Author's Note
A promise is a promise!
I said I'd release an extra chapter for every 60 Power Stones, and you all met the goal. So, here is the bonus chapter.
Just a reminder: For every 60 Power Stones we hit, I will release another extra chapter.
Thanks for the support!
******
On the shattered rooftop of the stadium, the world had shrunk to a space of just a few meters. The chaos of the invasion, the screams from the battle in the forest, the roar of the fight in the arena… it all faded, becoming irrelevant background noise. All that remained was the high, grating screech of the Kusanagi's steel sliding against the black adamantine of the staff Enma.
"Your style is too rigid, sensei! Predictable!" Orochimaru hissed, his body twisting to dodge a low sweep that would have broken his legs. "You belong in a museum!"
His sword lunged forward, a venomous thrust aimed at Hiruzen's throat. The Third did not retreat. He spun the staff with a fluidity that betrayed his age, deflecting the blade with a CLANG that sent sparks flying.
"And you belong in a cell, Orochimaru," Hiruzen retorted, his voice steady and breathless despite the effort. "You've forgotten that fundamentals are the basis of all power."
He used the momentum of the parry to counterattack, the other end of the staff swinging in an arc toward Orochimaru's head. The speed was astonishing, but his former student was no longer there; he had slithered aside with inhuman flexibility.
"Fundamentals are the obstacle that keeps one from flying!" Orochimaru mocked. "While you clung to your old katas, I was evolving."
He attacked again, the Kusanagi a silver blur seeking Hiruzen's ribs. The staff Enma intercepted it, shortening and thickening to receive the impact.
His movements… Hiruzen thought as they fought. They've lost their foundation. They're flashy, fast, but they lack weight, a root. He has sacrificed substance for spectacle. But that speed… my body won't be able to keep this pace for much longer.
A deep voice, which seemed to come from the staff itself, resonated in Hiruzen's mind.
"Hiruzen, he's moving too much. I can't pin him down."
"I know, Enma," Hiruzen thought back, without missing a beat in the fight. "We just have to hold on. He'll find an opening and get careless."
"And what if you're the one who gets careless first? Your breathing is getting heavier."
"Your skill has no soul," Hiruzen said aloud, partly to Orochimaru, partly to himself. "It's an empty shell. A circus trick."
Orochimaru laughed, a joyless, sibilant sound. He ducked under the staff's blow, his body bending backward at an impossible angle, and kicked up from the ground. Hiruzen leaped back, landing nimbly.
"Soul? Soul is a weakness! A sentimentality that prevented you from achieving true immortality. I cast it aside, and look what I have gained!"
The staff Enma extended, keeping Orochimaru at a distance.
He still relies on the monkey, Orochimaru thought with a mixture of disdain and an irritation he wouldn't admit. So predictable. He thinks that relic can stop me.
The hand-to-hand combat was a stalemate. Orochimaru's unnatural speed and flexibility were countered by Hiruzen's decades of experience and Enma's absolute defense. Every time Orochimaru found an opening, the staff was already there. Every time Hiruzen tried to press his advantage, Orochimaru slipped away.
"He's toying with you, Hiruzen," Enma warned. "He's wearing you down. He knows your stamina is limited."
"That's why I can't let this drag on," the Hokage replied mentally, as he deflected another thrust that would have pierced his heart.
Finally, after a fierce exchange that ended with Enma transforming one of its ends into a primate's hand to catch the Kusanagi's blade, Orochimaru used the struggle to push himself back. He jumped, creating a distance of over forty meters between them, and landed on the opposite end of the ruined rooftop.
The taijutsu phase was over. The air stood still for a moment.
"I admit you've always been good with sticks, sensei," Orochimaru said, wiping a non-existent bead of sweat from his brow. "Always so attached to your tools. Don't you ever get tired of depending on others? Even if it is a monkey?"
"Enma is my partner," Hiruzen answered, the staff planted firmly before him. "That's a concept you forgot long ago. Trust."
"Trust is for the weak who cannot stand on their own," Orochimaru replied, his smile widening. "But let's leave philosophy to the dead. Let's see how you handle something on a slightly more… grandiose scale."
The air around him grew heavy, charged with a dense, malevolent chakra. The real battle, the one that would reshape the landscape, was about to begin.
Hiruzen didn't give him the chance to take the initiative. He knew that close combat would only drain his limited stamina reserves and that he had to end this with overwhelming power. His normally serene face hardened with absolute concentration. His age-wrinkled hands became a blur.
