Timing

Qian drew back his thoughts and turned his gaze back to the Rock Hidden Chunin before him.

The battle was still going on.

Qian fought one against two without falling into the slightest disadvantage.

But that was only temporary.

In the end, Qian was only one person. Facing the combined attacks of two opponents, if this dragged on, an opening would inevitably appear.

So.

"We have to end this quickly!"

And if he wanted to end this quickly, he first had to break free from this deadlock of mutual entanglement.

If he kept fighting at close range, he would have no way to make use of his advantages.

What were his advantages?

Of course, they were his level 3 "Ninja Tool Throwing" and the ninjutsu he had generally raised to level 2.

With that thought, Qian began considering a plan.

When he saw Ryosuke and Mizutani Shizuko being forced into danger again and again by that Rock Hidden Chunin, an idea suddenly came to him.

And so, in the battle that followed, Qian would glance over there from time to time. Whenever the two were injured, he would reveal a look of anxiety at just the right moment.

Naturally, these changes in him were seen by the two Rock Hidden Chunin.

The two exchanged a look, everything understood without a word.

And Qian saw their changes as well, equally keeping his expression still.

Now, both sides were waiting for an opportunity.

Finally, after who knew how long, Mizutani Shizuko made a careless mistake, and that Rock Hidden Chunin slashed her arm, blood flowing out.

The intense pain made Mizutani Shizuko involuntarily cry out.

Seeing this, Qian's expression shifted slightly, as if his attention had been distracted, and his dodging movement slowed by just a beat.

Then, with a "shhk," the clothes on Qian's left shoulder were cut open by one Rock Ninja, and specks of crimson seeped from the tear.

At this sight, the other Rock Hidden Chunin's eyes lit up. He swiftly swung the Kunai in his hand, aiming straight for Qian's vitals.

And Qian's following performance perfectly illustrated what it meant for one slow step to lead to every step being slow.

Because he had failed to dodge in time just now, Qian had suffered some damage. Though the wound was not serious, one could even say it was barely worth mentioning, the rhythm of the battle had been disrupted.

As a result, under the other Rock Ninja's attack, he could only retreat step by step.

And the Rock Ninja who had first wounded Qian also seized the chance to launch a fierce assault on him.

In the end, Qian could not hold them off. One of them found an opening and kicked him in the right arm.

In fact, if Qian had not blocked with his arm at the critical moment, that kick probably would have landed on his head.

At that point, it would not have been as simple as being sent flying.

That was right. After taking that kick, Qian involuntarily flew backward to the left.

Only, what neither Rock Ninja noticed was that the instant Qian's feet left the ground and he was sent flying, he forcefully kicked off the ground, making his backward flight just a little faster.

However, even if they had noticed, they would not have cared, because they had never intended to give Qian any time to catch his breath.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~

Several Shuriken and Kunai were thrown by the two Rock Ninja, chasing straight after Qian as he flew backward.

Not only that, they themselves followed closely behind as well, ready at any moment to deliver the final blow.

Qian was extremely familiar with this method of attacking through every opening, because not long ago, he had used this very method to kill a Rock Hidden Genin.

Without even guessing, Qian knew that whether or not he dodged this wave of Shuriken and Kunai, the instant he landed, he would be met with a chain of attacks from the two Rock Hidden Chunin.

At that time, if his reaction was too slow, he would end up like that Rock Hidden Genin he had killed, struck down on the spot by the two Rock Hidden Chunin behind him.

Even if he did react, having lost the initiative, his chances would still be grim.

It seemed his situation was extremely bad.

However, there was not the slightest panic on Qian's face. There was even a hint of self-satisfaction.

Bang, bang, bang~

All the Shuriken and Kunai fired by the two Rock Hidden Chunin struck Qian.

However, the sound that rang out was not the sound of sharp blades entering flesh. Instead, it sounded a little like they had stabbed into wood.

Wait!

It was not like that. They really had stabbed into wood.

Qian, who had landed, had somehow turned into a section of log, now covered in Shuriken and Kunai.

Seeing this, the two Rock Ninja who had been preparing to step forward and finish him off stopped in unison and cried out in surprise, "Substitution Technique!"

They were not surprised that Qian knew the "Substitution Technique," but shocked at how Qian could possibly have performed the "Substitution Technique" in such a short time.

Even they might not have been able to pull it off.

But none of that mattered for the moment. What mattered was—where was Qian now?

The two Rock Hidden Chunin were rich in Battle Experience, and at the first possible moment, their gazes swept over the nearby places suitable for hiding.

