No One Can Control Me / The Way of the Ninja

Bang!

A fist smashed into Baki's cheek, sending his entire body flying along with several broken teeth!

Uchiha Mo gave Baki no chance to catch his breath. With a ninja blade in his right hand, he flicked his left wrist, and four smooth shuriken instantly appeared between his fingers. With a fierce swing of his arm, the four shuriken shot toward Baki just as he landed!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The four shuriken traced arcs through the air, striking from different directions.

"You damned brat!"

Baki pushed himself up with one hand and quickly rose. Just as he was about to knock the shuriken away with a kunai, his pupils suddenly trembled as he noticed the threads tied behind them.

His rich combat experience immediately formed an image in his mind: after the shuriken were knocked away, Uchiha Mo would use the steel wires to pull them back, bind him in place, then channel Fire Release through the wires to end the battle.

"This is... Sharingan Windmill: Third Blade! Damn Uchiha brat, you actually dared to pull such a trick!"

Baki's heart skipped a beat. He froze for an instant, a chill running down his back.

But in that brief instant, the first shuriken had already reached his face.

Baki gritted his teeth and barely twisted aside. His cheek was sliced open, but he had no time to care about the wound. He abandoned his kunai and began rapidly forming hand seals!

Wu—Chen—hands pressed together.

"Wind Release: Gale Palm!"

As his words fell, Baki slammed his palms together, unleashing a violent gust that blew every shuriken out of the sky!

Wind Release: Gale Palm was a C-rank Wind Release technique, considered an introductory Wind Release ninjutsu. Its power was quite limited, but it required few hand seals and activated quickly, making it one of Baki's best choices in the current situation.

Seeing that all the shuriken had been cleared away, Baki finally let out a breath of relief. Then a violent sense of dread suddenly struck him. Scorching heat came from behind, making every hair on his body stand on end. Following instinct, he lunged to the side.

Splat!

A severed arm flew into the air before being instantly reduced to ashes by blazing fire. Uchiha Mo stood where the shuriken had landed, his flame-coated longsword angled toward the ground as he frowned slightly in dissatisfaction.

"Gahh!"

Baki lay on the ground, clutching the stump of his left shoulder with his right hand. Cold sweat streamed down his face like rain as he continuously sucked in breaths from the pain.

Baki truly deserved his reputation as a battle-hardened Elite Jonin. Uchiha Mo had concealed his presence almost perfectly, yet Baki had still sensed the killing intent at the very instant before Mo struck. Even so, he had paid the price of an arm.

Bang!

The Uchiha Mo where he had stood exploded into a cloud of white smoke and vanished. Baki clenched his teeth as his mind raced.

"A Shadow Clone? When... It was when I was sent flying! That brat used a Shadow Clone to replace his body while I was in the air, then transformed himself into the first shuriken he threw! He knew I would recognize the Third Blade!"

"Hidden Leaf... has produced a terrifying brat..."

Baki quickly figured out what had happened, but even so, he knew that in his current condition, he would likely struggle to leave alive.

For an ordinary ninja, losing an arm was no different from crippling themselves. A lost arm meant being unable to form hand seals with both hands, and for most ordinary ninja, that essentially meant losing access to ninjutsu. They could only rely on Taijutsu, Genjutsu, or certain special Nintaijutsu. But Baki was clearly only a ninja skilled in ninjutsu with a passing understanding of Taijutsu...

At that thought, Baki's expression changed. He extended one hand toward Uchiha Mo, who was approaching him.

"Wait! Blood Ninja, Hidden Leaf only wants to know whether Lord Kazekage has truly disappeared, right?"

No One Can Control Me

Uchiha Mo paused slightly and nodded.

"Fine! As long as you spare me, I'll tell you the truth about Lord Kazekage. This intelligence is absolutely worth it!"

As he spoke, he quietly gathered chakra at the fingertips of his right hand behind his back.

Wind Blade differed from ordinary ninjutsu. It was a no-hand-seal technique. However, like most no-hand-seal techniques, Wind Blade required charging, gathering chakra to replace the hand-seal process. It could not be cast instantly, but Baki could prepare the charge beforehand to achieve an instant-release effect.

The reason he did not simply form a Wind Blade and wait for the right chance to launch a sneak attack was because Baki feared that the Sharingan would spot the flaw. Although the Two-Tomoe Sharingan could not see changes in chakra inside the human body, changes in the caster's presence, the movement of the wind, and the swaying grass were all real. An Uchiha proficient in using the Sharingan could easily see through such flaws.

Baki stared tensely into Uchiha Mo's eyes, his expression utterly sincere. No one would have guessed at the killing intent hidden behind his back.

The tomoe in Uchiha Mo's eyes slowly turned, and a cold sneer suddenly appeared on his indifferent face.

