You Gotta Party for your right to fight... hold up what?

Man that was a fun date last night, though I got Tsunade to open up to me a bit, I guess it wasn't complete since the mission didn't go off. Well I didn't expect it to be that easy either so I don't really mind. Granted I know she seemed off putting from the anime it was pretty easy to tell how caring she is as well, I just want her to realize she doesn't have to be closed off to everyone and end up lonely.

I pet Arthur for a bit while I wait for something to let me know it's time, and before I fell asleep last night I unsummoned then resummoned all of the shadow clones I had out. I didn't learn anything but I did learn some things before I passed out, the tigers were apparently trying to torment my shadow clones but they kept flashing away too fast and that the dragons kept trying to study my clones. Well they haven't seen humans in a long time so I'm not too surprised, though when I go to the tigers I will have to teach them a lesson.

I sit in my room and slowly inhale the air since I discovered from my breathing technique that if I actively try to breathe better not only do I regain stamina faster but I also regenerate my chakra faster! Who would've thought breathing right would help out a person so much. Neat huh?

After waiting for a few hours I had regained a majority of my chakra and was just trying to get a little bit more in when there was a knock on my door. I stood up and smiled to himself how nervous I am, then opened the door and saw Jiraiya with a smile on his face.

He then talks to me while chuckling," Man I can't believe it haha, you're actually going to fight him. Man you're going to get your ass beat. Heh, well let's get you there Joe! I've put bets on you winning in the off chance you really do win by the way" Have you ever been tempted to lose because someone will profit if you win?

Oh well, I respond to Jiraiya with a, "Oh no, I suddenly feel like as soon as I go fight I will lose all my strength" I grab my chest and act over dramatic, "Carry on without me... Jiraiya." I reach out with my free hand and pretend gasp on the floor.

Jiraiya looks at me and chuckles, "Ohh nooooo who will I share the reward with, and how will I tell Tsunade that Joe has died in an oh so tragic manner. Woe is me, oh woe is me." He chuckled a bit at the beginning but as his little speech went on he got more and more over dramatic, and when I looked at him he had put the back of his hand against his forehead to further cement just how over the top he was being.

I stand up and smile at him before saying, "And with a miracle he is reborn, for he does not wish to lose out on monetary gain!" I chuckle a bit at the end and lock the door behind me and Jiraiya.

He then pats me on the back, "Wow, well wait till I tell Tsunade that you came back to life because of money and not her~" He chuckles a bit while he says that since he knows fully that I said I was interested in the money on purpose.

I grab his arm and smile, "Heh, she'd probably laugh. Or wait, I'm thinking of what she'd do after I tell her you were peeking on girls again hehe." Suddenly he stops and goes pale as he realizes the impact of what I just said, then he shivers a bit before silently walking forward. Wow do I really have that much dirt on him with that one phrase? I can smell a plan a brewin.

After walking for half an hour we were suddenly in the middle of a massive sea of people heading in the same direction as us, so we both leaped up and traveled by rooftop to avoid everyone, and after a few moments we finally arrived at the street that the massive arena was at. We hopped down and entered a side entrance where a couple Anbu were, they confirmed my identity then let both of us it.

We got to a small area where there was some food prepared, probably to keep us entertained while we wait for the arena to fill. I wasn't too hungry though, I blame pancakes, bacon, and BBQ for that, so I decide to sit down and just work on using the breathing techniques to get some more Chakra since I am so close to being full, but it is better to be safe, just in case.

Jiraiya left right after taking me here, so he must have gone to meet up with Minato and Tsunade, maybe even Orochimaru. After waiting for half an hour and still not being quite full on chakra a man walks in and talks to me, "If you are ready sir the fight will begin shortly. If you will follow me please sir?"

I nod and stand up stretching myself out a bit, this will probably be one of the hardest fights I'll have I feel. As I follow the man I see the light in the distance grow more and more until I am in a place that should be called a park, not an arena.

There's a waterfall over to my left that feeds a river across the field of grass I am standing on, there are trees scattered about, a breeze is going through the arena, and well as for earth I am standing on it. This place is set to make things as even as possible for all ninja I think, make things boil down to who has the better skills and who has the better strategy, or sometimes who has more power.

I don't think I can beat the Hokage honestly, this is a man that has trained in the ways of the ninja for years, and granted he is older now, but that doesn't change the fact that he is terrifying.

