At the heart of the storm, a cold gleam flashed through Naruto's azure eyes.
"Tricks like this!"
He wasn't fooled by Orochimaru's true body, because that purest, most ravenous killing intent had remained locked onto Sasuke all along!
"Eight Gates: Fourth Gate, Gate of Pain... open!"
With a low roar, Naruto stopped testing him.
The Fourth Gate, which he had only forcibly opened during training the night before, was now unleashed without reservation!
Boom!!!
Green steam more than ten times fiercer than before erupted into a gigantic tornado that shot into the sky, forcibly bursting Orochimaru's "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough" from within and tearing it apart!
The terrifying blast swept through the area like a hurricane!
The Kusanagi Sword, just about to touch the throat of Naruto's afterimage, was actually forced to halt half an inch by the sheer pressure!
"What?!"
For the first time, genuine shock appeared on Orochimaru's face.
This had merely been a feint meant to confuse his opponent, yet this brat had broken even the feint with such brute force?!
"Your opponent is me."
An icy voice rang out behind him.
Fast!
Fast beyond belief!
With the Fourth Gate open, Naruto's speed had already surpassed the realm of elite jonin!
Orochimaru's pupils contracted sharply, and he immediately activated the contingency he had prepared beforehand!
"Splat!"
Naruto's sure-hit punch pierced through Orochimaru's chest.
But the sensation in his hand was wrong. There was no flesh or blood, only something slick and slimy!
The "Orochimaru" that had been struck let out a strange laugh before his entire body collapsed into a puddle of mud.
Earth Clone!
The true danger came from beneath his feet!
"Ninja Art: Snake Gaze Bind!"
Two giant snakes shot out from Naruto's shadow beneath his feet and wrapped around his legs like lightning!
At the same time, Orochimaru's true body slithered out from the trunk of a nearby tree, his golden snake eyes carrying a cold smirk of triumph.
"Got you, brat."
The Kusanagi Sword in his hand traced a vicious arc straight toward Naruto's bound body!
"Is that so?"
Naruto bared his teeth, his smile more ferocious than a demon's!
The muscles in his legs suddenly bulged, and the two giant snakes wrapped around them let out overwhelmed cracking sounds as he forcibly snapped them apart with brute strength!
Forcing himself free, he twisted his body at an unimaginable angle and narrowly avoided the Kusanagi Sword's lethal strike!
But the sharp blade still cut a shallow wound across his arm.
A stab of pain struck him as black poison rapidly spread from the wound!
"It's over."
Orochimaru licked his lips. Even Shadow Level experts would not dare touch his deadly poison lightly.
Yet the next second, the smile on his face froze.
A faint golden warmth flashed over Naruto's wound, and the lethal poison, capable of killing at the sight of blood, was purified completely in an instant as if melting snow!
The wound also healed at a visible rate!
Perfect Sage Body!
"This recovery... this constitution..." Orochimaru's breathing quickened for the first time, and the greed in his eyes became fanaticism. "That body of yours... is even more perfect than the Uchiha bloodline! A supreme treasure bestowed upon me by the gods!"
"Too bad you won't live to take it."
Naruto could feel that the power of the Fourth Gate was beginning to fall short against someone as cunning as Orochimaru.
The surging blood and energy within him reached an unprecedented boiling point at that moment!
The barrier he had attacked countless times the night before without breaking finally developed a crack under the pressure of a powerful foe!
"Good. I'll use this old snake as the whetstone for my breakthrough!"
Naruto's low roar sounded like the words of a demon god from the depths of hell!
"Fifth Gate, Gate of Limit... open!!!"
Rumbleee!!!
If the previous shockwave had been a typhoon, then this was a landslide and earth-shattering disaster!
A tangible green energy storm beyond description erupted from Naruto's body like a volcanic blast!
The terrifying shockwave became a visible ring-shaped wall of air, spreading madly in every direction with unstoppable force!
"Impossible!"
The face of Orochimaru, one of the legendary Sannin, finally showed an emotion called terror.
The Gate of Limit!
That was a forbidden realm where even jonin at the peak of physical ability would have one foot in the grave after opening it!
How did he dare?!
Why could he still stand?!
What made Orochimaru's scalp tingle even more was the horrifying transformation occurring to the figure within the steam.
Naruto's once fair skin turned red like heated iron. Muscle fibers all over his body swelled and knotted at a visible rate, while blue-black veins coiled over every inch of him like savage pythons!
At that moment, his speed, strength, and reaction time all rose to a terrifying level that even made Orochimaru look sideways!
