Chapter 47: "How to Lose a Fight in 10 Ki Blasts (But Make It Cool)"
In which Naruto takes the high ground, Odin says "no thanks," and physics files for early retirement.
Naruto wasn't exactly expecting a fair fight—but Odin was going above and beyond in the "I'm better than you and will let you know it every second" department.
If Ryuto had wanted to, he could've ended the fight by now. Naruto knew it. Ddraig knew it. The dirt, cracked concrete, and now-bent rebar littering the battlefield knew it.
But no—Ryuto Odin didn't want to just win. He wanted to prove a point.
With every clash, every punch, he wasn't just flexing muscles. He was flexing philosophy.
And frankly, Naruto hated philosophy fights.
"You're strong," Naruto admitted, panting as he skidded to a stop. His baton was cracked, one of his steel boots had a dent, and his jacket had practically evaporated from the Ki pressure. "But you're wasting energy being dramatic."
"You talk too much," Odin replied calmly, walking forward like this was a morning jog. His eyes were half-lidded, unfazed by Naruto's best shots. "This isn't drama. This is discipline. Unlike you, I train. I earned this strength."
Naruto grinned, cracked his neck, and let his spirit energy explode.
Fwoooosh.
A red cloak of fox-shaped energy enveloped him, bubbling with raw power—his One-Tail Cloak, shaped by spirit energy instead of chakra. Red-orange flames surged, tails flickering like wildfire as his form warped slightly—eyes feral, whiskers darkening.
Odin paused, the first genuine flicker of interest on his face.
"I'll admit," he said. "That's…unexpected."
Naruto didn't answer. Instead, he slammed his palm to the ground.
The earth cracked, spirit energy spider-webbing out in jagged lines.
Suddenly—POOM—a dozen spirit hands erupted from the ground like angry ghosts, clawing toward Odin.
Odin's eyes glinted.
His left eye shimmered.
Inner Eye activated.
Like some martial arts version of a Sharingan, Odin's "Inner Eye" flared with sharpness. In an instant, he danced between the grasping hands, dodging like he was doing ballet with explosions.
Naruto tracked him, inhaled, and fired a beam of spirit energy from his mouth.
"HAHHHHH!"
Odin twisted sideways mid-air, flipping above it like a trapeze artist on caffeine. The beam scorched the concrete, vaporizing chunks of the battlefield.
Naruto launched, shooting toward Odin with his baton raised. At the last second, he twisted his legs upward and mimicked Cammy's Arrow Strike, spiraling feet-first.
Odin casually leapt over the kick.
Then his leg came down—axe-kick from the heavens.
Naruto grunted, braced himself, pushed off the ground with both hands, and kicked upward with both legs, meeting Odin's attack mid-air.
Their kicks collided with a CRACK of shockwave.
They both flipped backward.
Naruto skidded into a crouch, red energy boiling around him. "I'm still here."
Odin landed with grace, barely scuffing his shoes. "You're loud. And lucky."
Seikuken activated.
Odin suddenly took a stance—palms raised, calm as a monk.
The air compressed around him.
It was like a bubble of death. Naruto's instincts screamed at him not to get within striking distance.
Odin flexed his knuckles, eyes cold. "You've shown enough. My turn."
Gungnir.
Odin's fist glowed—no, hummed—with an intense, needle-like compression of Ki.
"That looks unhealthy," Naruto quipped.
"You'll feel worse than that."
And Odin charged.
---------------------
If this were a movie, this fight would already have three slow-motion scenes, an orchestral remix of Naruto's theme, and at least one bystander screaming, "He's not human!"
And honestly? That bystander would be right.
Naruto Uzumaki—part-ninja, part-dragon-host, part-magic-weirdo—was currently fighting like a multi-armed fox spirit with ADHD, and Ryuto Odin was treating it like Tuesday.
It started with a feint.
Odin blurred forward with speed that made sound consider early retirement. His Gungnir-infused fist came roaring like a missile, aimed straight for Naruto's core.
But Naruto had fought ninja. He'd wrestled with Orochimaru and tangoed with Tailed Beasts. So while Odin was fast, Naruto could read the rhythm.
He didn't dodge—he redirected. With a swift twist of his body, Naruto brushed Odin's arm past him, the raw power still enough to shatter the red-orange energy cloak around his chest like it was made of frosted glass.
