Personal Grudges

() As screams and howling wind filled his ears, Sasuke's heart pounded, but he also gained his first lesson from real combat—battlefields were unbearably noisy places...

Only now did he truly understand what Qi's tedious day-after-day training had been for.

Suddenly, his scalp tingled. He immediately ducked, and a spear swept past his scalp with a skin-prickling chill. Having avoided the strike, Sasuke did not linger. Like a loach, he slipped through the gaps between several weapons ahead and darted into the cabin.

Ninjas claimed to be proficient in all eighteen kinds of weapons, but in reality, they mainly used short weapons such as shuriken, kunai, and swords. Few used long weapons. Their taijutsu also emphasized agility. For a lower-ranked ninja, a relatively cramped space was actually ideal.

The interior of a ship fit that description perfectly. Fighting Prefecture Guards on a relatively open deck was hardly a good thing for lower-ranked ninjas.

"Bang!"

The moment Sasuke entered the corridor, he performed an emergency backflip. His foot struck the face of a black-armored soldier lunging at him from behind with perfect accuracy. Accompanied by the sound of something shattering, the soldier fell backward without a sound. His forehead, along with part of his helmet, had caved in and been mashed into a lump of soft flesh.

But it was not over. Amid the sound of a blade cutting through the air, another black-armored soldier who had followed him charged again, bringing his sharp single-handed sword down at Sasuke's head before he had even sprung up from the ground.

"..."

Sasuke coldly watched the blade falling toward his forehead, showing little sign of panic.

"Get lost!"

With an angry roar, a golden figure appeared from nowhere and slammed straight into the black-armored soldier's chest. Strength completely disproportionate to his build erupted,