Battle (I)

Madara moved.

Without a word or warning, the ground beneath his feet burst into a small crater, and he shot straight at Hashirama like a bolt of black lightning.

Hashirama charged forward almost at the same time.

The instant they collided, a dull boom burst through the air, and the shock wave blew the loose stones off the ground.

Over by Ryuto, Izuna moved too.

The patterns in his Sharingan spun rapidly. Ryuto felt the scenery flicker before his eyes, followed by something like a light needle prick inside his head.

Here it comes!

Ryuto tensed, immediately sending ki surging around his head, forming a thin, invisible protective layer over his temples and between his eyebrows.

The prickling sensation instantly weakened, but did not disappear completely. It was like looking through frosted glass, leaving him a little dizzy.

Izuna was already in front of him, driving a fist straight at his chest.

Ryuto turned sideways, parried Izuna's fist with his left hand, and countered with a right elbow.

Izuna ducked beneath it, his Sharingan fixed firmly on Ryuto's eyes.

Ryuto hurriedly looked away, avoiding his eyes, but still caught the endlessly spinning patterns in his peripheral vision.

His head swam again.

This time, it was more than dizziness. Even the ground beneath him seemed to tilt.

Ryuto's footing slipped, and his body involuntarily leaned half a step to the left.

Izuna seized the opening and kicked Ryuto in the side.

Bam!

The kick sent Ryuto sliding three or four meters sideways, plowing a shallow furrow through the ground.

His side burned with pain.

"Damn, this genjutsu is impossible to guard against." Ryuto shook his head, forcibly suppressing the dizziness. "I can't look at his eyes. Even catching them in my peripheral vision affects me... I need another way."

He looked toward Izuna.

Izuna had not pursued him. He stood where he was, his Sharingan still watching him.

"Ryuto, you're much faster than last time," Izuna said coldly. "But can your mind keep up with your body?"

"Try me and find out."

Ryuto pushed off, leaving an afterimage as he rushed in front of Izuna in an instant.

He threw a powerful punch.

Izuna neither dodged nor backed away. The patterns in his Sharingan abruptly contracted.

Halfway through Ryuto's punch, the Izuna before him suddenly became three.

All three Izunas moved exactly alike, retreating.

Clones? Or genjutsu?

Ryuto did not stop. His fist continued forward, aimed at the one in the middle.

His fist passed straight through, striking empty air.

It was an illusion.

The Izunas on either side attacked simultaneously, thrusting kunai at Ryuto's ribs.

Ryuto released a burst of ki beneath his feet, forcibly launching himself upward. He flipped over both Izunas' heads, landed, and turned.

The two Izunas merged into one. The real Izuna stood behind the spot Ryuto had just occupied.

"Good reflexes," Izuna said. "But can you tell which move is an attack and which is genjutsu?"

He formed hand seals.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

An enormous fireball surged forth, bearing down on Ryuto.

A wave of heat struck his face.

Ryuto thrust both hands forward, hurling a Ki Blast into the fireball.

Boom!

Firelight and shock waves exploded outward, filling the air with smoke.

Ryuto rushed out of the smoke, only to find Izuna gone.

Something whistled through the air behind him.

Without looking back, Ryuto drove an elbow behind him.

It connected, but the impact felt wrong, as though he had struck wood.

Substitution Technique!

The real Izuna appeared from the side, showering him with shuriken like raindrops.

Ryuto activated the Flight Technique, rising into the air to evade the rain of shuriken.

But just as he took flight, another violent wave of dizziness struck his head.

The sky before him seemed to spin. He could no longer distinguish up from down or left from right.

"It's harder for you to evade genjutsu in midair," Izuna's voice came from below.

Ryuto gritted his teeth, forcing more ki around his head.

The protective layer thickened. The dizziness eased somewhat, but remained.

He forced himself to concentrate and sense Izuna's position.

Below, ahead and to the left. The chakra fluctuations were clear.

