Bab 202: Chapter 202
Naruto narrowly evades Zabuza's attack four more times before the blond reaches the top of the giant tree. The visibility wasn't clear of fog even at that height—it was everywhere—but Naruto didn't need it to be clear there. With the charged Chakra coursing his muscles, the blond shinobi leaps hard off the last stable branch, reaching a couple dozen feet into the air before he throws his Fuma Shuriken even higher into the night sky. Falling back, he nearly missed his landing due to extremely low visibility.
Naruto brings his chakra blade before him and it amazes him how odorless, inaudible, invisible, imperceptible Zabuza is in a fragrant and noisy forest even when he clearly speaks as if beside Naruto's ear, "I don't know what that was supposed to accomplish but it won't work. The one clone turning into twelve clones and landing in the thickest part of my mist won't do anything."
"Hmph," Naruto defiantly sounds, maintain all his heightened senses to detect the invisible man. "I don't want to hear that from the guy who lost to me once already."
"You know what the worst part for you is about that day," Zabuza menacingly asks. "It's your one trick that won't ever work on me again."
"It's got nothing to do with that," Naruto voices into the great swirling white and gray mist as he begins feeling the wind pick up
"What are they-" Zabuza starts to voice when he realizes there's now a rapidly growing cyclone swallowing the Kiri-nin's chakra created mist.
Naruto smiles as the wind becomes more violent, slowly clearing his sight of the fog as he tells the veteran ninja, "you're going to lose because it takes more strength to protect than it does to destroy."
Sprinting toward the center of the cyclone, Naruto begins to receive bits of memories of his clones being sliced up and lands in the fog-scattered field just as his last clone is forcibly dispelled. Using twelve powered up first-stage Rasengans near enough to each other in a circle to create a huge cyclone is something he's always wanted to do, though he isn't sure why the vortex of wind didn't continue when, almost immediately, he realizes Zabuza dispelled twelve clones with stage one Rasengans in the tens of seconds it took him to reach the clearing.
The fog may have cleared, however, it's still dark with little moonlight reaching the small grassy field. In the dark fogless field, lugging his massive blade on his shoulder, Zabuza turns to Naruto as he lands in a small clearing between many tall trees. Their eyes adjust to the darkness while his feet feel cold covered by the moist mist settling just a few inches above the grass.
With a more balanced playing field, the pair of shinobi stare at each other, knowing no words or pleas were going to prevent the battle of conviction that lays ahead. Zabuza is a renowned assassin extremely capable of killing Naruto, however, the young genin knows the veteran is wrong. And more than anything, Naruto doesn't want Haku to bury either one of them, despite how possible it may seem with a shinobi like the Demon of Hidden Mist.
In an instant, they both rush at each other, clashing their weapons in the middle of the field to very bright sparks, illuminating their focused faces and the nearby vegetation. Large, strong, and brutal, Zabuza battles Naruto with all the rage of a demon, effectively using the momentum of the bright clash to follow with another wide swipe. The large man and his imposing weapon are louder in Naruto's ears, nearly deafening as he expects and parries Zabuza's following strike with his chakra covered knuckle blade.
Suspiciously accustomed to Zabuza'a style, Naruto isn't surprised when the veteran buries the tip of his blade into the dirt after missing his head and uses the motion to lead into a short combination of punches and kicks. He then tapers his body's rotation by recovering his large blade and attacking all over again. It's as if ninja and weapon take turns rotating attacks, like two tops spinning in turns. As he had against Haku, Naruto has an easier time with the slender man's fists and kicks, however, the size and weight of the weapon bats Naruto back, violently shaking his guard painfully down to his entire body's marrow.
Undeterred, Naruto evades or blocks each fatal strike, however, even when Naruto blocks the long sharp sword, meeting it head-on still clips Naruto in the shoulder, thigh, or other unguarded muscle groups, drawing a mist of blood out of his tense and chakra-filled body. Yet, in defiance of the stinging pain, Naruto's resolve holds firm. In his combat state, he's aware of these movements, and despite feeling Zabuza's overwhelming experience and battle savagery, Naruto's confidence in himself keeps him on his feet and his conviction for the future he's trying to forge ahead strengthen his fists.
'They need to see what else is possible,' Naruto's mind yells as he counters Zabuza's sword with his chakra covered blade, vibrating his bones to his clenching teeth. Naruto knows there's another way, and it boils his blood that so many shinobi, including the vicious one he's battling, can't see it.
When the elite ninja isn't actively trying to concuss Naruto's brain with bludgeoning shots, the blond expects the slicing swipes to any one of eight choices; liver, lungs, spine, subclavian vein, jugular vein, kidneys, heart, brain. Even when Naruto evades, the strike is so near to his skin it deafens his ears and cold-burns his skin. With the weight and momentum for hard unstoppable hits, it forced Naruto to jump with the strike, getting sent back dozens of feet to avoid standing his ground against the worst of it.
Their fist-pistoning attacks are so fast they create a whistling noise from forcibly displacing the molecules in the air, however, Naruto doesn't have the same reach, leading him to stay low and direct his strikes toward Zabuza's legs. Yet even then, dodging left to be kicked by the right sent a stunned and bleeding Naruto flying while Zabuza makes four rapid hand seals before calling out, "Suiton: Suidan no Jutsu."
After a deep inhale, Zabuza exhales a laser beam of a large quantity of water at Naruto. Narrowly dodging the first beam of water rips at his right sleeve. Upon the follow up water-based attack, Naruto focuses spinning chakra to the very center of his left hand and thrusts the strong rotating energy forward. It wasn't the Rasengan, but the first and second stages of the powerful technique meets the water lance head-on, and though a grunting Naruto felt the impact nearly shatter the bones in his hand, pushing him back in the process, the whirlwind of futon chakra spins and spreads the water lance like a spinning drill breaking through the tough earth.
Zabuza didn't let up, however, adding more and more fury to the high-pressure laserjet of water that a yelling Naruto matches. The water is cut and redirected like rays of sunlight hitting a ball of mirrors, only in this case, the stream of water cuts through branches, gouges tree trunks, shrubbery, and skins the surface of stones.
The left sleeve of his orange two-piece jumpsuit is shredded off by the time Zabuza finally relents, and only then does Naruto realize there was so much water created by Zabuza's fierce attack, the level reaches his thighs.
Elevating himself to the surface of the water with his chakra, Naruto takes a knee on the waving pond created as he inhales in deep breaths while Zabuza looks on. The tall ninja with his blade on his back seems angry in his thoughtfulness before he mouths, "Haku…"
Shaking his head of any further words, Zabuza quickly begins another series of hand seals and he's already on his thirteenth seal when Naruto realizes what his next attack will be. Rather than stopping the elite Kiri-nin forty feet away, the blond instead claps his hands together and through an extended cry, gathers all the chakra within him, going so far as to even ask, 'Kurama, hold your chakra back for a little bit.'
'Don't wanna,' Kurama returns from within his seal. It takes a lot of Naruto's chakra to perfectly maintain his energy's balance along with Kurama's. His chakra coils grow larger as a result and Naruto rarely, if ever, has full access to all his chakra. Much of it mingles with Kurama's in order to maintain their equilibrium, giving the Demon fox a connection to the outside world. So, Naruto understands when the Demon Fox says, 'I feel nearly nothing when that happens.'
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Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone