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Chapter 96: Flying Thunder God with Regular Chakra, The Final Battle
With Hanzo of the Salamander quietly entertaining thoughts of withdrawal, the atmosphere along the frontline shifted considerably.
During the day, Konoha's forces didn't dare assault Amegakure directly. Hanzo personally stood watch on the village walls, and with the Body Flicker speed of a shinobi at the world's pinnacle, even approaching from the opposite direction wouldn't help. He could arrive instantly or swap positions through Reverse Summoning Technique.
When night fell, the reconnaissance squads, the ANBU, and the Hyuga clan's Byakugan all noticed the same thing. Amegakure had stopped sending out assassination squads entirely.
Konoha's shinobi assumed it was Yoru's doing.
It wasn't an unreasonable conclusion. Within all of Konoha, setting aside a handful of clans and individual fighters who held no particular fear of Rain assassination squads, only Yoru had both Flying Thunder God and assassination skills second only to Hanzo himself. He could reverse the hunt, going after Rain ninja on their own ground. Since returning, barely a night passed without Rain shinobi dying at his hands. Sometimes he wiped out an entire squad in a single sortie.
The Rain ninja qualified for assassination missions were almost all elite chunin or tokubetsu jonin with mastery in specific fields. Cultivating that kind of shinobi meant handpicking students with assassination aptitude from the academy and spending years of resources developing them. Given Amegakure's limited numbers, even trading two Konoha lives for every Rain life wouldn't be enough to grind down this frontline.
So Konoha's forces unanimously concluded that Amegakure had been frightened off by Yoru.
Either way, the shift gave both sides a window to breathe.
"What is Hanzo up to now? You don't think he was actually scared off by that kid?"
"Could be a delaying tactic. Stalling for some purpose."
"Should we keep pressing the attack?"
"No point adding casualties with nothing to show for it. Let everyone rest and get a full resupply in."
Somewhere in the rocky terrain, a cluster of tents formed a bare-bones command post. Jiraiya and Orochimaru were exchanging assessments in one tent while Yoru trained alone in another, having just achieved a major breakthrough.
The talent surge from the second evolution had rekindled Yoru's love of training. Jutsu theory that had once seemed impossibly dense, things he could understand mentally but whose execution his body flatly refused due to talent limitations, were now opening to him one by one. With his terrifying chakra control and deep knowledge base behind him, Yoru had even begun charting a path toward developing original techniques, and that path was already bearing fruit.
It was at this point that Yoru finally understood just how staggering Tobirama Senju's jutsu genius had truly been. And he finally grasped, in a way he hadn't before, why Orochimaru from the original series was so obsessed with researching ninjutsu.
For someone with monstrous talent, studying and inventing jutsu was genuinely intoxicating. Every technique fully understood and every new one born wasn't just an addition to an arsenal. It could mean discovering an entirely new domain, a deeper comprehension of chakra itself. In Yoru's eyes, each breakthrough was one more step toward understanding chakra's origins.
"No wonder I could read the theory perfectly and understand every part of it, but my body just wouldn't cooperate. This technique doesn't just demand exceptional neural reaction speed. The requirements for sealing talent and chakra control have to meet the exact same standard."
Yoru was training the Flying Thunder God Technique.
When he had first opened that private scroll years ago, he had grasped the core theory almost instantly. But the execution had always consumed Space-Time chakra. Without Space-Time chakra, he simply could not condense a Flying Thunder God formula using regular chakra. His talent at the time, even after the first evolution's boost, had placed that wall out of reach. By the standards of Konoha, let alone the wider shinobi world, the talent level the first evolution had given him was impressive, but it wasn't rare. Even Orochimaru, one of the greatest jutsu prodigies in a generation, lacked the qualifications to learn Flying Thunder God.
Now, with the second evolution complete and his talent elevated from genius to super genius, Yoru challenged it again.
The experience was nothing like before. S-rank jutsu were already the kind of secret arts that a shinobi might never master regardless of how much time or effort they invested, yet someone with outstanding natural aptitude in the relevant field still had a reasonable chance given enough dedication. Super S-rank was different. Super S-rank techniques chose their users. Not one peak talent required, but several, all simultaneously, each at a level that appeared only once in many years.