"Okay," Naruto hissed through clenched teeth. "That tickled."
Odin raised a brow. "You're still standing? Good. I'd hate to think that Rasengan was your final move."
"Funny," Naruto muttered, his cloak rippling.
Because he wasn't done.
THWUMP.
From the back of his spirit cloak, two new arms shot out—like demonic puppets attached to his will. One grabbed Odin's collar mid-recoil, the other raised above it—
—Rasengan locked and loaded.
BOOM.
The impact was glorious. A swirling ball of chakra-powered spirit energy smacked Odin right in the chest, blasting him backwards like a pinball hit by Thor himself.
Naruto didn't wait.
"BUSTER WOLF!" he shouted, leaping after him with a right arm that glowed dangerously.
Red energy crackled like a storm as Naruto's fist collided with Odin's chest, sending a pulse that shook windows across the riverside.
But Odin wasn't out.
He twisted mid-air, used the recoil like a trampoline, and came down hard with a counterpunch—Gungnir flaring in his palm.
Naruto's tails whipped out like an anime spider-monkey and slapped the attack sideways—but even the deflected strike cracked the earth beneath them.
The air boomed.
Naruto launched a roundhouse kick to Odin's temple, his foot shimmering with wind and spirit energy.
"Not bad," Odin muttered, just as the kick came.
He raised his arm—Ki surged—and the blast of force shot off in all directions, the ground cratering beneath them.
But that gave Odin an opening. And he used it.
He spun, dropped low, and kicked Naruto's chest with a wave of concentrated Ki that threw him across the construction yard like a crash-test dummy strapped to a rocket.
Naruto slammed into a wall. The wall lost. Naruto groaned.
And then… Odin appeared, mid-air, Gungnir humming like an angry wasp.
"Let's end it."
Naruto's eyes widened. He knew that move.
Too fast. Too strong. Too deadly.
So he pulled every trick out of the bag.
Multiple energy shields erupted in front of him like a line of riot barricades.
Gungnir punched through all of them like they were tissue paper.
And then—
CLANG.
Naruto blocked with his Boosted Gear gauntlet, the red dragon's power roaring as he skidded back, boots tearing trenches in the dirt.
His arm? Definitely fractured. His grin? Still very intact.
"Yeah… totally worth it."
Odin narrowed his eyes.
"You're persistent."
Naruto cracked his neck. "Thanks. I moisturize with spirit energy and raw spite."
-------------------
The sky wasn't ready for what happened next.
Neither was the abandoned construction site.
Chunks of concrete hovered mid-air like they were too shocked to fall. Dust spiraled up into the sky. Below them, the river rippled as if it sensed an anime-level showdown was underway.
Naruto, battered but buzzing with spirit energy, took a deep breath and launched himself upward, his feet pressing off platforms made of raw energy. He zigzagged like a lightning bolt with an attitude problem.
From above, below, the sides—he struck.
A fist to the jaw, a heel to the shoulder, a tail swipe from the left—Naruto was hitting Odin like a furious wasp armed with Rasengans and teenage angst.
His platforms materialized with every step—spiraling, shifting, creating a 360-degree assault zone that made even the laws of gravity go:
"Nope. I'm out."
Odin, mid-air, twisted, redirected, countered. His arms moved with the ease of a fighter who had mastered dozens of styles and wasn't afraid to use them all at once.
A punch came from behind. He bent forward.
A kick sliced from the right. He spun left, grabbing Naruto's leg mid-spin.
"Enough," Odin said, calm and collected like he wasn't being assaulted by a chakra-fueled blender.
With Naruto's leg in his grip, he pivoted, threw him up—then flashed above him like a blink of lightning.
And that's when the pain came.
A high kick, laced with razor-sharp Ki, slammed into Naruto's ribs.
Naruto gasped mid-air. His cloak flickered.
Not good.
That wasn't just a hit. That was a dissection with energy.
"Wanna know why you lose?" Odin said, falling after him like a shadow.
Naruto tried to reform an energy shield—but too late.
Odin's fist glowed with swirling gold energy. He muttered one word:
"Gungnir."
The punch came down like the wrath of an angry Norse god with a black belt.
BOOOOM.
The shockwave flattened the remaining walls of the construction site. Trees shook. The river jumped.
Naruto slammed into the ground like a meteor with a grudge.
And stayed there.
