their palms into the ground. A series of thick, reinforced earth walls erupted from the fractured stone.
The bear did not even slow down. He battered through the barriers as if they were made of paper. His dense, heavy fur and titanic musculature absorbed the impact without a scratch.
"It is too strong! Do not stay in its path!" an ANBU screamed, but the warning came too late.
The massive beast burst through the final wall in a storm of debris. He was instantly met with a volley of high-speed rock bullets, but he simply swiped his paw. His fierce claws rent the boulders into fine powder. Without losing momentum, he plunged into their ranks. He slashed his claws through the ANBU with such terrifying force that their bodies practically burst on impact, leaving nothing but bloodied ribbons in his wake.
"Snake."
The bear attempted to erect ice prison walls to trap the survivors, but the enemy adapted quickly. A squad of ANBU emerged from his blind spot, slapping their hands against the earth to violently shift the terrain, preventing the frost from taking hold. Seizing the opening, another agent rapidly completed a sequence of seals, unleashing a roaring wave of superheated fire directly at the summon.
The bear let out a guttural growl. He opened his maw and expelled a ferocious blast of frigid air that snuffed out the fire wave in an instant. Retaliating, he slammed his chakra-saturated claws into the earth, sending out a flurry of crescent-shaped blades made of pure, freezing chakra. The brutal slashes tore through the shifting ground, splitting several ANBU entirely in half and cleanly severing the limbs of others. The air filled with deafening screams.
"Bird."
Above the carnage, a group of ANBU Jonin appeared on the roof of a destroyed warehouse. They assessed the slaughter below and nodded to one another, splitting seamlessly into two squads. A team of three dropped down to contain the rampaging bear, while the remaining Jonin locked their eyes entirely on Shisui, who stood like an unbreakable shield guarding my position.
"Horse."
Two Jonin appeared, one in front of the bear and one behind. Both slapped their hands to the ground, injecting a tremendous amount of chakra into the earth. A towering stone cage rose rapidly, surrounding the beast and connecting at the top to lock him in place. For a split second, a large slot remained open, revealing the bear's fiery crimson eyes before that section slammed shut.
"Dog."
The bear slashed fiercely at the walls of his powerful stone prison, almost shattering them in a single blow. One of the Jonin shouted, "Fast! He might break out of it!" The third ANBU finally finished his jutsu. A colossal fireball ignited into existence, burning so brightly it almost dimmed the rest of the world, before shooting straight toward the cell. At the exact same time, his teammates manipulated the earth to open a slot just a moment before the attack hit, an absolute show of control that was incredibly difficult to pull off in a combined assault.
The bear possessed an unnatural instinct and did not wait for the strike. He roared, slamming his heavy limbs into the ground and fracturing the stone floor into pieces. Chilling chakra erupted from his body in waves, threatening to freeze the entire world. It clashed violently with the incoming flames, creating a shockwave of pressurized air that whipped into a localized storm as both sides fed more energy into their attacks.
"Boar."
The fire user was burning through his chakra at an alarming rate just to keep his flames from being extinguished and to stop the surrounding area from freezing over completely. In stark contrast, the bear looked as though he had barely tapped into his reserves. The ANBU began to panic. His teammates did not stand still. They approached the cage, but the sheer frigid temperature almost froze them solid in their tracks. They were forced to circulate chakra through their chakra nodes at breakneck speeds while maintaining a dense rock barrier over their skin just to save themselves from freezing to death.
"Tiger."
The bear finally outlasted the fire-nature ANBU. A devastating wave of frozen chakra swept through the area, freezing the caster completely in place. The bear's chakra then froze his own stone prison solid before he drove his titanic body through it with such terrifying strength that the walls shattered into frozen dust. He collided hard with the frozen fire ANBU, shattering the man into bloody chunks of ice.
Without missing a beat, the beast turned around and unleashed violent chakra slashes at the other two ANBU. They were on the very edge of his frozen chakra and were about to break free, but they were too slow. The first ANBU had his neck cleanly cut in an instant, dropping to the ground with a horrific look of terror frozen in his eyes. The other operative was slashed completely in half. His blood crystallized into fine ice dust as he fell, parts of his frozen body shattering upon hitting the ground. The bear grinned a bloody, maniacal smile as a fresh wave of ANBU appeared, rushing forward and desperately willing to sacrifice as much as they needed to break through to the other side to reach Shisui and me.
"Ox."