"Heh... a clown's dance. How utterly ridiculous. You don't honestly think that childish toy can kill me, do you? And... who told you I would obey Hidden Leaf's orders? No one can control me. What does what Hidden Leaf wants have to do with me? I only want your life!"

As his words fell, Uchiha Mo fiercely swung the Blazing Longsword at Baki.

"Uchiha Style: Flame-Leaping Sword!"

As the longsword swept through the air, a savage ribbon of flames tore free from the blade and shot forward!

Seeing that Uchiha Mo was actually serious rather than trying to raise the price, even Baki, who had crawled out of the Second Shinobi World War, shuddered in fear. He desperately condensed an enormous Wind Blade and hurled it out.

"You really are insane! What benefit is there to you if I die? If Hidden Sand learns of this, it might start a war!"

Boom!

The Fuma Shuriken-sized Wind Blade collided with the ribbon of fire, erupting into a huge burst of sparks in the air. But in only an instant, the Blazing Fire not only devoured the wind blade, but became even more violent within the gale!

Boom—!

The flaming slash struck Baki's body, carving a wound straight through his chest and instantly setting him ablaze...

Someone had once calculated that the limit of pain the human body could endure was 45 DOL, while a hard strike to the testicles ranked at 50 DOL. The pain of being burned alive by raging flames ranked at 77 DOL.

As Baki's screams gradually faded, Uchiha Mo's gaze fell upon a spot in the air.

Blue Baby Fusion Rate: 10.52% + 9.13% (When both categories reach 10%, ability unlocked: Invisibility)

As expected of an Elite Jonin proficient in Wind Release, one life had increased Mo's Wind Release proficiency by nearly nine percent. However, that was also because his unlock rate was too low. If Uchiha Mo's unlock rate had been above twenty percent, the increase likely would not have been so great. Besides Wind Release, the corresponding unlock rate for Yang Release had also increased slightly, though not by much.

Uchiha Mo withdrew his gaze and looked expressionlessly toward the forest beside him.

"Seen enough? Come out."

As his words fell, rustling sounds came from the woods. Before long, a white-haired figure wearing a black mask sprang out.

Despite the mask, the disbelief on his face was as obvious as the hole in Jesus's palm. "You actually killed Baki!"

Kakashi had originally fled, but Mo's words had continued echoing in his mind along the way. Kakashi was one of the most remarkable geniuses in Hidden Leaf's history since its founding. Everyone thought so, and so did he. But...

"Only the weak fall into the dilemma of difficult choices. Whatever the strong choose is right. Since you care so much about the mission, take that Sand Ninja and run away like a stray dog. I'll kill Baki!"

The contempt of a peer he had always considered a rival, along with the clash of their beliefs, churned violently in his mind like a storm!

Comrades or mission? This question, enough to crush the Hidden Leaf's White Fang, seemed to be nothing more than a question to Uchiha Mo—a test of whether one was strong enough.

"No! Father was the great Hidden Leaf's White Fang, a hero of the Second Shinobi World War! A strong man respected even by the Sannin! How could he possibly have been weak?! But..."

Kakashi suddenly recalled the sight of Uchiha Mo saving him from the wind blade and then resolutely facing Baki. His steps came to a stop.

"Hey! Kakashi, have you heard of Uchiha Mo? He's the greatest genius of our Uchiha Clan! Of course, he's still a little worse than me, heh heh~ If he enrolled, you definitely wouldn't get first place anymore. Too bad I heard he firmly rejected the clan's demand that he attend school, which is why you can be so smug."

"Kakashi! Did you hear? Mo awakened the Sharingan! He awakened it at five years old, and the clan head said it was a new record within the Uchiha Clan! Even Lord Third Hokage came to the clan personally to invite him into the Ninja Academy! That was the Hokage, yet Mo didn't give him any face at all! He's even more stuck-up than you..."

"Kakashi, Mo has made a name for himself outside as the 'Blood Ninja,' and I heard the number of missions he's completed is already close to some Jonin! So cool! What sort of title do you think I should get someday? How about Goggle-Wearing Sharingan Hero? Hey! Don't leave..."

"..."

"Uchiha Mo... are you my teammate for this mission?"

"The White Fang's son? Whatever. Don't hold me back."

Kakashi placed the Sand Ninja on the ground and rapidly formed hand seals with both hands.

"Earth Release: Earth Prison Dome!"

As his words fell, Kakashi pressed both hands against the ground. With chakra flowing in, the earth before him churned like a swamp, swiftly burying the Sand Ninja upright underground until only his head remained exposed. He then quickly left several Hidden Leaf code marks around the area and turned toward where he had come from.

"I'm going back, not for a comrade. I want to see whether Mo's outcome gives him the right to say those things. I want him to understand the price of choosing wrong. I want to prove that Father wasn't weak!"

The tomoe in Uchiha Mo's eyes slowly faded away, returning to a pair of clear black eyes. He glanced at where Baki had been lying but said nothing. Only a pile of human-shaped ash remained there, without even a trace of bone or flesh left behind.

