Fated Showdown, Dimensional Suppression

The two of them entered the arena in completely different ways.

Minato moved quickly, every step landing along the same straight line, toes pointed forward, his weight pressed onto the balls of his feet. It was a standard combat gait, allowing him to change direction or leap at any moment.

Nawaki moved slowly, both hands tucked into his pockets, shoulders loose, his footsteps falling one after another as though he were out for a stroll.

The two stopped at the center of the arena.

Ten meters apart.

Minato's right hand hung by his side, a three-pronged kunai gripped in his palm, the end of its sealing tag peeking through his fingers.

Nawaki lowered his head and glanced at the kunai.

"New toy?"

Minato did not answer. His gaze passed over Nawaki's shoulder toward the waiting area.

Kushina Uzumaki was leaning over the railing, her chin cradled in both hands. She was looking at Nawaki's back.

Minato drew his gaze back.

"Nawaki."

"Hmm?"

"I won't give up."

Nawaki tilted his head. "Give up on what?"

Minato's jaw tightened. He knew Nawaki was playing dumb. But he said it anyway.

"Kushina Uzumaki."

A faint gasp came from the waiting area—it was Kushina Uzumaki.

Nawaki smiled.

It was neither a polite smile nor a mocking one. It was the reaction of someone who had just heard a very serious joke.

"Minato." He pulled his hands from his pockets but assumed no stance, his arms hanging naturally at his sides. "You've worked hard. Really. You modified the Flying Thunder God Technique into a new version in three months. Jiraiya taught you well, and you learned quickly."

Minato clenched his fists.

"But some things," Nawaki said without raising his voice, "can't be bridged through effort alone."

The referee raised a hand. "Both sides, prepare—"

Minato's foot pushed off the ground.

"Begin!"

Before the referee could finish the word, Minato had vanished from where he stood.

Fast.

A level faster than Iron Fire. Two levels faster than Nabi.

Three shuriken flew out first, forming a triangular formation that sealed Nawaki's left, right, and overhead routes. Immediately afterward, Minato himself cut in from the front, his three-pronged kunai thrust straight toward Nawaki's throat.

The shuriken were a feint. The kunai was the killing blow. Projectiles from three directions would force his opponent to expose their flank while dodging, and Minato's speed was enough to deliver a fatal strike in the instant they turned.

He had practiced that combination two thousand times.

Nawaki did not dodge.

Did not turn.

Did not form hand seals.

He lightly tapped the ground with his right foot.

Wood grew from beneath his foot. No—not a board, but a half-meter-thick curved Wood Wall, like an opening fan, covering Nawaki's front and both sides within 0.3 seconds.

The three shuriken struck the Wood Wall with three dull thunks. The kunai's tip sank into its surface—then stopped after just two centimeters.

A tremendous rebounding force traveled through Minato's wrist, numbing the web between his thumb and forefinger.

The Wood Wall was far tougher than ordinary timber. It swallowed all the momentum of his thrust; he could not even pierce through it.

Minato immediately released the kunai and retreated.

The Wood Wall shattered. It did not collapse—it exploded outward from within. Countless finger-thick vines shot from the broken wood, coiling toward Minato's limbs.

Minato's Body Flicker saved him. He flashed half a meter to the right, and the vines grazed his left waist as they passed, tearing away a section of his belt.

Before he could steady himself, the second wave came.

From the ground.

Vines burst from the cracks between the stone slabs beneath Minato's feet and wrapped around his right ankle.

"—!"

Minato lowered his head and exerted force with his hand at the same time. His kunai cut through the vines, and he flipped backward to widen the distance.

The entire exchange took less than three seconds.

In the stands, Jiraiya braced his hands against his knees and leaned forward.

Three seconds. Minato had opened with everything he had, using the speed and judgment he took pride in—and all it got him was Nawaki stepping on the ground.

Nawaki had remained where he was. He had not moved half a step.

His hands still hung at his sides.

"Keep going?"

Minato wiped the dust from the corner of his mouth without speaking. His mind raced.

He could not break through the Wood Wall head-on. Vines lay in ambush beneath the ground. Nawaki's sensory range covered at least a twenty-meter radius.

Conventional tactics were useless.

Minato took a deep breath and drew four three-pronged kunai from the ninja tool pouch at his lower back with his left hand.

Four.

