Chương 180: Blink Skills Need Cooldowns Too?

Aside from teaching the Shadow Guard members the Flying Thunder Formation Technique, Minato also regularly instructed them in ordinary ninjutsu and combat experience. In essence, they were all disciples of the Fourth Hokage in everything but name—no different from Kakashi, his official student. Unfortunately, other than the monster known as Dongye Zhen, Minato's combat style simply didn't suit the rest of them.

Even if they learned the Rasengan and Flying Thunder God Technique, the chakra reserves of the five members from Team Hayate and Team Genma were nowhere near enough. A few uses in battle and they'd already be running on fumes. Unless their chakra experienced explosive growth as they matured. After all, Minato himself possessed top-tier chakra reserves for a shinobi without a bloodline advantage.

Yamato had plenty of chakra, but with Wood Release already in his arsenal, there was no need for him to reshape his fighting style around Minato's techniques. Kakashi's chakra reserves were decent too, but the high-drain "external hardware" hanging in his left eye socket left him perpetually exhausted. Even if he somehow mastered Flying Thunder God, it would never become his standard method of combat. Seeing Hayate's group looking dejected, Minato smiled warmly.

"Don't be discouraged. You're younger than Genma's team to begin with. Failing at this stage is perfectly normal. Keep practicing, and you'll improve." Dongye Zhen added, "That's enough for today. Genma's team succeeding rattled your nerves. Your mental state's too unstable right now for proper synchronization." Hayate sighed helplessly.

"If we're talking about psychological damage, nobody hits harder than you." Dongye Zhen: "..." That one, he had to admit. Standing beside someone like him truly was suffocating for fellow shinobi. Like Shisui, these kids had spent years desperately trying to catch up. Their strength far surpassed most peers, even many adult ninja—but compared to Dongye Zhen, the distance only kept widening. That was simply the reality of the ninja world. Sometimes, hard work alone could never bridge the gap.

There wasn't much Dongye Zhen could do about it either. The white natural energy that caused his qualitative transformation couldn't be utilized by anyone else. Even now, he still hadn't found a solution to the Power of Annihilation. And consulting Orochimaru would be pointless. If the man had answers, he wouldn't have failed to master Ryūchi Cave Sage Arts himself.

"Ahahaha." Minato narrowed his eyes with a laugh.

"True talent like that? Forget them—even I feel jealous sometimes."

"Huh?" Yugao blinked in disbelief.

"Lord Hokage… is Zhen actually stronger than you?" To Konoha shinobi, the Hokage's strength carried an almost mythic aura. Minato, however, answered with refreshing honesty.

"Zhen has probably surpassed me already. Though that's only my estimation. The true measure of a shinobi can only be determined through battle." Dongye Zhen immediately sensed the rising battle intent.

"Minato-senpai… don't tell me you want to—""Well," Minato said with a grin, "ever since Naruto was born, I haven't had a proper fight. My body's starting to rust. Zhen, care to help me loosen up a little?"

"If you want to," Dongye Zhen replied calmly, "I'm fine with it." By dusk, the training ground glowed beneath the crimson sunset as Dongye Zhen and Minato faced one another. Hayate, Genma, and the others were practically vibrating with excitement. Watching top-tier shinobi clash live was worth the price of admission even if it killed them afterward. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Kushina and Kari watched from the sidelines with the two toddlers.

Both women were curious; Naruto and Karin simply thought it looked exciting. Seeing her husband preparing for battle, Kushina suddenly realized something. Forcing a shinobi like Minato to stay home every day taking care of wife and child… maybe she really had been suffocating him. Perhaps once Naruto grew a little older, she could kick him out of the house and send him back to work. And if that old geezer Hiruzen still refused to retire by then? Easy. Beat him into retirement.

At the edge of the training field, Kakashi's ANBU squad stood on alert to prevent anyone from wandering into the area. Regardless, the Fourth Hokage was still supposedly "recovering from injuries." Letting outsiders witness this fight would be troublesome. As for Root? After their last attempt to interfere with Kari, Minato and Kushina had pressured the Third Hokage together until Danzo withdrew his people. Danzo surprisingly hadn't objected.

Recently, Root seemed stretched dangerously thin, busy with who-knew-what operations outside the village. They didn't even have manpower left to monitor the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki. Which meant everyone present here today was one of their own. After a brief standoff— Both men moved simultaneously. They collided at terrifying speed, launching into pure taijutsu combat.

