The Dance of the Shikigami was a jutsu that Uchiha Akira found quite fascinating. It allowed him to turn his body into countless pieces of paper—a technique so unique that not even the Sharingan could copy it. Like the secret arts of the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clans, this jutsu belonged to the realm of Yin-Yang Release rather than the five basic nature transformations.
With his body transformed into paper, Akira resembled a whirlwind of scattered sheets, rising into the sky.
"What the...?" Konan's eyes widened in disbelief as she watched the paper storm form in front of her.
She immediately recognized the jutsu—it was her signature technique. But how could Akira use it? This jutsu was supposed to be hers alone, exclusive to her.
In the air, the sheets of paper came together, reshaping into Akira's form. However, his body was clearly marked with numerous cracks—folds where the sheets had stacked on top of one another—showing that Akira was not in his flesh-and-blood form but was instead composed of countless pieces of paper.
Behind him, the paper gathered into the shape of wings, making Akira look like an angel as he hovered in midair.
"Big Sis Konan, what's this guy to you?" Deidara called out from atop his clay bird, his face filled with shock. The jutsu Akira was using was a clear trademark of Konan's.
"I have no connection with him! This must be the work of his Sharingan—it's an absurdly powerful eye technique!" Konan answered, her gaze locked on Akira's Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Again with these blasted Sharingan powers…" Deidara muttered darkly.
He had joined the Akatsuki after being defeated by Itachi's Sharingan. Now, seeing Akira's Mangekyō in action brought back those memories, and his expression grew grim. He raised his hand, sending a barrage of clay birds flying toward Akira.
"So… am I being underestimated?" thought Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, feeling somewhat annoyed. Deidara had been fighting him moments earlier, but the moment Akira showed up, Deidara had shifted his attention to Akira, ignoring Rasa entirely.
It was as though Rasa wasn't even worth the effort anymore. A Kazekage, one of the five Kage, standing at the pinnacle of the ninja world, being disregarded like that?
"Chidori Stream!" Akira called out, summoning a surge of lightning across his body. The violent crackle of electricity exploded outward from him, engulfing the incoming clay birds.
As the lightning made contact with the clay, the birds lost their energy and fell lifelessly from the sky.
Lightning Release countered Earth Release, and while Deidara's clay bombs were a secret technique, they still fell under the category of Earth-style jutsu. Akira's lightning nullified them instantly.
Akira's eyes turned toward Deidara, and with a single motion, he extended his hand.
A spear of blue lightning, the Chidori Sharp Spear, shot out from his palm, stretching over thirty meters as it hurled toward Deidara.
Deidara dodged as best he could, but his bird was not so lucky. The lightning spear struck the clay creature, sending Deidara and his mount spiraling down from the sky.
Even in his base form, Akira's strength was among the best of Kage-level ninjas. He had effortlessly taken down Deidara with a single attack, showcasing his overwhelming power.
"Alright… I guess I can see why he ignored me," Rasa thought, his earlier frustration vanishing instantly. Watching Deidara—who had been giving him trouble moments earlier—being swiftly defeated by Akira made Rasa's irritation disappear.
Seizing the opportunity, Rasa manipulated his gold dust, sending it rushing toward the falling Deidara.
Meanwhile, Gaara, controlling his sand, was pursuing Zetsu. Zetsu's Earth Release made him hard to pin down as he could easily disappear into the ground, but Gaara's sand could crush the rocks and soil below, forcing Zetsu to stay on the run like a cornered animal.
As Gaara chased Zetsu, a thought crossed his mind. What even is this guy? Half-black, half-white—Gaara had never seen anything like him.
He glanced over at Naruto's fight, curious to see how his rival was faring. After sparring with him for days, Gaara wasn't keen on losing to him now.
On the other side of the battlefield, Naruto had unleashed four tails of the Nine-Tails' chakra, launching a full assault against Sasori.
With the four chakra tails, Naruto's combat style had grown more versatile. Despite Sasori's formidable Performance of a Hundred Puppets, even his poison-laced puppets were no match for Naruto's chakra shroud.
Naruto's chakra-formed arms slammed into the puppets repeatedly, reducing them to splinters.
Meanwhile, Akira turned his attention toward Konan.
Paper Shuriken!
Konan attacked, hurling several sharp paper projectiles toward Akira.
"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!" Akira's hands flew into a series of seals, and he exhaled a massive wall of flames. The inferno surged forward, swallowing up the paper shurikens.
As expected, paper was highly flammable. Despite its sharpness, Konan's attack couldn't withstand Akira's flames and burned away quickly.
The fire continued to surge toward Konan, forcing her to react. Physical attacks could be dodged by turning her body into paper fragments, but if she did that now, she'd only increase her surface area and burn faster.
Flapping her paper wings furiously, Konan barely dodged Akira's fire jutsu, but no sooner had she avoided it than she was already hurling more paper shurikens his way.
Akira's Sharingan caught the trajectory of each shuriken, and with a powerful beat of his paper wings, he soared upward, gracefully dodging the attacks.
In midair, Akira moved with precision, like a butterfly dancing through the flowers, avoiding Konan's attacks with ease. His hands crackled with lightning as he prepared to strike.
There was no hesitation in Akira's movements—he didn't hold back, not even for a second.
Within moments, Akira closed the distance between them, and with a swift blow, Konan was struck by his lightning.
Her body dissolved into countless sheets of paper again, scattering in all directions. When she finally reformed, she had fallen to the ground, clearly injured and struggling to stand.
Akira descended gracefully, his expression cold as he stared down at her.
"You came after Hinata, so don't blame me for coming after you. You don't deserve my mercy," Akira said, the crackling lightning in his hand showing that he meant every word. His gaze was unwavering as he stepped closer.
"You shouldn't expect mercy either," Konan said, despite being cornered. A small smile crept onto her lips.
"Huh?" Akira's instincts flared, sensing that something was off.
"This entire area is rigged with thirty thousand paper bombs. Enjoy!" Konan smirked as her words landed like a bombshell.
Akira's Sharingan caught sight of the shift in the landscape. The ground beneath them was not solid earth—it was covered in paper bombs. The entire area was rigged to blow.
So that's why she let herself fall! She lured me down here on purpose! Akira thought, cursing himself for not noticing sooner.
Thirty thousand paper bombs? How much money had she wasted? Not even Tsunade was this reckless with resources.
Before Akira could react further, the fuses on the paper bombs ignited. A massive chain of explosions rocked the battlefield, shaking the very ground itself.
The deafening booms drew the attention of everyone nearby. The sheer force of the blasts was enough to temporarily deafen those close by.
"Akira… he… he'll be okay, right?" Naruto asked, his voice filled with panic as he watched the colossal explosion unfold.
It wasn't that Naruto doubted Akira's strength, but the sheer scale of the explosion was terrifying. Even for someone as powerful as Akira, surviving a blast of this magnitude seemed impossible.
"Ha! Big Sis Konan! Amazing! This is real art!" Deidara shouted, his voice filled with awe as he watched the thirty thousand paper bombs detonate.
Deidara always claimed that art was an explosion, but even he had to admit that Konan's mastery of explosive art surpassed his own.
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Next bonus chapter if we reach 600 Powerstone
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Note: If you are interested, you can read up to chapter 255+ at patreon.com/Emik01.