Only Strength Can Enable Equal Dialogue

Chapter 244 Only Strength Can Enable Equal Dialogue

"Your chakra hasn't fully recovered. And you already got beaten up before, now it's my turn. I haven't fought against Lava Release before."

Izumi glanced at Shisui, then took two more steps toward Rōshi.

"I'll take his place," Izumi said. "Three moves. You strike, I'll take. After that, you sit down and listen to him."

Old Purple looked at the white-haired young man in front of him, at his scarlet Sharingan in his left eye and his bluish-white Byakugan in his right eye.

He didn't ask any further questions, but simply nodded slowly, and the dark red chakra in his palm began to boil.

Without any further pleasantries, Rōshi took a step forward, the volcanic rock beneath his feet cracking slightly from the residual heat of the Lava Release chakra.

He formed a mudra with his right hand in front of him, a surge of hot air rose from deep in his throat, and his cheeks puffed out slightly.

"The first move."

His mouth opened, and a stream of dark red lava gushed out, splitting into dozens of fist-sized magma balls in the air.

Each one was enveloped in a blazing white, high-temperature core, trailing a dark red tail flame, like a reversed meteor shower crashing down on Izumi River.

The magma ball made a dense hissing sound as it swept through the air; it was the sharp whistling of water vapor being instantly evaporated.

Just as the magma ball was about to touch him, a blinding burst of electricity erupted from Izumi's body.

Lightning Release Chakra Mode was fully activated, and arcs of electricity wove a dense defensive net around his body.

His figure blurred in the lightning, moving through the gaps in the magma spheres at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Occasionally, a lava ball at an unusually sharp angle would glide past his robes, leaving a scorch mark on the hem, but he himself would be unharmed.

The last magma ball slammed into a spot three feet below him, splashing lava and burning several small, smoking craters into the black rock.

"One move," Izumi said calmly amidst the crackling of electric arcs.

Old Zi's expression remained unchanged. He formed hand seals simultaneously, this time combining the Ugly Seal and the Unknown Seal.

A dark red chakra membrane appeared on his body surface; it was Lava Release chakra armor.

Under the moonlight, the armor had the texture of obsidian after lava had cooled, with fine cracks covering its surface, and dark red heat could be faintly seen flowing within the cracks.

"The second move."

His figure vanished from his spot, his feet leaving a deep crater in the volcanic rock, and he crashed head-on into Izumi River like a boulder launched by a catapult.

With his right arm bent and elbow protruding forward, the Lava Release armor condensed at the elbow tip into a sharp, cone-shaped spike, aimed straight at Izumi's chest.

Izumikawa's lips curled up slightly as he raised his right hand, palm facing upwards.

Sections of stark white bones grew from the palm of his hand, weaving together in a very short time to form a bone shield with a diameter of over a foot.

The structure of the bony shield is not a simple flat plate, but is made up of several thousand layers of extremely thin bone plates stacked on top of each other.

Each layer of bone has micron-sized gaps between it to absorb impact, and these gaps are filled with chakra.

Old Purple's elbow slammed into the bone shield, and a dull thud exploded at the edge of the crater, sending lava fragments and bone chips flying in all directions.

The surface of the bone shield was scorched by the high temperature of the molten core, and the outermost layers of bone were cracked, but not broken.

The impact traveled through the bone shield to Izumi's arm, causing his boot to slide back half an inch on the black rock before coming to a steady stop.

"Second move," he said.

Old Zi withdrew his elbow and took two steps back, a change appearing in his eyes.

This white-haired young man possesses both the Byakugan and the Sharingan, and can use Lightning Release Chakra Mode.

And that bone, it was probably the bloodstains of the Corpse Bone Clan, and after taking two of his attacks, its breathing was as steady as if it were taking a walk.

The other party is very strong and indeed has the power to ask him for a portion of the tailed beast's chakra.

"You have one move left," Izumi said. He released his grip, and the bone shield shattered into tiny white bone fragments that scattered on the ground.

New bones regrowed from the palm, coalescing into a slender bone knife.

The blade gleamed with a cold, white light under the glow of the lava. He casually twirled the sword, the tip pointing diagonally to the ground.

"But after this move, when he talks to you, I'll just watch."

Old Zi remained silent for a moment, then nodded.

He took a deep breath, formed hand seals with the four seals of Zi, Yin, Xu, and Chou, and his chakra exploded like a powder keg being ignited.

