N:RTK. 7. The Fake Sage.

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is a creative work inspired by the Naruto universe created by Masashi Kishimoto. It is not intended for profit or to infringe upon any copyrights associated with the original series. All recognizable characters and settings belong to their respective creators.

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Summary of the previous chapter –

Satoru asked a few questions to Mito about the fight like what were the win and loose conditions for him. And also if he was going to be given some prep time, so that he could place of some trap seals and prepare for Hashirama's attack.

Mito obliged and gave him the information that he was seeking, after which he went away to some bushes so that he could change into his ninja suit. It was something that he had customized himself and spent almost all of his savings on.

After all, if he was going to perform the job of a Ninja where his life and death were going to depend on the kind of tools and armor he was wearing. Then he was going to wear the best that he could afford. After he done changing he came back to Mito so that the fight could start.

He was given 30 seconds to place his trap seals, and as the match began he quickly took off and started placing his seals. After the 30 seconds were over, he was immediately ambushed by Hashirama who tried to give him a flying kick.

Due to his honed instincts and vigilance he was able break Hashirama's genjutsu and then as Hashirama was started to use Ninjutsu, the chapter came to an end.

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Last time on Naruto: Road To Kage. Chapter 6: Setting The Stage & Suiting Up —

"You didn't hesitate. Good. Let's kick it up a notch." Hashirama said with a smile and immediately went through a few hand signs at speed that Satoru could barely see.

But fortunately, he was able to see that the jutsu began with the snake hand sign, so he knew it had to be an earth release technique.

Now Continuing —

Unfortunately, he didn't know any lightning techniques except the electrifying palm, which was used to paralyze enemy combatants in close quarter combat.

So, it would be useless if he tried to use it to counter an earth release, especially from an enemy that was of a rank higher than him.

Though from his knowledge of the anime he knew that most earth release jutsu fell under two categories: 1. A projectile like the [Earth Release: Rock Bullet Technique]. Or 2. A terraforming attack like the [Earth Release: Earth Spikes Technique].

Either way the only way for him to survive the speed of such attacks from a chunin level opponent was to use the substitution jutsu, to dodge the attack altogether.

So, without much delay he immediately threw two kunais at Hashirama, they looked completely normal to the naked eye. But the trick was within the wrapping around the handle of the kunais.

It was while he was creating seals that he came across a problem that made him understand why Ninja's had to tie the seal at the end of the kunai even though doing so alerted the enemy of said seal.

The issue was with regards to the overlapping of the sealing matrix, it was why a scroll that was rolled up, had to be unrolled before any seal written upon it could be activated.

But using the trick he had learnt from his previous life in coding, he created a priority matrix around the seal that activated the seal in parts. This allowed the seal to activate even when rolled or wrapped around a kunai.

Just like the ones he had just thrown at Hashirama, less than a second after he had done so.

The First unleashed a barrage of stone bullets that flew at speed he could barely even see at, but his instincts and quick hand signs kept him alive in the fight.

He substituted towards the direction of the poison gas seals he had planted before and immediately took out an antidote and placed it in his mouth. It would not only keep him from being poisoned but also artificially boost the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

This method wasn't as effective or powerful as opening the First Gate but he was trying to save that move for later to be used in a last ditch effort to boost himself even further and even the odds.

Meanwhile with the First Hokage, had just casually side-stepped all of Satoru's kunais but he was truly shocked to sense one of them flare with chakra and then explode in a blinding flash of white light while the others soon followed in a wave of blistering flames.

He quickly used the substitution jutsu without weaving even a single handsign to get away from the flames before it got to him and made his way towards the young prodigy who was starting to make him sweat a little from the heat.

Satoru was calmly observing how the Flashbang Kunai had barely slowed him down though as despite it exploding near his face he seemed to have already nearly healed himself from the blinding effects that would have taken other shinobis hours or even days to recover from.

His approach marked the activation of the noxious gas seals - sleeping gas, poison, hallucination, chakra dampening, and more. But the thing that hindered him the most even if briefly was the [Chakra Smokescreen Seal].

He couldn't understand how but somehow Satoru had recreated the effects of a signature Mist Village technique using smoke and Fuin-jutsu instead of mist. And though he couldn't see much he decided to assume that Satoru could so the moment his instincts screamed danger.

He immediately ducked and rolled, putting some good distance between himself and the projectile he was attacked with. He tried to focus his chakra in his ears to hear Satoru's heartbeat and footsteps.

As his chakra sensing capabilities were restricted by the combination of this Chakra Smokescreen and his wife's [Restriction Seal] that was her answer to reducing his capabilities in every way.

