Condensed Light

The dead bandit's companion saw Kaede appear right before his eyes.

"Th—"

He tried to raise the alarm.

Kaede shifted his footing and stepped forward, turning to appear behind him. Lightning chakra coursed through the short sword in his hand, its blade shimmering with light as he drove it into the man's throat, severing his windpipe. A faint, rasping "khh, khh" escaped from his throat.

He had no chance.

He raised both hands to protect his windpipe, but they drooped halfway up, already powerless. A deep weariness overcame him, and his eyes closed forever. His life ended then and there.

Kaede stood with his sword lowered. The bandit's body, no longer supported, pitched forward onto the ground.

A single fatal strike, yet little blood stained the body. Kaede disliked blood gushing everywhere and coating his hands. It made his sword lose its edge.

Raindrops began to fall from the sky. The light grew dimmer, and the mountain wind blew harder, rustling the trees on both sides of the cliffs.

Kaede stepped forward. Those two had only been low-ranking guards assigned to watch the prisoners. He headed for the bandits' hideout, their real base, where at least thirty more men were gathered.

Among them were warriors who could use chakra, practitioners of a rather ancient discipline. They honed their swordsmanship and willpower to strengthen themselves.

And right now, what interested him most was testing himself against these so-called warriors: whose blade was faster, and whose sword was deadlier?

With an inexhaustible supply of chakra, he used flowing lightning chakra to accelerate his body with every step. A step that looked effortless became the Body Flicker Technique; to an onlooker, it seemed as if he had briefly teleported.

His figure flashed back and forth, swift as the wind.

"Boom..."

A loud explosion came from the other side of the cliff. It was probably an Explosive Tag.

"Was that Tong, in that direction? Looks like she's in trouble."

He stopped using the Body Flicker Technique, leapt onto the tallest tree, and looked over. With the rain and mist obscuring his view, he activated his Sharingan. He could just make out Tong in the distance, fighting desperately against a warrior wielding a katana.

Warriors who could use chakra had the strength of Genin, but they weren't recorded as ninja. That meant they risked fighting ninja while earning only the ordinary pay for a mission. It was one of the missions the Genin class hated most.

But he had deliberately chosen this mission because he wanted to cross swords with a warrior and test his blade.

He had seen White Fang's sword. It was fast—very fast. White Fang had Lightning Release Chakra too, and he had possessed a technique that similarly used Lightning Release to increase his movement and reaction speed.

Kaede remembered the last time he had accompanied his father to see White Fang. When White Fang sparred with his father, he used every technique he had.

White Fang knew that Kaede and Mingye had spoken up on his behalf, but the two of them had little renown and couldn't make much of a difference. That time, White Fang used all his Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and swordsmanship, leaving his final mark on the Shinobi World with the Uchiha.

Throughout the entire encounter, Mingye had copied White Fang's every move with his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, recording everything he knew on a blank scroll. His only request was that, when the time was right, a copy of the scroll be given to Kakashi.

With every swing of his sword, the chakra within White Fang's blade seemed to shine like a streak of white light, beheading his enemies before they could react.

His father, Mingye, nearly died several times. If White Fang hadn't held back at the crucial moments, he would have been dead long ago.

Unlike the teleportation of the Flying Thunder God, White Fang used Lightning Release to accelerate himself and achieve the effect of teleportation over short distances. That was the secret to his strength.

Unfortunately, although Kakashi inherited White Fang's blade, he didn't inherit his father's White Fang Sword Art. Kaede had heard not long ago that the sword, White Fang, had broken.

The White Fang of Konoha had ultimately vanished from the Shinobi World for good. Only the Uchiha still kept his last remaining mark.

Kaede's swordsmanship resembled White Fang's, but their focus differed. White Fang's swordsmanship excelled at one thing: speed. Kaede's swordsmanship was built around one word: sharpness.

He compressed his lightning chakra to bring the sharpness of his Chakra Metal short sword to its utmost. If White Fang's blade was a white fang, then his sword was leaping lightning. With every slash, lightning flashed; beneath his lightning blade, nothing was beyond cutting.

"Looks like she can hold on for now. I'll deal with this rabble first, then go help her."

The sudden noise had already put all the bandits on alert. They spilled out of the dilapidated wooden huts with weapons in hand, staring up at Kaede on the treetop with murderous expressions.

They were all hardened criminals. According to the intelligence, they seemed to be habitual bandits driven out of the Rain Country, who had wandered to the Land of Fire Border.

They deserved to die.

"Boss, judging by his Forehead Protector, he's a Konoha ninja."

"Heh, he's just a kid. What are you afraid of? It's not like we've never killed a ninja before," the Second Leader said. His right hand rested on his sword hilt, and his cold eyes held no fear. He stuck out his tongue and licked his cracked lips.

"Get him! Kill the Konoha brat!"

At his command, more than twenty bandits of every height and build surged toward the tree where Kaede stood.

High above them, Kaede's long hair whipped behind him in the mountain wind. He gave his short sword a flick and held it across his chest before leaping from the treetop. His right foot tapped against the trunk in midair, and he vanished, leaving the bandits below without a target.

"Idiots! He's behind you!" The Second Leader, still standing where he was, hurriedly warned them. He hadn't seen how the ninja who'd dropped from the tree had ended up behind them. For that instant, he'd lost sight of his target.

With his back to the bandits, Kaede held his short sword upright before his eyes. Chakra raced through his body, and he channeled some of it into the blade. In the instant his focus sharpened to its peak, he turned and swung his sword in one fluid motion.

"Lightning Sword: Condensed Light!"

Lightning surged through the short sword, forming a blue flash that slashed outward from the blade. It looked like a semicircular blade of energy, shooting forward so quickly it could hardly be called flight. The instant Kaede swung, it had already struck its targets, its razor-sharp lightning passing straight through them.

There was no sound of flesh being cut, no flying chunks of flesh, no bloody, mangled scene. Only bodies falling apart and weapons clattering to the ground.

He seemed to turn in a circle. After completing the slash, he returned to his original stance, though now his short sword was held out in front of him.

He didn't look back to see what had happened. He already knew. That was the beauty of combining Ninjutsu and Taijutsu: powerful attacks and flexible responses made it superior to most techniques that relied on only one or the other.

"You're next."

He looked calmly at the Second Leader, who was trembling slightly in the distance, and spoke with some disappointment. He'd thought this would make a decent whetstone.

"Don't look down on me, brat!" the Second Leader roared, drawing the sword at his waist.

"Shing!"

A flash of white light gleamed along the katana as it thrust toward Kaede. The Second Leader sank low, gripping the hilt with both hands. The thrust was somewhat slow, but it carried tremendous force.

Warriors lacked the dazzling Ninjutsu of ninja, but there was a reason their tradition had endured since ancient times. They had their own unique strengths.

"Heh. Your attacks are nothing but openings to me."

Kaede shifted his footing and turned to dodge the blade. As the katana swept past his field of vision, he casually slashed diagonally, leaving a long cut across the Second Leader's back.

His first strike had missed, and he'd been wounded. Relying on his practiced battle instincts, the Second Leader didn't turn to look at his enemy. Instead, he spun around and raised his katana above his head, bringing it down in a swift, powerful chop that sent the wind whistling.

"Not a bad strike."

Kaede blocked the descending blade with his short sword and felt its force. For an ordinary person, that was probably the limit.