AN : Bonus chapter on reaching 100 power stones!! Enjoy!!
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At the edge of his vision, Roshi caught sight of Shizune kneeling beside Itachi. The flickering green glow of her Mystical Palm Technique washed over the boy's trembling body, his breaths shallow and ragged. Further away, Anko's figure blurred into the chaos, sprinting toward the thunder of explosions erupting in the backyard.
If he'd arrived even a little later… would Shizune be dead? Would Itachi have fallen? What about Anko?
Would Tsunade have made it in time to save them?
When Roshi first awakened in this body and took on this name, he thought he had steeled himself.
Taking lives brought no hesitation.
Drawing up battle plans required no sentiment.
But now—seeing allies who should still have years ahead of them on the brink of death—he felt his composure fracture. For just a moment, a strange daze clouded his mind.
The original story… it was only ever a guide. The true future belonged to the people living it.
—
Before him, the brat—distracted, almost careless in his movements—dodged each swing with unhurried grace. That infuriating calm made Jubei, leader of the Black Snake Group, see red.
"Don't you dare act like I'm not here, brat!" Jubei's roar shook the courtyard, his blade cleaving down with murderous weight.
The dark blue flames cloaking him flared as though soaked in oil, surging higher with every step. The ground cracked underfoot, groaning at the sheer force pressing down on it.
The whistling of his blade grew shriller, sharper—like death itself tearing the air.
Roshi's eyes narrowed. He forced down the storm inside him and slammed his palms to the ground.
Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!
Chakra surged like a flood. The hardened stone beneath them softened at once, collapsing into bubbling mire.
The swamp yawned open directly in Jubei's charging path. His own momentum betrayed him; like a runaway chariot, he plunged straight into the sucking mud.
Viscous sludge rose to his thighs in an instant. It clung to him with the grip of the dead, dragging him deeper.
"Ugh—!"
Jubei snarled like a beast, dark flames flaring wildly as he thrashed against the pull. Mud splattered in violent waves, but it only bound him tighter, refusing to let go.
Roshi's fingers blurred through seals—
Rat. Tiger. Dragon. Ram. Rooster. Dog.
Lightning Release: Firefly Electric Net!
From his fingertips, countless hair-thin arcs of blue-white lightning burst forth, a storm of fireflies dancing across the air. The current crackled eagerly along the wet mud, streaking toward the beast trapped at its center.
"AHHH!!!"
Jubei's roar scraped raw from his throat, defying death itself. His body bulged with terrifying strength, and the blue flames ignited in a violent eruption—
BOOM!
A circular shockwave ripped outward, obliterating swamp and lightning alike. Mud exploded skyward, and the crackling arcs were shredded into nothing. Even the smoke itself scattered under the sheer force.
The swamp collapsed into a gaping crater, sludge raining back down like a storm.
But Jubei paid a price. His upper garments disintegrated entirely, revealing his scarred frame beneath.
Bronze skin stretched over corded muscle, every inch carved with grotesque scars that looked like coiling centipedes. His chest and abdomen bore twisted, bone-deep gashes, the marks of countless battles that should have ended his life long ago. One diagonal scar ran from shoulder to ribs, as though someone had once tried to cut him clean in two.
This man should have died a hundred deaths.
Yet here he stood—alive, relentless, and still terrifyingly strong.
"Ha… ha!" Jubei wheezed, steam puffing from his lips, crimson eyes boring into Roshi. "See that, Konoha brat? I'm used to this kind of 'greeting'!"
Used to it? Not at all.
His bluster didn't rattle Roshi; it focused him. The man's bravado was a mask. The injuries mattered less than what they hid: how Jubei could shrug off pain and poison and keep fighting as if nothing were wrong.
"This technique… these wounds," Roshi thought, narrowing his gaze. "Where is your life stored?"
Jubei's pupils pinched to pinpricks. The smug smile froze like a cracked mask.
Roshi lunged. He snatched a kunai from his pouch with his right hand and drove it for Jubei's right shoulder joint. Jubei twisted with uncanny speed and the blade missed by a hair.
Before Jubei could recover, Roshi's leg snapped like a steel whip toward the scarred left thigh—the one Shizune had struck with a poisoned senbon. Bang!
The impact landed, but Jubei only wavered for a heartbeat before steadying, a mocking grin crawling across his face as if to say, "Is that all?"
That grin didn't last long.
Roshi's assault exploded into a storm—punches, elbows, knees, and kicks raining down. He no longer aimed only at vitals; he attacked joints, ligaments, and insertion points—every structural weakness that kept a body functional.
A gusting right fist smashed into the inside of Jubei's right elbow. The muscles in Jubei's shoulder tightened like rebar; he twisted his arm so the blow grazed the outer forearm and spat blood rather than allowing the elbow to take the brunt.
A sweeping kick aimed for the pivot at Jubei's right ankle. In the nick of time Jubei planted his left foot, lifting the right foot a few inches to protect the joint—the kick thudded into thick calf instead of crippling the ankle.
Those tiny, protected motions—subtle, precise—revealed everything. Jubei didn't fear poisoned organs or shredded muscle. He could endure those. He did not, however, tolerate structural destruction: severed limbs, shattered joints, the collapse of the body's framework.
This scarred titan was less a man than a living war-armor—an instrument built to take punishment so long as its core structure stayed intact.
So how was that structure controlled? Chakra cords? No—Roshi dismissed the idea.
If the body wasn't puppeted from outside, the cockpit had to be inside.
The image from his probing—what he had felt during their earlier exchanges—fell into place. He saw the only plausible location.
And in that realization, Roshi decided:
You are going to die.
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