Chapter 324: Combat Training: The Terrifying Strength of Uchiha Akira
Naruto threw his head back and roared, his fingers locking into a cross seal. "Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Thick plumes of white smoke detonated across the training grounds. In an instant, hundreds of Uzumaki Naruto burst from the obscuring haze like a swarm of golden locusts, charging madly toward Uchiha Akira. Their battle cries shook the sky, a deafening chorus of determination as the human wave launched its synchronized assault.
Simultaneously, the other three genin sprang into action.
"Sand Coffin!" Gaara's hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seals. The solid earth beneath Akira's feet instantly pulverized into loose grains. Two colossal arms of compressed sand erupted from the ground, lunging from the left and right to crush their target.
"Wind Release: Great Sickle Weasel Technique!" Temari swung her massive Three-Star Fan in a wide, punishing arc. A violent hurricane howled into existence, churning with countless invisible, razor-sharp wind blades that tore through the air straight for Akira.
"Byakugan!" The veins around Hinata's lavender eyes bulged sharply. She dropped into her combat stance, her focus absolute. "Eight Trigrams Empty Palm!"
She thrust her palms forward, firing two invisible, high-pressure chakra shockwaves through the chaotic battlefield.
'Good coordination,' Akira noted, a faint smirk touching his lips.
The massive sand arms were mere inches from his shoulders, their crushing weight looming overhead. Akira merely swayed. His body blurred into a phantom afterimage, the heavy sand slamming into empty air where he had stood a fraction of a second prior.
Reappearing a dozen paces away, he calmly raised his gaze to the tidal wave of Naruto clones surging toward him.
His chest expanded as he drew in a slow, deep breath. The surrounding air seemed to instantly thin out, sucked into his lungs in a terrifying vacuum. Chakra flared in his throat, boiling hot and utterly destructive.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"
A jutsu ripped straight from the blood-soaked legends of the Uchiha Clan.
From Akira's lips, a literal sea of fire erupted. A torrential tsunami of crimson flames swept forward with an unstoppable, apocalyptic momentum. The sky above the training ground was instantly stained a doomsday red, the blinding light casting long, monstrous shadows. The ambient temperature spiked to a suffocating, skin-blistering extreme.
The fearless vanguard of Naruto's shadow clones did not even have time to scream. The moment they brushed against the leading edge of the inferno, the extreme heat evaporated them into nothingness.
Poof! Poof! Poof!
In a single breath, Naruto's proud human wave tactic was entirely eradicated. The super-standard Fire Release incinerated the clones like dry leaves caught in a blast furnace.
Hiding in the distance, the real Naruto watched the devastation, his jaw dropping so hard it practically unhinged. His blue eyes stretched wide with disbelief.
'That is way too exaggerated! Is that really just ninjutsu?!'
"Oh no!" Temari cried out, her face draining of color. Hinata mirrored her horror.
The sky-burning, ocean-boiling tide of flames did not lose a fraction of its momentum after wiping out the clones. It surged relentlessly toward their backline position, threatening to swallow them whole.
At the critical second, Gaara let out a guttural roar.
An endless, frantic stream of yellow sand geysered from the gourd on his back. It slammed into the earth and instantly erected a towering, incredibly thick wall of compressed earth in front of himself, Temari, and Hinata.
The sea of fire crashed into the sand wall with a deafening, explosive roar. The sheer kinetic force of the flames made the massive barrier tremble violently. The surface layer of sand superheated the instant it touched the fire, fusing and crystallizing into sheets of blackened glass.
Without wasting a breath, Gaara manipulated the remaining sand beneath their feet. He coiled it around Naruto, Temari, and Hinata, yanking them dozens of meters backward in a rapid retreat, barely escaping the lethal core radius of the blast zone.
"Hoo... hoo..." Temari panted heavily, her chest heaving as she stared at the scorched earth. Lingering terror gripped her heart.
'Is this... the true strength of Hokage-sama?'she thought, her grip on her iron fan trembling.'Just a casual strike carries such apocalyptic destructive power. How are we supposed to fight a monster like this?'
"Don't give up!" Naruto's sharp yell snapped Temari out of her despair. "This is just the beginning!"
There was no fear in Naruto's eyes. Instead, an even fiercer, blazing fighting spirit ignited within his gaze.
"Gaara!"
"Alright!" Gaara did not waste words. He slammed his hands onto the earth.
"Quicksand Waterfall Flow!"
The entire surface of the training ground shattered, transforming into a violent, churning ocean of sand. A localized tsunami of earth roared to life. Immediately, a dense pillar of sand shot up from the churning waves, launching Naruto high into the air.
"Wind Release: Wind Scythe Technique!" Temari swung her iron fan with everything she had, whipping up chaotic, howling air currents designed to disrupt Akira's footing and blind his vision.
A new round of their offensive had begun.
'Good reaction speed. Excellent tactical execution,'Akira evaluated silently, watching the coordinated assault unfold.'However... having just that is far from enough.'He stood perfectly still amidst the howling winds.'In the face of absolute speed and power, any tactic becomes painfully pale and weak.'
The moment that thought settled, the air around him snapped and crackled.
