Chapter 555: Speculations about Zoroa’s Failure to Evolve

Listening to its friends, Charizard snorted two streams of white smoke from its nostrils, puffed out its chest, and strode towards the battle arena.

“Battle start!”

As Kakashi shouted “start,” Charizard and Lucario quickly gathered Chakra and unleashed their respective moves.

‘Smokescreen!’

Charizard rapidly flapped its wings to take flight while gathering Chakra in its mouth to release a black-grey smokescreen.

It had watched the previous battle, and Lucario’s combat methods were mostly close-range body techniques, while its flight advantage could largely nullify the opponent’s body techniques.

With the added vision-obscuring smokescreen, Lucario also couldn’t pinpoint its location to use long-range attacks.

‘Flash!’

Lucario gathered all its strength and charged out swiftly, but it didn’t manage to hit Charizard before it took flight.

At this moment, the black-grey smokescreen continuously emitted by Charizard enveloped the open space, making it impossible to clearly see what was happening inside.

“It seems Obito and Charizard still don’t know it has sensory abilities.” Kakashi shook his head at the sight.

It wasn’t that there were no Ninjutsu that could interfere with sensory abilities; the Hidden Mist Technique of the Hidden Mist could, but Charizard’s smokescreen clearly didn’t belong to that type of Ninjutsu.

However, Kakashi could understand this. Charizard had never battled Lucario before, and Lucario’s usual training was similar to Might Guy’s, focusing on various physical exercises, so it was indeed difficult to discern its sensory abilities.

If Kakashi hadn’t had a sufficient understanding of Rockruff’s Shadow Clone and observed the previous battle meticulously, it would have been very difficult to discover this information.

‘Aura Sphere!’

Having lost its vision, Lucario simply closed its eyes and sensed the power of Aura.

Lucario gathered an Aura Sphere in its paw while sensing Charizard’s Aura.

Sensing Charizard’s offensive intent, Lucario, with closed eyes, dodged the incoming Fire Blast and released an Aura Sphere towards the sky.

Boom!

The Aura Sphere struck Charizard, making its flight wobbly.

Since Charizard didn’t continue to use Smokescreen, the grey mist also dispersed at this moment, revealing Charizard’s somewhat disheveled figure.

“Awoo?” Charizard was a little surprised, both by being hit and by the power of the Aura Sphere.

It had seen Rockruff knocked out by an Aura Sphere and thought it was very strong, but it only hurt a normal amount.

“It seems I’m really strong!” Charizard became even more confident.

It felt that even if it took two more Aura Spheres, it wouldn’t fall.

Roughly speaking, that meant it could defeat three Rockruff.

The confident Charizard regrouped, rapidly flapping its wings to circle Lucario, searching for an attacking opportunity.

‘Aura Sphere!’

Lucario continued to gather Aura power without changing its expression.

If one Aura Sphere couldn’t defeat Charizard, then two, three, four!

Anyway, Charizard would definitely not be able to dodge the Aura Sphere by flying.

‘Fire Blast!’

Seeing Lucario launch another Aura Sphere at it, Charizard opened its mouth and spewed flames at the incoming Aura Sphere.

Although it wouldn’t suffer serious injuries, being hit by an Aura Sphere would still hurt.

Rumble!!

A thick, deep column of fire engulfed the blue energy ball. An explosion sounded, the Aura Sphere disappeared, and the column of fire dispersed into the air.

“Awo!” Charizard raised its head and let out a dragon’s roar.

The Aura Sphere that defeated Rockruff was nothing special; offense was the best defense!

‘Wind Release: Air Blade!’

Charizard gathered a large amount of Chakra onto its sharp claws and, in one breath, flung several wind blades towards Lucario.

Swish swish!!

The wind blades were extremely fast, and Charizard released them while circling Lucario, blocking Lucario’s dodging space from multiple angles.

Lucario maintained its previous calm expression. It swiftly extended its claws, and then a metallic luster appeared on them.

‘Metal Claw!’

Lucario swung its claws, covered in metallic luster, and forcefully dispersed the incoming wind blades.

Whoosh whoosh!!

Charizard’s attack didn’t end there; immediately after, a hot current accompanied by flames rushed towards Lucario.

‘Heat Wave!’

This time, Lucario couldn’t perfectly dodge, and a patch of its chest fur was scorched black.

Although it had anticipated the incoming attack, Heat Wave’s range was much larger than previous moves, so it couldn’t fully evade.

