Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Also a cheeky little discount– more information on that at the bottom AN.
I started the fight in sage mode. There would be no holding back on my end. Not with the Daimyo himself, surrounded by six of his guardians to prevent any runaway attacks, here in the audience to witness the match. The conversation yesterday had been less than effective, with the both of us essentially just going around and around in circles. I explained the nitty-gritty of my plan to the Daimyo, and showed him why it was necessary to sacrifice those villages, and he lamented sacrificing the village's while just asking me to win the war like I could do so with the stroke of a pen.
Our forces were too few to split up for battle, so if we engaged any front, we would have to fully commit to it. The problem was that committing in any single direction would be a mistake, as the other villages would just let us fight to our heart's content while bypassing us and making a straight line for Konoha itself. I explained all that to him, got him to nod that he understood, and then the next second he was asking me to do something about the village being burned. I'd already done the best I could, I explained over and over again. In short, there was no middle ground to be found, and he kept me in the office ill midnight arguing about the same things over and over again until Uraume intervened, suggested a recess, and then invited the Daimyo to watch.
"If you'll be going all out, then so will I" Uzume said as she noticed my body expand as the power of nature energy ran through it. I grew a solid foot in height, my shoulders broadened, and my muscles expanded, nearly ripping through my armour. In contrast, she was still as stone for a second, and when she opened her eyes, they spun until they adopted a very familiar pattern— the mangekyou. I would have condemned her shortsightedness if I couldn't see the amount of thought that had come into play here. For one, for all she might have allowed her words to make it seem like a spur of the moment thing, she had sent Uraume to me last night with the warning that she would use it.
For another, I was unable to think of any argument for her not to. Spies? If they sent word that we were stronger and scarier than expected, that would just make their employers either delay their attack which gives me more time to prepare, or to attack faster and thus less carefully, giving me room to act on my plan fully. Danzo was a threat, but he was yet to b become the man he was in the anime and if he was, he was no threat. Not since the last time we'd shaken hands. He might be a passable seal journeyman in his own respect, but that hiriashin seal would never be coming off. I just had to trust him to be sensible enough to see the threat for what it was and cease the maneuvering.
The shuriken that had been tossed in the air to symbolize the fight beginning landed on the forest ground with a solid chunk, and then we were off. With everyone else, I fought passively, weathering attacks and waiting to see what they could do. With Uzume, doing that would be so suicide as it would let her get into the groove of things, so I started on the front foot. With an explosion of steam, I covered the distance between us faster than I ever could have and unleashed a punch straight at her solar plexus. She did not brace. She did not act like the attack was coming. She did not even react, apart from changing where her kunai aimed to account for my change in position.
My attack landed first. I punched her with all the force of steam release in my fists, and it did nothing. Nullified by her mangekyou. Just as expected, I thought, as I moved my head at the last second to allow her kunai pass me by without a scratch. First exchange: draw. She brought the hand back, and aimed again, while I diverted said hand to the side before elbowing her in the stomach. Once again, no reaction. Her other hand rose, brimming with lightning release chakra, and flashed, blinding my byakugan and forcing my own eyes closed.
I felt her feet aim for mine, and with a twist of my chakra, I sunk into the newly formed mud. She broke her hand out of my grip by forcing me to dodge out of the way of the hand filled with lightning please before backflipping backwards, an easy 200 metres in one go. Sage mode sensing was no joke, I thought with a smile. If she thought she'd have an easier time fighting me while blinded, then she had another thing coming. I felt her fingers form a seal even as her chakra contorted itself in a familiar manner. A fireball that must have been the size of a house roared into being a second later.
A second was how long it got to enjoy being top dog, as I breathed in for that long before fire bloomed in my throat and I breathed out a fireball of my own. From what I could tell, I had used close to thrice the amount of chakra she had in her own jutsu, and it showed in the size of mine. Both fire release techniques clashed before exploding, while my much diminished fireball continued in her direction. She jumped to the side, breathing out dozens of smaller fireballs and sending them in my direction. Once again, without bothering with seals, I reached for my chakra, and it answered as I spat out a wall of water large enough to swallow all her fireballs, sending some mist about the place.
Twisting my chakra again, the rest of the water turned into mist that enveloped our position. I reached a hand up to begin healing my eyes when I felt my senses scream at me to move to the side.
