Chương 272: The Three-Body Problem Part 2

Fuyumi kept at it, growing more and more aggressive with his attacks. He could not tell whether Kaen had been injured yet or not, but he had not heard a scream, so he only intensified his assault. In doing so, he ended up consuming more and more of the ice chakra spread around him to sustain that pressure. Even then, Kaen kept evading every single projectile at the last possible moment. As more time passed, though, his movements started to change. He was no longer only reacting to the attack in front of him.

He was beginning to evade the next one, and then the one after that. Kaen's movement stopped making sense if you only looked at the current attack. An ice spear would try to tear off part of his side, and he would twist just enough to avoid it, only to tilt his head at the same time so the next ice shard missed by a hair. Then he would jump to the side, already avoiding a large ice spike and a sharp frozen sheet that had not even reached him yet. To anyone without a dojutsu, it must have looked insane.

I was impressed. The three tomoe Sharingan had come to him with far more natural ease than I expected. He was using it almost effortlessly, his eyes focused on both the incoming attacks and the concentration of ice chakra in the air around him. After a while, that concentration thinned considerably and the attacks became less frequent, and that was when Kaen made his move.

He jumped, stepping onto the top of an incoming chunk of ice like it was nothing, then used the momentum to twist through the air and evade multiple spears at once. He dropped beneath another attack, weaving through hand seals with timing so precise that fire burst from his mouth a fraction of a second before an ice kunai could pierce his face. The flames exploded forward, melting and pushing everything back, including the mist itself.

With it, Fuyumi created multiple ice sheets in rapid succession, but they melted and shattered one after another as he ran to the side, barely avoiding the controlled stream of fire. Fuyumi did not waste a moment. He slapped both hands against the ground, and a thin layer of ice spread instantly across the arena floor, trying to deny Kaen any direct approach. One bad step, one slight loss of footing, and with the way Fuyumi was fighting, there would be no second chances.

Kaen's eyes shone with that grim, dark red glow as he moved through a quick set of hand seals. I immediately noticed the wind in front of him sharpen dramatically before his hands started again, weaving through a second sequence almost instantly. Both were simple jutsu, fast and efficient, but the result was terrifying. Using his eyes and the incredible chakra observation and control they gave him, Kaen augmented the fire with wind, increasing both its speed and temperature and making it far harder to evade.

The attack exploded forward with a horrifying sound, focused into a small cone as it melted the ground in front of him before punching through every ice sheet in its path and hitting Fuyumi directly. Fuyumi was sent flying through the air, screaming as fire caught on his clothes. He slammed hard into the barrier and fell, still shrieking, before ice chakra exploded out of him and violently extinguished the flames while freezing everything around him in an instant.

"Ice Release: White Fracture Surge." Ice expanded outward at once. Kaen flickered to the far side of the arena, away from Fuyumi, but Fuyumi immediately started moving toward him, spreading ice on both sides and limiting the directions Kaen could use to escape. I was impressed. It seemed Fuyumi had realized Sena exposed the weakness of his strongest jutsu, so he had adjusted it to counter Kaen, who was now acting on outdated information.

I was far enough from both of them that the danger had not reached me yet, but at that point I decided that was enough and stepped off the wall.

"Don't." Kaen's voice came out strong and sharp. I looked at him and saw the resolve on his face, but more importantly, the confidence. I grinned, and he grinned back, so I leaned against the wall again, even as I could practically feel four holes being drilled into my skull from where Shisui and Sena were staring at me. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Kaen moved through another set of hand seals and slammed both hands to the ground.

Instantly, an earth spear rose close to Fuyumi, only to freeze solid before it could launch. But unexpectedly, another spear erupted from behind Fuyumi, from a place farther away from the heart of his ultimate jutsu, and shot forward. Using precise chakra control, Kaen forced much more rotation into it, making the stone drill-like enough to invade the outer layers of Fuyumi's frozen field.

