Chapter 112: 109 It was fun

In the dark of the night, at the flat peak of a mountain, illuminated only by the faint burning light of a nearby forest fire, stand two men.

One man stands calmly, with his pink hair and long black cardigan blowing in the wind as he faces his foe with a taunting smile.

Opposed to him, a tall and muscled dark skinned man, with a mane of pale white hair and a face of simmering rage stands with electricity beginning to arc off of his skin.

These are, of course, Hanabira and A.

And then, they move. The Raikage A rushes forward in a blue blur, at the same time, Hana does nothing more than raise his arm to point at the approaching Kage.

Then, white.

The previously dark night ???????????????????????????????? into a blinding white light that illuminates the entire mountain and forces the onlookers surrounding it to cover their eyes.

A brief pause follows the light, which is quickly followed by an equally deafening ????????????????.

It takes a moment for Hana to recover from the effects of his own Jutsu, but when he does, only one thought goes through his head.

Owwwww.

In hindsight, that may not have been the greatest of ideas.

I mean, I know that he's durable and that I will need something strong to take him down, but I forgot that I am not nearly so durable, and a full powered Railgun is not something I can survive.

The only reason I didn't just kill myself, is because he somehow managed to twist before my shot land, so it hit him diagonally, instead of head on. This caused some of the explosion to be sent off to the side, instead of simply right back at me.

But still, I barely managed to stop myself from flying off of the mountain by raising a hasty wall of earth and crashing into it.

Again, not the best idea, since stopping momentum by crashing into a wall is about the least intelligent thing you can do.

I am not on my a game right now, no pun intended.

I drag myself back to my feet, fully healed from a burst of my Medical Cloak and I look ahead as the dust settles to see the result of my Jutsu.

Heh, I can not deny how good it feels to see this level of destruction and know that it was I who caused it. But I won't be using it again in close quarters like that. 

It's also kind of annoying that the explosive seals my clones placed around the mountain are now all broken. Oops.

The mountain is no longer a flat peak, instead, it is a crater.

Like someone hollowed out the mountain. I am standing on the edge of the crater, still just as high as it was a moment earlier even as the centre of the mountain now seems to reach ground level.

I look up from the deep hole to the opposite side of the crater and sure enough, there stands A, his skin not even scratched despite the attack landing, even if it wasn't head on.

He really is one durable fellow, if I used that shot on just about anyone else then even if I missed, it would still likely obliterate them.

If I hit anyone else with it like I did him, they would simply cease to be. Yet here is this guy, not even a scratch on him.

It kind of pisses me off to be honest.

Which is probably why the next words that came out of my mouth did so.

"Oi!" I shout across the crater, "This crater is almost as gaping as your mother!"

As I finish my insulting words, I start running down the crater towards him with a smile on my face and laughter on my lips.

A is not laughing with me however, instead he meets my charge with a scream of rage.

We meet in the middle and A thrusts forward with his arm poised like a spear while I swing forward with a tanto coated in wind chakra.

My tanto and his hands meet in a loud clash that sends out a shockwave in every direction, cracking the ground beneath us.

Then, my tanto snaps in half and A's hand continues unimpeded for me.

I manage to twist enough to avoid having my heart crushed, but I don't move fast enough and his hand tears through my shoulder, taking my arm off at the base.

I don't scream out in pain, if fact, I simply ignore the loss of a limb and focus on using it as an opportunity to swing my other hand, arming myself with another tanto mid swing and coating it with wind chakra.

My sword lands against the arm that took my own, and promptly bounces of his skin like nothing.

Well damn.

That is the last though going through my head before I am flung away by a brutal kick, crashing into the crater wall with a bang and the now familiar pain of broken bones.

Ow.

I cough up some blood, as if to compliment my thoughts and quickly burst my Medical Cloak again so I can think clearly again, with the added benefit of not having a rib lodged into my lung anymore not to mention my arm growing back.

A good thing too, because I have to immediately duck low to the ground in order to avoid another spear, this one aiming to put a hole in my head.

Once I'm on the ground, I roll between his legs as he swings one to kick at me.

I need to activate Sage mode.

Really, I should have done so earlier, but I wanted to see how I would fare without it, I kind of forgot that I need to be standing still in order to gather Natural Energy.

