One Sage Too Many
The harsh sun of the desert shone without mercy over the world beneath it, the air currents that never ceased their howling in the aptly named Wind Country lifted minute grains of sand that almost twinkled as they fell, while the dry and hot environment cut the breath of any that were unprepared for it.
Every grain of sand, every minute shift of the air pressure, every sound: I was aware of everything in a manner that could only be matched by the chakra sensing that being a Sage gifted me with: chakra was life, and nature was defined by the endless cycle of change between states of being.
With Nature Chakra coursing in a controlled manner along with my own life energy, I was a part of the howling winds and the dunes as much as the sun rays and the dryness of the air: at the end of the day, nothing truly ended, and while the Land of Pure Souls proved that something transcended our prisons of flesh with our death, life went on, and our bodies simply became something different.
I ran with long strides propelling me across the landscape, chakra answering my need as the ground offered more resistance than what it would have been able to and the very winds seemed to run at my back, almost alive and overjoyed by the possibility of having a way to express themselves.
Perceiving every grain of sand against my skin, seeing every minute shift in the surroundings as I moved at speeds that few could hope to match, I was aware that this might as well be the very first deadly test of my limits.
Along with the unmatched sharpness of my senses, came in fact the perfect sensing of every twist of chakra within a range that I had no qualms to define as ridicolous. And what I could feel...
Sage Mode had been the discipline that I had chosen to dedicate myself to because I knew of its uncountable advantages: toughness, speed, sensing... it enhanced everything about me, my chakra was denser, its impact on the world more meaningful.
Nature chakra had allowed me to fuck around with Orochimaru without a serious back-up plan, and it had been a card I had been ready to use in several other situations, which had helped considerably with keeping a cool head.
The problem was, I was no longer the strongest in the room simply by virtue of Sage Mode.
The last dune outright exploded as I barreled through it in a straight line, my speed and momentum so unreasonably vast that I could have thrown myself headfirst into the face of a cliff and then walk away victorious from the confrontation.
Sadly, I wasn't about to fight a natural part of the environment, and that simple fact was made clear when the other Sage clashed against me: my elbow crashed against a forearm that didn't yeld, and I raised my knee just in time to avoid a sucker punch that carried with it the unreasonable weight of an avalanche.
With the crystal clear awareness of my surroundings, I could see every detail of the rectangular pupils of the Tad Sage, every hirsute hair of his eyebrows that cast stark shadows under the unforgiving sun of the desert. The smeared blood that ran from his eyelid to his cheeks had a tangy smell in my nose, and fought against something greasy that I guessed could be the amphibian-made oil that I knew the man could use to devastating effects.
The danger was the utterly immobile green toad on one of Jiraya's shoulders: if what I knew of their 'merging' was correct, it meant that I couldn't allow this fight to turn into a battle of attrition, he could outlast me.
Adjusting my tactics, I leaned back, an open palm-thrust falling just short of striking me while my right leg whipped upwards intercepted by another forearm that felt as unyielding as an oak with deep roots.
Unrelenting, I swiped away an incoming punch to the side while my hand clamped shut on the bicep of the white-haired Sage, and in a fraction of time too little to name, chakra multiplied the mass of saliva in my mouth, which exploded forth so fast that my opponent couldn't react in time.
The hair-thin jet of high pressured water bit into the toad deep enough to make it dispel, and at the same time, something rattled my brain so hard that my vision swam.
I tried to roll with the blow while I was thrown like a ragdoll through the nearest dune and half-way through the following one.
Do I hit that hard? I wondered distractedly while I corrected my breathing, my chakra smoothing down while I exploded out of my temporary prison of sand, the heavy, blanketing force of Jiraya already manipulating the earth around me with unfriendly ninjutsu.
"You've made the wrong choice in friends, upstart." the croaky voice of the white-haired Sannin berated me while the dune I was standing atop of looked like it turned inwards, an impossible whirpool swallowing itself and trying to drag me down, to bury me where I wouldn't have any avenue of escape.
But I was far from defenseless: my own chakra surged to oppose Jiraya's, controlled in an area of barely three square feet around myself while I scattered the control that the Toad Sage was trying to exert.
I exploded forward, a quick jab hiding a knee thrust, that met a stalwart defense: a flung kunai to his face was ignored as he simply bowed minutely forward, his forehead protector deviating the length of metal. There had been no hesitation, no jarred shaking of his head despite the powerful blow that he received.
When we met, a dense concentration of blue chakra formed into his left hand in a split second, growing with each instant while he tried to sweep my feet from under me.
Earth natured chakra was converted far too fast for him to react to what his senses warned him of, and I stood still: I was the unmovable roots of the mountains, the weight of the Earth itself, and his kick impacted uselessly against my shin while I flashed through the handseals: familiar and welcome water natured chakra once more coming to my aid.
"Suiton: Kōdai Hahonryū!" the Vast Tearing Torrent exploded out of what little humidity I had managed to pull out of the dry air of the desert, an impossibly huge mass of water shredding the space between me and my opponent while he met my attack with his hyper-dense Rasengan.
