Golden lightning crackled outward in a web. Multiple golden spears of nature energy flew, both attacks exploding when they got near due to the flame affinity. Forcing Shuen to launch into the air.
The second construct was above him.
Shuen's eyes widened as the construct's fist drove down.
Shuen crossed both forearms and covered up with his wings…
But he was hit from below, a golden construct made with the earth affinity hit him before detonating in a devastating explosion.
Shuen was dazed and then a fist hammered into his jaw, launching him downward into the hardened black glass.
Shuen rolled at the last possible moment, feathers moving him midair and detonating before he reached the ground.
He sprang upward…
And Oroshiki was there.
A lightning coated kick slammed into Shuen's ribs. Bones cracked. Fire surged through the impact point, detonating inward.
Shuen coughed up blood.
Oroshiki tilted his head.
"Oh come on, Shuen. This can't be it?" Oroshiki mocked.
Another strike, a punch laced with dense lightning.
Shuen caught it—
Lightning then exploded across his wing, feathers disintegrating. The property of Earth energy surged through the lightning, stiffening it.
Then the fire property followed through.
Another devastating explosion sent Shuen crashing.
"I have already adapted," Oroshiki continued calmly, stepping through the air on a platform of earth nature energy. "Earth to anchor, lightning to pierce and fire to explode."
The constructs moved again.
One clamped down from the left and the other fired a concentrated spear of lightning energy that exploded on contact.
Shuen managed to rip free, but not before the explosion ripped through his shoulder. Flesh split. Bone exposed. His soul flame surged to seal the wound but…
Lightning crawled through the wound, disrupting his regeneration.
Oroshiki's eyes gleamed. "Ha! You are slowing down, come on, pick up the pace!"
Shuen spat blood, then burst out laughing.
The first construct's fist slammed into his back and drove him into the ground again.
The second followed up with a downward stomp that detonated on impact.
When the smoke cleared, Shuen lay in a crater.
His wings were shredded, arms burned to a crisp, breathing ragged.
Oroshiki descended slowly. "I really thought you were stronger than this," he said quietly. "You had prepared for this moment for hundreds of years… and yet…"
Shuen didn't respond.
He wasn't here.
In Shuen's mind, he saw her.
Not very clearly, she was just a memory.
He could feel her soft hands smoothing his hair.
A voice telling him that he was safe with her.
A warmth far different from any of the flames he could create.
And then, he saw her face.
Fūka Hino, the woman who had saved him and his siblings and raised them.
The woman that Oroshiki had defiled and killed.
The memory shattered under another explosion as multiple strikes of lightning rained down on Shuen.
His fingers dug into the ground, his jaw trembled. "…y-you… don't get to talk about… strength." He grunted.
Oroshiki squinted as he noticed all of the surrounding nature energy flowing toward Shuen and into his body.
The air tightened, the ground trembled.
The constructs paused, instinctively reacting to the sudden vacuum forming around Shuen.
Oroshiki's eyes flared. "…You are absorbing too much."
The surrounding sand turned grey, the wind died, even ambient lightning vanished.
Shuen rose slowly.
Golden markings spread across his skin like molten veins. His wings regrew in an instant. His eyes ignited into something brighter, something feral.
A halo of shimmering natural energy formed behind his head that distorted the air around him.
Oroshiki's expression hardened.
"Senjutsu? No… Sage mode?! But it's… imperfect." Oroshiki immediately noted.
Cracks traced faintly along Shuen's skin where nature energy overloaded his network.
But Shuen didn't look scared, he wasn't worried.
Instead…
He grinned, wide and unstable. "You are absolutely correct."
The constructs both attacked at the same time.
Shuen didn't dodge, the construct's arm pierced clean through his torso.
Lightning exploded through his body, fire energy detonating his insides.
Shuen's chest blew open, flesh and skin eviscerated, only his skeleton visible.
Then Shuen grabbed the arm with both hands.
Pure white flames surged out to propel him.
He twisted violently.
He ripped his own torso apart as he spun, using the impalement as leverage to hurl the entire construct over his shoulder.
The movement obliterated his entire torso…
But he simply did not care.
Golden light outlined the beginning and end of the wound and flesh kitted and regrew in seconds.
Oroshiki's eyes narrowed. "You're even damaging yourself…"
"Hell yeah!" Shuen barked, laughing as the blood covering him evaporated into golden vapour. "That's the point!"
The second construct fired a concentrated beam of lightning.