‘Fire Blast!’

Charizard, seizing the advantage, immediately spewed another thick column of fire at Lucario.

Lucario knew it couldn’t overpower it and immediately unleashed its full strength to dodge.

The expression on Charizard’s face became arrogant.

It was known that Rockruff was easily defeated by Lucario, and now Lucario was casually suppressed by it, which meant it was greater than Lucario, which was greater than Rockruff.

Now Charizard just wanted to say, Lucario, you’re just a challenger.

Even with an intelligence disadvantage, and even with Obito as a burden, it, Charizard, could not be defeated.

When Charizard realized it had the advantage, it wanted to end the battle in one go.

Just like how Lucario defeated Rockruff.

Charizard could already imagine Milotic’s admiring expression then, because it would definitely be very handsome.

To make its attacks more likely to hit Lucario, Charizard lowered its flying altitude.

A high flying altitude allowed Charizard not to worry about Lucario’s body technique attacks, but it also made Charizard’s attacks harder to hit.

A large amount of Chakra was gathered by Charizard in its throat, and a thicker column of fire than before was spewed out.

But Lucario, noticing this, had its eyes light up instead.

‘Bone Rush!’

Lucario clenched its fist in the air, and Earth Release Chakra gathered in its hand to form two bone-shaped chakra rods.

Whoosh!!

At this moment, the intense column of fire spewed by Charizard came rushing.

However, Lucario had already planned everything in its mind.

It suddenly leaped backward onto a tree.

Charizard’s sustained flames continued to sweep towards the trees behind.

Crash!

Lucario put its whole body into it, using the tree to leap up fiercely.

Charizard noticed Lucario’s movement and panicked a little, but at this moment, it certainly couldn’t ascend to a distance where Lucario couldn’t attack it in one go. Charizard could only fly sideways to dodge.

However, what Charizard didn’t expect was that Lucario’s move was just a feint; it didn’t leap towards it, but instead leaped to another tree.

Bang!

Having successfully tricked Charizard, Lucario suddenly leaped up again, swinging its bone rod and smashing it hard onto Charizard’s body.

Charizard’s eyes widened. The immense force from the impact instantly made it understand why Rockruff was knocked down in two hits.

Charizard, having suffered the impact, could no longer maintain flight and crashed heavily to the ground.

At this moment, the flames on Charizard’s tail burned fiercely.

‘Fire Blast!’

Charizard, having crashed to the ground, didn’t have time to think much and immediately spewed a large amount of flames to prevent Lucario from continuing its attack.

If Lucario’s personality was irritable, perhaps Charizard’s achievement would have a miraculous effect.

But Lucario did not act rashly. After sensing Charizard’s intention with Aura power, it chose to gather an Aura Sphere on the spot.

The moment the flames stopped and Charizard took flight, the blue energy ball struck Charizard again.

Boom!

Charizard fell to the ground again, this time directly turning into a dizzy state with swirling eyes.

“Phew.” Lucario let out a sigh of relief.

Defeating Charizard was much harder than defeating Rockruff.

If Charizard hadn’t given it an opportunity by actively lowering its flight altitude, Lucario would have found it difficult to inflict heavy damage on Charizard in one go.

Because its most effective move against Charizard at the moment was Bone Rush, but if Charizard flew high enough, it couldn’t hit it at all.

“Lucario wins!” Seeing Charizard unable to continue fighting, Kakashi announced the battle result.

The course of this battle once again verified some of Kakashi’s previous hypotheses.

The Chakra restraint between Pokemon had a significant impact on the outcome.

According to Kakashi’s understanding of Charizard and Rockruff, their raw strengths were almost identical.

However, in actual combat, Rockruff was completely dominated by Lucario, while Charizard could even suppress Lucario, only losing the battle due to carelessness.

“It did its best. Although it lost, it also caused a lot of damage to the opponent.” Obito said with a regretful expression.

Rockruff:??

You say what you want, why do you keep looking at it and Kakashi?

Seeing Rockruff’s displeased expression, Obito felt a surge of satisfaction.

Although praising his own clumsy dragon against his conscience felt a bit uncomfortable, as long as it could strike at the evil white-haired faction, it was worth it.

“Another victory! Didn’t I tell you, a body trained day and night will respond to you?” Might Guy laughed heartily, happy for his Nin-Beast.

