Blonding

Chapter 19 : The Fourth Hokage

Minato wasn't exactly sure what he was getting into when he teleported into the battle. It was one of the bigger drawbacks of using his Hiraishin over such long distances; he was never truly sure what would await him on the other side. For several months, he had been working on a way to somehow channel a small bit of chakra from the blade back to his body, and he had actually succeeded in doing that much. It was what allowed him to sense when someone had thrown it. However, his further experiments to somehow allow himself to glean a bit of information from the area surrounding the kunai upon the chakra retrieval proved fruitless.

So, Minato was forced to rely on his incredible reaction time to use the Flying Thunder God to its fullest effect. There was a reason why Hiraishin was considered an S-ranked forbidden technique, and it wasn't just because of how difficult it was to master.

Although that was a large part of it.

And so, when he saw the massive orb of strangely familiar swirling chakra heading straight for both him and Jiraiya, he did the only thing he knew how to do.

He summoned forth two perfect Rasengan, and braced himself for the impact.

Time slowed down. He knew that it was simply a result of the adrenaline coursing through his veins, but it was still rather annoying. Now the world was moving at a snail's pace, trickling along like a stubborn spring. He could watch the beads of sweat on his opponent's face manifest themselves into beads, each threatening to meander their way down his chin by the force of gravity. He could watch the smoke from the smoldering piles of ash that were once trees drift up into the sky like beacons. He could see each individual swirl of chakra in the oncoming projectile, make out each individual detail...

Wait!

Was that wind chakra?

In a Rasengan?

Minato floundered for a minute, caught up in his surprise as he continued to watch the enemy's jutsu careen towards him. Well, it felt like a minute. To most outsiders, the Fourth's very obvious shock was evident for less than a hundredth of a second - simply a flash across his face.

The moment the other Rasengan connected with his, he knew immediately that it would not withstand the incredible force. But he had already committed to it; he had no other options left. He could always try to reach behind him and grab Jiraiya in an attempt to Hiraishin them out of range, but not even he was that fast. He could always leave Jiraiya behind, but... then he may as well turn in his coat and headband. He wasn't fit to be Hokage, or even a Leaf ninja at that point.

The wind-based Rasengan was already tunneling through his own, and he was very quickly reaching entropy. To drop the jutsus now was certain death.

They were set to burst at any moment.

And then, Minato caught the sight of the strange, orange-shrouded man toppling to the floor from his peripheral vision. The strange orb of offending chakra began to dwindle and fade as the man slipped into unconsciousness across the battlefield, until all it took was a very forced push of chakra from Minato's palms to disrupt its fragile balance.

That didn't mean it didn't explode, however.

Minato held his hand out in front of his face as the clearing lit up like the sun, vibrant beams of bright white light ricocheting off of his eyelids and burning into his retina. He quickly averted his gaze to avoid damaging his eyesight, before executing a quick seal-less shunshin, appearing behind Jiraiya, and whisking them off to a kunai he had left a few hundred feet away.