Then they saw Qian standing on a tree branch.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

Qian placed his right hand in front of his mouth and spat out a huge crimson fireball.

A rolling heat wave swept in. The two Rock Ninja hurriedly dodged, but because they had lost the initiative, even though they moved quickly, they were still caught in the blast of the exploding fireball.

Bang.

One Rock Ninja cut a sorry figure as he crashed to the ground. Without taking even a breath, he hurriedly braced a hand against the tree trunk and tried to stand.

But just then, a kunai shot out from the smoke and dust.

The Rock Ninja quickly shifted his body to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack by a hair's breadth.

However, before he could feel relieved, he saw the kunai fly behind the tree, suddenly change direction, and circle back around from the other side.

Screech, screech, screech.

The sound of Steel Wire scraping rang out.

Before the Rock Ninja could react, his body had already been tied to the tree.

Only then did he realize that a nearly invisible Steel Wire was attached behind the kunai, and it was this Steel Wire that had bound him to the tree.

The Rock Hidden Chunin seemed to think of something and inwardly cursed, Not good. He was about to break free, but his arms were bound by the Steel Wire and he could not form seals at all, so he could only use brute force.

But how could Steel Wire be so easy to break free from?

While he struggled, a line of fire appeared from within the smoke and dust. It traveled along the Steel Wire, like a Fire Dragon, burning straight toward him.

"Ahhh!"

His agonized wail echoed across the entire battlefield. Only after several breaths did it gradually fade away.

Tap, tap, tap.

Qian slowly walked out of the smoke and dust. Looking at the Rock Hidden Chunin, whose entire body was charred black yet still not dead, he flicked his hand and threw out a kunai, ending his life.

Then he looked toward the right, not far away. There was another Rock Ninja struggling there—one of the two who had surrounded him.

At this moment, several shuriken were embedded in the man's body, and blood kept gushing out. He tried to get up several times, but failed each time.

Without a doubt, those shuriken were also Qian's handiwork.

Just now, under the cover of the smoke, he had briefly activated the Sharingan.

With it, he had split his attention in two, not only using the kunai and Steel Wire to trap the Rock Ninja in front of him, but also sending shuriken into the body of the other Rock Ninja.

Looking at the Rock Ninja struggling endlessly, Qian shook his head and casually threw out a kunai, ending the other party's suffering.

With that, both Rock Hidden Chunin had been killed by him.

Looking back over the entire battle, the turning point could be said to have started with that kick.

After deciding on a battlefield strategy of ending the fight quickly, Qian had been hinting to the other side that he cared deeply about his companions' situation.

Thanks to the advantage of his age, as well as his previous action of immediately relieving Ryosuke and Mizutani Shizuko after killing his opponent, the two Rock Hidden Chunin had not doubted this.

So afterward, when Qian showed a state of concern clouding his judgment because Mizutani Shizuko was injured, the two of them did not suspect anything either.

After that, Qian naturally revealed an opening, and sure enough, the two took the bait.

The moment he was kicked flying, Qian knew his plan had succeeded.

Although the other side's follow-up attacks had flowed very smoothly, his Substitution Technique had long since been trained to level 3, the Perfected Realm.

Added to the time he had deliberately bought by accelerating as he left the ground, it had already been enough for him to perform the Substitution Technique.

From that moment on, he turned passivity into initiative.

First, while the other party was caught off guard, he smashed down a Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique, catching them completely unprepared.

Next, he used the Sharingan in combination with Ninja Tool Throwing to trap one of them and heavily injure the other.

After that came what he had just done.

He opened directly with Fire Release: Fire Dragon Technique, attacking the trapped Rock Hidden Chunin from a distance and leaving him with absolutely no chance to escape.

Once both of them had lost their ability to fight, he calmly finished them off, ending everything once and for all.

Overall, the entire course of this battle had never left his control. Only when he turned passivity into initiative had there been a slight risk.

But that small risk was still within Qian's tolerance.

Not to mention that he had a ninety-percent certainty he could smoothly perform the Substitution Technique—even if he had failed to use it, he could still risk exposing the Sharingan to avoid the subsequent attacks.

So overall, the risk had not been that high.

However, these two Rock Hidden Chunin had also been unlucky. Throughout the whole fight, they had not managed to use any decent ninjutsu before Qian seized the opportunity and wiped them out in a single wave.

From this, one could also see just how important grasping the right timing was in battles between ninja.