I did, jumping to the left as a bolt of screaming lightning shot across the area where I'd just been standing. A second later, I felt Uzume's chakra bleed into the mist, and it was only my familiarity with her bag of tricks that had me blowing out a gust of hurricane force winds as I spun in a circle to dismiss the now electrified mist before it could reach me. She said nothing, remaining silent, but I felt her fingers and hands move in deliberate movements. Shurikenjutsu, I figured. The only issue was that she hadn't added any chakra to the shuriken, so I had no idea where they were. I stabbed my hand into the ground, turning it into mud and commanding it to rise around me in a dome that protected me from the attack, as I felt the shuriken bury themselves in the mud.
Through my mud, I could feel the ones that had tags attached to them, and those were surrounded by even more mud as I swallowed the explosions thanks to mud release. Still in the dome, I lifted my hand to heal my eyes again, but had to move. The ground beneath me bulged as Uzume shot out of my mud, flames beneath her feet. She spun into a kick that I caught in one hand before I tossed her into the dome that surrounded me, commanding the mud to grab and restrain her.
The body I'd caught exploded into fire and ash, sending me reeling as the sound ruptured both my eardrums in one go. I could see it now, the strategy she was employing. Disorient me to prevent me from bring my natural advantages to bear and force me to play her game. My mud rose to block another lance of lightning release chakra— A mistake. The spear shot through my mud like it was not even there, forcing me to bend backwards at my waist to avoid the attack. I felt her jump in the air, gunbai in hand, and forced my body down into the mud, sinking deeper and deeper until I was sure that there was nothing she could do to reach me here without risking the watching audience. My hands rose and begun the work of healing both my eyes and ears. Eyes first as they were already mostly recovered. Ears next.
I could have used Kurama's chakra to do both at any time, but I knew that Uzume would count it as her win the second I relied on borrowed power. Steam release from Kokuo's tail didn't count because it wasn't like using direct tailed beast chakra, and she had no idea where I'd gotten it from. When both my eyes and ears had recovered, I rose to the ground once again.
"Done with your break?" She asked with a scoff. I smiled and shot in her direction like a bullet. This time, with a smile on her face to match mine, she mirrored my movements, coming for me just as I came for her.
She struck first or at least tried to— a sweeping kick that hit nothing but air as I jumped straight over it, and as I fell, I dropped two kunai aimed right at her. She deflected the both of them with immense force, sending them flying into the distance. One disadvantage of facing someone who knew all your tricks was precisely that: they knew all your tricks. I landed on the floor and blacked two straight punches from her before I flexed my chakra, shattering the genjutsu just in time to dance away from a swing of her gunbai.
The next swing I met with my hands, clapping my hands with the gunbai's flat edge between them, holding her off from her attempt to bisect me with the thing. She strained, but focused as I was, there was little she could do against my strength. So it wasn't any surprise that she let go of the gunbai before backflipping.
As she did so, her fingers lashed out, sending a dozen shuriken in my direction with a flicker of motion. I spat out a gust of wind that sent the throwing stars flying awry, and forced her to come at me again. I pressed down on the gunbai for a second before tossing it off to the side and dodging backwards from a kunai aimed right between my eyes. Her movements brought her close enough that she could do little to prevent my snap kick sinking into her midsection. No effect once more, and this time, she retaliated with a familiar bit of red chakra forming around her.
Her Susanoo formed in a matter of seconds, a sign that she had been training it for a while. It was a full-bodied one, a red specter of death. Humanoid with two legs and two long, gangly hands, it reached so high that it was probably visible even above the treeline of the massive forest that surrounded us in all directions. I breathed out once and formed a single hand sign.
Hashirama's notes were a fountain of knowledge on all sorts of things. But if there was one thing he rarely spoke about, it was his fights with Madara. Almost like he was not proud of them at all. But where he failed, his younger brother stepped up. And according to Tobirama Senju, there were two ways to beat the Susanoo. Either match it with a construct of one's own— something like Hashirama's thousand hand buddha or even wood golem. The second way was to keep it unbalanced.
Thankfully, mud release gave me the opportunity to do both.
"Sage Art Mud Release: Descent into the Underworld" I began.
Now, it must fall upon me to describe the battlefield on which Uzume and I fought upon, to enable you to understand just what was about to happen. The Jounin sparring league held their matches in a large clearing within training ground 44 that got wider and wider with each fight between powerful jounin. Now, the clearing was so wide that it was about the size of three football pitches squashed together, surrounded by the giant trees that called the Forest of death home. In that treeline stood, sat, or hid the jounin force of Konohagakure. Well, them and the Daimyo who had somehow managed to get someone to transport a throne of all things out here for him to sit. Not like he'd even be able to follow most of the action on account of him being a civilian and all that, but it was the thought that counted, seemingly.
