Farewell, Explosive Tags

The instant Rinto's eyeball was gouged out.

"Bang!"

A soft pop.

The Rinto buried in the dirt before Ineyū exploded into a cloud of white smoke.

The next second, a wooden stump appeared in the pit.

"Substitution Technique!"

Ineyū's pupils abruptly contracted, a storm raging in his heart.

Damn it, the experiments showed that undead monsters couldn't extract Chakra! How could this be? Where had that Substitution Technique come from?!

While he was stunned, a still-beating heart wrapped in paper had somehow appeared at his feet.

A faint hissing sound interrupted Ineyū's thoughts.

"Not good! An Explosive Tag!"

But before his body could react, the blazing light of the explosion instantly swallowed him.

With a thunderous boom, the pitch-black alley was lit as bright as day.

Deep in the alley, Rinto's soaked figure gradually emerged, clutching his chest. Firelight reflected in his eyes, while pain and delight mingled across his face.

"Well, Zhu Kangjun's Ninja Pouch really is a lifesaving treasure! It has both ninjutsu scrolls and Explosive Tags. Too bad I've used up all the Explosive Tags."

Amid the violent explosion, a mangled body was flung out and crashed heavily onto the ground, motionless. Looking closely, it was Ineyū.

Ineyū no longer had his previous vigor. His body was covered in burns from the flames, and below his knees was nothing but empty space. Both legs had apparently been blown off at the knees.

Rinto's face was deathly pale.

Though he had an undead body, he still felt pain. The agony of losing his heart violently twisted his handsome face.

Clutching his chest, Rinto slowly walked over to Ineyū's corpse and carefully examined this key figure of the Jashin Cult.

Even after such a close-range explosion had blown off both his legs, the man's hood still covered his head. For some reason, Rinto really wanted to see what this butcher who killed without blinking looked like.

One hand pressed to his chest, while the other slowly reached out, ready to lift the veil from this beastly bastard.

Suddenly, Ineyū's eyes snapped open. His wide, round eyes contained only black, without a trace of white.

"Illusion Technique: Mind Control!"

The next second, Rinto's body froze as if he had been struck by a paralysis technique. His outstretched hand and the hand pressing against his chest both stopped dead in place.

On the ground, the black in Ineyū's eyes rapidly faded. He suddenly spat out a mouthful of black, clotted blood, and the hand forming seals dropped limply.

"Damn it, you sly little brat! I swear that for the rest of your life, you'll live forever under my torment!"

As Ineyū spoke through gritted teeth, blood continued to spill from the corners of his mouth.

Though the explosion's flames had been extinguished by the torrential rain, the massive blast would surely attract Amegakure's ninja. He had to leave immediately.

Good thing I still had Mind Control to control this monster. Otherwise, I would've fallen into this brat's hands today.

At that thought, Ineyū's fury surged. The blood and energy he had barely suppressed churned again, and he spat out another mouthful of blood.

"Damn monster, get over here and take me away!"

Ineyū glared viciously at Rinto's harmless-looking face, wishing he could devour his flesh alive. Unfortunately, he still needed this guy to save his life.

Hearing that, the illusion-controlled Rinto stretched out both hands and effortlessly lifted Ineyū in a bridal carry.

"Move!" Ineyū was about to give the order when an extremely familiar sound suddenly reached his ears.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss."

"Hiss, hiss, hiss."

"What's that sound?!" Ineyū was instantly scared out of his wits.

From the sound of it, those were fucking Explosive Tags! And why did they sound so close?!

At that moment, a blinding white light suddenly shone beneath the clothes on Rinto's chest.

The next second, a violent explosion erupted between them!

White light and flames instantly swallowed them both. In the final second before losing consciousness, Ineyū suddenly recalled Old Man in White Coat's warning before he left: "Once you find the undead body, dismember it and bring it back immediately. Don't waste time talking!"

"Didn't you say there were no Explosive Tags left? Fuck! What a trap!"

He did not know whether he himself would survive, but the guy holding him would definitely live. After all, he was fucking undead!

The flames raged as the two figures were blasted in opposite directions.

One side was the human world; the other was hell.

"Bang!" Two muffled thuds rang out one after the other as Rinto and Ineyū fell to the ground in succession.

Stimulated by the intense pain, Rinto instantly regained consciousness. His scorched eyelids struggled open, and upon seeing the scene before him, he immediately understood. A chilling smile slowly curled across his burned face as he muttered to himself.

"Hey... wouldn't it have been better to just die obediently? Why did you have to pull this nonsense?"

However, the most important thing now was not collecting Ineyū's body, but dealing with the Amegakure ninja who would soon arrive.

If they discovered the secret of his undead body, he would probably still end up being sliced apart for research.

