Two Blossoms

Tap... tap... tap...

He hadn't been searching for long when green secretions, thick as phlegm, began appearing along both sides of the corridor.

It was like walking through the stomach of some colossal creature.

Even the steel had been eaten away!

Fortunately, the acid was nowhere near as corrosive as Xenomorph blood. After oxidizing, it could only destroy the ship's lighting, not eat through the chakra coating on his soles.

The farther Uchiha Xiu ventured inside, the dimmer the light became.

Taking advantage of the darkness, the adult Xenomorphs scattered throughout the ship began gathering.

In a dark corner,

a large heap of slimy, oval eggs writhed.

Suddenly, around twenty Facehuggers, resembling both octopuses and giant crabs, burst through their shells. They sprang toward Uchiha Xiu at astonishing speed.

They used heat to track potential hosts!

"Bang!"

At the same time, Uchiha Xiu unleashed the last ninja tool scroll he had brought with him.

Amid the smoke from the muffled explosion, senbon, kunai, and shuriken accelerated beyond the speed of sound, shooting toward that corner like a rainstorm.

Green blood bloomed.

Uchiha Xiu paid no attention to the Main God's kill notification. A fearsome Xenomorph with even heavier armor was charging straight at him, a fierce gust of wind in its wake.

That was how Xenomorphs hunted.

They had tactics, and they knew how to carry them out!

"Good thing I have the Sharingan."

"Pfft—"

The Praetorian Xenomorph got its wish and sank its teeth into Uchiha Xiu. But the instant it succeeded, the heat-emitting body exploded, sending wood chips flying.

It didn't understand.

Why had flesh and blood turned into plant fibers?

Elsewhere, Uchiha Xiu used the Substitution Technique and leaped over the Praetorian in midair. He reached out and touched its head.

Two Explosive Tags were stuck to its crown.

To make sure he broke through its defenses and killed it, he couldn't afford to spare his supplies.

The moment he reached a safe distance, the symbols on the paper twisted, and a flare of light illuminated the darkness.

"Boom—!" Flesh and blood burst apart.

[You killed an Xenomorph Queen's Praetorian. Reward: 800 points.]

He had no time to catch his breath. Three Drone Xenomorphs were already flying toward him from different directions.

Their inner jaws—their mouths within mouths—shot toward Uchiha Xiu at high speed, propelled like hydraulic pistons!

The remaining Xenomorph lashed its sharp tail blade at him like a steel whip.

Body Flicker!

At the last possible moment, Uchiha Xiu shifted positions without changing expression, blooming twice and putting more distance between them.

The three collided.

Acidic blood sprayed everywhere.

The Drone Xenomorphs, grievously wounded by their own kind after their tactics failed, didn't howl. They had no useless vocal structures for making such sounds.

"Art is an Explosion."

Two more kunai with Explosive Tags already attached flew out.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two kills, three in total. The wristwatch updated his tally.

The once-bulging pouch at his waist was empty now, with only steel wire left in his ninja tool bag.

Uchiha Xiu had paved his way with money. He raised his eyes slightly, his Sharingan's Tomoe fixed on the colossal creature ahead—

The Queen.

The ruling class of Xenomorph society, she could produce a certain number of Xenomorph Eggs to expand the species.

She hadn't expected danger to arrive so soon. Her egg sac was still attached, and breaking free would take time.

Without a sound, a Praetorian Xenomorph appeared from the darkness, shielding the Queen and ten freshly laid eggs behind it.

A mass of Facehuggers had gathered.

The two sides faced off in a strange standoff.

Perhaps the Xenomorph Queen was worried about the eggs, which hadn't yet reached the hatching stage. In the original story, she had shown that she was reluctant to risk them.

Uchiha Xiu swept his gaze around and noticed water seeping from the cooling tower in the ship's engine room. It had quietly formed a small wetland in the area where the Xenomorphs were gathered.

They'd built their nest in the wetland!

