Chapter 536: Charmander Evolution!
Green energy continued to gather around Rockruff, and the sudden change drew everyone's attention on the battlefield.
"Is it evolving? But why does it look different from Charmeleon and Milotic?" Kakashi felt both excited and confused.
He was excited because Rockruff had finally begun to evolve, and at such a critical moment, when they were desperately short on combat power.
He was confused because Rockruff's evolutionary light was different from the others. Compared to the pure white glow of the other Pokémon, Rockruff's was mostly green.
"I hope this evolution is more like Milotic's."
At present, excluding Rockruff, whose new abilities were still unknown, there were only two evolved Pokémon: Milotic and Charmeleon.
Charmeleon had grown much stronger after evolving, but compared to Milotic, the improvement was still far smaller.
At a time like this, Kakashi naturally hoped Rockruff would undergo the same kind of overwhelming transformation Milotic had.
Within the light, Rockruff's body gradually changed. Its size grew larger, its limbs became sharper and more agile, and even its tail underwent a major transformation.
When the light finally faded, Kakashi saw Dusk Form Lycanroc.
Like before, there were stone-like protrusions around its neck, but now they were thicker and sharper, giving off a much more dangerous aura.
Most of Lycanroc's fur was sunset orange, while the mane on its head was pure white. Its tail, like before, was also white.
"What is going on? It suddenly turned into this." Sasori could not understand what had happened, as if Rockruff had instantly matured by four or five years.
"Howl!"
Lycanroc let out a sharp howl, its glowing green eyes fixed firmly on Sasori's real body.
[Stone Edge!]
Dozens of boulders the size of heads formed in front of Lycanroc and shot toward Sasori.
As it attacked, Lycanroc's green eyes took on an even more dangerous red hue.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
Rin rapidly formed hand signs and unleashed a Water Dragon alongside Lycanroc's attack, both aimed at Sasori's real body.
Sasori's fingers twitched. He immediately controlled the Third Kazekage to retreat and erected a thick wall of iron sand in front of himself.
Obito instantly relaxed and began panting heavily.
He had almost hit his limit. Fighting the Third Kazekage's human puppet alone with Charmeleon had been far too exhausting.
Fortunately, he himself had not trained much that day. Most of his energy had gone into dragging Charmeleon through training, so he had managed to preserve more stamina and chakra than Kakashi.
"This white haired mutt actually looks pretty handsome after evolving," Obito said in surprise as he looked at Lycanroc.
He had realized something. Other than Charmeleon, the other Pokémon all underwent enormous changes after evolving. Feebas had become elegant and beautiful, while Rockruff had become strikingly handsome. Meanwhile, Charmeleon, who had evolved first, had changed the least overall.
"If only that white fur had turned red or black, it would look even cooler," Obito thought, still deeply dissatisfied with the large patch of white fur around Lycanroc's neck and tail. In his eyes, it seriously affected its looks.
Obito seized the rare moment of breathing room, exited Flame Breathing Chakra Mode, and quickly began refining chakra.
Charmeleon collapsed to the ground, exhausted. It had already been tormented by Obito earlier and was now close to giving out completely.
Watching the opponent it had once barely beaten evolve and become visibly stronger, Charmeleon felt a deep sense of bitterness.
Among all the current Pokémon, it seemed the only one it could still reliably defeat was Zorua.
Even though it was Zorua's best friend, Charmeleon found itself, to its own shame, hoping Zorua would evolve later than the others.
It immediately felt guilty.
It should have been thinking about becoming stronger itself. How could it wish for its friend to stay weak?
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Shower!"
Rockruff's sudden evolution filled Sasori with unease, so he immediately expended a large amount of chakra to make the Third Kazekage unleash another wide range Magnet Release attack.
Under his control, the Third Kazekage formed hand signs with both hands, and a huge amount of iron sand rapidly gathered around him.
Seeing that it was the same wide area Magnet Release as before, Kakashi immediately shouted, "Lycanroc, let's use Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall together!"
He had been refining chakra with everything he had during every spare moment. At this point, he only had enough for a single Earth Flow Wall. He no longer had enough for Multiple Earth Flow Wall, so he needed Lycanroc's help.