He threw the first—not at Nawaki, but to the right.

The kunai spun through the air and struck the arena's stone wall with a clang.

The second went left.

The third went behind him.

The fourth landed fifteen degrees to the left of Nawaki's front.

Four directions. Four anchor points.

Jiraiya's breath caught. He recognized the setup.

The Flying Thunder God Technique.

Incomplete and watered down, but it truly was the Flying Thunder God Technique.

Minato vanished.

Not Body Flicker. A genuine spatial jump.

His body disappeared from where he stood, then appeared beside the kunai embedded in the wall to Nawaki's right the next instant, a fist-sized spinning sphere now in his hand.

Rasengan. A half-finished product. Yet the density of its spinning chakra was already enough to pulverize rock.

The Hidden Sand jonin rose from his seat.

The big man from the Hidden Cloud Village had reopened his freshly bandaged foot wound, but he did not care. His eyes were locked on the arena.

Minato pushed his speed to the limit. From vanishing to appearing to striking, the entire sequence took less than half a second.

The Rasengan drove toward Nawaki's side.

Nawaki tilted his head slightly.

His left hand emerged from his pocket.

One hand.

Palm facing down, he gave a gentle outward push.

A wooden shield grew out of thin air before Minato. Round, one meter in diameter, ten centimeters thick. Its surface was so smooth it did not look temporarily formed—there was even wood grain on it.

The Rasengan struck the wooden shield.

The spinning chakra sphere frantically ground against the wooden surface, sending splinters flying with a piercing hiss.

It ground for one second.

Two.

The wooden shield did not break.

The Rasengan dispersed first. Minato's chakra cohesion was not enough, and the half-finished technique's weakness revealed itself in the sustained clash—its rotational frequency became unstable, the sphere warped, then collapsed and vanished like a deflated ball.

Minato's palm remained in its pushing position, less than five centimeters from the shield's surface.

The indentation carved by the Rasengan was healing at a visible rate. Wood fibers regrew, filling every bit of damage.

Three seconds later, the wooden shield had returned to normal.

The entire arena had been silent from start to finish. No one spoke, because no one knew what to say.

Minato stared at the completely intact wooden shield.

Nawaki's left hand remained in its pushing position, while his right hand had never left his pocket.

"Rasengan. Good thing." Nawaki sounded as though he were judging a dish. "But it's undercooked. It falls apart too quickly."

Minato ground his teeth audibly.

He jumped back to the left anchor point, then to the anchor behind him, making three consecutive spatial jumps in an attempt to find Nawaki's blind spot.

Every time he appeared.

A Wood Wall grew in front of him.

The timing was so precise that Minato's fist had already swung out before the Wood Wall finished growing—but every time, it completed itself exactly 0.1 seconds before his attack landed.

Nawaki remained at the center of the arena. His hands had never formed a seal together. He controlled Wood Release with one hand throughout.

It was not that he could not use both hands. He simply did not need to.

In the waiting area, Kushina Uzumaki buried her face in her arms and peeked through her fingers. Beside her, Mikoto stood with her arms folded, her expression calm, though the curve of her lips gave her away.

In the stands, the Third Hokage's pipe had gone out. He had not noticed.

Minato landed on the ground. His breathing was ragged, and his clothes were covered in wood chips and dust. One of the kunai in his hand had broken, leaving him with three.

The chakra consumption of the Flying Thunder God Technique far exceeded what he could bear—his face had already turned pale.

But he did not kneel.

His legs held him up, his knees trembling as he stubbornly remained standing.

Nawaki looked at him.

"Not surrendering?"

Minato shook his head.

"Fine."

Nawaki pulled his right hand from his pocket as well.

His hands slowly came together.

The instant his palms met—the air throughout the arena changed.

It was not chakra release. It was pressure. Pure, physical pressure. The chakra of Nawaki's Sage Body spread from the surface of his body, carrying a deep and immense vitality that did not belong to a twelve-year-old boy.

The ground cracked.

The arena's stone slabs began to fracture beneath Nawaki's feet, cracks spreading outward in every direction with him at their center. The railing in the front row of the stands began to tremble. Sand and pebbles bounced up from the crevices.

Far away.

Very far away.

In a dark cave hundreds of meters beneath Konoha Village.

A pair of cloudy, ancient eyes suddenly snapped open.