Consecutive Kills

"Up there—Lightning Release: Lightning Strike!"

Crack! A dazzling bolt of lightning split toward the figure in midair.

"No, underground—Earth Release: Earth-Cutting Wave!"

Boom! The ground surged like rippling water, and the Earth Release ninja vanished in an instant.

Bang! Bang!

"Watch out, they're Shadow Clones! Damn it, when did he..." The bandaged Wave ninja roared, his bloodshot eyes wide.

Before his words had even faded, Neji's real body dropped from the treetop like a ghost, his right palm wreathed in Wandering Dragon energy as it shot for the man's crown.

But the Earth Release ninja suddenly burst from the ground, his rock fist slamming toward Neji's back. "I've been waiting for you!"

The swordsman spun and swept out a crescent arc of blade light, the flashing sword edge aimed straight for Neji's neck.

Bang!

Amid the soft crack of a bursting substitution log, a figure suddenly lunged at the swordsman.

Just as the bandaged man turned to help, chakra threads bursting from underground wrapped around his ankle—within the remnants of the clone he had just cut apart, Neji had hidden Gentle Fist force in advance.

Wandering Dragon: Mountain Breaker!

The true killing blow erupted from the bandaged man's shadow. The dragon-shaped force gathered in Neji's palm shattered his chest guard. The instant the man's chest caved in, a phantom dragon tore through his body, carrying blood and flesh as it smashed through three tree trunks.

Electric currents sizzled over the charred trunks like an unfinished dirge.

"Inoue? Bastard! He's dead, retreat!"

Wave-like chakra began to ripple beneath the Earth Release ninja's feet.

The swordsman's heart tightened at the words, then his face hardened. Already lunging through the air, he drew his body taut like a greatbow. The next moment, the tachi raised above his head cleaved down, its arcing light shrieking through the air toward Neji.

Smack!

Neji actually caught the blade between both palms. The force between his hands spun rapidly, grinding away the downward force of the strike.

With a metallic wail, Gentle Fist chakra flowed backward along the blade, jolting the swordsman until blood burst from the web between his thumb and forefinger.

"What?" The swordsman, who had planned to use the recoil from Neji's block to flee, was dumbfounded. He never could have imagined that someone would catch a blade with bare hands.

Eight Trigrams Palm: Chaotic Stars!

Neji spun like a top, thirty-six chakra needles bursting from his fingertips and piercing the swordsman's acupoints. His sword-wielding right arm immediately went numb, and the nodachi clanged to the ground.

Taking the opportunity, the Earth Release ninja sank underground, and the earth within ten meters suddenly turned to fine sand.

Earth Release: Quicksand Technique!

The ground beneath Neji's feet softened and collapsed. The more he struggled, the faster he sank. The swordsman drew his wakizashi with a savage grin. "Konoha's Byakugan, rot in the mud for all I—"

A dragon's roar suddenly rang out.

Neji abruptly stopped struggling and slammed both palms onto the mire's surface. "Wandering Dragon: Sea-Covering!"

Violent chakra exploded outward in a ring, and mud surged backward into the sky in the form of a massive wave.

The instant the muddy curtain blocked the swordsman's vision, Neji stepped on flying fragments of rock and leaped from the trap, flinging three shuriken wrapped in Explosive Tags through the air.

Amid the fiery explosions, five rocky ridges suddenly rose from the ground.

The Earth Release ninja controlled a massive granite hand as it burst from the earth, every finger carved with sealing runes. "Earth Release: Rock Demon's Grip!"

"Too slow."

The veins around Neji's Byakugan bulged. As he flipped away from the closing stone palm, both hands precisely struck into the gaps in the rock. "Mountain Breaker: Three-Tiered Waves!"

Earthquake-like tremors spread through the ground, and the Earth Release ninja hiding below suffered a backlash from his own technique. Neji seized the rock arm and leaped from the pit, Wandering Dragon force pouring through the cracks into the earth. "Get out here!"

The ground churned like boiling water, and the Earth Release ninja was blasted to the surface, coughing up bloody foam. Just as he tried to form hand seals, the edge of Neji's palm was already pressed against his Adam's apple. "Mountain Breaker."

