Chapter 9

Chapter 9

TSUNADE SENJU

Tsunade Senju was impressed as she looked around and found herself surrounded by a thick chakra-laden mist that made it impossible to see or sense the location of her attacker accurately. Her initial attack had passed through the kid's body, which dissolved into mist, something which reminded her of times when she had faced the famed Hozuki clan of the Kirigakure.

"Well, at least now I can see where he gets his moniker from," she muttered as she suddenly ducked and blurred past exactly where her head had been moments ago. She punched the space yet only hit the air. Before suddenly, she felt a cut on her arm that began to bleed lightly.

And then the assault began, and she dodged on instinct alone as her body got littered with cuts. Each time her attacks would fail to hit anything and would only hit the air. Then she finally had enough.

"CHAAAAA!" she pushed chakra into her arm and punched the ground.

BOOOM!

The whole ground cracked up, and Tsunade jumped up to escape the prison of Mist that she had been entrapped into. And as she had predicted, She felt a shadow appear in the mist right above her, and she smirked at her plan working.

"Found you," she said as she finally glimpsed the young Hatake. She punched him. However, just like all her previous attacks, it went right through him, and her senses screamed at her when he suddenly placed a hand right on her torso.

"SUITON: WATER DEVASTATION!"

And Tsunade felt herself getting blasted by a jet of water as she was pushed back violently. Her back hit the ground, making her Vince a bit as the ground cracked beneath her. An attack like this would have killed many shinobi, but Tsunade Senju wasn't any regular shinobi.

She stood up once more and spit the blood in her mouth, smiling as she felt excited for a spar in a very long time. She looked ahead and found the mist thickening as Ohashi's body began to materialize once more. Gone was the usual cheer on his face, and his eyes seemed sharp, like a wolf eyeing his prey.

"I must say your technique is quite impressive. No wonder you fought a whole platoon with this," she commended him for his self-made technique. Shizune had told her that he had a small arsenal of techniques and his stubbornness in focusing on his Suiton over trying to master other natures. And the results spoke for themselves. Tsunade was sure that even at this stage, he was one of the best Suiton users on the whole continent.

"Using sensing, genjutsu, taijutsu, and ninjutsu in such harmony with extreme precision like this is extremely impressive," she complimented him. She still did not fully understand the mechanics of his technique. However, she had gleaned the basics from their short interaction. Technically it was a mix-up of a couple of Kekkei Genkai of Kirigakure.

"There are very few shinobi who could pull this off, but let me tell you something," she began as she pushed chakra through her coils, harmonizing it with the one in her surroundings. She then closed her eyes as she felt her senses expanding through the mist. She noticed his body stiffen as his chakra rattled as she almost hijacked his technique.

"Impossible," she heard him whisper as he tried to wrestle away her intrusion; however, she pushed back and glanced to her right, exactly where his real body was. And then she pushed chakra into her feet.

"FUCK!" he screamed as he shunshined away, but inside this mist, she had complete awareness. So, she kicked the ground hard and turned to her left as she chased after him once more.

"CHAAA!" she shouted as she pushed chakra into her arm, but he had cycled through a series of handseals before she could hit him.

"DOTON: GREAT MUD WALL!"

And an earthen wall rose up in front of him. However, she didn't stop as she punched through it.

CRACK! BOOOM!

It was blasted off, but it had given him enough time to establish distance between them. He was panting slightly now, looking at her with thin lips. Then he suddenly raised a tiger seal and pulled his chakra from the mist, allowing it to disperse.

The thick mist cleared up, and Tsunade smirked as she saw him grunt as he put away the tanto in his hands. To the side, Shizune and Namikaze stood gazing at them with narrowed eyes. She noticed the look of surprise on Jiraiya's prodigious student.

Tsunade had her own bag of tricks, just like Jiraiya.

"I can see why the other villages fear the Sanin so much now," said Ohashi as he stood up, and despite his words, there was no hint of that fear in his eyes.

"Well, the number of shinobi who could pull off what I did can be counted on the fingers of one's hand," she replied as she got in her regular stance. The young jounin did the same as they both got ready for round two.