Something that is difficult to do as one is fighting A, third to the name.

I have to jump into the air from my crouch to dodge again as A keeps the momentum of his kick to spin around and try again, then he tries to spear me as I'm in the air and vulnerable.

Time seems to slow down as I do the first thing that comes to mind, this fight being far too fast for me to have any kind of plan that isn't just instinct.

As I see his hand slowly approaching mine, my own freshly regenerated hands are already reaching out to meet his, moving just as slowly.

I grab a hold on his wrist right before the hand can pierce me and I lock my muscles, refusing to allow my arms to bend.

The result is that my whole body is pushed along with his thrust, and I let go before his arms fully straightens and am thrown away because of it.

As I flip in the air to land on my feet I flash brown, as the green of my Medical Cloak mixes with the constant orange for a moment in order to fix my broken arms.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to gather that last bit of Natural Energy. I only need a brief instant, since I tend to keep a store of Natural Energy inside me so that I can activate it in the blink of an eye.

However, A is upon me again before I can blink.

The moment before I touch the ground, I pour a quarter of my current chakra into a blade of wind, as concentrated I can make it and I launch it in front of me, catching A in the chest and staggering him.

I think I can see a line from where it made it past his armour, but it didn't even cut deep enough to draw blood, and he recovered fast enough that I couldn't even stop to enter Sage mode.

Instead, I make the earth beneath A drop while the earth I am standing on rises into the air.

Because I am moving, I can't get the chakra I need, but it does buy me a moment, and so I make a shadow clone and then jump down to meet A as he runs up the pillar of earth to reach me.

Once again we are running towards each other, only this time we are vertical and I have gravity on my side, something I would be rue to not take advantage of.

Right before we would meet, I draw my arm back, as if preparing a punch, only for a block of chakra metal to appear in front of me and between us, which I swiftly punch downwards into A.

It is heavy enough that with the force of my punch, it slams down into the ground and takes A with it.

I push off of the pillar to land a distance away and I flash once again to fix my newly broken arm.

I found that lump of chakra metal once by complete coincidence and I was planning on using it to get a discount for the order of weapons I was planning to place.

Seriously, the most expensive part of buying something made out of chakra metal is the cost of the materials, the shit is rare.

And I have a daughter who is going to be starting her Kunoichi training soon and just because I never really wanted to be a father, that doesn't mean I'm going to let her experience anything but the best the world has to offer.

Hence the need of chakra metal equipment.

Not to mention, any of my dwindling supply of friends would be happy to receive some chakra metal.

Before I can further ponder on the fact that the majority of my friends are dead, A gives me a wonderful distraction by bursting out from under the ground, incidentally destroying my chakra metal.

It annoys me enough that I can't help but speak up.

"Oi! Do you have any idea how expensive that is! Stop breaking my shit!" I yell at him and he responds by charging at me again, something that I actually manage to dodge this time, no longer underestimating him.

As he attempts to spear me and I dodge around his attacks without fighting back, only receiving a few cuts on the way, A shouts back at me.

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"Do not complain about me breaking your weapons when you throw them at me! I am the Strongest Shield and the Strongest Spear! Delay all you want but you will die here!"

Jeez, who pissed in your breakfast.

It should have been long enough by now.

The next time I dodge, I do so by launching myself backwards, flicking a spike of earth up with my feet as I go, which A promptly ignores, making it crumble to pieces by simply running through it.

I touch the ground and we are almost in arms reach, a distance both of us can cross in an instant.

But this time, I do not retreat, instead the next clash is more reminiscent of the first.

I crouch low and lean forward towards him, legs crouched and with my best katana appearing in my hand pointed towards his heart, meanwhile he has his arm pulled back, pointing a single finger in my direction that has such a concentration of chakra surrounding it that it's almost like I can see space itself distorting under his thrust.

Only, as we both commit to our thrusts, I transform in that instant, having popped my clone and entered Sage mode and I bring forth the majority of my remaining chakra, now enhanced by Senjutsu, and I coat all of it around my blade, condensing it as heavily as I can.

A's eyes widen seeing the change, but he has already committed to his strike and cannot go back, but he firms his resolve and pushes forward without hesitation.

