Chapter 16: The Void vs. The Ink
The Unreachable Distance
The ocean was silent. Not the silence of peace, but the silence of a held breath.
On the deck of The Gilded Lotus, Kakashi Hatake's hands were trembling. It was a subtle tremor, invisible to most, but he felt it deep in his bones. The air had become heavy—densely saturated with two opposing forces that felt nothing like chakra.
On one side, standing on the black, inky surface of the sea, was Naruto. His presence felt ancient, heavy, and absolute.
Above him, hovering in the sky with a cloak that fluttered in the wind, was Ryūjin. His presence felt cold, empty, and wrong.
"Sasuke..." Sakura whispered, her voice hitching. "I can't... I can't breathe."
Sasuke didn't answer. He couldn't. His Sharingan was spinning wildly, trying to track the energy, but all he saw were distortions. The world around Naruto was pitch black. The world around Ryūjin was a grey static.
Ryūjin raised a single finger.
"Let us begin."
The First Clash
BOOM.
There was no buildup. Naruto vanished.
He didn't use body flicker. He didn't run. He simply existed in one spot, and then existed in front of Ryūjin instantly. Shunpo.
Naruto's massive brush swept horizontally, aiming to half the name of Ryūjin's neck. The air screamed as the heavy bristles tore through it.
"Too slow," Ryūjin said calmly.
He didn't dodge. He didn't block.
The brush stopped three inches from Ryūjin's neck.
It didn't hit a wall. It just... stopped moving forward. Naruto frowned, pushing harder. The muscles in his arm bulged, veins popping with the effort, but the brush remained frozen in place.
"Infinity," Ryūjin stated, his gray eyes dull. "The space between your weapon and my skin is infinite. You can run for a thousand years, Monk, and you will never reach me."
Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Is that so?"
He twisted his wrist, flinging a splash of black ink directly at Ryūjin's face.
Ryūjin waved his hand. The space folded. The ink didn't hit him; it curved around him, warping into a distorted spiral before vanishing into nothingness.
"You manipulate names by touching them with your ink," Ryūjin analyzed, sounding like a scientist observing a lab rat. "But you cannot paint a canvas you cannot touch."
Ryūjin pointed his palm at Naruto.
"Spatial Rupture."
The air where Naruto was hovering twisted violently. There was a sound like glass shattering.
Naruto's instincts screamed. He kicked off the air—solidifying the reishi beneath his feet—and flashed backward just as the space he had occupied imploded. A perfect sphere of the sky was simply deleted, leaving behind a vacuum that sucked in the surrounding air with a deafening roar.
Naruto landed back on the water, skidding across the ink. A small cut appeared on his cheek.
It wasn't deep, but it was real.
Naruto wiped the blood away with his thumb, looking at it. Then, he looked up, and his grin widened. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of a predator that had finally found something that could bite back.
"Okay," Naruto laughed, the sound echoing ominously. "Now I'm interested."
The Fly and the Monk
"Sasuke-kun, we have to help him!" Sakura cried, reaching for a kunai.
"Don't move!" Kakashi barked, his voice cracking. "Stay down! If you step into that... you'll cease to exist."
Sasuke stared at the two monsters. Help him? he thought bitterly. I can't even see their movements. What is this? What kind of power is this?
Ryūjin floated higher. "You are durable. But let's see how you handle the swarm."
He opened his hand. From the silver trimmings of his cloak, black sparks of Negative Chakra flew out. They coalesced into hundreds of small, buzzing shapes. They weren't insects. They were tiny, flying rifts in reality.
"Negative Space: Swarm of Beelzebub."
The flies descended like a dark cloud.
Naruto swung his brush. "Scram."
A wave of ink launched at the swarm. But as the ink touched the flies, the flies ate it. Or rather, the space the flies occupied erased the ink.
"Useless," Ryūjin said.
The flies swarmed Naruto. He dodged, weaving through the air with incredible speed, but they were everywhere. One grazed his shoulder—his haori vanished instantly, leaving a circular hole. Another grazed his arm—skin and muscle disappeared, leaving a clean, bloodless divot.
"Damn bugs," Naruto grunted.
He leaped high into the air, looking down at Ryūjin.
"You like space so much?" Naruto roared. "Then let's see if you can block this!"
Naruto clenched his left fist and punched the empty air.
"Senri Tsūtenshō!" (Heavenly Passing Palm of the Thousand Ri)
The sky darkened.
Above Ryūjin, a spectral hand the size of a mountain manifested. It was made of golden spiritual energy, glowing with immense pressure. The wind from its manifestation alone nearly capsized The Gilded Lotus.
Sasuke fell to his knees. The sheer weight of Naruto's presence was crushing him. "He... he summoned a hand... the size of a cloud..."
"Crush him!" Naruto shouted, slamming his fist down.
The giant hand descended.
Ryūjin looked up, his expression finally shifting. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face.
"Brute force. How primitive."