Smoke hissed off his broken body. His one-tail cloak was gone. His limbs were shaking. His ribs? They were singing opera about betrayal.
This body… it doesn't heal like mine, he realized, blinking up at the blue sky that had no sympathy for teenage heroes.
Odin landed softly beside him, not even breathing hard.
"Impressive," he said, adjusting his gloves like this had been cardio. "But you were playing pretend. Ki mastery takes years. You've had, what—two days?"
Naruto didn't reply. He was too busy not throwing up.
----------------------
From the outside, the battle looked like a live-action anime scene gone rogue.
The air was charged, the ground looked like a toddler had been playing whack-a-mole with nukes, and in the middle of the destruction stood two cracked, panting warriors—one clothed in shreds and blood, the other barely looking winded but visibly annoyed.
Odin—Ryuto, or whatever name he was going by when he wasn't trying to throw hands at childhood friends—stood tall, his white suit stained with dust and battle scorch marks, but still irritatingly crisp like he had a personal dry cleaner on standby mid-fight.
Naruto, on the other hand, looked like he'd gone twelve rounds with an angry gorilla. His ribs were a symphony of cracks, his arm dangled like it forgot it had bones, and even standing was becoming more of a concept than a reality. But his eyes? Oh, those were burning like twin suns. Angry ones. Probably shouting expletives in chakra language.
Odin frowned—not out of malice, but with something close to regret. "You're annoying, you know that?"
Naruto, wheezing but still annoyingly defiant, cracked a smile. "You should see me when I'm well-rested."
And that was it. That was the moment Odin realized it. He respected this idiot.
He really, really hated that.
"You know," Odin said, folding his arms and glancing down at the broken but unbowed blonde, "you could've just joined me. Together, we could stand at the top. Demons, Youkai, humans—we could be the strongest. No more pain. No more weakness. No more people looking down on us."
He offered a hand—not metaphorically. Like, actually. A real hand, extended out like this was a job interview and not the end of a WWE Hell in a Cell match.
Naruto blinked. "Are you seriously trying to give me a friendship speech while my bones are playing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'?"
Odin sighed. "I'm offering you a place. You've got power. Potential. You're not like these other kids. You get it. You've fought to survive. Just like me."
Naruto coughed—a wet, worrying kind of cough that Ddraig internally flagged as yep, maybe internal bleeding. "Yeah... but there's a difference between fighting with people… and fighting for yourself while stepping on everyone else."
"I won't join someone who doesn't care for his people," he said, voice hoarse but steady. "You act like you're saving the world, but your world is just another playground where the strong stomp on the weak. You're no different from the monsters you claim to fight."
Odin frowned—not out of anger, but something closer to regret. For a split second, he almost looked human again. Almost.
Then he did what villains tend to do when their offers get rejected—he knocked Naruto out with a clean, brutal punch that cracked the air like a thunderclap. Naruto collapsed, body thudding into the dirt like a dropped bowling ball.
Silence followed.
Odin turned to the rest of the Akatsuki gang—Kisara, Shogo, Loki, Kenichi (who was still leaning on Kisara like a grandpa after a marathon), and the rest of the rookie revolutionaries. Their faces ranged from horror to barely-contained rage.
"Your leader has fallen," Odin announced, loud and theatrical like a villain in a stage play. "From now on, he belongs to me. And so do all of you."
He held up a black glove—emblazoned with a crimson number "2"—and dropped it on the ground next to Naruto.
"Tell him," Odin said, eyes glowing with victory, "his name is Balder now. The number two under me. If he wants to be free, if you want to be free, then earn it. Train. Fight. Survive."
Without giving them a chance to respond, he turned to the Akatsuki's humble construction site HQ—formerly abandoned, recently converted into a martial arts clubhouse—and raised a fist.
He didn't even say a cool one-liner. He just punched.
The ground quaked. A ripple of Ki surged forward like a tsunami of destruction. One Gungnir punch later, and the entire warehouse exploded inwards, collapsing like a house of cards in a hurricane.
Debris flew. Dust rose. The HQ was gone.
Mission complete, Odin dusted off his coat like he hadn't just demolished a building with his fist, gathered his crew—Freya, Thor, and the rest of Ragnorak—and walked away like a true final boss, leaving behind a ruined base, a battered team, and one unconscious but unbroken Naruto.