Blood flowed, no longer held back by pressure.
Only then did the Mist Ninja captain's headless body react, slowly toppling over.
One of the Iai Style techniques: Iai: Draw-Sword Technique.
It concealed strength within the scabbard, then struck from an unexpected angle at lightning speed.
Iai: Basic Draw-Sword Technique. Its special effect was to double damage and speed.
The system's basic swordsmanship allowed chakra to be channeled through the body and blade to a limited degree.
It increased the speed and power of a sword draw.
Uchiha Shiraha could normally draw his sword once per second, but with the technique, he could do so once every 0.5 seconds, with double the damage.
A killing blow!
An attack that sacrificed his life and exposed a weakness could reach the limit of 0.05 seconds!
That was how fast he could draw his sword now.
With a ninja's fragile body, it was only natural for one strike to be fatal.
Combined with the Taijutsu Shiraha had practiced all along, his body moved with incredible speed. Every bit of training had been for this one technique.
After laying an ambush and placing Shisui under genjutsu's control,
he appeared before his target and struck a fatal blow.
A ninja's strength was hard to measure. Chakra reserves were generally used as a unit of comparison.
But chakra wasn't the only means of killing.
By chakra reserves, Shiraha was a Chunin. That was the data he'd received during the Chunin Ninja Exams. Yet his strength had only been rated as low-tier Chunin. If he hadn't had a pair of Two-Tomoe Sharingan, he would've failed the Chunin promotion test.
Five years had passed since he'd transmigrated.
Shiraha had devoted himself to swordsmanship. His ninjutsu skills were limited to the Three Body Technique, and he knew nothing about genjutsu.
His previous self had awakened the Sharingan at the age of eight, giving him some aptitude for genjutsu.
All his strength lay in swordsmanship.
"For five years, I've trained just to swing this sword."
Shiraha felt surprisingly fine after killing someone for the first time. The distress he'd expected from the books he'd read never came.
"Ding! You have killed an elite Jonin. You have gained 10,000 Draw-Sword Technique experience. Current progress: 20,000/100,000. Note: Those who practice the way of the sword may gain insights during battle."
"Ding! First Blood achievement completed. The Lottery System has been unlocked."
Shiraha didn't notice either of the two system notifications.
By then, the Mist Ninja around them had reacted, and the battle erupted. Chaos spread in every direction.
Uchiha Shisui was holding off three Mist Ninja by himself, while Uchiha Itachi faced another. The last one, Biwa Juzo, charged at Shiraha with Kubikiribōchō in hand.
The Mist Ninja couldn't last a single exchange against Uchiha Shisui.
Itachi held one enemy at bay, steadily gaining the upper hand.
Shiraha took a deep breath and gripped his sword hilt. His eyes turned red as a pair of Two-Tomoe Sharingan appeared.
In an instant, the world around him seemed to freeze. Biwa Juzo's movements slowed.
Everything seemed to be moving several times more slowly.
That was one of the Sharingan's broken abilities: extraordinary dynamic vision.
This eye had undoubtedly helped him become a Chunin.
Shiraha had used the Sharingan many times before. He skillfully used its slowed-down view to analyze his enemy's weaknesses.
"Five openings in all. Only three places I can attack..."
Biwa Juzo was strong.
Shiraha gritted his teeth, choosing one of the openings and gathering strength in his sword.
The weakness was his neck.
"Break!"
He drew his sword.
Biwa Juzo didn't have the Sharingan, but he relied on experience to raise Kubikiribōchō in front of his chest and block the strike.
Crack! Clang!
Thud!
Several sounds rang out at once.
This time, Shiraha didn't sheath his sword. The blade in his hand shattered into several sections in that single instant, breaking into dozens of pieces.
The boost from the Draw-Sword Technique split the Seven Ninja Swordsmen's Kubikiribōchō in two.
Fragments of the broken blade flew toward them both.
Shiraha dodged them with his Sharingan, but Biwa Juzo wasn't so lucky.
Dozens of blade fragments sliced the skin around his shoulder and neck, staining him red with blood.
Biwa Juzo gripped the two broken pieces of Kubikiribōchō in one hand and pressed his other hand firmly against his neck.
A major artery in his neck had been cut, and blood gushed out.
"What's your name?"
Biwa Juzo asked, his voice distorted by damage to his vocal cords.