His skin began to glow with a dark red light, as the Four-Tails' chakra surged out of the seal and resonated with his own Lava Release chakra.

The air behind him distorted and deformed, and a huge phantom slowly emerged.

The silhouette of the Four-Tailed Son Goku was faintly visible behind him, with its four tails slowly unfolding in the phantom, each burning with chakra at a magma-like temperature.

Old Purple fused his chakra with the Four-Tails' chakra to a critical point, just enough to unleash a full-force attack without being completely devoured by the tailed beast's consciousness.

This precise control made Izumikawa raise an eyebrow slightly.

"The third move." Old Purple's voice carried a deep, resonant quality that was not human, like magma churning in his chest, "Lava Release: Scorching River Eruption."

His mouth opened, but there were no scattered magma balls, no continuous jets of magma.

Only a single, extremely thick, dense, and intensely hot white pillar of lava light rose diagonally from the ground and hurtled towards Izumi River.

Wherever the beam of light passed, the air was ionized into a blinding white, and the volcanic rocks on the ground were vaporized by the high temperature, leaving a deep scorch mark.

Izumikawa's right eye bulged with veins, and his Byakugan pierced through the high-temperature interference of the lava beam, precisely locking onto the core trajectory of the attack.

His left eye's Mangekyou Sharingan activated simultaneously, with black patterns spinning rapidly on the scarlet iris.

Instead of using his divine power to suck himself into space, he unfolded a spatial vortex directly in front of the pillar of lava light.

The pillar of lava light crashed into the spatial vortex, as if it had been swallowed whole by an invisible giant mouth.

The front end of the beam of light disappeared in the vortex, while the rear end continued to gush forth, but no matter how much lava rushed in, it couldn't touch Izumi River at all.

The Divine Might Space can be devoured and transferred at will, not to mention that the battle area he left behind is still very large.

Lava is merely a negligible filler for it.

Old Purple's pupils contracted slightly as he increased his chakra output.

The diameter of the lava pillar expanded again, and the temperature continued to rise, baking the surrounding air until it emitted a sharp hiss.

But the spatial vortex is like a greedy black hole, swallowing up everything that comes in, without letting out even a sliver of light.

Five seconds, ten seconds—Old Purple stopped spraying.

The tail of the lava beam was swallowed by the spatial vortex, and then disappeared completely the moment the vortex closed.

The air was filled with only the scorching smell of burning and a few wisps of smoke that had not yet dissipated.

Izumi stood still, the kaleidoscope pattern in his left eye slowly stopped rotating, and the bone knife was still pointing diagonally to the ground, in the same posture as before.

"Three moves," he said. Then he took a step back and withdrew the chakra from the bone blade.

The bone sword, stripped of its chakra support, cracked like ice shattering before turning into bone dust. He gestured for Shisui to proceed, "Your turn."

Shisui stepped forward. As he passed Izumi, he whispered something. Izumi raised an eyebrow but didn't reply.

Rōshi stood on the edge of the crater, the tailed beast chakra around him slowly receding, and the phantom behind him dissipating in the night wind.

His chest rose and fell slightly—the three attacks had drained a lot of his chakra, but his breathing quickly returned to normal.

He watched as Zhishui walked up to him. The young man simply hung his hands at his sides, palms outstretched towards him.

"The three moves are over," Shisui said. "As agreed, let me finish."

Shisui stood in front of Lao Zi, the hot wind from the crater making the wisps of hair on his forehead sway slightly.

His posture was relaxed, with his hands hanging naturally at his sides, without any defensive or aggressive stance.

Izumi River had retreated ten steps behind him, leaning against a piece of cooled volcanic rock.

The bone knife had long since turned to dust and scattered in the wind. He clasped his hands together in front of his chest, his posture as languid as if he were watching a game of chess that had nothing to do with him.

"As agreed, you'll hear me out." Shisui's voice wasn't loud, but in this relatively quiet open space on the edge of the crater, every word was clear enough.

Lao Zi didn't sit back in his original spot, but he also didn't continue standing.

He sat down sideways on a protruding volcanic rock, his hands returning to the mudra he had used during meditation.

This gesture itself is an attitude: you can say what you want, I won't interrupt. But he didn't promise that he would agree after listening to the whole thing.

"First, my identity." Shisui didn't beat around the bush. "My name is Uchiha Shisui, a rogue ninja from Konoha."