Shisui had no small number of slashes across his body. However, the ground in front of him was covered with the mutilated corpses of ANBU and Chunin. The three Jonin currently fighting him had sustained a few injuries themselves. One of them spat blood to the side before grumbling, "He is way too fast."
His two teammates nodded in grim agreement. Shisui simply rotated the blade in his hand and smiled. Another wave of enemies joined the battle. Some broke off toward the bear, who was acting as a rampaging natural disaster at this point, while the rest shot directly toward Shisui. One of the three ANBU Jonin wove through hand seals and slapped his hands to the ground, causing a cluster of earth spears to emerge with terrifying force from the ground as it dangerously came close to me.
However, Shisui's Sharingan was rotating, its red hue becoming sharper. He flawlessly mirrored his enemy's hand seals with much faster speed, causing counter-spears to erupt and block the attack. Using his visual prowess, Shisui wrestled chakra control over the ground directly beneath us away from the ANBU. His eyes allowed him to perfectly match and then exceed the agent's control, neutralizing his jutsu entirely.
"Rat."
Shisui could have retaliated with a devastating jutsu of his own, but he was strictly saving his chakra. The other two ANBU wove through hand seals, forming dense rock bullets from thin air at a high cost of their own reserves, and sent the projectiles flying toward us with such speed that a shockwave formed behind them. Shisui, with an impeccable show of speed and fluidity, slashed through the bullets with his sword, seeing perfectly through their exact trajectory with his Sharingan.
He flickered suddenly, practically vanishing from existence, and reappeared right next to one of the agents. He slashed hard at the man's neck, but a thick stone wall rose violently from the earth, meeting Shisui's sword and pushing him back.
Seizing the momentary distraction, the other two ANBU tried to speed past him to reach me. However, Shisui was already there before they even materialized. He slashed with such terrifying force that one ANBU agent had his abdomen sliced completely open. Shisui followed up with a brutal kick that sent the man flying. His entrails trailed behind him through the air, covering the earth in a horrific shower of blood and gore.
"Dragon."
An explosion rocked the battlefield beside us. I watched as several powerful fire jutsu slammed directly into the bear. The entire enemy wave had routed toward him to attack, unwilling to get caught in the brutal combat between the Jonin and Shisui, knowing they would only get in the way. Yet, the bear emerged from the inferno looking like a true demon. His bloodied jaw split into a maniacal grin, and his visceral bloodlust visibly oozed into the air, mixing with his freezing chakra to turn his icy chakra a terrifying, bloody red.
His frost intensified to a nightmarish level. The scene around him looked like something pulled straight from the worst nightmares imaginable. Mangled ANBU bled heavily while desperately crawling over the frozen ground. The bear had sustained several wounds, his thick fur dyed red with his own blood, yet his strength and stamina appeared endless. It even felt as if his power was increasing as a fresh wave of enemies, far larger than any before, burst onto the docks.
"Monkey."
One of the two Jonin ANBU facing Shisui started weaving through hand signs. Shisui flickered right next to him and slashed viciously, forcing the other ANBU Jonin to draw his blade and counter the strike. The two blades clashed, sparks igniting from the intense impact. This bought time for the first agent, who never stopped weaving hand seals, completely trusting his teammate's ability to hold Shisui. He was aiming to hit me directly with an earth jutsu.
Shisui suddenly lowered his body, freeing his sword from the clash. He rotated and forcefully threw the blade toward the caster. The defending teammate deliberately extended his leg in a desperate move to intercept the sword's trajectory. The steel penetrated deep into his flesh, causing him to scream in pain, but he was able to stop the sword from hitting his partner.
However, Shisui flickered again, suddenly appearing on the opposite side to the absolute horror of both agents, his speed now on a whole other level as the heat of the battle sharpened his focus to its absolute peak. He slashed with his kunai, cutting the casting ANBU's throat just a fraction of a second before the man could touch the ground to deploy his jutsu.
The surviving teammate's scream turned from one of pain to pure rage. He lashed out at Shisui with murderous intent, but the Uchiha prodigy was simply too fast. He flickered right back into an unbreakable stance in front of me. Realizing they were losing ground, and driven by blind fury at the catastrophic losses, the ANBU Jonin decided to commit almost their entire force to take us down. He pulled a signal and shot a bright flare high into the sky. A moment later, a huge wave of enemies joined the forces already present. Almost all of their operating team, the vanguard meant to secure the ground for a much larger force, had completely collapsed onto our location.