But he soon found out that he couldn't sense any sounds being made from Satoru, footsteps, heartbeat, breathing, etc. There was nothing to pick up on. He assumed that it must've been the work of a seal he made and he was right, it was the [Void Shroud Seal] at work.

It was one of Satoru's most tactically useful seals as it absorbed every kind of sound the user's body could make upto a certain limit, like footfalls, heartbeat, breathing, etc., something as loud as someone shouting or an explosive would obviously break the effect.

But it was a very useful tool nonetheless when being hidden and silent was key.

With no other options left he jumped to the tree tops to get away from the Smokescreen and then used his chakra to purge the negative effects of the Smokescreen from his system.

After doing so he tried to sense Satoru again, and even though he still couldn't pinpoint Satoru's exact location, he could somewhat feel the general direction he was in.

And for a ninja of his caliber that was enough, sadly his ninjutsu was restricted to Water and Earth Release Techniques. If he wasn't he would just have used two consecutive Wind Walls and blown that smoke cloud away.

Also he felt like this was enough, he had allowed the kid to demonstrate quite a few of his seals to impress his wife.

"Let's end this." He muttered under his breath as he finally channeled chakra throughout his body to strengthen himself. It would still put him on the level of a chunin ninja but now he was easily at the very peak of what that rank afforded it's holder.

What he planned on doing was simple; blitzing Satoru with overwhelming speed and strength in taijutsu. After empowering himself with chakra, he immediately rushed towards Satoru's direction through the tree branches in a zigzag pattern.

"Fuck, he's getting serious now." Satoru muttered to himself as he felt Hashirama's movement get pinged off of his seals. The man was making a beeline towards him at speeds that truly baffled him.

'So this is a chunin at peak speed.' he thought to himself as he made his preparations, got into position and started shooting arrows straight into the sky. He had been practicing this trick for weeks, he hoped he could pull it off properly.

But then the First Hokage's words came to mind, "I will be attacking you from all possible angles," the man had said. And now he was attacking in such a simple and straightforward manner.

His eyes widened as he remembered a jutsu that Kakashi had once used to catch Sasuke off guard, it was called [Earth Release: Hiding Like A Mole Technique] and it allowed its user to travel through the ground like it was water.

Satoru felt like he had finally understood the First Hokage's ploy, the man wanted to Blitz him with a decoy clone and when he was distracted he would be attacked from his blind spot. Most likely from the underground.

'Constant Vigilance.' He said to himself in his mind but then for a second he thought, 'or maybe I am over complicating things, the First Hokage is known to be an honest and straightforward man. He doesn't need to use tricks to defeat me.'

Even though he was thinking about his options and strategizing he was still making his move, he made his way towards the [Gravity Seals], because if Hashirama really did want to Blitz him, they were the only thing in his arsenal that stood a chance at slowing him down.

At least enough for him to land a few blows on the [God Of Shinobi] before he was forced to pull out the big guns. He thought to himself as he looked at his knuckles and his fingers, he sighed to himself ready to sacrifice whatever was needed to get through this trial.

R.O.B's words came to his mind, he was right about his new life being a bloody trial. Even with his talent in Fuinjutsu being at the kage level, due to him being restrained by his poor physique and his low chakra pool.

His nine months of hellish training hadn't yielded much results in terms of increase in chakra capacity or his physical abilities. He did make progress going from being a below average academy trainee to a low genin in both criterias.

But that still wasn't enough, he knew if he had been a member of the Shinobi clans, he could have easily doubled his gains. An Uchiha/Hyuga/Senju clan member would gain triple the amount of results he did.

The strength of a chunin would have been his, and he wouldn't have to resort to such untested and destructive seals just to eke out a win in a sparring match. He just hoped that the show that he was about to put on would be enough to impress Uzumaki Mito.

What he didn't know or realize as he was had been underestimating the ingenuity of his own seals was what he already shown was more than enough. Mito had been looking at Satoru like he was a treasure from the very moment he started setting up his trap seals and she just couldn't take her eyes off of him.

In the fights the different kinds of seals that he used, especially the one that allowed him to wrap a seal around the kunai was revolutionary.

She knew she had to teach him the [Anti-Tampering Seal] so that the enemy shinobi couldn't reverse engineer his seals. Even if they stopped the fight here, she had already seen enough to merit Satoru becoming her apprentice.

As she was thinking about these things Tobirama arrived. "Mito-nee-san."

"Ah, you are back, Tobi. So, what did you find about Satoru?" She asked casually, not taking her eye's off of Hashi-kun and Satoru-kun.

