Chapter 230: Fated Duel (Part 2)
"Don't you whine at me, Uchiha brat!" Facing the accusatory Sasuke, the Nine-Tails bared its teeth and spoke. Then, the Nine-Tails simply adjusted the chakra fluctuation within Naruto's body.
Inside the seal space, Naruto, who had been affected by Sasuke's genjutsu, instantly regained his senses. Sasuke's consciousness, which had invaded the seal space using his dōjutsu, was instantly expelled.
On the battlefield outside, the clash between the Tailed Beast cloak and the Susanoo also came to a temporary halt.
Sasuke, who was kicked out of the seal space, took several steps back on the water's surface. The intense pain coming from all over his body was undoubtedly a reminder that for his newly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan, continuously using Susanoo, even if it was just the most basic skeletal Susanoo, was still too much of a strain.
"Naruto, do you really think you can stop the coming of war by yourself?" Sasuke wiped the bloody tears from the corners of his eyes, then asked through gritted teeth. "Have you forgotten all of Teacher's teachings?"
Naruto could see that Sasuke was trying to buy time for his body to catch its breath, but he didn't point it out. He just spoke calmly, "I never thought of stopping the coming of war. The day the war begins, I will also return to the village and do my part."
"Then why are you leaving?" Sasuke demanded. "In your eyes, are the bonds between us comrades so insignificant?"
"No." Naruto shook his head. His body, cloaked in the Tailed Beast's power, glowed with a faint golden light under the combined effect of the splashing water vapor and the overhead sun. "You are all my most cherished comrades."
"However, there are still many people in this ninja world who face the pain of war with no recourse. They need my help," Naruto said.
"Then why are you leaving?" Sasuke roared. "The things you want to do, can't we help you with them?"
"It's different, Sasuke. Some things, if done in the name of the village, will be seen as a provocation by the village against other countries, thereby triggering war prematurely. I think you should understand this better than I do. The village is not yet ready for an all-out war," Naruto said after shaking his head.
"What exactly do you want to do?" Sasuke panted heavily. After the pain of overexerting his body to use Susanoo had subsided a little, he also stood up straight and asked Naruto.
Hearing this, Naruto raised his right fist. "If you want to know, then come and bump fists."
"Fist bump?" A cold sneer tugged at the corner of Sasuke's mouth. After walking step by step towards Naruto, he raised his fist.
However, in the next moment, Sasuke's fist landed heavily on Naruto's face.
"If you want a fist bump, wait until I take you back and you've apologized to everyone. Then we can do it slowly," the Mangekyo pattern in Sasuke's right eye slowly rotated, bloody tears trickling down. Black lightning gathered in his hand, and he forcefully stabbed it towards Naruto's shoulder.
Naruto, not expecting Sasuke's sneak attack, had his face knocked to the side by the punch. By the time he came to his senses, Sasuke's attack was already before his eyes.
From behind Naruto, two golden chakra arms suddenly shot out, forming a shield in front of him.
However, the moment the shield touched the black lightning, the hard and thick chakra shield actually began to disintegrate. This black lightning actually had the property of decomposing chakra. And this black lightning, after coming into contact with the shield, also began to spread up along the chakra cloak.
Seeing this, Naruto decisively cut off the chakra shield. A large mass of golden chakra attached with black lightning fell to the ground and was devoured completely in less than a few breaths.
"This is... your dōjutsu?" Naruto took a deep breath and then said.
"That's right. In front of these eyes, you have no chance of winning," Sasuke sneered. Black lightning spread out from him as the center. A purple skeleton appeared out of thin air and slowly merged with the black lightning.
"I've said it, Sasuke," Naruto's voice deepened, each word as if soaked in the chill of the waterfall.
"Anyone who stands in the way of this path... I must strike down," he raised his head slightly, his gaze passing over Sasuke, as if staring at a more distant, heavier future. "Including you."
"What a braggart!" Sasuke roared angrily, and the Susanoo wreathed in black lightning violently attacked Naruto.
Naruto's gaze retracted, his eyes more determined than ever before. Just as Sasuke's attack was about to arrive, his body transformed into a streak of golden light and disappeared from in front of Sasuke.
