Chapter 62: Seven Essences Unlocking Gates
Kūren—the Amegakure Jōnin fighting the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate'—had never felt his thoughts so clear.
The movements of the black-haired man, the splashing mud, and the entire world around him. His pure hatred and anger seemed to fuse into a scorching fire that burned away all extraneous thoughts, allowing him to see everything before his eyes with incredible clarity, dragging out long, distinct afterimages.
Rumors claimed the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan awakened under the stimulus of extreme emotion. Perhaps his current state was similar to theirs.
Thinking this, Kūren smoothly dodged a thrust of the staff, lowered his body, and charged forward, rapidly skimming across the water's surface.
Water Release: Wave Riding Attack (Suiton: Ha Jō Geki)—this ninjutsu allowed for quick movement across the water. In the Land of Rain's environment, he could skip the step of creating water, and the speed could easily be mistaken for an advanced form of Water Walking. With the superior mobility this non-lethal jutsu provided, Kūren had assassinated countless foes.
One must never think that a ninjutsu's greatest value lies in its sheer power. This technique was his most trusted ace.
Die! You Sunagakure bastard!
"Hah—"
Chakra manifested as a clear current, wrapping around his kunai to form a thin, sharp blade. Kūren ducked past the staff's thrust, accelerating again. A deep snarl, like an enraged animal, erupted from his throat as he unleashed a flash of light—a beautiful, deadly slash at his enemy.
Water Release: Water Blade Slash (Suiton: Suijin Zan)!
It was suspicious that no intelligence on a Jōnin with the skill of the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' had ever surfaced before this war. But the man was from Sunagakure, and it was easier for their shinobi to intentionally conceal their abilities than almost anywhere else.
Correspondingly, Kūren believed that his own signature assassination combo was something the enemy knew nothing about.
Desert hyena, crawl back into your hole and eat corpses!
To maintain steady breathing and conceal his position, many shinobi develop the habit of silence in combat. Kūren was no exception. But even with the thought kept silent, his expression grew savage, a hint of triumphant satisfaction already forming in his eyes.
Yet, his anticipated killing blow did not achieve any result worthy of praise.
"Ah... so that's how it is~"
The black-haired man with the dangerous smile narrowly relaxed his tightly braced legs, leaning backward to evade the water blade's horizontal slice. He then jammed the three-section staff into the ground—which had been flattened by the Chakra pressure—and used it as a pivot to launch a perfect scissor kick.
While he couldn't copy the opponent's ninjutsu or achieve the impossible prescience of the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan, the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' could use his meticulous sensory ability to record the change and flow of the opponent's Chakra when they used a ninjutsu.
He could tell exactly what type of jutsu had been cast. He'd seen every aspect of the high-speed Wave Riding Attack and the thin Water Blade Slash clearly.
"Is this how it's used!"
He kicked the kunai from Kūren's hand, nearly shattering his wrist in the process. As the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' prepared to land, he created a ball of water in the air to use as a foothold. He slammed his foot down, detonating the stagnant water ball and using the recoil to shoot straight toward Kūren.
The tips of his three-section staff slid across the pooling water, splashing twin wakes as the ends of the staff coalesced into two wide, axe-like water blades, causing Kūren's temples to throb.
According to a year of intelligence, the Heavenly Restriction Incarnate was a pure Taijutsu specialist who had never used elemental Ninjutsu. Kūren simply could not believe that a shinobi would hide this level of skill on the battlefield, especially since the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' had already killed three Amegakure Jōnin.
Did this bastard just learn Water Blade Slash from one exchange?!
The downside of having an agile mind is this: even in the middle of a fight, Kūren's thoughts transcended mere shinobi instinct, presenting him with this terrifying possibility.
This wasn't even the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate's' doing. Wind and Water Release had different fundamentals but shared common ground in application. The 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate,' having mastered Matasaburō's core Wind Release principles, found it easy to imitate the Suiton Jutsu, even if he hadn't fully learned it. The functionality was already there in the three-section staff, a feature he'd only suppressed until now to maintain his 'Taijutsu Specialist' disguise.
When it came to mind games, a Cursed User always had the upper hand. These kinds of attacks didn't even require careful calculation; Rinko simply acted on impulse, pure and natural.
But despite his thoughts, Kūren couldn't stop moving in such a deadly battle. He used the Water Body Flicker again to evade the vicious slash, then suddenly snapped his dislocated, swollen right hand back into place, using the intense jolt of pain to suppress his extra thoughts.
But before he could pull out a bandage to treat his wrist, he realized the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' had turned and charged toward another part of the battlefield.
While the rules of each country vary, the shinobi promotion system is similar everywhere. Graduation from the Academy makes you a Genin. Promotion to Chūnin is usually via the Chūnin Exams or, rarely, direct recommendation from the village leader.
It's from Chūnin onward that the actual power gap between villages becomes immense. Small villages often hold easy exams to inflate their Chūnin numbers to attract more missions. The ranks of Jōnin and Special Jōnin are even more susceptible to this.
In reality, many small-village Jōnin would struggle to defeat a mid-level Chūnin from the Great Five, yet the Great Five shinobi are perfectly happy to acknowledge them as Jōnin—at least when calculating the bounty on their heads.
Amegakure held the consensus rank of "number one beneath the Five Great Nations." Kūren, as a veteran Jōnin of Ame, had a clear understanding of his own comrades' true capabilities.
Among the Amegakure shinobi present, only a few true Jōnin could delay the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate.' The Special Jōnin would be dealt with in a few moments.
Kūren gritted his teeth, ignoring the potential aftereffects on his hand, and rapidly formed seals.
"Water Release: Exploding Current!"
A swift torrent of water surged out, swallowing the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' as he lunged toward the Amegakure Special Jōnin, attempting to force him to retreat. But the figure merely sneered, shooting a jet of water from his palm to collide with the end of the sansetsukon, pushing it further, easily skewering the Special Jōnin's head.
A streak of crimson blood mocked Kūren's futile effort as it spread across the water's surface before being washed away by the rain.
"—!"
Leaping onto the water's surface from his hiding spot, Kūren looked down at his fallen comrade, speechless. The 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate,' still standing on the water, simply watched him with a mocking gaze while casually twirling the staff.
Kūren looked around. Ambushed by Sunagakure, only half of their one-hundred-plus Chūnin remained. Of the five Jōnin, two were dead (one by Hiiro Rinko). The remaining three were being overwhelmed by Suna's coordinated attacks.
The Special Jōnin were, for all intents and purposes, just high-ranked Chūnin, merely excelling in one specific area. Amegakure specialized in assassination, and the Special Jōnin here were all assassination specialists.
But an assassin whose location is known is nothing.
Even if they had accepted their fate before the mission, watching their comrades' lives wasted so easily was agonizing.
At least make this bastard pay!
With a desperate resolve, Kūren silently pulled out a fresh kunai, a black flame burning in his eyes.
"Hmm… so no other aces, then? That sliding jutsu of yours was kind of interesting."
The 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' rotated his shoulders, his eyes growing dangerous. "If that's the case, these guys are useless—"
—!
A Chakra aura that made the air itself tremble suddenly erupted from the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate,' making his very figure unstable.
He maximized the conversion of his Yang Release Chakra, used the Tenketsu Unlocking Jutsu to temporarily open several major Chakra points, and unleashed the energy externally. The energy was then confined by the reinforcement tattoos across his body, forming a Chakra cloak similar to a Tailed Beast's outer layer.
Simultaneously, the Chakra cloak bypassed the internal Chakra circulation system, directly stimulating his pathways from the outside. This maximized cellular activity without interfering with his Yin Release loop, exponentially increasing the effect of his Yang Release.
This was Hiiro Rinko's Yang Release secret technique: Seven Essences Unlocking Gates (Shichisei Kai Mon)!
"?!"
Reading the meaning in his words, Kūren, who was preparing for a final, desperate attack, could no longer maintain his silence. He chased the black-haired man, who was now pulling away, letting out a wail of despair, like a cuckoo weeping blood. "Get back here!"
But at his speed, how could he possibly catch the current 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate'?
And so, hell descended upon the battlefield.
In a flash, the nauseating stench of blood and viscera echoed across the barrier-sealed ruins.
Taijutsu—while some styles use Chakra reinforcement, most are purely reinforced martial arts. In terms of range and application, Taijutsu has no advantage over Ninjutsu. Shinobi practice it only to maintain flexibility and to build the physical foundation necessary for Chakra refinement. In the eyes of most shinobi, this is an undeniable truth.
But what was this?
What was happening?
"Are you kidding me..."
The sound of death roared and echoed inside the Sealing Barrier.
It wasn't the familiar clash of kunai or blades, nor the sound of mechanisms, nor the noise of elemental jutsu.
It was the simple, terrifying sound of a swinging staff continuously tearing the air to shreds.
Exaggerated, and horrifying.
The black three-section staff and the black-haired man's arms were invisible blur. Only the layered sounds of air being broken and the constantly scorched and shredded earth, dried by the heat the staff produced, proved their existence.
Shuriken were smashed into twisted scrap metal, kunai and ninja swords were snapped, elemental jutsu were pulverized—and all this was achieved by nothing more than the reinforced body swinging the staff.
"Are you kidding me! You bastard!"
Kūren struggled weakly, like a withered leaf caught in a surging river. There was no hatred or battle intent left in his eyes. All the color in his violently trembling irises was consumed by fear.
I don't want to die. I don't want to be killed by this strange thing. I don't want to end my life having accomplished nothing—even this most basic cry for life could only be expressed by his body's instinct.
"What in the world are you?!"
"Don't make me sound like some kind of monster. It's just a gap in our understanding."
Why does a difference in perspective cause such internal trauma?
Just like the nose, which is always present but ignored by people, 'vision' is not just the image captured by our eyes, but the image understood by our brain. Our perspective is protected and obscured by our emotions, environment, knowledge, feelings, and common sense.
"Humans, you see, are fragile creatures who cannot survive without the confines of their box."
Having no desire to exchange philosophies with the 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' at this point, Kūren, driven by the sheer terror consuming him, charged forward with his kunai in a final, futile attack. "Die—!!!"
Quick, swift, and brutal.
Years of training were etched into his flesh. Even though his mind had broken, his trained body would not betray him. But this simple frontal thrust was completely open, a flaw to any shinobi used to high-speed combat.
With one swing, Kūren was slammed into the ground. 'Heavenly Restriction Incarnate' dislocated his jaw, then crushed his shoulders and knees, neutralizing his ability to fight or commit suicide. He then lifted the broken man and walked toward the edge of the barrier.
"Quite a haul, wouldn't you say?"