Tanshu stayed still, analyzing his situation and the possible options he had. Truth be told, this battle didn't really trouble or confuse him. The Red Dog was quite certain that if he stopped holding back for just a moment he'd destroy this Barrier Buster in one attack, the problem was the future battles. If he used too much chakra in this battle can he be counted on in the future, for example if Howoku lost to Shirona? Tanshu was certain he had seen Oni Mask previously, what if Tanshu had to fight his old sensei at some point? There were just too many questions, too many dangers in the future and all of those factors needed to be considered and properly analyzed. The Barrier Buster had no such problem, sadly.
The man lunged forward, Tanshu tried to intercept the lackluster offensive with a straight punch but the man flipped over and rolled on the Sannin's arm, kicking off in the air with another flip and driving his glowing with golden chakra arms right into Tanshu's skull. The man's reddish brown hair flowed wildly all over Sannin's face covering up the blood that shot out from Tanshu's nose and mouth from the sheer pressure his skull was hit by. Barrier Buster's legs locked onto Tanshu's neck and slammed the man into the ground, the jounin stood up and examined the Sannin's neck. The Kirigakure jounin had snapped many necks with this drop, there was no way that the famous Konoha's Red Dog – Uzumaki Tanshu was still alive. He turned around and started walking at his female partner, who was busy with the Fourth Hokage, with the intention of supporting her.
"Is that it? Are you giving up already?"
The Barrier Buster shinobi stopped in his tracks as a creepy but firm and manly voice alerted him of his opponent's survival. Tanshu stood back on his feet wiping his hair to the side and the blood off of his nose and his mouth. The Barrier Ninja shook once in a wild uncontrollable signal of fear. "I have to say, your Barrier Busting Jutsu packs a punch, then again, that's the only way for me to even feel your puny blows. If you don't want to embarrass yourself I suggest you keep em coming…" Tanshu grunted out with a rough tone, almost like a bulldog intimidating a traveler who was passing by his master's yard with a bark.
"Who do you think you're kidding? You're intensifying your chakra flow for just a second when you're hit, that's why your body manages to withstand these blows, it's a textbook technique. You're wasting your chakra, when do you think you'll run out of steam, Konoha's Red Dog?" Tanshu's opponent taunted to which only a calm laugh intimidated the man even more. Tanshu's finger rose up to the man's mouth and the Sannin sunk his teeth into his own finger, then he flashed some hand seals and slammed his palm into the ground making a wild circle of seals appear and a powerful cloud of smoke appear with a loud poof.
"Summoning Jutsu: Red Poochy"
A small dog with red colored fur, not taller than one's knees as hard as it tried to stand on two appeared in front of the man as the smoke cleared. The little dog barked up with a high pitched bark more common among the younger dogs. "I've got no need to preserve chakra, I've got another trick up my sleeve for your mistress, not that it's any business of a pitiful lapdog like you." Tanshu replied pointing at the man with his arm as the dog leaped at his opponent with a violent growl and a very underwhelming bark of a young small dog. The Barrier Buster's leg shot up into the air kicking the dog away and preventing it from biting him. The dog lit up with reddish chakra as it landed on its feet and shook on its tiny little legs to recover itself from the impact.
"You know what to do, Poochy" Tanshu mumbled silently so that only the dog and he could hear it. The young dog nodded and the red glow of chakra around him intensified. This barely visible red glow interested the Barrier Buster ninja, most of all it intimidated him because he had no idea what sort of technique it was. From the report of the Barrier Corps ninja that placed special recording barriers in the room where Tanshu fought the monks the Sannin also used something similar letting his dogs charge some sort of mysterious chakra and then disappear transferring it all to Tanshu. Just what sort of technique was it? As famous as the Red Dog was he had never demonstrated this technique before in any high profile battles which meant that either it was something he kept at great secrecy or it killed literally everyone who saw the technique, leaving no one to tell the tale.