Flying Thunder God was exactly that.
Yoru hadn't previously understood why neural reaction speed was even listed among the requirements. It was only after returning to the battlefield and tearing through enemy forces that the answer became clear. Strong neural reaction speed was something like bullet-time, a spider-sense, an extremely weakened version of Space-Time talent itself. Everyone else moved at one speed while the user moved at two or three. No wonder Minato Namikaze's Body Flicker seemed almost supernatural and his combat reading ability so impossibly sharp.
Before the evolution, Yoru himself had somehow managed to go toe-to-toe with someone like that. Looking back, it seemed almost unbelievable. If Minato had been any further along in his growth at the time, Yoru would have been the one taking the beating.
Without that neural reaction speed, using Flying Thunder God left the user's body frozen at the moment of arrival, unable to flow seamlessly into the next action. Approaching an enemy that way wasn't a technique. It was pure suicide.
Beyond reaction speed, sealing talent and chakra control had to meet the same standard. When chakra control ascended beyond what ordinary practitioners could reach, working in concert with sealing expertise and neural reaction speed, it became possible to do something that sounded almost absurd: reach out with regular chakra, as though gripping thread on a loom, catch hold of an invisible thread of Space-Time energy, and compress it into a permanent spatial marker that would never fade. That was the Flying Thunder God formula.
The reason Yoru had always been able to understand the theory but never replicate it was simple. All three requirements had been below the threshold. The same was true for Hiruzen Sarutobi, Orochimaru, and every other jutsu prodigy of the era.
But now, things were different.
Yoru turned the Flying Thunder God kunai over in his hand, a quiet smile at the corner of his mouth. On the kunai's handle sat a new design. Not the old tomato pattern with the character for "night" at its center, but an ouroboros, a snake curling back on itself to form the shape of infinity.
From the moment the second evolution ended, every spare hour had gone toward Lightning Release training, new jutsu development, and relentless attempts at Flying Thunder God. Over a month passed, through countless tries, watching condensed formula after condensed formula dissolve like ink dropped in water, each one a small cycle of excitement and disappointment.
And then, finally, he had it.
From this point on, Flying Thunder God would no longer consume Space-Time chakra. His operational endurance had taken an enormous leap, and every drop of Space-Time chakra previously spent on a single teleport was now free for other purposes.
Before this breakthrough, every use of the technique had eaten into a resource Yoru couldn't afford to spend carelessly. It made him conservative in ways that didn't suit his style, always calculating whether a dodge was worth the depletion, always needing to hold a reserve before using the Purple technique. Even when unleashing a high-cost move, he had to carefully meter his output to keep one or two uses of Flying Thunder God in reserve for emergencies.
All of those restrictions were now gone.
And if the second evolution had already delivered this much, Yoru found himself genuinely anticipating the third evolution, six years from now.
"Yoru-sama, Orochimaru-sama and Jiraiya-sama are asking for you."
A voice came from outside the tent.
"Got it."
Yoru tucked the Flying Thunder God kunai away and stepped outside. The command team was already packing up. Orochimaru and Jiraiya both wore heavy expressions.
Yoru walked over and greeted them. "Orochimaru-sensei. Jiraiya-senpai."
The shift in address had not happened on his own initiative. Jiraiya had requested it.
A year of commanding operations and the terrifying dominance Yoru had shown since returning had cemented his status as a recognized ace combatant, one of Konoha's sharpest blades. In future jonin council meetings, Yoru would not merely have a seat. His seat would be toward the front. Among all of Konoha, only the Hokage and the village elders, along with his own teacher, were above him in standing. Nobody else, including Jiraiya, Tsunade, Sakumo Hatake, Dan Kato, or the heads of the major clans, was owed the elevated form of address from him.
Yoru had become one of the top members of Konoha's inner circle.
This was the one genuine benefit war handed to ordinary shinobi. War killed prolifically and without discrimination. Even the Five Kage, without an intelligence advantage or caught in an ambush beyond their capacity to handle, were not immune. Over nearly two years of grinding conflict, the number of chunin and jonin who had fallen was beyond easy reckoning. Their positions had to be filled, and extraordinary times demanded extraordinary promotions. That was the only shortcut available to shinobi born outside prestigious clans.
