Boom!
The violent blast was not aimed at the enemy. It erupted between Baishi's palm and the swamp beneath his feet.
Scorching air and acrid gunpowder smoke surged upward. The heat instantly dried out the thick, cold mud of the Underworld Swamp, and the shock wave shattered the hardened earth.
"Fall back!"
The Iwagakure Jonin's roar echoed through the canyon. The eight elite Iwagakure ninja reacted almost as soon as the flames flared, spreading out and retreating to a safe defensive distance.
"Has that kid lost his mind? Was he trying to kill himself?" An Iwagakure Chunin who had retreated to the cliff wall wiped dust from his face and glared at the smoke-choked center of the blast.
No one answered.
A cold wind swept along the canyon floor, carrying gray miasma as it tore a gap through the smoke.
Rustle.
It was the faint scrape of leather boots against charred gravel.
Baishi was not dead. He had not fled, either.
Like a lone wolf finally baring its fangs, he used the blast to conceal himself and unleashed every last bit of Lightning Release Chakra in his legs. His muscles swelled, and he became a blurred shadow charging straight into the eight elites' encirclement.
"You're dead!" A savage look crossed the Iwagakure Jonin's rugged face. He planted his thick legs, brought his hands together before his chest, and prepared a wide-range Earth Release technique to crush the reckless Konoha ANBU.
But Baishi gave him no chance to lock on.
Mid-sprint, Baishi twisted his body through the air at an impossible angle. His hands flashed past the Ninja Tool Pouch at his waist, and his fingers snapped outward.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Sixteen Kunai shrieked through the air like a black downpour, fanning toward the faces of the eight Iwagakure ninja.
"Too naive! You think basic tools like those can hurt us?"
The Iwagakure ninja sneered. To them, the wild barrage was nothing but a cornered prey's final struggle.
Beneath his Mask, however, Baishi's cold eyes were wide open. No emotion stirred in them, only calculations racing with mechanical precision.
He was not trying to kill them. This was the most crucial part of a ninja clash: probing for information.
In a fight between ninja, whoever revealed their hand first moved one step closer to death. Baishi meant to use those sixteen Kunai to force out all eight enemies' combat habits and Chakra natures.
His gaze swept across the field.
The three Iwagakure Chunin on the left instinctively lowered their centers of gravity and drew Short Blades to parry. Sparks flew as metal met metal. Their footwork was heavy and their stances solid—Taijutsu specialists. Threat level: low.
Two elites directly ahead formed Hand Seals in quick succession. "Snake—Boar—Dog." Two stone walls half a meter high rose from the ground and deflected every Kunai. Roughly three seals per second, with steady Chakra fluctuations—conventional Earth Release specialists. Threat level: medium.
The Iwagakure Jonin did not bother to dodge. The skin of his neck turned a dull gray-black, and the Kunai bounced off without leaving so much as a white mark. Earth Release: Hardening Technique. Formidable defense, but reduced mobility was inevitable. Threat level: high.
Baishi's mind sorted the information in fractions of a second, building a three-dimensional model of the battlefield.
Then his gaze snapped to a figure at the far rear on the right.
It was a tall, thin man in a black face covering. Faced with two incoming Kunai, he neither blocked them nor used Earth Release. He slid backward with remarkable ease and formed seals before his chest with one hand.
"Rat—Dog—Monkey."
Baishi silently read the seals.
A wisp of razor-sharp wind curled around the thin man's fingertips. With a casual sweep of his hand, two translucent wind blades whistled out and sliced the Kunai in midair. The cuts were smooth as mirrors.
Wind Release!
Baishi's eyes turned icy beneath his Mask.
Wind countered lightning!
Among the five Chakra natures, wind's cutting power could easily tear through the protection granted by Lightning Release-enhanced Cell Activation. Yet this Iwagakure squad, packed with Earth Release users, had a rare Wind Release ninja hidden among them!
If Baishi had rashly used his Max-Level Lightning Release to kill the Jonin, that thin man would have severed his throat from the shadows.
He was the one variable on the battlefield that could kill Baishi.
You die first.
The instant that resolve formed, Baishi changed his entire plan.
"Spread out! Don't fall for the kid's tricks! Surround him and kill him!" The Iwagakure Jonin roared, sweeping away the smoke before him as his massive body charged at Baishi like a war machine.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
The thin man in the distance reacted swiftly, forming Hand Seals again. A gale laced with vicious wind blades swept along the ground toward Baishi, cutting off every avenue of escape.
A heavily armored brute stood before him, with a killing gale behind him.
Cornered, Baishi curled his lips into a mocking smile.
He stamped both feet into a muddy puddle and charged straight toward the howling wind blades. An instant before they could shred him, he yanked both hands backward.
Twang!
A sharp, clear sound rang through the air like a string pulled taut.
Every one of the sixteen Kunai that had been knocked away and scattered across the ground had a thin strand of specially made steel wire attached to its end. The wires were nearly invisible in the miasma.
As Baishi pulled, all sixteen wires snapped taut and wove a razor-sharp web of death through the air.
"What?!" The Iwagakure Jonin, charging at the front, slammed straight into it. The Hardening Technique kept the wires from slicing him apart, but the resistance stopped his charge cold.
The deadlier part of the trap lay behind him.
The wires jerked the Kunai onto new paths. Caught by the pull of the Wind Release technique, they flew back toward the thin man's blind spot at twice their previous speed!
"Damn it!" The thin man's face changed. He had never imagined the Kunai Baishi had used to probe them concealed a second trap.
Forced to break off his Wind Release technique, he drew the Ninja Blade at his waist and twisted awkwardly, knocking aside the returning Kunai one by one.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks scattered.
The Kunai held the thin man's gaze. His last motion had ended, and in the tenth of a second before he could make his next—
Crackle!
The shriek of electricity tore through the gale.
Baishi's real body had already pushed through the remaining wind pressure. Like a bolt of blue lightning, he appeared right in front of the thin man. Max-Level Lightning Release Chakra compressed wildly through his right arm as he drove a cold-glinting Kunai toward the man's heart.
Too fast!
The thin man's pupils contracted, but he was a battle-hardened elite. At the brink of death, ruthlessness flashed in his eyes. Instead of dodging, he seized Baishi's attacking wrist with his left hand and drove his Ninja Blade, wreathed in sharp Wind Release Chakra, into Baishi's abdomen!
Schlk!
The sound of steel entering flesh was unmistakable.
"Got you, Konoha rat!" the thin man snarled. Wind Release Chakra erupted along the blade as he tried to shred Baishi's organs.
At the sight, the Iwagakure Jonin finally relaxed. "It's over."
But the thin man's vicious grin lasted only half a second before it froze.
No warm blood sprayed out.
No scream of pain followed.
What he had stabbed did not feel like flesh. It felt like something hard and lifeless!
The "Baishi" before him, his abdomen pierced, wore an eerie smile beneath his Mask. Then his body burst apart in a cloud of white smoke!
Pop!
When the smoke cleared, what remained in the thin man's hand was not a Konoha ANBU.
It was a cracked Substitution Log!
Three Explosive Tags were neatly affixed to its surface. Their vermilion markings blazed, and the faint glow of their burning fuses swelled in the thin man's terrified eyes.
"Substitution Technique?! When did you—"
His voice cracked with fear. He tried desperately to throw the log away, but it was too late.
A deathly chill suddenly rose behind him.
Baishi's voice, as emotionless as the Death God's, sounded softly beside his ear.
"You use too many Hand Seals."