Rainy Night Alley Battle, No Martial Virtue

The hoarse voice rang out, and Rinto's back instantly went cold, every strand of short hair on his head standing straight up.

As the voice fell, a tall figure emerged from the darkness. On closer inspection, it was none other than the Cult Divine Emissary, Ineyū.

Amid rolling thunder and flickering lightning, Ineyū's scar-covered, ferocious face was revealed beneath his hood, looking especially grim and terrifying.

"Holy shit! Little bro, are you a bloodhound or something? I ran this far, and you still found me?"

Ineyū had no intention of answering Rinto's question. He had suddenly taken an interest in this person he had barely paid attention to before, so he asked instead:

"Immortal One! Rinto-kun!

"Rinto-kun, I'm curious. You were clearly brainwashed, so why did you suddenly want to escape the base?"

"Uh, that's a long story! Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Sure!" Ineyū nodded slightly beneath his hood. He did not mind wasting a little time. In his eyes, weak little Rinto posed no threat whatsoever aside from his immortal body. After all, he was a genuine Jonin.

Seeing that Ineyū did not intend to seize him immediately and instead wanted to toy with him like a cat playing with a mouse, Rinto's mind stirred, and a plan formed. His expression remained unchanged as he spoke steadily.

"There are too many reasons for escaping the base.

"First is the food. I'm not a picky eater, but eating Ration Pills every meal is just too much for my stomach to handle. You have no idea! I've been seriously constipated lately, and every time I take a dump, there's local bleeding.

"Speaking of taking dumps, the toilets at our base are way too crappy. Forget self-cleaning toilets, we don't even have toilet paper—"

As he spoke, Rinto clutched his butt with a pained expression and said indignantly, "The toilet paper is too rough! It scrapes my hemorrhoids open every time!"

Listening to Rinto ramble on, the corner of Ineyū's mouth twitched wildly beneath his hood.

He had thought this immortal monster would say something about freedom, dreams, Bonds, or the like. Who would have thought that every other sentence out of this guy's mouth was about his ass? It was vulgarity opening the door for vulgarity—vulgar all the way home!

Come on, you have an immortal body. Was something as trivial as hemorrhoids really worth complaining about? Maybe the moment you finished shitting and pulled up your pants, the wound would heal! Damn it, had you ever considered how us normal people felt?!

!!!

Suddenly, Ineyū froze slightly, and his scar-covered face twisted at once as though he had put on a mask of pain.

Damn it, I got led around by this guy! Fuck, it was all because there were too many things to mock in what he said! I couldn't help but complain! No wonder that subordinate named Jin told me before I left: if you find the Immortal One, don't waste words with him. Just capture him.

Rinto had no idea Ineyū was having so many thoughts. He continued chattering away without pause.

"And another thing, the drinking water issue at our base needs attention too!

"This water tastes like lime. I suspect everyone's yellow teeth are from drinking this unfiltered hard water."

"Enough!" Seeing Rinto getting more and more animated, clearly ready to talk until the end of time, Ineyū hurriedly let out a low roar and cut him off.

"Save your nonsense for the road. Now, it's time for us to go back!"

As his low, hoarse voice fell, a chilling aura immediately spread through the alley. Bathed in that atmosphere, Ineyū felt much more at ease.

Rinto seemed to have an aura of unseriousness around him. Ineyū feared that if he said two more words to him, he would not be able to stop himself from mocking him. If that happened, the image he had worked so hard to build would be utterly ruined.

"No!" Seeing that Ineyū wanted to take him back, Rinto shook his head like a rattle drum.

Although he knew he might not be able to resist this guy, he still had to put up some sort of fight.

"That's not up to you!"

Before he had even finished speaking, Ineyū instantly drew a Kunai and hurled it at Rinto's feet at a speed too fast for ordinary eyes to catch.

But Rinto was no longer the same as when he had first transmigrated. No exaggeration—his physical abilities were now at least ten times stronger than before.

Along with his physical abilities, his powerful dynamic vision had improved tremendously as well.

The instant Ineyū moved, Rinto reacted. He pushed off the ground, his body shooting toward the alley entrance like a gale.

He was gambling that Ineyū would not let him escape onto the street, would not let him slip into the crowd.

Clearly, he had won that gamble.

At the alley entrance, Ineyū's clone had appeared at some unknown point, a sharp Kunai clutched in his hand.

"It's useless!" Rinto did not slow down. He charged forward like a wild bull, forming hand seals.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Rinto's calm voice immediately made Ineyū frown deeply.

Impossible. How could this guy form hand seals and use ninjutsu?

The clone at the alley entrance held its Kunai before itself and instantly leaped high into the air. It seemed Ineyū intended to sacrifice his clone to stop Rinto.

After forming who knew how many seals, Rinto puffed out his chest and spat at the airborne clone. A mouthful of saliva.

