Encountering the Enemy

A man stood in the tall grass.

He was lean, with a short, sheathed blade tucked into his waistband.

His clothes were stained with mud and bits of grass, as if he had been out in the wild for a long time.

The two parties stared at each other.

Silence hung for about two seconds.

Jiraiya was the first to react—or rather, his brain skipped over all the questions a normal person should have had and jumped straight to the answer he wanted most.

"Oh—!"

He slapped his hands together, his voice full of excitement.

"The exercise has a stage like this too?!"

Tsunade didn't move.

Jiraiya turned his head to look at her: "The teacher didn't say anything about this, arranging someone to play an enemy to intercept us? This is too thrilling—"

He was halfway through his sentence when he had already pulled a wooden kunai from behind his waist.

"Watch me!"

Jiraiya flicked his wrist and spun the blade; he had practiced this move in front of the mirror no fewer than a hundred times and thought it looked very cool.

Then, he lowered his center of gravity and charged out.

A seven-year-old child couldn't actually run very fast, but Jiraiya's strength lay in his audacity.

No tactics, no checking the terrain, just a straight-line charge.

He held the wooden kunai at his side, striking the third thrusting starting stance taught in the textbook.

Jiraiya thought to himself that Tsunade was watching.

Usually at school, he couldn't beat Kitahara Kaede in a proper spar, and his grades were still at the bottom.

But actual combat was different; actual combat was about guts.

Jiraiya might be lacking in other areas, but he had guts to spare.

The man opposite saw the white-haired child charging over, his entire body tensing up, and he subconsciously gripped the tree branch in his hand tighter.

His eyes darted quickly, scanning the surroundings, and after confirming there was no one else, he brought his gaze back to size up these two "enemies" before him.

A little girl with blonde hair and a little boy with white hair.

They weren't even as tall as his chest.

They were babbling about acting and teachers; they looked like they were from the Ninja Academy.

The white-haired one was charging at him with a wooden kunai.

The man's body relaxed, and the corners of his mouth pulled back.

Tsunade's gaze did not follow Jiraiya.

She was looking at the man's forehead.

The symbol carved into the forehead protector was not the leaf of Konoha.

Four wavy lines—the Hidden Mist Village.

And right in the middle of those four wavy lines, a deep scratch ran across them.

Tsunade's mouth opened.

"Jiraiya, get back—!"

By the time she shouted, she had already moved.

It wasn't Jiraiya who moved.

It was the man.

There were no unnecessary preparatory movements.

One second he was standing in place, and the next, he was already in front of Jiraiya.

Jiraiya's kunai was still held in mid-air, his thrusting motion only half-finished.

His eyes captured a single image—a gray-blue hem of a garment flashing past below his field of vision.

Then came the impact to his abdomen.

Jiraiya felt everything in his stomach surge upward, the rice ball he had eaten that morning churning in his throat.

His feet left the ground, and his body flew sideways.

The sound of his back hitting the tree trunk was dull.

The wooden kunai in his hand had flown off somewhere, lost.

From the charge to hitting the ground, it had taken no more than three seconds.

The second half of Tsunade's sentence stuck in her throat.

Her brain processed a great deal in those three seconds.

A Hidden Mist forehead protector, a scratch, appearing in the mountains behind Konoha, attacking without a word.

He hadn't hesitated when he struck, choosing the most efficient way to subdue them—a knee to the stomach, knocking them out without killing them.

This wasn't something the Ninja Academy would arrange.

This was a real rogue ninja.

Tsunade assumed a standard defensive stance, though it likely wouldn't do much; it was the only thing she could do for now.

The corner of her eye swept toward the base of the tree.

Jiraiya was leaning against the trunk, his body curled up, one hand clutching his stomach.

He hadn't passed out, but his face was pale.

"...Jiraiya!"

A muffled voice came from over there.

"Don't, don't shout so loud..."

Jiraiya coughed twice, spitting out a mouthful of sour bile.

"...I'm fine."

He tried to stand up by bracing himself against the tree trunk, but his legs went weak, and he slid down halfway.

His knee knocked against a tree root, and he winced in pain.

But he was still trying to push himself up.

"I'm fine... that guy... a sneak attack..."

His voice was intermittent.

Tsunade didn't look back, her eyes fixed ahead.

The man didn't pursue.

He stood where he was, tilting his head to look at the wooden kunai on the ground, then at Jiraiya under the tree.

There was no killing intent, nor was there pity.

It was a light sense of impatience—the kind one feels when their schedule is delayed.

His gaze shifted to Tsunade, and his right hand rested on the hilt of the short blade at his waist.

He took a step forward.

Tsunade's breathing hitched.

Only one thought remained in her mind—

She couldn't escape.

At the summit.

Kitahara Kaede was tossing a wooden tag in his hand.

Eight points.

He looked down and felt quite satisfied.

It had taken him half a mountain to find it, hidden in a crevice in the cliff face, a tricky spot.

Not far away, three children lay on the ground, sprawled in disarray.

He hadn't beaten them.

—Well, he had beaten them.

These three were from another group, relying on their numbers to try and snatch his tag, rushing him in a swarm.

Kitahara Kaede had used two moves to take down two of them, and the third had tripped over a tree root and knocked himself out while trying to run away.

He tucked the wooden tag into his pouch, clapped his hands, and headed back the way he came.

It was time to go back and rendezvous with Tsunade.

A sound suddenly rang in his mind.

[Ding—Side quest triggered: Hero Saves the Beauty]

[Quest objective: Kill the hostile target, ensure the survival of Senju Tsunade.]

[Quest reward: Calculated based on combat rating. A flawless victory and an emotional outburst from the target will significantly increase the rating.]

[Failure penalty: Simulation terminated, current rating reduced to zero.]

Kitahara Kaede's footsteps stopped.

He looked at the words on the light screen, his brows slowly furrowing.

Hero saves the beauty.

Kill the hostile target.

...So cliché?

The next second, he realized—no.

"Kill."

Not "defeat," not "drive away."

Kill.

In a Ninja Academy exercise, there would be no targets that required "killing."

Something had happened to Tsunade.