It slowed more and more as it pushed through, finally striking Fuyumi without doing much damage, but it was enough to make him turn. Then more earth spears began appearing from different points around him. Earth Release was not one of Kaen's strongest affinities, but with those eyes he could still make use of it, even if it cost him more chakra to compensate for the poor affinity. In the beginning most of the rock projectiles did not even reach Fuyumi. They froze, cracked, or slowed to nothing before impact.

But then more and more of them started getting close. Kaen was learning. He was reading the weakness in Fuyumi's ice field in real time. The concentration of ice chakra across the domain was mostly balanced, but not perfectly. Some areas had slightly less of it than others, and Kaen was attacking from those points, using the Sharingan to monitor the chakra flow as it shifted. Every time Fuyumi adjusted, Kaen adjusted with him. Every correction forced Fuyumi to spend more chakra.

Every moment dragged more out of him. The exchange kept escalating until Fuyumi's anger started bleeding through his expression, and with that anger came even more waste. Eventually, Fuyumi burned through too much chakra. His ultimate jutsu began to shrink, the frozen field around him growing smaller and smaller before it finally collapsed altogether. Kaen was already running toward him.

Fuyumi, though exhausted, still managed to create a thin sheet of ice and shatter it with his palm, sending mirror-like shards flying toward Kaen. Kaen flickered to the side once, then exploded forward again. Fuyumi created a second sheet and shattered it the same way, but this time Kaen did not flicker. He avoided the most dangerous pieces, then closed his eyes and pushed straight through the rest. The smaller shards tore across his skin.

Multiple cuts opened over his body, and blood sprayed behind him in red trails as he kept charging without slowing. The red in his eyes somehow became even more frightening. He reached Fuyumi in the next instant.

"Stay away from me, you monster!" Fuyumi screamed, coating his right arm with a thin ice blade. Kaen opened his eyes and lashed out with a kunai, shattering the blade and carving a deep cut across Fuyumi's chest. Fuyumi screamed. Kaen tossed the kunai upward and drove a tremendous punch straight into his face, caving in his nose and sending him flying backward in a burst of blood, but he caught Fuyumi's wrist before he could fall. Then the real beating began.

A savage kick crashed into Fuyumi's leg hard enough to break bone, twisting it to the side at a horrifying angle. Another kick slammed into his jaw, breaking and dislocating it instantly. Before the falling kunai could hit the ground, Kaen caught it with his free hand and slashed across Fuyumi's other leg, opening it badly enough to make him crumple.

Kaen dropped with him, released his wrist, and drove a brutal kick into his chest that broke multiple ribs and sent him skidding and bouncing across the arena floor before he smashed into the barrier wall with a sickening thud. The spectators all winced at that brutal show of force as Kaen spat on the ground and looked at Fuyumi's broken form, kunai stained red in hand, while bloodlust leaked ominously from him.

Then he shook his head, took a deep breath, and with a displeased expression started walking away, heading toward me. I grinned and finally stepped away from the wall, walking slowly toward the approaching Kaen, whose eyes were focused on me. Naturally, I avoided looking directly into them, and the two of us finally met in the middle of the arena.

""Thank you for not killing him," I said as Kaen snorted.

"I only did it because you let me fight him alone." I nodded and said, "So, are you ready for round two, or do you need a couple of minutes to catch your breath? I am a pretty good actor. I can make it seem like we are actually fighting while not really doing any damage." A complicated look appeared on Kaen's face as he said in a serious tone, "You cannot use your full strength right?" I shook my head and said in a prideful, arrogant tone, "No, I cannot, but what I can use is more than enough."

I expected Kaen to explode with anger at that remark, but to my absolute surprise he said nothing. His eyes turned back to black as he raised his hand.

"It is my loss." My eyes widened as the proctor appeared between us, observing for a moment before raising his hand.

"The winner of the tournament finale is Noa of the Hidden Leaf."