"So fast!" The speed Naruto erupted with at this moment completely exceeded Sasuke's expectations. He had thought that after awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan, he would be able to keep up with Naruto's speed, but it was clear that Naruto had not used his full strength just now.
Appearing behind Sasuke, Naruto raised his hand and condensed a Rasengan, smashing it heavily into Sasuke's back. This time, Naruto no longer held anything back. He understood that if he wanted to escape from the current Sasuke, it would clearly be impossible without using his full power.
Sasuke, who was hit hard unexpectedly, fell heavily into the water pool, splashing up a large amount of water.
Sasuke quickly regrouped. A Chidori wreathed in black lightning exploded at the bottom of the pool. After breaking through the water's surface, he rushed towards Naruto at high speed.
Naruto's eyes sharpened. Eight chakra arms extended from his back and gathered in front of him. A jet-black ball of chakra rapidly condensed and compressed.
After the Tailed Beast Ball was condensed, Naruto reached out and gripped this sphere filled with terrifying destructive intent, and charged straight at the lightning that was rushing up from below.
At this critical point, on the verge of a new destructive collision—
Naruto's azure eyes, currently covered by the Nine-Tails' slit pupils, met Sasuke's cold Mangekyo gaze directly.
Through the pervading smoke, water vapor, and destructive energy fluctuations, through the ruined cliffs and roaring turbid currents of the Valley of the End.
Sasuke clearly saw that the icy layer of determination in Naruto's eyes, at that instant, cracked open, like the final groan of a glacier before its collapse.
But the smile on Naruto's face blossomed completely at this moment. That smile carried a gentle farewell.
His lips parted and closed. The voice was not loud, but it drowned out all the surrounding echoes, clearly penetrating space, carrying a strange calm, and slammed hard into Sasuke's eardrums, into the center of his Mangekyo's cold vision:
"Sorry, Sasuke... when I'm done with what I have to do, you can beat me up however you want."
The Tailed Beast Ball in Naruto's left palm let out a low roar. Golden chakra poured into it, and its light flared up.
The moment his voice fell, Sasuke's newly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan suddenly trembled violently! Deep within those cold patterns, what was reflected was not just the fatal golden light of the Rasengan, but also Naruto's gentle, farewell smile! That smile was more penetrating than any attack, viciously piercing through the Mangekyo's cold insight, straight to the deepest part of Sasuke's consciousness!
"Are you kidding me!" Sasuke roared loudly, viciously thrusting his Chidori towards the opponent.
Terrifying energy fluctuations once again erupted with the two at the center.
The mountains on both sides let out painful groans. The two giant statues symbolizing the legends of the past seemed so fragile in front of the shockwave. The statues, which were already teetering from the first impact, were almost instantly torn, melted, and stripped away by the energy! Countless house-sized boulders, like pellets flung by an invisible giant hand, were thrown into the distance, carrying destructive kinetic energy.
The air itself was burning, distorting! Wherever the shockwave passed, space itself trembled violently, blurring. All the vegetation, rocks, and landforms on the surface were wiped away as if by an invisible eraser, leaving only bare, molten earth that glowed red from the high temperature. The water in the pool below the center of the explosion was forcefully evaporated by 3 centimeters.
A giant, sky-blotting mushroom cloud of smoke churned and rose. This cloud was a mixture of countless pulverized rock dust, vaporized water, burning dust, and the residual, not-yet-fully-dissipated violent chakra energy from the core of the explosion. It presented a bizarre color of interwoven gray-black and dark red. Inside, residual lightning continued to flash and crackle, emitting dull echoes, like the last gasps of a dying behemoth. The dust cloud spread rapidly, swallowing the canyon, obscuring the sky, and turning daylight into an apocalyptic twilight yellow in an instant.
The air was filled with the pungent smell of ozone, the sulfurous smell of molten rock, the salty smell of evaporated lake water, and a... unique, suffocating smell of dead dust that follows destruction.
When the earth-shaking, ear-splitting roar finally faded, leaving only the continuous rumbling of collapsing mountains and the clatter of rolling stones, the Valley of the End was completely changed. The majestic cliffs on both sides were flattened and collapsed, forming huge gaps; the magnificent stone statues of the past became broken and battered, covered in cracks and scorch marks. Dense dust, saturated with a destructive aura, was still slowly settling, completely shrouding this once-sacred valley in a gray haze symbolizing finality and fragmentation.