Their movements surpassed the dynamic vision of nearly everyone present; only Kakashi, Kushina, and a handful of others could truly follow the exchange. To everyone else, the battlefield looked like two blurs weaving through each other amid a relentless storm of metal clashes. Clangclangclangclang! Minato's reflexes were monstrous, his attacks even faster. Holding his tri-pronged kunai in reverse grip, he unleashed a relentless barrage of strikes. Dongye Zhen handled everything effortlessly.

In terms of speed and reaction time, he no longer lagged behind Minato in the slightest. Despite the difference in physique, his raw strength remained equal—and when combined with the chakra burst techniques Tsunade had taught him, he could even suppress Minato physically. To Minato, it felt like fighting a humanoid beast. He didn't dare contest strength head-on. One clean punch from Dongye Zhen and his fate wouldn't look much better than Jiraiya after taking one of Tsunade's punches.

He knew Dongye Zhen had learned Tsunade's monstrous strength techniques. What he hadn't expected was for the kid to be even faster than Tsunade herself. An upgraded Tsunade. Fortunately, Minato had never relied on brute force to begin with. Using the momentum from Dongye Zhen's strike to retreat, Minato flung a kunai toward him while weaving hand seals at lightning speed.

"Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!" A single kunai instantly multiplied into a rainstorm of blades that blanketed the battlefield. Dongye Zhen raised his left hand. The One-Horned Great Wall technique erupted around him as protection. As for the countless kunai embedding themselves into the surrounding ground, he ignored them completely. Minato's weapons were Flying Thunder God kunai. And the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique produced real, physical duplicates.

Meaning every single one of those kunai could serve as a teleportation marker. Dongye Zhen heightened his senses to their limit. The instant Minato vanished from sight— He spun around. Clang! Their kunai collided perfectly. Relying on his intimate familiarity with Flying Thunder God, Dongye Zhen intercepted the attack appearing behind him with flawless precision. Flying Thunder God formula marks were mutually usable—provided one understood the formula itself.

And Dongye Zhen's Flying Thunder God had been taught by Minato personally. He knew Minato's formula inside and out, and Minato had never placed restrictions on it. Which meant all those kunai engraved with "Sword of Shinobi Love" scattered across the battlefield? Dongye Zhen could use them too. The next moment, two monsters of reaction speed began a battle of instant transmission. Blinking. Pursuing. Counterattacking. Appearing without warning. Vanishing without trace.

The battlefield descended into a clash no ordinary person could fully comprehend. It was like watching a blurry video suddenly degrade into disconnected frames. Even Kakashi, lifting his forehead protector to expose the Sharingan, could no longer follow the finer details. Meaning that if he were caught in that fight— Either of them could kill him instantly at any moment. That was the terror of overwhelming speed and reaction paired with teleportation.

Against opponents like these, the first priority was destroying nearby Flying Thunder God kunai. Otherwise, the battlefield itself became a death trap. Or flee beyond the marker range entirely. Kakashi remained calm, silently formulating countermeasures in his mind. Meanwhile, Hayate, Yugao, and the others had completely lost the plot.

"So strong!"

"So this is Flying Thunder God combat..."

"Has the captain really become this terrifying?"

"T-This still counts as ninja fighting?!" Then suddenly— Both figures appeared simultaneously at the center of the field. Each raised a Rasengan in their right hand and slammed it toward the other. At speeds like this, any ninjutsu requiring hand seals was dead weight. Only seal-less techniques could function offensively. That was precisely why Minato, despite possessing countless jutsu, focused so obsessively on perfecting the Rasengan. The two Rasengan collided violently.

Their hyper-condensed chakra structures destabilized instantly, and the resulting storm of chakra exploded outward like a hurricane. The shockwave obliterated the Flying Thunder God kunai formed from ninjutsu and ripped an entire layer off the ground itself. What surprised Minato— Was that his Rasengan shattered first. Dongye Zhen's Rasengan, meanwhile, maintained far greater structural stability and didn't fully collapse. Minato instantly teleported backward, expression turning grave.

The Rasengan used pure, non-elemental chakra with no nature transformation involved. If his Rasengan lost to Dongye Zhen's, then only two explanations existed: Either Dongye Zhen's chakra shape manipulation had reached a monstrous level... Or the very nature of their chakra itself was fundamentally different.