The sky fractured into blinding white as the earth imploded.
Oroshiki flew forward at breakneck speed, not weaving hand signs or any gestures.
The sand for miles started vibrating as pillars of compressed earth shot upward like spears, shattering rocky structures and grinding stone into dust that spiraled into a storm. Multiple golden spheres appeared behind Oroshiki then expanded, multiplied, each one distorting the air around it.
Shuen's eyes sharpened and he suddenly vanished.
This was not the body flicker jutsu. This was instantaneous teleportation, not just fast movement.
Hundreds of white and gold plumes burst from his wings in every direction, each feather embedded itself into stone, the sand or suspended midair like anchors. The ground where he had just stood was erased, swallowed by a column of compressed sand and earthen spears that carved a crater over a hundred meters wide.
Shuen reappeared above Oroshiki.
A strange white and gold flame flickered into life around Shuen's palm.
It was strange because it didn't burn like fire, it had a feeling more towards disaster than heat. At that moment, a spiraling inferno of pale white and violent golden poured from Shuen's palm, expanding into a descending spiral that seemed to melt the air around them. The sheer heat liquefied the sand into rivers of molten glass.
Oroshiki looked up toward the descending judgement.
And grinned.
"So, you've developed the Soulflame further! Who knew a technique meant to heal could be reversed into something so terrifying!"
All six of his Tenrigan pulsed at once.
The incoming flame split, he didn't extinguish it or deflect it, but he separated it at the molecular level. Its chakra structure is forcibly ripped apart and redirected into the orbiting golden spheres. They swelled, buzzing with the stolen chakra.
"Come on, look at what my eyes can do! You won't be able to use any chakra around me because I can just disassemble the jutsu!" Oroshiki grinned. "But you still refuse to use my eyes." He said calmly, his voice echoed from every direction at once. "And yet, you've rewritten your own biology with my own."
Shuen answered with a grin.
And then he screamed.
It was not human.
A sonic wave ripped out of Shuen's throat in a perfect sphere, a physical concussion that shattered distant rock towers into airborne shrapnel while he poured chakra into his scream and forced Oroshiki into a genjutsu. The sky bent, the horizon twisted and the desert itself seemed to tilt sideways.
Oroshiki quickly flickered in and out of sight.
For a split second, he simply ceased to exist.
The scream carved through miles of terrain, erasing dunes, flattening cliffs and sending shockwaves across the desert. But Oroshiki reappeared behind Shuen as if he had always been there.
Lightning descended.
But… it didn't descend from the sky. It came from Oroshiki.
A forest of golden bolts of lightning erupted outward from his body in branching arcs that tore through Shuen's wings and caused the feathers to littered throughout the battlefield. Each teleportation anchor exploded midair, turning the sky into a chain reaction of golden explosions.
Shuen's body convulsed under the strike.
The smell of scorched air filled the desert.
Then the feathers ignited.
Every. Single. One.
Shuen's Soul flame traveled through each plume like blood through veins, reversing the detonations and swallowing the lightning inside a wave of fire. The explosions turned inward and collapsed toward Oroshiki instead of away from him.
The desert floor split.
Oroshiki extended a hand and the sand beneath him hardened into blackened glass as the converging inferno struck. The impact detonated the surrounding landscape, a shockwave flattening every remaining stone structure within a kilometre radius. The blast carved a circular basin into the desert floor, molten glass glowing at the center.
For a moment, nothing was visible from the dust.
Then Oroshiki stepped forward from the inferno.
Unburned.
One of his golden spheres cracked slightly, steam rising from it.
"You have definitely grown…" he admitted.
Shuen answered by teleporting to a feather embedded in the floor in front of Oroshiki.
The moment he appeared, he drove a fist into Oroshiki's jaw.
The sound was not just bone breaking, but it quite literally broke the sound barrier.
Oroshiki's body shot backward through three stone pillars in a straight line before skipping across the desert like a stone across water, carving trenches miles long. Before he could properly stabilize, Shuen was already there, teleporting from feather to feather in quick succession.
As Oroshiki got up, Shuen appeared and kneed him in the ribs before stabbing a feather into his chest and sending him flying once more.
After a moment of flying, Shuen teleported to the feather in Oroshiki's chest and drove his elbow into the false god's throat.
Not allowing the creature a break, Shuen drove an axe kick into Oroshiki's head that cratered the ground.
However, Oroshiki caught the next punch.
Their hands locked.
The ground beneath them collapsed from sheer pressure as golden lightning erupted from Oroshiki's arm, surging directly into Shuen's body at point blank range. Shuen snarled, wings flaring outward as the voltage tore through him, shredding his pristine white robe and charring his flesh.
But he did not retreat.
Instead, he drove his forehead forward, antlers slamming into Oroshiki's skull with a crack that split the air.
Both were thrown backward.
The golden spheres behind Oroshiki started to multiply and orbit again, expanding into a halo of spinning suns. Each one fired a concentrated beam downward in rapid succession, turning the battlefield into a lattice of annihilating light that carved deep trenches through the desert.
Shuen's feathers burst outward again, but this time they wouldn't be used as teleportation anchors.
Thousands of them aligned midair, weaving together in massive, wing shaped constructs of solidified chakra. The beams struck the constructs and detonated, explosions stacking on top of each other until the night sky vanished into light.
Through the chaos, Oroshiki vanished once again.