When he had sent Baki flying, he had already noticed Kakashi returning. Otherwise, if Mo had used Fire Boy's ability, the battle would have been much simpler. With the advantage of elemental restraint, he could have killed Baki without such elaborate tactics.

And the ability he needed to conceal for now was precisely the core ability of Fire Boy's first stage, "Blazing Fire"—Fire Control!

With this ability, Mo did not need hand seals or the ninjutsu system at all. He could directly convert chakra into flames and command them as easily as his own limbs!

But such a thing was far too beyond common sense and needed a plausible explanation. Fortunately, the ready-made tool for that explanation was standing right before Uchiha Mo.

Ninja Way

If one had to name the most important ninjutsu in the Naruto world, then aside from the Rasengan, it would be Chidori.

Chidori was known as the ultimate transformation of Lightning Release chakra nature. Not only was it immensely powerful, but its shape transformation gave it astonishing versatility. Sasuke and Kakashi had developed two entirely different systems from it, and that performance happened to fit the capabilities of Blazing Fire perfectly.

As it happened, Chidori's creator stood right before Uchiha Mo. Judging backward from the timeline, Chidori should already have been at least halfway complete.

Kakashi slowly composed his expression until the upper half of his face visible above the mask showed no emotion at all. Only then did he speak.

"I didn't expect you to have become this strong..."

Kakashi thought again of how he had secretly compared himself to Mo and competed against him...

"You're just an unknown nobody. Losing to me is only natural. Why did you come back? Did your conscience finally stir?"

Mo shifted his gaze back to Kakashi's face, his tone cold. But Kakashi seemed to have long grown accustomed to Mo's indifference. After adjusting his emotions slightly, he replied.

"You said... only the weak fall into the dilemma of difficult choices. But I don't think my father was weak. He..."

As Kakashi spoke, his tone gradually became hurried, and his voice even trembled slightly. But before he could finish, Mo withdrew his gaze and walked past him, slowly heading toward the woods behind them.

"What a boring question. Do you want me to lecture you about some grand principle? Kakashi, are you craving someone else's guidance? As a man about to become a Jonin, don't you think you're being ridiculous and childish?"

As his words fell, Kakashi's breathing stopped. The words he had not finished were stuck behind his teeth.

In truth, this was the first time Kakashi had ever taken the initiative to open his heart to someone since White Fang's death. Before this, he had not taken to heart a single word from Obito, Rin, or the Third Hokage.

In his eyes, his father's death proved only one thing: ninja were machines that existed to complete missions. Comrades? Mere tools. Bonds? Nothing but a joke.

For the past three years, he had lived like that, until today, when Uchiha Mo had shattered the beliefs he had always upheld through his actions.

Faced with a powerful enemy whose intelligence was unknown and who had defeated the team-leading Jonin in a single move, Mo's words might have been unpleasant, but he had truly handed Kakashi the hope of survival. In Kakashi's eyes, Uchiha Mo had crushed his beliefs with his own life, which was why he had opened his heart and desperately sought an answer.

Any answer would do. Whether it made him continue following his former beliefs or return to his original heart, as long as it freed him from his confusion.

But Uchiha Mo clearly had no interest whatsoever in changing Kakashi.

Uchiha Mo paused slightly and looked back. "You risked your life coming back just for this trivial nonsense? Kakashi, you truly are White Fang's son. Father and son, both of you are complete and utter trash."

Kakashi's pupils contracted. His body trembled as he clenched his fists, as though he could not believe what he had just heard.

"What did you say?!"

Although Kakashi upheld the belief that those who broke the Ninja World's rules were trash, that did not mean he could endure someone insulting his father to his face.

"Heh."

Mo bared his teeth in an intensely mocking grin. "I said you and White Fang are both trash!"

As his words fell, Kakashi could no longer endure it.

He burst forward in an instant. His right hand drew the short blade from his back and slashed forward in a thrust, while explosive lightning bloomed in his left hand!

Chirp—!

In an instant, scarlet appeared in Mo's black eyes, and Kakashi's movements suddenly slowed. Mo raised his hand and directly seized Kakashi's right wrist, bringing the white blade-light to a stop! But the lightning in Kakashi's left hand had already closed in on Uchiha Mo's face.

Mo remained calm without the slightest hint of panic, because Chidori itself required the Sharingan's dynamic vision to fully display its power. Kakashi alone could not control this technique, much less when Chidori was still only half-finished.

His left hand shot out like lightning and hooked beneath Kakashi's right arm at the armpit. Then, with force from both hands, he threw Kakashi over his shoulder and sent him flying!

"So fast!"

Kakashi only felt his slash being blocked, followed by sharp pain beneath his arm. Then the world spun around him, and his entire body was instantly thrown away!

Splat!