Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXXXX- TAERU KAMIZURU
Kaneru's chains were one of the most powerful techniques Taeru had ever had the privilege of seeing in person. They were powerful, and adaptable in a way few jutsu were. An earth wall was just an earth wall. You could only defend with it. Kaneru's chains came with amazing attack potential and then could create barriers that Taeru knew most jounin would struggle to break through. He'd tried and had a hard enough time of it.
And it wasn't even like they were just a stationary defence. He could attack with chains that hit hard enough to pulverise bone and smite limbs to bloody stumps while still keeping a defence that just ignored most jutsu completely active. It was one hell of a natural ability to have. Why was Taeru talking about this now? Because Konoha's Butcher was making it look like it was nothing.
He slapped the chains away when they came in his direction with his gentle fist, deflecting them so easily that it made Taeru wonder if he was under a genjutsu. Not a single bingo book had mentioned his genjutsu capability as being anything other than middling, but Taeru had still checked just to make sure.
Nope. He was really slapping away the chains with his bare palms, all the while smiling at Kaneru and near about dancing with him. Every motion that the Butcher took spoke of an impossible grace that could not be taught. It could only be inborn. And Kaneru was left playing second fiddle. He chased with his chains, he tried to loop them in on themselves, tried to encircle the Butcher, tried to wrap them around limbs, tried to slap at core organs with amazing force, and all the while the Butcher either deflected them with his palms or just moved out of the way.
Did Kaneru even stand a chance, Taeru wondered. He said he would make Taeru an opening and he was beginning to fear that such an opening was never going to come. The Butcher was yet to attack and yet Kaneru was still struggling to keep up. Kaneru's barriers were a thing of art, but Taeru knew that if anyone could break through them, then the man who had caused a trench deep enough to swallow a full-grown man across half of the old Stone village stood a good enough chance. The good news was precisely that he was yet to leverage that attacking power for some reason.
And Taeru's internal thoughts seemed to jinx it because he said something to Kaneru that had him on guard as his chains weaved to return closer to him and began to form a barrier. The Butcher formed a single horse seal and then he blew. A Wind Release: Great Breakthrough had no business doing that, he thought to himself as the jutsu just seemed to delete everything in that direction. One hand seal, no intonation, and everything behind Kaneru's barrier was just gone. The houses, painstakingly built with earth release, the shinobi, all of it, just gone. Pushed with so much force that whatever remained of them was sent into the distance so quickly that Taeru could see nothing.
Kaneru's barrier stood strong though. The wind release attack— if it could truly be called that in the first place— had caused ripples across the barrier's surface but had lacked the penetrative force to break through it. Taeru released a sigh of relief. The Butcher couldn't break through the barrier then. That was good. That said something about their chances. And if there was a chance they could win this, Taeru was going to take it.
He weaved seals faster than he ever had before and ended his chakra suppression at that. He felt his reserves rise to their full height. He had never truly gone all out before. The village could scarcely handle the burden of him fighting full force. But now there was no possibility of holding back. Victory required sacrifices and he silently said a prayer for those who had already fallen and those who would fall in the minutes to come.
The house he stood atop shifted as the earth yielded to his will. Spears grew from the wall facing the Butcher and he took a breath.
"Earth Release: Missile Barrage," he said, and each of the spears fired so quickly they caused sonic booms in the air as they flew straight and true. The wise ones retreated the second they sensed his chakra rising and those who had remained he prayed for a safe passage into the afterlife. The ground exploded as his spears struck, dust rising into the air. He jumped as the building beneath him collapsed from the structural deficiencies his jutsu had caused. He landed on the ground again and he could feel the Butcher standing right where he had been through his shoes.
Expected. If that was enough for him to come to an end, then he would never have managed to kill Tsuchikage-sama. Taeru walked forwards, reaching for the dust and gathering it in his grasp with his earth manipulation. When the battlefield was cleared, he was met with the sight of the Butcher standing like nothing had happened, watching him with a tilt of his head.
"That's interesting," he said, nodding his head at the spear of stone that had begun to form in his grip from the dust his barrage had formed. He shaped it with his chakra, carving it until it was perfectly balanced and weighted.
"I wonder which of us is greater at Earth Release. Would you care to find out?" he asked, and Taeru scoffed. The soul of his nation stood at risk. He was not here for silly contests of pride.
Kaneru struck with two of his chains, but the Butcher had seen them coming even if they had come from behind his head. He twisted his head out of the way of the one that sought to spear through it before twisting his arm out of the way of the one that tried to wrap itself around his arm. He danced backwards, twisting and turning his back on Taeru as he slapped two more chains away.
