Both sides confronted each other in the clearing, everyone gripping their weapons tightly.
A light breeze stirred the fallen leaves on the ground.
As if it were a signal to begin the war, both sides suddenly roared and charged at each other.
Various ninjutsu erupted across the battlefield as everyone unleashed their strongest techniques.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
Fire Release: Great Flame Bullet!
Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet!
Water Release: Water Fang Bullet!
Ninjutsu from both sides collided continuously, lighting up the clearing like a chaotic display of fireworks.
Under the cover of ninjutsu, the battle quickly shifted into close-quarters combat.
Kunai from the Konoha ninjas clashed against the swords of the Kirigakure shinobi, sparks flying as both sides began to suffer casualties.
Asuka and Minato Namikaze immediately sought each other out on the battlefield.
The two locked eyes.
Minato was the first to speak.
"We meet again, Asuka-kun."
Asuka smiled faintly.
"Yeah, long time no see, Minato Namikaze. You left in quite a hurry last time. I never got the chance to properly greet you."
"I've also been looking forward to facing you again, Asuka-kun."
After the brief exchange, both men moved almost simultaneously.
Bone bullets and kunai collided in midair and were deflected away.
Minato gripped a kunai while Asuka drew a sharp bone blade from his arm.
The two clashed instantly.
Both were masters of taijutsu, their figures flashing across the clearing as they exchanged rapid blows.
Minato was far weaker than Asuka in terms of raw strength, but he made perfect use of his own advantages.
One of the main reasons Minato Namikaze was able to master the Flying Thunder God Technique was his extraordinary neural reaction speed.
He could react and make the optimal decision within a fraction of a second.
A famous example was his battle against the young A–B Brothers. Under the relentless attacks of the future Fourth Raikage, Minato had dodged using Flying Thunder God when the punch was only millimeters away from his face. At the same moment, he used the technique again to counterattack instantly.
If not for Killer Bee's interference, the future Fourth Raikage might have died during the Third Great Ninja War.
This battle alone demonstrated Minato's terrifying reaction speed.
Now, in his fight against Asuka, Minato pushed that advantage to the limit.
He rarely clashed with Asuka head-on. Instead, he relied on speed and movement to constantly evade attacks.
Using the brief openings in Asuka's movements, he struck again and again with his kunai.
Each slash, enhanced with Wind Release, carved deep wounds into Asuka's body.
This style of fighting made Asuka extremely uncomfortable. It felt like throwing a full-power punch into a pile of cotton.
Finally, after Minato's kunai once again sliced across his body—leaving a wound deep enough to expose bone—Asuka's patience ran out.
He gathered chakra into his fist and slammed it into the ground.
The earth beneath his feet shattered, forcing Minato to leap backward.
While jumping into the air, Minato threw his kunai and quickly formed hand seals.
Ninjutsu: Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!
The thrown kunai multiplied instantly.
One became two.
Two became four.
In the blink of an eye, a rain of kunai poured toward Asuka. The small weapons created a barrage that resembled the firepower of a gatling gun.
Although Asuka dodged rapidly, several kunai still struck his body.
The barrage slammed into the ground, blasting countless small craters into the earth and kicking up a cloud of dust.
Moments later, Asuka stepped out of the dust cloud.
He casually pulled the kunai from his body.
Seeing that Asuka appeared completely unharmed, Minato sighed helplessly.
"Your recovery ability is truly monstrous."
Asuka chuckled but said nothing.
In the next instant, countless bone spikes burst out from his body.
Faced with such a wide-range attack, Minato didn't try to block it. His figure flashed and vanished.
After the bone spikes subsided, Minato suddenly appeared beside a kunai closest to Asuka.
His arm swung upward in a sudden strike.
However, the expected spray of blood never came.
The kunai was stopped in midair by bones growing from Asuka's body—and then snapped in half.
Asuka immediately followed up with a powerful back kick.
But before the strike could land, Minato vanished again.
When he reappeared, he was already far away.
Before Asuka could react, a Wind Blade slashed violently across his body.
Minato perfectly combined the extreme mobility of Flying Thunder God with his incredible reaction speed.
The entire rhythm of the battle was firmly in his control.
This made Asuka increasingly irritated.
His eyes gradually turned red.
The Cyclops ability activated.
A blazing red laser burst from his eyes, sweeping across the battlefield and swallowing the ground where Minato had just stood.
Minato dodged the laser and instantly used Flying Thunder God to approach Asuka again.
But this time, things were different.
In Minato's left hand, a spinning sphere of blue chakra had formed.
The chakra sphere slammed directly into Asuka.
Although the bone spikes covering Asuka's body absorbed most of the impact, he was still blasted backward.
Even so, the attack caused very little damage.
Asuka stood up calmly and brushed the dust from his clothes.
Across from him, Minato Namikaze stood where Asuka had been moments ago, breathing slightly heavier.
Asuka narrowed his eyes as he recalled the attack.
"So this is… the Rasengan?"
He thought silently.
Why did this technique appear so early?
Did my existence cause this change?
On the other side, Minato shook his slightly numb left hand.
The Rasengan was a seal-less ninjutsu he had recently developed to complement the mobility of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
However, the technique had only just been created and was still incomplete. The chakra flow was not yet perfectly stable.
Using Flying Thunder God repeatedly while casting multiple ninjutsu had begun to strain Minato's body.
Although the chakra consumption was still manageable, fatigue was starting to set in.
Seeing Minato breathing heavily, Asuka smirked.
"Minato-kun, you look a little tired. Want to take a halftime break?"
Minato chuckled.
"Thanks for the concern, Asuka-kun. I'm fine. I can keep this up with you all day."
Even though he said that, Minato didn't immediately launch another fierce assault.
For a moment, both of them stood still.
Neither made a move.
At this stage, neither side could deal a fatal blow to the other.
Asuka's regenerative ability—granted by his Wolverine mutant power—made him almost impossible to kill.
As for Minato Namikaze, his talent with Flying Thunder God made him nearly untouchable as long as he remained conscious.
Even though Minato eventually died in the original timeline while sealing the Nine-Tails, Asuka personally felt that death had more to do with love than weakness.
Now, the two were locked in a stalemate.
Neither could defeat the other in a short time.
Yet if either of them broke away and began attacking the battlefield freely, it would cause catastrophic losses for the opposing army.
Both of their abilities were perfectly suited for large-scale warfare.
Asuka's regeneration combined with the Shikotsumyaku bloodline already made him a terrifying battlefield grinder. With the addition of the Cyclops laser ability, his destructive power and long-range attacks had become even more frightening.
As for Minato Namikaze, his reputation spoke for itself.
In the future, he would single-handedly eliminate more than twenty Iwagakure Jōnin in an instant, demonstrating his overwhelming dominance on the battlefield.
Now the situation had reached a deadlock.
Both of them could only keep each other occupied—
waiting for a new change to appear on the battlefield.
---------------Author---------------
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