Since becoming one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, he'd never suffered such a serious injury.
From the moment Shiraha appeared, he'd killed the Mist Ninja captain with one strike, then broken his sword in a clash.
This young Konoha Ninja had stunned him.
So that was how a sword could be used.
An ordinary person would've died from an injury like this, but the ninja managed to stop the bleeding with his bare hands right away.
"Uchiha Shiraha."
"I'll remember you, Uchiha Shiraha."
Biwa Juzo said coldly, his gaze fierce.
Shiraha gripped the broken sword hilt, wary of Biwa Juzo's next attack. But his opponent suddenly used the Body Flicker Technique and fled with the broken pieces of Kubikiribōchō.
Biwa Juzo knew perfectly well that they were at a disadvantage.
His companions were no match for the Konoha Ninja. Uchiha Shisui had killed two of the three he'd been fighting and captured the last one alive.
The Mist Ninja being held off by Uchiha Itachi was only putting up a dying struggle.
His own neck artery had been injured, and he couldn't keep fighting.
As a ninja—and especially as a Kirigakure Ninja who'd survived in the Blood Mist Village—he knew when to cut his losses.
Shisui was so strong that he put enormous pressure on him.
The kid in front of him wasn't strong, but his strange swordsmanship was a real nuisance.
Mist Ninja didn't make pointless sacrifices.
So Biwa Juzo ran.
He moved fast.
"How are you feeling? Can you keep going?"
Shisui walked over to Shiraha and asked.
The strength Shiraha had just shown had impressed him.
A clan member who'd always been quiet had such fierce swordsmanship.
When Uchiha Shiraha was young, he'd become somewhat known in the clan after awakening the Sharingan.
But his ninjutsu test results were always so poor that his name gradually faded into obscurity.
The Uchiha clan had never lacked for geniuses.
"I'm all right."
Shiraha answered. He'd just used up a lot of energy.
The shattered sword was the biggest loss of the battle.
It was a weapon he'd gone to great lengths to obtain.
It had been forged from a mixture of fine iron and metal that could conduct chakra, and he'd paid for it with all the compensation money he'd received after his parents died.
"Good."
Shisui clapped his hands together, relieved.
His two subordinates had only just joined the team. He'd expected an ordinary skirmish between ninja.
Who could've guessed they'd run into an elite Kirigakure unit?
Shisui then checked on Uchiha Itachi. After Itachi assured him he was fine, Shisui began assigning tasks.
"Search the battlefield. Gather all evidence related to the Mist Ninja and hand it over to me. Erase any traces of Konoha. Move!"
After some time, they finished cleaning up the battlefield, and the three of them set out for the village.
As they made their way back to Konoha, Shisui and Itachi gradually grew closer.
Shiraha, however, didn't join in.
Whenever they stopped to rest, he practiced the Draw-Sword Technique.
After his sword had broken, he'd taken one from a Mist Ninja they'd defeated. It would have to do for now.
Habits formed day after day weren't easy to change.
Whenever he had a spare moment, Shiraha would instinctively practice drawing his sword.
Each time he completed the full motion, his understanding of Iai: Draw-Sword Technique deepened.
Amid this unusual atmosphere, the three of them finally returned to the village.
At the village gate, Uchiha Shisui dismissed the team and told Shiraha and Itachi to go on ahead.
He was going to the Hokage Building to turn in the mission report.
"Shiraha, why aren't you going home?"
After Itachi left, Shisui noticed Shiraha still standing there and asked.
"I haven't received the mission reward yet."
Shiraha said coldly.
Itachi was a young master and didn't care about money.
But Shiraha was flat broke. Without money, he couldn't even buy a sword.
"..."
"I forgot to tell you. I'll give you your share of the mission reward once I receive it. The three of us will split it equally."
Shisui explained with a smile.
"Split it equally? Really?"
Shiraha's expressionless face twitched slightly as he asked.
When he'd been a Genin, Shiraha had learned an unspoken rule in ninja squads: the squad leader took 50% of the bounty, and the remaining half was split among the subordinates.
Each subordinate got a share.
That was why most squads had three or four members. If a squad recruited too many, the leader might agree, but the members wouldn't.
Hearing Shisui say the three of them would split the reward equally, Shiraha felt a little more favorably toward this Uchiha genius.
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