The powerful impact traveled from Guy's fist through his entire body, and the dense green chakra gathered on his fist was blasted apart.
Under that tremendous force, Guy was sent flying even faster, struck away by Yuto's single punch.
Guy became a streak of green light, crashing into a hillside several hundred meters away and flattening the entire terrain into a plain.
BOOM!
A tremendous roar echoed across the surroundings, countless stones from the shattered ground flying in every direction as a huge plume of dust rose up!
"This is only the beginning. Don't disappoint me!"
Yuto's face was alight with excitement as he looked toward the direction Guy had been sent flying.
Even as he spoke!
Yuto's body shuddered, and the bones throughout his frame cracked with a series of sharp pops.
In the next instant, Yuto stomped forward, and terrifying power traveled from his foot into the ground, instantly gouging out a massive crater where he stood.
A powerful burst of force erupted from beneath Yuto's feet!
Like a compressed spring, Yuto's entire form shot forward, charging toward the spot where Guy had fallen.
Meanwhile, on the other side, in the crater at the center of the flattened hill.
Guy lay among a pile of rubble, traces of blood seeping from his brow.
But in an instant, Guy blasted away all the rubble pressing down on him, his eyes blazing with brilliant light.
"Ah!! This is youth!!"
Guy's body was wreathed in dense chakra, and he let out a fiery, hot-blooded roar.
A powerful aura shot skyward, instantly clearing away the dust that had shrouded the surroundings.
Guy likewise stomped hard against the ground, the earth shaking, and his figure became a green streak once more as he charged forward.
In nearly the blink of an eye!
Yuto and Guy both appeared within each other's line of sight.
Guy clenched both fists, drawing his arms back, and in the next instant his fists exploded into hundreds of afterimages.
Like coiled springs, they launched forward in a furious barrage!
Morning Peacock!
Under Guy's super-high-speed punches, each strike rapidly ground against the air, producing tangible flames with the effect of a ninjutsu.
Each flame carried the shockwave and searing heat from Guy's fist, hurtling forward!
Under the barrage of super-high-speed strikes, the flames from hundreds of attacks formed a terrifying spectacle in midair, like a peacock spreading its tail!
For this taijutsu technique, not to mention the shockwave from each punch, the heat of the flames alone had, in the original story, evaporated the lake-sized water produced by Kisame Hoshigaki's Exploding Water Colliding Wave.
"Come on!!!"
"Secret Technique: Super Speed Fist Cannon!"
Yuto let out an exhilarated laugh, and in this moment his arms likewise became afterimages.
With every punch he threw, the air his fist touched instantly formed an air cannon that blasted forward.
In an instant, Yuto threw a thousand punches, clearing the air before him completely!
For every punch to achieve the terrifying effect of an air cannon, the speed of the swing had to match the speed of sound.
If the punch was too slow, naturally it could not form an air cannon at all.
If the punch was too fast, it would instantly detonate the air ahead, likewise failing to form an air cannon.
So each of Yuto's punches required tremendous control and explosive power!
BOOM! BOOM!
Air cannons and shockwaves collided instantly, producing deafening roars as violent shockwaves swept outward, clearing everything in their path!
Each collision was like a thunderclap, and the air across this entire battlefield seemed to boil in that moment.
"Ah!!!"
Guy continued to roar as his fists hammered forward without cease.
Yuto, meanwhile, wore a rare hot-blooded expression, letting out exhilarated laugh after exhilarated laugh.
In this moment, Yuto finally rediscovered the hot-blooded thrill he had felt when battling Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara!
"Not enough, still not enough!"
"If this is all you have, it's nowhere near enough to defeat me, Guy!!"
Yuto's eyes blazed with brilliant light as he shouted at Guy.
Even without hearing Yuto's words, Guy knew that Morning Peacock alone would accomplish nothing.
Guy let out a low roar, swiftly drawing back his speeding fists as his body dropped to the ground, then bounding backward in rapid retreat.
