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"What's your name, brat? Cough, cough, cough!" Barely clinging to his last breath, the Konoha man knelt on the water and laboriously turned his head to ask.

"My name is Qi Shuang!" Qi Shuang replied expressionlessly.

Facing a dying man, he didn't mind granting him one last act of mercy.

"Good... good..."

Hearing his answer, the man slowly turned his head back. As if his final wish had been fulfilled, he exhaled his last breath. The chakra in his body was no longer under control, and his entire body sank into the river, seeming slow yet actually swift. In the blink of an eye, he vanished without a trace.

Aside from the crimson flower in the water growing fainter and fainter, nothing remained to prove that he had ever existed.

"Is this what killing someone feels like?" Only after the other man had completely disappeared did Qi Shuang tremblingly raise both hands.

Mottled bloodstains covered his arms. They were the traces left behind after a flower of life had withered.

This was the first person he had killed with his own hands.

Although he had known ever since becoming a ninja that this day would come and had made ample mental preparations, when he truly faced it, he still found it difficult to let go.

A living life had been stripped away by his own hands just like that.

But he had had no choice. This was a battlefield, not a contest of martial skill.

Only by killing his opponent could he survive.

If he had softened for a moment and let the other man go, he had no idea whether his mercy would have received the same in return.

He didn't want to gamble on an enemy's mercy, even if that person came from Konoha, a place toward which he harbored special feelings.

Only a dead enemy could make him feel at ease.

He used those words to convince himself, struggling to calm the unease brought about by killing someone.

On the other side, the remaining Konoha ninja was still barely holding out under Kamiya Ki's assault. This made Kamiya Ki, who was anxious to kill him and hurry over to support Qi Shuang, burn with impatience.

"Did you hear that explosion just now?"

The Konoha man cautiously guarded himself while taunting, "Perhaps your little subordinate has already been blown to pieces by my companion!"

"I advise you to run for your life!"

"If my companion comes back, the two of us will be fighting you together. You won't be able to leave even if you want to!"

He desperately tried to shake his opponent's mental defenses, hoping to slow the assault and drag things out as long as possible—or perhaps scare his opponent away altogether and resolve his own immediate crisis.

As long as he waited for his companion to kill that brat and return, everything would be settled.

Hearing this, Kamiya Ki, hidden in the thick mist, couldn't help but tense up.

Qi Shuang was merely a newly graduated Genin, while his opponent was a Konoha ninja at the Chunin level. Even holding the other man off was already extremely difficult.

He didn't believe Qi Shuang had any chance of victory.

Some time had already passed. Based on his estimate of a Genin's capabilities, lasting this long against a Chunin was already the absolute limit.

Moreover, no sound had come from that direction since the explosion. An ominous premonition arose in his heart.

Could that kid really be dead? he wondered secretly.

After his barrage of words, the Mist ninja's assault abruptly stopped, and the Konoha ninja was overjoyed.

"Looks like my words worked!" he said, the corners of his mouth lifting.

As long as they maintained this stalemate until his companion returned, their victory would be assured.

He didn't believe that brat, who was barely at the Genin level, could kill his Chunin companion.

Just then, the sound of rustling footsteps came from within the thick mist.

Overjoyed, he shouted, "Did you kill that brat?"

"Yeah, I killed him!"

A slightly hoarse voice came from within the mist.

"What happened to your voice?" he asked in surprise.

From the other side of the mist, the hoarse voice slowly replied, "That brat just tried to use an Explosive Tag to die together with me. Luckily, I was alert and kept my guard up, so I narrowly escaped!"

"Still, because we were too close, I couldn't avoid it completely. My throat got singed by the smoke!"

"Oh! So that's what happened!" Understanding dawned in his heart.

He had indeed heard an explosion just now. So that brat had tried to die together with his companion.

Clang!

A familiar metallic clash rang out. Someone else had engaged in combat.

At that moment, his companion's urgent voice came from the other side of the mist again.

"Come help me quickly! I'm badly injured, and that big guy attacked me!"

Immediately afterward, a series of metallic clashes rang out from within the mist.

It turned out that the remaining Mist ninja had seized the opportunity created by his companion's injury and launched a fierce assault, attempting to kill one of them before they could meet up.

No wonder that guy made no move after hearing the two of us exchange messages, he thought silently.

Without suspecting anything, he immediately headed in that direction and shouted, "Wait for me, I'm coming!"

As he drew closer to the source of the battle sounds, he saw a figure covered in blood, struggling desperately to defend against some unknown attack within the thick mist.

Clang!

He quickly reached his companion's side, immediately blocking another attack from the Mist ninja for him. He then shouted, "Are your injuries all right?"

"I'm not dead yet! But the two of us probably can't take down the remaining guy. We can barely defend ourselves!" his companion replied somewhat dejectedly.

"It doesn't matter. As long as we wait for the two of them to..."

"Watch out!"

Before he could finish, his companion shoved him aside, sending him stumbling and nearly pitching headfirst to the ground.

"Are you trying to get me killed?" After steadying himself, he immediately turned around and cursed angrily.

With an enemy ready to launch a surprise attack at any moment, any lapse could cost him his life.

If the man in the mist had seized the opportunity just now and attacked, he might well have died.

So he was somewhat relieved that the man in the mist had failed to take advantage of that opening.

Otherwise, he would nearly have been killed by his own companion.

Strangely, the instant he turned around, he saw his companion rapidly retreating. In the blink of an eye, the man was swallowed by the thick mist and vanished from sight.

"You..."

He had just begun to speak when a warning suddenly arose in his heart. An extremely dangerous presence came from behind him.

Boom!

He was just preparing to turn around and look when an explosion suddenly erupted behind him. A tremendous force surged into his chest, numbing his limbs and flinging him away.

Caught completely off guard, he was knocked flat on the ground by the explosion at such close range.

Immediately afterward, the surrounding mist rapidly dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye. After only a few breaths, it vanished completely.

Lying facedown on the ground, he struggled to raise his head and stared at the "companion" not far away, questioning him resentfully. "You... you... wh... why...?"

That sudden explosion had occurred directly behind him.

The Mist ninja hidden in the fog had never touched his back. Only his companion had just touched it. Without a doubt, his companion had tampered with him.