Chapter 15: The Golden Light of the Phoenix
The essence of genjutsu was a battle for the mind—an invasion, a subtle hijacking of another's chakra and sensory perception to craft a prison of illusion. At its deepest, it plunged the victim into the caster's personal nightmare.
Conqueror's Haki was also a power of the spirit. But where genjutsu was deception and control, Conqueror's was pure, unadulterated pressure. It was the weight of an indomitable will made manifest, a force that could overwhelm consciousness, stun the senses, and in its highest forms, make the very heavens tremble. It was a clash not of technique, but of spiritual supremacy.
When Uchiha Shirou's Sharingan genjutsu latched onto Ragnar's mind, it did not find a passive victim to subdue. It crashed headlong into the nascent, roaring sea of his Conqueror's spirit. The foreign intrusion triggered an automatic, violent backlash.
The psychic pressure rebounded, not just shattering the frail threads of the illusion, but amplifying outward, crashing over Shirou like a physical tsunami of dread.
In that moment, Uchiha Shirou—proud chunin of the vaunted clan, wielder of the three-tomoe Sharingan—felt his soul cower. His body trembled violently, a cold sweat drenching his clothes. He could not lift his head. He could not meet those eyes that now seemed to hold the indifference of a god gazing upon an ant. The hunter had become the prey, paralyzed by a terror deeper than any ninjutsu.
And Ragnar, a predator honed in the crucible of survival, never missed an opening.
Whoosh!
His enhanced physique propelled him forward, crossing the space between them in a blur of motion. He was a shadow given lethal purpose.
"What—?!" Shirou's mind clawed its way back from the abyss of terror just in time to see death standing before him. It was too late to dodge, too late to form a seal.
Ragnar's expression was a placid mask. He raised his right hand, palm up. In its center, chakra—drawn not from vast reserves but from fierce, precise control—began to whirl. It compressed, spinning faster and faster, molding itself into a perfect, furious sphere of blue-white light that hummed with devastating potential. To a citizen of another timeline, its name was legend: Rasengan.
For three months, between honing his Haki and breaking his body against iron and wood, Ragnar had studied this pinnacle of chakra shape transformation. It required no elemental nature, only supreme control and power—a perfect complement to his physically-focused arsenal.
"Rasengan."
The word was a calm declaration. He thrust his palm forward.
The spinning sphere of compressed chaos met Uchiha Shirou's stomach.
"GAAAH—!"
The sound was a wet, agonized scream choked off at its source. Shirou's eyes bulged, seeing but not comprehending the maelstrom ravaging his insides. The rotational force didn't cut; it grinded, a tornado of pure force shredding organs and muscle beneath the skin. His flak jacket and shirt disintegrated into tatters around the point of impact.
With a final, sickening BANG, the force hurled him backward. He smashed into the thick trunk of an oak with a crunch of bone, then slid down its length to crumple in a heap on the forest floor. He twitched once, a final, weak spasm, and fell still.
Ragnar walked over, his footsteps silent on the leaf litter. He looked down at the motionless form. No triumph. No regret. Only the cold verification of a necessary task completed.
He drew a kunai from his pouch. Without hesitation, he drove it down, once, twice, four times, five—straight into the heart. A final, brutal guarantee. In the world of shinobi, only the dead told no tales, carried no grudges, planned no vengeance. He had learned this lesson in the ashes of his first village.
*Ding. Experience +100.*
*Ding. Experience +50.*
*Ding. Experience +50.*
*Ding. Experience +30.*
...
*Ding. Experience +300.*
The cascade of notifications was a swift, satisfying river in his mind. His experience gauge, which had been at 450/1000, exploded upward. 1200/1000. It had surpassed the upgrade threshold in a single, violent encounter. The correlation was undeniable: combat against powerful, lethal opponents yielded exponential gains. Survival, it seemed, was the system's ultimate metric.
Puff.
A soft sound, like a sigh of release. Before the body of Uchiha Shirou, the air shimmered. A treasure chest materialized, hovering just above the ground. But this was no modest bronze chest. This one gleamed. It was crafted of what looked like solid, polished gold, ornate and radiant, seeming to hold its own light in the dark forest. A kryptonite-grade reward.
Ragnar reached out and opened it. A brilliant, warm golden light spilled forth, forcing him to narrow his eyes. As it faded, the contents were revealed.
Resting on a bed of ethereal velvet was a fruit. It was oblong, roughly the size of his fist, its skin a strange, mottled pattern of crimson and yellow that swirled like captured flame. It pulsed with a faint, hypnotic heat, drawing the eye with a primal, tempting allure.
A Devil Fruit.
Information flooded his mind: Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Phoenix. Mythical Zoan-type. The eater gains the ability to transform into a phoenix and a human-phoenix hybrid at will. Grants enhanced physical abilities, regenerative capabilities, and the power of blue flames that can heal as well as burn.
The Phoenix Fruit. Not Ace's Flare-Flare Fruit, but something arguably more profound—a Mythical Zoan, a creature of legend. The power of rebirth and immortal flame.
A surge of fierce, hot ambition shot through him. This was a key to a different kind of power altogether. But he did not take it. Not here. The Forest of Death at night was no place for the vulnerability that came with consuming a Devil Fruit. He willed it into the system's storage, the chest vanishing.
He looked back at the corpse. Work remained. Using a smaller, controlled Rasengan, he blasted a deep pit into the soft forest earth. He rolled the body in, covered it, and meticulously rearranged leaves and debris over the site. No marker, no sign.
Just as he straightened up, the final tension leaving his shoulders, his Observation Haki—passively scanning the environment—screamed.
A presence. Close. So perfectly concealed it had been a void in his perception until this moment of lowered guard. It wasn't hostile, but it was immense—a contained sun of power and vitality that made the hairs on his neck stand up.
"Show yourself," he said, his voice steady, echoing slightly in the clearing.
Only the wind answered, rustling the leaves of the trees his fight had spared.
His Haki didn't lie. Someone was there, watching with skill far beyond a chunin's. "If you won't reveal yourself, I'll leave," he stated, and turned to go, calling the bluff.
"Hah~ Feeling guilty, are we, kid?"
The voice was female, youthful, laced with amusement and a confident, rolling warmth that seemed to vibrate in the air itself. From the deep shadow of a massive, ancient cedar, a figure stepped into a patch of faint moonlight.
Ragnar's breath caught, his analytical mind instantly filing away details. A young woman, perhaps early twenties. Long, honey-blonde hair tied in twin ponytails. A face of striking, bold beauty—large, expressive eyes, a strong jaw, a mouth quirked in a knowing smirk. She wore a short green haori with the kanji for "Gamble" over a grey shirt that did little to conceal a figure that was, frankly, legendary—a breathtaking combination of powerful athleticism and impossible, gravity-defying curves. This was Tsunade Senju. In the flesh, she was more… vibrant than any memory or image could convey.
His eyes, trained to assess threat and detail, took her in with a single, sweeping glance. He noted the power in her stance, the casual confidence, and yes, the spectacular physical evidence of her Senju vitality. A gentleman's glance, acknowledging the formidable whole. To stare would be to invite a fist through a tree trunk—or his ribs.
He let his gaze settle on her face, his own expression carefully neutral, masking the whirl of recognition and recalculated odds. He forced a note of cautious uncertainty into his tone.
"Who are you?"
(End of Chapter)
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