Naruto: The Shattered Eyes

With the Mark of the Mirage complete and his studies on human cloning proceeding well, Suguru opted to train for the first time in a while. He included several drills and sparring sessions in his training regime.

Thus, five clones and one original could be seen standing on the lake's calm waters above the Valley of the End.

Each one of Suguru's clones conjured a different element while he roused his chakra. Though his clones were restricted to only the elemental release they were assigned to, Suguru also restricted himself to Taijutsu and Genjutsu only.

Suddenly, two clones moved. Their forward rush bore a great amount of speed, paired with an elusive flickering presence.

'The wind and lightning clones have opted for a blitz approach...' Suguru's eyes narrowed, and so did all of his clones.

This wasn't a one versus five.

—BOOM!

A fireball intercepted the speedster pair, engulfing Suguru in its destructive radius as well.

Indeed...

It was a free-for-all.

"Haap!"

Suguru flickered, facing one of his clones in the blink of an eye. His target at the moment was his water-release clone. Given that Water Release was his secondary element, it had been further fed by the affinities he gained from devouring shinobi.

With the battle happening on a lake, Suguru had no choice but to eliminate the one with the battlefield advantage first.

—And his other clones thought the same.

Save for one: the clone in question himself.

The water-release clone smirked when he noticed the shift in everyone's focus. He leaped backward and his hands slammed together.

His chakra flared, flowing into the blue-dyed mirror world beneath his feet.

Here, where water was abundant. A place brimming with dormant potential.

A grin spread across the clone's face.

'Water Release: Water Colliding Wave!'

—VWHOOOM!

Although not to the same level as Isao, a small blue tornado spun around the water-release clone. All of the incoming attacks, save for the stone bullet fired by the earth-release clone were drowned in the maelstrom.

"Heh,"

The water-release clone changed his hand seal.

[Tiger].

'Water Release: Water Fang Bullet!'

The already-spinning maelstrom converged into a single missile that began sweeping through the battlefield. Smaller water bullets began firing from the main missile, spraying the others with water and nearly eliminating three clones in the process.

Everyone flickered away.

As the distance widened, the fire-release clone made use of his range.

'Fire Release: Hellfire Artillery!'

Fireballs were shot in the sky, and soon, the battlefield experienced a rain of flames. All of the clones and Suguru himself had no choice but to dodge. Compared to his affinity for Fire Release, his other nature transformations were child's play at best.

It was then—

'Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!'

Suguru's eyes widened as the fires instantly grew into a firestorm. The winds mixed with the flames in a relentless torrent of heat.

Rushing forward like a flaming tsunami.

'Crazy!' Suguru had no choice but to dive into the lake below him to dodge the flames.

He saw that his own clones had done the same.

"..."

They all looked at each other.

"We should ban Fire Release,"

They all shared the same thoughts.

***

Apart from training his other Nature Transformations, Suguru also went on to figure out more lethal jutsus. He already had long, wide-ranged attacks. What he lacked were techniques similar to Kakashi's Chidori or Naruto's Rasenshuriken.

Techniques meant to kill only a single target— not so different from his Vampiric Gaze, but more instantaneous.

"..."

With this in mind, Suguru had been meditating with his Blaze Battle Body active. Flames danced around him, pouring out of his tenketsu with every beat of his heart.

The flames were roused and doused in a rhythmic pattern, capable of lulling onlookers to sleep.

Suguru held two fingers up, forming the [Seal of Confrontation] and concentrating a large amount of chakra at its tips.

A very dense amount of chakra formed a blade that extended a foot out and was barely a few centimeters in thickness.

'No... it needs to be even denser.' He thought to himself, feeling the strain on his chakra.

He needed to superheat the chakra blade that extended outwards.

Burning his chakra at extremely high temperatures.

All, to achieve the fourth state of matter.

—VWHOOM!

'Fire Release: Plasma Blade'

From Suguru's fingertips, flames so hot that their direct surroundings erupted into plasma burst forth. For an instant, the light was blinding despite the sunlight. 

Long had Suguru been looking away, opting instead to use his peripheral vision to monitor what was happening. Furthermore, a few of his clones were observing him behind a metal screen with their Shinrakugans active.

Unfortunately, the plasma blade lasted only for a moment.

It flickered once, and then it was gone.

Suguru could not maintain the plasma formation at atmospheric temperatures for long periods. It was an unfortunate reality of the way the world works.

'If only I had better lightning affinity,'

A sigh escaped Suguru's lips.

Forming plasma using lightning would be much easier compared to using flames. After all, lightning, by itself, was already very hot.

Should he play his cards right, he could turn his hand into a genuine plasma cutter... Which was not much different from the Raikage's Lightning Release Chakra Mode, Lightning Chakra Flow, or Kakashi's Chidori.

Only a Fire Release version of their jutsus would be different — and Suguru wanted to figure out how to do so.

Star-level firepower was a dream that could eventually come true.

Suguru thus continued his experiments. 

'Perhaps I'm going about this in the wrong way...' 

Trying his best to think in unconventional ways, Suguru believed that he would eventually be able to create a Fire Release jutsu perfect for ambush and assassination.

Though most of his ideas and their subsequent attempts led to the usual explosions and spreading flames, he was not disheartened.

"..."

There was a part of Suguru that felt as if the world was trying to deny him of such a Fire Release jutsu.

"Is the fate of any fire-imbued chakra an explosion of sorts?"

It was intriguing, to say the least.

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