Blinding, azure lightning erupted from Akira's body. The ozone-rich scent of scorched air filled the battlefield.
Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
In a literal flash, Akira transformed into a living bolt of electricity. He charged wildly into the surging sea of sand. The churning earth, fully under Gaara's absolute control, was utterly useless against Akira's raw velocity. Towering sand walls and jagged sand spikes erupted to block his path, only to be violently shattered into dust as the lightning-clad Uchiha tore straight through them.
"He is too fast!" Hinata gasped, her Byakugan straining to its absolute limits, barely able to track the erratic blue afterimages zigzagging across the field.
High above, Naruto rode the sand pillar directly into Akira's path.
"Great Ball Rasengan!"
Naruto shrieked, his face contorted in fierce determination as he plunged from the sky, slamming the massive, swirling sphere of condensed chakra fiercely toward Akira's head. "Teacher! Take this!"
Akira looked up at the giant blue sphere descending upon him. He did not dodge. He did not even shift his stance to evade.
Instead, he raised his right hand.
Chakra flooded his palm. Lightning and fire intertwined, merging and spinning at a terrifying velocity. Within a fraction of a second, a Lightning-Fire Spiraling Sphere materialized—larger in size than Naruto's attack and vibrating with infinitely more violent, unstable energy.
'This level of power should be just enough to overpower him without killing him,' Akira calculated coldly.
The next second, the two jutsu collided in mid-air.
BOOM!
A deafening roar ripped through the training ground. A massive shockwave of distorted air, fire, and lightning expanded wildly in all directions, tearing up the earth and flattening the surrounding trees.
The stalemate lasted exactly one second.
Under the overwhelming, destructive pressure of Akira's elemental fusion, Naruto's Great Ball Rasengan buckled, fractured, and completely collapsed.
"Waaah!" Naruto screamed. The violent backlash of energy slammed into his chest. Like a kite with its string snapped, his body was launched backward, sent tumbling brutally through the air.
One move. Instant defeat.
"Naruto!"
"Naruto-kun!"
Temari and Hinata cried out in unison, panic lacing their voices.
But they had absolutely no time to check on their fallen teammate. The moment Naruto was sent flying, the crackle of electricity echoed again. Akira left a residual afterimage of lightning where he stood, instantly materializing directly in front of Gaara.
Gaara's teal eyes shrank to pinpricks.
Danger. Pure, unfiltered danger.
The dense sand armor clinging to his skin and the automatic sand shield hovering in front of him activated at maximum capacity, hardening into an impenetrable fortress of compressed minerals.
Akira's movement was terrifyingly simple. He pulled his arm back and threw a straight punch.
There was no flashy jutsu. Just unstoppable, crushing physical force.
Gaara's famed absolute defense crumbled like dry biscuit beneath the knuckles of the Uchiha. The fist punched clean through the hovering shield, shattered the final layer of hardened sand armor on Gaara's skin, and sank deep into his abdomen.
A sickening, muffled thud echoed across the field.
Gaara's eyes bulged sharply. His entire body folded inward, hunching into a tight, shrimp-like shape around Akira's fist. A mouthful of bitter stomach acid spewed from his lips as the sheer blunt-force trauma short-circuited his nervous system. His consciousness instantly plunged into absolute darkness. He collapsed to the dirt, out cold.
"Gaara!" Temari screamed, her eyes turning bloodshot. Bypassing all logic and fear, she gripped her heavy iron fan and swung it with murderous intent.
But in Akira's eyes, her desperate retaliation moved in agonizing slow motion.
A blur of motion. An afterimage.
Before the fan could even complete half its arc, Akira was already standing casually at Temari's side. He raised his hand and delivered a precise, gentle chop to the back of her neck.
Temari's vision instantly went black. Her grip on the fan loosened, her body going entirely limp as she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
In the span of mere heartbeats, only Hinata remained standing on the devastated battlefield.
The young Hyuga girl's face was pale, etched with deep shock and visceral fear. Her hands trembled slightly. Yet, she clamped her jaw shut, gritted her teeth, and absolutely refused to take a single step back.
"Gentle Fist!" Hinata declared, her voice shaking but resolute as she shifted her weight, dropping into the traditional opening stance of the Hyuga clan.
Akira paused, looking at the trembling girl. A genuine hint of approval flashed within his dark eyes.
"Very good, Hinata," his deep voice carried over the ruined earth. "To still maintain the will to fight in the face of such immense, suffocating pressure... you have done well."
His Sharingan spun lazily. With a mere glance, Akira cast a high-level genjutsu directly into her mind.
Hinata's Byakugan deactivated. A sudden, overwhelming wave of dizziness washed over her. Her eyes rolled back, and her body swayed, falling uncontrollably backward.
Akira stepped forward, his arm shooting out to steadily catch her before she could hit the ground.
The battle was over.
From the moment Naruto threw his first punch to the moment Hinata fell asleep, barely a single minute had passed.
Akira gently lowered the unconscious Hyuga girl to the soft earth. He straightened up, looking over the groaning and unconscious forms of his students, a satisfied smile curving his lips.
"Though still very green..." he murmured to the wind, "...everyone gave their all."
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