"You..."
Orochimaru had just begun to speak, but there was no longer any time.
Because Naruto's body vanished from where he stood.
He was so fast that even the air could not withstand such brute speed, releasing a sharp explosive crack!
"Pfft!"
Orochimaru did not see his opponent move at all!
He only felt a tearing pain in his abdomen, as though the heavens and earth were splitting apart!
He stiffly lowered his head and saw only a fist wrapped in green steam buried deeply, completely inside his stomach!
"Gah!"
Orochimaru's body bent like a cooked shrimp as he spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs!
His entire body flew backward like a stone struck by immense force, becoming a black cannonball!
But the nightmare had only just begun!
"I'm not done yet!"
Naruto's voice, like a demon's whisper, somehow reached Orochimaru's ear before him!
Orochimaru's body stiffened in midair. He painfully turned his neck, only to see that Naruto had somehow caught up to him as he flew back, his other fist rapidly enlarging in those snake eyes!
"Bang!"
Another punch!
It smashed solidly into Orochimaru's face!
The mighty Orochimaru, one of the legendary Sannin, was now being treated like a battered sack, endlessly struck through the air!
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Naruto's fists became countless green afterimages, pouring down upon Orochimaru in a frenzied, torrential barrage!
"Ora ora ora ora ora!!!"
In the distant forest.
Sakura and Sasuke had just joined forces to kill the two giant snakes. When they looked up, they saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Sasuke's scarlet Two-Tomoe Sharingan spun madly, yet it could not capture Naruto's punching trajectory at all!
He could only see a blurred green storm repeatedly battering and tearing apart that black figure who had filled him with despair!
The Sharingan was crying.
Not shedding tears. The eyes themselves were "crying."
They spun desperately, recorded desperately, analyzed desperately, and then realized they could analyze nothing.
The gap in power was too vast, so vast that the Sharingan's insight had completely lost all meaning.
It was like a mortal staring directly at the blazing sun. All you could see was blinding white before being scorched.
Sasuke's fists clenched tightly.
His nails dug into his palms. Blood flowed out and dripped onto the rotting fallen leaves.
Naruto was not a mountain.
A mountain could be climbed.
Naruto was the sky itself.
The sky could only be looked up at.
"So... this is true power..."
The moment those words surfaced in his heart, he felt a chill seep into his bones.
It was not fear.
It was doubt.
He had always thought he knew where the path lay.
Grow stronger, grow stronger, kill that man.
But Naruto had shown him in an almost cruel manner that the road called "growing stronger" was far longer than he had imagined.
So long that he might spend his entire life walking it and never reach the end.
That man would not wait for him.
With every passing day, that man grew stronger.
And he, Sasuke Uchiha, was still being chased and bitten by snakes in the Forest of Death, still needing Naruto to save him.
What if there was a way to gain power faster?
That thought surfaced again.
This time, Sasuke did not immediately crush it.
He merely watched that green storm, watched Naruto beat Orochimaru like a punching bag, his mind completely blank.
Like someone standing at a crossroads, unable to see where either path ended and capable only of standing there in a daze.
One path was following behind Naruto.
Safe, warm, and filled with belonging, but with no way of knowing how long it would take.
The other path...
He did not dare think about it.
Sasuke took a deep breath and buried the thought back in his heart.
But it did not disappear.
It merely sank deeper, into a very, very deep place, like a seed falling into dark, damp soil.
When the next storm came, it would sprout.
"Boom!!!"
In midair, Naruto seemed to have grown tired of punching and let out a wild roar.
The muscles in both arms swelled in an instant. He brought his fists together, turning them into a colossal hammer that could split heaven and earth, and smashed it viciously into Orochimaru's chest!
"Splat!"
Orochimaru's chest was forcibly caved in under that blow, forming a horrifying depression!
His body finally escaped the hell of the endless combo and crashed toward the ground below like a falling meteor, trailing a long plume of dust and smoke!
Sasuke watched that falling black figure, then looked at Naruto still standing in midair.
The green steam was receding.
Naruto's body was returning to normal.
But Sasuke knew that some things would never return to normal.
Like the crack in his heart.
It would not heal.
It would only grow larger and larger.
Until one day, it became so large that even he could not fill it.
He lowered his head and looked at the kunai in his hand, stained with blood.
The blade reflected a pair of scarlet eyes.
Within those eyes were admiration, shame, unwillingness, gratitude, self-loathing...
And a faint longing stretching toward darkness, one he himself refused to acknowledge.
Before you continue