58 Face Off!

As Naruto crashed for a few meters on the ground, I slowly made my way towards his fallen form.

Looking at his unconscious form Kei smiled lightly and spoke.

"Just accept when you've lost, do you think using the same trick as with Neji two years ago would work with me? You underestimate me too much."

The ground behind the Hokage broke as Naruto appeared with a Rasengan in his hand.

Sidestepping in the right Kei kicked back his right leg, making Naruto fall to one knee, grabbed his over-extended right hand at the wrist and the elbow, using it to redirect his arm back to his torso while keeping the tenketsu points open forcefully.

Naruto looked down with wide-opened eyes as the Rasengan hovered over his chest.

Slowly pushing it in Kei looked amused as Naruto's eyes widened even more and he could see the slightest fear behind them.

Clothes tore as a big hole was opened in Naruto's clothes and the Rasengan disappeared right above it, Kei letting his arm go.

"So… disappointing. You either outlast or surprise your enemies. Maybe put in a couple of surprises here and there, but essentially you are a one-trick pony compared to most shinobi. Did Jiraya only teach you this much? Is this what two years of training efforts amount to?"

As Naruto raised his head a knee found its way below his chin, prompting him up on his legs much quicker as his world started spinning and Naruto's vision got blurry, but it was only beginning.

A right hook from the Hokage sent blood flying from Naruto's mouth, and a left hook and a right one and again and again. Naruto was slowly but surely brutalized as more and more hits impacted him…

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Jiraya looked at the scene and made to interfere, taking a step forward but soon found himself stuck. Looking at his legs he eyed Shikaku and narrowed his eyes.

"What do you think you're doing?" – Jiraya asked as he narrowed his eyes.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking that? Do you think disobeying the Hokage's orders would go overlooked simply because you are a Sannin? Think carefully before you move Jiraya."

Looking around him Jiraya discovered dozens of anbu waiting to strike at the two agitated Sannin.

As he weighed his options the ground below Tsunade's feet cracked as she took a step forwards but also found herself stuck.

As she turned her head to Shikaku she realized it wasn't him and looked at Shikamaru who was in front of her together with the others standing approximately 10 meters away from them, ignorant to the current tension between the senior shinobi behind them.

Shikamaru looked back from the corner of his eyes as he acted ignorantly to the situation.

"Don't underestimate me." – Tsunade whispered as she forcefully took one more step but was forced to stop once again as she felt two presences behind her.

"Please do not interfere Tsunade-sama." – A sweet voice was heard from behind her as she saw Hinata and Neji in a Taijutsu stance, Byakugan focused and palms opened with a mere cm separating them from her back.

While Neji and Hinata were a natural threat to Tsunade due to her taijutsu style, being trained by the current Hokage, even if only for a short time, brought their threat level to an unknown level. Normally that would only mean that she would have to burn them out quickly, hitting them with superior speed, but with Shikamaru already having a grip on her, the close distance that did not give her time to break out and the abnormally high number of anbu hidden in the trees made it a really dumb decision to start a fight.

"Tsunade… we are in the village right now, don't do anything rash." – Jiraya warned but she could see the underlying meaning. The village was Kei's territory. Any commotion would be met with thousands of shinobi in addition to the Hokage. Only in politics could Kei be faced head-on inside the village. The odds were against them from the beginning.

"Shikaku, I thought you were better than this. Don't tell me you can't see that what he is doing is wrong."

Shikaku looked at him and only sighed.

"You are the one that cannot see Jiraya. In the past 100 years, there have been 3 shinobi wars, all with the purpose of destroying Konoha."

"And yet we have endured." – Jiraya said.

"We have merely scraped by, not only what we have built being torn down but also our foundation. So many lives just because we had to keep the moral high ground. I would also gladly lay mine down as well… but I cannot do the same for my son."

"Then we can find another way, a road to peace that doesn't need to be paved with so much blood." – Jiraya said as he tried to convince him.

"And how long would that take. What if by the time I'm old, weak, and feeble you still haven't found a way, do I stand and watch without any way to change things, would I already have the corpse of my son delivered to my doorstep? I am a clan head now, a shinobi general at times of war, the highest position I can achieve within my life. At this moment and for the foreseeable future I have the power to actively help change things."

"And you think it will be worth it in the end, the cost for all this so-called change?"

Shikaku merely shook his head as he looked at Jiraya.

"I can't expect you to understand, you have no child of your own, so you don't understand how a parent values theirs'. You are perturbed by the fact that blood will have to be spilled, many lives will have to be cut short… but what you don't understand is that one way or another that is going to happen. We are simply doing our best that, for once, it won't be the lives of the Leaf Village lying in the cold ground once this is all over."