Without Morning Peacock to block them, Yuto's air cannons rained down like bombs on the ground, instantly blasting out craters several meters wide with thunderous booms.
Seeing Guy cease his futile attacks, Yuto likewise drew back his fists, standing in place as he gazed at Guy with eager eyes.
"Eight Gates Released Formation—Gate of Wonder, Open!!"
With a low roar, a terrifying burst of chakra erupted from within Guy's body.
The sweat on Guy's skin was instantly evaporated, and under the chakra's effect, it produced blue vapor!
A searing wave of pain shot through Guy's entire body.
Guy gritted his teeth, forcing himself to endure the agony, and with a roar he glared at Yuto.
Daytime Tiger!!
Guy vanished from his spot, almost like teleportation, appearing before Yuto in the blink of an eye.
This speed!
Was nearly on par with his own full-burst speed!
Seeing this, Yuto's pupils contracted for the first time, for between the Sixth Gate and the Seventh Gate of the Eight Gates, there clearly existed a qualitative chasm.
If the Guy of the Sixth Gate was merely a taijutsu user whose strength Yuto found passable, then the Guy of the Seventh Gate radiated an aura of genuine danger!
Guy's eyes went wide as he brought both arms before his chest, then thrust them out toward Yuto in one explosive motion.
A roar like that of the king of beasts erupted violently in midair.
A massive air cannon shaped like a tiger, fully a hundred meters across, appeared before Yuto in an instant!
A heart-stopping sensation flooded Yuto's chest, and in that moment he felt a faint breath of true danger!
"Adamantine Sealing Chains!"
Yuto's eyes locked onto Guy as he crossed his arms before his chest, and at the same time, thousands of thick chakra chains erupted from his body!
These chains rapidly crisscrossed in the air, forming an enormous shield!
The roaring Daytime Tiger slammed into the shield of chakra chains, and in the blink of an eye was pulverized.
The terrifying impact of the Daytime Tiger crashed directly onto Yuto!
BOOM!!
The brutal force, the instant it touched Yuto, erupted in full.
Yuto's eyes went wide, his throat turned sweet, and a mouthful of blood spewed forth as his body was sent hurtling back uncontrollably.
As he was blasted away, the colossal form of the Daytime Tiger did not fade; the massive tiger head bore down on Yuto, and the overwhelming force pinned his crossed arms in place, unable to rise.
"I really did underestimate you!"
Yuto coughed up another mouthful of blood, knowing that if he did not use the power of the Black Emperor, he would be carried thousands of meters away by the Daytime Tiger.
If that was how it had to be!
Yuto's aura shifted suddenly as the power of the Black Emperor activated in an instant, swiftly absorbing the Daytime Tiger's terrifying force and impact.
Yuto's arms, which had been pinned to his chest and unable to rise, forced the Daytime Tiger upward through sheer strength.
"Break!"
Tremendous power erupted from Yuto's arms, and gripping the Daytime Tiger's upper and lower jaws with both hands, he wrenched them apart with all his might!
Under Yuto's full-strength burst of terrifying power, the air cannon that formed the Daytime Tiger was torn in two and dissipated in midair.
Yuto's figure dropped from the sky, his feet carving a hundred-meter furrow through the ground before he finally came to a halt.
The moment Guy saw Yuto tear the Daytime Tiger apart, his eyes flashed with astonishment.
But quickly, that astonishment was once more replaced by resolve.
"This guy really is... terrifying!"
"Blue Beast of Konoha... go wild!"
"Burn, youth! In taijutsu alone, I will never concede!"
With a mighty roar, the ground beneath Guy's feet boomed as he charged toward Yuto once more.
Guy had clearly seen that Yuto's method of breaking the Daytime Tiger relied entirely on pure taijutsu power!
His blue form became a streak of blue light across the earth, and once again Guy drew his arms before his chest.
As he closed on Yuto, he let out another low shout: "Daytime Tiger!!"
A massive tiger, several meters across, materialized once more, charging toward Yuto at full tilt.
"Guy! You are the only one besides Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama who has forced me to go all out!"
"That alone is enough for you to be proud of!"
Yuto let out a hearty laugh, gazing at the Daytime Tiger charging at him again, his eyes flashing with brilliant light.
"In taijutsu, even Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara could do nothing against me. The same move will not work on me twice."
Under Guy's somewhat horrified gaze, Yuto's hands assumed the exact same stance Guy had just used.
"Daytime Tiger!!"
With a low roar, Yuto unleashed the Daytime Tiger himself.
The so-called Daytime Tiger was nothing more than compressing all the surrounding air into a single point, then releasing it all at once in a super-high-speed punch that sent it bursting outward.
In a sense, the Daytime Tiger was simply a scaled-up, enhanced version of the air cannon, the same principle as Yuto's Secret Technique: Super Speed Fist Cannon.
All Guy had done was use the power of the Eight Gates to push his body's abilities, for an instant, to the level needed to discharge an air cannon.
The reason Yuto had not dodged Guy's first Daytime Tiger was simply to observe clearly how Guy executed the technique.
Accompanied by twin tiger roars, two tiger-shaped air cannons, each hundreds of meters across, collided violently in midair.
BOOM! BOOM!
Deafening roars exploded across the sky, and the clouds overhead were instantly swept clear, the entire battlefield shuddering!
The terrifying shockwave from the collision drove the ground of this battlefield down by two whole levels.
The two Daytime Tigers clashed and canceled each other out, and the spreading shockwave flung aside the shinobi at the fringes of the Kirigakure and Konoha forces battling several kilometers away.
Guy gasped heavily, the sweat on his body evaporating before it could even form, becoming blue vapor.
Guy's arms trembled incessantly, and the waves of pain flooding his body brought a glint of suffering to his eyes.
Drip!
Drip!
Drops of blood fell from Yuto's arms to the ground, forming a small pool.
"As I thought, still lacking some refinement. The form is there, but the power falls a bit short."
Yuto looked down at his two bloodied arms and murmured softly to himself.
Guy's body suddenly swayed, but in an instant he steadied himself and lifted his head to look at Yuto not far away.
I hope they're ready over there!
If I drag this out any longer, my body will give out first!
"YUTO!!"
"Don't try to run away next time. The Eight Gates is not just this!"
Guy, having steadied himself, roared at Yuto.
"Hahahahaha!!"
"Run? What a joke. Did you think that was all I had?"
"I've been waiting for your Eighth Gate all along. Without that, you would have died long ago—you'd never have had the chance to use the Eight Gates at all!"
Yuto let out a heroic laugh, his voice brimming with confidence and pride.
Yuto waved a hand dismissively, paying no mind to the wounds on his arms, and laughed at Guy.
"Come!"
Hearing Yuto's heroic words, Guy felt a faint sense of relief deep within, mingled with a touch of awkwardness and guilt.
After all, this whole affair had been orchestrated by his village.
Even as an enemy, facing a man like Yuto, a thread of admiration rose within Guy's heart!
But, for the sake of Konoha...
Guy's eyes hardened once more, and waves of terrifying aura began to slowly rise from his body.
Meanwhile, at the edge of Konoha village.
"Sensei Jiraiya, how much longer? The battle over there should be reaching its critical point by now."
Namikaze Minato looked at the one-armed Jiraiya and asked.
"It'll be done in a moment. They should still be able to hold on over there."
With a wan expression, Jiraiya placed his one remaining hand on a massive scroll, drawing out the Yin-half of the Nine-Tails' chakra from within Namikaze Minato's body.
"Will this really be all right...?"
Namikaze Minato still hesitated.
But before he could finish, Jiraiya's weak voice cut him off.
"This is for Naruto's sake. Both Uchiha Madara and Yuto are after the tailed beasts, so we must prepare for the worst."
Jiraiya spoke softly, beads of sweat continuously rolling down his forehead.
[
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