Chapter 14: The King's Gaze
Kwaaa… Kwaaa…
The lonely cry of a night-hawk sliced through the oppressive silence of the forest, its passing stirring the dense canopy. A cold wind picked up, moaning through the branches. Above, the moon, which had cast its pale light on the clearing, was abruptly swallowed by a fast-moving bank of clouds. Darkness deepened. The wind rose higher. It was the perfect stage for murder.
Uchiha Shirou stepped fully into the faint light at the clearing's edge, a cruel smile twisting his features. He looked at Ragnar as a cat might look at a cornered mouse. "You actually came. How predictably noble." His voice dripped with contempt. "Stupid, really. Your only sin was being a powerless outsider who dared offend a power you cannot comprehend. For that, you pay with your life."
His eyes flashed. In an instant, the pupils burned a brilliant, hellish scarlet. Three black tomoe spun slowly within them, hypnotic and menacing.
"Spare me the speech," Ragnar said, his voice flat, cutting through the theatrics.
He moved. There was no wind-up, no dramatic shout. One moment he was still; the next, the ground beneath his leading foot cratered as he launched himself forward with explosive force, closing the distance in a blink.
Armament. Hardening.
His right arm, from shoulder to knuckles, darkened to the color of polished obsidian in the scant light. His body coiled like a spring, torqueing at the waist, and he threw a straight, devastating punch. The air itself cracked around his fist, a miniature shockwave heralding its arrival.
"Fast! Faster than a standard chunin!" Shirou's mind registered, but his Sharingan saw it all. The three tomoe spun, breaking the movement down into a series of frozen frames. The speed that would overwhelm others was laid bare, predictable. "But speed is meaningless before these eyes."
Confident, he met the blow, chakra flaring around his own fist in a dense, blue-white aura. He wouldn't be caught off-guard by that strange hardness again.
BOOM!
The collision wasn't flesh on flesh. It was the sound of two solid objects meeting at catastrophic speed. A visible shockwave of force rippled out from the point of impact. Young trees in a five-meter radius snapped cleanly, their trunks exploding into splinters.
Ragnar's feet didn't shift an inch. He stood rooted, an unyielding monolith.
Uchiha Shirou grunted, skidding back two, three steps in the loamy soil. A fresh, burning agony lanced up his arm. Even with chakra reinforcement, it felt like he'd punched a mountain. What is his body made of?
Seizing the initiative, Ragnar didn't let him recover. He pivoted, his left leg whipping around in a savage arc. Armament flowed down his limb, turning it into a black scythe. The kick cut through the air with a keening whistle, aimed to bisect Shirou at the waist.
Shirou didn't try to block. His hands flew through a single seal. Shunshin!
He vanished in a blur, reappearing ten meters away. Ragnar's hardened leg kicked through empty air, its momentum carrying it downward.
CRUNCH-THUD!
The hardened foot struck the forest floor. The earth didn't just dent; it erupted. A crater a meter wide and half as deep exploded into being, soil and rock fragments geysering into the air.
A cold sweat beaded on Shirou's brow, despite the chill night air. That kind of power… Trading blows with this monster was suicide. His talent was monstrous. And an enemy of the Uchiha with such potential… he had to be erased here, tonight.
Ragnar was already moving again, a relentless force of nature. Shirou was forced back on the defensive, parrying, dodging, using the Sharingan's predictive sight to stay barely a half-step ahead of the crushing, blackened strikes. But each block sent jarring waves of pain through his limbs. The boy wasn't just strong; he was dense, his body seemingly immune to fatigue or doubt. He was fighting a losing battle of attrition against a foe whose greatest weapon was the very body he fought with.
No! A ninja's power is ninjutsu! I cannot win like this!
Desperation ignited. With a burst of speed, he formed another seal and flickered away, putting more distance between them. His hands came together in the familiar, rapid sequence. Ram → Boar → Snake…
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
He inhaled, his chest swelling, and exhaled a torrent of chakra-turned-inferno. The sphere of flame that roared forth was massive, easily twice the size and intensity of the one from the streets, painting the entire clearing in a hellish, dancing orange light. The heat was instant and blistering, withering leaves on nearby branches.
But Ragnar was not the same as three months ago. His Armament Haki was Level 2.
"Break it."
Armament. Hardening. Full Extension.
This time, the transformation wasn't just on his fist. The black sheen raced up his entire right arm, from fingertips to deltoid, taking on a deeper, more profound darkness. It wasn't just a coating; it felt like the arm had become a singularity of will.
"Mystery: Iron Fist."
He didn't wait. He charged into the fireball, his body a black arrow against the orange hell.
"Fool! He's actually charging it head-on!" Shirou crowed, a fleeting triumph in his eyes.
Ragnar's hardened fist met the surface of the roaring fireball.
BOOOOOOM-sssssss…
The sound was different. It wasn't an explosion of flame against flesh. At the point of contact, the world seemed to hiccup. A ripple of pure black energy—visible, tangible—expanded from Ragnar's fist. It was the manifestation of his Armament Haki, a field of negating force. Where the black ripple passed, the vibrant, chaotic flames… dimmed. They lost their luster, their fury, as if being drained of their very essence.
The phenomenon was stark against the night. The red and yellow inferno met an expanding circle of absolute black silence.
"BREAK!"
Ragnar's shout was a command to reality itself. The black ripple pulsed violently. The Great Fireball… fractured. Like glass struck by a hammer, a web of cracks, glowing with dying embers, spread across its surface. Then, with a final, concussive WHOMP of displaced air, it shattered. The flames didn't just disperse; they were obliterated into harmless motes of fading light, blown backwards by the resultant shockwave that tore through the trees behind Ragnar, flattening a swath of undergrowth.
Uchiha Shirou stood frozen. His Sharingan-recorded the impossible in perfect, horrifying detail. His mouth hung slightly open. "Th-that's… impossible…"
"Your 'power' is nothing but noise and light," Ragnar stated, lowering his arm, the black sheen receding. He began walking forward, each step deliberate. "Now. Die."
"HAH! You arrogant brat!" Shirou's shock curdled into manic fury. "You think a cheap trick with your fists is enough? I am Uchiha! Behold the true might of our bloodline!"
His Sharingan blazed. The three tomoe spun faster, locking onto Ragnar's eyes. "Sharingan: Genjutsu Binding!"
Ragnar's forward stride hitched. A sudden, immense weight settled over his limbs, as if he were submerged in thick tar. The world around him wavered, the trees stretching and distorting. A cold, foreign presence tried to worm its way into his mind, to hijack his senses. Genjutsu.
"The taste of our illusions… how does it feel?" Shirou sneered, taking a step forward, kunai glinting. "Who in all of Konoha can match the Uchiha in the art of—"
He stopped. The sneer died on his lips.
A sudden, primal fear, cold and sharp as an ice kunai, stabbed directly into his gut. It had nothing to do with physical threat. It was deeper, older. It was the fear a rabbit feels when the shadow of a hawk falls over it.
He looked at Ragnar. The boy's head was raised. Their eyes met.
Shirou's breath caught. The gaze that held his was not one of struggle against the genjutsu. It was one of… utter, profound indifference. A gaze that looked through him, past the Uchiha name, past the Sharingan, as if he were less than an insect. It was a gaze that acknowledged no peer, no superior. A king surveying worthless terrain.
The genjutsu he'd cast… it hadn't taken hold. It had shattered against that will like a wave against a cliff.
Before Shirou's reeling mind could process it, Ragnar spoke, his voice low, but it seemed to vibrate in the very air, in the marrow of Shirou's bones.
"Conqueror's. Release."
(End of Chapter)
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