Kyoka Suigetsu

"Freeze!"

The young man suddenly flashed to the other side of the rooftop and shouted sharply.

Yet Sahara Mizu seemed completely unaffected. He merely looked at him with those azure eyes, a faintly mocking smile on his face.

Then, he abruptly stepped toward him.

Seeing this, Karatachi Yagura immediately realized something was wrong, his brows drawing together.

At the same time, he promptly released the sealing Hand Seals and sprinted toward him.

A matte-finished kunai was held in reverse in the seemingly youthful hand, silently cutting a deadly arc through the air.

"Clang!"

The kunai collided, and a piercing screech of metal scraping metal rang beside their ears.

In their standoff, Karatachi Yagura looked into his azure eyes.

The kunai pressed against Sahara Mizu's neck flicked upward. Borrowing the force, he spun halfway around, sweeping his elbow directly toward Karatachi Yagura's temple. At the same time, the toes of his left foot touched down, his powerful knee strike poised to launch.

Clearly, every move was aimed at his opponent's life. He had no intention of holding back merely because they were ninja from the same village.

However, there was naturally a reason why the seemingly small Karatachi Yagura had become one of Mist Village's top young Jonin at such a young age.

The instant the axe-like elbow strike swept over, he advanced rather than retreated. His free left hand hooked in diagonally, his thumb accurately jabbing into the nerve point at the tip of the elbow.

"Bang!"

At the moment of impact, Sahara Mizu's entire arm went numb in an instant.

At the same time, Karatachi Yagura's left thumb joint cracked sharply as it dislocated.

Then, he saw through the incoming knee strike in advance. The calf wedged diagonally between Sahara Mizu's legs suddenly tensed and exerted force.

As his body tilted sideways, his seemingly small frame slid past the wind-whistling knee and drove straight into Sahara Mizu's chest. The little finger of his right hand hooked the kunai and spun it half a turn before thrusting fiercely upward, directly at the artery in his neck.

At that critical moment, Sahara Mizu remained calm. Enduring the agonizing pain in his arm as though it had been pierced by a steel spike, he flung out his left shoulder with the momentum.

That numb arm immediately whipped out like a lash, the tips of his joined fingers even cracking through the air with a sharp snap.

The kunai in his other hand reversed and stabbed diagonally, using his superior reach to point straight at Yagura's heart.

A killing move against a killing move!

"Clang—"

At the final moment, Karatachi Yagura's kunai finally turned back, slanting across his chest as it collided with his opponent's attack.

A fierce burst of sparks exploded beneath the night sky.

The tangled figures suddenly split apart, each retreating several meters.

"Truly terrifying, Ren."

Karatachi Yagura expressionlessly reset his thumb joint. There was not a trace of emotion in his voice. "Although the village had long anticipated your rapid growth in strength, reaching this level still exceeds my expectations."

"You not only broke the Fuinjutsu on your own, but even your Taijutsu has reached this level?"

"The one who ought to be afraid is clearly me."

Sahara Mizu still wore that smiling expression. As he forcibly rubbed open the skin around his elbow, which had been pressed blue-black, he said in an indifferent tone, "Lord Yagura actually attacked one of the village's most important intelligence operatives. I wonder, was this your personal decision, or the village's will?"

"If it's the latter, then my loyalty to the Will of Water may begin to waver."

"A ninja who refuses the village's assignments and breaks the village's seals thinks he deserves to speak to me of loyalty?"

With that, Karatachi Yagura's gaze grew increasingly cold, and he raised two fingers.

Suddenly, an intense chakra reaction erupted from his body and rapidly spread in every direction.

The moonlit streets were suddenly covered in a thin veil of mist.

Like dew-wrapped dark buds hidden among piles of petals when the wind rose in late spring, it carried a faint trace of chill.

It was the signature opening Ninjutsu of Mist Village ninja.

"Water Release: Hidden Mist Technique."

The village's order had only been to give Ren a small lesson, to make him truly understand how necessary the village was to him.

But after their exchange just now, Karatachi Yagura had already realized something.

Even he would likely find it difficult to completely suppress his opponent without going all out.

In that case...

"Then let's make a real mess of things."

Karatachi Yagura murmured inwardly as his small figure disappeared entirely into the thick mist.

However, in the instant before he vanished into the deep fog—

He caught sight of Sahara Mizu raising two fingers and staring straight at him.

Under the faint moonlight.

Those azure eyes shone brilliantly.

"Shatter."

Almost the instant those words sounded, the thick, pale-white mist completely swallowed his vision.

"Whoosh—"

Suddenly, silent footsteps crossed the ground, stirring a faint spiral of wind amid the thickening fog, though the figure itself was nearly impossible to see.

Karatachi Yagura shifted rapidly, his matte kunai piercing through the mist without a sound.

The mist, formed entirely from chakra, served as the Ninjutsu user's "eyes" in this environment where vision could not penetrate it. It revealed every corner to its caster while remaining transparent to them alone.

Combined with special footwork that was incomparably swift and utterly silent—

This was the true essence of Mist Village's Silent Killing Technique.

In an instant, Karatachi Yagura appeared behind Sahara Mizu, his kunai suddenly thrusting from the latter's blind spot.

