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A colossal, semi-translucent sphere of pressurised chakra was humming at a frequency so high that the glass vials in Kakashi and Gai's pouches immediately shattered. The sphere wasn't solid, but was nonetheless a terrifyingly dense orbit of tens of thousands of wind cutters rotating at such high velocity that they overlapped, sharpening each other on every pass and creating a shimmering white dome that appeared solid from a distance.
Kakashi saw the seals and the sphere and knew they couldn't dodge the jutsu. The range would be too wide and the speed too high. He immediately summoned his chakra and began to weave hand seals, only for Gai to stop him with a hand to his shoulder.
"Preserve your chakra," he said and then stepped in front of Kakashi.
The green aura around Gai turned even more violent, his skin turning redder as his chakra ran even more rampant, unrestricted by the body's natural restraints. The steam rose around him in a column, distorting the air.
"Sixth Gate: Gate of View—Open!"
Danzō let the sphere go, and it moved forward with a speed too fast for an object of such size. The sphere instantly expanded, releasing the horror it was holding inside. It wasn't a storm, but a rotating mouth made of invisible knives, greedy to eat everything put in front of it.
The trees around were all forced to bow in the direction of the sphere, the vacuum pulling them into its maw. The nearest tree was bisected, then, two more cuts ripped straight through the wood, then four, eight, sixteen, and so on until the hundreds of intersecting cuts reduced wood and healthy leaves to a fine, airborne pulp of sawdust and cellulose that soon disappeared into the winds—as did every other tree that was in the way.
Where the sphere touched the ground, it left a polished basin. The wind cutters were so sharp and utterly numerous that they ground the earth into fine sand before reaching the bedrock and polishing it to a mirror finish. Gai did not flinch in the face of the tens of thousands of wind cutters spinning in a chaotic, interlocking lattice. The sound was so abrasive, shorrible and ear-piercing, like the screams from the residents of hell, but he had his best friend with him and couldn't let him get hurt.
That fact only made him stronger.
He lowered his centre of gravity, his muscles bulging until the fabric of his jumpsuit threatened to shred.
"…Morning Peacock!" he roared.
Blue chakra lit his fists at such a concentration that Kakashi's head throbbed with pain at his attempt to track the blows, forcing him to close his eyes. Each strike was so fast, so laden with kinetic energy, that the friction against the oxygen ignited. One punch became ten; ten became a hundred.
Within seconds, a fan of brilliant, golden-orange flames erupted before him, a celestial plumage that illuminated the surroundings with the heat of a second sun. The more he punched, the larger the plumage grew until it had grown enough to stand as a barrier against the encroaching vacuum. When the two jutsu met, the forest bore witness to a localised apocalypse.
The wind cutters sought to shred; the flaming air-pressure sought to incinerate. The point of impact was a white-hot ring of pure displacement. Centripetal force from Danzō's hurricane met the centrifugal explosion of Gai's punches. Beyond the immediate radius of the clash, the forest was restructured by violence. Trees fifty yards away were planted into toothpicks by stray wind blades that escaped the sphere's vacuum. Boulders were reduced to pebbles, then to dust. The heat from Gai's friction-fire turned the moisture in the air into a blinding white fog, which was then instantly whipped into a cyclonic frenzy by Danzō's wind.
It was a cacophony of shearing and burning, a terrifying display of what two vastly different jōnin could achieve when the shackles of restraint were cast aside. As the last echoes of the Morning Peacock's cries died away and the hurricane's roar faded into a guttural hiss, the dust began to settle.
The devastation was absolute. For a couple of hundred metres in every direction, the forest was gone. In its place was a wasteland. The wind had carved deep, rhythmic gouges into the terrain, creating a topography of scars that would take decades to heal.
But at the centre of the ruin stood Might Gai.
The mastery of his taijutsu was revealed in the impossible contrast of his surroundings. In the exact semicircle defined by the reach of Gai's fists, the earth remained untouched. Not a single blade of grass was singed; not a pebble had been displaced. It was a sanctuary amidst a storm of absolute destruction.
Kakashi's eyes fell upon a red flower on the ground between Gai's feet and the bee that had settled upon it. He looked up and saw Gai, chest heaving in shallow, jagged jerks, his skin a raw, angry red. He straightened himself and took in a deep breath.
"Gai, are you alright—"
His friend vanished, leaving a sharp gust of wind and dust in his wake.
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Danzō was on the run. His breathing was heavy, his hair damp with sweat, but his chakra was still singing. That exhilaration still coursed through his veins. He felt invincible, but he couldn't stay and fight.
He couldn't see if the duo had survived because of his jutsu, but he had felt Might Gai's defence. It was extremely powerful. He knew the man to be a taijutsu specialist and a talented shinobi—Gai wouldn't be a jōnin if he weren't—but he had never given much attention to him while he was coming up through the ranks.
Might Gai was never active in the important social and political circles, unlike most in his position. The only notable things about Gai were his impeccable mission record and his connection to the Akimichi clan through the clan head, Akimichi Chōza, who was his master. The Akimichi clan had pushed for Gai's promotion to jōnin despite the fact that Gai never swore fealty to them. Other than that, he was only a muscle-head with a strange personality and a stranger sense of fashion.
Danzo had underestimated him.
He turned at the sound of repeated explosions and, running through the sky was Gai; each of his kicks generating enough speed and pressure that he was propelling himself through the air. Danzō frowned and spun around to face his pursuer, his feet dragging across the ground as he weaved hand seals. If one A-rank ninjutsu wasn't enough, then all he needed to do was to throw a second.