"Not much, he was a pretty average kid. Middle of the pack in class, great test scores but poor physical conditioning. His chakra pool and strength were in the lower half of his class though those improved slowly over the recent months.

"It must've been the results of his hellish training he mentioned before." She murmured to herself, she looked down when Tsunade tugged at the sleeve of her kimono.

"Baachan look, they're going to fight again." She said excitedly, enjoying the fight between her grandfather and this newcomer who wanted to become her grandmother's apprentice.

Back at the fight, with speed and strength befitting of an elite chunin, Hashirama broke through the tree line and jumped towards Satoru with kunai in hand making a jabbing motion towards his chest.

Though before he could make it halfway through and get to him, Satoru activated the gravity seals that surrounded them.

The effect was instantaneous, if there had been only one such seal, the effect wouldn't be so powerful. But the compounding effect of 10 such seals working together allowed him to stop the First Hokage's assault.

Hashirama felt his body weight increase by 10 times, it was so much that he couldn't complete the jump and fell down towards the ground midway. He rolled to break his fall, though the moment he was on his feet he saw two arrows dropping towards his vicinity from the sky.

He immediately made the horse sign and with a single swipe of his feet raised an earth dome around him. Taking that moment as a breather, he knelt and went through the hand signs for [Earth Release: Rock Clone Technique].

After creating the decoy, he began to go through a new set of hand signs as he felt the dome cracking from the explosions. He sped up and activated the [Earth Release: Hiding Like A Mole Technique].

As he was sinking into the ground he quickly went through another set of hand signs and placed a hand on his clone to activate the [Earth Release: Light-weight Rock Technique] on him.

As despite being the most durable out of all the elemental clones especially compared to the Shadow clones, unfortunately Rock clones can't use jutsu of their own.

But as he was attacking Satoru purely with Taijutsu in an attempt to overpower him with his higher physical stats so him not using any jutsu in the upcoming fight wouldn't look suspicious.

It was a technique he had learnt from fighting against the Tsuchikage of the Hidden Rock Village. He gave his clone the command to blitz Satoru, and sank into the ground, preparing to sneak attack him and knock him out.

The clone nodded and as the dome broke he made a run for Satoru immediately, sadly Hashirama couldn't spare too much chakra with his chunin level reserves to counteract the effects of the gravity seals.

But he was still able to do enough that the clone was able to move with enough agility that it dodged the raining arrows. Meanwhile Hashirama was wading his way underground waiting for the right opportunity to attack.

He didn't think that Satoru would know of the hiding-like a mole technique as it wasn't that well known or common despite its usefulness. Tobirama chalked it up to the perceived difficulty of using and the trauma it caused in its users as the reason.

Though the moment the dome went down the first hokage made a run towards him, instead of using the [Body Flicker Technique] raised his suspicions and when didn't use any nin-jutsu, instead only attacked with shurikens and kunai while he tried to close the gap.

Made him even more certain that this was just a clone and the real first hokage should be underground or making his preparations to attack from a different angle. So he made his preparations and got ready to activate the seal on his boots.

It was one of his favorite seals he had made till now, he called it the [Flash Step Seal] it mimicked the effects of flash step from bleach but with an added bonus.

Just like in its name, the moment he activated the seal it would produce an outward flashbang and propel him in the direction he was facing.

He knew it needed more work but against Ninja's who were much, much faster than him, he had realized very quickly that he would need an edge. After all he wouldn't always be lucky enough to find a log to substitute himself with.

It was a realization he came to when he almost died from the explosion that happened when he mixed sage chakra in the explosive seal.

The despair made him realize just how important speed truly is, tsunade was claimed to be the strongest shinobi in the elemental nations and she was barely considered in the rank of kage level ninjas.

But Minato who was the fastest shinobi in the elemental nations was considered among the ranks of [God of Shinobi] and had a flee on sight order placed on him by the Hidden villages. Speed reigns supreme.

This was why he created the [Flash Step Seal] so early on, because he might get hurt using it. But getting hurt using it was still 1000 times better than dying in a seal creation experiment gone wrong.

After he activated F.S.S, he didn't immediately use it though instead he patiently waited for the real Hashirama to reveal himself. He had five charges on his foot, he could "teleport" ten times but he knew his body could support such incredibly high speeds only 4 to 5 times before he broke something that can't easily be fixed or even pass out from the shock of the experience.

Meanwhile the clone was completely unhindered by the gas attacks as he was made of rocks, and when it came to attack range it immediately lunged towards Satoru with a kunai. By this time our budding fuin-jutsu prodigy had already sent dozens of arrows into the sky.