Taeru did not waste the opportunity. He heaved and fired the spear he had just formed at his opponent's back. The Butcher twisted, displaying his palm, and the spear slammed into it.
Instead of stabbing through like it should have, the spear broke against it, unable to pierce his skin. Taeru did not have time to wonder at the level of earth manipulation. He formed a tiger seal and gathered air in his lungs. As he breathed out, he shifted it with his earth release halfway, creating drilling bits of stone that covered the ground between him and the Butcher at rapid pace.
The Butcher twisted, dodging through each one without even turning back in Taeru's direction. Instead, he kept up his dance with Kaneru, just making it so his movements coincided with exactly what he needed to avoid the earth bullet barrage.
Taeru could feel his rage rise at being so casually disregarded, but he knew it was part of the strategy. The Butcher played mind games just as intensely as he fought with his fists. Taeru slammed his hands into the ground, tapping into the earth they stood atop. Two massive slabs— each one the size of a small house— rose from the ground on either side of him, about to slam him into a paste. The Butcher ignored them until the last minute before he suddenly stood still and then began to spin.
A whirling orb of chakra surrounded him. Kaneru's chains were sent glancing off when they tried to bring them to bear. The slabs he had lifted broke against the absolute defence of the Hyuga clan. This jutsu had one weakness. Users were dizzy after the jutsu came to an end, the notes he had studied told him, and so he shoved his fists into the ground, cloaking them in gauntlets that he began to manipulate. He signalled his intentions to Kaneru as he did so. The second the Butcher stopped moving, Taeru struck. He stomped the ground, shooting off in a body flicker.
His gauntlet-clad fist went for the head first. It missed as the Butcher tilted his head out of the way at the last second. Taeru flowed with the movement, spinning and bringing his elbow to bear. He used his control of the earth that clad his fist to force his elbow forward with even more force. The Butcher stopped it cold with a single hand. Taeru twisted, his left foot striking out in a kick. The Butcher let go of the elbow and turned, deflecting his kick with the back of his wrist. Taeru's other hand scraped along the floor as he turned again, bringing the foot down and his upper body upwards.
The dust he had scraped off the ground he tossed in his opponent's eyes. The Butcher shut his eyes as the dust approached and Taeru took his opening. He attempted to smash a gauntlet-clad fist into his opponent's chest as the man took two steps backwards and regained his balance. Eyes closed, the Butcher still slapped his fist out of the way.
Taeru slammed his left foot into the ground. Two spikes rose from an angle, both aiming to skewer the Butcher in his calves. His feet were light like he danced on air itself as he weaved past both spikes towards Taeru. His eyes were still closed, so Taeru had the advantage here.
He punched out with his fist. The Butcher twisted and grabbed the outstretched arm, shifting so he could flip Taeru onto the ground. Taeru flowed with the motion. The second his back hit the ground, spikes rose from it that should have skewered the Butcher for how close he stood. But they just broke upon his skin. The Butcher's eyes remained closed.
He reached behind him and caught the chain Kaneru had been about to wrap around his throat in one hand.
"You know, this is starting to get boring," he said, and then without any sort of exertion at all, he just pulled. Kaneru lurched off his feet and then the Butcher began to swing him around in circles.
Taeru slammed his hands into the ground but for the first time in his life, the ground resisted his will. The ground he lay on shifted to mud that began to swiftly surround and bury him. The last thing he saw was the Butcher slamming Kaneru's body into the ground with a laugh.
XXXXX — KUSHINA UZUMAKI
Two weeks. They had been here for two weeks. She had had to cut her hair two more times as the red locks began to return and it was better to avoid questions of any sort by keeping up the complete baldness. It also allowed her to more easily blend in at times as she tried to figure out where the compass was kept. A task she had had no luck with so far.
She woke up day after day and was just expected to head straight for the morning prayers before breakfast, and then she got to work. She copied the Sage's teachings over and over. A task made even more mind-numbing by the fact that she was forced to do it at roughly a quarter of her maximum speed and had to reduce the quality of the work. Every Uzumaki was a world-class calligraphy mistress by the time they turned five. It was just the nature of fuinjutsu. It required impossible precision— not a single stroke could be misplaced or the whole thing could go wrong. Everyone knew about the Uzumaki who had killed himself with an inkblot. Her teacher had been Mito Uzumaki, and the student before her had been Shorirama Senju. The standards Kushina had been brought up to were firmly on the outside of the realm of reason.
And somehow, she had met them. She could have copied one page in less than a minute and done it so perfectly that even a printer would not compare, but that would have drawn attention so she tried to match the pace of the other Acolytes and their error rate as well. They made a mistake once every four pages and she just slightly beat that by slipping one in once every five.