The Barrier Ninja bit his finger and made some handseals swinging his bleeding finger around in the air and leaving a small trail of blood from the squirt of blood that came out. It appeared that the Barrier Buster's technique kept it afloat and stuck in the air. "There is a downside to any technique, no matter how powerful. One of the more popular downsides is that it is very easily avoidable, after all – most jutsu are just projectiles of chakra that can be leaped over or stepped aside from. That is why the most elite Barrier Ninja and Barrier Busters can do this!" the Barrier Buster slammed his hands together forming transparent barriers around Tanshu. They formed and stuck together so that they formed a tunnel-like structure.
"Now you can't avoid my technique! Lightning Style: Restriction Beam Jutsu!" the Barrier Ninja shouted out as a powerful and incredibly loud beam of lightning chakra erupted from his handseal filling the entire barrier tunnel and slamming into Tanshu. Only as the technique exploded did the tunnel of barriers break. The explosion and the intensity of the beam looked like it was a thousand times hotter and more intense than a bolt of lightning, there would have been absolutely no way for a normal man or even a normal ninja to survive. The Barrier Buster breathed heavily with his hands weighed down and shaking from the strain that the technique placed on his body, the Red Poochy stood calmly besides the barrier as he was not included in the narrow target zone of the barrier tunnel.
"Why on Earth would anyone waste their time dodging this?" a loud and rudely toned reply came from still clearing smoke and rubble. The Barrier Ninja jumped up and rubbed his eyes, he started grinding his teeth in frustration. He knew of two ways for a ninja to survive a hit like that, one was to use the textbook technique of spending immense amounts of chakra and interrupting one's own natural flow by kickstarting it and intensifying it to incredible rate – such technique would've provided a natural "armor" for the user but in cost of a disrupted chakra flow until the natural flow returned. One would've only used anything like that in an emergency, when no other way to survive was possible. Especially someone like Red Dog Tanshu – someone who took great pride in their physical strength which, if it was achieved with chakra level being increased would've made his physical stats plummet.
The other way was to counteract it with a Lightning Release technique of same or greater strength. This was a common way for one Lightning Release user to counteract and redirect powerful Lightning Release jutsu by grounding them, because one's own body was using the technique and immune from being shocked one could easily have absorbed the weaker charge and redirected it to the ground or even back at the opponent. Thing was that based on the information that floated around it was unlikely that Tanshu was a Lightning Release user. Based on the most common information Tanshu only used Fire Release and while a previously undiscovered secondary nature was possible something made the Barrier Buster suspect that the Red Dog actually used the first way.
"What's your game, Red Dog? Why are you interrupting your own chakra flow so wildly? Why do you care so little of your own chakra right after telling me how important the future battles are for you?" the Barrier Ninja yelled out thrusting his fist at Tanshu and waving it wildly to which the Sannin only laughed. The man enjoyed seeing his opponent grind their teeth in frustration as they struggled to wrap their heads around his plans that weren't even meant for them anyways. With a careless glance Tanshu looked at his summoned partner who looked back at Tanshu and nodded. The dog then wildly charged forward, as the dog jumped up to dig its teeth into the Barrier Buster's face the jounin tried to move back.
The image of the dog that leaped for the face blurred and disappeared, the Barrier Buster felt sharp pain in his leg as he saw the little dog digging his teeth into the lower parts of his leg with blood squirting out from the pressure that the little bugger managed to put out. The jounin tried to shake the little pest off but then an elbow dug deep into his chest breaking multiple ribs in the process. The little dog working together with his owner leaped and dug its fangs deep into the Barrier Buster's face and while the jounin tried shaking it off Tanshu's strike hit him deep into his solar plexus making the jounin drop like a sack. With his face and his leg bleeding the Barrier Buster rolled around on the floor writhing in pain before standing up. He then charged with a kunai at the little dog before stopping in mid charge – the little pet was no longer glowing, it was just a little dog with a red fur and no more chakra glow… What did that mean? Did Tanshu cancel his strange technique? The man restarted his assault and lunged at the little dog kicking him up to stab it but after a single kick it poofed into smoke.
The Barrier Buster was absolutely stunned. Nothing annoyed him more than his opponent being steps ahead of him and him being absolutely oblivious to it with no way of pinning down just what the hell it was.
