Purple Lover

Could Purple Lover really... work?

Yuan Wei felt a little uneasy. After a brief "discussion" yesterday, they had settled on a team structure centered around Lin Ke. Following his orders, once the test began, they would protect their boss while he unleashed his "jutsu," then watch the battle from the sidelines.

But he had never seen just how powerful this so-called "jutsu" was. He had no confidence at all.

Their opponent was a Jonin.

Xia was much calmer. She acknowledged Lin Ke's strength. He was young, but steady, calm, sharp-minded, and powerful. There was nothing wrong with obeying him, though that did not stop her from taking pleasure in seeing him suffer after he had bullied her.

A ninjutsu that needed time to unfold, so he needed his teammates to protect him?

Nara Yan Shui saw through the intentions of his three subordinates at a glance and waited quietly.

Hand seals, release—

Unlucky.

Lin Ke looked at the red-orange little tomatoes floating around him, now sprouting sharp fangs, limbs, and claws, and sighed inwardly. Even after a year, the flaw of the Substitution Technique was still its uncontrollable nature.

This time, the Substitute he had summoned was called Pearl Jam. When chopped up and mixed into food, it could heal the body. The more precious the ingredients, the stronger its healing effect. But using Pearl Jam required a considerable degree of cooking skill. He had summoned it before during training.

The main issue was that the Substitute could not last long enough for him to prepare an entire dish. Mixing it into water and drinking it worked too, but the effect was greatly weakened. For someone completely hopeless at cooking and limited by the Substitute's duration, it was a practically useless Substitute.

Dismiss the Substitute.

Lin Ke calmly took out a Soldier Pill and swallowed it. Replenishing stamina was not like in a game; it could not be restored instantly. Taking medicine in advance was perfectly normal. Then he continued forming hand seals, release—

As his chakra drained away, his consciousness connected to... his own hair.

Then the hair's senses flooded into his mind. He could clearly feel the flow of nearby air, the warmth of sunlight, and even the tiniest specks of dust.

It was strange, as though every strand of hair had come alive.

A possession-type Substitute that controlled hair—it was Purple Lover.

He let out a slightly relieved breath. This was a pure and powerful Substitute. Simply controlling hair gave it the ability to tear down a three-story building despite its unimpressive stats. It could easily spread over a dozen meters and was incredibly tough, with considerable attack power.

If he studied it carefully, he might be able to develop the ability its original owner had in the manga—transplanting hair onto someone else's scalp to control them. But he did not have time for that now.

The thought flashed through his mind. Lin Ke leaped down from the rock, gathered strength in his legs, pushed off with his feet, and, with chakra enhancement, shot toward Nara Yan Shui in an instant.

Here he came.

Nara Yan Shui planned to first test his taijutsu level, based on what Hatake Kakashi had told him—

To his surprise, when the kid reached roughly three meters away, his hair suddenly lengthened and swept toward him from all directions.

A hair-related ninjutsu?!

With a Jonin's speed, he easily slipped past the edge of the hair's encirclement. The hair possessed by Purple Lover was not particularly fast, and its precision was abysmal. It could only ensure the general direction of an attack; fine control was impossible.

Smack! Clumps of hair lashed the ground, shattering several rocks and carving furrows across the earth as dust filled the air.

Supported by his hair, Lin Ke hung in midair. Countless strands of smooth black hair cascaded down like a waterfall, filling the space more than a dozen meters around him and weaving into a dense net. Every lock of hair moved and probed as if it possessed a life of its own.

From the outside, it would probably scare anyone with trypophobia to death on the spot.

Yuan Wei stared in stunned disbelief. What was that thing? No, what kind of ninjutsu was that? Xia suppressed her disgust and took half a step back.

Found you!

Clumps of hair slammed hard against the ground, then sprang up like coiled springs, propelling Lin Ke forward at high speed.

He had chosen to close in immediately because he wanted to get his easily controlled hair onto his opponent. Once separated from his body, Purple Lover's hair still allowed him to sense things clearly from even several kilometers away. Even if he could not control the opponent, determining their exact location would not be difficult.

So long as he left hair on his opponent, he would no longer have to worry about being fooled by Shadow Clones or ambushed, like in his previous battle with Hatake Kakashi.

Smack! A large tree was snapped in half. Nara Yan Shui, who had been hiding behind it, was forced out and had no choice but to use the Body Flicker Technique again to escape.

Even as a Jonin, he could not help feeling helpless as he looked at the black hair net nearly thirty meters in diameter.

Could a Genin really create something like this...? What happened to Ice Release? While in the air, he had already completed his hand seals. The shadows on the ground rapidly changed shape, turning needle-like as they sliced through the pursuing clumps of twisted hair with sharp hiss, hiss, hiss sounds.

What made his scalp prickle was that the severed hair continued wriggling on the ground like worms before eventually merging back into the other strands rooted in the earth.

What an eerie and powerful ninjutsu.

After using the Shadow Sewing Jutsu to briefly escape the hair's pursuit, Nara Yan Shui's expression had become extremely grave. This type of opponent was very difficult for him to deal with.

Wide attack range, high mobility, able to track his location—

Was it some special sensing method? Or perhaps...

Boom! Thud! Thud!

Before long, the entire forest had turned into a demolition site as the two fought, one pursuing and one fleeing. Trees fell in swaths, dust blotted out the sky, and the hair's rapid movement stirred up violent winds.

The enormous commotion quickly drew the attention of other ninja—

This was the Seventh Training Ground, not too far from Konoha's residential district. A nearly thirty-meter-tall "monster" had appeared and was destroying the Training Grounds.

Practically every Jonin still in the village with even slightly strong sensory abilities arrived. The Seventh Training Ground was soon completely surrounded by ninja.

As a military organization, Konoha's ability to respond was certainly not poor.

"It should be some kind of ninjutsu someone released."

"Fighting inside the village?"

"That's Yan Shui's chakra." Yamanaka Haiichi focused his senses and spoke sternly.

"We should go help."

"What about the Barrier Team..."

Several other Jonin immediately wanted to intervene.

"Wait." Once Nara Shikaku spoke, no one said another word.

Konoha did not have that many Jonin to begin with, and everyone generally knew each other. Nara Yan Shui was also his clansman. Combined with his position as the Jonin commander, his words carried considerable weight.

An Anbu used the Body Flicker Technique to appear before the gathered Jonin. Lowering his head slightly, he said, "Inside the Seventh Training Ground, Jonin Nara Yan Shui is conducting a Genin qualification test for Lin Ke."

"Wow~" Special Jonin Mitarashi Anko exclaimed in surprise. "Kids these days really are something else."

Hatake Kakashi rubbed his hair and said nothing.

Nara Shikaku frowned and thought for several seconds. Looking toward the forest, where the noise still continued unabated, he said, "Dismissed."