Izumi didn't slow down once Tsunade was steady on her feet again. The Kage booth was still under siege, Hiruzen's silhouette visible through the smoke two levels up, and getting to him meant going through the knot of Suna and Kiri shinobi currently pinning down a squad of Konoha ANBU at the stairwell.
Not that she was much interested in saving that old man, Sarutobi. Besides her initial captivity and interrogation, which were entirely his fault, she also never liked the man's hypocrisy.
Not that she blamed the man either. It was only reasonable that a man responsible for an entire village, and by extension the protection of an entire country, would be a little paranoid regarding one of his shinobi dying after losing both of her eyes, and then, a few days later when her body was supposed to be incinerated or buried, she suddenly came back to life.
Yeah...
Not the most convincing introduction she had ever experienced.
So, ultimately, she just didn't care about the old man. She just wished to fight one of the Kages to find out what the top fighting power of this world looked like. Not to mention, if doing so could lift the watch off her trail, then she'd be "Oh so gracious."
She didn't bother announcing herself. Ninja are not supposed to do that, unlike her usual self, being flamboyant and asking others their type of woman.
That certainly wouldn't make a good kunoichi, would it?
The first enemy shinobi turned just in time to see her fist close the distance, Star Rage flaring crimson around her knuckles before the strike ever landed. He hit the wall hard enough to crack it and didn't get back up.
A very interesting difference between normal powerful punches and her own strikes is that it's not just the force which is high, but the density of the strikes.
Meaning, her punches would more often pierce someone's body, putting a rather fist-sized hole in them than comically sending them flying backward.
Once the first enemy was sent flying, the second immediately reached for a kunai and lost the arm holding it before the motion finished, cursed energy carving through steel and bone alike.
"She's—" one of the ANBU started, mask tilting toward her in open disbelief.
"Later," Izumi cut in, already moving past him toward the third and fourth shinobi, who'd finally realized the fight in front of them had changed shape entirely.
It took less than five minutes to finish the rest. Something even she had to agree on: the Sharingan was unfair, especially if one trained in genjutsu.
So far, the best way she had learned to use it was to force someone into a genjutsu with a single look. She just needed a single opening and then a headshot.
That's how most of her matches ended. Was she complaining that fights would never be the same for her anymore?
Absolutely not.
Was that a reason why she was suddenly looking forward to fighting someone strong?
Perhaps.
She kept going, no wasted motion, no hesitation...
"Booth's clear below," she called up to the ANBU captain, already climbing. "I'm going up."
Nobody argued with her. They doubted they could stop her even if they tried.
-x-
Hiruzen was losing.
He wouldn't have admitted it aloud, but his body wasn't leaving him much room to lie to himself. Enma had taken three separate hits absorbing strikes meant for his spine, his own chakra reserves were bleeding out faster than he liked, and every exchange with Rasa and Mei together cost him more than the last one had. Two Kages had always been a losing proposition for a man his age, no matter how many decades of experience sat behind his eyes.
So be it.
His hands began moving through the seals for Shiki Fujin, the Reaper Death Seal already forming at the edge of his awareness, cold and final and the only answer left to him—and then, out of nowhere, he paused.
#Boom...
The wall beside him exploded inward.
And lo and behold, the person responsible was none other than Izumi Uchiha.
"Sorry to crash the party, but I'm not letting you old fogies hoard all the fun..."
Izumi hit the ground already moving, Sharingan blazing, and put herself directly between Hiruzen and Mei's incoming strike without a shred of hesitation.
Hiruzen's hands froze mid-seal.
The Uchiha girl he'd quietly suspected of being a spy for months, the one whose chakra signature never quite matched the file on record.
Of course it's her.
Suddenly everything started to make sense... how the invasion came to pass.
But...
But she wasn't attacking him. She was attacking Terumi Mei.
Why?
'You're either exactly what I thought you were,' Hiruzen muttered, breath ragged, 'or something I completely failed to predict.'
Izumi didn't even so much as look at him. Instead, she just went ahead and started throwing hands against Mei Terumi.
The dynamics of the battle had changed. It was two on two now, and none of them knew what this Uchiha kunoichi was capable of.
They didn't have much intel on her, so it was especially discouraging seeing her bypass all of their shinobi who were holding back the Konoha ANBU.
Hiruzen didn't waste the opening. Rasa alone, even exhausted and old as he was, was a fight he had to take seriously. He let the Shiki Fujin seal dissolve unused and turned his full attention back to the Gold Dust.
Mei recovered from the surprise faster than most would have.
"An Uchiha," she said, sizing Izumi up with genuine interest, Lava Release already curling at her fingertips. "I didn't think Konoha had one your age still active."
"You'd be surprised what Konoha has," Izumi said, and closed the distance before Mei finished forming her next hand seal.
Mei's Lava Release never landed. Izumi could already predict what the kunoichi from the Mist might be up to with her Sharingan.