The crisp crack of shattering vertebrae startled the night crows into flight. The Rock Demon's Grip collapsed with a thunderous crash, and a rain of stones struck the ground beside the swordsman's feet.

"Hahaha, never thought I'd fall to a brat. Kid, you forced me to do this..."

The swordsman spat out a mouthful of bloody foam in a hoarse voice, tearing open his bloodstained shirt to reveal a bizarre black curse mark on his back. "You forced me to use a forbidden technique... I'll pull out your bones piece by piece, chop them up, and feed them to dogs—"

The markings crawled over his body like living snakes, and his speed abruptly tripled. The wakizashi turned into a silver storm. Wherever its blade light passed, trees thick enough to encircle with both arms were sliced cleanly in half like tofu. Neji darted and twisted through the web of blades, yet seven bloody cuts still appeared across his white clothes.

Dragon Battles in the Wilds!

A sky-full of palm shadows instantly held back the silver storm, the profound yellow force in Neji's palms bracing fiercely against the razor-sharp blade.

The next second, the two exchanged blows at blinding speed. As they twisted and crossed, palm strikes, hand blades, and the wakizashi collided with the ringing cry of clashing metal, brilliant gold and silver flashes concealing wave after wave of lethal intent.

Eight Trigrams Domain—Open!

A blue-green formation bloomed beneath his feet, and every trajectory of the swordsman's killing attacks became crystal clear beneath the Byakugan. Neji suddenly stopped dodging and allowed the wakizashi to stab into his left shoulder, while his right hand clamped around the other man's wrist. "Got you."

Gentle Fist chakra surged backward through the man's meridians toward his heart. The swordsman was horrified to discover that every meridian in his right arm had been sealed. Neji's bloodstained left hand formed a sword finger, and the Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms fell like a torrential downpour.

"Two palms!"

"Four palms!"

"Eight palms!"

When the final palm landed on the Tanzhong acupoint, a drifting blood-red cherry blossom happened to stop between them. In the swordsman's wide pupils was reflected Neji's icy face. "Rotation."

A chakra hurricane wrapped in cherry blossoms soared into the sky. When the storm dispersed, the swordsman fell like a rag doll, wisps of green smoke rising from acupoints all over his body.

"Whew... These ninjas who live by the blade really are hard to kill!"

Neji looked at the three corpses scattered across the ground. Under his Byakugan, he could clearly see that every trace of life had left their bodies.

Neji felt no revulsion toward such contests between life and death. On the contrary, he vaguely felt exhilarated.

This was a ninja's fate, wasn't it?

Neji grinned silently.

After using Palm Sage Art to stop the bleeding, the circulation of Inner Qi left his wounds mostly healed. Neji tore off his ruined clothes, took out a spare coat from his storage space and changed into it, then wrapped the three corpses in his old clothes, hoisted them up, and headed back toward the Bounty Exchange.

The buzzing chatter fell abruptly silent the moment Neji appeared at the Bounty Exchange, as though someone had seized a flock of ducks by the neck.

"See how much these three are worth."

Neji spoke to the person behind the counter.

"Please wait a moment, sir!"

The man's smile was somewhat forced. He accepted the corpses and laid them beneath the counter, carefully examining them before saying, "So they're rogue ninjas from Hot Water Ninja Village. They happen to be on the wanted list. The total is three hundred thousand ryō. Would you like cash, or would you prefer to deposit it with the counter? You can withdraw it from any Bounty Exchange in the Ninja World!"

"Cash."

"Of course, sir!"

As he spoke, the man formed a hand seal with one hand. Chakra surged, and a box appeared atop the counter. He opened it and counted through the money, removed several bills, then handed the rest to Neji along with the box.

"Please keep it safe, sir!"

"Mm."

Neji nodded, picked up the box, and walked out.

The setting sun was like rust. Cherry petals drifting through the sky were shredded into crimson fragments by the wind, while faint cries echoed from the forest like the unwilling wails of the dead.

He straightened his collar and walked back the way he had come.