"Clang, clang!"

Two consecutive strikes sent sparks flying.

However, Sahara Mizu's movements were clearly half a beat slower than before.

When he turned and swung his blade, Karatachi Yagura had already appeared at another blind spot, calmly delivering another thrust.

This time, Sahara Mizu seemed to notice in advance and viciously drove his kunai downward.

Then, that figure turned into a scattered mass of mist.

Water Release: Mist Clone.

Sahara Mizu's eyes instantly widened.

Almost at the very same moment, an attack shot out from behind him at nearly twice the speed of before.

"Slash!"

Blood sprayed, dark red droplets scattering through the air.

The intense pain left Sahara Mizu with no time to search. He immediately leaped several meters in the direction opposite the slash, rapidly forming Hand Seals.

Monkey—Rooster—Dog—Ram!

"Fire Release: Flame Whirlwind!"

Scorching heat erupted outward, and along with the flames, the water droplets condensed within the mist began to burn away.

The violent Fire Release Ninjutsu evaporated the moisture. The chakra mist surrounding him was swept up and churned by the rising currents produced by the collision of temperatures, clearing a vast area around him and explosively illuminating the entire rooftop.

In that brief instant, Karatachi Yagura's figure, originally concealed deep within the mist, was suddenly exposed.

As his strength rapidly drained away with his blood, Sahara Mizu's eyes lit up. Chakra flames almost tangible erupted beneath his feet, and he skimmed across the ground toward Karatachi Yagura at high speed. At the same time, he flung several shuriken from his hand, blocking his opponent's retreat.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—"

The spinning shuriken embedded themselves one after another into the rooftop floor, all avoided by his opponent.

Karatachi Yagura shifted his steps and rapidly closed in on him along the direction from which the shuriken had come, shouting sharply:

"Coral Palm!"

A palm wrapped in violent chakra fluctuations suddenly struck out.

Sahara Mizu sensed danger and instinctively raised his kunai to block.

"Screech!"

The next moment, the palm that struck the kunai's tip remained completely unharmed. Meanwhile, layers of pale pink coral tubes, like blood vessels, formed across the steel kunai's surface and continued spreading toward his hand.

Sahara Mizu decisively threw away the kunai.

Karatachi Yagura's next palm followed immediately like an inescapable curse, aimed directly at his chest as he stepped forward.

Yet a smile, as though his scheme had succeeded, appeared on Sahara Mizu's face.

His body suddenly arched backward.

At the same time, his other hand violently yanked backward.

Karatachi Yagura's expression immediately changed.

Almost simultaneously, matte steel wires that had somehow been connected to those shuriken suddenly jerked up from the ground. Without warning, they wrapped around Karatachi Yagura's small body, instantly binding him into a bundle.

Sahara Mizu clenched the steel wire between his teeth and rapidly formed Hand Seals with both hands.

Snake—Monkey—Ram.

"Lightning Release: Ground Running!"

Suddenly, a piercing, dense crackle of thunder echoed across the entire rooftop. Blinding lightning shot straight along the steel wires toward Karatachi Yagura, bound at their center, exploding in a brilliant flash.

His small body suddenly convulsed violently as though seized by a fit, and shrill cries of agony rang without end.

"Ha... ha..."

Sahara Mizu panted heavily as he watched the scene before him, his voice growing lower and lower.

"Did you see that?"

"This is the gap between us."

Yet almost the instant his words fell—

"Splash—"

The figure struck by the steel wires and Lightning Release Ninjutsu abruptly turned into a mass of cascading water and splashed onto the ground.

The expression on Sahara Mizu's face froze.

The next moment.

"Click."

Karatachi Yagura appeared behind him without warning.

The reverse-held kunai silently rested against his neck.

The cold sensation of the blade slowly crept across his skin, causing Sahara Mizu's entire body to stiffen.

A smile unconsciously curled across Karatachi Yagura's slightly babyish face. His voice was cold, with a hint of mockery.

"You said just now."

"What was the gap between you and me?"

At the same moment Karatachi Yagura sneered and mocked him—

The entire rooftop was exactly as it had been when they first met.

Filthy, silent, dust-covered.

Yet there was not the slightest trace of Ninjutsu.

Sahara Mizu still stood quietly at the edge of the rooftop, both hands resting on the railing. In his palm, he held a scroll that had somehow come into his possession.

He leaned down, looking with some boredom toward the dark alley below.

There, Karatachi Yagura wore a cold smile.

Yet his jewel-like purple eyes were entirely unfocused.

He was holding a half-toppled trash can in his arms, harshly lecturing something in a grave tone. As he spoke, his kunai repeatedly pressed viciously against the trash can lid, leaving deep scratches behind.

The night remained quiet, with only the occasional chirping of cicadas drifting from afar.

Everything had happened soundlessly.

Without alerting anyone.

Sahara Mizu rested one hand against his cheek, watching the scene below that resembled a one-man performance—so earnest it was almost comical. His gaze became slightly distant.

Thanks to readers Please Call Me Xiaochuan, qwepoilkjasd, H Cute Guy, Prince of Gensokyo, and Wushan Yunmengzhe for the monthly votes!

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