Let's See Whose Is Bigger

As he walked, Jin silently tried to recall Ranmaru's birthplace, but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't remember. Half a month had already passed, yet Jin still wandered around aimlessly. White and Kimimaro had no idea what Jin was thinking and believed he was genuinely taking them sightseeing. Smiles filled their faces every day, and whenever they reached a village, the three of them would take some time to explore. Their purposes, however, were not the same.

That day, the three arrived at a dilapidated mountain village. Fires were already blazing throughout the village, and villagers occasionally came running out.

"What happened?" Kimimaro stopped a villager and asked.

"Bandits broke into the village and are killing people! There are countless puppets too! Run!" The villager hurried past White.

A cold glint flashed as a kunai stabbed toward White.

Swish! A bone blade blocked the kunai's path. Pff! The bone blade had already pierced the villager's body.

"This village is a little strange. Everyone, be careful," Jin warned.

Swish! More than twenty puppets appeared in front of the three from not far away. "How delightful! A few more high-quality goods have come! My puppet army is about to grow again!"

Who was this person? None of the three could guess. White and Kimimaro both looked at Jin, but Jin merely shook his head. He was the first to ask, "May I ask which village's junior you are? I'm Orochimaru's grandfather."

The two of them burst out laughing inwardly, but not a trace of expression showed on their faces. They even cooperatively turned to look at the puppeteer in the distance.

The puppeteer was visibly stunned upon hearing that. "Are you really Orochimaru's grandfather?"

"Attack!" Jin shouted. He immediately formed hand seals with both hands. "Water Release! Water Dragon Bullet! Eightfold Strike!"

"Secret Water Release Technique! Thousand Killing Water Shower!"

"Camellia Dance!"

Crash, crash, crash, crash! The puppets shattered one after another.

"You! You! My puppets! I'll kill you!" the puppeteer roared.

"Die, you noisy bastard! Lightning Release! Super Giant Lightning Ball!" Jin shouted. "Aah—" The puppeteer was sent flying and crashed to the ground.

"You two really are impossible to get rid of! Why are you following us again?" Jin said as he looked at the two people approaching from afar.

"Who are they? Are they close with Jin?" Kimimaro asked White.

White replied with only two brief words: "Enemies." Then Kimimaro and White simultaneously entered battle stance.

"You really are impossible to get rid of! Why do we always run into them?" Kurosuki Raiga complained angrily to Momochi Zabuza.

"Fight or not?" Momochi Zabuza asked.

Raiga looked at Jin's group of three and swallowed. "We're short on time. If we fight, we might not win. If we go around them, we probably won't finish the mission."

"Fight," Zabuza said coldly.

Jin looked behind Raiga but found nothing, so he smiled. "In a moment, the three of us will attack together. They're famous jonin, so be careful!"

"Hidden Mist Technique!" "Thunder Fang!"

"Damn! They're using their ultimate moves right away!" "Water Release! Water Dragon Bullet! Eightfold Strike!" The mist dispersed, and Thunder Fang struck! "Willow Dance!" "Thousand Killing Water Shower!"

"Ah! This is bad! Damn it, Raiga! The water in the air conducts electricity!"

Pff! Pff! Jin and White were both hit. Kimimaro's defensive taijutsu reduced the damage for the two of them, but Jin and White were still injured.

Damn, I got careless! Our coordination is full of holes. Forget it, I'll figure out how to coordinate better later, Jin thought.

"Water Release! Water Dragon Bullet!" Momochi Zabuza laughed.

"Perfect! Water Release! Super Water Dragon Bullet Technique! Let's see whose is bigger!" Jin rapidly poured out a massive amount of chakra, creating an enormous water dragon!

"Raiga, move aside!" "Old man, how did you make such a huge water dragon?" Zabuza asked.

"Are you stupid? Just use more chakra!" Seeing that his attack had not hit either of them, Jin stopped attacking and answered.

All four of them spoke at once: "How is that possible?"

The way the four stared at him made Jin's skin crawl. He retorted, "Why isn't it possible? I can make it as big as I want. Don't tell me you can't do it!"

The four nodded together.

White explained, "Ninjutsu uses a fixed amount of chakra. If you wanted to launch an enormous Water Dragon Bullet like that, the hand seals couldn't possibly be the same as those for Water Dragon Bullet!"

A storm surged in Jin's heart. It's over, it's over. I actually had another trump card, and I exposed it just like that! Then an idea flashed through his mind. "Haha, I was just joking with you. My hand seals were simply too fast for you to see."

The four wore looks of sudden realization. Jin was secretly delighted. With this incident disrupting things, the five of them unexpectedly lost the desire to keep fighting and headed toward the next village together. Jin had no choice; he had no idea which village Ranmaru was in, so he could only travel with Raiga and Zabuza. If he still couldn't find Ranmaru in the next village, he would part ways with them then.

The five traveled together, yet each of them was thinking about different things.

Jin kept reviewing the gains and losses from the two battles. The same ninjutsu produced different results in different hands. The puppeteer had been defeated. Zabuza and Raiga had nearly won. This outcome forced Jin to consider how he would fight for Ranmaru once he found him. How could he defeat those two formidable opponents? White and Kimimaro were still young, and many of their abilities had not yet awakened or been learned. He could not rely on the two of them yet. Everything still depended on himself. The more Jin thought about it, the more troubled he became. Two voices kept echoing in his mind. One said, If I can't beat them then, I'll use my teleportation ability to escape! The other said, No, I can't reveal my trump card too early in front of everyone! Jin was torn between the two. He tugged on White's hand and said, "Whatever! I'll deal with it when the time comes!"

White paused in confusion. "Jin, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing! I was thinking about whether my water dragon or Momochi Zabuza's was bigger," Jin replied casually.

White smiled. "Of course yours was bigger!"