He turned invisible, a unique trait of his bloodline.
The air shifted.
Shuen's eyes narrowed.
He refused to use the Tenrigan to see where his opponent was.
So, he burned.
His soul flame spread across his entire body like armor, licking across his wings, coiling around his antlers, turning him into a living sun against the storm of sand and lightning. The heat distorted the battlefield, creating a shimmering mirage that removed the idea of precise targeting.
A blade of lightning formed in Oroshiki's unseen hand.
It pierced Shuen's abdomen from behind.
For an instant, the world stilled.
Lightning erupted outward from the wound in branches, cracking the desert floor in spiderweb fractures that expanded for kilometres.
Shuen coughed out blood.
Then he smiled.
A feather embedded miles away where they had their first exchange suddenly ignited.
His body dissolved into flame.
The lightning blade passed through nothing as Shuen reappeared at the anchor point.
He sighed and the feather he had teleported to turned to ash, healing his body back to top condition.
Shuen then flew up and inhaled.
The desert was quiet, tension at an all time high.
Chakra and nature energy poured into his throat.
When he screamed again, it wasn't a wave.
It was a beam.
A focused column of sonic devastation laced with Shuen's soul flame ripped across the desert in a straight line toward where Oroshiki was standing. The attack cleaved the battlefield in two, splitting dunes and stone, leaving a canyon in its wake.
Oroshiki tilted his head before the beam hit him.
And then he simply walked through it.
His eyes lit up bright as he casually walked through the beam. The orbs rotating around him distorted any idea of genjutsu while his Tenrigan split any chakra before it had the chance to touch his body, dissecting the chakra composition in real time.
The pressure made his skin crack, blood seeping from his nose, but he continued to slowly walk through the beam until he stood beneath Shuen once more.
"This hatred of yours makes you predictable." He said softly.
Then the sky returned to black.
Storm clouds materialised from nowhere, spiraling inward above Oroshiki as lightning coiled around his body. The golden spheres shot upward into the storm, embedding themselves into the clouds.
A singular bolt fell.
It was the width of the entire Great Shuen Village.
Shuen crossed his wings in front of himself as the devastation descended and the resulting explosion erased what remained of five square miles.
The desert became a sea of molten glass, rock formations vaporised, shockwaves rolled outward in expanding rings visible from hundreds of miles away.
When the light faded, a crater miles wide smoked at the center of the desert.
Oroshiki coughed up so much blood, he had used far more power than he could currently handle, one arm burned to a crisp.
At the core of the crater stood Shuen.
Burned to a crisp.
Only bones remained.
But he was still standing.
Oroshiki's eyes widened as he saw a faint golden light beneath him, a singular white and gold feather.
The feather turned to ash.
The bones at the center of the crater trembled.
Flesh, muscle fibers, nerves, veins, bone, skin slowly started knitting together as steam rose in his body.
"I… I am the unkillable, unstoppable…"
"The God of Life who carries the hatred of a dying mother…"
"I am the Golden Bird of Fire whose cry fractures heaven and earth…"
"The eternal flame that stands above death, rebirth and destiny… I am Lord Shuen Hino, and until you are dead at my feet… I will not falter."
…
…
Sora was back in his regular form as he took a big gulp of water from a flask he had stolen from a Sunagakure shinobi.
He hadn't heard from his ancestor for a while now, not a word had been spoken since he had been told about the capabilities of his eyes.
Sora had killed only one new team, the amount of ninja coming after him had decreased significantly after Kai's team.
He had to admit this was quite disappointing, he hadn't gotten to practice much. But at least he wasn't feeling very tired, he was even thinking about raiding the hidden sand village for all of its secrets—!
His eyes suddenly shot open wider than they had ever been before.
He looked off into the distance to see a chakra signature far larger than even Shuen's, as a matter of fact… Shuen's was even less than half of this one!
His hands fumbled as he decided on whether or not to retreat or to continue but then he realised… right now, he was Sora Hino. Not Hikaru Otsutsuki. He had no reason to be attacked, so he didn't need to worry!
Though, the terrifying sinister red chakra signature approaching was more than enough to make him want to get the hell out of there.
After a few minutes of agonising wait, two figures approached.
One was a short boy about Sora's age, his hair was red and his eyes were blue. He didn't have eyebrows and had a weird tattoo on his forehead paired with a large gourd on his back.
Next to him was a tall man wearing a turban and the classic Sunagakure headband. Sora hadn't even noticed this man due to the other boy's absurd chakra.
But actually, the man's chakra reserves were nothing to scoff at either. Significantly more than any of the other Jonin he had faced.
"Hi there…?" Sora said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.
The adult raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "What are you doing out here all alone, kid?" He asked, eyes sharpening after seeing the turban and Ninjato on Sora's back.
"I was just exploring! My name is Sora Hino, from the… hidden leaf village!" He said with an even more awkward smile.
The man's expression hardened. "I don't recall there being anyone called Sora Hino in Konoha, let alone a child that would be allowed out here by themselves unsupervised." He said suspiciously.
At that moment, the red haired boy stepped forward and stared Sora in the eyes.
The boy then spoke, his voice extremely sinister and Sora noticed his chakra spiked and spread throughout the sand beneath him.
"I am Gaara of the desert and… I really don't like those eyes of yours…"
…
Shuen's current form -
Oroshiki's current form -