The right nature transformation to use was obvious.

As a Chunin candidate, he had mastered two Lightning Release techniques, three Earth Release techniques, and three Fire Release techniques. They were—

Lightning Release: Earth Flow, Lightning Style: Four Pillar Bind.

Earth Release: Headhunter Jutsu, Earth Style: Subterranean Voyage, and Earth Release: Earth-Style Rampart.

Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique, Phoenix Flower Jutsu, and Dragon Fire Technique.

In addition to the Three Basic Techniques, the basic Body Flicker Technique, Ninja Cat Summoning, Uchiha Shurikenjutsu, and the more difficult Shadow Clone technique.

"Lightning Style: Earth Flow." Uchiha Xiu's fingers moved so fast they left afterimages. He didn't hold back on his chakra.

As soon as he pressed both hands to the ground, silvery-white lightning surged from his palms, covering the entire area dozens of meters ahead. Countless arcs of electricity flickered like nimble little snakes, vicious and fierce.

Along the way, the eggs carbonized.

The Facehuggers thrashed wildly.

The stench of burning flesh filled the air!

The fodder died where they stood.

The Praetorian went rigid, and the Xenomorph Queen was likewise unable to move in the field of lightning.

A compound ninjutsu that used the environment to control its targets had worked!

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique."

The next moment, Uchiha's signature technique came into play. A blazing fireball rapidly expanded until it was a full six meters in diameter.

It nearly filled the entire cabin.

Meanwhile,

on the lower level of the cargo hold,

a panting Shadow Clone raced ahead, escorting Ripley, who was tied to his back with steel wire.

His waist was just as empty.

"Two Explosive Tag kunai, combined with the Great Fireball, were enough to take down a Praetorian head-on. If danger comes again, I'll have to rely on ninjutsu and taijutsu."

"I wonder how much pressure the others can take off me up there. Did the decapitation operation succeed...?"

Suppressing the thought, the Shadow Clone used the Body Flicker Technique to dodge a swarm of Facehuggers, forming the signs: Rat—Tiger—Dog—Ox—Rabbit—Tiger.

—Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!

Like phoenix flower seeds that shot away at the slightest touch, the many balls of flame he spat from his mouth scattered in every direction.

Ripley: "..."

She couldn't make out with the naked eye exactly what the company security guard protecting her had done.

All she knew was that along the way, she'd seen either explosions or all sorts of small cold weapons flying everywhere.

Most of the time, she hadn't even seen what the danger was before everything was over.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

As the partition blocking their way opened, gunfire thundered in their ears. The intense shots put the Shadow Clone on alert by instinct.

The office worker Kobayashi was firing like a madman at the ventilation ducts overhead.

Nearby, two women—one plump, one slender—stood back-to-back, shooting at several overhead passageways without the slightest semblance of order.

The high school girl Aoi Sora lay in a corner, a Facehugger clamped to her face. Her throat bulged, and her chest rose and fell unnaturally.

The parasite had taken hold!

A Xenomorph was about to be born.

She wasn't the only one. The Self-Defense Force soldier Miyata Kuraki and the Black man with thick lips were in the same condition.

"Did they all gather here?"

"Half of them died. Three survived: one man and two women."

"What are these people on guard against? There's clearly no danger around anymore."

The Shadow Clone's One-Tomoe Sharingan scanned the area. A sense of foreboding stirred in his heart.

In the ship's engine room,

[You killed an Xenomorph Queen's Praetorian. Reward: 800 points.]

His chest heaving, the lone wolf Uchiha Xiu heard a new notification.

The Great Fireball, which distorted the air like a miniature sun, melted the Praetorian and hurtled straight toward the Xenomorph Queen.

The stinging sensation from the Spinach Pill began to set in, bit by bit.

At that very moment, a Cat-type Messenger Xenomorph rushed through the crisscrossing passageways at incredible speed and launched a sneak attack from behind...