Shuen spread his wings…
And flew right into it.
Lightning tore both of his wings off, and he kept going.
His right arm disintegrated under the current and regrew instantly.
He punched through the beam's core and reached the construct's head.
The construct used the earth property to harden its surface.
Then it attempted to use the fire property to detonate the impact point to burn Shuen's han—?
Head?!
Shuen suddenly headbutted the construct, the explosion eviscerating his face.
For a fraction of a second, the construct stared directly at Shuen's exposed skull.
Then it saw a golden light appear in the holes where Shuen's eyes would be.
Before his face even had time to regenerate, he leaned his head back and drove another headbutt straight into the construct.
For a second, there was nothing above Shuen's neck.
Then the golden light outlined the top of his neck and his skull reformed.
Before his face could fully reform, he drove both fists into the construct's core.
His soul flame erupted inside of the construct.
The fire property destabilised uncontrollably and the construct detonated.
Shuen was launched backward, half of his body missing.
He landed on his knees.
Regeneration burned violently, fixing up his body in an instant.
Oroshiki appeared in front of him at that exact moment, hoping to finish Shuen off with a lightning blade formed from hardened nature energy fused with the flame property.
"This is strength to you?" Oroshiki asked.
The blade sliced downward.
Shuen raised his arm,
It was severed cleanly.
Before the blade could retract to follow through on the kill…
The stump exploded outward as Shuen forced an overcharged surge of regeneration.
Bone quickly formed, followed with far more muscle than he had before.
A newly formed fist slammed into Oroshiki's jaw.
Lightning and earth hardened his defense, but the impact still drove him back several meters.
Shuen stood up.
Both of the constructs were slowly reforming behind Oroshiki.
White and gold energy spiralled violently around Shuen, extremely unstable.
"You're gonna burn through your life energy at this point." Oroshiki observed.
Blood trickled from Shuen's mouth before immediately evaporating into golden energy. "I don't need to live. The only thing I need is for you to die."
The constructs attacked again, coordinated perfectly.
Earth anchors locked Shuen's feet as lightning pierced his wings.
Oroshiki actually joined them now instead of letting them do everything, Shuen was overwhelmed.
His body was getting destroyed, arms torn off, legs crushed and his torso shredded.
But each time…
He regenerated.
Each one was faster than the last.
He grabbed a construct's arm, let it tear through his shoulder, used the momentum to spin and smash Oroshiki into the other construct.
The collision detonated the fire affinity.
Shuen lunged through the explosion, his lower body disintegrated mid flight, regrew and a double wing strike coated in soul flame smashed into Oroshiki's chest.
For the first time, Oroshiki slipped.
Shuen saw it.
And grinned like a maniac. "Are you feeling it now?" He spat.
Oroshiki steadied himself. "You will die here, even if you end up killing me. You will die here, you are using up all of your life energy!"
Shuen laughed again.
"After all this, you SERIOUSLY think I still care about that?!"
The second construct grabbed him from behind.
Earth hardened grip crushed his spine.
Lightning pierced through his abdomen.
Fire detonated outward, Shuen's body ripped in half.
And immediately regrew, he then reached back with his regenerating arm and tore the construct's head off as his spine rebuilt.
The head exploded in his grasp, making Oroshiki's eyes narrow further.
The first construct reformed immediately.
"Then I will simply have to outlast you." Oroshiki shook his head.
Shuen charged.
Three forces collided as Shuen's soul flame met the Tenrigan's version of lightning, earth and fire.
Limbs were obliterated and immediately regrown, Shuen prioritising pure power over his life.
Explosions tore flesh apart only for it to knit back together in mere seconds.
Between blows—
"You always—" Shuen smashed a construct's chest inward at the cost of his own arm "—talk like you're above it all!"
Lightning pierced through Shuen's throat and he regenerated it mid sentence.
"Talking so condescendingly, as if you've already won!"
Oroshiki drove a reinforced knee into Shuen's ribs, shattering them inward. "I have already calculated my victory, you will not win."
Shuen headbutted him again.
Both skulls cracked.
Both healed, but Oroshiki's was many seconds slower.
"Then calculate this!"
Shuen grabbed both of the constructs as they approached him, allowed them both to impale him, lightning and fire exploded inside of him as he wrapped his wings around them.
Soul flame detonated outward.
The explosion vaporised his entire body from his collarbone down, but also evaporated the constructs.
His body quickly reformed midair.
