Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_205

While Takuma was lugging himself across the battlefield, trying to get himself to an iryo-nin to get himself healed, on another part of the battlefield, two jonin from opposite sides faced each other.

“I didn’t think I would meet you here, ‘rainy cloud’ Ogata.” Toridasu smiled at the bear-bellied man while he fanned himself gently with his folding fan. “I didn’t know Hidden Cloud was involved in this war. I must say I’m unpleasantly surprised to see someone like you here.”

Ogata of the Hidden Cloud was a hairy man with a large frame, big arms and legs, and a broad torso. He had been a resident of the top-level Bingo Books issued by villages other than the Hidden Cloud. There was a large bounty on the accomplished jonin’s head, and no one wanted him alive.

Ogata scratched his scruffy beard. “Color me surprised to see your bald head here. This isn’t a place for old bones like yours; go home and have your nanny tuck you in. I don’t want to be accused of elder abuse.”

Toridasu laughed, the folding fan hiding the lower half of his face. “I’m not here. None of us are,” he said. “And you are going to be nowhere after today.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Ogata sighed as though finding the conversation utterly dull. He had a heavy gauntlet around his left hand, and he put on another on his right hand as he exchanged words with Toridasu. “You made a mistake coming here, old man. All of your men will perish here because of that. Worry not, I will give all of you a proper burial. Unlike you Hidden Leaf folk, we are honorable people.”

The two jonin stood facing each other with bloody chaos around them. Dozens of shinobi from each side fought around them, but no one dared to approach the two men, leaving a wide berth for their own sakes.

“Really? Kidnapping a little child from her home to steal her bloodline is honorable?” Toridasu shot back.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I know is that you people killed one of ours on the day we visited your filthy village for a peace treaty signing,” Ogata said in counter.

The infamous incident, now known as the Hyuga Affair, was an episode between the Hidden Leaf and Hidden Cloud, who were in conflict with each other. However, because of the prolonged fighting, the two villages sought to end it and came to a mutual decision to cease fire and sign a peace treaty. Both villages sent an envoy each to the other village.

However, the treaty was soon revealed to be nothing more than a cover when the Hidden Cloud envoy in the Hidden Leaf village kidnapped Hyuga Hinata, the eldest daughter of the Hyuga clan head, Hyuga Hiashi, on her third birthday. The envoy was killed during the attempt by Hiashi before he could leave the village with the little girl.

However, Hidden Cloud denied all accusations of the kidnapping, and demanded the body of Hiashi as compensation for the death of their envoy as per the stipulations of the signed peace treaty.

Ultimately, the Hidden Leaf conceded as they didn’t want to break the peace treaty. The Hidden Leaf had suffered from the Nine Tail incident a few years back and desperately wanted time to recover, and the continuance of the war with Hidden Cloud would put a stress that would slowly drain the village’s resources.

The Hidden Leaf village sent the body of “Hyuga Hiashi” to the Hidden Cloud, but everyone involved knew that the Hidden Leaf had sent Hyuga Hizashi, Hiashi’s identical twin brother, instead. And the Hidden Cloud didn’t say anything. They, too, wanted peace, and it didn’t matter whose body they got; they weren’t getting anything of use because the Hyuga’s cursed seal rid the body of all the Byakugan secrets—and anything else would be removed surgically before the body was sent out.

Toridasu snapped his fan shut, and the landscape changed drastically. The wet, muddy ground cracked, and flowing lava flowed out from the pools below. A series of cracks appeared around Ogata, and fiery flames in the shape of large claws shot out towards him.

The fiery claws grasped at the empty air as Ogata moved faster than free-flowing fire. The large man was much faster than his heavy frame suggested and shot forward Toridasu like a whistling arrow. The ground cracked more, and a dozen more claws burst forth, grabbing for Ogata, who evaded with agility and precision.

Ogata weaved hand seals and stomped his foot on the ground. Blueish-white lightning crackled around his leg before the stomp forced the concentrated lightning into the ground. There was a split second of silence before the entire ground shook as though hit by a high-magnitude earthquake. The lands shifted, displacing in every direction, making the cracks bigger. The fire claws exploded into pillars of fire until they ran out of heat, leaving behind tiny fires.

They were on the same plane at the start of the fight, but Ogata’s stomp had altered the landscape through pure force that resembled natural calamities. He now looked down at Toridasu from a height.

Ogata weaved hand seals with his metal-gloved fingers. His gauntlet-covered fingers sparked with lightning. But just as he was about to leap toward Toridasu, the fiery claws burned brighter than before, surrounding him from all directions. They jumped at him like hungry wolves.

Ogata changed his direction in the blink of an eye and leaped up high in the air, but just as his feet left the ground, he looked down at Toridasu’s smiling face.

“Ah, you tricky old bastard,” Ogata scoffed.

The world around him, built by genjutsu, shattered, and the next moment, he was standing in front of Toridasu, taking a step forward. Toridasu looked surprised before taking a step back and standing upright.

“So there is a tiny bit of brain behind all that brawn,” he said.

“I think it’s good to have that tiny amount… there’s less for your kind to play around,” said Ogata.

