The title of "Iron Fist" was not born merely from Ikki's preference for hand-to-hand combat during the Warring States period. It was born from his absolute, terrifying ability.
The earliest recorded instance of this power was during his legendary clash with the Uchiha clan. At the time, the clan head was not Uchiha Madara—who would later be feared as the Asura of the Shinobi—but his father, Uchiha Tajima.
It was during a siege led by Tajima that Ikki first unleashed the power that would cement his terrifying moniker. In that battle, the Uchiha threw everything they had at him: the hypnotic depths of the Sharingan, devastating Fire Release, masterful Shurikenjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu. All of it was violently crushed by Ikki's fists, which gleamed with a dense, black metallic luster.
Against those blackened fists, every trick and technique the Uchiha possessed was rendered utterly meaningless. Uchiha Tajima himself suffered irreversible, crushing internal injuries in the clash, succumbing to his wounds shortly after the battle.
From that day forward, the entire ninja world referred to that inexplicable, impenetrable power by one name: The Iron Fist!
"Lord Kazekage, beware his fists!" As the blood-soaked anecdotes of the Warring States flashed through her mind, Chiyo screamed, abandoning all decorum. Although her hope was razor-thin, she prayed that witnessing the legendary technique firsthand would finally snap Rasa out of his delusion.
"We must retreat, Lord Kazekage! That is the very power that suppressed the Senju and Uchiha brothers!" Ebizō stared at Ikki's Armament-hardened fist, his weathered face completely masked in horror and visceral anxiety. Ikki hadn't even launched a strike yet, but merely beholding that obsidian sheen was enough to choke Ebizō with the suffocating scent of death. He couldn't even fathom the devastation that would occur once that fist was actually swung.
I can't turn back! Hearing the elders' desperate pleas, Rasa's resolve wavered for a fraction of a second. But then he remembered how he had proudly dismissed their counsel before departing. He remembered the fanatical, worshipful roars of his army just moments ago. He had placed himself too high on a pedestal; he had spoken too many grandiose words.
To fall from such heights now would shatter him completely. Young, frivolous, and trapped by his own insurmountable pride, he realized that retreating now would be a spiritual death worse than anything Ikki could inflict.
"IKKI!"
Burying the last shred of hesitation and blind luck deep within his heart, Rasa roared. Abandoning all defense, he pushed his chakra coils past their absolute limits, maximizing the mass and density of his hovering Gold Dust Spears.
"Magnet Release? The Kazekage? The Hidden Sand?!" Ikki threw his head back and let out a booming laugh. "Hahaha! Take a punch from this old man!"
Facing a sky completely blotted out by a descending swarm of golden spears, Ikki stepped forward, pulled his hardened arm back, and punched.
He didn't aim at Rasa. He didn't aim at the spears. He simply punched the empty air.
BOOM!
But the moment that Armament-hardened fist completed its arc, Rasa, Chiyo, Ebizō, the hidden Konoha observers, and the thousands of Sand shinobi all realized the exact same terrifying thing: the world had suddenly lost its color.
As Ikki swung his Iron Fist, the very fabric of space warped, rippling with violent, purple-black fluctuations. The moment this energy manifested, it exploded outward like a tidal wave, instantly drowning the sky and the desert, violently driving away all natural light and color.
In that frozen second, every living soul standing on the border of Rain and Wind found their vision plunged into a suffocating, monochromatic void.
"The color... it's gone!" "What is happening?! Is this a Genjutsu?!" "Impossible! There isn't a Genjutsu in existence capable of trapping thousands of shinobi across a battlefield simultaneously!"
Yashamaru, Baki, and Yura—elite shinobi born and raised in the era of the Hidden Villages—were paralyzed by the apocalyptic sight. Ever since Ikki had reappeared, the intelligence divisions of all Five Great Nations had frantically unearthed old records of his abilities. But reading sterile words in a Bingo Book and attempting to comprehend them with a modern mindset could never convey the sheer, cosmic horror of the reality.
Only now, experiencing it in the flesh, did they finally understand the absolute despair and panic that had driven the legendary samurai and shinobi of the Warring States to madness.
"Now I finally understand..." Tsunade whispered, trembling in the shadows of a distant dune. "I understand why Granduncle Tobirama always warned us... He said if we ever saw the black fists, we had to run. Abandon the mission, abandon our pride, do whatever it takes—just run for our lives!"
"So this is what the clan archives meant..." Shikaku muttered, his usual lazy demeanor completely shattered.
"The 'obsidian torrent that drowns all creation'..." Inoichi breathed.
"This... this isn't the power of a human being," Choza gasped.
Tsunade, Shikaku Nara, Inoichi Yamanaka, and Choza Akamichi stared blankly at the world submerged in the violent, black-purple shockwave. The terror surging in their chests crashed over them like a tidal wave, refusing to recede.
As descendants of noble Konoha clans whose ancestors had fought in that bloody era, they had read the detailed descriptions of the "Iron Fist" passed down through the Senju and Ino-Shika-Cho lineages. But reading history was not the same as living it.
It was only now—watching the man swing the very fist that had terrorized the era of legends, witnessing the black void erase the world before their eyes—that they finally understood the sheer, suffocating dread their ancestors had felt when they penned those historical texts.
A/N: For this week, every 100 Powerstones will get ya'll an extra chapter! Thank you!