DECLARATION OF WAR – THE BATTLE REIGNITES

West Aturia

Naruto sits with his legs crossed, taking deep repeated breaths, and looking into the distance. The One True Sense is not necessary here. He is simply waiting for the inevitable to happen. Any moment now, Hannah will have worked out which way Minato chose to retreat, and she will pursue them. Barely an hour has passed, and they have fled further than anyone should be able to follow, yet she is the exception to the rule, especially when Shao Chin is with her. They will find them here, they will attack, and then it will be time to see whether Naruto can actually do the impossible and defeat her.

Kushina, cradling baby Mito in her arms, sits down next to Naruto, watching the horizon at his side. She finds that his presence is relaxing, perhaps in a way that it shouldn't be. She is his mother, and it is her duty to look after him as a parent. The 7th Hokage is a historic anomaly though. Clyde once spoke to the rebels before they went into battle, saying that they could look at his back, because he will lead them into battle from the front lines and protect them. Naruto is the man whose back never goes, who is always the protector, even to his parents.

"What will you do when you win?" she asks.

Naruto grins. "You seem very confident that I'm going to win."

"I don't have the energy left to doubt you anymore."

"I lack the energy to doubt myself as well," Naruto admits. "That's probably how I've kept going through all this. "

"Naruto, if you defeat Hannah her instincts will recognise you as her superior. At that point you will have an unnatural control over her. You will have control over another human being that nobody was ever supposed to have. What will you do at that point?"

Naruto thinks about it, what would normal people do? The average rebel would use her as part of a military strategy, given her incredible strength and the fact that she will grow stronger yet. The enemy would have used her to hunt him down and end the war in a heartbeat. A mercenary would use her to make money and retire into a life of luxury. Frankly, there are lots of people who would use Hannah for all sorts of evil reasons. He has had many role models in his life who have taught him better than that. There is undoubtedly only one way he can act if he defeats Hannah.

"I don't want to control Hannah or anything like that," Naruto says honestly. "She's Clyde's daughter, just a scared child. She can do whatever she chooses after I defeat her. I would like her to work with us, but she might want to go and find her father. Even if she chooses to be our enemy, that's fine with me. I will stop her honestly. I will not take advantage of the instincts she was born with. I'll stop her the same way I'm going to stop all the others. I'll win."

Kushina smiles. "You're a good man Naruto. I'm very proud of you."

"Thank you."

"I know that you'll find a way to defeat Hannah. I realise that your oddity is almost impossible to control, and that her powers are difficult to combat, but that won't stop you. Your determination has always found a way to cut through all the barriers in the past, I know that you will do it again."

"I'll find a way," Naruto agrees.

Ming Dai is ready for a fight. He admires Naruto and hopes that he will win as he always has done before, but this opponent is different. He takes the pragmatic approach, that Naruto must survive this fight. He is the only living witness to Naruto's true potential. The day it was measured his master, Headmaster Sora, confirmed that Naruto scored higher than anyone had ever done before. On that day, their master became convinced that Naruto would save the world, that he was a reincarnation of Endou Akashi. It may be impossible to defeat Hannah in a duel; in which case they will have to make use of a numbers advantage. Whatever terrible thing he must do, it's his job to make sure Naruto gets out of this alive.

"I didn't know General Clyde very well," Ming Dai admits. "I knew of him because of his reputation in the academy. I knew about Lara too. Some of the teachers used to boast about the two of them. They would talk about the latest battle between Lara and Clyde, and how they were the best students in the history of the academy."

"Yeah?"

"Lara had an edge in most of their competitions, but Clyde was always recognised as the better leader. He got along well with people, but he was more sentimental, and that wasn't always appreciated in the military. I'm certain that he is glad you are thinking of his daughter though."

"Do you think so?"

"Absolutely, and besides, Hannah did bring us some good news didn't she. I know that sadly Lara died, but on the bright side, Clyde is still alive. Sarada, the 1st Hokage, your son, they're all still alive too. They all survived the day the academy was destroyed. We're going to keep moving forward together, all of us. The chances of us surviving that day were slim, but it looks like most of us got away."

Naruto smiles, Ming Dai is telling the truth. Hopefully, Clyde is still alive out there. Maybe he will thank Naruto one day.

