Chapter 64: Too Slow
Snake—Ram—Monkey—Boar—Horse—Tiger. Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!!
In a secluded clearing on the outskirts of Konohagakure, Kakashi completed his hand seals in under a second. A torrent of searing flame erupted from his mouth.
The blazing fire coalesced into an enormous fireball and surged forward.
Even from dozens of meters away, the scorching heat was palpable.
Ryū had zero interest in losing his hair for no good reason.
And he had even less interest in finding out whether Tekkai could protect it.
A burst of air pressure erupted beneath his feet, radiating outward and kicking up a ring of dust.
With Soru active—
His speed hit its absolute peak.
Boom…
Boom…
Boom…
Ryū chained four consecutive uses of Soru. The sheer velocity, combined with that bizarre force-generation technique, sent a jolt of disbelief through Kakashi's chest.
With the Sharingan, he could see exactly how Soru worked—how the force was produced.
Which was precisely why he couldn't believe it.
This force-generation method defied every principle of physics he knew.
How was it even possible to pull that off?!
This wasn't anything remotely resembling ninjutsu!
Kakashi—the "Copy Ninja"—had a sinking feeling that if he tried to replicate Ryū's movement technique, he'd eat dirt face-first. The probability wasn't just high; it was a certainty.
This bizarre movement method was even more outlandish than the Eight Gates.
At least the Eight Gates required chakra.
He hadn't seen Ryū use a single drop of chakra.
And Ryū didn't have any chakra to begin with.
* * *
"Such incredible speed… The fireball can't keep up at all… What?!"
The thought barely had time to form before a spike of danger slammed into Kakashi's awareness.
His body vanished in a puff of white smoke. Where he'd stood a moment ago, there was now a stool-sized wooden log.
When Kakashi reappeared, he was perched on a treetop more than a dozen meters away.
But before he could so much as exhale—a vicious rush of displaced air came screaming toward him!
A wooden log hurtled at him like a cannonball.
It was as though Ryū could predict exactly where Kakashi would appear after using the Substitution Jutsu—and attack in the same instant!
"He saw through the Substitution? Sharingan? Byakugan? No—impossible. He shouldn't be Uchiha or Hyūga. Then how did he see through it?"
Kakashi's mind overflowed with question marks, but there was no time to voice them.
The log flying at him clearly carried staggering force.
Having already witnessed Ryū's terrifying strength firsthand, Kakashi wasn't about to try blocking it head-on.
He angled his body slightly to the right, letting the log whistle past.
But before he could make another move—
The sound of air being split apart, too many to count—
Came again!
Kakashi looked straight ahead. Crescent-shaped attacks—bizarre, unlike anything he'd seen—came pouring toward him like a squall, each blade roughly one to two meters long. There were so many that Kakashi's scalp went numb.
The storm of slashing crescents descended, leaving virtually no gap to dodge through.
And the coverage area was enormous. His only option was to tank it!
Kakashi dropped from the tree.
Mid-air, his hands blurred through seals.
He slammed both palms into the ground.
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!!
A massive, thick earthen wall shot up from the ground, encasing Kakashi entirely. In the next instant, countless Rankyaku slashes hammered into its surface.
Gash after gash was carved into the thick wall.
The entire structure seemed to shudder continuously.
It held for a few seconds—
Then shattered all at once.
But Kakashi's silhouette had already vanished. When he reappeared, he'd used Earth Release to tunnel underground and emerge directly behind Ryū!
* * *
Crackle…
Crackle…
The sound of sparking electricity reached Ryū's ears. He had no eyes in the back of his head, but from the reflections dancing across nearby surfaces, he could tell that something behind him was emitting a piercing light.
Kakashi… that sound… a Lightning Release technique? Almost certainly.
Lightning Release: Chidori!!
A harsh, grating shriek filled the air. Ryū's brow furrowed slightly. Feeling the shift of airflow at his back, his body reacted on what was almost pure instinct—contorting into a posture that no textbook on human anatomy could explain.
A hand wreathed in blinding lightning grazed past his waist.
"Your testing's starting to get a little excessive, Kakashi-otouto."
Ryū's voice sounded right beside Kakashi's ear. In the next heartbeat, Kakashi heard the faint whistle of displaced air.
A palm chopped down toward the back of Kakashi's neck—but passed clean through.
The sight made Ryū freeze for a split second before it clicked.
That… was a Shadow Clone?!
Had to be a Shadow Clone.
* * *
"From our earlier exchanges, it's obvious your reaction speed is exceptional. My Chidori was never going to land on you, so it wasn't excessive."
Kakashi's expression was grave. He was finding this fight deeply uncomfortable.
Because whether it was speed, strength, or reaction time—
Ryū had virtually no weaknesses.
And every time Kakashi tried to use genjutsu—
The man just closed his eyes!
As if he knew the Sharingan was about to activate!
Was it some kind of danger precognition?
That precognition was absolutely absurd!
Of course, Kakashi had zero self-awareness about the fact that the ninja's own Substitution Jutsu was equally absurd—functionally identical to instant teleportation. Completely broken as a mechanic, honestly.
* * *
Ryū's gaze rested on Kakashi, his thoughts drifting.
Hatake Kakashi was jōnin-class. That was beyond dispute.
Over the course of this sparring session—
And cross-referencing Kakashi's feats from the anime—
Ryū could roughly gauge where Kakashi stood.
And, by extension, where he himself stood.
"Well, it makes sense. I've spent over twenty thousand Points. If I couldn't even beat a single jōnin, those Points would be criminally useless. My current strength… in One Piece terms, I could hold my own as a Warlord of the Sea, no problem."
To this moment, Ryū hadn't gotten remotely serious. Even the Shadow Clone's Chidori hadn't made him feel genuinely threatened. The speed was just too slow.
So slow that he didn't even need Observation Haki. Kami-e alone was more than enough to dodge it effortlessly.
And objectively speaking, this made perfect sense.
If his current level truly rivaled a Warlord of the Sea from the One Piece world—
Then comparing a Warlord's combat power against a ninja jōnin's, the gap was obvious at a glance.
In terms of raw destructive output alone, early- and mid-series Naruto simply couldn't match One Piece.
Not until the later arcs, when the power scaling went completely off the rails.
Only at that point could the Naruto-verse start to outclass One Piece.
Following that logic… even in a fight to the death, he could manhandle Kakashi? The real question was how he'd stack up against the current Hokage.
☆☆☆
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