And this time, it was he who initiated the fight as he vanished into a blur as he appeared right in front of her. And their taijutsu brawl began. She dodged his barrage of attacks. Suddenly just as she was about to block a punch to her face, her senses screamed at her to move, and her eyes widened as a jet of pressurized water shot out of his hand.

SCHING!

It blew apart the tree behind her, but it also gave her an opening to retaliate, and she aimed a punch straight at his torso. Surprisingly, he did not move. However, as her hand was inches away from his body, she felt her body getting pulled back. She glanced back and found hands extending out of a puddle behind her pulling her legs.

Ohashi did not miss the chance, and a chakra-coated fist was headed straight for her neck. Tsunade was highly impressed. Yet she was the taijutsu master, and this was her domain.

So, she pushed her feet inches off the ground before she brought it down instantly with full force.

BOOOM!

0000

MINATO NAMIKAZE

Minato had offered to officiate the spar between Lady Tsuande and Ohashi out of sheer curiosity. He trusted both of them not to take things too far, yet he would be an idiot to miss the chance to see a Sanin battle someone like Ohashi Hatake.

Minato had been lauded as a prodigy for a number of years, and the truth was that many shinobi in their youth got labeled with that title. Yet few lived to fulfill the promise of their youth. Death took half of them, and the rest failed to match the expectations placed on them. That was the reality of the ninja world. Minato had proven to beat the odds when he had risen above those expectations despite his ordinary pedigree.

Ohashi Hatake was the second prodigy after him to show the promise of greatness. And from what he had witnessed, he had fulfilled his promise. Despite the difference in their age and experience, going toe to toe with Lady Tsunade showed him that he had been right about the young Hatake.

BOOOM!

And had he not been paying rapt attention, he would have missed the trickery employed by Lady Tsuande as the ground cracked and smoke covered the area of their tussle when suddenly Ohashi was blasted away, and Minato winced as the young Hatake hit a tree and grunted in pain before falling to the ground.

The dust cleared up to reveal the form of a triumphant Lady Tsunade eyeing the young jounin who was now struggling to get up. However, Minato could tell that the fight had not been as one-sided as one would think, and it was made evident by the cuts and bruises that littered the Sanin's body.

"What the hell just happened?" spoke the other spectator, Kato Shizune, with a frown, and Minato did not blame her for missing the exact move of Lady Tsunade.

"She just kicked away the hidden water clone. Her chakra control must really be mind-boggling for her to generate so much power under these circumstances," he explained, and the medical ninjutsu specialist nodded, understanding his point.

"Lady Tsunade is in the ninety-ninth percentile in the Uzu-Mi-Ko scale, so she practically has perfect control. However, Ohashi's control is pretty impressive as well. I suspect him to be above the ninetieth percentile, at least with the control he must need for that Mist trick of his," Minato agreed, and given his larger growing reserves and his gender, that was quite an accomplishment. He himself had just crossed the ninety-second percentile, and any improvements now would be incremental.

Ohashi finally got to his feet as they got ready to continue, and Minato thought about whether he should intervene to stop the spar now, yet the look of excitement on the faces of Lady Tsuande and Ohashi made him hesitant to stop.

Ohashi cracked his neck as he adopted a rather loose posture.

"I haven't used this before, but I believe this is as good a time as any to try this," and Minato frowned as he felt Ohashi's chakra thicken, but he did not seem to be planning on using any ninjutsu. He noticed a frown on Tsuande-sama's face, meaning she had no idea about this technique. He noticed chakra in his body getting concentrated in the brain's left hemisphere, and suddenly he understood what he was doing.

"Impossible," he muttered, and Shizune-san caught his whisper.

"What is he doing?" she asked, and he didn't take his eyes off Ohashi as he replied to her.

"I am not sure, but I think he is opening the eight inner gates," and her eyes widened at this.

"WHAT! You have to stop him. It will kill him," and his common sense screamed the same thing yet the chakra buildup was too controlled and deliberate. This meant that Ohashi knew what he was doing.

However, he still got ready to intervene.

"KAIMON: KAI," shouted Ohashi as he opened the first of the inner eight gates and his muscles got flooded with chakra. But he did not stop there.