His physical energy had declined with age, but his spiritual energy had only increased. With the First Hokage's cell grafts, his physical energy had gone through the roof, and he currently possessed twice as much chakra as he did in his prime.
Wind Release: Horizon's Edge
He exhaled a thin, shimmering line of wind-chakra-infused air that instantly expanded into a horizontal disc thinner than a hair. The ring rotated at such a high velocity that it seemed still, if not for the vacuum pressure at its edge that effectively seemed to be pulling the environment towards it.
Danzō thrust his hands towards Gai, who was running across the sky, and let Horizon's Edge loose towards him. The ring was silent as it ignored all wind resistance, and it all but flashed towards its target.
Gai stopped kicking the air and came to a stop. He had no intention of avoiding the ring blade and instead assumed a stance.
"Morning Peacock!"
Each punch set the air on fire. Before, the flaming projectiles of pressurised air were being spread over an area to stop the vacuum sphere of wind cutters, but now, each one of them was directly propelled right at the disc.
The ring instantly absorbed the fire, snuffing the flames instantly. But as more and more strikes hit the ring, the disc began to heat up until it suddenly caught on fire, turning from a disc of pure wind to a disc of screeching fire, instantly boosting its firepower.
"Idiot!" Danzō scoffed, feeling confident when he saw that not only had the disc slowed down, but it was now burning.
He instantly turned around and resumed running away while summoning his chakra. Horizon's Edge was going to slice through Gai, most definitely killing him, but if the man and his sturdy body survived, he would be ready to end the job.
Not a single flicker of nervousness or doubt passed Gai's eyes. He just continued to throw punches, his hands and arms a blur as he pushed more and more pressurised air and fire towards the disc that flew towards him. He didn't attempt to get out of the way and just continued to throw punches.
Danzō's eyes widened when he saw the ground suddenly light up. He turned around to see a hundred flaming projectiles littering the sky, all hurtling towards Horizon's Edge. It was a constant, never-ending barrage, and to his horror, he saw the disc, which would cut anything that it touched, slow until it came to a stop. Gai didn't stop and continued to punch even as he was falling from the sky.
The barrage began to push the disc back until it couldn't take the abuse anymore and exploded into waves of strong winds.
Danzo could once more hear the sound of repeated explosions and knew that Might Gai was coming for him.
He immediately began to weave hand seals for another A-rank ninjutsu, pushing himselfto the limit. Might Gai could protect against one, and surprisingly even two, but three had to be a limit. However, halfway through, his chakra suddenly spiralled out of control by no fault of his own. He immediately gagged and felt a sharp pain as thin branches burst out of his mouth. The suddenness of the bizarre event made him trip, but he managed to gain a hold of himself, though all of his momentum was gone.
Danzo grabbed hold of the branches sticking out of his mouth and pulled out a foliage of nearly a metre's length, seemingly originating from his stomach. They were covered in fluids,blood, and the inner linings of his body just like the last time, only the scale was far worse. He tried to stand, only for his joints to stiffen up and glanced down at his bone-white hands, different from the marks around his body.
Unfortunately, he didn't have the time to worry about his deteriorating health. Danzō looked up and saw Gai break through the winds, heading straight towards him. His chakra was still in disarray, and there wasn't time to put up a ninjutsu that would be of any meaningful help against Gai. If ninjutsu weren't going to work and choosing taijutsu would be a worse choice than simply surrendering, then there was only one option.
As Gai came close, their eyes met. Danzō immediately sent his chakra forth to cast an ocular genjutsu assisted by the Sharingan.
When he transplanted Uchiha Shisui's eye, he gained the knowledge of what the eye could do. He gained the knowledge of the Mangekyō Sharingan and the unique power that dwelt in Shisui's eye. He already had some inkling about it before he ever got the eye, but it became clear after he gained the eye. Kotoamatsukami, genjutsu of the highest calibre, due to its ability to ensure the victim never even knew they had been manipulated by implanting experiences, feelings, and memories indistinguishable from reality.
It was a world-changing power that Danzō would have immediately used the day after he stole the eye to gain control over the Hidden Leaf, had it not been for the fact that Shisui used it before, causing the power to go into a form of estimated the recovery period to be about a decade, but with the miraculous healing abilities granted by the First Hokage's cells', that recovery was reduced by more than half. He estimated he would need at most two years to use the power again, so he couldn't use it just yet.
However, Shisui's Sharingan still possessed a potent genjutsu ability.
Danzō sent his chakra into Gai's body through the ocular medium, only for him to suddenly lose control. This time, it wasn't because of the First Hokage's cells. The chakra coursing through Gai's body was so violent that it crushed the foreign chakra before it could even reach its intended location. Similar to how genjutsu was broken by disrupting the target's chakra, but far more severe and done before the illusion could even take hold.
Danzō couldn't believe it. How was the man still standing with that forceful chakra rampaging through his body? Neither the violent green aura nor the red skin could properly do what was happening inside that body enough justice.
He had once again underestimated the monster named Might Gai. In his current state, Gai couldn't control his own chakra, making the use of any ninjutsu impossible, while making him practically immune to genjutsu of all forms.
"Violent Leaf Vajra-Strength Whirlwind!"
Gai appeared in front of Danzō, whipping a roundhouse kick into his head with all the force of the Sixth Gate.
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