Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_260

The combined force of Camp Banana and the Hidden Steam knocked on Yu's door. They could hear the emergency warning bells ringing from inside the city in response to their arrival. Shinobi were already on the wall, ready to defend the city, and were now converging toward the area that was going to be hit by the invading forces.

The crowd of shinobi dressed in Hidden Steam colours mandated by the higher-ups respectfully parted as Toridasu walked to the front.

A sheen of sweat covered his body, and his breath was hot. For the past thirty minutes, he had been actively rotating the chakra inside his body, warming up his chakra pathway network.

As the most senior of the jonin, it was his responsibility to issue the warning to the forces inside the city. Even though he didn't believe the warning would do anything, it was a standard procedure of war, a common courtesy toward the enemy, and served as 'justification' they didn't need.

"To whoever is in charge, heed this warning and surrender the city of Yu," Toridasu spoke, his voice amplified by chakra. His words travelled far and wide, maintaining their volume without hurting the ear. "This is the first and last warning from our side. We're generously giving you one chance to vacate the city peacefully and keep your lives intact. You have two minutes to respond by opening the city gates for us to enter... Refusal to meet our demands will result in an aggressive response unfavourable for you."

The countdown of two minutes began, and the shinobi began their last-minute preparations for the battle about to commence. Many prayed to the gods and their own weapons for safety and victory; others psyched themselves by hitting and hugging their comrades to drain away the nervousness; some performed their personal pre-battle routines; and a few crumbled under pressure.

Toridasu turned back to look at Shirakumo standing before the forces he commanded.

He gave him a nod that he returned.

As the clock wound down to the last ten seconds, Toridasu began walking toward the city, putting some distance between himself and the forces. The chakra inside him began to speed up as he commanded it to move faster and more vigorously.

The allotted two minutes ended, and the city gates remained shuttered.

The warning had been ignored, meaning they could officially attack the city.

Toridasu breathed in from his nose, and when exhaled from his mouth, a cloud of fire escaped along with his breath.

A-rank ninjutsu were considered the pinnacle in the world of jutsu; S-rank was 'special' and existed outside the standard structure. Most of the A-rank jutsu were weapons of mass destruction that shouldn't be used without deep consideration. It was lucky for the world that only an ultra minority of shinobi could learn and use them and that not all who were able were allowed to learn, and that kept the threat of it all under control.

Most people, even the most knowledgeable shinobi, wondered why jonin, who possessed A-rank jutsu, didn't use them immediately at the start to end the battle by decimating their opponents. There were factors like collateral damage, friendly fire, and chakra resource management—but the biggest reason was that:

They simply weren't able to use the jutsu.

To perform an A-rank jutsu required a tremendous amount of chakra, and that absurd amount had to flow through shinobi's bodies. Human bodies weren't meant to handle that amount of chakra coursing through their chakra pathway network, which put a harsh strain on the network. Careless attempts to force the use of those jutsu could permanently damage the chakra pathway network in the worst-case scenario. Shinobi trained their bodies to the limit to endure the stress and strain that the jutsu and chakra exerted—most people couldn't temper their bodies to that level and thus failed to use A-rank jutsu.

Even if someone had the physical apparatus to use A-rank jutsu, they couldn't use it anytime. The body needed to be prepared appropriately shortly before using the jutsu.

Chakra Burn was a condition observed when a shinobi handled a large amount of chakra very quickly. It was common during the use of A-rank jutsu and even happened with B-rank jutsu. While using a jutsu, a large amount of chakra would flow through the chakra pathway network and burn/corrode the pathways. Those burns would physically hurt when chakra would flow through the area—which was constantly as the body produced a small amount of passively mixed chakra. For that reason, the chakra pathway network needed to be "warmed up" before A-rank jutsu could be used. Shinobi had no choice but to slowly ramp up their chakra usage to prepare their bodies to handle the strain from using an A-rank jutsu. The best and quickest way to warm up the chakra pathway network was to use chakra—and using lesser-ranked jutsu accomplished that naturally.

Toridasu was in his mid-fifties. He was old. His chakra reserves had naturally declined from the peak of his youth. It was a waste of chakra to use jutsu to warm up, so he had been slowly rotating chakra for the past half an hour to warm up his chakra pathway network (once created, chakra would disappear even if not used).