Izumi read the seals a full beat ahead, Sharingan tracking every twitch of chakra before it took shape, and slipped inside the technique's range with a speed that shouldn't have belonged to a genjutsu specialist.
Her fist connected with Mei's guarded forearm—and the impact staggered the Mizukage back three full steps before her entire body exploded into a splash of water.
"Water Clone." Izumi grinned. Yes, she could feel it. This fight wouldn't be that easy.
Mei's eyes narrowed.
"With just a single punch..."
The only thought revolving inside Mei's mind was whether this Uchiha girl was like Tsunade of the Sannin.
Tsunade's monstrous chakra-infused strength was famous across the entire Elemental Nations. It was very likely this Uchiha kunoichi in front of her had trained under Tsunade, and if that was indeed the case, then Mei had to be on her guard.
Close combat was especially a big no.
"Don't think I'll let you." Izumi could already see what was ticking inside the Mist kunoichi's mind. Everyone thought the very same thing upon getting hit by her fist the first time.
Close combat would be deadly.
However, most didn't get the chance to apply that logic since the first strike mostly did the job for them.
Izumi pressed the advantage without giving Mei room to recalibrate, forcing exchange after exchange at a pace built for taijutsu specialists twice her supposed experience, each blocked strike costing Mei more structural integrity than the last.
However, the Mizukage wasn't a rebel who climbed her way up to the rank of a Kage with nothing to show for herself. She never took an attack directly. While constantly on the back foot, she was analyzing Izumi's attack patterns while trying to create a gap to make some distance.
"You're stronger than your file suggested," Mei said, breathing harder now, mist gathering defensively around her.
"Oh yeah… never knew someone like me got files on the desks of people like you… should I be honored?" Izumi said, and meant it more as a joke than Mei could have guessed.
Behind them, Hiruzen traded blows with Rasa alone now, hard-pressed but no longer drowning, Enma absorbing strikes he could actually recover from. He spared half a glance toward the girl fighting a Kage to a standstill beside him and filed the sight away for later—assuming there was a later left to think about.
For now, the booth held. Barely. But it held.
-x-
Outside Konoha…
With a booming sound, two figures appeared in an open clearing out of nowhere.
The Hiraishin dropped them somewhere far enough from Konoha that the village was nothing but a smudge on the horizon—open plains, cracked earth, nothing around for miles that could burn if this went wrong.
Well, there was still a forest, but there were enough forests in Konoha. Not to mention, the last he checked, Tenzo, or Yamato, was still on the active roster of the village, so deforestation was the last of his concerns.
Sukuna had marked this spot weeks ago because, even when Orochimaru was as good as gone, he never for a second thought that the world wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass just because he had taken precautions.
The only answer to that was to take more precautions.
He hadn't wanted to admit, even to himself, that some part of him almost felt relief that this had happened, for if the Chūnin Exams had gone without any trouble, he might have really started to feel the butterfly effects he had brought.
This, at least, was a bit more familiar ground for him to work on.
Just as he was lost in his thoughts, the entire ground behind him moved, and the next second he found himself airborne.
Two seconds in after he had teleported here, the Bijū had flung him off its head like a mosquito.
Shukaku's transformation finished the instant they landed, sand exploding outward into its full and complete form—no longer the hunched, half-formed shape from the arena but something monstrous now, towering high enough to blot out the sky.
And the bastard seemed to be relishing his newfound freedom. No doubt exhilarated to finally be out of his Jinchūriki.
Sukuna watched it with none of that enthusiasm.
At this point, he was quite used to the Tailed Beasts in general. Fighting both Yagura and Killer Bee had no doubt given him enough perspective on how to actually handle them.
So neither the size nor the raging, almost bottomless chakra they possessed drew any reaction from him.
If anything, he was scowling.
Because these guys were nothing but an utter pain to deal with.
Dismantle wouldn't leave a mark. He had tried, and it didn't work. Not on the Three-Tails (especially against that turtle's shell), and neither on the Eight-Tails.
Meaning he had to use Cleave, and to do that he had to get closer. Even that was not a perfect way to deal with them since the targets themselves were huge.
And then there was Shukaku in general, against a body with no real structure to collapse in the first place. Cleave would do nothing.
Against Bee, he'd had the luxury of testing his limits, letting the fight run long because he was testing out Curse Sage Mode.
That clearly worked out fantastically for him, didn't it?
"I'll end this in one move," he grumbled as he swiped his hair back in a cool motion, and as soon as he did that, markings appeared on his forehead and all over his body.
He brought both hands together, and suddenly the two slits beneath his eyes opened up, revealing two more red-ringed eyes.
"Curse Technique: Maximum."
xXx
A/N : Finally revealing the Maximum technique... sorry for keeping this a secret for this long, didn't plan to actually, as stated before I never though it would take so many chapters to even reach here.
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