Yoru had benefited fully. Without wartime conditions, even wielding Flying Thunder God with his level of jutsu talent, promoting at the same speed as Kakashi Hatake, he would still have needed five or six years to climb from genin to jonin. Becoming a recognized ace combatant on top of that required executing mission after mission, carving a reputation out of the shinobi world until both allies and enemies acknowledged your threat level without question.
War had compressed all of that into less than two years. From an early-graduate genin, Yoru had become a name that carried weight across the entire shinobi world. His age was something people had stopped noticing. What followed his name now wasn't "young prodigy." It was Black Flash and the Shinobi World's First Divine Speed.
"Yoru, be ready to fight." Orochimaru spoke without preamble.
That grave expression made Yoru's eyebrow lift. "Hanzo again?"
"The recon squad already detected his chakra. He's heading this way." Orochimaru nodded, though something uncertain flickered in his eyes. "This time he isn't approaching through Earth Body Flicker or Reverse Summoning Technique. He's coming openly via Body Flicker. The same as last year."
Yoru caught his meaning immediately. "You think he's running another scheme, sensei?"
"Can't rule it out."
Jiraiya cut in. "After all, when assassins suddenly start coming through the front door, they're never up to anything good."
Yoru gave him a sideways look. "Jiraiya-senpai, not being good-looking isn't a fatal flaw on its own. The key is having a mouth that compensates for it. The way you talk, winning over Tsunade-senpai is going to remain a lifetime project."
The remark hit Jiraiya like a concealed explosive tag. He staggered visibly, his entire bearing shifting into something that belonged more to a manga panel than a real person.
"Let's prepare," Orochimaru said, steering the moment back. "We'll see what trick he's running this time."
Yoru and Jiraiya immediately fell into pre-combat routine. They checked their poison-resistant masks and goggles, verified the count of antidote vials, and confirmed nothing was missing or compromised.
Once everything checked out, Orochimaru dismissed the command team with an order to pull back. The three of them stayed in place and waited.
The ease of it said something on its own. This was not a new situation for any of them.
A year of exchanges had given all parties thorough intelligence on one another. Without Yoru, the most Konoha's representatives could do against Hanzo was play extended hide-and-seek or gather enough antidote-equipped fighters to push him back through firepower. With Yoru present, they could actually engage. The Hyuga clan's Byakugan stayed trained on the area at all times, ready to confirm whether Hanzo's real body was present and relay whatever intelligence would give the command team its best decision.
After several exchanges, the three of them had come to almost welcome Hanzo's appearances. When he came personally, Amegakure was at its most vulnerable.
As one of the shinobi world's foremost masters of Body Flicker, Hanzo appeared quickly. A figure materialized from nothing atop a rock several meters high, arms folded across his chest, gaze sweeping down over the three of them.
Orochimaru and Jiraiya's expressions went taut. Orochimaru had already drawn the Sword of the Thunder God and stood ready. Even now, the gap between them and this man remained enormous.
Hanzo wasted no words. "Come. Let us have our final battle, little ones."
Orochimaru and Jiraiya both paused. Jiraiya raised his voice. "Hanzo, what do you mean by final battle?"
"If you survive, or if you manage to escape," Hanzo replied, his eyes cold as bare iron, "you'll understand."
Nobody else grasped his meaning.
Yoru did.
Hanzo's pride as a man who stood at the shinobi world's pinnacle, combined with the strategic necessity of preventing other small villages from reading his exit as weakness and coming to test their luck, made outright withdrawal unthinkable. If he left looking beaten, jackals would come. He had to leave on his own terms. Either he killed one of the three standing across from him and then magnanimously spared the others, withdrawing as an act of mercy from a position of strength, or he drove all three off and announced Amegakure's exit from the war as the decision of a victor.
Either outcome preserved his deterrence. Either outcome kept other small villages from getting ideas.