At that thought, Rinto ignored his vanished internal organs and the extensive burns across the front of his body. Enduring the pain of his skin tearing apart, he pulled several Ration Pills from Zhu Kangjun's Ninja Pouch behind him and stuffed them all into his mouth.

This was experience he had accumulated over years of experimentation: as long as there was enough food, his wounds recovered a little faster.

And unlike Hidan, he had not been dismembered by countless Explosive Tags.

There had only been two Explosive Tags in Zhu Kangping's Ninja Pouch. One had blown apart his cursed heart and Ineyū's lower legs. The other had killed Ineyū and made his internal organs disappear without a trace.

At that thought, Rinto gave a bitter smile.

Good thing he was not Tsunade's younger brother Nawaki. Otherwise, he would have been dead beyond dead.

Stuffing Ration Pills into his mouth while taking off his tattered hemp clothes, Rinto quickly slipped deep into the alley to wait for his body to recover.

At the same time, a strange thought appeared in Rinto's mind.

If—if I learned the Eight Inner Gates Formation, then wouldn't that mean:

Peacock by morning, tiger by day; Evening Elephant strikes, Night Guy dances; Open all eight gates whenever I please, And dance in the streets with the Gate of Death?

Just thinking about it was a little exciting!

Fuck illusions, ninjutsu, and Dojutsu—they were all trash before my Reckless Vajra!

What Sage of Six Paths? I'd kick him flying with one foot!

And if one kick wasn't enough, I'd give him a few more and guarantee I'd kick the story straight to its ending!

At that thought, Rinto was instantly filled with a sense of security.

However, in his memories, Guy's father, Might Duy, had beaten the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist into the Lucky Three Treasures, yet his combat power was still far weaker than Guy's.

Sure enough, the Eight Inner Gates Formation depended on the person. The stronger someone was at taijutsu, the greater its boost. He still had to stick firmly to the taijutsu path for the next hundred years!

Sitting in the darkness deep within the alley, Rinto used both hands to pull together the skin on either side of his abdominal wound. There was nowhere near enough time for his internal organs to regrow, so he could only let the skin reconnect first. As for the organs beneath it, they would have to slowly grow back later.

Watching the wound slowly close, Rinto felt a little anxious. He only regretted not learning sewing skills.

After all, if he had thread to stitch the wound shut, it would heal much faster.

Rinto's undead body was not much different from the undead body of Hidan as he remembered it, except that he lacked Hidan's bug-like Forbidden Jutsu: Blood Binding.

Overall, it was a nerfed version of an undead body.

However, according to Old Man in White Coat at the laboratory, this undead body was not a gift from Lord Jashin, but more like a curse.

Rinto agreed with that view most of the time.

First was the pain. Unlike Hidan, he did not enjoy pain. On the contrary, Rinto hated it. Even after being cut by blades, burned by fire, struck by lightning, and dried by wind for more than half a year, he still had not adapted to that soul-crushing physical agony.

The most unbearable part was the pain of his body healing.

Even now, Rinto clearly remembered the excruciating itch that rose from the depths of his soul when shattered bones slowly repaired themselves.

Then there was Chakra.

More accurately, Rinto had already mastered the Chakra Extraction Technique in the underground base.

That had also been one of Old Man in White Coat's experiments.

Although Rinto, after mastering the Chakra Extraction Technique, pretended on the surface that he could not extract Chakra no matter what, he had secretly tested it himself. His body could indeed extract Chakra.

The only problem was that the amount was truly pitiful.

He had observed another test subject in the laboratory, the child named Haruto. If Haruto's Chakra extraction speed was like normal peeing, then Rinto's was like someone with kidney stones—drip, drip, dripping out painfully slowly enough to make anyone anxious.

Fortunately, his undead cells seemed capable of extracting Chakra endlessly.

That also meant that as long as he had enough time, he could drip, drip, drip out an entire jug.

But in Rinto's view, those things were not particularly important.

What mattered most was that Rinto's body was only seven years old, and he was delighted to discover that the undead body did not affect his development.

In other words, his body could grow up, and little Rinto would grow along with his age.

At the same time, his physical abilities could be enhanced through training.

Because his body had endured so many blows, his bone strength was absurdly high. Even a point-blank Explosive Tag blast could not break his bones.

Just look at Ineyū in the distance. Only a spinal column barely connected his upper and lower body.

And what about himself? Other than having his internal organs blown completely apart, his breastbone had at most suffered a few cracks.

Just as Rinto was thinking, a chaotic rush of footsteps accompanied by the sound of splashing water rapidly approached from nearby.

"Stay alert! The explosion happened right here!"

At the entrance to the alley, a mature, magnetic male voice rang out.