The sight was overwhelming. The sheer volu of the incoming Rasengans bathed the battlefield in a brilliant light as they launched toward Arthur in a coordinated assault from multiple directions, the force of their combined power creating an orchestra of roars and explosive sounds that echoed across the land.
The Rasengans all found their target, breaking the Long Blade and slamming into Arthur while erupting with explosive force. Each explosion sent shockwaves rippling through the landscape, sending plus of dust and debris soaring into the air.
Then ca the explosion—a deafening sound that shook the very foundations of the earth, a blast so loud that it could be felt for miles around beyond the clearing.
As the dust finally settled, Naruto found himself several feet away, staring into the hazy aftermath. He furrowed his brows and wondered if his strategy had worked.
As he felt his heart pound in his chest, he searched for any sign of his opponent.
"Why can't I sense him?!" he growled to himself.
Then his breath caught in his throat when he heard from behind: "It doesn't matter who you think you are, boy..."
Naruto whipped around just in ti to see Arthur casually brushing off the dust from his now-tattered dress shirt!
Just what sort of man could have possibly been capable of having withstood that deadly attack?
Naruto was left beyond flabbergasted as Arthur tore off his garnt to reveal that his body was completely unmarred.
Arthur was honestly impressed by all of Naruto's attempts. Each attack had been well-tid, coordinated flawlessly, and even executed without much opening. More importantly, every single one of them was derived from video gas, sothing Arthur had not personally understood.
Why else would he choose to voluntarily tank those hits? They were simply just new to him, so he felt like testing the boy's strength.
Before Naruto could react, Arthur closed the distance and struck. In one motion, he backhanded Naruto with a force that sent him stumbling sideways. Before Naruto could regain his footing, he delivered a vicious punch to his gut that knocked the wind out of the boy.
"You can try as hard as you'd like," Arthur continued. He tripped Naruto, bringing him to the air. "As much as you'd like." Then he seized the boy by the ankles. "But I'll be here to make sure you struggle for all eternity." With one move, he finally slamd him on the ground with an impact so great it ford a large crater several ters long.
Arthur then lifted Naruto off the ground with one hand. Trying to shake off the pain, Naruto glared at him and managed to shout, "Y... you're wrong!"
Grabbing a kunai from his gear, he swiped at Arthur. But Arthur was quick; he easily caught Naruto's wrist in a vice-like grip, halting the attack before it could connect.
Smiling, Naruto shifted his grip, opening his palm to reveal the kunai had a paper bomb clamped to it. "Boom..."
The bomb detonated in a flash of light and sound, sending fire and debris outward. It gave Naruto just the opportunity he needed to propel himself backward and create distance.
Knowing that the respite wouldn't last, he focused, drawing in more chakra from the Nine-Tails.
"Planetary Rasengan!"
A large Rasengan was summoned as three smaller ones began to orbit around it. He then charged into the debris, intent on driving the attack ho.
Arthur stood there, unfazed by both the incoming technique and the earlier explosion. With an icy deanour, he awaited the impending collision. Then, as Naruto finally closed the distance, Arthur brought forth another weapon and encased it in ice: Hirakarei.
Bang!
The collision sent shockwaves rippling through the area with a fiery eruption of chakra intertwining with the frozen weapon. The power of the Planetary Rasengan began crashing against the ice that consud the space around them.
As the weapon began to crack under the pressure, Naruto roared, "It's over!"
A blinding light later, and shards of ice were seen flying in all directions. The force of Naruto's attack had knocked Hirakarei away, leaving Arthur bemused.
In that mont, at such a close distance, Naruto summoned a chakra arm with another giant Rasengan ready to puml his opponent down.
But Arthur was far from defeated. Chakra chains erupted from the ground beneath Naruto at the last possible second and constricted around his form. They quickly pulled him away before swinging him like a ragdoll and then slamming him with great force against the ground.
Arthur looked at where Hirakarei had fallen. To his disappointnt, even with his protective ice, that weapon had also broken.
'Does he have any idea how long those take to fix?'
Naruto could barely regain his bearings before the chains retracted, allowing him to recover.
Arthur turned to him, unimpressed but intrigued as he regarded the boy still struggling to rise. "I hope that's not the best the great Naruto Uzumaki is capable of..."
"I won't back down, not now or ever! That's—"
"Your ninja way?" Arthur mocked, knowing the main character's punchline.
Although surprised, Naruto wasn't rattled. Dying here was enough of a reminder to keep him from losing his cool.
He quickly composed himself and leapt high into the sky. Arthur watched as his flaming silhouette frad against the expanse of the moon. This was Naruto's mont—his ti to shine.
He lifted his hand, summoning two extra arms. A swirling sphere of chakra spun rapidly over his hands, a technique Arthur knew far too well.
"Rasenshuriken!"
Naruto hurled it as Arthur watched with keen eyes. With a slight tilt of his body, he dodged the incoming attack at the last second.
Yet Naruto had anticipated this, hence why he never disconnected his chakra arm from the technique. He twisted that arm mid-motion and threw the Rasenshuriken. The technique scread through the ground, rupturing it as it rushed toward Arthur's back.
But Arthur was already prepared. In a fluid motion, he flipped, finding himself parallel to the attacking technique as he narrowly dodged it by re inches.
