"Now, the victor has been decided. Please close your eyes in peace!" Qi Shuang curled his lips into a smile and brought the ice needle toward his opponent's neck.
"No... I can't... I can't die here... How could I... die at the hands of a little brat like you..." Seeing the ice needle draw closer, the Inuzuka Clan member widened his eyes and roared unwillingly.
Immediately afterward, he struggled to pull out a Kunai, wanting to make one last desperate resistance.
"Hmph! Struggling on the verge of death!"
Qi Shuang's gaze turned sharp. Just as his opponent raised the Kunai, he struck first and plunged the ice needle into the man's neck.
The ice needle, nearly ten centimeters long, was driven in with such force that not an inch of it remained outside. It was completely embedded in the man's neck.
The man's eyes suddenly widened. The Kunai he had just raised fell back into the water. After twitching twice, he covered his neck with one hand and pointed at the child before him with the other, trembling.
He wanted to say something, but no sound came out no matter how hard he tried. Only red blood spilled from his nose and mouth. His eyes slowly dimmed amid unwillingness and fury, and his consciousness gradually blurred.
"Woof, woof, woof..."
In a daze, he seemed to hear several familiar barks.
"Is this what death feels like?"
"Perhaps this is for the best... At least, it won't be alone..."
Immediately afterward, Qi Shuang, standing on the surface of the river, saw his opponent's previously unwilling and furious face reveal what seemed to be a relieved smile before he slowly sank into the river.
While he and the Inuzuka Clan member were struggling through their fierce battle, Kamiya Ki had run into major trouble on the other side.
Because of the Sharingan's Genjutsu, he didn't dare attack from the front, afraid that one moment of carelessness would lead to irreversible consequences.
After all, although the "Mist Technique" could obscure one's vision, it couldn't block it completely.
Even in this dense fog, there was still a visible range of roughly two meters.
Considering that the Sharingan's Genjutsu required a clear view of the opponent's eyes to activate, a distance of about one meter should have been enough for his opponent to cast it.
Therefore, to prevent any accidents, he attacked from behind every time.
Even so, he felt that every attack of his was like dancing on the edge of a blade, fraught with danger.
Since his first attack, he had already ambushed Uchiha Tai six times.
But the Sharingan was simply too powerful.
His speed was already inferior to his opponent's. Even with the dense fog concealing him, his ambushes still failed to gain an advantage under the Sharingan's enhanced motion perception.
In particular, from his first attack until now, he could feel that his opponent was blocking his attacks with increasing ease.
That was the result of his opponent gradually figuring out his attack rhythm.
He knew that he was in danger.
Once his opponent completely figured out his attack rhythm, what awaited him would be a counterattack—quite possibly a fatal one.
But he had no choice.
Even knowing that every attack brought him closer to death, he still had to attack.
His opponent was a level above him in strength. Escaping was nothing more than a fantasy.
He wasn't confident that he could flee into the Mist camp's range of surveillance alive.
His only hope was that Qi Shuang could once again "luckily" kill that Konoha Chunin and come help him.
Although he knew that expectation was ridiculous, he still couldn't stop himself from thinking that way.
Just then, a mocking voice came from within the dense fog.
"What's wrong? Are you scared?"
"You've only made six moves. Maybe the next one will be enough to kill me?"
Immediately afterward, unrestrained laughter rang out from within the dense fog.
"Hahahaha..."
"Arrogant!" Kamiya Ki, hidden somewhere nearby, couldn't help frowning.
However, all he could do was vent with his mouth. His opponent's strength gave him every right to be arrogant in front of him.
Then he gripped his Kunai and quietly circled behind Uchiha Tai, preparing to attack once again.
Yet for some reason, the closer he got to his opponent's back this time, the stronger the ominous feeling in his heart became.
"Am I really scared?" He glanced at the hand gripping his Kunai, which was trembling slightly, and muttered inwardly.
"Fine. I'll try one last time. If it still doesn't work, I'll give up completely!" Looking at the figure in the distance, he gritted his teeth.
Six consecutive ambushes had failed to even tear his opponent's clothes. He was truly unwilling to give up just like that.
He wanted to try one more time.
Holding his breath, he raised his Kunai and used a Body Flicker to appear behind Uchiha Tai.
Just as his Kunai was about to strike his opponent's neck, a silvery gleam entered his eyes.
It was his opponent's unsheathed short blade.
"Not good!" He realized that something was wrong.
His opponent had indeed already figured out his attack rhythm and was preparing to counterattack.
He immediately retreated, wanting to abort this attack, but it was already too late.
A playful voice came from beside his ear.
"You really thought I'd be helpless just because you attacked from behind?"
"Sharingan—Genjutsu."
At the same time, Kamiya Ki saw a pair of red eyes reflected in the short blade's gleaming surface.
Then those red eyes rapidly expanded in his mind. The world spun around him, and he seemed to arrive in a strange world.
Two blood-red moons hung high in the sky, radiating an eerie red glow that dyed everything around him crimson.
As for him, he was like a stone statue bathing in the red light, unable to move no matter what he did.
"I guarded against everything, but I still fell for it in the end?" Gazing at the two blood-red moons, he revealed a bitter smile.
Although attacking from behind had allowed him to avoid meeting the Sharingan's gaze head-on, his opponent wasn't a fool.
After figuring out his attack rhythm, his opponent had used the short blade to reflect the light and connect their lines of sight, then cast Genjutsu on him.
Uchiha Tai slowly turned around and looked mockingly at his opponent, who stood before him with his Kunai raised, completely motionless. He sneered, "Looks like I overestimated you!"
"You're even worse than the Mist ninja who used the 'Mist Technique' before you. You've only made seven moves, and you've already run out of chances!"
With that, he plunged the short blade into his opponent's chest, then kicked him away.
On the other side, Qi Shuang had just finished off his opponent when he saw the surrounding dense fog dispersing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In the time it took to take two breaths, the dense fog around them had almost completely vanished.
"Did something happen to Teacher Ki?" He knitted his brows tightly.
There were only two possibilities for this situation.
One was that Kamiya Ki had killed his opponent and dispelled the "Mist Technique." The other was that Kamiya Ki had been killed by that Uchiha Tai, causing the dense fog to disappear.
Between the two, he was more inclined to believe that Kamiya Ki had been killed.
After all, his opponent was an Uchiha Clan jōnin, while Kamiya Ki was merely an ordinary Mist Village Chunin.
Just then, a figure flew out of the thinning fog, and he immediately recognized it as Kamiya Ki!
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