Shingen muttered a complaint under his breath, but his eyes instantly turned dead serious:
“But one thing is absolutely right!”
“Grinding like crazy now is so I can comfortable slack off and lie flat later, without constantly worrying about sudden, lethal accidents!”
“Only when you are powerful enough to effortlessly crush any crisis do you possess the true right to slack off!”
Bang!
A crisp, sharp explosion tore through the air.
The stone slab beneath Shingen’s feet shattered instantly, and his entire body launched forward in a terrifying burst of speed.
Within his pitch-black eyes, three blood-red tomoe spun rapidly.
Facing Jiraiya, Shingen didn’t hold back a single fraction of his strength.
He erupted with everything he had right from the start.
After all, the man standing before him was arguably one of the absolute strongest shinobi in Konoha in this era, second perhaps only to the Third Hokage.
Or perhaps he had no equal at all.
If he tried to hide his true strength while facing a monster like this, he might not even survive a single exchange.
Thoughts flashed rapidly through his mind, but his hands moved just as fast.
The hand seals for the Great Fireball Technique were completed in the span of a few short strides:
“Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!”
Whoosh—!
The Great Fireball swelled violently as it met the wind.
In an instant, it expanded into a colossal, ten-meter-wide sphere of roaring flames, threatening to incinerate everything in its path!
Even before the flames arrived, the scorching, turbulent shockwave blew Jiraiya’s silver hair wildly in the air.
Yet, Jiraiya’s expression remained perfectly calm.
He nodded slightly in approval:
“Your execution of the Great Fireball is remarkably proficient, and your mastery over Fire Release has clearly reached a considerable height.
But if this is all you have…”
“Hmm?!”
Jiraiya suddenly realized that something highly lethal seemed to be hidden within the massive inferno.
His mind immediately flashed back to Shingen’s battle against Shisui—the suicidal, point-blank tactic of physically hiding within his own Great Fireball.
However, Jiraiya dismissed that possibility in the very next instant.
Because the colossal Great Fireball suddenly shattered, bursting apart like a popped bubble!
The resulting shockwave violently flattened all the surrounding grass and violently shook the trees!
But what shot out from within the dispersing flames wasn’t Uchiha Shingen.
It was a dense, overwhelming swarm of shuriken, completely wreathed in blazing fire, covering the sky as they rained down!
“This is the Uchiha clan’s signature Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Nail Crimson?!”
“No, wait, this sheer volume…
this brat actually layered the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique on top of it!”
A flicker of genuine astonishment flashed through Jiraiya’s eyes:
“This is…
a Compound Ninjutsu?!”
If Jiraiya previously only felt that his newly acquired disciple shared some personality traits with the lazy Nara clan…
Now, he was seriously starting to doubt whether the blood flowing through Uchiha Shingen’s veins belonged to the Uchiha or the Nara.
He knew I saw him use the tactic of hiding within the Great Fireball to launch a surprise attack.
Did he purposely use that exact piece of intelligence as the core to construct this psychological trap specifically for me?!
If Jiraiya had genuinely assumed Shingen was hiding inside the flames and prepared himself for a close-quarters Taijutsu clash, he would have been brutally shredded by this overwhelming barrage of flaming shuriken!
“You brat!”
“That’s incredibly underhanded!”
Jiraiya laughed, his hands instantly flashing through a sequence of seals before slamming heavily onto the ground:
“Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!”
A solid stone wall, nearly a meter thick, erupted from the earth in a fraction of a second.
It formed a perfect barricade in front of Jiraiya, effortlessly blocking every single blazing kunai and shuriken!
The intense heat from the flames scorched the air, making even Jiraiya feel a wave of stifling heat.
He was just preparing his counterattack when he suddenly realized he had completely lost track of his target.
It was obvious that Shingen had flawlessly capitalized on that split-second opening to completely conceal his presence.
This masterful, fluid application of tactics elevated Jiraiya’s evaluation of Shingen yet again:
“When the initial assault failed, he immediately used the opening to hide his chakra and presence, secretly preparing the next wave of attacks.”