I walk towards the center and see the Hokage in an old fashioned suit of battle armor with the wind blows across the both of us. If someone was to see this in third person it would look like the cliche of an apprentice killing his evil master or vice versa. I stare at him for a bit longer and take this chance to look for weaknesses in his armor, but I am struggling to find any.

At this point he turns around and smiles at me, "I hope you're ready Joseph, I don't plan on going easy on you. I will consider this your win if you can not be critically injured for 20 minutes. Also you are not allowed to use your time slowing ability, if you do then I will use my summon. Deal?" Shit, he has that monkey summon right? I don't want to fight him so I nod to the Hokage, that time slow ability is just one of the ones I like to abuse, I still have more.

After that he gets into a combat stance, but I don't do anything. I sit still not moving and secretly getting ready to go to one of my formulas I had put behind me as I walked here. After several moments of just waiting a large stream of fire comes far off in the right and makes me turn my head for a moment.

Wait no! That must have been the start! I quickly teleport away and start chucking my formula everywhere. I then look at where I last was just in time to see the Hokage leave a crater from a drop kick he did. I take the opportunity to retaliate and throw a marked kunai at him, which he naturally dodges, but I appear right above him and give him a drop kick of my own, I then throw another kunai at him from a different angle, but this time he gets on guard for an attack from me.

Little does he know though that that was one with an explosion tag on it, so right before it detonates I start running at him and pull out a paper bomb that is unlit and throw it right at his feet. I then throw a marked kunai to my left and teleport mid air to it so that I can set off the paper bomb.

The Hokage didn't know how to react to it so all he could manage to was jump to the side and surround himself with earth hastily. That won't save him though as I travel to the mark I left on his back ready to give him another strike. He seemed to have known I was coming and delivered a spin kick to me, sending me flying out of the rock he made.

I need an edge up, think Joe! Think! Sarutobi is a genius, he predicts! I know what I need to do! I haven't practiced it yet, but I will let my Taijutsu skill show its mettle here!

I pull out a bottle of vodka and start chugging it while the Hokage is distracted, I don't drink it all as I don't want to die of alcohol poisoning(Again...). Now it is just be trying to buy time while I wait for it to kick in. I pull out one of the swords I got as loot and charge toward Sarutobi again, then as he sees me I jump towards him and as he sends a Jutsu to hit me mid air I teleport underneath him and try to slash at his legs, however he uses substitution Jutsu to get away.

I look around where he is when I suddenly feel the ground start vibrating, I didn't want to get caught up in it so I teleported towards a Kunai I threw at the waterfall. At this point I start feeling a little bit of the liquor hitting me, probably not as much since I am currently still full from what I ate before so I take this chance to drink a bit more.

I charge back out and see Sarutobi off in the distance so I throw a normal kunai at him, and it hits him before he disappears, seeing that it was a clone I remember that I have a handy ability!

I summon over a thousand clones and send them out to find him, after looking around for 4 minutes I start getting some memories of my clones, it appears he is taking them out. I start wobbling though, so I start thinking about fighting more and more, to try and get into the mindset. To finish it off I take another swig.

I head on over to the area where my clones were getting taken out at and have them all converge here, I see him going and taking out a few clones that are distracted because they are so wobbly. I can't blame them though, I can barely stand as it is.

"Shtop riy ther, Immm tha reeel unn" I don't even know have broken my English is right now, but I charge right at him and right when he is about to attack I slip on some grass and land at his feet, damn my coordination right now. I push myself back up with my arms, but I almost send myself onto my back completely but I catch myself with my arms and get him in the face with my foot.

At this point my clones are so out of it that they trip and fall leading to them being unsummoned and me getting their memories which disorients me even more, so I completely fall onto my back and almost pass out from exhaustion. I roll over though, apparently dodging another kick, and throw my sword at his feet. After a few moments the explosion knocks me over since I forgot I put explosion tags onto in, actually a lot of them.

I hope back up from the explosion and run back at him before I jump with my legs heading into him first. He puts his arms up to block an attack from above, but I bring my legs from the sides, hitting him on both ears, then drag him down before hitting myself hard on my ass as I land. Apparently though I used the momentum I had to send him flying in the distance. Man this is great.

It seems Sarutobi was getting sick of this though and starting using various Jutsu to counter me, he used flame breath, tried making some walls around me, used some wind blades on some of my kunai, and even tried getting me with some weird syrup.

