Chapter 217: The Battle Is Over

Hiruzen turned everything into mud, and then stretching out his staff, he was able to plunge it into the nearest free area and quickly move with the help of Shimmer. He got out of the radius of the earthen Hell, but suddenly he immediately turned around, his face here de distorted from surprise! A bead hit hit him right in the stomach. He did not even have time to evade, having gone on a flight. Unlike the naive Hyuuga, Hiruzen was able to protect himself with chakra in time, otherwise he could simply lie down from this one attack.

Shikamaru stopped and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“He's not bad ... The Hokage is still not just a petty ninja. You can't take him by surprise! " - Shikamaru moved sharply, immediately orientated himself and dodged the heavy staff. Touching it with his palm, he made a revolution in the air and threw a volley of explosive kunai at the old man. Hiruzen broke the distance and croaked to the accompaniment of explosions:

- Fire Release: Great Fire Destruction! - the roar was immediately blocked and the wave of fire, capturing the force of the explosion, fell on Shikamaru, he, in turn, did not flinch and as soon as the old man's technique approached ten meters, Shikamaru folded one Tiger seal:

- Fire Release: Great Fire Destruction! - two identical techniques collided in a terrible confrontation. But, immediately, without a long struggle, the winner appeared. Hiruzen's fire was driven back and rushed towards him with even greater power. With a furious cry, he jumped off and tried to extinguish the flames on his clothes. Even his hands were burned, but without stopping and running away from the fiery wave, he folded a couple of seals:

- Earth Release: Underground Escape! - abruptly hiding underground and hiding from the fire, feeling Shikamaru's chakra, Hiruzen rushed to him, breaking through the path, but suddenly the earth trembled and clenched his teeth once again, he had no choice but to get to the surface. At the same moment, a number of senbonas hit him at monstrous speed:

- A thousand stings!

Hardly had time to grab the staff, Hiruzen put it forward and gritted his teeth until it hurt, began to block the pressure of the water senbon. This technique reminded him of Tobirama's ability, only he could create such terrible blades of water!

The stream continued, Shikamaru was not going to stop, the shoulders and legs of the old man had already been punched in many places, but he continued to try to block everything. Shikamaru changed positions and launched massive Senbon attacks.

“Kha ...” Hiruzen dropped to one knee with a painful cough, just as the shelling ended. Then the feeling of danger again made itself felt, Shikamaru moved and waved his hand in a jump:

- Lightning Crash! - a whip of electricity immediately broke from his palm and rushed to the old man, Hiruzen was already breathing heavily, all his limbs were bleeding, but with the last of his strength he waved his staff and tried to defend himself. But, the lightning passed through him, entered the body and struck the organs!

- Grrr! - Grimacing in pain, Hiruzen tried to rise, but Shikamaru was right there. The blow of his fist, as if in slow motion, rushed straight to the old man's head.

"Ha ... Youth ..." - with a chuckle, Hiruzen closed his eyes, and then there was silence. Heavy breathing, heartbeat, he heard it all, but nothing else happened ...

In bewilderment, Hiruzen opened his eyes and saw Shikamaru next to him. He stood calmly and smiled. The Hokage, on the other hand, was lying on the ground with a staff and was bleeding heavily, breathing heavily. Realizing the situation and not noticing not a single speck of dust on Shikamaru, the old man just grinned wryly and threw back his head:

“I lost…” At that very moment, Enma resumed his former appearance and looked at Shikamaru with a heavy breath, there was much in his gaze, mostly respect. Without saying anything more, he nodded to his friend and immediately disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

Shikamaru quickly approached the teacher and began to heal him.

- Ha, I remember that time ... During our first sparring, - the old man remarked with a tortured smile:

- Although, then I did not feel so bad.

"You are not young anymore." Shikamaru smiled encouragingly.

Only smiling, the old man closed his eyes and did not answer. He knew his limits well and never understood Shikamaru's limits. He just used Ninjutsu and defeated him that way without even breaking a sweat. If he used his full potential ...

“Ha ... Perhaps he is already even stronger than the Second or even the First, like this is a student. I guess I'm not in a position to try and stop him. The first could fight Madara, but not me ... It is worth leaving everything to the younger generation. If he's already so strong, who knows what the world will be like. Ha ... Hell, but the power of his techniques thanks to this terrible chakra is just something. Years of training my ninjutsu just evaporated in an instant. Amazing ... "

Silently, the student healed the teacher, and they slowly headed back to Konoha. True, very soon an Anbu squad appeared on their way. As it turned out, their battle was quite noisy. Laughing, Hiruzen explained everything as it is, without becoming hiding the truth. Then the truth was revealed - a Shinobi appeared in the Hidden Leaf Village, able to defeat even the Hokage. Of course, the Anbu was ordered not to expand on this, but who knows ...

And so the time passed. As always, it was not going to wait for anyone or spare the slow ones ...

***

More than two weeks passed, the Chūnin exam was supposed to begin within the next days. After finishing with Hiruzen and making sure that he would not interfere with him, Shikamaru immediately met with Ino. On that day, he faced an amazing happy smile. She really missed him. Ordinary girls could forget about everything, but, in the world of shinobi, everything is different ... Shikamaru, of course, was very happy about this, but still held back. Well, at least in words ...!

The date with Ino ended smoothly at the end of the day, and the next, Shikamaru met with Sakura. For her, he also gave one happy day. Even if they had seen each other not so long ago, she still missed her, it was evident from her reaction. Sakura behaved very differently, even Ino was not like that. Sakura became bolder and Shikamaru even managed to practice a little with her. Still, he somehow promised to help her with this.

After finishing with the girls for whom he had plans, he talked to Chоji, who did not immediately recognize the grown-up boyfriend as his old friend, and then also met with Gai-sensei. That meeting turned out to be funny, together with Guy and Lee, Shikamaru staged a push-up competition. Thanks to his physical qualities and completely inhuman endurance, the winner was determined very quickly.

Finally, having finished with everything and even fleetingly remembering the beautiful Tsunade and his sweet Mizukage Mei, Shikamaru climbed the rock with the faces of the Hokage. The exam was already so close, the Sand Ninjas would be arriving soon.