Ryuto dove, stomping down toward that spot.

Izuna dodged, and his stomp blasted a crater into the ground.

They closed in again, exchanging punches and kicks so fast that only shadows remained.

Bam, bam, bam, bam!

The sounds of their bodies colliding came as rapidly as drumbeats.

The longer Ryuto fought, the more frustrated he became.

His speed and strength were clearly greater than Izuna's, yet he could not fight smoothly.

Every time he found his rhythm and prepared to press forward with a combination, Izuna's Sharingan would spin.

Sometimes, a slight dizziness slowed his movements by half a beat.

Sometimes, a brief illusion made him strike in the wrong direction.

Sometimes, several illusory clones simply appeared to obstruct his vision.

Although none of these genjutsu were lethal, and Ryuto could withstand them with his ki protection, they were far too irritating.

It was like playing a game with constant lag that fluctuated randomly, making smooth control impossible.

I have to adapt... fight while guarding against genjutsu... Ryuto steeled himself. Just treat it as... running two threads!

He forcibly divided his attention into two streams.

One focused on his eyes, ears, and bodily senses, tracking Izuna's movements, anticipating his attacks, and directing his own body to counter.

The other guarded his brain, like a firewall installed on a CPU, constantly scanning for and intercepting the genjutsu chakra attempting to invade.

It was awkward at first.

He often lost track of one while attending to the other.

Either he blocked the genjutsu but took a punch.

Or he dodged an attack but grew so dizzy that he nearly fell.

But Ryuto did not stop.

His Saiyan battle instincts, combined with these past months of life-and-death combat, had made his muscle memory and reaction speed absurdly fast.

He learned as he took hits.

He adjusted through the dizziness.

Gradually, he began to get a feel for it.

That protective layer of ki could do more than withstand attacks. It could also "filter" them.

It kept out the strongest genjutsu fluctuations, the ones attempting to control his thoughts directly.

It weakened the milder fluctuations that merely created illusions, reducing them until they no longer affected his judgment.

His combat awareness also began learning to function amid "interference."

It was like doing homework while listening to music. Distracting, but still manageable.

Bam!

Ryuto slammed a fist into Izuna's crossed arms, driving him back two steps.

A trace of surprise crossed Izuna's face.

"You're adapting... pretty quickly."

"Not bad." Ryuto caught his breath, his forehead covered in sweat.

Splitting his attention was far more exhausting than he had imagined.

His body was not tired. His mind was.

It was like working two jobs at once, his brain running at high speed and consuming enormous amounts of energy.

But he could feel himself slowly catching up with the rhythm.

Izuna's genjutsu interference was becoming less effective.

"But it's still not enough," Izuna said.

The patterns in his Sharingan spun even faster.

This time, there was no immediate dizziness.

But Ryuto suddenly noticed that the sounds around him had changed.

The roar of the waterfall, the distant collisions of Hashirama and Madara's battle, even his own breathing... all grew distant and indistinct.

In their place came a sharp, continuous ringing in his ears.

Bzzzz-

It was as though countless insects were shrieking inside his head.

It did not hurt, but it was so maddeningly irritating that he could not concentrate at all.

Sound-based genjutsu? Ryuto's heart sank.

He could avert his gaze from visual genjutsu.

But how could he defend against genjutsu that acted directly on his hearing, perhaps even interfering directly with his auditory nerves?

He tried wrapping his ears in ki.

It helped a little. The ringing grew quieter, but remained.

And diverting his attention to protecting his ears weakened the protection around his brain a fraction.

His vision flickered again.

Izuna seized that instant, darting in front of Ryuto and throwing a side kick.

Ryuto raised his arm to block, but the distraction slowed his movements just a little.

Bam!

The kick sent him flying sideways into the canyon wall, sending loose stones clattering down.

His back burned with pain.

Ryuto slid down the rock face, dropped to one knee, and coughed twice.

"It seems you haven't fully adapted yet." Izuna stood nearby, watching him coldly with his Sharingan.

