A colossal, semi-translucent sphere of pressurised chakra was humming at a frequency so high that the glass vials in Kakashi and Gai’s pouches immediately shattered. The sphere wasn’t solid, but a terrifyingly dense orbit of tens of thousands of wind cutters rotating at such high velocity that they overlapped, sharpening each other on every pass and creating a shimmering white dome that appeared solid from a distance.
Kakashi saw the seals and the sphere. He knew they couldn’t dodge. The range would be too wide and the speed too high. He immediately summoned his chakra and began to weave hand seals, only for Gai to stop him.
“Preserve your chakra,” he said and then stepped in front of Kakashi.
The green aura around Gai turned even more violent, his skin turning redder as his chakra ran even more rampant, unrestricted by the body’s natural restraints. The steam rose around him in a column, distorting the air like a desert mirage.
“Sixth Gate: Gate of View—Open!”
Danzō let the sphere go, and it moved forward with a speed too fast for an object of such size. The sphere instantly expanded, releasing the horror it was holding inside. It wasn’t a storm, but a rotating mouth made of invisible knives, greedy to eat everything put in front of it.
The trees around were all forced to bow in the direction of the sphere, the vacuum pulling them into the maw. The nearest tree, the first bite, was bisected, but before the tree knew it and could separate, two more cuts ripped straight through the wood, then four, eight, sixteen, and so on until the hundreds of intersecting cuts reduced wood and healthy leaves to a fine, airborne pulp of sawdust and cellulose that soon disappeared into the winds—as did every other tree that was in the way. Where the sphere touched the ground, it left a polished basin. The wind cutters were so sharp and utterly numerous that they ground the earth into fine sand before reaching the bedrock and polishing it to a mirror finish.
Gai did not flinch in the face of the tens of thousands of wind cutters spinning in a chaotic, interlocking lattice. The sound was so abrasive, so horrible and ear-piercing, like the screams from the residents of hell.
He had his best friend, and he couldn’t allow Kakashi to be hurt. And that fact only made him stronger. He lowered his centre of gravity, his muscles bulging until the fabric of his jumpsuit threatened to shred.
“…Morning Peacock!” he roared.
His fists became a blur of blue that gave Kakashi a headache as he futilely tried to track them for the brief moment before being forced to close his eyes as winds whipped in his face. Each strike was so fast, so laden with kinetic energy, that the friction against the oxygen ignited. One punch became ten; ten became a hundred. Within seconds, a fan of brilliant, golden-orange flame erupted before him, a celestial plumage that illuminated the surroundings with the heat of a second sun. The more he punched, the larger the plumage grew until it had grown large enough to stand as a barrier against the encroaching vacuum.
When the two jutsu met, the forest bore witness to a localised apocalypse.
The wind cutters sought to shred; the flaming air-pressure sought to incinerate. The point of impact was a white-hot ring of pure displacement. Centripetal force from Danzō’s hurricane met the centrifugal explosion of Gai’s punches. The resulting shockwave shattered the forest's acoustic barrier.
Beyond the immediate radius of the clash, the forest was restructured by violence. Trees fifty yards away were not simply blown over; they were planed into toothpicks by stray wind blades that escaped the sphere’s vacuum. Boulders were reduced to pebbles, then to dust, then to nothing.
The heat from Gai’s friction-fire turned the moisture in the air into a blinding white fog, which was then instantly whipped into a cyclonic frenzy by Danzō’s wind. It was a cacophony of shearing and burning, a terrifying display of what two vastly different jōnin could achieve when the shackles of restraint were cast aside.
As the last echoes of the Morning Peacock’s cries died away and the hurricane’s roar faded into a guttural hiss, the dust began to settle.
The devastation was absolute. For a couple of hundred metres in every direction, the forest was gone. In its place was a wasteland. The wind had carved deep, rhythmic gouges into the terrain, creating a topography of scars that would take decades to heal.
But at the centre of the ruin stood Might Gai.
The mastery of his taijutsu was revealed in the impossible contrast of his surroundings. In the exact semi-circle defined by the reach of Gai’s fists, the earth remained untouched. Not a single blade of grass was singed; not a pebble had been displaced. It was a sanctuary of peace amidst a storm of absolute destruction.
Kakashi’s eyes fell upon a red flower on the ground between Gai’s feet and the bee that had settled upon it. Both of them were untouched. He looked up and saw Gai, chest heaving in shallow, jagged jerks, his skin a raw, angry red. He straightened himself and took in a deep breath.
“Gai, are you alright—”
Gai vanished, leaving a sharp gust of wind and dust.
Danzō was on the run. His breathing was heavy, his hair was wet with sweat, but his chakra still sang like it never had, the feeling of exhilaration still coursing through his veins. He felt invincible in the moment, but he couldn’t stay and fight.
He didn’t see if the duo had survived, but he had felt what Might Gai had put in front of his jutsu. It was extremely powerful. He knew the man to be a taijutsu specialist and talented shinobi—Gai wouldn’t be a jōnin if he weren’t—but he had never given much attention to him while he was coming up through the ranks because he was never active in the important social and political circles, unlike most in his position. The only notable things about Gai were his impeccable mission record and his connection to the Akimichi clan through the clan head, Akimichi Chōza, who was his master. The Akimichi clan had pushed for Gai’s promotion to jōnin despite the fact that Gai never swore fealty to them.
Other than that, he was only a muscle-head with a strange personality and a strange sense of fashion.
He had underestimated Might Gai.
The sound of repeated booms made Danzō turn around. Running through the sky was Gai; each of his kicks generated enough speed and pressure that he was creating air-pressure itself, creating shockwaves to propel himself in mid-air.
