Hokage: Ryo’s Path

Chapter 60: Ice Colossus

As Ryo shouted out the name of his technique, Gamahiro felt that the pile of ice was being given life.

He felt that it had a pressure like that of a fearful creature. Obviously it was just a pile of ice, but the immense pressure it had was almost suffocating to Gamahiro.

This pressure was different from that brought by a tailed beast. If was closer to the fear that a child has when seeing a dignified elder.

He didn’t know that this technique was one never used before in this world. It was inspired from a Taoist magical technique that Ryo saw in previous life; it was based on a state called, the Way of Heaven.

The 1st time that Ryo saw this technique was when he watched the cartoon “Journey to the West”, and saw the fight of Sun Wukong and Erlang Shen. The two of them fought using that way.

At that time, Ryo as a child was really interested in this magical technique with which the Monkey King became taller than a mountain.

Because of this interest, Ryo read quite a few books on Toaism before crossing over.

After crossing over to the world of Naruto, Ryo became too busy with working on his strength and forgot all about the Way of Heaven.

It wasn’t until Kushina made him meet Kurama that he thought about it again. That was caused by the feeling of powerlessness that he had before the immensity of the Kyubi.

However, when in Konoha, it was never convenient for Ryo to explore that topic again. He could only cast aside that idea.

However, the pressure of the moment and the need to get stronger made Ryo decide to take the risk and resort to that technique that he never tried.

The Way of Heaven was a state mentioned in Taoist ancient records, and its fundamental aspect was “Tao”.

Far from being a Taoist priest, Ryo wasn’t able to understand what this so-called “Tao” was, all he could do was work on combining his energy with Nature’s.

When Ryo enters Ice Elementization, he becomes ice himself, and a part of nature. What he tried to do was making himself the center, and blending his energy with that of the ice around him to make it an extension of his own body.

His consciousness, the ice, and the natural energy; all three were fused to create an Ice Giant with Ryo in the center of it.

Ryo’s consciousness and body were integrated with the ice giant, and he was controlling it like it was his own body.

On the other side of the barrier, Jiraya, Fukasaku and Shima all sensed the incredible gathering of Natural energy outside.

“Boss, Ne-chan, what’s happening outside?” there, Jiraya couldn’t tell what was happening on the battlefield, he was only able to ask Fukasaku who had superior perception abilities.

“I don’t know, I just sense Natural Energy accumulating outside, and this accumulation is making me feel a little dizzy!”

“Ma is right, this force is terrible!” Fukasaku said with a heavy face.

“We don’t know what’s happening with the kid, boss! We should work harder in here!” Jiraya was worried about Ryo’s safety, and he felt more of a burden put upon him. Rasa was no longer able to fight back; he was just barely able to resist him. On the other side, Chiyo’s shape was no better.

Outside the barrier, Ryo felt that he has become an ice giant. But to everyone else’s eyes, it looked like Ryo became huge in size, and was covered with a layer of ice. That was due to the fact that Ice Colossus looked just like him.

“Hey Choki! Ryo is a Yamanaka! How come does he have the skills of an Akamichi?” The representative of the Nara clan asked their Akamichi companions.

“Rokk, you should ask Ryoko. She’s a Yamanaka so maybe she knows!” As Choki, the Akamichi representative finished his words, he went right back to fighting his Sand opponent.

“How would I know? But from the looks of it, it seems like this is a huge Ice sculpture that he’s made.” Said Ryoko, who was the Yamanaka representative.

“Hey you three! Is this a new hidden technique that your alliance has developed? How come we never saw it before?” Asked Chu Uchiha.

After the three looked at each other, Rokk Narra nodded

“Using the Akamishi secret technique, without being fat?” The Uchiha murmured and just went back to fighting.

Without going over all the reactions of the Ninjas on the battlefield, Ryo’s confidence was boosted greatly as well after his success with this technique; and he was able to feel the immense power that it held.

Shukaku didn’t understand why Ryo became so big; it just felt that what happened was really threatening.

“[Futon: Air Bullets]!” Against Shukaku’s powerfull Air Bullet that was aimed towards the Ice Colossus’ head, Ryo just used the open palm of its hand to stop it.

“What?” Shukaku was startled by Ryo’s move. It never thought that anyone would take his attack with such ease.

Ryo started forming seals and went for moving in fast on Shukaku using the Lightning Chakra mode. It was at that moment that he realized that he can’t use Ninjutsu when in using Ice colossus.

Moreover, as he was one with the giant, he was able to clearly perceive that the natural energy held within it was beginning to dissipate. At this rate, he should be able to maintain this mode for no more than five minutes. Time was running out and all he could do was run at Shukaku.

He went towards it, and threw a punch at its belly. It was a direct his.

Ryo never expected that Ice Colossus’ fist would hold so much force. Same goes for Shukaku that was brought down by the punch.

Ryo went ahead and threw punch after punch at Shukaku until its body was hammered with a dozen large holes.

“Ryo, stop playing around, and just wake up the old monk! You see how many of Konoha’s Ninja were lost already!”

Gamahiro’s words made Ryo wake up from the terrible power drunkenness that the Ice Colossus gave him. How good this felt didn’t matter, what mattered was the lives of the Ino-Shika-Cho and the rest of Konoha’s Ninjas.

Ryo took a shot at Shukaku’s head, throwing away Bunpaku. The intense pain woke him up and Shukaku dissipated.

Seeing the Ichibi disappear, Konoha’s ninja all excitedly cheered. The sand ninjas felt that they were as good as dead seeing Ryo running toward them.

Ryo wasn’t looking to attack them, he just wanted to destroy the barrier and save Jiraya and Sakumo.

Upon reaching the barrier, Ryo punched it vigorously. After about a dozen punches, cracks were beginning to appear all over it.

When Gamahiro arrived after him, he saw what Ryo was doing and he joined him in hammering the barrier for nearly a minute, and it finally broke.

The fighting of the people inside the barrier stopped, and the 4th Kazekage and Chiyo both looked at Ryo realizing that they were in a really bad spot.

They went to flee, and Jiraya and Sakumo were both too stunned to pursue them.

“Kid, that accumulation of natural energy turned out to be you? How did you manage to do this?” Jiraya asked Ryo.

But he had no way to answer; he could only make a helpless face!