Escape

"I'll report back to Lord Hokage later. For now, let's focus on getting out of here." Yamaki Atsushi was a man of action and did not dwell on it. They could think through any problems while fleeing; this was no time to waste.

"Chirp, chirp—" The three of them took off running again, looking thoroughly bedraggled amid the thunder and the cries of hawks.

Xing Ran kept his eyes on the pursuers behind them. He wanted to see exactly how those people had discovered his group. His gaze pierced through a hundred meters of forest, allowing him to make out several ninja dressed like Iwa Ninja arriving at the spot where they had first rested.

Their forehead protectors had all been slashed, marking them as rogue ninja. Xing Ran did not care whether they were Iwa Ninja or rogue ninja. What concerned him more was what they did next. As long as he could determine how they were tracking them, he could devise a countermeasure and escape.

Suddenly, Xing Ran noticed that among the six people, one slightly smaller man had been staring at the sky and forming hand seals. He had probably activated some kind of ninjutsu. Though the others were not looking at this strange man, their positions made it clear that they were subtly protecting him.

The sky! Could it be...?

"Hey, kid from the Yamanaka Family, I heard your clan has a secret technique called the Mind Body Switch Technique that can control distant enemies. Do you think it works on birds?" Just as Xing Ran was about to warn his teammates that their whereabouts had likely been exposed by birds in the sky, Yamaki Atsushi spoke first.

"You noticed too?" Xing Ran was a little surprised. Those thick lips had some skill after all. He had spotted the problem even earlier than Xing Ran, who had cheats.

"In weather this awful, with thunderstorms like this, that hawk has flown over our heads three times already. Don't underestimate Konoha's elite... Ninja." As Yamaki Atsushi spoke, he looked at Xing Ran. He had not expected this kid, who supposedly had no combat experience according to the intelligence report, to be so sharp either. They had thought of the same thing.

Surprised or not, they still had to solve the problem. Yamaki Atsushi had no good way to deal with the hawk in the sky, and Junpei was even less reliable, still somewhat drained. So after Yamaki Atsushi, Junpei also turned to Xing Ran, hoping he could use a secret technique to control the hawk and remove the trouble.

"The Mind Body Switch Technique has too many restrictions. That hawk is constantly flying around, and I can't reach that far anyway. But I do have a way to bring it down." The first half of Xing Ran's words disappointed the other two greatly, but the last half made their eyes light up.

There were countless varieties of ninjutsu, numbering in the hundreds or thousands. Aside from a few geniuses, most people specialized in a single direction. After becoming Chunin, most became experts in their own fields. Junpei, for example, specialized in Water Release, while Yamaki Atsushi specialized in Earth Release. Everyone had their own expertise, and complementing one another was the original purpose behind squad combat.

Xing Ran's claim that he possessed an anti-air capability none of the others had filled his companions, who had been backed into a corner, with delight.

There was no time to waste. The enemy would catch up again soon. Xing Ran pulled shuriken from his ninja tool pouch and swiftly calculated the hawk's trajectory as he stared at it in the sky.

His underdeveloped Super vision, combined with Super Brainpower far weaker than what it was in the manga, still allowed Xing Ran to easily track the target's movement.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

A blur of afterimages flashed from his hands.

Several shuriken flew from Xing Ran's hand, repeatedly colliding in midair with a series of clanks. Then, three shuriken shot hundreds of meters forward, forming an encirclement as they streaked toward the hawk overhead.

The shuriken, which should never have been able to hit the hawk, suddenly changed direction. The Ninja Bird had no time to react. It barely dodged one shuriken, only to be pierced through by the remaining two almost simultaneously. Before it even hit the ground, it had already gone still.

Ordinary ninja could not throw shuriken very far. Even after using Chakra to strengthen their arms, their range was only around a hundred meters. But that was completely meaningless, because by the time the shuriken flew that distance, the enemy could easily evade or block them. To hit a target before it could react, the attack range usually had to be kept within thirty meters.

Of course, that only applied to ordinary ninja. The Fourth Hokage and the Second Hokage, with their methods of combining the Flying Thunder God with kunai throwing, were exceptions.

With Chakra and arm strength combined, Xing Ran could throw shuriken several hundred meters without any problem. But simply being able to throw them was not enough to hit such agile targets. Certain necessary techniques were still required, or it could not be called an anti-air method.

Of course, there was a simpler method: fly up and kill the target at close range. But Xing Ran would never do that. Setting aside the fact that such a small problem was not worth exposing his ability to fly, his current flight ability only allowed him to float slowly and could not achieve the intended result anyway.

"An impressive Shuriken Throwing Art. You must have spent a great deal of time training it." Watching the Ninja Bird hawk fall from the sky, Junpei flashed a broad smile and praised him.

"It was all right. I didn't practice for very long." Xing Ran was telling the truth. He had spent less than a morning on it.

But the other two merely took Xing Ran's words as modesty. Konoha's most famous Shuriken Throwing Art was the Uchiha clan's Uchiha-style Shuriken Throwing Art, but that technique also relied heavily on the Sharingan's perception. For ordinary people, being able to hit a target from far away with a straight throw already made them experts at shuriken throwing. Konoha had so many capable people, but when they truly encountered an enemy, how many actually used shuriken as their primary means of attack?

The three of them fled very smoothly afterward. With Xing Ran's enhanced sight and hearing helping them, they pushed their speed to the limit and quickly bypassed the group of six rogue ninja. Without alerting the Land of Fire border sentries, they merely left a coded signal to inform nearby comrades that they had encountered an unknown hostile force at the earlier location, then swiftly entered the Land of Grass.

The three entered the closest market town between the Land of Grass and the Land of Fire just as lights began to illuminate countless homes.

The market was called Aicao Market. It had originally been a place where traveling merchants gathered to rest and resupply. As more and more merchants began stopping there, it gradually became a semi-official marketplace.

Aicao Market was now an official city of the Land of Grass, though it remained the size of a market town. It was not large, but it was lively. Other than hot springs, one could find nearly everything needed for travel there.

"Cheers!"

Inside an oden stall in Aicao Market, three men dressed as Konoha Ninja celebrated. They were celebrating their escape from the encirclement and pursuit of a jonin squad. They were Xing Ran's group.

To be continued. Thanks to Feng Erdan, Qieguoqiehao, Sisi 420, Tommy's Pikachu, and I'm Just Here for Soy Sauce for their recommendation votes.