Danzō frowned and spun around to face his pursuer, his feet dragging across the ground as he weaved hand seals. If one A-rank ninjutsu wasn’t enough, then all he needed to do was to throw a second.
His physical energy had declined with age, but his spiritual energy had only increased. With the First Hokage’s cell grafts, his physical energy had gone through the roof. He currently possessed twice as much chakra as he had when compared to his prime.
Wind Release: Horizon’s Edge
He exhaled a thin, shimmering line of wind-chakra-infused air that instantly expanded into a horizontal disc thinner than a hair, vibrating with a massive amount of compressed chakra. The ring rotated at such a high velocity that it seemed still, if not for the vacuum pressure at its edge that effectively seemed to be pulling the environment into the ring blade.
Danzō thrust his hands towards Gai, who was running across the sky, and let Horizon’s Edge loose towards him. The ring was silent as it ignored all wind resistance, and it all but flashed towards its target.
Gai stopped kicking the air and came to a stop. He had no intention of avoiding the ring blade and instead assumed a stance.
“Morning Peacock!”
Each punch set the air on fire. Before, the flaming projectiles of pressurised air were being spread over an area to stop the vacuum sphere of wind cutters, but now, each one of them was directly propelled right at the disc.
The ring instantly absorbed the fire, snuffing the flames instantly. But as more and more strikes hit the ring, the disc began to heat up until it suddenly caught on fire, turning from a disc of pure wind to a disc of screeching fire, instantly boosting its firepower.
“Idiot!” Danzō scoffed, feeling confident when he saw that not only had the disc slowed down, but it was now burning.
He instantly turned around and resumed running away while summoning his chakra. Horizon’s Edge was going to slice through Gai, most definitely killing him, but if the man and his sturdy body survived, he would be ready to end the job.
Not a single flicker of nervousness or doubt passed Gai’s eyes. He just continued to throw punches, his hands and arms a blur as he pushed more and more pressurised air and fire towards the disc that flew towards him. He didn’t attempt to get out of the way and just continued to throw punches.
Danzō’s eyes widened when he saw the ground suddenly light up. He turned around to see a hundred flaming projectiles littering the sky, all hurtling towards Horizon’s Edge. It was a constant, never-ending barrage, and to his horror, he saw the disc, which would cut anything that it touched, slow until it came to a stop. Gai didn’t stop and continued to punch even as he was falling from the sky. The barrage began to push the disc back until it couldn’t take the abuse anymore and exploded into waves of strong winds.
The sound of whipping wind hit Danzō’s ears, but beyond them, he could hear the sounds of repeated booms.
Might Gai was coming for him.
Danzō immediately began to weave hand seals for another A-rank ninjutsu, pushing it to the limit. He could protect against one, and surprisingly even two, but three had to be a limit. However, halfway through, his chakra suddenly spiralled out of control by no fault of his own. He immediately gagged and felt a sharp pain as thin branches burst out of his mouth. The suddenness of the bizarre event made him trip. He managed to gain a hold of himself, but all of his momentum was gone.
With a fearful gaze, he grabbed the several branches sticking out of his mouth and pulled out nearly a metre of branches seemingly originating in his stomach. They were covered in fluids and blood, and the inner linings of his body were just like the last time, only this time, the scale of it was worse. As he tried to get up, he suddenly felt his joints stiffen up. His eyes fell to his finger joints, and he saw the skin over them had turned a stark white, different from the marks around his body.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to worry about his deteriorating health.
Danzō looked up and saw Gai break through the winds, heading straight towards him. His chakra was still in disarray, and there wasn’t time to put up a ninjutsu that would meaningfully help against Gai. If ninjutsu weren’t going to work and choosing taijutsu would be a worse choice than simply surrendering, then there was only one option.
As Gai came close, their eyes met. Danzō immediately sent his chakra forth to cast an ocular genjutsu assisted by the Sharingan.
When he transplanted Uchiha Shisui’s eye, he gained the knowledge of what the eye could do. He gained the knowledge of the Mangekyō Sharingan and the unique power that dwelt in Shisui’s eye. He already had some inkling about it before he ever got the eye, but it became clear after he gained the eye. Kotoamatsukami, the genjutsu of the highest calibre, due to the victim's being completely unaware that they had even been manipulated. Its ability to implant experiences, feelings, and memories was so real that they were indistinguishable from reality.
It was a world-changing power that Danzō would have immediately used the day after he stole the eye to gain control over the Hidden Leaf, had it not been for the fact that Shisui had already used it before, causing the power to go into a form of recovery until it could be used again. He estimated the recovery period to be a decade. But with the First Hokage’s cells’ miraculous healing ability, that recovery was reduced by more than half. He estimated he would need at most two years to use the power again, but he couldn’t use it just yet.
However, Shisui’s Sharingan still possessed a potent genjutsu ability.
Danzō sent his potent chakra into Gai’s body through the ocular medium, only for him to suddenly lose control. It wasn’t the same as what had happened before. The chakra coursing through Gai’s body was so violent that it crushed the foreign chakra before it could even reach its intended location. It was similar to how genjutsu was broken by disrupting the target’s chakra, but far more severe and done before the illusion could take hold.
Danzō couldn’t believe it. How was the man still standing with how forcefully the chakra was rampaging through his body? Neither the violent green aura nor the red skin did what was happening inside the body enough justice.
He had once again underestimated the monster named Might Gai.
In Gai’s current state, he couldn’t control his own chakra, making the use of any ninjutsu impossible, but it also made it so that he was practically immune to genjutsu.
“Violent—Leaf Vajra-Strength Whirlwind!”
Gai appeared in front of Danzō and landed a severe roundhouse kick right to Danzō’s head with all the force of the Sixth Gate.