The smoke and dust slowly dissipated. In the field, only Naruto was left standing on the surface of the water. However, he didn't look relaxed either. The originally brilliant golden Tailed Beast cloak had become somewhat dim. On the forehead protector on his forehead, winding scorch marks left by the black lightning were also visible.
Naruto gasped for breath. A chakra arm extended from behind him, fished the already unconscious Sasuke out of the near-boiling water pool, and threw him towards the shore.
After doing all this, Naruto exited Kurama Chakra Mode and turned to leave.
"Hey, are you planning to just leave like that?" Just then, a voice sounded from behind Naruto.
Hearing this voice, Naruto instinctively flinched, then turned his head with some difficulty, looking at the newcomer with a stiff expression.
"Teacher..."
Uchiha Douhuan held the unconscious Sasuke in one hand and looked at the completely stiff Naruto before him, a half-smile on his face.
"What do I do, what do I do? Big Brother Kurama?" Inside the seal space, Naruto asked in a panic. Naruto was very clear about his own strength. Although he could defeat Sasuke now, it didn't mean he could make any waves in front of Uchiha Douhuan.
However, the Nine-Tails in the seal space had already laid down and feigned sleep the first moment it sensed Uchiha Douhuan's appearance. It was best not to involve him when Naruto got his beating.
"Just running out like this, did you bring any money?" Uchiha Douhuan's voice sounded in Naruto's ear. "I don't want to hear a scandal in a few days that Konoha's Nine-Tails Jinchuriki is begging on the streets."
"Eh?" Uchiha Douhuan's words made Naruto freeze for a moment. It seemed his teacher wasn't here to forcibly take him back.
"Looks like you didn't," Uchiha Douhuan shook his head helplessly, took out a scroll from his body, and threw it over.
After Naruto caught it, he probed it with his chakra and found that this scroll was filled with banknotes and gold, as well as various foods.
"Teacher..." Naruto was also at a loss for words for a moment by Uchiha Douhuan's attitude.
"Sigh, Kado told me just a few days ago that he wanted to redevelop this place and its surroundings into some kind of special scenic spot to make money. It seems that's not possible now," Uchiha Douhuan said, shaking his head helplessly after surveying the surrounding wreckage.
"Teacher, I'm sorry," Naruto said.
"You should indeed be sorry," Uchiha Douhuan turned back, looked at Naruto, a few traces of annoyance appearing on his face. "You brat, if you wanted to go out and venture, couldn't you have just told me? Did you think I wouldn't let you go out for training? Now look what you've done, making such a huge commotion. I have no choice but to issue a wanted notice for you to save face. You have to be a rogue ninja now, whether you want to or not."
"Huh?" Naruto's mouth fell open. Uchiha Douhuan's words completely stumped him.
"However, before you go, can you tell your dear teacher what exactly you want to do?" Uchiha Douhuan asked with a half-smile.
"Time is tight, Teacher, let's fist bump," Naruto said, raising his right fist towards Uchiha Douhuan.
Naruto had no defense against Uchiha Douhuan, because he knew that if his teacher wanted to capture him, he wouldn't need a sneak attack at all. His current strength offered not a shred of resistance against him.
"You even learned this?" Seeing Naruto's action, a trace of astonishment also appeared on Uchiha Douhuan's face. He then came before Naruto and bumped his fist.
In the next instant, Uchiha Douhuan also understood Naruto's struggles during this period, the decision he made after understanding his own ninja way, as well as the things he planned to do and a grand plan he had conceived for the coming war of unification.
"Your idea and plan are a bit naive, but not entirely without feasibility," Uchiha Douhuan said with a nod after retracting his hand. "If, after you have traveled the ninja world, you still insist on your idea, then go ahead and do it boldly."
"Teacher..."
"I really didn't expect that among the three of you, you would be the first to truly find your own path," Uchiha Douhuan said with a smile. "Also, I have a mission for you here."
"A mission?" Naruto was stunned upon hearing this.
"Yes. While you are training in the ninja world, help me keep an eye out for a secret organization called 'Kara'."
(End of chapter)
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