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NAJ Chapter 12: Judgment of Magma
🕑 Added 2025-06-01 20:35:49 +0000 UTCDanzō’s pupils contracted sharply.
Uchiha Keizumi moved too fast—so fast that the blistering heat radiating from his magma-covered arm, now dangerously close, stung Danzō’s eyes and made his skin burn as if scorched.
A heavy sulfurous stench assaulted his nostrils. The sense of danger in his heart spiked. The threat of death was growing more tangible by the second.
If that hit landed—
He would die!!!
Danzō had no time for dignity. His retreat was downright pitiful—he dodged backward in a series of clumsy backward rolls, barely avoiding the strike.
“Danzō-sama!!!” a Root shinobi cried out in alarm—just as Danzō realized he hadn’t completely dodged it.
“Hhss—!”
A sharp wave of pain shot from his left ear, forcing a gasp from his lips. He could smell it: the scent of burned flesh.
His hand shot up in panic—his left ear was gone.
He looked up in shock and saw Uchiha Keizumi had already broken through the encirclement. With a single step, he launched himself high into the air.
His right arm, composed of flowing magma, began visibly expanding.
It was as if a living volcano were gathering terrifying power inside it.
“Rookie, get back!”
The ANBU in charge of monitoring the Jinchūriki didn’t hesitate. Moving faster than he ever had in his life, he grabbed Naruto and tried to flee the danger zone.
Izumi’s panicked eyes turned blood-red in an instant. Sensing danger, she activated the Sharingan—awakened in her at the age of five when she witnessed her father die at the hands of the Nine-Tails.
And it wasn’t just any Sharingan.
It was a fully matured, three-tomoe Sharingan!
The spinning tomoe devoured her chakra rapidly, draining the color from her face—but it also unleashed an unprecedented surge of ocular power.
Yet she chose to use that power… to dodge.
Izumi believed that Keizumi-senpai wouldn’t tell her to back away without a reason.
She chose to trust Keizumi-senpai!
Below, the two Root shinobi moved in unison, weaving hand seals with practiced speed.
“Water Release: Wild Water Wave!” ×2
Two torrents of water surged upward toward Uchiha Keizumi.
“Lava Release: Great Eruption.”
His right arm—now larger than his entire body—smashed downward. In that instant, his chakra erupted into a stream of molten lava, exploding with the force of a volcanic eruption. A massive fist of magma, absurd in its scale, came crashing down!
[—BOOM!!!]
The violent clash between Lava Release and Water Release unleashed a blast of scalding steam, carrying a suffocating, toxic stench that rapidly spread.
Uchiha Keizumi’s Lava Release was extremely similar to the magma-type Lava Release used by Rōshi of Iwagakure.
But Keizumi’s Lava Release had a feature Rōshi’s didn’t—volcanic-level explosive force!
Under the stunned gaze of the two Root shinobi, the massive lava fist vaporized the water techniques and continued its relentless descent.
“Protect Danzō-sama!”
[—BOOM!!!]
One Root ninja managed to yank Danzō away just in time. But the other was a half-second too slow—when the massive lava fist struck the earth, a splash of molten rock hit half his body.
“AAAAAAAHHHH!!!”
The Root shinobi’s wretched scream drew everyone’s attention.
Half his body had been completely erased—as if wiped from existence.
The parts touched by the magma were burning, flames licking his body as he fell.
Below, the ground had been transformed. A massive crater had formed where the fist landed—now a pool of bubbling, steaming magma in the middle of the street.
“So this is… the Uchiha clan’s dual-kekkei genkai prodigy, whose fame during the Third Great Ninja War nearly matched that of Shisui—the Lava Beast: Uchiha Keizumi?”
The ANBU clutching Naruto choked on the sulfur-filled air, sweat pouring down his back.
Thank goodness…
Thank goodness he’d had the sense not to initiate a fight with that man from the start.
If he had…
He wasn’t sure he’d still be alive right now.
“U! Chi! Ha! Kei! Zu! Mi!”
Danzō’s face was so dark with rage, it looked like a thundercloud.
He clutched the bandages on his face with a death grip.
The veins bulged on the back of his hand.
Danzō wasn’t afraid of Uchiha Keizumi. This naturally malicious Uchiha brat—at the end of the day—was just a greenhorn who had only recently stepped onto the stage.
