The shards shattered against the throne in a violent storm, ice biting into stone and metal alike. Takeda burst out from behind it an instant later, body flickering forward through the chaos, heat roaring around him as he came at me head-on.
His roaring chakra protected him from the cold, allowing him to close in and shift from ninjutsu to taijutsu.
Or so it seemed.
In truth, my concealed Byakugan showed me the truth.
He never left his hiding place behind the throne; what charged out was a clone.
An Earth Style clone, one made from a large amount of his blasting powder.
A nasty trick—and a dangerous one.
Should someone try to fight the clone in taijutsu, they might find it suddenly blowing up at close range.
But since I saw through his trick, I wasn't about to fall for it.
I didn't move to meet the charge.
The moment the false Takeda crossed the halfway point of the hall, I raised one hand and clenched my fist.
"Ice Release: Flash Freeze."
The temperature around the clone dropped instantly. The earth-and-powder construct didn't have time to react before it locked solid, its momentum arrested in a single breath.
I waved my hand, and a ripple of force spread from my Byakugan, sending the frozen clone into the wall, where it froze to the ice already covering it.
Within moments, the clone was buried under thick layers of ice—enough to smother any explosion from within, enough to ensure I didn't have to worry about it anymore.
Behind the throne, Takeda laughed.
A real laugh this time—sharp, approving.
"Well done!" he shouted, rising at last from his seat. The throne cracked beneath him as he stepped forward, heat pouring off his body in waves. "Most people would've died right there!"
Now there he was.
No clone. No trick.
The real Red Wyrn rolled his shoulders as flames licked along his arms and spine, chakra surging hot and violent enough that the ice around him hissed and retreated.
"You are worthy of fighting the dragon!" he snarled. "Be proud, and tremble!"
"You wanted a dragon?" he snarled. "Then watch."
He slammed his hands together, stance wide, lungs drawing in air already superheated by his chakra.
"Fire Style: Great Fire Dragon Jutsu!"
A massive serpentine torrent of fire erupted from his mouth, twisting through the hall like a living thing—jaws snapping, body writhing, heat so intense the ice-coated floor screamed as it cracked and buckled beneath it.
My eyes widened at his ninjutsu, not because it was overly powerful—roughly around an A-rank ninjutsu.
No, what surprised me was that I didn't know this ninjutsu, and I knew a lot.
I had seen the very first ninjutsu invented by Indra, and I had seen the great creations of Tobirama Senju. I knew nearly all ninjutsu, but not this one.
That meant it was a custom ninjutsu, likely his very own creation.
Anyone able to invent a ninjutsu was someone worthy of at least a little respect.
In the short moment the fire dragon formed, I already saw through the jutsu. It was a variant of the Fire Dragon Flame Bullet Jutsu, with elements of the Great Flame Technique.
An impressive A-rank ninjutsu.
So it was only fair to meet it with one of my own.
Since that one woman first used chakra to clear snow, the Yuki clan had grown a lot, becoming one of the largest clans of the Land of Water.
Once, they had ruled much snow-covered land, thriving where others struggled. And over all those years, they had developed quite a few ninjutsu of their own.
So, since he wanted to be a fire dragon, I would show him a dragon.
I called on my own chakra—water and air combined—and it became Ice Release chakra.
"Ice Style," I said calmly. "Frost Dragon."
Cool air and mist immediately gathered together, and a great white dragon made of ice formed before me. Its roar shook the hall as it flew forward to face the serpentine torrent of fire.
The two dragons collided.
Fire met ice in a deafening explosion of sound and pressure, the impact ripping through the hall as steam erupted in a blinding white torrent. Heat screamed against cold, flames clawing desperately at frozen scales while shards of ice shattered and reformed mid-flight.
Takeda roared in triumph as the clash raged on.
"Yes!" he bellowed, pouring more chakra into the fire dragon, its body swelling as its jaws bit deep into the Frost Dragon's neck. "Burn! Melt it! I'll boil you alive!"
The Frost Dragon reeled—but did not break.
Its body cracked, fractures racing along its icy form, yet instead of collapsing, the broken sections regrew, fed by the freezing domain I had already established. Every shard that shattered became mist; every plume of steam became new ice.
The fire dragon began to shrink.
Slowly.
Inexorably.
Takeda's grin twitched.
There was a reason that bloodline clans were revered across the world, and their names carried weight.
Because kekkei genkai were the real deal.
There was just a difference between normal ninjutsu and bloodline ninjutsu.
Water already had an advantage over fire, and ice? Doubly so.
The cold ate at the fire. While he had to pump more chakra into his jutsu every second to keep it going, the ice dragon needed only a fraction of what his dragon demanded.
And with me already having many times more chakra than he had, it didn't take long before the mass of ice shattered the flames and surged forward, the weight of the ice itself a potent weapon as it crashed into the throne Takeda had been standing on.
It broke into countless parts—both the dragon and the throne—forcing Takeda to jump into the air, somersaulting over the shower of icy shards and throne fragments before landing back on his feet.