By then, the real Ineyū behind Rinto knew that he had been tricked.

Rinto's hand gestures certainly looked convincing, but they were not the hand seals for the Great Fireball Technique at all.

Even in the pitch-black alley, where he could only make out the rough outline, Ineyū knew the guy had just been wildly gesturing at random.

"You bastard monster, you're courting death!"

Having been deceived, Ineyū was instantly furious enough for smoke to pour from all seven orifices. Damn it, he had been fooled by this little brat again.

It was not entirely his fault. After all, people as lacking in Martial Virtue as Rinto were rare in the Shinobi World.

Normally, when ninjas fought, they either concealed their ninjutsu and released it secretly to catch their opponent off guard, or they fought openly with strength and strategy.

Rinto had neither fast hands nor extraordinary Chakra. All he relied on was bluffing. He belonged to the utterly shameless kind.

"Immortal monster, you've angered me!"

A chilling voice sounded from behind him.

"I was originally planning to bring you back in one piece. Now, I'm going to carve you into a human stump and drag you back all the way!"

"Earth Style: Earth Spikes!"

Hearing that, Rinto's heart tightened. He had bluffed the clone into the air, so this ninjutsu had to have been cast by the original body!

The alley entrance was right before his eyes. In an instant, Rinto reacted on instinct and lunged forward. As long as he got out of this pitch-black alley, he would still have a sliver of hope.

Just then, an enormous force suddenly came from beneath his feet. The next second, Rinto felt weightless, and when he came to his senses, his line of sight was level with the ground. Yet the earthen spear he had expected never appeared.

"Heh heh, how does it feel to be deceived?"

A pair of large feet appeared in his vision. Ineyū formed hand seals with both hands and looked down at Rinto, his eyes filled with mockery.

After saying that, Ineyū crouched down, slowly pulled a sharp Kunai from his Ninja Pouch, and disdainfully patted Rinto's face with it.

Rinto sighed helplessly, showing no awareness of having been captured at all as he looked innocently at Ineyū.

"Lord Messenger, what technique is this?"

"There's no harm in telling you. This is Earth Style: Headhunter Technique."

Rinto nodded upon hearing that, then asked again.

"My lord, look, I've already been captured anyway, and I probably won't have another chance to escape in the future! Could you grant me one small request?"

Feeling that victory was already in his grasp, Ineyū smiled cruelly, then ruthlessly shook his head.

"Rinto-kun, the only request you may make is to ask me to be quicker when I dismember you."

"No, no, no." Rinto laboriously shook the neck buried beneath the earth, as if he did not care in the slightest about the bloody scene to come.

"That's not the request, Lord Messenger. I just wanted to ask, I ran so far away already, so how did you find me?"

"Heh heh~" Ineyū's gaze unconsciously dropped toward Rinto's heart, then he immediately pretended as though nothing had happened.

However, Rinto still caught that tiny movement.

In an instant, a memory surfaced in his mind.

In that memory, he had been tied up in the base laboratory, sturdy iron chains firmly securing his limbs. For the rare occasion, his head had been covered with a black burlap hood.

Then he had felt his chest cavity being violently split open, followed by an intense pain in his heart, as though someone had viciously stabbed it with an iron shovel.

At the time, he had thought it was merely an ordinary experiment. Looking back now, those people had probably tampered with his heart!

After all, those cruel bastards had never avoided letting him know when they experimented on his body.

Besides, in the ninja world, all kinds of strange curses emerged endlessly. It was nothing unusual.

"It's the heart, right?"

"Rinto-kun, you're very clever." A cruel smile hung on Ineyū's lips.

"But you realized it too late. When we return this time, I plan to implant this Cursed Seal into every bone in your body."

Hearing those inhumanly cruel words, Rinto showed no reaction. His eyes slowly closed, looking like he was calmly awaiting execution.

Seeing Rinto stop speaking, Ineyū's face immediately twisted.

The desperate struggling, the lowly begging, the tearful sobbing he had imagined from Rinto—none of it came.

He knew that Rinto valued freedom greatly. Otherwise, why would he have racked his brains to choose such a perfectly timed moment to escape?

Thinking of that, Ineyū grew even angrier. He violently grabbed Rinto by the hair, his rough palm striking Rinto's face like a madman.

"You damned little beast, why aren't you struggling? Scream! Maybe you'll draw one or two people here to watch! Maybe they'll save you!"

Seeing Rinto's cheek swell high while he remained completely unresponsive, Ineyū felt even more as though he had punched cotton. That only made his rage rise further.

"Beast, I'll gouge out your eyes and feed them to dogs!"

With that, the increasingly crazed Ineyū curled his rough hand into a claw, brutally tore open Rinto's eyelids, and seized his eyeball.