Chapter 215 Uchiha Touko VS
A Uchiha Touko and Konan rode a paper bird towards the northeast of the Land of Fire. Soon after, Deidara, along with Sasuke and the other two, caught up on a clay bird.
"Flying so fast?" Konan's expression changed when she saw Deidara standing directly in front of the clay bird, arms crossed, staring ahead. Deidara's flying speed was indeed beyond her expectations. Deidara had caught up in twenty minutes after picking up the others, seemingly with ease. With this ability to fly, he could easily qualify as a Special Jonin in any of the major ninja villages.
"Sensei." Behind Deidara, Sasuke and the other two greeted Uchiha Touko. Naruto's expression was the most anxious, as he was the closest to Konohamaru among the three.
"The three of you are here." Uchiha Touko nodded. "Deidara, you take these three with you, but don't follow too closely. If I get into a fight with the Raikage, the rescue will be your responsibility."
"Don't worry." Deidara nodded. "Naruto already told me on the way here that the kidnapped kid is his little brother, and that makes him my little brother too. If he dares to kidnap him, I'll make them fly."
The group traveled smoothly through the air, but it still took them half a day to catch up with the Cloud Village group who had been traveling all night, around dawn.
"Looks like it really is them." Uchiha Touko said with a cold smile. Their haste was obvious; they had something to hide.
"Hokage, do you need any help if the fight breaks out?" Konan asked at this moment.
"No need," Uchiha Touko said. "This is an internal matter for Konoha. Furthermore, in our future cooperation, Konoha and your Akatsuki should try to avoid any open involvement before the final battle."
"I understand." Konan nodded.
Uchiha Touko glanced at the Cloud Village group below, who were traveling at full speed under A's leadership. Compared to when A left Konoha, their group was significantly larger, clearly indicating that the enemy had been prepared.
Uchiha Touko sneered, drew his Lightning Bolt, and leaped down.
As Uchiha Touko's figure glided through the air, azure lightning began to gather around him, slicing through the night sky like a sharp arrow and landing heavily on the Cloud Village group's path.
Uchiha Touko made no attempt to conceal himself or launch a sneak attack; his appearance was a blatant declaration of his arrival.
A, hearing the thunder and lightning in the sky, stopped and stopped his subordinates behind him, staring intently at Uchiha Touko descending from the sky.
"Hokage?" After a while, Ai slowly spoke, "Hokage, you seem to have a lot of free time. Was it really necessary to escort us this far?"
"Not at all. The Hokage's work is quite busy. However, it seems you, Raikage, are even busier, having to rush back to Kumogakure so late at night." Uchiha Touko stroked the blade of the Swift Lightning Blade, and a layer of electricity slowly rose on its surface. "Our Konoha lost a child today. The security team's investigation revealed it's related to your Kumogakure delegation. Would you please come back with us for questioning?"
"It seems the Hokage has come with ill intentions." Seeing Uchiha Touko's stance, A knew that a fight was inevitable.
With that, A clenched his fists, and lightning crackled across his body.
"It seems the Raikage isn't planning on cooperating." Lightning-patterned kaleidoscope eyes flashed, and the silver eyeshadow of Sage Mode appeared beneath them, his aura surging. The Cloud Village members behind A were intimidated by this power and involuntarily took a few steps back.
"Hmph." A then unleashed his own aura without reservation, using it to shield his subordinates from Uchiha Touko's oppressive force. "Does Konoha intend to wage war against our Cloud Village?"
"Konoha has always cherished peace, but we are not afraid of war in the face of provocation," Uchiha Touko said. "Furthermore, you are the ones who have come!"
As Uchiha Touko finished speaking, he transformed into lightning, slicing through the darkness, and his swift lightning bolt slashed towards A.
Facing the attack, A showed no fear, his fist crackling with lightning as he met the blow.
The two exchanged a brief clash before retreating. Under the moonlight, the two figures, shrouded in lightning, clashed repeatedly, each impact unleashing a blinding white light.
While the two were locked in fierce combat, the main force of the Cloud Village behind A began to flee towards the border.