"Howl!"
Lycanroc answered with a sharp howl and quickly gathered Earth Release chakra.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall!"
Kakashi's hand signs were lightning fast, and a wide earthen wall rose from the ground at once.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
Rin followed immediately, raising a water wall in front of the earth wall in hopes that it would absorb part of the impact from the iron sand.
To avoid weakening the earthen wall, Rin pushed her chakra control to the limit and maintained just enough distance between the water wall and the earth wall so the two would not interfere with one another.
Immediately after that, Lycanroc let out another howl, and an earthen wall slightly weaker than Kakashi's rose up as well.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
Bang bang bang!
A large amount of iron sand needles slammed into the Earth Flow Walls, tearing through the water wall almost at once and rapidly shredding the earthen walls apart.
Lycanroc knew its Earth Flow Wall was not strong enough, so it quickly gathered chakra again and raised another wall to reinforce the defense.
As it watched Lycanroc and Milotic fighting side by side while it could only cower beneath a wall Lycanroc had created, Charmeleon felt a deep unwillingness rise within it.
Not long ago, it had nearly been the strongest Pokémon among them, losing only slightly to Rockruff.
Now it could only watch the others show off their strength. How could it accept that?
Would Milotic really think highly of a dragon with no power, a dragon that could only hide in the rear?
"Roar!"
Charmeleon let out a furious roar toward the sky, full of defiance and longing for strength.
Obito was about to ask why it was suddenly making such weird noises, but then he saw white light begin to shine from Charmeleon's body and immediately shut his mouth.
It was evolving again.
Obito's eyes lit up at once. Charmeleon had already evolved once, so this would be its second evolution. It had to be something incredible. There was no way it could end up worse than Milotic, right?
A brilliant white light enveloped Charmeleon, and the glow of evolution appeared once more on the battlefield.
Kakashi looked toward it in surprise. He had not expected Charmeleon, which had already evolved once, to evolve again.
"Ninja Master Mugetsu never said Nin Beasts could only evolve once. Can Lycanroc and Milotic evolve again too?" Kakashi wondered.
"Charmeleon evolved again. That's great." Rin quickly realized once more just how special Charmeleon and the others truly were.
Whenever their contractors were in danger, the Pokémon would draw out hidden potential.
When the white light faded, Charizard appeared grandly, with a solid body, thick tail, and wide wings.
"Ugh. I should have used genjutsu to make you lose weight," Obito muttered when he saw Charizard's round cream colored belly.
Why did other people's Pokémon become either handsome or elegant after evolving, while Charizard seemed to have just gotten fatter?
Still, what gave Obito some comfort was that after evolving into Charizard, it had gained wings, and the single hornlike protrusion from its old form had become two. It definitely looked much more imposing.
Looking only at its upper body, it really did have some majesty to it, maybe around two thirds as handsome as he was.
But taking in the whole body together, Obito could only say it looked decent, with a bit of presence, though its looks were still less than half of his.
Charizard poked Obito in the head with a finger.
This little human clearly did not know his place anymore. It was no longer the Fire Dragon from before. Now Obito was the little Obito.
Back when it had first evolved into Charmeleon, Obito had used Flame Breathing Chakra Mode to suppress it, and it had no choice but to bow its head.
Now it had cast off its old form and evolved into a true dragon. It was time to turn the tables.
Sensing the dangerous look in Charizard's eyes, Obito immediately forced a very friendly smile onto his face.
"Putting the contract aside, we're still good friends, right?"
A smile with a trace of chill appeared on Charizard's face.
It tapped Obito on the head once more, then flapped its wings and flew away.
As much as it wanted to roast Obito on the spot and let him taste the freshest flames possible, now was not the time.
Playing was one thing. Fooling around was another.
Only it could bully its own contractor. No one else was allowed to do that.
The flame at the tip of Charizard's tail burned especially brightly now, and at its very tip there were even faint traces of blue white fire.
[Fire Blast!]
Charizard opened its mouth and spat out a massive column of blazing fire toward the Third Kazekage.