He wove a series of hand seals at a speed most jōnin would consider impossible. Horse, Tiger, Snake, Dragon… each seal was perfect, every movement imbued with decades of practice.
"Doton: Doryūdan!" his voice boomed with power as he slammed his palms onto the rooftop.
The tiles and concrete beneath Orochimaru cracked and liquefied. A torrent of thick mud and chakra surged forth, taking shape. In seconds, a massive dragon, with scales of broken tiles and eyes of pure earth, rose from the rooftop, roaring silently as it lunged toward its target.
But Hiruzen wasn't finished. As the first dragon attacked, his hands were already weaving a new sequence.
"Katon: Karyū Endan!"
He took a deep breath and exhaled a torrent of scorching flames that swirled in the air before him. The fire condensed and took the form of a second dragon, its scales flickering with a heat that bleached the color from the sky.
Two massive dragons. One of thick earth attacking from below, seeking to trap and crush. Another of consuming flames attacking from above, seeking to incinerate. The display of power was absolute, a coordination of elemental destruction executed by a single man. It was why they called him "The Professor."
Faced with such power, Orochimaru showed no fear. He showed an almost scientific curiosity, a twisted smile on his lips.
Ah, the classic combination. So academic. So you, sensei. Always following the rules of elemental affinity. Let's see how your orthodoxy stands up to my… innovation.
He counterattacked.
"An impressive lesson!" he shouted over the roar. "But it's a lesson I've already learned!"
His own hands flew through the seals.
"Doton: Yomi Numa!"
The rooftop beneath his feet ceased to be solid. It became a deep, sticky, black swamp that spread with incredible speed. Hiruzen's mud dragon, which had lunged to ensnare him, sank into the mire. It struggled, but Orochimaru's jutsu was no simple mud; it was a devouring trap. The swamp swallowed the earth dragon, absorbing it with a disgusting sucking sound until it vanished completely.
"Earth cannot trap one who controls the earth, old man!" Orochimaru exclaimed.
And as the earth attack was neutralized, Orochimaru faced the fiery one.
"Suiton: Suijinheki!"
He exhaled a torrential amount of water, which rose before him like a curved tsunami, a wall of churning, furious water. Hiruzen's fire dragon crashed against the wall.
The collision was apocalyptic. Fire and water clashed with a deafening roar. A cloud of steam so massive and dense that it enveloped the entire pavilion exploded upward. But this was no ordinary steam. Orochimaru's water was tainted. The vapor was acidic; the roof tiles it touched sizzled and dissolved with a hiss, the wood beneath blackening and crumbling.
The clash of four such high-level jutsus, each with the power to change a battlefield, was too much for the structure supporting them.
There was a groan. A long, deep crack that resonated from the building's foundations. Hiruzen felt the ground beneath his feet shudder violently.
"The roof is giving way!" Enma shouted in his mind.
Then, the pavilion collapsed.
The entire structure gave way. With a roar of destruction, the roof caved inward, plummeting toward the now-ruined stadium arena amidst a rain of debris, dust, and acidic vapor.
Hiruzen simply let himself fall, his eyes fixed on the silhouette of his student through the cloud of rubble, both of them falling together into the heart of the chaos they had created.
They landed seconds apart on opposite ends of the devastated arena, the impact of their fall absorbed by their chakra control. The air was thick with concrete dust and the acidic smell of the vapor. The new battlefield was a hellish landscape: the enormous crater Sakura had created, the sand dune where Gaara lay unconscious, the broken and smoking stands. The uneven terrain offered new and deadly tactical opportunities.
Hiruzen straightened up, coughing, the dust irritating his old lungs. The acrid taste of the vapor burned his throat.
This jutsu consumed nearly a third of my remaining chakra, he thought, his mind racing. The collapse was unexpected, but this terrain favors me. I can use the debris for cover. I must end this quickly.
Orochimaru, for his part, seemed to be enjoying the new environment. He stretched, the sound of his joints popping unnaturally as he surveyed the destruction with genuine appreciation.
"A change of scenery. How thoughtful of you, sensei. This place was getting boring. Besides, it gives us a better audience."
He nodded toward the ANBU and Sound shinobi fighting and dying in the remains of the stands, their battles now exposed by the collapse.
Hiruzen didn't answer. He knew words were a weapon for Orochimaru, designed to drain his spirit as much as his jutsus drained his chakra. Distraction was a poison. Instead, he acted.
His hands formed a seal few in the world knew.
"Fūton: Shinkūgyoku!"