However, they failed to notice a large clay bird silently pursuing them from the sky.
"Konohamaru is indeed in their hands," Neji observed, sharing his vision with the other three. In his view, a middle-aged ninja in the middle of the Cloud Village below carried a sack on his back, containing a child of about eight years old, bound hand and foot. Who else could it be but Konohamaru?
"Deidara-senpai, I'll need your help intercepting their forces in the air later," Sasuke said. "Make as much noise as possible. We're very close to the border. The troops stationed there and the army from the Land of Hot Water have received the news and are heading this way. We should try to hold them off here while we rescue them."
"Why are you being so polite? Don't call me 'senpai,' just call me 'big brother' like Naruto does," Deidara said casually. "Make as much noise as you want, huh? Well, you'd better watch out for my spectacular performance."
"Naruto, Neji, let's go!" Sasuke nodded. Deidara then lowered the altitude of the giant bird slightly. The three of them jumped off and followed Sasuke towards the Cloud Village troops fleeing towards the border.
...
At this moment, the two Kage in the midst of fierce battle had finished their warm-up.
Ai, riding the lightning, roared as he charged towards Uchiha Touko. Lightning Release chakra coiled around his right arm ionized the air, creating a blinding white trail. Uchiha Touko's Mangekyou Sharingan slowly rotated—in his vision, twelve possible futures unfolded simultaneously like mirrors.
In the third image, the Raikage's fist would shatter the rock three meters to his left; the seventh image showed the opponent suddenly changing direction before contact; only in the ninth image would the lightning strike precisely where he stood.
"Lightning Smash!"
Just as Ai was about to touch Uchiha Touko's figure, Touko's form suddenly blurred. A bolt of lightning, crackling with energy, cleaved through the rock. Before the flying debris even hit the ground, six shuriken crackling with purple arcs of electricity attacked from different angles.
"Child's play!" Ai erupted with even more dazzling lightning, raising his hand to deflect the projectiles.
But beside the shuriken, flashes of electricity appeared, the magnetic field forming instantly altering the shuriken's trajectory and accelerating them a second time.
Purple lightning burst from the tip of the shuriken, and six lightning spears intertwined to form a cage.
A's pupils contracted sharply as the plasma sparks from the collision of his right fist, wreathed in lightning, and the lightning spear illuminated the entire canyon.
As the light faded, three charred cracks appeared on his right shoulder.
"Can you predict my movements?" A wiped the blood from his cheek, and spiderweb-like cracks suddenly appeared in the rock beneath his feet. "Then let's try this!"
Blue chakra enveloped his entire body like tangible flames, and A's speed instantly surged. Seven afterimages appeared simultaneously in the canyon, each hurtling towards Uchiha Touko with a different trajectory.
A's mastery of Lightning Release ninjutsu was clearly at its peak; in terms of ultimate speed, he even surpassed Uchiha Touko by a hair's breadth.
"Is this the ultimate speed that only the Flying Thunder God Technique can catch up to?" Uchiha Touko's Mangekyou Sharingan spun wildly, countless future images overlapping on his retina. The next second, Uchiha Touko formed the Tiger Seal.
Seven identical illusions appeared out of thin air, each assuming a different defensive stance, colliding with A's illusions one by one. Both A's lightning clones exploded, and A's true form appeared to the left of Dou Guang, his elbow strike, imbued with lightning release, piercing through the illusions.
The real Dou Guang had already appeared behind him, his Swift Lightning Blade striking down with a burst of lightning. The
Swift Lightning Blade, wreathed in azure lightning, struck behind A, the lightning above clashing with the protective electric arc around A's body, creating a piercing shriek. A grabbed the blade with his backhand, his left hand's Lightning Plow Blade aimed straight for Uchiha Dou Guang's throat, but the seemingly locked-down Uchiha Dou Guang suddenly transformed into thousands of bolts of lightning, scattering in all directions.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Thousand Rain!"
The scattered lightning instantly coalesced into countless fine lightning needles, shooting towards A.