He was banking on using a few of those to catch Hashirama off guard while he was too engrossed in the fight between them. It was a longshot but he was throwing everything at the wall to see if any stuck.

As he got into a physical bout with a clone he blocked its kick with his bow and bracers, and rolled backwards to cancel the force of the blow; and also to put some distance between.

He was surprised by how weak the attacks were, was it because it was a clone or was it something else. He thought to himself as he threw a few shurikens, but as he launched them he felt the ground beneath him tremble slightly.

Without hesitating for even a split second more, he opened [The Gate of Opening] of the [Eight Inner Gates], the boost in perception and agility allowed to jump a little so when Hashirama's hands burst out of the ground. He was already mid jump, and when Hashirama finally came up halfway through.

He was able to lash out with a kick at Hashirama's head and activate the [Flash Step Seal] for its added effect. Unfortunately for him despite half of body being underground Hashirama wasn't a kage for nothing and he was able to quite effortlessly dodge the kick in the very last second.

Grinning, as if he had won, he tried to grab Satoru's leg as it hit shoulder. But he was not ready to be hit by another flashbang and before his fingers could grab him, the kid was already gone. His senses told he was in mid air behind him and he also heard arrows making their way towards him.

Thinking on his feet, he immediately got out of ground, and as he got up he was once again under the influence of the gravity seals. He sighed as he used a single hand to use the [Body Flicker Technique] in Satoru's general direction, dodging any projectiles heading his way.

By the time he used the body flicker again his eyes were already healed enough that he could see exactly where our protagonist was hiding. In his pursuit he had made it outside the range of the gravity seals and the effects of the Chakra Smokescreen had also been flushed out of his body.

He was in peak condition once again, while Satoru was already feeling like throwing up. The high speed movement of the flash step seal was something that he had been preparing himself for in the last week of its development.

But a week of training just wasn't enough time to get used to that kind of sensation. After all, using the body flicker technique is not something one can do while they are a genin. It was a technique mostly used by experienced chunins and jonins.

So how was he able to endure the usage of the Flash Step which mimicked its effect? It was because he opened [The First Gate: Kaimon]. Opening it removed the brain's restraints on the user's muscles and allowed them to use the full 100% capacity of their strength and speed.

His instincts screamed danger, as he just saw the First Hokage just flicker right in front of him with his fist flying towards his head, to knock him out. But instead of panicking, he just sighed, upset at hitting his limit so soon.

Right as the fist was about to hit him, there was a huge *BANG* as Hashirama and him were launched away from each other with Hashirama getting hit by something in the stomach and flying off.

That something was an empowered attack using the special seal that Satoru had planted on his fingers. It was an Chakra Array seal that allowed him to flow the sage chakra from his [Fake Sage Seal] towards the part of the body he had inscribed the seal on.

If he moved his body while it was temporarily empowered by the Sage Chakra, he would gain strength comparable to that of a Jonin. But it would also shatter the bones and tear the muscles whatever part of his body he was moving using the sage chakra.

Basically he could punch someone with the strength of a jonin but after that one punch, his hand would be completely wasted for the rest of the duration of the fight.

So he had to come up with a way to minimize the damage that he would be doing to his body using this technique, because his poor physique could only take so much, before it gave up on him.

Before even testing out this technique he had to first create the [Force Absorption seal]. So that he won't just blow off his limbs from pushback while using this technique.

Though using his fingers as a way of minimising the damage from the pushback of the attack was something that he was inspired from watching Deku fight against Todorki in the U.A Sports Festival Arc. It still hurt like hell and made him want to kill himself for even doing it, so he named it the [Finger Flick of Death].

— To be continued…

In the next episode of Kaiju No. 8

Cough* *Cough*

I meant in the next chapter of Naruto: Road to Kage – Chapter 8: Sage vs Sage, Fake vs Sun.

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Word Count: 3,392 words (without the author's notes and disclaimer.)

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{Closing Author's Note: Thanks for reading my Naruto fanfic, this is part of my exclusive works that's only available here on pat. reon.

With 12 additional chapters available on patreon and the link is in the author's thoughts section at the bottom of this chapter.

Anyways, I hope everyone is happy and healthy, this is bye for now but I will be back in a few hours with the H:HHS chapter.

The chapter got delayed because yesterday there was a storm in my area and it was pretty bad.. like the electric poles were broken.. that's how bad it was.

Took some time to fix and till that time I was completely out of electricity or internet. So yeah not a good time, it was sooo hot, anyways I hope you liked the chapter if you got any feedback please let me know. Till then, I hope you have a beautiful day}