He weaved a complex set of hand seals, and chakra flooded his chakra pathway network. He immediately felt his body strain under the jutsu, but he was used to it, so he proceeded smoothly to apply the nature transformation to his charka, turning it into the fire nature. He finished the last hand seal and separated his hands for an orb to grow between his palms. With wisps of fire, chakra flowed from his fingertips into the orb.

The jutsu wasn't over; Toridasu focused on shape transformation and pushed more and more chakra into the orb's centre, turning it into a hot white. He looked up at city gates and roughly estimated how much it would take to blow it up, added some more in case there was a counter, and then added some more for the awe-and-fear factor.

His fingers twitched, and the orb bloomed into a small firebird. And with a firm push, he sent the firebird jetting. It scorched the air behind it, leaving black smoke in its trails. As Toridasu expected, what seemed to be B-rank lightning ninjutsu tried to counter his jutsu, but it was shrugged away, and the firebird slammed into the city gates.

There was no explosion. From the point where the firebird hit the gates, a raging fire spread at an astounding speed. In less than five seconds, the heavy city gates were enveloped in flames that quickly spread to the walls. The fire continued to spread, swallowing several dozen meters of the wall. The fire was so hot that the city gate turned into weak charcoal and collapsed immediately—even the specially created walls fortified by ninjutsu couldn't withstand the sheer heat and crumbled under their own weight as the fire ate away the material from the inside.

The shinobi on the wall near the gate tried to jump away, but the ones struck by the fire were immediately enveloped.

Toridasu breathed a long sigh before turning to face the forces. He made eye contact with the Hidden Steam jonin, who glared at him because of the damage to the wall. He had to hold back a smile; the damage was done, and there was nothing anyone could do.

The forces were staring at the scene of carnage in front of them. The fire was so bright that their faces were painted orange with the light as the sun rose on the horizon.

He gathered chakra into his throat and spoke,

"Don't be scared of the fire. I will protect you," his words gathered their attention, "so charge... CHARGE AND BE VICTORIOUS!"

It was short, but it did the work as the combined forces yelled barbarically as they charged toward the city.

———
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Ebi stared at the flames that climbed toward the sky. He wasn't stationed near the wall but was some distance away inside the city. At his distance, he couldn't see the particulars at the wall, but he knew that they had just lost at least six to eight people to the A-rank jutsu to create a hole in the city defences.

He wanted to blame the jonin stationed near the wall for their failure to counter the ninjutsu, but he also didn't expect the other side to open with an A-rank ninjutsu. The standard for the situation was using a B-rank jutsu to clear out a section of wall guards, aggressively flood that now undefended area with troops, and use that as an entry point—but using A-rank jutsu was needlessly aggressive, and told him that the jonin who used the jutsu was not a Hidden Steam shinobi as the damage to the city walls was too big of an expense, which meant it was an Hidden Leaf jonin.

The fire at the collapsed gate was suddenly snuffed as though someone had cut access to oxygen, and shinobi dressed in the Hidden Steam colours charged into the city. The fire still burned the walls and even continued to spread slowly, which acted as a barrier, slowing down the shinobi on the unaffected walls from getting down to pincer the enemy shinobi from behind.

"Announce that I'm going forward," Ebi said to the radio comms genin near him.

Without waiting for a response, he leapt from the rooftop and took the air with a long and high jump. In the few seconds, he remained suspended in the air, his leaping force acting against gravity, he scanned the battlefield and immediately spotted a few people moving faster than others, acting independently from the rest of the shinobi who operated in team formations.

They were the enemy jonin.

Ebi saw one of the jonin aggressively penetrating the city, and his opponent was decided. He weaved hand seals as he let himself fall from the sky. He spewed water from his mouth and formed a thick ring around his body. Ebi swiped his hand, and water shot forward in a line at ultra-high pressure. The pressurised line of water cut clean through the side of a building as though it was made from styrofoam, ripped a crevice in the road, and then cut halfway through the building on the other side of the street.

The enemy jonin saw the water ninjutsu when it sliced off a corner of the first building. He stopped on the spot, which required so much force that he cracked the pavement under his stopping foot and barely stopped a few inches away from the jutsu's trajectory. The jutsu would've cleaved through his body if he hadn't stopped.

