Naruto: Mizuki The Savior

Chapter 32: A Full-Powered Strike

Before Orochimaru had even finished speaking, his arm transformed into a mass of writhing serpents, lunging forward like a tide.

"Such impatience... If Orochimaru has no interest in someone, he truly has zero patience for them."

The power gap between Mizuki and Orochimaru was beyond the scope of tactics or numbers to bridge. In just a few exchanges, Mizuki had already been cornered. Illusions? Traps? Such things weren't even worth Orochimaru's attention. The barriers Mizuki had set up, which would be deadly for an average ninja, were nothing more than a joke to someone at Orochimaru's level.

"Taijutsu, ninjutsu, reaction speed—I'm at a complete disadvantage. The gap is despair-inducing... Since that's the case, I need to retreat immediately. If he catches me, it'll be a disaster."

"A moment ago, you were so lively, and now you're only dodging? I expected at least a little fun from someone who put together such an elaborate setup. But if this is all you've got... then just die."

Mizuki had taunted Sasuke earlier, and now he was on the receiving end of the same treatment.

"But I'm not some helpless child."

Seizing the moment when Orochimaru closed in, Mizuki quickly formed a hand seal.

"Explode!"

With a loud shout, Mizuki's shadow clone self-destructed, triggering every explosive tag and trap attached to it. Orochimaru, caught off guard, was engulfed in a massive explosion. Before he could react, waves of kunai and shuriken rode the blast's shockwave, turning him into a pincushion.

As the smoke cleared, the figure of Orochimaru emerged, riddled with injuries—only for his body to dissolve into a mound of mud.

"A mud clone?" Mizuki narrowed his eyes.

Then, from the shadows, Orochimaru reappeared, completely unscathed.

"A shadow clone? How unexpected."

He had already deduced that Mizuki was no ordinary exam participant.

"These barriers... Only someone with extensive research and experience could create such formations. Now it makes sense."

Slightly intrigued, Orochimaru cast his senses outward, scanning for disturbances.

"Those three from Konoha? They don't have this level of ability. The two unconscious Grass ninja and that weak girl? No chance. That leaves only one possibility..."

His eyes locked onto a certain direction.

"It must be you."

Elsewhere, Mizuki's clone had begun withdrawing from the battlefield, his objective complete. But suddenly, an explosion rumbled through the air.

"The shadow clone was destroyed?"

A flood of memories surged into his mind.

"So everything went as planned… Wait. Orochimaru is already here?! This is bad…"

Before Mizuki could react, a wave of killing intent crashed into him.

An overwhelming pressure descended, suffocating him. Cold sweat poured down his face.

"This… this level of killing intent is insane."

Mizuki let out a bitter laugh.

"So that was just him toying with me? And now he's just slightly serious? How vast is the power difference between ninja at this level? The stronger one becomes, the more absurd the gaps get…"

Feeling the oppressive force rapidly closing in, Mizuki knew he had no time to hesitate.

"If I can't resist, I have to take a gamble. Normal methods won't cut it."

Steeling himself, he gritted his teeth and drove a kunai deep into his thigh. The sharp pain jolted him back to focus, allowing him to momentarily suppress the fear and regain movement.

"Since you're so persistent, don't blame me for making you suffer a bit."

Gasping, Mizuki pulled out a scroll, unfurled it on the ground, and bit his thumb. Blood dripped onto the symbols as he rapidly formed hand seals before pressing his palm to the surface.

A crimson glow flared from the scroll, burning it to ash as a floating red array took shape. It expanded upward, growing wider and taller until a massive, eerie formation hovered nearly a hundred meters in the air.

At the same time, in Konoha, Mizuki's true body, who had been studying the sealing techniques gifted by the Third Hokage, suddenly sensed a fluctuation.

Dropping the documents, he reached for a trembling scroll at the top of the pile.

"Things have escalated to this point?"

Wasting no time, he activated his own array. A crimson seal spread across his floor, pulsing rhythmically as it linked with its counterpart in the Forest of Death.

Then, Mizuki retrieved a massive sealing scroll and activated the protective barriers he had long prepared in his home.

"Whoever you are, even if you're Orochimaru, let me show you what raw power looks like."

The massive scroll unfurled, and an overwhelming surge of chakra erupted from its center. The energy blasted into the red array, vanishing from sight.

Meanwhile, in the sky above the Forest of Death, the floating black rift within the crimson seal widened. A terrifying chakra beam burst forth, hurtling straight toward Orochimaru.

BOOM!

The impact cratered the ground, flattening trees in a massive shockwave.

The incoming chakra torrent whipped up violent winds, stirring dust into cyclones. As the attack continued, friction ionized the air, creating a storm of plasma and lightning, reducing a hundred meters of land to scorched earth.

As the assault neared its end, the floating seal contracted, compressing residual energy and space distortions into a small, jet-black sphere. The compressed energy, charged with destruction, hurtled toward Orochimaru like a miniature apocalypse.

"Summoning: Rashōmon!"

A massive, demonic gate materialized between him and the incoming death sphere.

The impact sent a deafening shockwave across the entire Forest of Death.

For a moment, the Rashōmon held. But the crackling black sphere wrapped in lightning rapidly corroded its defenses, reducing the colossal gate to splinters.

A blinding flash—

Then silence.

A moment later, a mushroom cloud of dust and energy surged skyward.

While this unfolded, Mizuki's clone leaped into the fading rift, escaping just as the spatial tear sealed itself.

Back in Konoha, Mizuki's true body completed the summoning technique.

A heavily injured figure, broken and battered, materialized in the center of the red array.

"Don't sync memories yet," the clone gasped. "Heal me first. If you pass out from the pain, we're both dead."

Without hesitation, Mizuki injected a regenerative serum and painkillers into the clone, setting his bones back into place before placing him into a chakra-enriched healing formation.

"As long as we keep you alive, I can work on solving the longevity issue later."

"Yeah… I'll be out of action for a while. You should be fine handling things without showing too many cards."

"Got it. Now, let's sync memories. I need to know how you ended up like this."

---

Back in the Forest of Death, the aftermath of the attack was revealed.

A vast swath of the forest had been wiped from existence.

The epicenter of the blast was now a deep crater, its glassy bottom reflecting the scorched remnants of the battlefield. A nearby stream had already begun trickling into it, forming what would soon become a new lake.

From within the pit, a mound of dirt stirred.

Slowly, it reformed into Orochimaru.

His disguise was gone, his clothes charred and torn, his flesh blackened from the burns.

Letting out a raspy breath, he muttered, "No choice, then…"

Orochimaru suddenly unhinged his jaw.

His mouth split unnaturally wide as a second, unharmed Orochimaru crawled out of the old, discarded body, leaving the scorched husk behind like a shed skin.

Dusting himself off, he smirked.

"Interesting…"

He scanned the surroundings but found no trace of his attacker.

"Escaped, huh? Didn't even get a clear look at them… Heh, what a rare experience."

The grin widened.

"This world is still full of surprises… How fascinating."

Then, shifting his focus, he chuckled.

"That was quite the commotion. Konoha won't ignore this. I'd better collect my prize before things get messy."

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