Renjiro asked, "Well? What happened there?"
A smile appeared on Fujin's face as he said, "It's over for now. Orochimaru escaped."
Shock appeared on both their faces. Neither expected such a result. Fujin continued, "The Fire Dome was due to Orochimaru trying to take advantage of my jutsu. The following two dragons were my attacks."
Fujin let out a tired sigh and added ruefully, "It's a shame that his body was far more weird than what I was told. He could heal perfectly from any injury no matter how serious it was. Otherwise, I could have killed him with that initial explosion. Anyway, he escaped using the Reverse Summoning jutsu."
Both Renjiro and Hoka sucked a cold breath simultaneously, their eyes wide with disbelief. At the same time, Hiruzen reached the Forest of Death!
Despite Fujin's words, Renjiro couldn't believe what he was hearing. Unlike Hoka, he was well aware of how terrifying Orochimaru was. Be it Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Kinjutsu or any other skill, Orochimaru excelled in everything. Even the ones who specialized in any of those skills couldn't compete with him. Even in his wildest dreams, Renjiro could never imagine that someone like that would be defeated by his 16-year-old student!
He muttered to himself, 'I knew that he would surpass me but I never thought that he would surpass me so quickly and by such a large degree.'
Pride appeared in Renjiro's eyes as he looked at Fujin again. His student had defeated Orochimaru! He wanted to go out with his friends and brag about this fact. Unfortunately, the situation forced him to stay put. After all, someone like Orochimaru was dangerous even if he was defeated.
Hoka had a complicated feeling. On one hand, he was happy that Fujin had grown so strong. On the other hand, he became slightly depressed as Fujin had left him behind by such a large margin. Even though Fujin was always stronger than him, he hoped that he'd be able to reduce that gap with time. However, he understood that their gap had become so large that the chances of him bridging it were getting lesser every passing day!
Renjiro quickly controlled his emotions and looked towards the place where the fight had happened. He saw the massive fire and noticed a few Water jutsus being used. He asked, "Should I go to help control the fire?"
Fujin shook his head and returned inside the building to sit down. He said, "No need. My chakra reserves are very low. If Orochimaru has someone assisting him, I'll need you two to help me until I can recover my chakra. Thankfully, Orochimaru's chakra levels should be worse than mine. So, he is unlikely to attack again in a short while."
Renjiro understood and nodded. Compared to a forest fire, Fujin's safety was much more important.
While the three of them were talking, Hiruzen reached the Forest of Death. Fujin's clone had sent Fumito to inform him while Anko had sent a few Chunins. The Chunins sent by Anko reached earlier because she had sent them a couple of minutes earlier and they had to travel 10 km less.
Hiruzen was about to leave when Fumito reached there and informed him about Fujin's message. As a result, Hiruzen stopped and summoned a few Anbu squads which took another couple of minutes.
With 5 Anbu squads and his Anbu guards, Hiruzen reached the Forest of Death in just 4 minutes! However, when he reached, he couldn't sense any battle happening. Instead, he just saw the smoke rising from the forest fire. He looked towards it and thought, 'Why am I getting a weird feeling?'
Fumito immediately informed, "Lord Hokage, Fujin and Orochimaru were fighting around the spot where the fire is."
Hiruzen nodded and said, "Let's go and see."
They were about to move towards the fire when they noticed an Anbu ninja running towards them. On seeing Hiruzen, the Anbu quickly moved towards them and said, "Lord Hokage, it's good that you have arrived here. We need reinforcements to curtail the massive forest fire."
Hiruzen immediately said, "Forget the fire. What about Orochimaru? Wasn't he fighting against Fujin? Where are they?"
The Anbu ninja quickly answered, "The battle ended a couple of minutes ago. Council Member Fujin won the battle. Orochimaru was critically injured and escaped using Reverse Summoning jutsu! I'm not sure where Fujin is, but I think that he returned to the tower."
His words shocked every single person in their group including Hiruzen! All of them were prepared for a life & death battle. Many of them were worried that Fujin might die. However, not a single one imagined that Fujin would defeat Orochimaru before the reinforcements reached him!