The center of my spear of high-pressure water exploded against the churning force of the spiraling ball of energy Jiraya attacked me with, forcing him to disengage to avoid the jets of liquid that randomly tore around him like gales of a hurricane.
His feet propelled him back with a strength that only a Sage could match, and I immediately followed, eager to stop him from using his vast experience to use his ninjutsu to dictate the terms of engagement.
My left foot touched in front of him just as he assumed the wide stance typical of his stile, and I drove a straight punch towards his solar plexus: there was nothing outrageous about it. No impossible rotation of my chakra, no concentration of energy ready to explode, no layered genjutsu. There was only the perfect angle of my legs, the unforgiving curve of my back, and the uncompromising set of my joints.
Behind that punch, there was the precise miracle of biomechanical engineering that Maito Gai had taught me so many years before: there was no need for anything else.
Feeling the lack of chakra consciously channeled to deliver even more devastating amount of damage and fearing a trick, Jiraya's left forearm acted like a windmill, intercepting my limb at the wrist with the intention of letting it slip by while he already started to deliver an open palm strike just below my ribs with his free hand.
But the lack of some hidden technique added to the punch was its main strength: the chakra of the Toad Sage washed over my limb along with his hit, and like water, I gave in to the kinetic force he imparted me.
My torso twisted baring my chest at him for a moment while my feet assumed an even position on the ground, chakra flowing through them to reinforce it so that my standing wouldn't be compromised by the staggering amount of force we were casually throwing around.
The surrounding air was choking with the heavy pressure the two fights were bringing in: Jiraya's and mine life forces blazed with the same brightness of the sun, while the toxic presence of the Kyubi Jinchuriki almost turned the blue sky into a burnt red. Itachi's ever-controlled chakra was akin to a single mad surfer coasting among waves that dwarfed him in every manner, and yet, there wasn't the smallest waver to his presence.
Like I had shown so long before to some wide-eyed genin, I slid over the sand, nothing but chakra control moving me while the palm-thrust of the white-haired Sannin missed me by half an inch.
The nature chakra that he exuded skittered over my own, the two different life forces passing by each other like water and oil.
With the absolute lack of resistance he had been prepared to burst through, for a split second, Jiraya was unbalanced, almost overextended.
But I didn't need a vast opening, my free hand darted forward then: held knife-like, it would blind one or both of his eyes.
Without missing a beat, he defended as he had already done before, simply bowing his head minutely, the thick forehead protector interposing itself between my hand and his skull: and with a smile, I did something that I had used only once in my very first match with Itachi, back when I was still under the care of Maito Gai.
With a single movement, I hooked my fingers between his forehead protector and his head, pulling suddenly while my right knee rose sharply.
An earth-shattering *boom* echoed when my blow landed on his nose, and with my chakra flooding through me, I imprinted the simplest seal ever written on his forehead protector.
He was far too experienced to reel back from the blow I had just managed to land, and so he simply bull-rushed me, his shoulder conveniently placed to ram into my gut and making me expel all the air from my lungs.
Even my vaunted control wasn't enough to keep me on the ground, and as we rocketed through the increasingly changing environment, I rose both my hands above my head, my back arching back minutely while chakra rose to concentrate in my clasped hands.
Once more, the impossibly dense chakra of my Sage Mode was turned into Earth Natured, and I hit him.
From the base of my shoulder blades, up to my wide shoulders and along the steely muscles wrapped around the bones of my arms, sheer power traveled in an unbroken chain, joints weaving like a whip, and I delivered a devastating hit on the back of the Toad Sage. Our momentum was turned from almost perfectly horizontal to vertical, and while I was still clutched in his arms, we were buried within the ground.
As the arms of the Toad Sage slipped from around me, I felt a frown appear on my features: this really was looking far too easy. I was S-rank, no doubt, I had a very precise idea of the Sannin's arsenal, but I wasn't sure that I should be able to dictate the fight so easily.
Then the desert ground stopped passing us by as if it had the same consistency of water and we fell into what felt like a vast cave.
With 0 natural light penetrating into the sand-covered trench, we made, I could only tell by the slight updraft that the cave was large indeed: and then something diverted Jiraya's direction at a speed that just didn't make sense: even more so when I didn't sense anything capable of such.
Still free-falling, I stilled letting the world wash over me with its usual bright lively existence: only it felt muted, and a terrible suspicion made its way into my head.
"Sorry kid." the voice of the Sannin taunted me with a broken cough while, I focused on shaping the different Nature chakra I was somewhat absorbing, "But two of us are one Sage too many."
And with those last words, I felt more than saw, the humungous Toad's mouth I was in closed, and it sealed me away from Suna, the little Nature Chakra I had been drawing in was cut off.
Well, this looks like a problem.
AN
I really want to thank everyone for sticking by! I realize it's been a while, the next few chapters should bring another small acceleration to the story, and as I had warned you we start with the big-ass escalation.
How did the fight go? I didn't want to have Daiki steamroll Jiraya, which is still top fucking tier.
Opinions, hopes?
Don't forget to check out my other stories!