When Gods Arm Wrestle

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At the pace of a creeping turtle, the rays of the setting Sun became less and less giving, sinking the room where two swordsmen were preparing for their final standoff to resolve their battle in total darkness. The office was empty, not even a single soul was there except for the two, not that it mattered since the swordsmen were completely absorbed by their clash, waiting for some auditory tick to signal them to rush at each other but it appeared that they would have to wait for the room to completely sink in darkness. For Shimo such was a natural occurrence, ninja were accustomed to the dark and preferred it, to someone enhancing their perception using minor chakra augmentation darkness was barely an obstacle.

Finally, the rays of Sun completely disappeared almost as if light itself entered the now sealed time-space transporter and evaporated into nothingness only to be reassembled at another moment in time and space. Both men kicked off the ground with just a light tap on the clay floor that in no way represented the tremendous force of their movement. They moved lightning fast, no, even faster than lightning. Their movements were barely even intelligible to each other but it didn't matter. This was no match of skill or technique, there was no need to see opponent's actions clearly or predict them. There was no time for that. Each of the two decided to just use their trump techniques at the same time and let fate decide who'd win.

Shimo's body tensed up, blood vessels shot out and tore up dyeing his body in a creepy darker pink hue that was quickly calmed by the intense sensation of freezing air accumulating behind him. The young man extracted all the humidity from the air surrounding him, as little of it as there may have been chakra did the supersizing of the actual quantity. A ghoulish light blue shape of a giant wolf formed behind the young swordsman leaning over the Yuki's shoulder and placing its gigantic paw forward, it was lucky that this apparition of pure frozen water chakra was on all fours or else it'd have demolished the three-floor tall clay sphere of a building that the two resided in.

The Yuki was lucky that the clash had come to a comparison of a single technique, he was facing a swordsman of seemingly superior skill and experience, hindered merely by the lack of time. Had the battle continued without the danger of the enemy ninja coming and taking the poncho samurai in, it was likely that the young man would've sustained great injuries and possibly even lost. He had no right to further hinder Mana's journey, he had no right to strain Kouta's abilities and further deplete his limited healing potency so that once again the medical ninja would find himself with emptied resources when he was needed.

"Ice Style: Ice Wolf Rampage!" Shimo roared out as the technique strained his body and his mind to its limits. The incredibly precise requirement of the combination of chakra shape manipulation needed to form the wolf and the sheer speed and physical ability to mimic Tanshu's Cerberus Draw technique that the Yuki saw only once but obsessed over repeating successfully. 

This technique was powerful and complex enough to qualify as an A-Rank technique, it was his pride and joy, his very soul as a swordsman. The embodiment of the will and the sword of his family. There was a high risk of it failing and yet Shimo's mind was clear, failure or success, the chances of winning were slim so the technique was his one last chance.

It was a combination of his two greatest techniques, two different identities he had during his life that currently clashing. The Ice Wolf part of the drawing technique was his Ice Wolf ninjutsu technique that he relied on before the whole clash with Sugemi and departure, back when he lived by the principle of being nice to girls and punishing the strong that abused the weak. That was a very different Shimo, younger and more naïve. 

The second part of the drawing technique was the only thing that the old Shimo couldn't wrap his head around – slashing three times at the very same time just like his sensei was doing. It was a technique element that only his experience with the rogue ninja allowed him to master through need and desire to live. Only an adapt or perish environment could've ever allowed a swordsman to break the rules that governed all others. That was why that technique would have won, not because there was no way of triumphing that A-Rank drawing ninjutsu-weaponry technique with an offensive technique, because it combined all identities of Shimo into a singular entity with a single goal – to win.

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