"You have been looking after my family Ming Dai. I hope you know that I would do the same for yours, if the opportunity were presented to me."

Ming Dai sighs. "My mother is dead, and my master was killed. In both incidents Furst Jonas was to blame. There is nobody left in my family that I would want you to save."

Naruto knows the painful truth of his sibling student's past. There is only one member of his family left, and that is not a subject he wants to discuss, now or ever.

Suddenly, there is a whirring sound. Naruto looks back from Ming Dai to the horizon and sees sand flying up in the air. It is coming closer, parting left and right like a wave around an epicentre just above the tip of his nose. The waves are coming closer, ready to crash on the shore any moment. He gets to his feet and readies himself; this is the moment he has been waiting for. His stamina has recovered and now is the time to find out if he can do it.

Hannah bursts onto the scene.

She tackles Naruto to the ground and immediately tries to get a stable position where she can pin him to the ground and strike him continuously. This is the same attack she used on her mother and on all the others that she killed. The same attack she used on Naruto before, her most effective and brutal way of defeating an opponent.

Normally in this situation Naruto would use the sand to blind his opponent, but he gets the sense that Hannah's movements wouldn't change at all if she were blinded. Instead he creates a rasengan in his right hand, spinning it as violently as he can before using his divine oddity to power-up his right hand and slam the rasengan into Hannah's chest.

This attack would be lethal for most class 7 warriors. All Hannah does is lift a short way off the ground, drifting backwards, parallel to the surface beneath her feet. After moving backwards about ten meters she lands, relatively unharmed.

Both of them activate their divine cloaks, drawing out their full power.

Hannah pulses 'light' energy in one hand and 'darkness' energy in the other. She does this several times asynchronously, blinding Naruto for a moment as she rushes towards him. Her instincts are telling her that this won't stop Naruto knowing where she is, but that it will at least weaken his senses as she arches around and approaches him for a surprise attack from his right.

Naruto does struggle to recalibrate his senses slightly. This is the attack that Hannah's parents used to throw Carmen off balance, and he is very familiar with it. Carmen was incredibly skilled warrior who wasn't able to manage the sensory recalibration after that sudden burst of dual energy. Naruto is different though; he has training in many different areas that helped him to ready himself for such an eventuality.

Naruto feels for the vibrations in the floor. He waits for the moment that Hannah's foot lifts, that is when she will have least control over her balance. When that moment arrives, he powers-up his leg and launches himself at Hannah. He arrives before her and tries another volley of strikes, a style slightly modified from his original after his 4000 attempts at escaping the pit.

Hannah blocks each of the strikes with relative ease, not at all hindered by Naruto's rapid approach speed or his divine oddity. In fact, comparing this to the melee combat style he used before he went into the pit, she thinks his current technique may be slightly weaker. It is possible that the adjustments he made so that his body could cope with using his new power actually made him less suited to this battle. Either way, she watches closely for his divine oddity, if nothing else that sudden burst of power is deadly.

For every exchange like this, there will always be opportunities for Naruto. He requires immaculate timing, but even if Hannah's every movement were perfect there will be openings. With his divine oddity, he can strike with overwhelming speed and strength, that is something that cannot be avoided. So, he waits and when that perfect movement arrives when Hannah is attempting her own counterattack, he powers-up his arm and hits her square in the chest.

Hannah stumbles back two steps but digs her heels into the ground as firmly as she can. She grabs Naruto by his shoulders and slams her head into his powerfully. If her experiences from their previous encounter holds true, then by doing this she should get some kind of advantage. Her opponent should be rendered groggy to the point where she is free to attack.

She catches a glimpse of Naruto's eyes though, and he is still there. He is still lucid.

Naruto throws his head back and lets out a feral battle cry. He does whatever he needs to do to keep his adrenaline up and to keep going in this most challenging fight. He uses his divine oddity to break his left arm free and grabs Hannah's shoulder. This time he is the one who slams their heads together.

As their skulls crash against one another, Hannah notices that there is a change in Naruto from before. He has learnt from the experience of their last fight, just as she has. He has hardened his resolve and found a new reserve of fighting spirit to draw from. In the battle of the hardest head, she may not emerge the victor if they continue this time.