"Mai?" The voice drew her from her mindless copying. She looked up to see one of the Abbots staring down at her. Ryu. He was an interesting man. He cared little for formalities and seemed to address everyone by their first names no matter what, but no one seemed to mind his lack of propriety. She was yet to find out just why everyone— even the older Abbots who would scold Acolytes for improper bows or dress— would turn a blind eye to the breach of protocol. She probably never would.
"Abbot Ryu," she greeted, rising and bowing.
"I told you to just call me Ryu," he said. She did not reply, just nodding silently. That was the same reply all the others gave when he admonished them to do the same, and standing out would not work in her favour, so in a land of samurai, she did as the samurai did.
"Walk with me," he said with a sigh.
"Abbot Ryu, I still have several pages to—"
"Kotaru will help you out, will he not?" the Abbot asked, phrasing the order as a request but no one was stupid enough to take it as anything but.
"Of course, Abbot," the man who occupied the seat next to her spoke.
"Brilliant," the Abbot said, gesturing for her to rise, and either not noticing or not caring about the dirty look the other Acolyte tossed her way as she rose.
He led her from the hall and towards one of the Temple's many gardens. Each one was filled with naught but snow, but the intention was still admirable. Snow fell on their heads as they walked. She lifted the hood that came with her robes to protect her bald head from the downpour.
"Do you know why we make you write the Sage's teachings by hand? A single printer could do the work of a dozen Acolytes with no mistakes, so surely we are just making things needlessly difficult?" he asked after they had walked for a few minutes with no words spoken from either of them.
"No, Abbot Ryu."
"Hmmm. Will you think and tell me the answer?" he asked.
She was silent as she contemplated it. And when she had an answer, she scrutinised it to be sure that it revealed nothing of her truth inadvertently.
"Because the mistakes are part of the beauty. The book of the Sage has a human touch because it must always have a human touch?" she tried.
"Close, but ultimately incorrect. Shall you try again?" he asked.
She thought of other reasons but couldn't come up with any until she looked around at the state of the garden.
"Perhaps the Temple cannot afford the printers with other costs," she said. He actually broke into a laugh as she spoke those words.
"While we are not swimming in ryo by any means, the Temple can afford a few printers, I assure you. Besides, they would pay for themselves in saved man-hours so easily," he said.
She nodded, not saying anything else.
"Shall you try again?" he asked.
"I am all out of ideas, Abbot," she said.
"A shame. Normally, I would make you work for the answer but that is not why we are here, so we can take a shortcut just this one time— don't tell anyone though," he said, giving her a wink.
She nodded, not saying anything else.
"The reason is Resonance," he said.
"Resonance?" she asked, not familiar with the concept.
"An Acolyte of your level would not have explored it yet, true. Your friend is devouring the lessons as quickly as we can give them to him, so I guess my expectations were slightly inflated. Resonance is one of the forms of Ninshu. Have you ever spoken to someone who believed in something strongly? So strongly that all the world could tell him he was wrong and he would not care one whit— he would still stand by it?"
"No. Never," she said, lying. That sounded just like Shori-nii. Ryu gave her a look like he knew she was lying, but if he did, he did not call her out on it.
"True. I should not be surprised. What was that village of yours called again?" he asked.
"Kabuki," she said, slipping into the skin of her cover story with ease.
"Of course."
"Such people would not be found in Kabuki village. Well, if you had ever spoken to one of them before, you would find that the more they spoke, the more you believed what it was they believed to be true. Some wrongfully label this as charisma. If only it could be something so simple. People like that tap into resonance instinctively. They believe it, and as you listen to them, the more you believe in it too," he said.
"But how does that relate to the teachings of the Sage?" she asked.
"Obviously, a printer cannot use Resonance. We have humans write down the teachings because the belief— the faith— of those who write bleeds onto the page and acts as a balm for those who receive it. An aid to help their faith, if you will," he said.
"Oh?"
"And now I am sure you can guess why I brought you here," he said.
"Because I don't believe as strongly as the others?" she tried. He laughed again.
"That's putting it kindly. You actively disbelieve, Mai. And that is a dangerous position to be in," he said. His smile was absent now.
"I'm still learning, Abbot. Please forgive me," she said, bowing to him.
"All the pages you have worked on over the last fourteen days will be destroyed. Do not attend the writing halls anymore. You shall spend your days with me henceforth," he said, and then he turned to leave.
A/N: Taeru did put up the best fight he could, but he ended up being toyed with for the most part. And then we get a look at the progress in the Lightning Temple. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.