The Nara needed not any sort of visual aids. He knew exactly what he was expecting when he initially rushed forward. He needed not the Theta State to adapt to the vicious terrain around him, as he still was not experiencing speeds he could not handle. If this was the Shodai's unfiltered prowess with Wood Release, it was a poor testament to the man's abilities. Even without the Theta State he had something activated that already allowed him enough sensory augmentation to perceive movements and chakra fluctuations, the Mind's Eye of the Kagura, which was stated to surpass Dojutsu with comparable abilities. This, mixed with his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan and full capabilities unlocked, which has been previously stated to be able to keep track of a full speed Athos without any of those enhancements, was more than enough for him and the clones to keep themselves steady and flawless in their individual pursuits.
Even if the individual branches could sense they were about to receive the grace of any of the Naras' feet, they would not be able to do anything in hope of throwing off any sort of balance. As, said foot, wouldn't be on said branch for even a fraction of a second, leagues beyond the amount of time the branches would need to tremble and shift, as the Naras bounded through the forest towards their individual targets. Reflexes were something that was increased tremendously, or had that been overlooked?
On the topic of the Marionettes. If the only thing that they employed, for hopes of evasion, were simple leaps onto adjacent branches, they would find that it wouldn't be nowhere enough to completely escape the Nara's clones (Considering the "devil's" own use of simple maneuvers were enough to evade Athos at his fastest). Again, bringing all those sensory augmentations into the picture, the clones would initiate the subtle shifts of direction necessary to keep up the chase and would easily do what they needed to do to seal the Marionettes before reaching the next branch. 'Pathetic..' All three Naras would think as they witnessed the events, via Mind's Eye. In all honesty, nothing that was being demonstrated, up to this point, was intimidating to the young devil. To prove this, the clones would halt their moving and open their mouths wide open to take in the vicious branches, since their Strongest Shield would be too impervious for the wood to destroy them properly. With the devil clones deep throating the branches, bursts of white indicating that their Natural Shells would eventually be ruptured, the wood inside them would cause them to burst in complete ecstasy. When they reached their climax, the "experience" (Marionette Signatures) of sealing the Marionettes would "transfer" (Appear) to the original devil (Making it so they wouldn't simply return with the erased presence of the clones), along with the 66.7% of chakra he'd been missing at that moment.
The absence of the Shodai could result in the Wood Release technique to come to a standstill, but the devil would assume that Rusaku would use that clone to continue the assault after the use of the Space-Time Barrier. Of course, this brought on the location of the clone to question, as it was omitted from his opponent's post. The last recorded measurement of distance was between the devil and the Marionettes, which had been 825 meters and dropping, this being slightly before the temperature rose and the Wood Release technique was used, due to the fact that the Bocchiere puppet reacted to his frozen hilt, which was used after recording said distance.
By the beginning of his next post, Jay had recorded the melting of his ice hilt, which meant that between then (the end of Rusaku's post) and then (the beginning of Jay's post) the Marionettes had entered the 500 meter range, allowing the bubble of temperature influence to reach its peak (since it would be the same range of his own STCB). Of course, this meant that the clone would have traveled at around 2.5 miles, or around 4,000 meters, in this short amount of time, which still wasn't fast enough to threaten the Nara's ability to keep track. But, this did nothing to tell the devil exactly where the clone would emerge from his land swim. Rusaku had failed to mention where he would be, in front or behind the Nara when he emerged. Of course, the devil could manipulate this mistake and point out that the clone would be 149 meters behind... but that's not fun at all. So... 300 full meters would be presented to him, where he would feel the disconnection from his Hiraishin marker that would be in the thicket of chakraless trees. This led him to deduce what was used. This fact, along with the sound of thunder, allowed him to deduce the next course of action. 'Predictable.' He thought to himself as he pulsed his chakra to ready himself as well.