Hannah forces their arms free of one another and initiates a rapid strike exchange. This is curious to Naruto as in the past he has always been the one to start this kind of brawl. Their fists fly and he notices something unusual about Hannah's technique. Her strikes are familiar from somewhere, almost shinobi-like, they are strikes designed for fighting against him. These attacks are similar to the ones Sasuke has used against him in the past.

Hannah lands a powerful strike to Naruto's head and then takes his legs out from beneath him. She pins him to the ground and finds a convenient striking position above him. This time he will not escape her. She attacks, alternating between right and left punches as she seeks to beat him until he can respond no more.

Naruto has come up against this attack method more than anyone else now, and while it is brutal, it is simple in its nature. He snakes his head left and right, skilfully evading each incoming blow.

Their eyes meet for a moment and Hannah leaps backwards. Her instinct telling her that if she remained there Naruto would have slammed their heads together once again. She doesn't know if it is the cause of his divine oddity or a symptom of it, but Clyde's daughter makes an observation about Naruto's fighting style. He cares nothing for self-preservation, he just throws himself into the situation with all the energy he can muster.

Naruto gets to his feet, already fully healed by the time he does so. He is a monster of physical regeneration the likes of which the world has never seen, he will keep going as long as his body will allow him to.

Ming Dai is transfixed by Naruto and Hannah's fight. He had previously thought he had gained an understanding of their respective styles. The two of them are evolving faster than he can keep up with. He may be a class 7 warrior, just like the two of them, but there is a separate plane for people like them. He will go down in history as being powerful, the two of them will go down in history as era-defining geniuses.

Dai suddenly looks behind him and sees that the Uzumaki family are under attack.

Claude swoops down from above, his power of 'flight' giving him a supreme manoeuvrability advantage. He attacks the Uzumaki group one by one, diving down on them and charging into them at full speed.

Ming Dai checks that this is really happening. Claude attacking makes no sense. Claude is a class 6 beast. He is unlikely to defeat Minato after the 4th Hokage composes himself, the owl certainly won't be able to defeat Dai who is a class 7 warrior. That's when he predicts the approach of the only party in this whole incident who has yet to appear.

Ming Dai dodges, miraculously predicting the incoming attack from his rear.

An arrow sails over Dai's head.

Ming Dai turns around and sees Shao Chin standing behind him. Their eyes meet and for Dai the memories of their previous encounter come rushing back. During that conflict Shao Chin dominated him in spite of the his obviously superior battle prowess. Shao Chin is not made for long drawn out fights. Now the time has come for Ming Dai to redeem himself, but before that he makes certain that his opponent definitely wants to do this.

"Why do you want to fight me?" Ming Dai asks.

"I love a challenge," Shao Chin answers.

"This doesn't make any sense, you know you can beat me, and you know that if Naruto loses here you will die."

"I don't need you to understand my reasons."

Shao Chin puts his bow away and pulls his blade. A blade that has been Ming Dai's bane previously.

Ming Dai takes a trick from Naruto's repertoire. He kicks the ground, sending sand into Shao Chin's eyes. He rushes towards the hunter and then claps his hands into Shao Chin's ears as hard as he can. This disorientates Shao Chin and gives Ming Dai the chance for a follow up attack. He strikes him three times with his fists before kicking his legs to take him down. A follow up, he puts both his hands and Shao Chin's shoulders and pushes him back through the sand.

Shao Chin comes to a halt and has a smile on his face. He's had a lot of fun fights recently and some even more fun hunts. Head General Safura was unshakable. Naruto was innovative. Hannah was unbeatable. Ming Dai is different though, like a child who is still developing. The way he changes between fights and the way he adapts to the situation is inconsistent, and that is fascinating to the hunter.

Ming Dai is different to Shao Chin. This isn't fun for him, it is necessary. Having created this separation between the two of them the first thing he does is look to Naruto's fight. The battle between Naruto and Hannah is more important than this pathetic squabble. If Naruto can't win it's all over for them.

