Counterattack and Annihilation

The second volley of shuriken from the shuriken-user had arrived.

Twelve shuriken split in mid-air, each one spawning two smaller sub-blades, blanketing the area and sealing off all of Takuma's escape routes.

Takuma did not dodge. He slammed his right foot into the ground, lunging forward instead of retreating, charging straight into the shuriken.

Three shuriken embedded themselves into his left shoulder, two sliced open his right ribs, and one grazed his cheek, leaving a bloody trail. His healing factor was already at work; the muscle fibers at the edges of the wounds contracted at a visible rate to stop the bleeding.

The shuriken-user clearly had not expected someone to tank the damage and push forward, and he froze for a split second. In that instant, Takuma released his kunai, aiming straight for the man's face. The shuriken-user tilted his head to avoid it, only to be met with Takuma's right knee slamming solidly into his abdomen. The shuriken-user grunted and doubled over. As his body went limp, Takuma grabbed his hair with his left hand and drew a kunai with his right, slicing across his throat—clean and efficient.

The smile on the Scarred Man's face froze.

He had assumed the kid's tactic was to stall for reinforcements, but he hadn't expected him to have no intention of waiting at all. The column of smoke from the earlier explosion had already shot into the sky; barring any accidents, a Konoha patrol would take at least a quarter of an hour to reach this cliff area. A quarter of an hour was enough time for many people to die.

"Don't give him a chance to get close," the Scarred Man ordered coldly.

The Bandaged Short Man performed hand seals, and an Earth Style: Earth Wall rose from the riverbed, blocking Takuma's path. Immediately after, another wall rose, then a third, sealing off Takuma's route completely. The Bandaged Short Man then switched hand seals, Earth Style: Earth Split Palm—the ground beneath Takuma's feet began to crack and collapse, with gravel and dirt sliding into the fissures.

Takuma jumped back a second before the ground beneath him split. The Bandaged Short Man's control-type earth jutsu were troublesome and had to be dealt with first. But the presence of the Scarred Man made this difficult; that man's positioning always remained within five steps of the Bandaged Short Man.

The Scarred Man's strength was at least that of a Chunin. A head-on one-on-one fight offered little chance of victory, and one-on-two was essentially suicide. But Takuma had no choice now.

The Bandaged Short Man's earth jutsu activated again, Earth Style: Earth Rising Spear, and several sharp stone pillars suddenly erupted from the riverbed gravel, thrusting upward. Takuma dodged sideways, the pillars grazing his back, tearing his jacket and scraping away a layer of skin. His healing factor repaired it rapidly, but the pain did not vanish. He gritted his teeth and reached back toward the ground.

Chakra flowed into the riverbed, spreading beneath the gravel layer.

This was the basic application of Senju Clan earth jutsu his father had taught him—Chakra Penetration. It wasn't a direct attack, but rather using chakra to sense the underground structure and find weak points to exploit. Beneath the gravel of the dried riverbed was soft sand, and further down was hard bedrock. Takuma's chakra found a natural cavity at the junction of the sand and the bedrock.

The Bandaged Short Man was preparing to form seals for his next attack when the ground beneath him suddenly went soft. The gravel on the surface of the riverbed collapsed, and he sank downward. Although he reacted quickly and flipped out, his hand seals were interrupted, and the composure on his face vanished.

"The kid is sabotaging the underground structure!"

The Scarred Man stopped waiting. The sound of his katana leaving its sheath was like a silver thread cutting through the air, slashing toward Takuma's neck.

Takuma didn't have time to look back; judging the blade's position by the sound of the wind, he lunged forward, the katana grazing his scalp. As his hair drifted down, the Scarred Man twisted his wrist, changing the slash into an upward strike. Takuma blocked with his kunai; sparks from the metal collision splashed onto his face, and the immense force sent him flying backward.

Before he could recover, the Scarred Man's katana was already thrusting toward his face.

Takuma tilted his head, the katana sliding past, missing his ear by a finger's width. The Scarred Man seized the opportunity to raise his knee into Takuma's abdomen, and Takuma grunted, the taste of blood flooding his mouth. As the second knee came, Takuma took the hit, grabbed the Scarred Man's collar with both hands, and slammed his forehead into the man's bridge of the nose.