Since it could fly, even a wide range technique like Iron Sand was something it could deal with by simply taking the right angle.
"What is this now?" Sasori frowned, unable to understand why a powerful flying beast had suddenly appeared.
Because the Earth Flow Walls had blocked his view during Charmeleon's evolution, he had not seen the full process. At most, he could only tell that Charizard had some connection to the previous Charmeleon.
Sasori was genuinely confused.
He had hidden his strength to kill Kakashi. What exactly had Kakashi and the others been hiding theirs for? Were they planning to assassinate Ninja Master Mugetsu or something?
Even though he could not make sense of it, the terrifying flames rushing toward him left him no choice. Sasori immediately had the Third Kazekage use Magnet Release: Iron Sand to defend.
A flying beast with that level of firepower was too dangerous. Sasori directly controlled the Third Kazekage to create two gigantic triangular masses of iron sand and launch them at Charizard.
Even though Charizard looked a little round around the middle, its flying speed was not slow at all. In fact, it was extremely fast. Sasori's iron sand could not catch it for the moment.
And after the wide scale iron sand technique ended, Rin and Milotic launched their attacks again.
"I have to finish this quickly and get back to prepare an antidote," Rin thought anxiously.
In the real world, poison did not work like a status effect in a game. It only worsened over time. Sasori's poison was especially vicious, and even if she suppressed it with Ninjutsu, there was a limit to how long Milotic could endure.
"Awoo!"
Along with Lycanroc's howl, the rocks around its neck suddenly flew outward, grew larger, and pierced toward Sasori's real body.
Lycanroc had not forgotten Kakashi's instruction. The real body was the first priority.
"Damn it."
The expression hidden within Hiruko grew increasingly ugly.
If he did not deal with Charizard first, then with its speed in the air, it would definitely become a major problem.
But if he focused the Third Kazekage on Charizard, then his own weak puppeteer body, protected only by Hiruko, would be unable to withstand the attacks coming from Lycanroc and Rin.
No matter how he thought about it, Sasori had not expected Kakashi and his beasts to be this bizarre, or for their combat power to surge so suddenly.
In his original calculations, ambushing and killing Kakashi's group should have been more than enough.
"I was reckless. It would have been much safer to wait until Kakashi was alone before making my move."
If Kakashi had been alone, then no matter how strange his beasts were, Sasori would still have been confident in killing him.
Left with no better option, Sasori had the Third Kazekage continue defending, blocking the attacks from Rin and the others, while he himself threw out another scroll containing nine puppets.
Although controlling ten puppets at once meant he could no longer use the Third Kazekage's ultimate techniques, in the current situation, using ten puppets at once was still the better choice.
At the very least, it allowed him to cancel out their numerical advantage.
But the battle continued to develop in ways Sasori had not expected.
Even though he used the Third Kazekage to tie down the most troublesome flying beast, the situation still kept turning against him.
Milotic endured attacks through sheer stubbornness, sustained by its recovery technique, and eventually shattered one of the puppets with Aqua Tail.
Kakashi and Obito remained in the rear, refining chakra whenever possible and throwing in support Ninjutsu when they could.
Lycanroc was extremely fast and loved circling behind him, forcing Sasori to keep three puppets close around his body at all times.
At that point, Sasori began to consider retreat.
He wanted revenge, yes.
But this was clearly no longer a situation where revenge could succeed. If he stayed any longer, he would only get himself captured.
The final straw was the fact that one of the preparations he had left nearby had been triggered.
Someone was coming.
Since Raging Sun Mugetsu was Kakashi's teacher, it was only natural that he might come to visit while his students were training. Sasori had prepared a few warning measures in the surrounding area before acting.
Sasori immediately poured out chakra and sent all his puppets into a reckless all out assault, forcing Rin and the others back for a brief moment.
Then he abandoned the other puppets entirely, connecting all his chakra threads to the Third Kazekage alone and using the last of his chakra to unleash another wide range iron sand attack.
Because Charizard had been given special attention, even it was forced to retreat for a while, while everyone else tried desperately to block the barrage with Ninjutsu.