"I won't use the village to endorse you, nor will I say that I represent any organization. The only person standing in front of you is myself."

Old Purple's eyelids twitched slightly. He had heard the name Uchiha Shisui before.

Shisui, a genius of the Uchiha clan, was suddenly wanted by Konoha as an S-rank rogue ninja a few months ago.

It wasn't unheard of for rogue ninjas to come looking for him, but most of the time they either came in hiding or with some kind of deal to make.

The person in front of me neither hid nor offered a deal. He simply stood there, as if chatting with an old friend.

"Secondly, what we want," Shisui continued without pausing, "a sample of the Four-Tails' chakra from Son Goku."

"It doesn't need to be much, it doesn't need to break the seal, it doesn't need to harm you or the tailed beast. Just take a little."

Old Zi did not respond immediately. He slowly released his hands from the hand seal, placed them on his knees, and remained silent for a few moments.

Lava churned slowly behind him from deep within the crater, casting a dancing shadow on his profile with a dark red glow.

"The person behind you," Old Purple's gaze passed over Shisui's shoulder and landed on Izumi, "he just took three of my moves."

"Byakugan, Sharingan, Lightning Release Chakra Mode, and that bone bloodline limit—if I remember correctly, that's the Shikotsumyaku of the Kirigakure Taketori clan."

"There is no other person in the entire ninja world who possesses all these abilities at the same time."

"If he has that kind of strength, why would he need you to negotiate? He can just take action directly, like he did with Yugito."

"You know about Yukito?" Shisui frowned slightly.

"I am from Iwagakure. Although I had a falling out with Onoki, Iwagakure's intelligence network is still in operation."

Old Purple said in a calm tone, "The news of Yukito's attack at Eagle Beak Gorge reached the Land of Earth two days ago."

"Kumakuya has blocked most of the information, but Iwagakure's intelligence team has its own channels."

"The Two-Tails Jinchuriki was defeated, and the Tailed Beast's chakra was extracted. The person who attacked her did not kill her, nor did they seriously injure her. There was only a mark of being knocked unconscious and a set of battle marks indicating that she had been crushed by a powerful opponent."

"The intelligence report mentioned two people: a white-haired man and a black-haired Uchiha."

Old Purple paused, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Izumi River and Shisui.

"I originally thought you were two enemies, but now it seems you're cooperating. One of you is playing the good cop, and the other is playing the bad cop."

"It's not a matter of playing the good cop or the bad cop," Shisui said calmly. "He was the one who wanted to take chakra, and I tried to persuade him in my own way."

"If I can't persuade him, he'll take it his own way. With Yugito, I was halfway through trying to persuade her when she attacked me."

"I took the full tailed beast transformation attack from her, which exhausted all my chakra, and I was unable to stop her any longer."

"He made a move, taking her chakra, but only the chakra. She wasn't injured."

"You think you can reassure me with this kind of talk?" A hint of undisguised sarcasm appeared on Lao Zi's lips.

"You said you were just taking chakra and would leave without hurting anyone, so you came to me just to make me hand over my chakra to avoid getting beaten up?"

"Not entirely." Shisui didn't dodge the question. "For me, the process is more important."

"If I can persuade the other side to voluntarily hand over their chakra at every stop, he won't have to fight. If you give it to him voluntarily, he won't have to hit you." He paused, his tone becoming more serious.

"My approach failed with Yugito; she did reject me, and then he made his move."

"I admit, it sounds like a threat. But to me, it's not a threat; it's a balance between him and me."

"He promised me that he wouldn't directly attack the Jinchuriki of the Tailed Beasts before I finished trying."

"That time with Yugito, I exhausted my chakra first, and then he made his move."

"This time, you've already exchanged three blows with him, now it's my turn. If you're willing to cooperate after hearing this, he won't need to make a move."

Old Zi fell silent. This silence was not resistance, but rather reflection.

An old monk had been cultivating in the crater for many years and had long since learned not to be swayed by his emotions.

He dissected, reassembled, and re-examined Shisui's words within his own logical framework, and then discovered that these words did indeed match the situation described in the Cloud Village intelligence.

Yugito was unharmed, her chakra was taken, and the attacker left. If they were truly enemies, they could have gone much further.

"I have a question for you," said Old Purple. "What do you intend to use the Tailed Beast chakra for?"

Izumi spoke calmly, "Research." He remained leaning against the volcanic rock, his posture unchanged, his tone nonchalant.