The Scarred Man retreated half a step. His nose wasn't broken, but the stinging pain made his eyes squint involuntarily. Takuma seized this gap and thrust his kunai toward the Scarred Man's armpit—the blind spot hardest to protect in any sword style.

The Scarred Man abandoned defense entirely, grabbing Takuma's wrist with his left hand while slashing horizontally with his katana. At the same time, the Bandaged Short Man's Earth Rising Spear provided cover from the side, three stone pillars sealing off Takuma's retreat. The two worked with seamless coordination.

With his right hand pinned, Takuma pulled three explosive tags from his left and threw them at the Bandaged Short Man's feet. The Bandaged Short Man retreated urgently, an Earth Wall rising from the ground to block him. But the explosion point of the tags was the gravel ground between the wall and the Bandaged Short Man; the shockwave shattered the surrounding rock structure, and the underground cavity already weakened by Takuma's Chakra Penetration collapsed completely.

The ground beneath the Bandaged Short Man sank entirely. In the moment he lost his balance, Takuma exerted force with his right arm. The natural physical strength of the Senju bloodline, combined with the muscle repair speed from his healing factor, allowed him to break free. Borrowing the momentum to leap into the air, he kicked off a stone pillar, vaulted over the Scarred Man's head, and dove toward the Bandaged Short Man in the sinkhole.

The Bandaged Short Man had just crawled halfway out of the collapse when his vision went dark; Takuma's knee had already smashed into his chest, and he raised his hand to plunge the kunai into the man's heart.

The Scarred Man didn't even glance at his companion's corpse. He held his katana high above his head, injecting chakra into the blade until it began to emit a faint blue light. Taking a step forward, he brought the blade down. A Vacuum Blade flew from the edge, slashing toward Takuma in an arc.

Takuma did not retreat but pushed forward, his body lowered until he was almost scraping the ground, sprinting toward the direction the Vacuum Blade came from. The blade passed half a meter above his head, severing a row of bushes behind him. By then, he had already charged into the Scarred Man's striking range.

Water Style: Water Wave.

He poured all his remaining chakra into it. A high-pressure water jet erupted from his palm, hitting the Scarred Man in the chest and sending him flying, crashing heavily into a large rock at the edge of the riverbed.

The katana slipped from his hand, spinning twice in the air before embedding itself in a pile of gravel five meters away.

The Scarred Man struggled to stand, the excruciating pain in his chest causing him to cough up a mouthful of blood. The impact of the Water Wave had bypassed his skin to damage his internal organs. He reached for the kunai in his ninja tool pouch, but just as his fingers touched the hilt, Takuma was already in front of him.

He stepped on the hand reaching for the pouch, pinned the man's chest with his knee, and drove the kunai through his left shoulder.

Takuma's voice was hoarse, sweat and blood dripping from his chin. "Who sent you? Why are you scouting the Konoha barrier?"

The Scarred Man looked at him. The corners of his mouth twitched, as if he were smiling or perhaps mocking him. Then he spoke, his voice intermittent and flecked with blood.

"You... are that experiment..."

He didn't finish. His pupils dilated, his breathing stopped, and he died just like that, without warning.

Takuma immediately checked the Scarred Man's neck, discovering a tiny needle mark below the hairline, the surrounding skin already turned gray-black. Some kind of poison latent in the body, triggered automatically under specific conditions. He flipped the Scarred Man's body over and checked the shuriken-user's corpse, finding the same needle mark on his neck. This meant that from the moment the battle began, these three had been programmed for death; regardless of victory or defeat, they could never leak information alive.

They weren't rogue ninja, not missing-nin, and not even ordinary mercenaries. Professional military reconnaissance capabilities, standardized tactical coordination, a built-in suicide mechanism... there had to be an organization operating behind these three, and one with a high level of secrecy.

Takuma searched the Scarred Man's tool pouch and found a communication scroll filled with coded characters.

The map was also on the Scarred Man. Takuma unfolded the simple map; it marked not three, but seven locations on the outskirts of Konoha. Each was marked with a red circle, accompanied by numbers and abbreviations. Three were marked "Confirmed," and four were marked "Pending." The cliff area was the third of the "Confirmed" sites.

Someone was systematically and methodically mapping out Konoha's defense system. And judging by the Scarred Man's unfinished sentence before he died, he seemed to have mistaken Takuma for an experimental subject.

Was that experiment related to him? Or rather, was it related to the Senju bloodline?