“He can advance to attack, and retreat to defend.”
“From a purely tactical standpoint, I can easily give this sequence of attacks a rating of 9 out of 10.”
“Among all the shinobi I have encountered, there are extremely few who can perform at this level at such a young age.”
“However.”
“Your frontal assault was blocked, and you know your Fire Release will be neutralized as well.
The most logical strategy you would adopt next would highly likely come from…”
“Above!”
Jiraiya abruptly snapped his head up, locking eyes perfectly with Shingen’s violently spinning, blood-red Sharingan.
At the same moment, he heard Shingen’s slightly triumphant voice from above:
“Got you!”
“A Sharingan Genjutsu?!”
Jiraiya’s entire body instantly stiffened, a look of sudden realization dawning on his face.
Only when he completely retraced the entire flow of the battle did he realize that absolutely everything Shingen had done prior to this moment…
had been meticulously calculated just to secure this single, split-second, guaranteed kill!
By the time he realized this, his body was already completely paralyzed.
He could only watch helplessly as the icy edge of Shingen’s kunai sliced toward his shoulder.
But to Shingen’s complete shock, he didn’t feel the satisfying resistance of a blade cutting into flesh and bone.
Instead, his strike met empty air, leaving him briefly off-balance.
Poof!
“Jiraiya” instantly exploded into a cloud of white smoke, completely obscuring Shingen’s vision.
“A Shadow Clone?!”
Shingen’s eyes narrowed sharply.
As the absolute most unique and anomalous among all clone techniques, the Shadow Clone created a physical, tangible entity with its own chakra pathway system.
Whether it was the Uchiha’s Sharingan or the Hyuga’s Byakugan, it was fundamentally impossible to tell them apart from the original.
But he had already run out of time.
Jiraiya’s hand violently erupted from the ground beneath him, securely clamping around Shingen’s wrist.
At the same time, his other hand grabbed Shingen’s shoulder, effortlessly pinning him against the solid rock wall.
“Checkmate!”
As Jiraiya’s voice echoed through the clearing.
The battle officially came to an abrupt, decisive end.
“I lost, huh!”
“In both tactics and actual combat!”
Shingen slumped down where he sat.
Even though he had mentally prepared himself for this outcome, he still couldn’t help but feel a lingering sense of profound defeat.
He had meticulously crafted so many layers of psychological and tactical traps, yet all he managed to defeat in the end was a single, measly Shadow Clone.
No!
That Shadow Clone was highly likely bait that Jiraiya had deliberately left behind!
Realizing this, Shingen couldn’t help but curse under his breath:
“You underhanded old bastard!”
What he didn’t know was that Jiraiya was actually far more shocked than he was.
In terms of pure tactical intellect, this kid is arguably the most brilliant disciple I have ever taught.
And his combat style is by far the most utterly insidious and underhanded…
Oh.
Wait.
Minato’s signature “Flying Thunder God + Rasengan” combo literally meant he could instantly teleport around the battlefield at will—he could hit you, but you could absolutely never hit him back.
And Nagato’s Rinnegan was practically a cheat code defying the heavens themselves.
He inherently mastered all five basic chakra natures from birth and possessed a terrifying arsenal of unknown, god-like abilities.
Never mind, then.
Wait…
Why is it that every single disciple I take on turns out to be more incredibly insidious and underhanded than the last?!
Shingen is one thing, but I personally trained Minato and Nagato from the ground up!
How did they end up like this too?!
Could it be…
is this actually a reflection of my own nature?!
Impossible!
Absolutely impossible!
Jiraiya ruthlessly shoved these chaotic, horrifying thoughts out of his mind.
Recalling the sequence of the battle that just occurred, he began to help Shingen review his performance:
“Whether it was your on-the-spot reactions or your tactical formulations, you are absolutely outstanding.”
“However, you made one fatal mistake.”
“Aside from jutsu, chakra capacity, and utilizing the battlefield environment, there is one other crucial element in shinobi combat that is more than enough to completely dictate the outcome of a battle.”
“And that element…
is Intelligence!”