Naruto: The Teaching System - 275

Chapter 275: Want to Kill Me? Tell Ōnoki to Come

“Heh. So Ōnoki’s pretty confident in his son’s strength?” Sawada laughed when he heard Kitsuchi’s words.

“No. I’ve already prepared to die in this battle,” Kitsuchi said evenly, face solemn.

Sawada’s gaze turned cold. He had come with a death wish.

“Neji, go find Yusuke and the others.” If the opponent was Kitsuchi, he couldn’t keep Neji here. Following him would be far more dangerous than fighting elsewhere on the field.

“Yes!” Neji shot Kitsuchi a glance, then slipped back in a single bound.

“I have to get stronger, strong enough to never be a burden again,” Neji thought as he left, clenching his fists tight. That was the only thought in his head.

Seeing Neji go, Sawada allowed himself a small breath. He looked at Kitsuchi and saw the man still hadn’t made a move.

“Can I ask why Ōnoki started this war?” Sawada’s question made Kitsuchi frown, then relax with a hint of resignation.

“Do you think that matters now?”

A blast split the ground.

“Earth Release: Fist Rock Technique!”

Kitsuchi slammed the earth. His right hand hardened into a massive stone fist and hammered down at Sawada. The ground was webbed with cracks.

Sawada had already leapt back the instant the fist fell. The spot he had been standing exploded into powder.

“Don’t think you can run!” Kitsuchi slapped his palms to the ground. Earth Release: Rock Lodging Destruction surged forth. For a hundred meters ahead, the rock strata heaved and shattered like an earthquake had struck. The ground under Sawada’s feet broke away, and he pitched into open air.

Twin lines whistled. Sawada flung two kunai on steel wires into the fractured rock and threaded through the falling debris, using the momentum to vault in one fluid rush straight at Kitsuchi.

Blue chakra flared in his palm.

“Chidori!”

His thrust speared at the back of Kitsuchi’s neck. A black, stony armor snapped into being. The Chidori shattered on contact. Kitsuchi caught Sawada’s wrist with a reverse grip and barked, “Got you!”

The stone fist roared down again.

Smoke burst. The blow hit nothing. Behind him, Sawada rose high into the air.

“Yang Release: Monstrous Strength!”

“Earth Release: Hardening Technique!”

Kitsuchi didn’t dare underestimate him. He cloaked himself in a granite-like carapace in an instant.

The air detonated. The shockwave blasted out from their clash, ripping the ground under Kitsuchi’s feet. Even armored, he staggered back several steps, eyes wide at the small figure before him.

This kid’s monstrous strength was even more outrageous than Akatsuchi’s. No—this was the signature of one of the Legendary Sannin, Tsunade.

His father had always called Konoha blessed, but facing Sawada head-on, Kitsuchi had to admit it was true. The man in front of him was more extreme than any genius he had ever seen.

“My father can be stubborn, but he is right about this. You have to die,” Kitsuchi said, face stripped of expression. If he had thought starting this war was laughable before, he didn’t now. Sawada had to be removed. A shinobi’s strength could surge before their twenties. The young man before him was, according to intel, not even nineteen.

“Oh? You want to kill me?” Sawada rolled his wrist, stepped in, and closed the distance in a blink. “Then tell Ōnoki to come. Maybe if the two of you work together, you’ll have a chance.”

Rage snapped through Kitsuchi. He stomped and roared, “Earth Release: Ultra Added Weight Rock Technique!”

Sawada’s body sank like a stone, as if a boulder had been strapped to his shoulders. This Earth Release was monstrous. Even at a distance, the added weight pressed on him.

But only for a moment.

Yang Release: Armament swept over him, and the crushing weight vanished. Sawada’s figure flashed forward in an instant.

“Lightning Cutter: Twin Thrust!”

Twin streams of lightning ripped from his palms, so fast even Kitsuchi’s eyes couldn’t track them.

“Speed is nothing by itself!” Kitsuchi snapped, forming a seal with one hand and thrusting upward. “Earth Release: Opening Earth Rising Excavation!”

The ground under Sawada collapsed. His lightning blades had just reached Kitsuchi when the earth split, and he dropped into a yawning fracture a hundred meters deep. He looked up to see the rock walls on both sides clamp shut like giant hands.

“Earth Release: Sandwich Technique!”

A mountain of stone blotted out the sky above him. No wonder they called him the one who commands the earth. His Earth Release is chained together without a seam.

Sawada had no intention of being buried. A mere mountain’s weight wouldn’t hold him.

Chakra coiled under his feet. “Heavenly Foot of Pain!”

The clamping strata shuddered, then split down the middle with a resounding crack. The ridge exploded outward, and boulders tumbled in every direction.

Sawada sprinted up the shower of shattered stone, right fist drawn back high.

“Hah!”

Kitsuchi bellowed, granite armor snapping back across his body. “You really think that trick works twice?”

Sawada’s right fist darkened to iron-gray as Yang Release Armament condensed. “Yang Release: Monstrous Strength, Fourth Stage!”

The air roared, and something cracked. Hairline fractures streaked across the armor before it burst into fragments. An invisible shockwave blossomed against Kitsuchi’s chest. He looked down at the fist touching him. There was no dramatic external devastation, but inside, his organs ruptured in an instant.

“You’re the enemy, but I’ll leave you a whole body,” Sawada said, pulling his fist back, voice cool.

“You’re strong…” Kitsuchi didn’t finish. His knees hit the ground, blood seeping from under the broken armor and sinking into the earth.

Sawada gave him a single glance, then turned and headed the way Neji had gone. He rubbed his right wrist with his left hand. Monstrous Strength, Fourth Stage, no longer worked only on the surface. The force passed through with an inch of force, detonating from within. It was his fusion of inch-force from Eight Gates training and Tsunade’s monstrous strength.

Dust blew across the field as Iwagakure reinforcements dropped beside Kitsuchi. One reached out—

“Don’t touch him!”

A jōnin snapped the warning, crouched before Kitsuchi, and asked in a tight voice, “Lord Kitsuchi?”