Takeda landed in a crouch, boots skidding across the ice as heat flared to keep him upright. He straightened slowly, steam rolling off his body in thick waves as the last remnants of the fire dragon dissipated around him.
He was breathing harder now.
Not panicked.
Excited.
"Ha… ha… hah!" he laughed, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. The smear instantly hissed as it froze, cracking his skin. "That's it… that's the stuff."
I could see it clearly with my Byakugan.
His chakra flow was becoming uneven.
Still powerful, still dangerous—but no longer stable. Every technique he used now took more effort, more focus, more fuel than the last. The roaring inferno he had been moments ago was starting to gutter.
Takeda noticed it too.
And it thrilled him.
"Then let's turn the heat up!" he roared.
He slammed his foot down.
The ice beneath him shattered as stored blasting powder ignited in a controlled ring, launching him backward in a violent burst of force. As he moved, his hands blurred through seals—not for fire alone, but something layered, something forced.
Powder sprayed outward in a wide arc, hanging in the freezing air like glittering dust.
"Fire Style: Crimson Wyrn Scales!"
Flames erupted—not as a single blast, but in overlapping detonations, igniting the powder in rapid succession. The explosions didn't just burn; they pushed, creating a rolling wall of heat and pressure that surged toward me, reinforced by fire chakra flowing through every spark.
Clever.
He wasn't trying to overpower the cold.
He was trying to overwhelm it.
"Ice Style," I replied calmly. "Glacial Bulwark."
The ice rose instantly—layered, dense, and curved. The explosive wave slammed into it, detonation after detonation rippling across its surface. Fire roared, pressure screamed—
—and the wall held.
Cracks formed.
Then sealed.
That was the power of Ice Style: chakra could restore it easily, and even the cold could close cracks, making it relatively chakra-efficient.
So despite there not being any water around, it was still a relatively chakra-efficient kekkei genkai.
Steam exploded outward as heat was devoured, the powder igniting uselessly as the temperature plummeted again.
Takeda laughed like a madman.
"Yes! Again!" he shouted, already moving.
He flickered to the side, blasting powder erupting beneath his feet as he chained explosions into movement, hurling himself around the hall like a living artillery shell. Fireballs followed—smaller, faster, less refined—hammering at me from multiple angles.
"Fire Style: Scorching Fang Barrage!"
"Ice Style: Frozen Curtain."
Sheets of ice unfurled midair, intercepting each blast. Some shattered. Others absorbed the heat outright. Every exchange ended the same way—fire weakened, ice endured.
Takeda skidded to a stop, chest heaving now, sweat freezing on his skin.
I could see it.
His reserves were dropping fast.
And he knew it.
His grin widened.
"Oh, this is beautiful," he rasped. "Do you feel it? The edge?" His eyes burned fever-bright. "This is where you find out who you really are!"
He thrust both hands outward, emptying the last of his blasting powder into the air between us. It hung there for a fraction of a second—a dense, glittering cloud.
Then he forced everything into it.
Fire chakra.
Wind chakra.
Raw desperation.
"Fire Style—Red Wyrn's Last Breath!"
The powder ignited all at once.
A blinding explosion swallowed the hall, fire and force compressing inward instead of expanding, forming a roaring, spiraling inferno that surged straight toward me—hotter, denser, and more violent than anything he had used before.
It was suicide.
And he knew it.
I stepped forward.
"Ice Style," I said softly. "White End."
The world went silent.
The temperature didn't just drop—it collapsed.
The inferno froze mid-expansion, flames crystallizing into fragile, translucent shapes before shattering into a storm of ice and steam. The explosion unraveled instantly, its energy ripped away and consumed.
The backlash slammed into Takeda.
He screamed—not in pain, but in ecstasy—as frost tore into him, freezing armor, skin, chakra alike. He staggered forward, smoke and steam pouring off his body as his legs finally gave out.
He dropped to one knee.
Still smiling.
"…Worth it," he whispered hoarsely.
The ice crept higher, slowly covering his body, trapping him in it, sapping the heat and strength from him. And without any chakra to protect him, his temperature dropped fast.
I remained standing, watching the life inside him dim with my Byakugan.
There was no faking death in front of me for a last-moment counterattack.
There were only three chakra signatures left within the range of my Byakugan: Kanna, Karin, and me.
Four, if you counted my clone outside with the others.
"Not too bad," I muttered as I walked up to the frozen body of the Red Wyrn.
I honestly didn't expect that much from him, but clearly he wasn't some talentless fool; nearly all his ninjutsu seemed to be his own creations.
Even if they were mostly just modifications.
Those combined with his blasting powder made him a formidable shinobi, someone well worthy of his reputation.
But he had just met someone who countered him.
In this part of the world, finding someone at the elite jōnin level in Water Style—much less someone using Ice Style—was rare.
"You just got unlucky," I whispered as I swung the bone blade in my hand, instantly severing his head. "And so ends the Red Wyrn's tale."
(End of chapter)
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