Not too further away Haoru was still entertaining himself with two Kirigakure jounin. The enraged but re-inspired with fake hope sumo ninja leaped at him, coating his palms with water that seeped up to his hand off of the floor and formed a water padding the man started thrusting his palms fast and strong. The impact of the thrusts must've been immense as only thrusting the palms above the rocky floor made the rocks below crumble and rise up being flung in the general direction of the sumo ninja's attack with each thrust making that cruel water splashing sound, sort of like that when one jumps off of a bridge into the water landing on their belly just multiplied numerous times. Both Haoru's chakra coated blade and the Onimoui's palm thrusts clashed with each other and while the sumo ninja appeared to have some trouble keeping his attacks up, Haoru's smile made it look all too easy.
All of a sudden the silver haired Yuki woman appeared behind Haoru driving her leg right into the elder samurai's back. Haoru stumbled forward but still kept up with his clash with the woman's partner. In fact, the sumo gave in first as his hands just weighed down pulsing with blood passing through the vessels inside his palms as if he was slapping a brick wall for the past minute. The Yuki woman kept kicking the stumbling samurai's back, she had caught him unprepared and his blade was busy elsewhere, now she had to exploit the advantage! Suddenly after a combination of kicks the woman's body split in two and collapsed in pieces onto the ground only for it to dissolve into snow. With a wild breeze the woman's remains were carried in front of the samurai and she thrust two spikes of ice right into Haoru's shoulders. Then with she planted the heel of her sandal right into the man's face making him tumble back.
The woman laughed out triumphantly and her partner joined her after a brief moment of heavy panting. Much to their surprise Haoru rose from the floor momentarily. "I see, so this was all a genjutsu, huh? You activated it and then leaped onto your partner's back, the genjutsu rendered the real you invisible replacing you with a snow clone of sorts while my body believed me to be hit from behind…" The Yuki woman thrust her index finger forward arrogantly as if signaling the samurai to bow to her to earn her mercy.
"That's right, samurai, and now as you have these icicles in your shoulder blood vessels you need my mercy to keep them from melting and opening the blood flow. If those blood vessels open up – you'll die in seconds!" the woman replied with a high and mighty tone to which she was only replied with laughter.
"Well… I would've been done in, had I not tensed my muscles up and blocked your stab." the samurai laughed out, the Yuki woman squinted in suspicion, "What do you mean? I stabbed you in the shoulders, I know my anatomy just fine, don't play games with me, old man!"
The samurai laughed again, "Go ahead then, young lady, melt your ice toothpicks, the moment that you do, however, my arms are free to move three hundred and sixty degrees, you better believe I'll be hungry for blood!" the man shouted out swinging his sword and then comically jumping up in pain as with the icicles stuck in his body the man had trouble properly moving his hand around. The sumo ninja looked at his partner with a worried look.
"Umm… Maybe you should… You know… Keep the icicles solid… I mean… Just in case…" he started uttering words one after another trying to calm his partner down. The woman started grinding her teeth heavily trying to decide on her course of actions. Seeing his partner's hesitation and realizing the fact that it meant great restriction of movement to his opponent the sumo ninja leaped forward grabbing the samurai by the face and slamming him into the floor and then leaping up and landing with his bottom straight onto the man's face. As blood started leaking from the cracked forehead of the elder samurai the woman finally braved up and made a handseal dissolving the icicles.
That same moment that the icicles disappeared a powerful shock hit the sumo ninja right into the center of his belly sending the chubby shinobi rolling back. Just like that Haoru was back onto his feet with his sword raised above his head. "I must thank you for calling my bluff, the cold from your ice allowed my injured blood vessels to heal up. After a lifetime of battlefield experience one finds their body healing up quite fast and if you'd have dissolved them earlier I'd have been in quite some trouble." Haoru smiled with a cruel twist of his lips.
The Yuki woman pouted as her body started sweating in fear – she wasted her chance to kill this man and this was all because of this godly intimidation that this man kept up. She believed his every lie just because he threatened her life and with that impossibly thick murdering atmosphere coming off of the samurai warrior she had no choice but to let him control the battlefield. To think that the man played her like that – made her make her icicles freeze the same wounds that she opened while his body's own natural freak battlefield regeneration ability allowed his vessels to heal within just several minutes. Even with his life in danger this man's face did not change, so this was what it meant to be a veteran of countless wars and claiming the heads of many times more ninja.
