"I didn't think it would still end this badly," Naruto said, breathing hard. "If that had been a real fight to the death, I probably would've been dead before I even got a move off."
The reason he had not used all those flashy mass shadow-clone tactics was simple. Deep down, he knew that in the face of absolute power, numbers meant nothing.
By then Sakura had made her way over too, one hand pressed to her still-aching chest, her steps unsteady.
She had always known Akira was strong, but that word had mostly existed in other people's stories.
The only thing she had truly seen with her own eyes was back on the Land of Waves mission, when Akira had cut down those two high-level enemy ninja like it was nothing.
Only now, after testing it firsthand, did she fully grasp the truth. Akira was like a towering mountain, so high she could not even see the summit.
They were the same age, yet their strength felt as if it belonged to completely different dimensions.
Stopping in front of him, Sakura gave a bitter smile. "If you were really my enemy, I wouldn't still be standing here talking."
Naruto nodded grimly. "Yeah. In a real fight, we'd both be dead already."
"That lightning barrier of yours doesn't even need hand signs. It comes out instantly. That kind of defense is just hopeless. I honestly don't know if even that move I'm still working on could break through it."
Sakura blinked and turned toward him. "A move you're still working on? What move?"
She had no idea Naruto had been developing a new trump card.
After all, it involved extreme nature transformation training. Other than Naruto himself, the only people who knew about it were Jiraiya and Granny Tsunade.
Naruto thought for a moment, then explained, "It's the ultimate form of the Rasengan. You could call it the Rasenshuriken."
"It's a full-blown S-rank forbidden jutsu. The training difficulty is insane, and the power is on a completely different level from a normal Rasengan."
"If it goes off properly, everything within a hundred or two hundred meters gets blasted into a giant crater."
"And the worst part is what happens after that. It turns into countless tiny wind blades, too small to see, and they cut straight through the target's chakra network on the cellular level."
"Even a ninja with a body tough enough to be called a monster is basically finished if they take a direct hit."
"The problem is, the side effects are brutal. The risk is way too high. I still haven't fully mastered it yet, which is seriously frustrating."
"But honestly, even if I could form it perfectly right now, I'm not sure it would break through Akira's lightning shell."
Naruto pictured the scene in his head and felt another wave of helplessness.
Sakura did not completely follow the technical explanation, but from the seriousness on his face, she could tell it was some terrifying, world-shaking attack.
After all, if it came from the same system Akira respected, there was no way it was weak.
Akira might have been unrivaled in Lightning Style, with countless S-rank and even higher-tier lightning jutsus to his name, but that did not mean his other elemental skills were lacking.
At that moment Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Kakashi walked over slowly, their eyes filled with approval as they looked at him.
"The result's basically the same as it was three years ago," Jiraiya said. "With just these two, no one was ever going to force out your real strength."
"Even that tiny glimpse of what you showed would leave countless so-called Kage-level fighters in the dust."
Just the absurd reaction speed alone, plus that near-impenetrable lightning defense, was enough to make him nearly unbeatable.
Akira, however, looked completely unconcerned. If he had released his full pressure, Naruto and Sakura probably would not have been able to stay standing, let alone attack. Giving them that much room was already the greatest handicap he could offer.
Tsunade laughed openly. "All right, that's enough for today. Looks like these last three years weren't wasted after all. Your strength has finally reached the threshold of jōnin."
"Naruto, this time you're entering the Chūnin Exams, no excuses. Look at the others from your class. You're the only one still dragging around that eternal genin title. Akira and Neji became jōnin ages ago."
"If you blow it again this time, you can forget high-level missions. You'll spend the rest of your life catching cats and finding lost dogs."
The moment he heard that, Naruto's face fell. He knew how serious that was.
A future Hokage candidate could not spend his whole life carrying the rank of genin.
He turned to Akira, curiosity written all over his face. "Come to think of it, how exactly did you make jōnin anyway?"
He had at least heard bits and pieces about Neji's promotion. But how Akira had climbed that far over the last three years? He had no clue at all.
Before anyone else could answer, Tsunade arched a brow. "What, you think he didn't deserve it?"
Naruto glanced at Akira's calm face, then remembered the suffocating power he had just felt, and scratched his head awkwardly. "It's not that. I'm just curious. It can't be only about whether someone can fight, right?"
Tsunade nodded as if the answer were obvious. "Why wouldn't strength be enough?"
"Besides, during these three years he served as my personal guard and, along the way, completed several S-rank missions and over a dozen A-rank missions. Does that sound unreasonable for a jōnin to you?"
Naruto stared at her in complete shock. Several S-rank missions. More than ten A-rank missions. Plenty of jōnin would not reach numbers like that in an entire career.
And on top of that, Akira had still been handling the duties of the Hokage's personal guard. The efficiency was ridiculous.
Seeing Naruto frozen like that, Akira chuckled lightly. "You should worry about your own exam first. In our whole generation, you and Sasuke are the only ones still driving without a license."
The moment Sasuke's name came up, Naruto's brow knotted.
One of the biggest reasons he had returned to the village this time, aside from the time limit being up, was that Orochimaru's body-transfer ritual was approaching. They had to find Sasuke before his body was taken.
Jiraiya looked at Akira with a complicated expression. "The three-year window's up. Orochimaru's movements are getting more aggressive. Sasuke's situation probably isn't looking good."
As someone who had lived through it before, Jiraiya knew that pain all too well, the agony of wanting to bring back someone precious and having no power to stop them. Just like it had once been with him and that snake of a man.
The truth was, Akira did not really want to interfere too much.
With his current power, if he truly wanted to, dragging Sasuke back by force would take only minutes.
But Sasuke was chasing power for revenge, and with Orochimaru, he really was growing faster than anywhere else.
Some roads had to be walked alone. Akira could not walk them for him.
Late that night, everyone returned to the Hokage's office.
After an entire day of commotion, Jiraiya and Naruto were done for and had already gone off to sleep.
Kakashi and Sakura both had their own things to deal with as well.
In the end, the huge office was left with only Tsunade and Akira.
Tsunade had collapsed over her desk with absolutely no dignity, her breathing slow and steady as she drifted off.
Akira sat on the sofa nearby, quietly reading through a scroll. For someone with his body, staying up all night hardly counted as strain.
His physical strength had already reached a level close to the Sage of Six Paths.
Even Hashirama Senju's famously monstrous Sage Body did not seem all that special by comparison anymore.
It was almost noon before Tsunade finally stirred awake, wiped away a suspicious bit of drool from the corner of her mouth, and stretched without the slightest concern for appearances.
She was just about to call Akira out for lunch when the office door suddenly burst open.
Shizune rushed in, holding a scroll tightly in her hand.
It was a highest-priority emergency dispatch.
Akira looked up from his book and focused on the alarm on her face.
Something serious had happened.
"Tsunade-hime, urgent military intelligence from the border!"
In an instant, Tsunade's lazy air vanished, her eyes sharpening. "What happened?"
Shizune hurried forward and handed over the report.
Tsunade unrolled it and scanned the contents.