The second evolution's capacity gains, combined with the Space-Time chakra stored in his Yin Seal, had given Yoru considerable confidence. While intangible, his chakra vanished entirely from all perception, just like Obito Uchiha in the original series. The Byakugan's penetrating vision failed against him. No one could distinguish him from Madara Uchiha himself, whether real or impostor. Intangibility combined with the Transformation Technique let Yoru move with the same seamless concealment as White Zetsu.
Using that combination, Yoru had already located Nagato during a recent absence. Through the private code he and Konan had developed over more than a year, one that only the two of them could read, he had instructed her days in advance to find a cave and prepare a new base. He had also confirmed that Konan had successfully taken Nagato on as a subordinate.
If Yoru hadn't changed Konan's fate, the three orphans might have already found one another by now.
Calculating the timeline against the original series, this was roughly when the second war was supposed to see Amegakure exit. Hanzo had let the three Konoha shinobi live and branded them with the title of losers as his parting gesture. Yoru's butterfly effects had changed the details, but not the fundamental shape. There was still going to be a final battle.
This battle might be it.
After this, whatever remained of Hanzo's fire would go out. Each year from here would take something from him. The Hanzo standing across from them now, sustained by one last ember of spirit, was possibly looking at his own peak.
With the second evolution's transformation and the growth of recent weeks behind him, Yoru made a bold decision.
He turned to Orochimaru and Jiraiya. "Orochimaru-sensei, Jiraiya-senpai. This time, please let me face Hanzo alone."
Jiraiya's eyes went wide. "Have you lost your mind? That is one of the shinobi world's peaks. The three of us together couldn't finish him. You want to go one on one by yourself?"
Orochimaru looked at Yoru steadily. "Do you have confidence?"
"No matter who the opponent is," Yoru said, a quiet smile settling on his face, "I'm confident now."
From the moment Dimensional Slash was developed, Yoru's combat ceiling had become the most ambiguous thing in the shinobi world. From an ordinary person to a pure-blood Otsutsuki, it made no distinction. With Flying Thunder God now mastered on regular chakra as well, he could strike anyone and still have an exit, as long as the opponent lacked Space-Time teleportation of their own.
His only real limitation had always been endurance. Both chakra types had been too limited in capacity, making him look weaker than he truly was. The reason he had used ninja rank tiers to calibrate his Space-Time chakra wasn't anything rigorous. He simply didn't know Kakashi Hatake's exact chakra volume in later years to use as a proper reference point. Comparing against genin, chunin, and jonin ranges was just a convenient way to track his own progress. If he had known Kakashi's precise figures, he would have used units like half-Kaka, one-Kaka, and two-Kaka instead.
Now, with both chakra types elevated and Flying Thunder God usable through both, his fighting strength was more ambiguous than ever. Not just against Hanzo. As long as an opponent didn't possess Space-Time abilities that exceeded his own, Yoru had no fear regardless of who stood across from him.
Orochimaru understood this. Thinking back on the transformation Yoru had displayed since returning, Orochimaru knew the Space-Time bloodline limit had made significant new gains. If Yoru was the one saying it, there was a genuine foundation for the claim.
Orochimaru nodded. "Good. Hanzo is yours."
Jiraiya stared at his closest friend as though looking at a complete stranger.
The student being this bold was one thing. But the teacher agreeing without hesitation? Had they both forgotten what the past year had looked like? How many times all three of them had been chased off by Hanzo in desperate retreat?
Even now, even with Flying Thunder God and the Black Lightning techniques, Yoru fighting alone had no realistic winning chance. He could only run. It would have been far better to have all three of them surrounding Hanzo, constantly creating openings for Yoru to use that extraordinary move, the prototype Rasenshuriken moving at incomprehensible speed with devastating force, the one that had severed the salamander's tail. With luck, combined pressure had better odds of achieving something than Yoru going alone.
Then something surfaced in Jiraiya's memory. The secret Orochimaru had been quietly keeping from both him and Tsunade. Yoru's secret.
Was Yoru actually planning to reveal it? The secret about him becoming the God of Shinobi in the future?
Thinking it over, Jiraiya felt a sudden surge of anticipation. If it was truly that outrageous, then maybe, just maybe, facing Hanzo alone wasn't as reckless as it sounded.
***
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