Ryūjin raised both hands above his head. The Negative Chakra flared, turning the sky grey.
"Void Domain: Black Hole Sphere."
A small, black singularity formed between Ryūjin's hands. It was tiny compared to the hand, but the density was infinite.
He threw it upward.
The collision was silent.
The giant golden hand hit the singularity. It didn't explode. It began to warp. The fingers of the spirit hand stretched, spaghettified, twisting into a spiral as the gravity and spatial distortion of the black hole sucked the spiritual energy in.
The sky cracked.
A shockwave of pure force blasted outward, flattening the ocean waves for miles. The Gilded Lotus was tossed like a toy boat. Kakashi had to pin Sasuke and Sakura to the deck to keep them from flying off.
In the sky, the giant hand was devoured.
Ryūjin floated amidst the dissipating energy, unhurt.
"Is that it?" Ryūjin asked. "Is this the power of the Monk?"
The Blackened World
Naruto hovered in the air, panting slightly. His Spirit Hand had been eaten. His ink couldn't touch the guy.
Naruto started to chuckle. The chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh.
"You're annoying," Naruto said, shaking his head. "You really are."
Naruto held his brush out. His eyes rolled back, becoming pure white. The atmosphere changed instantly. The heavy pressure vanished, replaced by a sensation of cold dread.
"Ichimonji. Blacken."
Naruto swung the brush at the empty air around him. Ink splattered onto nothingness.
"I told you," Ryūjin sighed, preparing another portal. "You missed."
"Did I?"
Naruto pointed the brush at Ryūjin.
"I didn't paint you," Naruto whispered. "I painted the light."
Ryūjin paused.
He looked around. The sky... was turning black. Not night-time black. Absolute black. The ink Naruto had splashed wasn't aimed at Ryūjin; it was aimed at the photons in the air.
"Everything black belongs to me," Naruto recited.
Ryūjin looked down at his cloak. It was black.
Ryūjin looked at the Negative Chakra aura around him. It was black.
"Gotcha," Naruto grinned.
Ryūjin's eyes widened. "You..."
Naruto clenched his hand.
"Control."
Ryūjin's own cloak suddenly tightened, wrapping around him like a straitjacket. The Negative Chakra he was using to maintain his spatial barrier faltered because the color of the energy recognized a new master.
For one second—just one second—Ryūjin's absolute defense flickered.
Naruto didn't waste it.
Shunpo.
Naruto appeared inches from Ryūjin's face. This time, there was no infinity.
"I name you..." Naruto whispered, his brush glowing white, ready to use Shin'uchi.
"Flea."
Ryūjin reacted on pure instinct. He didn't try to block. He detonated the space around himself.
"Spatial Collapse!"
BOOM!
A massive explosion of distorted reality blasted them apart. Naruto was flung backward, crashing into the ocean with enough force to create a tsunami. Ryūjin was blasted upward, his cloak shredded, a line of black ink searing across his chest.
The Retreat
Ryūjin hovered in the upper atmosphere, clutching his chest. He was bleeding.
He looked down at the ocean where Naruto was rising from the water, looking battered but furious.
"He bypassed the barrier by controlling the color of my chakra..." Ryūjin muttered, his voice shaking slightly. "They were right. He is a conceptual anomaly."
Ryūjin looked at his hand. It was trembling. He had almost been named. If he had stayed one second longer, he would be a flea right now.
"I have seen enough," Ryūjin decided. "The test is complete."
He opened a massive portal behind him.
Naruto shot out of the water like a missile. "GET BACK HERE!"
Ryūjin looked down one last time, his gray eyes meeting Naruto's white ones.
"We will meet again, Monk. When the Qliphoth is fully open... your ink will dry out."
Ryūjin stepped backward into the portal. The rift snapped shut just as Naruto's brush slashed through the empty air.
The Aftermath
Silence returned to the sea.
The sky slowly returned to blue as Naruto's influence faded. The ocean calmed.
Naruto floated there for a moment, staring at the spot where Ryūjin had vanished. He was dripping wet, his clothes torn, bleeding from a dozen spatial cuts.
He was trembling.
Not from fear. From rage.
"He ran..." Naruto hissed.
Back on the ship, Sasuke slowly stood up. He looked at the devastation around them. The ocean was churning. The clouds were scattered.
He looked at Naruto's back.
For the first time in his life, Sasuke Uchiha felt truly, utterly insignificant.
"What..." Sasuke whispered, his voice trembling, "What are you?"
Naruto turned around. The white faded from his eyes, returning to blue. He wiped the blood from his cheek and flashed a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"I told you, Sasuke," Naruto said, his voice flat. "I'm the guy who protects the ship."
Naruto landed on the deck and walked past them, heading for the galley.
"I'm hungry. Let's hope the oranges survived."
Kakashi watched him go, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked at the horizon, then back at his student.
Kakashi realized with dread. The war that is coming... is between gods.
TBC