He inhaled deeply and then exhaled. The air in front of him seemed to warp, like heat over asphalt. An invisible, pressurized sphere of pure wind, the size of a house, shot toward Orochimaru. Its power lay in the implosion it would create on impact, designed to pulverize its target.
The attack was silent, invisible, lethal.
Orochimaru watched the distortion in the air approach, his twisted smile never leaving his face.
Wind. An element so difficult to master on this scale. Impressive. But it's still a textbook technique. Predictable. Always looking for the most elegant solution. My power goes beyond that.
"An invisible jutsu!" he exclaimed with false wonder. "How clever, sensei! But what good is subtlety against brute force?"
Orochimaru channeled his chakra through the metal in his hand. The blade of the Kusanagi sword began to vibrate with a rising energy.
"Raiton!"
A wild, purple lightning, crackling with furious power, enveloped the sword. With a fluid, elegant motion, Orochimaru brandished his charged weapon. The lightning blade met the vacuum sphere. For an instant, nothing happened. Then, with a deafening, crystalline crash, the lightning tore through the invisible sphere.
The collision of the two opposing chakra natures triggered an explosion of pure energy. The vacuum sphere, its integrity compromised, detonated prematurely. The blast of pressurized air was knocked off course and slammed into the eastern stands, which collapsed with a deafening roar, crushing shinobi from both sides alike. Orochimaru's lightning attack, its energy not fully dissipated, continued its trajectory, carving a deep, smoking trench in the stadium floor before extinguishing.
A heavy silence fell over the arena, broken only by the sound of two gasping breaths.
In the middle of the shattered battlefield, the fight had reached a stalemate.
But it was a stalemate that favored one of them. Hiruzen felt a pang of pain in his chest, and it wasn't just from the exertion. It was the sharp pain of old age, the toll that such high-level jutsus exacted. His chakra reserves were dangerously low. And Orochimaru, with his modified body and unnatural endurance, knew it.
Orochimaru began to laugh. It was a horrible, sibilant sound; a laugh not of joy, but of confirmation.
"Impressive, sensei. Truly impressive," he said, his voice dripping with a false respect that was more insulting than any shout. "You truly are the 'God of Shinobi'."
He took a slow step forward, the Kusanagi hanging at his side. The dust settled around him.
"Do you feel it, sensei?" he asked, his voice now a conversational whisper. "I can hear it from here."
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes.
"Hear what?"
"Your breathing. It's faster. More labored than it was five minutes ago. And your shoulders… they're slumped slightly. You're tired."
Hiruzen did not give him the satisfaction of a reply. He stood tall, though it took considerable effort.
Orochimaru clicked his tongue.
"Ah, that old Sarutobi stubbornness. Admirable, I suppose. But useless. Every jutsu you cast was a masterpiece. The Doryūdan, the Karyū Endan, the Shinkūgyoku… each one cost you a piece of your life."
He took another step.
"I, on the other hand… I've barely begun to warm up. This body doesn't get tired. It doesn't age. It doesn't break. It is the pinnacle of shinobi research. Something you never understood."
"I understood that to achieve it, you became a monster," Hiruzen replied, his voice grave.
"Monster?" Orochimaru paused, tilting his head. "No. I am the next step. Evolution. You are the fossil. The living proof of an era that must be extinguished. All that talk about the Will of Fire, about protecting the new generation… and where are they now? Where are the prodigies who were meant to replace you?"
His gaze drifted for a moment to the sand dune where Gaara and the others had been.
"Ah, yes. Running away. Busy with their own desperate little battles. They left you here alone, old man. To die. Isn't it ironic? The great Hokage, protector of Konoha, abandoned in his darkest hour."
Hiruzen felt a flash of anger, but he suppressed it. Anger spent energy.
"They have their own missions. I trust them."
"Trust!" Orochimaru spat, the venom in his voice more real than any jutsu. "Trust is the comfort of those about to die. You trust that they will avenge you. You trust that they will protect the village. What if they don't? What if they fail? What if the village burns tonight and your sacrifice means nothing?"
The silence stretched between them. Hiruzen knew what Orochimaru was doing. This was not just a battle of ninjutsu; it was a battle of wills. And an old man's will, no matter how strong, was fragile.
"But even gods grow old," Orochimaru continued, his voice becoming soft, almost compassionate, which made it all the more terrifying. "And they die."
******
For every 60 Power Stones this story receives, I will release ONE (1) BONUS CHAPTER outside the regular schedule.
This is capped at four (4) extra chapters per week.
This is your chance to get ahead. If you want to read more, and read it faster, smash that Power Stone button.