Ebi landed in front of the jonin and searched through the intelligence reports he had gotten over the past year.

"Shirakumo Hayama of the Leaf."

All the identifying features matched: dull dark-grey hair in a ponytail, a scar running down the right side of his mouth and pronounced tear troughs under his eyes. Ebi glanced at the katana strapped to his back, which was the centrepiece of his combat style according to the bingo book entry. However, Ebi had to take the bingo book entries with a heavy grain of salt—they were often outdated and sometimes straight-up lies propagated by the shinobi's village to throw off their opponents.

"You are Ebi Wato," said Shirakumo as he pulled the thin katana out of its sheath. "I heard you're the one in charge here, and if you go away, your forces will crumble... I'll give you a chance to leave the city and spare us a fight—deny it, and you'll die here today in a foreign country. How about it?"

"And leave my men to die?" Ebi scoffed.

"Respectable," Shirakumo nodded and then, in the blink of an eye, his stance changed, and he swung his katana, releasing a wind blade that spanned the entire street width.

Ebi jumped in the air to evade the wind nature kenjutsu, twisting his body parallel to the ground. The wind cutter passed through below him, but Ebi's pupils shrunk when he felt himself getting sucked in towards the wind blade. He was barely a few inches above the wind blade, and the vacuum suction effect of the wind blade brought him down to a mere couple of centimetres above the blade and got his gear shredded by the fringes of the kenjutsu.

While shocked, Ebi was still a competent shinobi. He kept his eye on the Hidden Leaf jonin and saw him use the Body Flicker Jutsu, which made Ebi lose sight of Shirakumo momentarily. When Shirakumo appeared, he cut the distance between them by half and ripped another wind blade toward him. Ebi's feet touched the ground simultaneously as Shirakumo swung his katana, and he immediately jumped yet again, pushing chakra into his feet to gain more height and weaved hand seals. Shirakumo launched a second consecutive wind blade, but this Ebi was ready and countered with a pressurised cord of water that neutralised the wind blade.

Ebi immediately put some distance between them so that he would have more time to react to the wind blades.

Shirakumo launched another wind blade that kept Ebi on the move because of how ridiculously fast they were. It was a problem that the wind blade covered the entire street's width, which restricted his ability to evade vertically. He jumped again and got more than enough height to clear the wind blade and even began weaving hand seals for his next move.

Shirakumo swung his katana again, and the second wind blade was much faster than the first one. The second wind blade hit the first blade and changed its trajectory, and it flew right toward Ebi at twice the previous speed.

He couldn't change direction mid-air and was barely able to react by covering his body with a dense layer of chakra for a last-second, chakra-extensive, highly inefficient defence. The wind cutter ripped through the chakra layer, which absorbed significant of its lethality, but the wind blade still cut into his forearm and chest, causing blood to spurt out.

When Ebi landed on his feet, he knew he had been set up. Shirakumo had deliberately slowed down the speed of his wind blades to make him think that was the highest speed—there was reason for him to think otherwise—and then caught him off-guard by unleashing a faster wind blade. That aside, the wind blade wasn't just the average kenjutsu that only possessed simple slicing power—he felt that the wind cutter had caused more damage than he had initially thought. The wind had flared out at the point of contact, and what he thought would be a cut on his chest that he could fight through suddenly that all of his pectoral muscles were aching at the slightest flex—he could endure the pain, but it hindered his movements.

"I gave you a chance," said Shirakumo.

Ebi looked up at his opponent.

He might be wearing Hidden Steam colours, but the jonin before him was a Hidden Leaf shinobi.

"Now you live with it until I end your life..."

———

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A/N: So, we introduce the fact that jonin just can't just start blasting A-rank jutsu to open because it's stressful on their bodies and they need to warm up and prepare their bodies before they attempt those jutsu. There are, of course, exceptions—truly gifted people who train fucking hard to the point that they can bear the brunt of those jutsu.

Second, as I was writing this chapter, I grasped the fact that most kenjutsu has the advantage of no hand seals. They can just start swinging without spending time with hand seals. For Takuma, his chakra augmentation enjoy the same benefit—and while it's still limited because he hasn't spent enough time on it, that will improve as becomes able to use the augmentation with every strike, no matter which part of his body.

Also, if you guys aren't aware— Hayama Shirakumo is a named canon character.