Chapter 47: Clash of Thunder and Iron
For a single, disorienting second, Armani believed he was trapped in a genjutsu. The scene before him defied logic—the bait he'd been guarding was a clone, the child he'd just killed was a substitution, and his subordinate lay dead at the feet of the real target. It was a tableau of perfect, humiliating failure.
He ran a frantic, internal check. His chakra flowed cleanly, no foreign interference. No illusion. The cold, sickening reality settled in. It was all real.
But how? The Jinchuriki girl had been right there! The kid had been in the crater! His mind reeled, then focused into a razor point of pure, incandescent rage.
"BRAT! I WILL TEAR YOU APART!"
Armani's roar was a physical force. Lightning erupted from him in a violent nimbus, bleaching his eyes a furious white. Veins stood out on his neck and temples. The sheer power of his chakra shred the upper half of his uniform, revealing a torso of corded, granite-like muscle, crisscrossed with old scars. He was a storm given human form.
"Heh." Ragnar's sneer was a soft, cold counterpoint to the thunder. He pulled his Haki-hardened arm back, letting the lean ninja's body slump lifelessly to the forest floor. Killing a chunin was trivial now. The real fight had always been against the captain.
His plan had been a gamble of precision and timing. The moment his Observation Haki had warned him of the guards' deceptive relaxation, he'd acted. A Shadow Clone, infused with a sliver of his will and Haki to feel more "real," had taken Kushina's place the second he cut her bonds, while the real girl was shoved into deeper cover. Another clone, carrying the lingering scent of his exhaustion and blood, had played the wounded quarry. The basic Academy Three had become tools of lethal deception.
"I admit I underestimated you," Armani grated out, his voice vibrating with suppressed lightning. "That mistake cost my subordinate his life. But it won't happen again. You have no more tricks."
He didn't wait for a reply. His foot stamped down, and the earth exploded beneath him. He became a bolt of living lightning, crossing the distance in a blink.
"Nin-Taijutsu: Thunderstorm Fist!"
His right fist wasn't just cloaked in lightning; it was lightning. The chakra didn't just enhance; it detonated in a controlled storm around his knuckles, a technique designed to obliterate on impact while the raw physical force shattered bone.
A contest of strength? Ragnar thought, a fierce, challenging light igniting in his own eyes. Against a Jonin of this caliber, it was madness. But his body, tempered by Haki, the Phoenix, and relentless training, sang with power. He would not yield.
"Armament Haki: Full Hardening!"
"Spiral Force Compression!"
His right arm transformed. From fingertips to shoulder, it became forged obsidian, radiating a palpable, weighty aura. Simultaneously, he focused inward, driving the Spiral Force technique Tsunade had outlined. His muscles coiled, compacted, energy compressing along the meridians of his arm. The strain was immense—white steam hissed from his pores as his body protested. But the power… it was more than before. The relentless battles had pushed his compression ratio from 10% to nearly 15%. His arm swelled, not with bulk, but with concentrated, vibrating potential.
"IRON FIST!"
He swung. Not away from the lightning, but into it.
The collision was not a sound, but an event.
BOOOOOOM!
A sphere of silent pressure erupted first, swallowing all lesser noise. The very light seemed to dim, sucked into the point where fist met lightning-fist.
Then the energies clashed.
Around Armani's fist, spider-webs of furious blue electricity crawled and spat, seeking to ground themselves, to vaporize.
Around Ragnar's, the black of Armament Haki rippled like a dark pond struck by a stone. But these ripples were solid, violent—they lashed out like black lightning, striking the ground and shattering rock where they landed.
BZZZZZZZT—CRUNCH!
The space between them warped, a visible heat-haze distortion of competing force fields. The ground beneath their feet didn't crack—it disintegrated into a fine powder that billowed outward. Trees within ten meters splintered into matchwood without being touched, shredded by the radiating shockwaves.
They were locked, a study in opposing forces: primal, elemental lightning against forged, inhuman will.
Blood pounded in Ragnar's ears. His capillaries screamed, forcing out steam in desperate jets. Armani's teeth were gritted, the muscles in his neck standing out like steel cables. Neither gave an inch.
This is no ordinary jonin, Ragnar realized, the thought clear amidst the storm. This was an elite, perhaps one of the Raikage's own.
This brat… his raw strength… it rivals a veteran jonin's! Armani was equally shocked. His physical power, honed under the Third Raikage's brutal tutelage, was legendary in Kumo. He could overpower most foes with sheer might. Yet this child… this genin… was holding him at a standstill.
BANG!
A mutual decision, sensed in the instant. They disengaged, the repelling force sending them skidding back through the debris, carving furrows in the earth.
They stared at each other across the ruined clearing, chests heaving, already gathering themselves for the next exchange.
"No wonder the White Fang didn't come," Armani spat, wiping blood from a split lip. "I thought Konoha had no one left. But you… you have a strange power."
"I told you," Ragnar replied, his voice steady despite the steam rising from his skin. "If the White Fang were here, you'd already be dead. You wouldn't merit a second blow."
"A fight with the White Fang… that's what I crave!" Armani roared. "You're no mere child. If you lived, you'd carve your name across the shinobi world. But you won't. Today ends here!"
"Lightning Release: Lightning Armor!"
Armani's hands flashed through seals. A second layer of crackling, dense electricity solidified over his skin like a second, pulsating musculature. His speed and durability would now be exponentially greater.
"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"
His hands came together, and the lightning coalesced, elongating into two vicious, spear-like projections of pure chakra held in his grip. He wasn't just fast now; he was a wielded bolt of judgement.
ZAP!
He vanished. Not with Body Flicker, but with the true, near-instantaneous movement of Lightning Release chakra enhancement.
Ragnar reacted. Shave.
He blurred sideways. Armani's lightning spear stabbed through the afterimage.
ZAP! Shave!
ZAP! Shave!
A deadly dance erupted across the clearing, then above it. Two streaks of motion—one blue-white and crackling, one dark and silent—clashed, separated, and clashed again. They fought on trunks, in mid-air, off falling debris. Each impact was a localized detonation of force and light, shaking the forest.
Ragnar's Armament-hardened fists met the lightning spears with concussive clangs, sparks of blue and black flying. But the Lightning Armor dissipated much of the force. Armani's spears, while deadly, could not easily pierce the absolute defense of Level 3 Armament. It became a brutal war of attrition, speed versus imperviousness, lightning's fury against iron will.
BAM-CRACK-ZZAPT!
After a furious, blinding sequence, they parted once more, landing heavily thirty feet apart.
Ragnar crouched, one hand on the scorched ground. A trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth. His muscles trembled with fatigue and channeled energy. His eyes never left Armani.
The Kumo jonin wasn't faring much better. Maintaining the Lightning Armor while spamming high-speed attacks and ninjutsu was a colossal drain. Blood seeped from a cut on his brow, and his breathing was labored. The cocky arrogance was gone, replaced by the grim respect of a warrior facing a worthy, terrifying foe.
The stalemate was clear. The next exchange wouldn't be about testing or feints. It would be about unleashing everything they had left in one, definitive assault.
Ragnar straightened slowly. His mind was clear, the path forward obvious. He would have to risk it all. The Phoenix flames at Lv4 simmered in his core, a sleeping inferno. The new sword technique lay ready. His Haki was burning bright.
Across from him, Armani raised his lightning spears, crossing them before him. The air grew thick with ozone and killing intent. He, too, was ready for the end.
There were no more words. Only the silent understanding that the next move would decide who walked away.
(End of Chapter)
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