Shao Chin is not having any of that, he begins to walk towards Ming Dai. A calculated stroll with clear menace behind it rather than a rush. He reaches him and attacks once. Naturally, this single attack is readily countered by a warrior of Ming Dai's experience. However, this is when Dai begins to counterattack, and when Shao Chin uses well-timed blocks. The hunter is luring Sora's apprentice into his timing again, and Ming Dai is too distracted to see it.

Shao Chin waits, curious to see if Dai is going to catch on to his trick. He is disappointed when he doesn't. Why will his opponent not wake up? He waits for the perfect moment and sidesteps one of the incoming blows, creating a clear opening to stab Ming Dai in the back.

Shao Chin drops the blade, elbows Ming Dai in the back and kicks the blade back up into his hand again.

Ming Dai leaps cautiously away from Shao Chin. He knows that the hunter just passed up a golden opportunity to kill him. He contemplates what to do with this information. If Shao Chin doesn't intend to fight to the death, then perhaps he shouldn't bother to continue this battle. That's a big if, betting on it could very well cost him his life.

However, for Ming Dai there is an inconvenient truth behind this whole situation. It is just as Naruto told him; he should easily be able to defeat Shao Chin. Combat is his speciality; he shouldn't be losing here and if his opponent truly doesn't intend to kill him this is an excellent learning opportunity. He can't help Naruto right now, but if he has learnt anything from his sibling student it's that he should take this fight seriously.

He is the student of Headmaster Muto Sora. He takes a deep breath and calms himself. He is going to take this seriously. He is going to do everything in his power to defeat Shao Chin.

In Response to Engineer's Question
About where people are

I can't tell you about Mars without potentially giving away spoilers.
Orochimaru died before chapter 1 in the war against Clyde and his forces.

As for your question about Naruto, I think the best I can do is break down his level for you.
Naruto [7] = Divine 'Life' Cloak [2] + Double-Transcendent Element [2] + Chakra [3]

A divine oddity (like Naruto has) is a skill that should make you unrivalled within your class, but it won't advance you a level.
A divine ability (like Hannah has) is a skill that also improves the quality of your divine energy and advances you a level.
The only reason Hannah can keep up with Naruto is that the skill her divine ability gives her is the supreme instinct, which grants her unparalleled skill.
They happen to be most skilled people on the class 7 level and could beat anyone else on that level.

Just for interests's sake, here is a breakdown of Hannah's level.
Hannah [7] = Golden 'Light' and 'Darkness' Cloak [3] + Transcendent Element [1] + Dual-Element Combo [1] + Training Manual [1] + Divine Ability [1]

Thanks for reading.

In Response to jenuzumaki's Question
About where Boruto is

I might have explained this previously as it rings a bell, so sorry if I'm repeating myself.
Boruto doesn't know where his father is and Homeworld is enormous, so finding him when he's not in any major city is exceptionally difficult.
This is why it's taking so long.

Thanks for reading.

In Response to tarunfiction1's Question
About clones using 'life' energy

It's a nice idea, but I've already written several times that it can't happen.
If I were to change that now I think it wouldn't play well from a narrative standpoint.
It would also be difficult to balance with future developments I have planned.

Thanks for reading.

In Response to AyyMD VEGA's Question
About Clyde's level

I appreciate it's difficult to keep up with the levels, so I'm going to try and keep some record of it below each chapter.
Let me know if you think that's a good/bad idea.

You have kept track of Clyde's level very well, I'm really pleased about that.
Remember that training manuals can help with up to three breakthroughs.
I think you might have missed one, he broke through at the beginning of part 8 (Back to School) in chapter 164 according to my notes.

Clyde's level breakdown:
Clyde [7] = Darkness [3] + Transcendent [1] + Manual [2] + Divine Ability [1]

Thanks for reading.

In Response to ultimusred's Question
About defeating someone on a higher level

It very much depends on the people involved and the level in question.
The example you have given involves 5 people each of a very high skill level.

Naruto and Hannah are the strongest class 7s to have ever lived.
Furst would have been in that mix when he was a class 7 as well.

Naruto and Hannah could probably beat a normal class 8 together, but there aren't many normal class 8s, they tend to be very skilled.
If you took a dozen normal class 6 warriors, they wouldn't have been able to beat Carmen like Naruto, Sarada, Clyde and Lara did.

Thanks for reading.