He dropped to one knee, his regeneration getting slower and his body growing weaker.
His skin was cracking from the strain, but Oroshiki stood alone.
He wasn't uninjured either.
"Imperfect Sage Mode," he said quietly. "Absolutely unsustainable."
Shuen rose regardless.
If he had used perfect sage mode, he would've been strong. But not strong enough. He needed the nature energy to overpower his body in order to win, but that would destroy him.
Thankfully, he was The God of Life.
"You don't get it," he said, his voice extremely raspy.
Oroshiki's lightning blade formed again.
Shuen stepped forward.
His leg shattered under the weight of his own body, and regrew instantly.
"I don't need to sustain it…"
He vanished, moving at a speed impossible for his current condition.
He appeared in front of Oroshiki, allowing the lightning blade to pierce his chest.
He then grabbed Oroshiki's collar…
And smiled, blood running down his chin.
"I just need to KILL you first."
Golden nature energy surged violently around them, hoping to harden both of them in place.
The battlefield disappeared in a final blinding detonation and when the light faded, they stood miles apart.
The desert between them had been flattened into molten glass, fissures blowing where lightning had overcooked the sand.
Shuen stood at the edge of a crater so wide it curved with the horizon.
Oroshiki hovered opposite him in the far distance, all six of his eyes glowing faintly.
For a while, neither moved.
Shuen's Golden Peacock of Life sage mode flickered erratically. The cracks in his skin were spreading. His regeneration was slower.
Oroshiki watched him clinically. "It's sad, Shuen. You're degrading before my very eyes." He said, voice carrying unnaturally across the wasteland. "Your network cannot sustain that volume of nature energy."
Shuen didn't answer.
He chuckled.
Then…
His soul flame rose.
Not around his fist, not coating his wings, it flowed out from the cracks in his skin.
White fire edged with molten gold began to leak from the fissures in his body, licking upward in controlled spirals. All of the feathers on his back ignited, not destroyed, but they began transmuting, each plume unravelling into luminous strands of chakra.
All of Oroshiki's eyes sharpened instantly.
"…What are you doing?"
Shuen lifted his head slowly.
The right side of his face was already becoming light, cheekbone dissolving into golden flame without pain.
"You… said I would burn out." He said, voice extremely raspy.
Soulflame consumed his right arm.
It didn't char, it didn't reduce to ash, but it changed.
Flesh began to peel away into pure, stable chakra shaped by will. Bone thinned into a radiant framework before dissolving into luminous filaments that braided themselves into something bird-like.
Half of Shuen's body was no longer biological.
Oroshiki's expression changed. "You… aren't regenerating?"
The flames flowed across Shuen's body further.
They consumed his shoulder, his ribcage, half his torso. His heart became visible for a moment, beating, golden… and then dissolved into a core of concentrated chakra light that held together the forming structure of light.
"You're converting your physical body into chakra mass?!" Oroshiki realised, voice tightening.
Shuen's grin widened as half of his jaw became spectral fire.
"Yeah."
The desert trembled, Shuen wasn't regenerating, this was self immolation.
Shuen wasn't using his soul flame as a weapon but as a crucible. Burning away the biological limits of his body. Severing his reliance on a chakra network, overhauling the flesh into stabilised spiritual energy and binding it with nature energy as a catalyst.
It was grotesque.
It was brilliant.
And it was irreversible.
Oroshiki's Tenrigan flared brighter as his heart started to pound against his chest in horror.
"If you… if you complete that conversion…" he said slowly, piecing together what the hell this bird was doing in real time. "You won't be bound to a mortal vessel."
Half of Shuen's lower body ignited.
His legs dissolved upward into swirling gold-white plasma that elongated and reshaped, forming the elegant, elongated lower body of a peacock made of fire and compressed nature energy.
His wings unfurled, one biological and the other entirely spectral.
A tail began to bloom behind him, each plume a radiant eye pattern of rotating chakra rings.
He was becoming a chakra entity.
Not split into nine like the creations of Hagoromo Otsutsuki.
Not born of the ten tails.
But a being forged through hatred and revenge.
A false tailed beast.
Oroshiki's composure cracked. "If you do this, then… you will survive after all."
Shuen's remaining human eye glowed feral. "Damn fucking straight."
Oroshiki did not hesitate further, all six of his eyes flared brighter than ever as veins burst all over his body.
He raised a hand.
The two prime constructs appeared either side of him as a third, larger construct began forming above him.