The woman just let her intimidated and afraid voice run wild. "Aren't you at all worried if you live or die? I could've easily killed you then and there!" she yelled out, her voice was flooded with fear over her own life and regret that she let him recover. Haoru's sword swung through the empty air, cutting so fast that one moment it was above his head while another it was already touching the floor. "Windcutter Style: Sword Gust Jutsu!" the samurai chanted as a powerful vortex of wind from the air literally being cut apart picked the giant sumo ninja up and tossed him around in the air leaving countless scratches and cuts as well. Within literally moments after the previous technique concluded Haoru appeared in front of the man jumping into the air with an upwards slash making the sumo ninja's body fly up stuck onto the blade that cut him. After reaching the highest point up in the air the samurai slashed downwards sending the chubby's body slamming into the ground while he himself landed gracefully nearby. The Onimoui ninja just laid there with his eyes rolled back with no signs of life.
"It is the first lesson a samurai learns during their young days: "Go to a battle afraid of dying and definitely you will die, go there with a clear mind and maybe you will live!" that is how a true samurai fights, that is why a samurai will always best a ninja in a fight!" Haoru shouted out madly finally dropping his smile. As the woman stumbled back, trying her best to fight the instinct to run for her life the samurai slowly walked towards her. The eyes of the Yuki that previously were so cold and analytical and so recently had the shade of victory and arrogance were now terrified of the concept of her own death. The woman stepped back and tripped over a rock, she fell onto the ground and tore her dress. As the pain revived her brain reminding it that this was real and actually happening she jumped up. "Stay back!" she screamed out.
Haoru didn't even stop for a moment, his pace didn't even slow down. The Yuki thrust her palms forward as cold winter winds howled around her picking up snow "I said stay back! Icicle Barrage Jutsu!" she screamed out again shooting a mad flurry of icicle projectiles all of which bounced off Haoru's blade that moved in a blur deflecting each and every projectile. It was like this samurai didn't even try to deflect the projectiles of such speed, his hand worked almost entirely out of instinct and muscle memory. Such was the strength of one possessing a God Sword technique in their arsenal. The Yuki woman's hands shot forward as the winds howled again. "STAY BAAAACK!" she screamed as Haoru's chest thumped right into her thrust forward hands that finished their handseals just at the same moment.
"Ice Style: Absolute Zero Storm Jutsu!" the woman screamed in panic as the winds focused into a single direction blowing straight into Haoru and pelting him with snow at such speed that the snowflakes managed to cut into his skin and leave cuts. Within mere moments the man disappeared in a wild and uncontrollable mess of snow, howling winter winds and ice. The technique was so immense that Howoku and Tanshu stopped for a moment to look at it and even had to evaluate if it won't be a threat to them. Fortunately for them the technique was very contained, that was why it was so powerful. The Yuki woman dashed back, her shaking knees finally gave in as the woman collapsed onto the ground and grabbed her head with her shaking hands. "I hit him… I hit him head on… He's got to be dead… Frozen still and torn apart… One with the snowflakes… He is now just a bunch of snowflakes… Then why… WHY DO I STILL FEEL THIS PRESSURE!?" she screamed out into the air absolutely terrified of the terrible atmosphere around the samurai that didn't waver for a moment.
"That was some technique, Yuki-ninja." The voice echoed from the large pillar of freezing and rampaging blizzard. "Had I not used my sword to make a vortex of wind equally as strong to contain the blizzard within it I would've actually died…" a wild laughter came out of the tornado of blizzard that then wildly split in half at the center and ended just as suddenly as it started, the wild but static snowflakes now fell from the air as it started to snow around the area where Haoru, the one with God Sword, stood. He was no longer smiling however, maybe because he felt the strain on his body from all this mad fighting he had done that day, maybe because he stopped enjoying himself and grew bored, wishing instead to end it all with one strike!
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