Currently, Lucario had engaged in three battles with other Nin-Beasts, with one loss and two wins, meaning its win rate was 66%, which was a very high win rate.

In the first two years after Might Guy entered the Ninja Academy, his win rate was pitifully low, almost single-digit, meaning he would only win once out of dozens of times.

In battles against geniuses like Kakashi, his win rate plummeted to rock bottom, at zero percent.

“Luo!” Lucario smiled back at Might Guy, then looked at Milotic.

It had an urge to challenge Milotic.

Since Might Guy was the strongest disciple among all disciples, then it, as the Nin-Beast contracted with Might Guy, naturally had to become the strongest Nin-Beast.

But Lucario suppressed its inner desire to challenge Milotic.

The battle with Charizard had consumed a lot of its mental and physical energy, and it was even injured.

To return to peak condition, it would require a significant amount of time to rest and recover.

It was already dusk, the end of their training, and Lucario didn’t want to waste too much of others’ time because of itself.

Finally, Lucario shifted its gaze from Milotic and began to gather Chakra.

“Although it seems fine, let’s still give it some treatment.” Rin Nohara created a Shadow Clone, preparing to treat Charizard with her main body and Lucario with the Shadow Clone.

Milotic also went to Rin Nohara’s side, gathering Chakra to assist Rin Nohara with the treatment.

Lucario shook its head, rapidly performing Nature Transformation on the gathered Chakra.

‘Life Dew!’

A blue-green water sphere formed above Lucario.

Then the water sphere quickly burst in the air, and drop after drop of blue-green water fell onto Lucario and Charizard.

When the healing water drops fell on its body, Lucario’s already minor injuries rapidly recovered.

Milotic looked at Lucario in surprise, not expecting that Lucario, who seemed like a ruthless warrior, also possessed a healing skill like its own.

Rin Nohara’s treatment, combined with Lucario’s Life Dew, quickly woke up Charizard.

Feeling the refreshing, comfortable sensation spreading through its body, and then looking at Milotic beside it, Charizard let out a cry of emotion.

“Awoo!”

“Goddess, your Medical Ninjutsu is truly amazing. I feel completely healed, body and soul. That’s what it said.” Zorua translated precisely.

At this moment, the scene fell silent.

“How did I hatch it? It’s nothing like me.” Obito covered his mouth, worried he would laugh out loud.

If it weren’t his Nin-Beast, Obito would have gone crazy laughing, but since it was his Nin-Beast, he still had to save a little face.

“Awo.” After a long silence, Milotic spoke a single explanation.

“The Life Dew just now was cast by Lucario. That’s what it said, hehe.” Zorua couldn’t help but laugh after translating.

It was a professional, usually it wouldn’t laugh at its comrades, unless it couldn’t help it.

Charizard froze, looked at Milotic, then looked at Lucario.

Bang!

Charizard fell down again, as if the previous battle had left it with severe injuries, causing it to only maintain consciousness for a brief moment.

No one tried to wake up Charizard. Everyone tacitly assumed Charizard was unconscious at the moment, after all, the recent incident might have caused it more harm than the bone rod Lucario smashed onto its body.

“So Lucario also mastered Medical Ninjutsu. This way, Guy won’t have to worry about healing problems even if he doesn’t team up with us in the future.” Kakashi felt that all the Pokémon Eggs Muzuki sent were the result of careful selection.

Due to the special nature of the Eight Gates, Kakashi had always been quite worried about Might Guy.

The Eight Gates were strong, but once the number of gates increased, even with a strong body, it only reduced damage, not immunized against it, so injuries were commonplace.

Without a good Medical Ninja, it was easy to suffer sequelae from not receiving timely treatment.

Kakashi had personally experienced the effect of Life Dew; it was considered a high-level Medical Ninjutsu and was definitely sufficient in most situations.

After returning home, Zorua hummed a little tune, appearing to be in a very good mood.

Looking at the cheerful Zorua, then thinking about how the Nin-Beasts of the other disciples had already evolved, and recalling Zorua’s previous complaints about evolution.

Shisui had a guess in his mind.

However, he wasn’t sure if his guess was correct or not, after all, Nin-Beasts were very different from ordinary Ninja World Nin-Beasts.

“Let it be.” Shisui smiled helplessly. Even if he guessed correctly, it was useless; would he really force Zorua?

PS: Two chapters together are 8k, the length should be fine.

Also, it’s the end of the month, so a small request for votes.