It was different…
Tsubaki's and Takumi's eyes worked in unison and then Oroshiki's true original Tenrigan layered over them.
The nature energy hardened.
Lightning structured the frame, earth solidified the foundation, fire destabilised the interior, wind began compressing the outer shell and water spiraled into stabilising rings.
All five natural energies bound together to form the third construct.
And Shuen burst out laughing.
Because Oroshiki did not summon himself, nor a suit of spectral armour.
It was—
A giant golden peacock.
A construct modeled after Shuen's emerging form.
Oroshiki had summoned what he had perceived as the pinnacle.
And it was him.
Shuen's laughter cracked across the wasteland like breaking glass.
"You really—" he wheezed as more of his neck dissolved into flame, "—really think I'm the strongest thing in existence? You flatter me!"
Oroshiki's jaw tightened.
"Your potential." He corrected coldly.
The three constructs shifted.
Then they fused.
Lightning stitched them together, Earth compressed them inward, wind spiraled them into an aerodynamic form, water sealed the structure while fire saturated the core.
In seconds, the two prime Oroshiki constructs fused with the Shuen construct and became a single colossal arrow, hundreds of meters long, hovering above Oroshiki like judgement from the heavens. Its tip was hardened Earth veined with lightning. Its shaft spun with wind compression. Fire roared inside while water spiraled in stabilizing channels.
All five natural energies in the form of spectral constructs unified.
All anchored by Oroshiki's True Tenrigan.
It distorted the gravity around it.
Shuen stopped laughing, the rest of his face burned away.
Only one human eye remained, set in a half formed avian skull of gold-white flames.
"Nice trick," he said softly.
Then he did something utterly ridiculous.
Something that neither Oroshiki nor Shuen himself knew he could do.
He inhaled.
Not air, but chakra.
He extended perception beyond sight, beyond form, using his animalistic instincts to map out the ambient polarity.
Chakra in the atmosphere is not uniform.
It exists in fluctuating forms, different emotional prints, leaked spiritual energy, fragments of will left in the environment. Positive chakra resonates with vitality, growth and intent. Negative chakra carries fear, hatred and despair.
Shuen reached for both.
He didn't absorb the nature energy nor just straight chakra, but he tried to filter the various types of chakra out.
He did it.
Shuen separated ambient chakra by polarity, using rotational compression around his forming chakra core to force separation, like spinning sediment from water.
Positive chakra gathered in one orbiting sphere, negative in another.
They resisted each other, violently.
Opposites repelled at contact, destabilising when forced together improperly.
So Shuen didn't fuse them yet.
He compressed them individually first.
He hardened each mass with his soulflame, preventing premature release.
The spheres grew.
Dense.
Blacker than shadow.
Brighter than dawn.
His spectral body flickered under the strain as more of his remaining flesh burned away to fuel the stabilisation process.
Oroshiki's eyes widened slightly. "You're attempting… polarity fusion?"
Shuen's humanoid mouth was gone now, hidden behind a sea of spectral flames.
"Thought I'd give it a shot."
He finally forced the two spheres closer.
Negative blinding white chakra lashed outward angrily, positive chakra flared pitch black.
The collision point sparked violently as he forced his soul flame to fuse them.
This was the principle behind a Tailed Beast Bomb. Balancing opposite chakra states into a precise 8:2 ratio so they don't cancel each other out but instead achieve a stable compression before release.
He adjusted the ratios, having spent over a millennium mapping out the odds and possibilities of what would be needed.
And he got it.
More negative to anchor the volatility, less positive to prevent a premature expansion.
He rotated them to counter each other.
Then—
Slammed them together.
For a heartbeat, everything went silent.
Then, a black sphere formed at the center of his chest, perfectly smooth, perfectly dense, ringed by white and gold fire.
A bijū bomb.
Shuen style.
The desert began to lift from the ground under its gravity.
Oroshiki grinned one last time as he lowered his arm.
The colossal five nature arrow aligned with Shuen's rapidly growing chakra core.
Lightning surged along its length.
Oroshiki's voice carried across the annihilated wasteland.
"You have always been incredible."
Shuen's flaming wings expanded to an impossible width as the black sphere rapidly expanded at the tip of his finger as he pointed a finger gun toward Oroshiki's position.
"And you have always been a coward…"
"…BANG!"
The arrow launched.
The bijū bomb fired
They destroyed the reality between each other as they lashed out.
Two artificial gods throwing extinction at each other.
Ensuring the world would remember this day.