The next instant, both of our strikes land, neither of us abandoning our attacks in order to avoid the others.

I see my blade cut through A's lightning armour in slow motion. I watch as it pierces his shoulder just missing it's target, but in a parody of what he did to me earlier my blade cuts straight through his shoulder, the force behind it amputating his arm at the base.

At the same time, I feel as the flesh of my own shoulder is pierced. I feel as A's hand pushes down through my shoulder and into my chest, turning my organs into mush and fried piles of slush.

His arm only exits my body at my lower back, him almost bisecting me with his arm.

A staggers backwards, making me fall to the side since my spine has a hole in it right now, my organs fall out of my body as I go down in a display that is incredibly unappealing.

I don't want to see that.

So I look away, focusing instead on A, watching as he picks up his arm and holds it by his side.

Heh, guess someone never studied Medical Jutsu.

Speaking of, I activate my Cloak and am back to full physical health in the blink of an eye.

I don't get up though. See, I am kind of low on chakra right now, as in, pretty much empty.

And he knows it. Thanks to the fucking curse, my chakra isn't hidden to anyone. 

He knows exactly how low I am right now.

I could still cast a few Jutsu, but we both know that I have ran out of time.

Fuck me. This certainly was not a part of my plan.

Damn if it wasn't fun though.

I give A a grin from where I lie as he stands and stares at me.

"This was fun you know? I haven't been able to dance like this in years. I almost forgot how good it feels, to dance along the line of death. To fight with everything you have, knowing that any less will leave you dead. It's not something you really get to experience anymore once you get so strong. Do you understand what I mean?"

I'm already dead.

There is no way out of this, or if there is then I can't see it. But I never claimed to be perfect. Not that I will simply die of course.

Thankfully, A actually is a man of honour, and he seems to be willing to humour me and my final words. He doesn't even seem upset anymore about all the things I said about his mother.

"I think I do understand. I had thought you a simple man child. But I think I see now. You must have been fighting since you were very young. Always the weakling. Always the disadvantaged. So you learnt to use tricks and cheap tactics.

"Anything you had to do to win even when you are always the weaker party. This style of combat is simply all you have known. But now, you are no longer weak and the thought of no longer having to struggle terrifies you."

What are you, my shrink? I'll have you know that I graduated therapy. Though, his words kind of do strike home.

Because he is right, isn't he? I just wanted things to be how they used to, back when I was happiest, fighting for my life, never sure if I would make it back to the village, side by side with Hound.

Those were the days. I miss them everyday. 

I focus back on the world as A isn't done talking yet.

"I had thought you a man of no honour. But I was wrong. You are simply a man, driven enough to fight past honour. This day, you have earned my respect."

I can't help it.

I laugh.

I laugh long and hard. Enough that I am just wheezing at the end, out of breath by the time I get a hold on myself.

"Thank you. I'll have you know, you have my respect as well, however I don't show respect the same way you do."

I speak jovially as I finally climb back to my feet, still in Sage mode but without much chakra in the tank.

Not that I need much.

"You see, in a battle, I show my respect by holding nothing back. Honour? Honour would stop me from using dirty tactics even though holding back would be a greater disrespect."

Do you know the best thing about my Railgun Jutsu?

It's that it hardly costs any chakra for what it is capable of.

And it is capable of a lot. Proof enough being the crater of a mountain in which we stand.

"Every enemy I have respected, is now dead. Which is why.. I can only apologise for respecting you so much."

All of the chakra I have left gathers in my arm, enhanced further by my being in Sage mode.

I see A's eyes widen as he notices the movement of my chakra, it being pretty obvious since I am moving it all to the same place.

I see panic enter his previously calm eyes as he rushes forward to kill me before I can do anything.

But I just smile as time pauses around me.

I look to the sky, thousands of stars shining down on us as we stand in this man made crater, our final resting place.

I turn my smile to A right as he is about to reach me, his arm less than a hairs length from my skull as my arm lights up from where I left it dangling by my side, simply pointing at the ground on which we stand.

Thank you.

This was the most fun I've had in years.

So, thank you.

Now, what was that phrase?

Ah, yes.

"Art is an explosion."

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