His biggest mistake was using weapons with my formula against me though, as drunk as I am I still knew an opportunity when I saw when, so right as he threw it I teleported to him, wrapped my legs around him, and took him down using my heavier weight. I then started flashing to various formula around me to throw him off, but all it did was make me throw up.

After I got the contents of my stomach onto the ground I summoned some shadow clones and made them go and take up a lot of his time when suddenly I felt my hand burn, waking me from the stupor I was in. Shit I was dominating too!

I pull out another sword I had and get into a stance as I look around me, the Hokage disappeared and I don't know where. I glance at my hand every so often and think it's not too bad, especially since my healing started working on it already.

Then I recall a sword technique I can use, but I am going to take it up a few notches, the Dance of The Crescent Moon.

I summon 20 shadow clones, some to act as decoys, and some for actual use. We all form up and start trying to find Sarutobi, and I see him preparing I jutsu in the trees so I throw a kunai at the trunk beside him before flashing to it and kicking him towards the ground, then my clones show up and one slices at him, but misses as Sarutobi uses his jutsu to give him a boost into the air instead of damaging me or my clones, taking the opportunity I jump towards him to strike.

When he gets ready to counter me though I created another clone and used him not just as a boost, but sent him into Sarutobi to send him towards the ground, Sarutobi wasn't ready for me to do that and tried to use a Jutsu to cushion his fall but right before he manages to one of my clones kicks him from the side, not giving him any time to get his bearings, and another clone hits him up like a volleyball.

At this point I am slowly falling so I summon another clone to throw me up into the air higher since I have a badass plan. While that clone was raising me up the other clones were hitting Sarutobi up with just enough force to keep him distracted, then he saw me falling, and he realized it was too late. I let my momentum carry me down towards him.

He uses a small wind jutsu to try and diver my course but another clone appears behind me and and launches me right at him, and using that new found speed I don't hit him with my sword since I don't want to hurt him too badly, but I give him a good slam towards the ground using both of my fists.

Not wanting to fall to the ground myself I flash to a clone a dismiss all the ones I am using in this field as I witness the Hokage crash into the ground, sending up a cloud of dirt like it was a geyser.

From behind me all of a sudden I feel something cold against the back of my neck and hear Sarutobi's voice, "Drat, looks like that was 20 minutes. I was looking forward to more fun."

It was only 15 minutes though? Wait a second... did I really hurt him that much? I look at him at raise an eyebrow after he pulls the kunai away. He looks at me and blinks, cheeky bastard, he wanted to go out in style and make it seem like he would've won if it wasn't for the time. Alright alright, I'll play along for now. Just you wait.

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Hey everyone, your favorite(Okay maybe not favorite, but loved? Liked? Tolerated? That's it) author here. Good news and bad news, and before you ask I am not stopping the story so don't you have those thoughts. I said don't!

I just wanted to tell everyone that I haven't been having a good day/week and after talking to a friend I decided to make a patreon which you can find here: https://www.patreon.com/j0sejalap3n0

The reason being is honestly, I've been worrying about money a lot for the past while and have been keeping afloat by writing articles, but they take all the fun I have for writing away and makes me less motivated to write my story. So I decided now was the time to start a patreon, because honestly I am getting so frustrated with these articles I write not getting accepted despite me putting so much effort into them.

I would much rather just write all day and talk to you guys. I haven't really played videogames since I started writing this novel and honestly I don't mind it, but I want to do it more and with my current time I just can't. Granted I am still in college and can't do 50 chapters a week (S/O to Endless Path's author since that is something unimaginable to me) but for every less article I have to write is another article's worth of time I can dedicate to this story.

Take a look at the page, I don't really mind if there aren't many that support me in the beginning since I am a new author and am kind of unknown, that's why I am not expecting much. But I can say that in the beginning, for every 40 dollars I earn a month is another article I won't write and that much more effort I am putting into this story.

Thanks for reading my rant you guys, and honestly I am loving you all more as the day goes by, and this is what makes my days worthwhile, I love seeing how many of you have added my story to your libraries, that over 90K people have seen it, and the fact that I've never had over 30 powerstones before but now I have 61?! This is so out there to me.

That's why I have a bit of hope that at least some point in the future I can do this full time. Thanks again.

-Ya boy, j0sejalap3n0