Chapter 86: Severing the Threads
Minato's caution had paid off. He had seen through the initial trap, refusing to teleport into Kagenori's shuriken barrage. He now stood poised, analyzing his opponent with renewed focus. The Flying Thunder God was a formidable tool, but Kagenori knew it was not an invincible one.
In Kagenori's analytical mind, the technique's weakness was not in its speed—it was instantaneous, requiring no hand seals, a movement that occurred in the space between heartbeats—but in the moment after the teleportation. When Minato arrived at a marker, he still had to orient himself, draw a weapon, and commit to a physical attack. That sliver of time, that transition from arrival to action, was a window of opportunity. A miniscule one, but it existed.
To exploit it required reflexes bordering on the preternatural. To counter-attack required being faster than Minato himself, a daunting prospect. The other method, as Kagenori had just demonstrated, was prediction: controlling the battlefield by controlling the markers. But this strategy had a critical limitation—it only worked if the number of markers was finite. If the field became saturated with them, allowing Minato to flicker from point to point without pattern, even perfect prediction would be useless.
As if reading his thoughts, Minato's hands flashed to his pouch, and a fresh volley of his special kunai sliced through the air, embedding themselves in the earth around Kagenori in a wider, more unpredictable pattern.
Kagenori's body responded instantly, his center of gravity dropping, his form coiling into the unmistakable starting stance of the First Form: Thunderclap and Flash.
Minato's mind raced. He's betting everything on a single, decisive strike the moment I appear. He'll use that speed to try and catch me in the instant I materialize.
But Minato trusted his own speed. He believed that even against the enhanced Swift Speed of the Thunder Breathing, he could act first.
In a flicker of displaced air, Minato vanished. He didn't go for a direct attack. Instead, he teleported twice in rapid succession to the two original kunai on the ground, his hands a blur as he sent a storm of standard shuriken flying towards Kagenori from multiple angles.
Kagenori didn't flinch. His eyes closed for a fraction of a second, his world narrowing to the impressions fed to him by his Observation Haki. He could feel the number, the trajectory, the very intent of each spinning metal star. With minimal, almost lazy movements, he shifted his weight, tilted his head, and let the shuriken whistle harmlessly past him.
In the next heartbeat, Minato acted. He teleported to one of the newly-thrown kunai that was still quivering in the ground, his body appearing already in motion, kunai gripped tightly as he thrust it toward Kagenori's side.
It was a feint.
The moment Kagenori began to move to parry, Minato was gone again, teleporting to a different kunai that was still in mid-air, much closer to Kagenori's back. He swung his kunai in a sharp, backhand slash. This was the real attack. His entire sequence was designed to bait out the Thunderclap and Flash, to force Kagenori to commit to a forward burst that would leave his back completely exposed.
But Kagenori had not taken the bait. He wasn't facing where Minato had been; he was already turning to face where Minato was. There was no frantic burst of lightning, only a calm, precise pivot.
Clang!
The shriek of steel on steel echoed in the night as Kagenori's ninjato met Minato's kunai with perfect timing.
Before Kagenori could leverage his blade into a counter-cut, Minato flashed away, putting a dozen meters between them once more.
He looked at Kagenori, a mix of respect and frustration in his eyes. "Your combat instincts are as sharp as ever, Kagenori. You saw through my feint and halted your technique."
Kagenori looked back at him, his expression unreadable. "Who told you I was going to use it at all?"
Minato blinked. "What? But your stance..."
Kagenori didn't bother to explain. He simply settled back into the same low, coiled posture. It wasn't a commitment to the Thunder Breathing's ultimate technique; it was simply the optimal stance to work in concert with his Observation Haki, a position that allowed his body to explode into motion in any direction with minimal delay. The raw speed of Thunderclap and Flash was immense, but its linear nature made it predictable and its mobility pathetic compared to the teleportation of the Flying Thunder God. Using it here would be foolish.
The fight resumed. Minato became a golden phantom, flickering across the hillside, attacking from the front, the sides, from behind. Kunai stabbed at Kagenori's throat, his kidneys, his legs. Yet each time, Kagenori was already moving. A subtle deflection of his wrist, a slight shift of his hip, a quick step back—he defended with an economy of motion that was mesmerizing. He made no attempt to counter-attack.
Minato was relentless, but he was also confounded. It was as if Kagenori had eyes in the back of his head. Every angle was covered. Every attack was anticipated the instant Minato's form solidified. Kagenori was relying entirely on his preternatural sensory ability and his own superb reflexes to create an impenetrable defense.
However, while Kagenori could react to Minato's attacks, his reaction speed was not superior to Minato's action speed. He could defend, but he could not seize the initiative to launch a telling blow. So he waited, patient and predatory, his Sharingan recording every flicker, every twitch, every subtle tell.
His opportunity came when he noticed a shift in Minato's pattern. The blond ninja was no longer drawing fresh kunai from his pouch. Instead, he was beginning to retrieve the ones already embedded in the ground for his teleports. His supply was finite.
"Thunder Breathing, First Form," Kagenori intoned, his voice a low hum. "Thunderclap and Flash… Eightfold."
A torrent of lightning chakra erupted from his body. He didn't become a single bolt, but a storm of them, zigzagging across the battlefield in a relentless, unpredictable assault. He used the terrain, kicking off trees and rocks, changing direction mid-stride, always aiming for the spot Minato would appear a heartbeat after he vanished.
"Finally!" Minato thought, a thrill coursing through him. He had been waiting for this, for Kagenori to commit to his signature offense. He became a blur of golden light, using the Flying Thunder God to dance around the lightning onslaught. Kagenori was fast, terrifyingly so, but against instantaneous movement, it wasn't enough. Not a single one of the eight consecutive strikes came close to touching him.
Kagenori stopped, the lightning around him dissipating. He stood calmly, looking at Minato, who had reappeared a safe distance away, a faint smile of triumph on his lips. He had finally found a way to neutralize Kagenori's most dangerous attack.
"Eighteen," Kagenori said, his voice cutting through the night.
Minato's smile faltered. "Eighteen? What are you talking about?"
Kagenori's gaze swept over the scattered kunai on the ground. "You only have eighteen Flying Thunder God kunai in total. Correct?"
Minato's eyes darted across the field, mentally counting the seventeen kunai lodged in the earth, plus the one in his own hand. His blood ran cold. Exactly eighteen. His eyes snapped back to Kagenori, and he saw it now—a nearly invisible, transparent wire, glinting faintly in the moonlight, wrapped around Kagenori's fingers.
With a sharp tug, Kagenori pulled the wire. The seventeen kunai on the ground were yanked from their positions, scraping through the dirt and grass to clatter together in a single, useless pile.
A shadow clone poofed into existence beside Kagenori. Now, two pairs of crimson, three-tomoe Sharingan stared at Minato, identical cold smiles on their faces.
"Now," the real Kagenori said, his voice dripping with finality. "You only have two mediums for teleportation. The one in your hand, and that pile over there. You can't run anymore. The next time you use Flying Thunder God, I only need to focus on two locations. The game is over."
Minato's face darkened into a grim mask. Now he understood. The relentless defense, the patient waiting—it had never been about survival. It had been about inventory. Kagenori had been counting, and he had been setting a trap the entire time.