Why was that necessary? To give context for what was about to happen. I pressed m hands to the ground and sage energy flowed from me and into the ground, precisely mapping out the circumference of the clearing we stood in before turning the whole thing into mud. And not just a shallow surface layer of mud like I usually did, but mud that reached miles down. Sage chakra was the perfect definition of doing more with less. Altogether, the jutsu that reshaped the battlefield only ended up costing me about half of my total remaining reserves. I watched as her Susanoo flagged, beginning to fall into the mud for a second before she was able to stop its descent. Probably some variation of water walking that let her stick to the surface. I allowed it for the moment. It would be more useful to upset that footing when she wasn't focusing.
My mud rose under my control as I shifted to my next set of seals. This jutsu in particular I'd stolen from Hashirama almost wholesale. "Sage Art Mud Release: Mud Giant" I said out loud and the mud rose to my will. First came the head— bereft of features beyond a pair of glowing eyes and a slit for a mouth that was in actuality just a straight line, floating in my ocean of mud for a second before the neck beneath it formed and then came the shoulders. From said shoulders sprouted a pair of muscular arms that pushed down against the mud to help the rest of it rise. The midsection was that of a body builder, ripped with muscle in ways the human body could not be, and then came the legs. Its dignity covered by a skirt like structure around its waist.
When it was fully formed, it stood at about even height with the Susanoo— losing out by maybe a few odd feet at the top. Still, both creatures were massive, and ready to rumble.
"So this is what you've been practicing" Uzume said from her position within her Susanoo where she had stood and allowed me to prepare my own jutsu.
"Want to see which power is greater? That of the Uchiha or that of the Senju?" I offered as my giant took two steps forward before some of my mud ferried me up to its shoulder.
"I already know the answer to that one" She replied, stepping forward in her Susanoo as well.
"Then this loss shouldn't surprise you" I said as my feet sunk into the shoulder of my mecha and I gained an instant awareness of the giant mud construct I'd made. The bones of this jutsu were similar to that of my mud clone jutsu. I had no idea how Hashirama made constructs with some ability to fight on their own because that seemed to be something completely out of the question for me.
Her Susanoo's first punch probably aimed to take advantage of my seeming inattention, but the byakugan was a powerful doujutsu for a reason. My construct reacted in very little time, the hand rising, except that it did not rise like a hand would be expected to. All my training sessions had taught me that that was an inefficient way to go about things. Instead, the arm turned into mud that flowed up in the air before reforming as the hand once again in a blocking motion.
Her red Susanoo strained, but it could not make it through my mud golem's guard. Instead, mine shifted its feet, and suddenly, one of the feet of my mud construct was gone, transformed into a tentacle that grabbed her Susanoo by its left leg. She tried to move, forming a sword in one hand and aiming to cut through it, but the hand that had been blocking her punch turned into a tendril as well that grabbed her Susanoo's arm before it could swing.
My mud giant walked another step forward, forcing both constructs to be practically chest to chest.
"What are you doing?" Uzume ground out, struggling to separate our constructs, even as my mud giant's chest opened and began to swallow the Susanoo in its grip.
"What's rule one of fighting me. Uzume?" I asked as I pulled at the mud she was standing atop, forcing it to move and sending her Susanoo falling into the mud with a splash. My construct followed, allowing me to wrap around and encircle the Susanoo so thoroughly that Uzume had only one option open to her.
I felt it when the Susanoo expired, and I grabbed on to Uzume with my mud a second later, hardening it all over her body to stop her moving before bringing her out of the mud for all to see.
Well, before I did so, I made sure to manipulate the mud out of her hair and turn her chains into something more flattering, a giant cocoon of hardened mud that held her still from the neck down.
"The first rule of fighting you is that you'll always do the opposite of what makes sense for you to do." She ground out.
"Yield?" I offered. She nodded, and the mud released her immediately.
A/N: And so we have Shori vs. Uzume. Could she have broken out of that? Maybe with another Susanoo, but then she'd still have been in the mud, and he'd have trapped her all over again. He had battlefield control, and she recognised that there was no point struggling further when the point of the whole thing was for Shori to win in the first place. Next three up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)( same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early. Also, there's a cheeky discount available for monthly plans (public) and a secret one for yearly plans with the code- CHEEKY20 for 20% off yearly plans