What Danzō was truly hesitating over now was whether to reveal his trump card, the Sharingan, in front of everyone.
Damn it…
If only he’d brought more Root guards with him today…
Then there would’ve been no need for hesitation.
Uchiha Keizumi landed directly on the lava—lava hot enough to vaporize flesh and bone—yet he was completely unaffected by the searing temperature. Streams of molten rock dripped from his body, burning shallow, smoking craters into the ground wherever they fell.
…
“Hm?”
Far away, in the Hokage’s office, Sarutobi Hiruzen suddenly sensed something unusual outside.
Just as he turned his head, a messenger pigeon flew in.
Hiruzen’s eyes narrowed.
He remembered very clearly that the animal companion he’d assigned to the ANBU monitoring and protecting Naruto… was a ninja pigeon.
“Hokage-sama! Hokage-sama!”
The pigeon spoke in a sharp, human-like voice, “It’s bad! Uchiha Keizumi and Shimura Danzō are fighting! The Jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto, has also been caught up in it!”
Hiruzen sprang to his feet.
“Danzō!” His face darkened instantly, teeth gritting in fury. “Didn’t I just tell him not to provoke that child Keizumi?!”
Knowing Danzō as well as he did, Hiruzen was almost certain—this conflict was something Danzō had started.
That man had always hated the Uchiha. And when someone like Uchiha Keizumi—so active within the village—caught his attention…
There was no telling what kind of extreme actions Danzō might take.
But still…
When Hiruzen recalled Keizumi’s unwavering sense of justice, his near-perfect case-solving rate, and those eyes that seemed to see through everyone…
He hesitated again.
This…
No—wrong!
Hiruzen shook off the strange thoughts in his mind. Right now, the most urgent thing was to stop the confrontation immediately.
Otherwise, the destructive reach of Keizumi’s Lava Release—his kekkei genkai—was no joke!
He remembered clearly how that child had fought during the Third Great Ninja War.
That kind of volcanic-level power…
Was undoubtedly one of the most dangerous forces in the entire shinobi world!
“Take me there, now!”
Hiruzen first barked the command at the pigeon, then shouted, “Kakashi!”
[Whoosh!]
A figure instantly appeared before him.
Hiruzen spoke in a grave tone: “Lead three ANBU squads and come with me. We must put an end to this conflict immediately!”
“Yes, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi replied with a nod.
…
Meanwhile—
[Splurt!!!]
As the crimson, lava-flowing arm pierced cleanly through the chest of a second Root shinobi—
A sharp whistling sound cut through the air, instantly slicing that Root shinobi’s body in half.
But before a single drop of blood could splatter onto Uchiha Keizumi, it was already vaporized by the searing heat.
A Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique, sharp enough to sever steel, slashed into Keizumi’s chest, gouging a wound more than ten centimeters deep.
But that gash was soon filled in by the surging magma around him.
“What… is going on with his Lava Release…”
Danzō’s expression was incredibly grim. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Keizumi’s Lava Release carried an eerie resemblance to the Hydrification Technique used by the Hōzuki clan.
Just as Danzō reeled in shock, the reflection in his eyes revealed the rapidly approaching crimson figure of Uchiha Keizumi. In a flash, he instinctively leapt back while his hands formed seals with blinding speed.
“Wind Release—!”
Danzō drew in a deep breath, so forceful that his chest visibly swelled before he exhaled it all in a sudden burst.
“Vacuum Bullets!!!”
Even now, he did not tear off the bandages covering his face.
If he were to expose the Sharingan-covered body beneath in front of so many people, every shinobi clan possessing kekkei genkai in Konoha would immediately see him as an enemy.
After all, no one wanted a bloodline thief lurking among them in secret.
The Wind Release chakra gathered in his mouth shot out like machine gun fire toward Uchiha Keizumi.
Each 'Vacuum Bullet' was about the size of a baby’s fist.
When they struck nearby buildings, they punched clean, circular holes straight through the thick walls!
However...
When the barrage of Vacuum Bullets struck Uchiha Keizumi, it was like tossing stones into a pool of lava.
Though each impact sent splashes of molten chakra bursting upward, none of them managed to pierce through the strange Lava Style defense.
[Drip... drip...]
With every step Keizumi took forward, terrifying heat left flaming footprints on the ground behind him, and the sulfuric scent in the air grew so intense that one could almost faint from the fumes.