At that moment, Sasori directly extracted the Third Kazekage's chakra core using chakra threads and, without looking back, threw out dozens of explosive tags before retreating at top speed amid the explosions.
The core was the true essence of a human puppet. As long as he preserved that, he could always create another Third Kazekage puppet later.
As for the other human puppets, Sasori did not even bother retrieving them.
Other than the Third Kazekage, the rest were nothing more than expendable tools.
When the sound of iron sand finally faded, Lycanroc leaped onto a wall and began sniffing around, ready to give chase.
"Don't chase a cornered enemy," Kakashi stopped it at once.
Even if they probably could kill Sasori by chasing him now, there was no way of knowing what else might happen afterward.
At present, Kakashi and Obito had basically lost most of their combat ability. Milotic was poisoned by a deadly toxin, and Rin had consumed a huge amount of chakra.
On their side, the only one still in relatively good shape was probably Lycanroc.
Kakashi also suspected that Charizard's condition was not great either. He had studied Charmeleon for quite a while, and when Charmeleon was in poor condition, the flame on its tail tended to burn unusually strongly.
Compared to killing Sasori, Kakashi cared much more about keeping everyone on their side alive.
Lycanroc obediently turned around and returned to Kakashi's side.
Kakashi silently nodded to himself.
So it really was just a special case with Charizard. Evolution did not necessarily change a beast's temperament.
"Let's head back immediately and report everything to Teacher Mugetsu," Kakashi said.
Rin nodded seriously. "I need to hurry back and prepare an antidote for Milotic. Otherwise, it could become dangerous."
Hearing that, Charizard immediately looked worried. It rushed over to Milotic's side to show concern, then even gestured to Rin that she could ride on its back and fly home faster.
Obito stared in silence.
Even though he could not understand Charizard's words as clearly as Zorua could, its meaning was obvious enough. It had even rested its head against Rin.
"I haven't even ridden it once myself," Obito thought speechlessly, amazed at how eager Charizard was to curry favor.
If it were not Rin who was going to ride it, he definitely would have stepped in and said something.
Without wasting another moment, the group rushed back to Six Paths City.
To Rin's relief, Milotic's vitality was extremely strong, and with Mugetsu's help, the poisoning was ultimately resolved without any real danger.
…
On the other side, Sasori sprinted at full speed, his chakra flaring as he ran, occasionally glancing back at the sky to check whether Charizard was pursuing him.
After putting enough distance between himself and the battlefield and seeing no sign of pursuit, he let out a slight breath of relief.
"I need to perfect the Human Puppet Technique as quickly as possible. If I were already a human puppet myself, then even if Uchiha Shisui had been there, none of them would have escaped death."
For perhaps the first time in a long while, Sasori truly longed for greater strength.
In truth, pure strength was never what he had cared about most. His constant research into human puppets had always been for the sake of eternal art.
Still, even though no one was chasing him now, Sasori did not slow down in the slightest. He intended to leave Six Paths City first.
With the Third Kazekage reduced to only its chakra core, his combat ability had fallen drastically. Even if he stayed, it would be difficult to kill Kakashi now. It would be better to first restore his strength and wait for another chance.
After all, once he transformed himself, he would possess eternal life. Once that happened, there would always be another opportunity for revenge. There was no need to rush over a few days.
"Bansho Tenin!"
Just as Sasori was thinking about his future path of revenge, a powerful suction force suddenly erupted and yanked his body forward.
"Nagato? Why is he here?!"
Sasori was filled with shock and confusion.
"Nagato, I am Hashori. We have no grudge between us, so why are you attacking me?" Sasori tried to stall with words, hoping Nagato would stop.
He no longer had the Third Kazekage at his side, and the chakra in his body was nearly exhausted. He had no ability left to fight Nagato.
But Nagato did not seem to hear him at all.
The instant Sasori was dragged close, Nagato unleashed Shinra Tensei and slammed him straight into the ground.
Boom!
The immense repulsive force smashed Sasori into the earth, creating a huge crater.
Already drained and wounded, Sasori could not withstand such a blow. He lost consciousness on the spot.
.....
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