Naruto: Kage of Kages

Support was approaching but their personal clash was still not over.

Not wasting a single moment, Shiki rushed in again and an exchange of high level taijutsu ensued.

It was a strange sight.

Shiki twisted and bent his body in strange ways, avoiding the barrages of blows from Dogan and the very instant the older jonin let up, he would snake in a hit, bypassing his opponent’s guard and never letting him dodge.

‘If it wasn’t for the Earth Spear Jutsu, this brat would have taken me out already.’ Dogan thought.

But he was adjusting.

The boy’s attacks relied on something akin to sleight of hand.

He was not truly hit around or through Dogan’s guard, he was simply fooling the jonin into guarding the wrong lines of attack and dodging the wrong way.

As the fight progresses, an opponent can quickly grow used to these kinds of tricky movements.

Dogan was no different.

Shiki launched one of his snaking kicks and for the first time since the boy’s change in fighting style he was blocked.

The counter was immediate.

Not expecting to be blocked, Shiki was forced to tank it but . . .

‘This lack of recoil. Same as before.’ Dogan grit his teeth as he felt the force from his counter be harmlessly dispersed.

He was running out of time, the second stim would not last as long as the first, the Kumo jonin could not afford to fight the battle tactically.

And so he didn’t.

Now better adjusted to Shiki’s movement patterns, he switched to full attack, making Shiki ‘s blows hit him at bad angles to waste some of the force and let his hardened body handle the rest while he pummeled away at the boy.

His new instinct only having begun to awaken, the barrage began to wear down his defenses as well as his already nearly depleted stamina and soon, he was not able to disperse and absorb the impacts.

What started out as an even exchange with Shiki even coming out slightly ahead, quickly turned into a one sided beatdown.

With every blow breaking his stance and rocking his small child body, Shiki had no means of even dodging or stably blocking, much less attempting any sort of counterattack.

‘I knew the brat couldn’t keep this up for long!’ Dogan triumphantly thought and Shiki grew more and more bloodied.

A left kick to the boy’s ribs sent him flying to the side but a right upper punch intercepted him, sending Shiki up before a crushing left smacked him back to the ground.

Dogan followed the combo with a devastating stomp before picking the boy up and power bombing him, a move he based on his Raikage’s Liger Bomb.

The Kumo jonin breathe hard, he had hardly any chakra left, his body was beginning to fail him already, soon he would be gone to the Pure Land.

“But it’s done.” Dogan said to himself with relief.

The threat had been neutralized and this monstrous prodigy of Konoha lost his chance to grow into a legend of the shinobi world.

“What exactly is done?” A young yet cold and hollow voice resounded.

Odd cracking and twisting sounds filled the square arena Dogan had created with his Earth Release: Mobile Core.

And with those sounds, Shiki rose from the crater in the ground that the Kumo jonin had created by bashing into it.

Countless tears and contusions covered his small body. The kimono style vest and metal mesh underneath had all been torn away by Dodai’s vicious assault.

But there the boy was standing as if he was perfectly fine, his wounds not bleeding any significant amount of blood.

It seemed as if his body was twisting and molding itself internally to maintain his combat effectiveness in spite of any possible injury, an automatic reaction that needed no thought.

“Impossible . . .” Dogan was too shocked to move.

Owing to his age, durability was one of the boy’s worst aspects and the Kumo jonin knew for sure his last and most powerful assault landed on him while Shiki was basically defenseless.

What he did not realize was how inhumanly hardened the boy’s muscles had become. His skin was still torn and bruised pretty easily by those were surface wounds.

Shiki musculature was even supporting his own damaged bone structure, a phenomenon that defied explanation as muscles could easily shatter one’s bones if not subconsciously limited at all times.

‘This monster must have felt something, his stamina should be nearly depleted too.’ Dogan mustered his last remaining energy.

A final surge before his faded into death’s embrace.

‘If blunt impacts won’t do, then sharp and piercing ones will.’

Comins to this conclusion, the jonin pulled out something he rarely used for close quarters. His kunai.

With one in each hand, he dashed at the still motionless boy electing not to waste his remaining energy on a probably pointless body flicker.

‘Not reacting?’ Dogan had a bad premonition but he could only brush it aside.

There was no sign or warning.

Only that single premonition and before he realized what was happening, Dogan’s body was sailing through the air.

*boom*

With a thunderous crash, he destroyed a large wall section, coughing out blood as he tried to piece together what had happened.

He did not get the chance.

With speed that should have been utterly impossible without chakra,Shiki was already on top of him and finally molding chakra again . . .

‘Compression Rasengan’

Compacting his regular rasengan until it was the size of a small marble, the boy shoved it into Dogan’s body, piercing his hardened body and utterly mashing up his internal organs.

The Kumo jonin died not knowing anything in the end.

The Compression Rasengan, a jutsu that always dislocated Shiki’s shoulder or cracked his arms bones from the recoil when he used it at full power, had no discernible effect on him, it felt as straining as a normal rasengan.

“An elite jonin . . . Not bad for my first real battle eh?” The boy breathed heavily.

‘I should get out of here. No more stamina to move around or mold chakra from, I can’t keep going.’ He thought to himself.

But just as he began to move, his entire body started seizing up and indescribable pain shot through his flesh as Shiki crumpled to the ground.

‘W-Wh-at i-is ha-pp-eni-ng!?’ The boy could not even speak.

After a few seconds though the pain passed and his body, though still sore, the most it had ever felt, was responding normally again.

‘This has got to do with all those weird moves that suddenly started popping into my head.’

He needed to rest up and look into his situation fast before it got out of hand.

But first, he quickly stored the valuable elite jonin’s corpse in a seal, however . . .

The pain returned with a vengeance and he blacked out completely.

‘B-Be-cau-se I u-use-d c-chakra . . ?’ Was the last thought.

In the black void of unconsciousness, Shiki’s soul drifted until he awakone in the endless abyss to a familiar sight.

“This is . . .” The boy trailed off.

His soul was the void he had crossed when reincarnating into this world and right in front of him, was the gate he had passed through right before opening his eyes to a new life.

Leaning against the gate, arms crossed and a hollow expression on his face, was an exact replica of himself.

+++++

Hey, Author here!

Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.

I’m trying to become a full time Author now and I’m not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.

Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -