Bang, bang, bang…
The abandoned training ground echoed with the sounds of fists and feet colliding.
A boy and a girl—one tall, one short—were locked in a fierce taijutsu duel.
Normally, "big vs. small" is just weight-class suppression—no suspense at all.
Even if they're evenly matched, it should still be the smaller one using agility, dodging, and technique to suppress the bigger one.
But what was happening here was the complete opposite.
Gojo Yoru—now grown to 1.64 meters—was using force-dissolving techniques and blocks to defend against the wild flurry of punches from Uzumaki Kushina, who was only 1.42 meters tall even with shoes on.
If you looked closely at Yoru's hands, you'd see the backs of them were already red.
That was from trading blows with Kushina.
The reason the impact sounds were so loud was because Kushina's punches carried airflow—each strike actually produced a tearing, wind-splitting whoosh.
That terrifying brute strength was wildly at odds with her small, pink fists.
Yoru wasn't just passively blocking and redirecting. Every few exchanges—or every ten or so—he would meet Kushina head-on.
Sometimes fist to fist, sometimes foot to foot—each collision producing a heavy boom.
With every clash, an invisible shockwave burst from their limbs, kicking up fallen leaves and dust from the ground.
Afterward, pain would flash across Kushina's face.
Sometimes she'd bare her teeth, as if she hadn't hit Yoru's hands and feet at all, but a steel plate.
And honestly… that wasn't far from the truth.
While Yoru was sharpening Kushina's taijutsu technique, he was also using mobile combat to train Earth Release nature transformation.
After who knew how many exchanges, Yoru and Kushina suddenly jumped back in perfect sync, hands flashing through different seals.
"Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique!"
"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!"
The moment they landed, they each spat a straight-line blast—one flame, one water stream.
They collided and instantly evaporated into a cloud of white mist.
Before the wind could even scatter it, several Kushinas burst out of the fog—each holding a Rasengan—charging straight at Yoru.
Yoru also formed seals and created several phantom clones to meet them head-on.
Kushina's shadow clones attacked Yoru's real body first—only for their strikes to pass through him with no surprise at all.
Then the clones split up, going one-on-one against Yoru's phantom clones.
One shadow clone carried a Rasengan and ran straight through Yoru's body. Just as she thought, Another phantom, her body was suddenly swept out from under her. She crashed down, and the Rasengan slammed into the ground, blasting out a huge crater.
Using the dust and mist as cover, Yoru's real body—relying on his ghostly silent Body Flicker—rapidly swapped positions with his phantoms again and again, popping Kushina's shadow clones one after another into white smoke.
When only one Kushina remained on the field, Yoru assumed she was the real one and instinctively held back a little. He sidestepped her Rasengan from behind and locked her down.
Then Kushina turned her head and flashed him a triumphant grin.
"Stinky-mouth Yoru—you fell for it!"
Pop—!
Two balloon-like popping sounds overlapped almost perfectly.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
The Kushina in front of him turned into smoke, and at the same time, a girl's shout rang out near Yoru's ear.
In the distance, beneath thinning mist, a rock transformed into Kushina—then she spat out a stream of air at Yoru.
The airflow expanded and spread, becoming a raging gale—like an invisible tidal wave—instantly swallowing Yoru whole.
The range was too wide. Even with Yoru's terrifying Body Flicker, he couldn't dodge in time—and he couldn't raise an Earth Release slab in time either.
Yoru only curled his lips slightly, stomped once, and lifted his arms into a crossed guard.
The gale slammed into him like it had crashed into a boulder—unable to move him even an inch.
This wasn't the Naruto-version "Armament Haki" hardening from Earth Release: Earth Spear. It was Earth Release: Hardening Technique.
Earth Spear might only be B-rank, but it involved deep nature transformation and was a rare "nintaijutsu."
Its effect was full-body deep reinforcement by circulating chakra through the entire body—instant activation creating a "diamond body," with defense literally as hard as diamond.
Earth Release: Hardening was a weakened version of Earth Spear.
It also hardened the body, but only the surface layer of the skin, not as comprehensive or powerful as Earth Spear.
Even so, it was more than enough to withstand Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.
After tanking the gale without a scratch, neither Yoru nor Kushina immediately resumed attacking.
"Not bad, Tomato-na. You're actually using tactics now," Yoru praised generously, looking at her like he'd gained new respect.
"Heh-heh… you should thank me for holding back," Kushina said, chin lifted, smug.
When Yoru was bracing against the gale, Kushina absolutely had time to make a few more shadow clones and cast Wind Release: Great Breakthrough again—blowing him straight into the forest.
But she couldn't bring herself to do it.
Just like how Yoru had mistaken that shadow clone for her real body and held back instinctively.
"You've grown. I'm happy," Yoru said this time without any mockery—genuinely.
Even though he'd gotten a bit careless just now and was still hiding plenty of moves, Kushina's growth really had shocked him.
Aside from not having Asura's chakra, Kushina was now basically a high-spec Naruto.
Uzumaki blood gave her immense vitality and chakra, and the complete Nine-Tails gave her yin–yang attributes and terrifying regeneration—making an already unkillable cockroach even harder to put down.
As a transmigrator, Yoru knew exactly how monstrous Kushina's potential was. He wouldn't make Minato's mistake—getting stronger just to protect her—without ever pushing Kushina's talent to its limit and turning her into a super powerhouse.
Knowing how Naruto "cheated," Yoru simply copied Naruto's training method wholesale—having Kushina create huge numbers of shadow clones to train.
With shadow clones as an acceleration hack, Kushina's strength skyrocketed every single day.
And it had only been two months since Kushina became the Nine-Tails jinchūriki.
Aside from Body Flicker—where she still couldn't touch him—Kushina had already caught up to Yoru in almost everything else.
Ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, sealing arts, medical ninjutsu… even nature transformation and sensing…
Just like Nagato's growth that stunned Jiraiya, Kushina—someone with beyond-Kage potential—made Yoru feel an even more brutal kind of "talent suppression" than Minato ever did.
And the scariest part was: Kushina still hadn't mastered Monster Strength techniques yet. She hadn't awakened the Mind's Eye of the Kagura, body-healing, or Adamantine Sealing Chains.
If she did, her sensing, healing, and sealing would instantly enter the tiny top tier of the entire shinobi world.
If Yoru didn't have his space–time bloodline cheat, he really would've been crushed by her—beaten into hopelessness, unable to see any chance of reclaiming the "husband authority."
The aptitude boost from his first evolution… simply wasn't comparable to a true "era protagonist" monster like her.
~~~
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