The two jonin smiled at each other and simultaneously weaved hand seals. Kurai finished first, a second earlier than Toridasu. A spark of lightning rose up into the air before the arcs and currents grew until a humongous lion made up of lightning stood behind Ogata. When Toridasu finished, he moved his hands apart for a growing ball of fire to mold itself into a bird akin to a phoenix.

As the lion roared and thrashed, jumping towards Toridasu, the tiny phoenix flew into the lightning lion and ballooned up inside the lion. The two ninjutsu melded into each other, creating a dangerous flux of high volumes of chakra that burst, creating an explosion that disrupted half the battlefield.

When the dust settled, the two jonin, who were deep in the blast territory, still stood there without moving an inch from their spaces. Toridasu was covered in a deep envelope of moving winds, and Ogata had a dome of chained lightning that snapped everything out of existence on first contact.

Ogata dropped his defensive jutsu first and immediately went on the offensive. He appeared before Toridasu and punched the wind envelope. A crackle of lightning sparked around the wind before lighting lit up the surface. Within a moment, the wind defense broke down, already weakened because of the blast.

“Get hit by my honorable fist, old timer.”

Ogata smashed Toridasu with a lightning-charged gauntlet. The punch passed through Toridasu as though he was an illusion. Ogata felt a chill on his back, and he turned to see Toridasu spewing fire in his direction—but in the exact moment, Ogata broke the genjutsu and, with it, the fire. The danger was over, as Toridasu was just beside him with a different, fully metal, folding fan in his hand.

At the last moment, Ogata brought his other arm up to block the sharp edges of the folding fan with his gauntlet. The two metal weapons screeched and scratched against each other as both jonin put more force against each other.

“Your little tricks are annoying, old geezer,” Ogata spat. “Why not face me like a man?”

Toridasu beamed, taking Ogata’s words as praise. “Treating genjutsu as tricks in this day and age? I worry about the Hidden Cloud’s future if they let someone like you climb up to jonin.”

Ogata tried to respond, but he was cut off by an ear-shattering explosion in another part of the battlefield. He and Toridasu briefly turned part of their attention to see a cluster of fire crashing into the pit wall that sent debris flying from the explosion.

“Worried about your friend?” Ogata asked.

Toridasu shook his head. “My colleague is a proud jonin from my village. He will never be in danger against two Hidden Frost jonin. These little Hidden Villages have no standards—they promote anyone to jonin.” The snide-mockery was not hidden in his tone and voice.

While Toridasu and Ogata were fighting each other, Shirakumo was fighting two Hidden Frost jonin on his own.

“He can take care of himself,” Toridasu continued. “You worry about yourself… You’re bleeding, you know.”

Ogata looked down at his body and saw that he was bleeding from his lower abdomen above his thigh.

“This is a genjutsu,” he scoffed and disrupted his chakra to lift the genjutsu.

Ogata felt the genjutsu shatter. However, his eyes widened when the wound didn’t appear, and instead, two more injuries—shoulder and calf—appeared on his body.

‘D-Did he place a genjutsu on me so that I would not notice my injuries, so I would continue fighting?’ Ogata thought.

“Are you thinking that I hid your injuries with genjutsu?” Toridasu’s words snapped Ogata out of his thoughts. The smile on Toridasu grew as he said, “Or maybe these injuries are genjutsu to deceive you into thinking that you’re injured.”

Ogata once again disrupted his chakra.

Toridasu laughed, full of amusement. “Are you trying to break the genjutsu? Maybe it’s not genjutsu, and this is reality. Or maybe every time you try to lift the genjutsu, it’s not you, but me tricking yourself into thinking that you did disrupt your chakra? Hey, try it again; maybe it will work this time,” he chuckled.

Ogata felt a fear settle into his heart as he disrupted his chakra. Once again, he felt the genjutsu shatter, but nothing changed. The wounds on his body remained and Toridasu still stood in front of him laughing.

“So… are you in a genjutsu, or are you not?” Toridasu asked. His lips then flattened, and he spoke in a deeper octave, “This thing you call tricks might end up killing you today, my muscle-headed foe.”

———

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AN: So, a non-Takuma chapter, a first in this mini-arc. This a different one, I think.

- Two jonin fighting—I still haven't finalized how jonin actually fight, so I focused less on the fighting, and more on the conversation and lore.

- A little bit of canon lore revolving around the Hyuga—Hinata, Hizashi and Hiashi twins, and in part, the backstory of Neji. That incident however was bigger than the people involved—two Hidden Villages were involved with potential to things getting worse.

- If you hadn't noticed, this chapter happens in parallel to Takuma's struggle to get himself to the iryo-nin to get healed.

- And finally, my favorite part—the genjutsu. In the source material, we have seen someone like Itachi who trapped Kakashi in Tsukuyomi, a genjutsu— and even though Kakashi knew he was in a genjutsu, he wasn't able to get out. But here Toridasu showed a different type— confusing the target so much that they can't keep a track if they are in the genjutsu or in the reality. I find that fear and doubt terrifying.

- I won't be continuing this fight in the next chapter.