"KYUMON:KAI!" and he also opened the second gate. Tsunade-sama seemed taken aback as well. Minato sensed Ohashi's chakra, which was controlled, meaning that he had mastered the technique.

"Well, now let's get this party started," said Ohashi before he vanished in a blur, and Minato could barely keep up with him as Ohashi appeared right above Lady Tsunade in an instant. A kick aimed straight at her head.

Yet she wasn't a Sanin for no reason, as she managed to duck just in time to dodge the attack. However, Ohashi simply blurred away once again, his speed substantially greater than it had been earlier in the fight.

The high-paced battle gave him goosebumps, and while he wasn't aware, there was a smile on his face as he witnessed the clash of the titans.

0000

OHASHI HATAKE

His body aches had vanished, and he was feeling reenergized as he blurred past Tsunade-sama's attacks before he appeared behind her and pushed her back, and he knew he had the initiative again. He still had room to push himself further, for he had opened up to the fourth gate, yet he needed to conserve himself for the mission he had tomorrow, so two were enough.

Lady Tsunade ducked and tried to kick him in the gut; however, he used her leg as a platform to jump up as he aimed his heel at her head. She was smart enough to jump back as his chakra-laden heel cracked the whole ground.

CRACK!

Lady Tsunade had also gotten serious now and did not give him time to relax as she plucked out a tree and swung it straight at him, Ohashi decided not to dodge as he rushed forward instead and pushed chakra into his fist.

"IRON FIST!" and as he grounded his feet, he punched the tree, and broke it into pieces, and just as he was about to rush forward again, Lady Tusande appeared in front of him. She ducked under his punch and, before he could react, aimed a well-timed kick at his torso. He could only bring his arm up to block the major impact but he was still sent blasting off.

However, he wasn't done yet, as he took out a scroll out of his pocket and unsealed the gourd of water he had brought.

POOF!

And then he began to cycle through a number of handseals as the water coiled around him and cushioned his impact with the ground.

"SUITON: FLUID DEFENSE!" and the water cocooned around him as it protected him, and then he finished another set of handseals.

"SUITON: WATER BULLE…." But then suddenly, a blonde figure blurred right into the middle of the field, stopping the fight.

"That will be enough," Minato spoke resolutely, and Ohashi let go of the chakra as the water dropped down. On the opposite side, Tsunade-sama eased up as well before she turned to face him.

"Consider me impressed, kid. It has been years since someone has managed to push me so hard," and Ohashi nodded as he eased off the chakra flow through his coils, closing off the inner gates. A wave of fatigue hit him immediately, and he faltered when he suddenly felt someone support him.

"What the hell were you thinking, messing with the inner gates? Do you have a death wish!" Shizune-san berated her as she ran a diagnostic scan as Minato-san and Tsunade-sama joined us. Only after double-checking did she sigh as he could stand up without help.

"At least you had some idea of what you were doing. But still, you better rest as much as you can before you move out tomorrow," she advised him, and he nodded.

"Well then this has been a pleasure, I will be expecting you at the gate at 0800 tommorow then," said Minato-san before he gave Tsunade-sama a nod and vanished. Tsunade-sama was looking him over when she suddenly spoke out.

"Since you have such good chakra control. Have you ever thought of learning iryo-ninjutsu?" and he frowned as he nodded.

And then she smiled as she nodded.

"Take him to his home, Shizune and Ohashi. Before you leave, visit me in the hospital for a moment," Shziune-san nodded, and then they began to walk out of the room with her continuously berating him over his carelessness.

Later, in her own room at the hospital, Tsunade Senju stood in front of a mirror as she looked at the various cuts and bruises scattered across her body. However, they weren't anything to be concerned about, but when she put her shirt up, there was a huge laceration there bleeding out. She winced in pain as she brought her mystic palm there to heal it.

"Either I am way out of shape, or the kids these days are just freaking monsters!"

0000

As always, you can read ahead and support me on Patre 0n. Your support makes it possible for me to write. So, if possible, have a look and consider dropping a dime. It would mean a lot.

www.Patre 0n.com/Drkest

Thanks for reading!