A grunted, dozens of blood blossoms erupting from his body, but he instead revealed a ferocious smile: "That's more like it! Compared to Minato Namikaze, who can only dodge and weave, fighting you is much more interesting!" "
Is that so?" Uchiha Touko narrowed his eyes, "I must say, you are the strongest ninja I have faced since I became a ninja, but it's time to end the warm-up."
"Hmph, arrogant fool." A spat out a mouthful of blood, the deep blue chakra surrounding his body suddenly turning dark red, A's muscles swelled to an unbelievable degree, and the lightning chakra surging in his meridians once again broke through its limits. This time, even A's steel-like body seeped blood mist, showing that the price of this move was extremely high, but in exchange, A's speed as he charged towards Uchiha Touko directly broke through the limits of Uchiha Touko's eyesight.
In Dou Guang's eyes, the twelve clear futures were torn into hundreds and thousands of blurry fragments. As A's speed increased, the changes in the future multiplied, catching Dou Guang off guard and causing him to feel immense pressure, with tears of blood welling up in his eyes.
A's figure vanished completely, leaving only the shrill sound of air being torn apart from all directions. Dou Guang instinctively activated Susanoo.
"Bang!"
Dou Guang only realized that his opponent had attacked when the first punch struck Susanoo's ribs.
Cracks appeared as soon as the semi-transparent black skeleton emerged, followed by the second and third punches, attacks wrapped in lightning more than a hundred times per second, forcing the initial form of Susanoo to retreat.
"It's not over yet!" A's roar resonated with the thunder, his hands clenched into a hammer shape, "Lightning Release: Heavy Flow Burst!"
The lightning hammer, powerful enough to split mountains, crashed down, the ground beneath Dou Guang's feet trembling violently, the explosion raising a massive cloud of dust.
But amidst the smoke and dust, the complete Susanoo unfurled its wings, blotting out the sky. The giant, clad in samurai armor, stood over a hundred meters tall, its surface adorned with divine patterns. In its hands, the longswords Futsu-no-Mitama and Ame-no-Habakiri gleamed with a chilling light.
"The legendary complete Susanoo?" A gasped, looking up at the hundred-meter-tall behemoth, his face incredibly grave. The Land of Lightning, as the ancestral home of the Uchiha clan before their migration to Konoha, naturally held many stories of the Uchiha clan. But only now, facing this hundred-meter-tall giant, did A understand why Susanoo was called the Third Power in legends—it was a power only gods could possess.
"I admit, in terms of Lightning Release ninjutsu and taijutsu, you've surpassed me." Uchiha Touko, inside the Susanoo, looked down at A and said coldly, "But before Susanoo, your resistance ends here."
"Heh, the power of a god? How infuriating." A said, raising his head to look at Susanoo, curling his lip, then tearing off his tattered clothes to reveal steel-like black muscles.
A let out a deafening battle roar, compressing his Lightning Release chakra to its limit—his final ultimate technique, a forbidden jutsu that completely fused his body with lightning—
"Lightning Release: Tiger Slayer!"
Thunderclouds gathered in the sky, and a thick bolt of lightning struck A's body. The terrifying lightning struck A's body, and a layer of bright silver runes immediately appeared on his steel-like black muscles. Against this backdrop, A now resembled a black tiger poised to pounce.
But the instant he made his move, Uchiha Touko's Mangekyou Sharingan suddenly stopped spinning. In countless intersecting futures, he saw the decisive flaw: when A channeled chakra into his legs, his left knee would experience a 0.3-second delay due to an old injury.
The purple lightning spear, though delayed, struck first, precisely piercing the chakra node in A's left knee.
The rampaging lightning chakra backfired on its master, while Susanoo had already raised the divine swords in its hands.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Dragon Fang."
...
When the pillar of lightning that pierced the heavens and earth dissipated, the Fourth Raikage knelt on one knee in the charred crater, his body covered in charred wounds, yet he still stared intently at the slowly approaching Uchiha Touko.
"The Mangekyou Sharingan, truly lives up to its reputation." A struggled to his feet, hissing, trying to gather the last bit of chakra.
"Now, can you tell me your answer? Do you want war? Or peace?" Uchiha Touko said coldly.
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(End of Chapter)