The Anbu ninjas and the Chunins sucked a cold breath! None of them could believe the words they just heard. One of them even asked, "Are you telling the truth?"
The Anbu ninja reporting wasn't surprised by their disbelief. In fact, he couldn't believe it either. He just nodded. Hiruzen said, "That's enough time wasted. Regardless of how it happened, this is great news for us. Let's move. I'll meet with Fujin and ask how their battle went."
He turned his gaze towards the Anbu who had reported the news and said, "No need to look for any ninjas specializing in Water manipulation. Follow me."
Without wasting any time, Hiruzen began moving towards the massive fire. The remaining ninjas quickly followed him.
Within a few seconds, they reached the massive flames. Hiruzen activated his chakra field and observed, 'Hmm, they are trying to stop the fire from spreading deeper into the training ground. However, they have completely given up on the other side. It looks like there is no ninja who is good at water manipulation in their ranks…'
Suddenly, 4 Shadow Clones appeared next to Hiruzen. They quickly moved in different directions. Since they were coming from the edge of the forest, the ninjas, who were trying their best to stop the spread of fire, were on the opposite side. Despite their best effort, they had only managed to slow down the spread of flames slightly.
'Water Release: Great Waterfall jutsu'
Hiruzen and his 4 clones used the jutsu simultaneously. They spat a massive amount of water. It was almost as if 5 dams were opened and water was allowed to flow unrestricted!
To the surprise of the ninjas on the other side, a massive amount of water began flowing into the flames from the opposite side. It doused over half of the flames! The ninjas, who were running alongside Hiruzen, watched him with veneration.
What they couldn't see was that there was a frown on Hiruzen's face. He wondered, 'Why does it feel like these flames were started by Scorch Release? Also, I can sense very high amounts of Yang chakra mixed in these flames even though the fire is spreading due to the vegetation. No wonder I couldn't douse all the flames in one go…'
Even though Hiruzen couldn't extinguish all the flames, his jutsu had left a lot of water behind which other ninjas could control. He instructed, "You guys stay here. Extinguish these flames. Come to the tower once you are done."
Hearing his words, everyone apart from his guards stopped following him and focused on the flames. Hiruzen continued moving towards the tower. He had only moved a few hundred meters when Hiruzen noticed something odd once again. His eyes widened as he noticed a massive new canal in the Forest of Death.
He stopped temporarily and wondered, 'What the hell happened here? Who created such a canal? Did Orochimaru get an even larger summon than Manda? But why would the canal be straight if it was created by a snake?'
In the tower, Hoka asked, "By the way, what was that Fire Dragon jutsu you used? It didn't feel like normal Fire jutsus. The heat it radiated was far more intense. It almost reminded me of your and Mieko's combination jutsu, but this one seemed a lot more intense."
Before Fujin could answer, Renjiro said, "It looked like the Scorch Kekkei Genkai. I didn't expect that you'd actually manage to fuse Fire and Wind chakras to create this Kekkei Genkai."
Fujin shook his head and said, "I can't use Scorch Release. I just combined Orochimaru's Fire jutsu with my Wind jutsu. His jutsu also had a lot of Yang chakra. Somehow, the merger of our jutsus created an effect that was very similar to Scorch Release.
Unfortunately, the amount of chakra we used was very high. Using it in a battle just by myself isn't feasible for the time being."
Renjiro's eyebrows twitched. He thought, 'When he was young, he used to always ask me for new jutsus. He even pestered the old man for chakra blades. However, I didn't think he'd begin using the enemy's jutsus to strengthen his attacks and send it back at the enemy!'
Suddenly, Fujin, Renjiro and Hoka looked towards the balcony. Moments later, Hiruzen and his Anbu guards arrived. Seeing that Fujin was all right, Hiruzen sighed in relief. He was worried that Orochimaru would injure Fujin seriously.
Before Hiruzen could express his relief and express his concern, Fujin looked at him, sighed tiredly, just like Hiruzen usually did, and said, "You're late, Grandpa. I had to fight that snake just by myself! It was sooo scary!"