The bear was surrounded by a swirling storm of blood and ice. The world in front of Shisui exploded with a horde of bloodlusted ANBU, all desperate to avenge the horrific scene of their torn apart comrades. Left with no other options, Shisui formed the hand seal for a Shadow Clone, his chakra shifting as he prepared to unleash his Mangekyo Sharingan. It was the ultimate, desperate gamble. He knew that even if he burned away his vision to unleash his most devastating power, the sheer weight of the bloodlusted vanguard would still bury us in a relentless tide of blades and jutsu. It would turn what was supposed to be a defense into the complete and total annihilation of both parties.
"Ram."
The entire world froze. Time itself seemed to halt as I locked my hands into the final seal. My volatile lightning chakra saturated the atmosphere, splitting the air so violently that the hair on every living creature, near and far, stood straight on end from a mix of raw static and a primal fear of death. The very air felt impossibly heavy, charged on the razor's edge of detonation.
Then, the world went completely dark.
"Lightning Release: Forest of the Thunder God."
One moment, there was nothing. The next, a tree blinked into existence. It was an unbelievable creation, a towering monument of pure energy that dwarfed the entire battlefield and cast its blinding light well beyond the docks. Its colossal branches were made of solid, shimmering lightning, with electricity coursing from the tips down to the trunk so fast it defied the frozen perception of time. Beneath the earth, a massive network of glowing roots extended outward, mirroring the canopy above. The positive charge pulsed violently in the sky, the negative charge pooled deep in the earth, and the hyper-charged air between them waited only for my command to connect the two.
Time abruptly resumed. The entire battlefield ground to a complete halt.
Everyone looked up in sheer awe at a scene that felt undeniably divine. Shisui stood completely frozen, his Sharingan wide in absolute disbelief as he tracked the incomprehensible density of the chakra in this endlessly powerful jutsu. The demonic bear, whose bloodied fur stood perfectly on end from the static, looked even more titanic than before. He was paralyzed, witnessing a feat of ninjutsu he never thought a human could reach. It was the first time I had ever seen the beast look truly stunned.
The enemy ANBU stared at me in pure, unfiltered horror.
"Please forgive me, and hold no grudge," I whispered into the humming silence. "I hope you have a good next life."
I pointed my hand at the largest, most condensed cluster of enemy operatives.
Instantly, the branches directly above my target connected with the roots buried below as lightning appeared frozen in space, connecting the two. In an imperceptible fraction of a second, the sky tore open. A roar of world-shattering thunder erupted as a colossal pillar of lightning slammed into the earth. The impact was apocalyptic. The targeted ANBU did not even have time to scream. They instantly exploded into a mist of blood and charred bone fragments. The shockwave sent the remaining shinobi flying like ragdolls, their bodies crashing into the burning warehouses and splintered docks with sickening, wet crunches.
The sheer concussive force of the thunderclap brought people to their knees. Enemies collapsed to the fractured earth, screaming in agony as they clutched their violently bleeding ears.
One of the surviving ANBU Jonin slowly turned his head toward me, his face pale with raw terror. "Retrea..."
I pointed a single finger at his position. Before the word could even leave his throat, another blinding bolt of divine lightning crashed down, vaporizing him into nothing but falling ash.
Absolute chaos reigned. The remaining elite operatives abandoned all tactical formations, desperately splitting up and sprinting in every direction to escape the slaughter.
I simply spread my hands wide, encompassing the entire battlefield.
The sky roared in continuous, unbroken fury. A relentless, catastrophic bombardment of lightning rained down, systematically erasing everything within the tree's massive reach.
The earth buckled, turned over, and violently exploded into craters of molten slag. The nearby warehouses shattered into splinters, and multiple stone buildings simply ceased to exist, entirely pulverized by the unrelenting, thunderous strikes.
The colossal tree of lightning flickered in and out of reality, warping the air around it. For a moment, the dominant divine lightning tree shone so bright it almost imitated the sun, before blinking out of existence.
The entire jutsu had lasted no more than ten seconds. But as the deafening thunder faded, the battlefield had been reduced to a scorched wasteland of bloodied glass, leaving nothing behind but hollowed earth and a terrifying, absolute silence.
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A/N: First ever double release! That means if you are reading this, there will be no chapter tomorrow. I can't wait to hear your opinions on this one, so don't be shy and let me know what you think in the comments section. Since you will have to wait two days for the next chapter, if you are enjoying the story how about using that free time to rate or, if you are feeling extra nice, review it? It only takes a few clicks, but it means a lot to me and really helps with the story's visibility. And let's be honest, more people need to read this XD So let your friends know about the story too. Thank you all so much for sticking with me for so long. Love each and every one of you! <3