He had allowed himself enough supposition to not be blindsided by this course of events earlier, which had been pointed out by his opponent as "internal conflict". He wasn't a tad bit afraid, remembering that Kirin was nothing more than natural lightning. And, as it were, he'd had experience with empowering himself with natural lightning. Rusaku wasn't doing anything to strengthen it, merely shaping and guiding the natural forces brewing in the clouds. The preparation for the technique would blatant as well, his Mind's Eye noting the chakra in Rusaku's hand lifting towards the sky. By this time, his pulsing chakra would have resulted in two actions. The first would be simple, just a release from one of his Sage Seals that rested on his skin. The Diamond would fade to black, the Natural Energy inside rushing out to mix with the waiting Dark Chakra to further mix with his own chakra to initiate the appearance of his Chaos Sage Mode. Originally, his Sage Seals contained enough Natural Energy to allow 3-4 turns of Sage Mode. Now, with Senninka, simply using them to enter the Mode could result in infinite turns of said Mode. All in all, this simply meant that he hadn't used any of the Natural Energy that consisted of his Natural Shell, meaning he had more than enough protection for what was to follow.
Now... his math was all over the place, and barely made sense to him, but he had another slight to bring up. Unfortunately, this slight would be made by both parties and that was the amount of time spent traversing these distances. It was really making it difficult to record these feats of skill. But, that was the downside of word battles. Worries weren't needed as the devil received his 4x multiplier of his base skills. Things were finally getting steamy, the devil only ever having to use such techniques whilst unrestricted... while he was training himself. He was glad he trained to control himself; otherwise this would get pretty difficult.
The Nara had one more action, of the first two simultaneous actions, to reveal and Kirin was beginning to form above him, what with the chakra from Rusaku’s wrist flick taking control of the natural lightning. This action would be the full activation of the Lightning Release Chakra Mode, the ebony lightning would join the flame-like energy flowing around him. He hadn’t used this technique when he had staved off natural lightning during a spar with Ichirou 2-3 years ago. But, doing this wouldn’t be the main purpose for its activation, but it wouldn't hurt to have it active. Now, his chakra would pulse once more to focus an immense amount of the Lightning Senjutsu towards his right hand. Deep red/black arcs of lightning joined the black arcs as the Lightning Cutter Technique was activated. It was obvious where things were heading as the devil directed his attention upwards as the Kirin dropped down upon him with intent to do harm.
His reasoning for being able to prepare himself was the fact that it wasn’t something that came out of nowhere. Again, the preparation for the technique’s usage was pretty obvious, I mean, why else would someone make storm clouds and not inject their chakra into it? Of course, just because it was natural lightning didn’t mean that he would take it lightly. For a technique to be considered “One of the Strongest” it obviously needed to be taken seriously. Which was why he entered Chaos Sage Mode. With his body heavily augmented, on top of already being released from every restraint he possessed, he would jump up to meet the lightning as soon as it moved to drop.
If everything proceeded according to plan, armed with a technique specifically designed for cutting lightning, the flash of light would be all that would be seen. Not one, but two crashes would shake the earth as the condensed streaks of lightning did their damage upon it. In the air, still traveling upwards, the Nara, even with Strongest Shield, would be sans his right arm. Kirin put up more than enough effort to do damage to the immortal, pretty sure it didn't need to be precise to do so. The Nara wouldn’t be flying, or hovering, but he would eventually reach his peak at 284 meters.
He had made a lot of flack about the Kirin being nothing than natural lightning, and while it was true, it wasn’t the case at all. Sure, a single lightning strike held the ability to do massive damage if struck in the right place, but Kirin gathered up every single voltage of energy that the storm clouds could produce. This fact, joined together with the previous Shape Manipulation, only meant that It was making sure that it was gathering every voltage of resource it could. Of course, this was his theory as he went up against it, more than glad that he had taken extra measures and slipped into his Chaotic Sage Mode, his Natural Shell also working to provide some extra defense.
[I thought you said it was predictable... did you predict this too?] The Nara could tell from the tone in the kitsune's voice, that he had a smug smirk on his face. 'Yes, I did!' He didn’t have to look towards his arm to know it wasn’t there. He needn’t worry about it, as his healing factor would have it returned by the time he reached the ground. [You sure do like losing arms. Last time you lost both of them? Perhaps, Rusaku is gonna take the other off as well?] The man groaned as he reached the peak at 284 meters. ’Not really helping. How about putting some of that chakra of yours to work and speed along the recovery of my arm?’ [I could do that…] The fact that the Kyuubi hadn’t agreed wholeheartedly pissed him off, but the both of them were too prideful to admit that working together would be better. [You got this, just use what your teachers taught you and you’ll be fine.] The clouds above would begin to fade from the sky, but the storm of war was just getting started. He wasn't really feeling the analogy, but it felt appropriate for what happened.