Naruto landed right in front of his own incoming technique before quickly catching it with one hand and reconnecting his chakra with it. Then, without hesitating, he once again threw the swirling mass of chakra at point-blank range.
In an unbelievable display of agility, Arthur contorted his body backward, narrowly escaping the attack at the last mont for the third ti.
The explosion behind him sent shockwaves through the air, and debris flew in every direction as Naruto leapt back in disbelief.
Arthur's speed far surpassed any opponent he had faced before, but how could Arthur have possibly known Naruto's strategy?
Simple: that was the sa move he would use against the third Raikage three years from now during the war. Arthur was well aware of it the mont he saw the Rasenshuriken was still connected to his chakra arm.
Who could bla the boy for being so stunned when everything he was, is, and can be was all known by Arthur Bennett?
As Naruto shook off the shock, he saw Arthur preparing for a counterattack. Naruto quickly leapt upward with a hand sign.
"Summoning jutsu!"
A giant green and white frog landed with a thud, barely missing Arthur, who just managed to sidestep in ti.
"Darn it!" Naruto muttered under his breath as he landed. "I can't lose here!"
But just what the heck was happening? All his tactics were intended to crush Arthur, yet they had all been failing, leaving Naruto questioning his choices.
Was Arthur truly that much stronger or faster than the main character's Nine-Tailed Chakra Mode? No. It wasn't that Arthur was greater—it was that this Naruto had not yet undergone the grueling trials that had defined him in the tiline from which he originally hailed.
This Naruto had a missing catalog in his growth. He hadn't faced the sa struggles or adversities necessary to hone his abilities. No encounters with Haku that tested his bond with Sasuke, no desperate escape from Orochimaru in the Forest of Death.
This Naruto had entirely skipped those learning experiences. He had never been thrown off a cliff to force him to confront the Nine-Tails properly; he hadn't proven to anyone during the finals of the Chūnin Exams against Neji; he had never fought alongside Gaara, battling the One-Tails while desperately trying to protect his friends.
More than that, he had never lost to Sasuke at the Final Valley, an experience that had once shattered him, only to rebuild him into the ninja he had to beco.
This Naruto, while powerful, remained an overgrown wannabe, soone who had been granted everything without the hard-won blood, sweat, and tears that forged true strength.
"Just more digital trash underneath my feet..." Arthur mocked.
Naruto stood at the edge of the battlefield, frustrated as he considered his options. Then sothing finally hit him: was it Arthur that had orchestrated that mission to lure him here? And if he did, what was he possibly after?
The only thing Naruto had that almost everyone wanted was the Nine-Tails, so that had to be it.
Arthur, however, was no ordinary adversary. The aura around him hinted at an unparalleled power, one that could thwart Naruto's efforts effortlessly. He had to have an ulterior motive for coming here.
Naruto was not about to back down, especially if his opponent was after his Tailed Beast.
First, he needed to find a way to break through Arthur's bizarre defenses. "Multi-shadow clone jutsu!" Dozens of copies of himself sprang into existence. "Now!"
In unison, the clones grabbed their shuriken and launched hundreds of them toward Arthur. To their astonishnt, Arthur remained unmoving with his eyes closed despite the sound of hundreds of tals slicing through the air. He just stood there like a statue.
The many shuriken struck him, colliding with his body, but instead of piercing flesh or causing harm, they simply bounced away, falling to the ground.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
All the Narutos were caught off guard. What kind of defense was this?
While he was still being bombarded, they tried to verify whether he was utilizing a technique. Yet there was none—there were no tricks involved. Arthur's skin was simply tougher than anything Naruto had ever encountered.
It was ti to escalate the conflict of the still on-going shuriken and try sothing new.
"Wind style: great breakthrough!"
The clones added a powerful gust of wind to their trajectory. This ti, as more weapons were launched, they were imbued with a force that could shred through obstacles.
Arthur finally opened his eyes upon feeling the shift in the air. He quickly brought out the Boltswords and the clash began.
He whirled into motion as his two blades wove through the storm of shuriken with a finesse that made Naruto's head spin. Each blade blurred and deflected every single shuriken.
Yet Naruto wasn't ready to concede defeat. His clones pushed harder by adding kunai, large shuriken, and anything they had on them to the flurry of projectiles. But no matter how many weapons were thrown, Arthur continued to evade and deflect them. It was as though he was in tune with every movent, avoiding the onslaught like a dancer moving gracefully across glass.
Annoyed, Naruto used his next technique: "Wind style: vacuum bullets!"
This was an attack that could pierce through flesh, first used by Danzo Shimura. To think that the main character had been taught it.
Several clones took deep breaths, channeling their wind chakra into compact blasts. One after another, they exhaled, unleashing small but powerful wind aid directly at their single opponent.
Arthur was far from shaken; he continued dancing to block and dodge every attack that ca his way. His movents were so srizing that anyone who saw them would be utterly bewildered.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
The onslaught finally began to weaken.
After the last kunai spun aimlessly in the air, Arthur dematerialized his weapons and caught the kunai before it fell while saying, "Impressive... for soone who abuses the Nine-Tails..."
Naruto stood frozen, processing the insult. What had he just witnessed? All the weapons that had been thrown and the waves of wind techniques directed toward his opponent hadn't done a single thing.
It then dawned on Naruto—an understanding he hadn't considered before: from the beginning, Arthur had no blind spots!
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