Ryuto raised his head and wiped a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth.

He looked toward the other side.

Hashirama and Madara's battle was causing far more commotion than theirs.

The two had already fought their way beneath the waterfall.

Madara held a massive Gunbai wreathed in flames, each swing whipping up a sea of fire.

Hashirama used Wood Release to grow countless thick trees, some blocking the flames, others coiling toward Madara's body.

Water and fire, wood and flame collided and exploded, sending steam billowing upward.

Neither was using his full strength, but the scale of their ninjutsu clash was already enough to make anyone's scalp prickle.

Hashirama's fight... won't be decided anytime soon, Ryuto knew clearly. I have to deal with Izuna as quickly as possible.

He took a deep breath and stood again.

Ki circulated furiously through his body, forcibly suppressing his fatigue.

"Ringing in my ears, huh..." Ryuto stared at Izuna. "Then I'll just... temporarily 'switch off' my ears."

He controlled his ki, not wrapping it around his ears, but directly blocking transmission through part of his auditory nerves.

The world instantly fell silent.

The waterfall, the battle, the wind... every sound vanished.

Even that irritating ringing disappeared along with them.

Absolute silence.

But his sight, touch, and ki perception remained.

Ryuto watched Izuna, seeing his mouth move but unable to hear what he said.

It no longer mattered, though.

Ryuto stamped down, shattering the ground.

He shot toward Izuna like a cannonball.

This time, there was no sound interference, no dizziness or illusions.

Only pure speed and strength.

Izuna's pupils contracted, his Sharingan spinning furiously as he tried to create more genjutsu interference.

But Ryuto did not look at his eyes at all.

His gaze locked onto Izuna's shoulders, his footwork, and the paths of his chakra flow.

One punch.

Izuna blocked it, but the brute force sent him sliding backward.

Ryuto followed with a second punch.

Izuna dodged sideways and thrust his Kunai at Ryuto's throat with a reverse grip.

Ryuto did not dodge. His other hand reached straight for the Kunai.

Ki covered his palm.

Snap!

He caught the Kunai barehanded and snapped it.

Izuna's expression changed, and he pulled back.

Ryuto pursued relentlessly.

Their fight had shifted from a battle of rhythm disrupted by Genjutsu to a pure onslaught of overwhelming speed and strength.

Ryuto was adapting.

In the silent world, his combat instincts were heightened to the utmost.

Izuna's Genjutsu needed his opponent's "perception" as a medium.

Sight, hearing, touch...

When Ryuto deliberately shut off some of his senses and focused on others, the effects of the Genjutsu were greatly weakened.

Although this state consumed an enormous amount of energy and could not last, it was enough to hold out for a while.

Enough... to force Izuna into a desperate situation.

Meanwhile, Madara swept his fan to knock away the wooden stakes Hashirama hurled at him and stole a glance in their direction.

Seeing Ryuto keeping Izuna on the defensive, he raised an eyebrow.

"Izuna, stop playing around."

Madara's voice cut through the roaring water and explosions, reaching Izuna's ears clearly.

Izuna gritted his teeth, and the patterns in his Sharingan suddenly became extraordinarily distinct.

Scarlet light almost spilled out.

Alarm bells rang in Ryuto's mind.

He knew Izuna was about to get serious.

This was no disruption, no probing attack.

It was a true ocular technique of the Mangekyō Sharingan.

Almost simultaneously, the battle between Madara and Hashirama also paused for an instant.

The two stood over ten meters apart, staring at each other through the rising mist.

The probing was over.

The real deathmatch was only now beginning.

In the canyon, all four men's Ki surged to its peak at once.

Atop the cliffs, deep in the woods, those watching gazes grew tense as well.

Underground, Black Zetsu "watched" it all and smiled silently.

"Yes, just like that... a little fiercer..."

"Once you're all utterly exhausted..."

"It'll be time for my 'accident' to take the stage."