Battle to the Death

The cloudless sky stretched endlessly overhead, and the little blades of grass stood stiffly upright.

All was silent, as though even breathing had lost its sound.

The drip, drip of blood was especially jarring in the stillness!

Suddenly, three gleaming kunai flew in from an oblique angle. After kicking Asuma aside, Bing San swiftly formed hand seals and shouted, "Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!"

With three sharp clangs, the kunai struck a dirt wall over a meter tall and twenty centimeters thick. Bing San's eyes narrowed, and he immediately tackled Asuma to the ground!

Two explosive booms rang out, and the one-and-a-half-meter-high dirt wall was blown to pieces.

Asuma clutched his bleeding side and gritted his teeth against the pain.

In a mere instant, he'd narrowly escaped death twice. Asuma, who'd only ever been in street fights at most, trembled all over, his eyes vacant with terror.

Bing San was badly frightened too. But fortunately, when Yong Ren had trained him, he'd never held back.

So although Bing San was afraid, he still had the courage to fight back. Asuma, on the other hand, was scared out of his wits.

Jiraiya kicked the kunai out of one ninja's hand, twisted aside to dodge another ninja's long blade, then leaped back to stand opposite Bing San, with Asuma between them.

Jiraiya smacked his lips, inwardly groaning: One of these kids was the teacher's youngest son—and the teacher was also his big brother. The other was the child of the touchy second-in-command. If he ran away, he'd never be able to show his face in Konoha again.

As if ninjas never took their anger out on others.

The enemy clearly understood that, too. Any child who hung around with Jiraiya had to be someone important. So as long as either kid was still alive, Jiraiya wouldn't get away.

That was why only two chunin were attacking Bing San and Asuma. Everyone else had their attention on Jiraiya.

Jiraiya tilted his head slightly, breathing a little hard as he asked, "Do you know any other jutsu? Preferably something with a wide range."

Bing San nodded without speaking, and Asuma shakily got to his feet as well.

But his trembling hands and wandering gaze made his fear plain.

The enemy launched another attack. The man with the sword gave a quiet snort and charged toward Jiraiya.

Jiraiya swiftly formed Hand Seals. With a poof of white smoke, a sharp clang rang out. The swordsman's Ninja Blade had struck a shield.

"Gamakichi, please protect them." After saying that, Jiraiya pulled out a Kunai and resumed his fight with the man wielding the long blade.

"Don't worry, Jiraiya. I may be clumsy, but I'll protect them!"

The enormous purple toad stood before Bing San and Asuma, holding a shield in one hand and a fork in the other.

Cold sweat streamed down Bing San's forehead. With his eyelids half lowered, he began forming hand seals with intense concentration.

The Second Hokage's jutsu had already been simplified quite a bit, but it still required more than twenty seals. At Bing San's pace of four seals per second, it would take five or six seconds.

If Tobirama Senju were doing it, he'd probably just have to clap his hands.

Bing San's hands moved more and more slowly, while the aura around him grew increasingly powerful and dangerous.

The man across from him was getting anxious. Jiraiya had already taken two cuts, but he'd forced the three men trying to charge in by trading injuries to halt their advance.

The man standing in the tree and leading them merely frowned as he watched Bing San.

Suddenly, the world seemed to still, and the slight warmth in the air vanished without a trace.

After taking a few heavy breaths, Bing San shouted, drenched in sweat, "Water Release: Water Clear Wave!"

In an instant, everyone's attention focused on the young boy.

The man leading the charge parted his lips, his pupils contracting as he stared at the horrifying sight.

A stream of water spun rapidly around Bing San, then a twenty-meter-wide curtain of water unfurled in an instant.

Another man shouted, "Impossible! Something on this scale—"

The roaring flood smashed through a row of houses and swept Jiraiya's opponent away.

One low house after another collapsed. Amidst the cries of anguish, hundreds of terrified civilians hiding in their homes were swept away.

The low-lying slum was instantly transformed into a deep lake, its waters reaching shoulder height.

Bing San dropped to one knee and began panting heavily. The sensation of draining all his chakra at once was excruciating!

Fortunately, the moment Bing San called out the jutsu's name, Jiraiya had used a Body Replacement Technique to switch places with the Toad Wallet he'd just tossed beneath Bing San's feet.

Otherwise, even if Jiraiya had survived that blast, he'd have been badly hurt.

The battlefield fell silent. If the swordsman hadn't used a Body Replacement Technique to escape at the last second, that attack might have wiped out the enemy completely.

The situation had changed instantly because of little Bing San. What had been six against three had become two against three!

The man behind them, who'd narrowly escaped disaster, swallowed and hesitated for a long time before looking toward the leader standing in the tree behind him.

The swordsman was also staring at the child, who was on one knee and panting heavily, with a prickling scalp.

The man jumped down from the tree and beckoned to the swordsman.

The swordsman untied the leather bag on his back, pulled out his long blade, and tossed it to the leader along with the bag.

The leader sighed softly. "It's hard to believe a five- or six-year-old child could use a jutsu on such a scale!

"Given time, he might become another Tobirama Senju.

"What a shame!"

After speaking, the man fitted the hilts of the long and short blades together and gave them a twist. Then he pulled them apart slightly, transforming them into a long spear with a blade at either end.

"It's you—Peerless of the West, Tachibana Muneshige!" Jiraiya's expression turned grave, and his voice trembled slightly.

The man across from them removed his headscarf, revealing graying hair, a square face, thick eyebrows, and large eyes. He looked every bit like a man of upright character.

The man lightly flicked the special spear in his hand. Its sharp edge emitted a humming sound.

The two remaining men slowly retreated behind Tachibana Muneshige.

The man's lazy air vanished, replaced by an intensely sharp presence, as cold and piercing as a blade at one's throat.

With trembling pupils, Bing San knelt on the ground, as if watching the Grim Reaper slowly awaken with a scythe in hand.

Looking at Jiraiya, drenched in cold sweat, and the two children, so terrified they'd forgotten how to breathe, Tachibana Muneshige declared, "What a shame. Today, you will die by my hand.

"My name is Tachibana Muneshige. Today, I shall grant you the honor of dying in battle!"

With that, the old man raised his spear in one hand. Pale blue Chakra flowed through its strange tip, pointed at Jiraiya and the two children!

Jiraiya swallowed with difficulty. The panic in his eyes slowly gave way to determination.

Jiraiya patted Bing San, whose face was flushed from holding his breath, and shouted, "I am the gallant Jiraiya! If you want to kill him, you'll have to step over my dead body first!"

Trembling all over, Jiraiya struggled forward and stood in front of Bing San.

Jiraiya's pat snapped Bing San out of the killing intent. After taking a few deep breaths, he looked up at Jiraiya's slightly trembling back.

Bing San gritted his teeth and stood up. He pulled a wooden training kunai from his ninja pouch and drove it hard into the back of his hand, trying to fight off the enemy's killing intent with pain.

Bing San said, each word deliberate: "I'm not some extraordinary child.

"But if anyone wants me dead, then I can only ask him to die first!"

At that moment, a faint voice, thick with anger, drifted slowly from afar.

"You old bastard, you're asking for death."