Twenty-Four Seasons Godshock Point: White Dew and Autumn Equinox.
This time, Ren did not throw one finger. He threw two. Thankfully, a finger art is single-form per finger. Two fingers can fire two forms at once.
White Dew condenses wind force. It spins hard and drills forward, a chill surging at its core. It fired at A without losing bite.
Autumn Equinox gathers energy before the caster, forming a shield in midair. Ripples roll across it. Defense springs into being.
A's charge slammed into Ren's two-form attack-defense pair. White Dew shaved at least half his momentum and raw force. His fist hammered Autumn Equinox. It did not budge.
Ren slipped away and threw two more: Frost Descent and Winter Solstice.
Chakra and inner power poured from both fingertips, not at A, but outward into air and earth. A million ice crystals swirled and danced above, drifting down like flowers.
As the flakes fell, an unseen cold current spread. The whole battlefield and nearby streets dropped in temperature. The closer to the center, the colder.
Cold enough that even A, whose body laughs at heat and cold, felt a chill to the bone. His chakra stuttered for a fraction.
It was not targeted at A or anyone. It was aimed at the whole field.
The chill was not simple cold. It was Extreme Cold true-qi of tier thirteen Bright Jade, which follows meridians and invades from acupoints. At light levels, limbs stiffen. At heavy, organs freeze.
Outside A, the hundred Cloud elites bled at least twenty percent of their strength in this ice hell. Ren, who trained Bright Jade, was unaffected.
Tsunade would suffer.
"Ice Release? You know Ice Release?" A said, startled. An Uchiha with ice would be odd, but not impossible. Anyone who masters two chakra natures can attempt a Bloodline Limit fusion.
No.
After a beat, A adjusted. This was not Ice Release. It was similar, but the specifics and feel were different, more like a secret art that invokes cold.
If it needs a "Release" tag, it is Cold Release.
A true prodigy. A natural favorite of the heavens.
His killing intent and respect both rose another notch. He bore the chill and flashed at Ren, crushed the shield, and rained a combination of blows.
Heavy Flow violence?
Lightning Ox Rending?
Lightning Battle, something something blade?
None of them. A was not using anything from the original list. The strength is A, not the named taijutsu.
Those "near-Chidori" breakers that shattered Susanoo bone, in reality, are basic Cloud taijutsu arts of C or B-rank difficulty.
With A's power, speed, burst, and body, the specific move barely matters. His basic strikes are finishers. His finishers are basic strikes.
Ren, likewise.
White Dew and Autumn Equinox.
Autumn Equinox, Autumn Equinox, Cold Dew, Minor Snow, Major Snow, Autumn Equinox, Minor Cold…
The twenty-four forms have conflicts. Summer clashes with winter. The field was already turned into Ren's extreme-cold domain by Frost Descent and Winter Solstice. A blazing summer form would erase his advantage.
So Ren used only autumn and winter forms. Mostly winter.
Extreme Cold true-qi mingled with chakra at his fingertips, as single lines of ice-light at A's vitals, as dozens and hundreds of icy darts at his joints, and as pure cold flooding his bones.
Single target. Multi target. Kill shots. Distract and limit. Bind and defend.
The twenty-four forms are thorough. Even with only winter-heavy usage, Ren could hold A.
Of course, that is Ren, with more than a thousand years of inner power and a body twenty to thirty times a normal shinobi's. If Sorrowblade himself came, A would probably drop him in one hit.
Even footing.
Inside the ring, A and Ren traded more than a hundred moves, still even. Neither could do for the other.
A never found a chance to crush or maim Ren. Ren never found a chance to break out.
Held in Ren's arm, with a VVIP view, Tsunade stared. Dizzy as she was, her eye could still see. A's power was terrifying.
Even at her own peak, it would be a fight. In the short run, they would be fifty fifty.
Which means even at her peak, she could not do better than Ren. And Ren was fighting with one hand.
Are all the young ones this wild now?
Another hundred moves. Ren began to slip.
Not because he was weaker than A or running out of stamina or inner power or chakra.
Bright Jade has a trait, it can collect and fold true-qi back, even making inner power grow with use in theory. And even if not, more than a thousand years lasts a long time.
Ren's chakra pool is huge. With a body twenty to thirty times normal, his chakra is multiple times Minato's. He will not go dry.
Purely on endurance, Ren ranks top three in the current shinobi world.
What pushed him down were other Cloud ninja joining the fray.
A had brought many elites. Nearly ten specialized in Lightning taijutsu. They had barely earned the right to enter A and Ren's exchange.
They were not striking cores. But they could tug the rhythm a bit. With A holding Ren's attention, they were relatively safe, hard to get one shotted.
No way out.
With her deep combat experience, Tsunade could see it. This was certain death. Ren's only escape chance had been the instant his roar opened the ring.
Throwing her out now would not help. A knew she was a wreck. A handful of chunin who could not enter the main fight could hold her down. He would not be distracted.
______________________________________________
If you want 20 chapters ahead, check out my Patreon:
patreon.com/PureParadox