Qian Ye drew a deep breath and snapped his right leg forward.
No hand seals.
No complicated changes in chakra form.
Only physical strength amplified through pressure at his chakra points, and air pressure generated by his leg whipping through the air at high speed.
Hiss!
A pale blue vacuum slash, shaped almost like a full moon, burst from the tip of Qian Ye's foot.
The slash expanded as it flew.
In an instant, it stretched several meters wide.
With a howl that tore through the air, it slammed into the weakest central point of the fire tornado.
Boom!
A deafening explosion rang through the forest.
Shock waves surged.
Dirt and splintered wood flew everywhere.
Hyuga Tianfeng raised an arm to shield his face, his Byakugan fixed on the center of the explosion.
He saw something he would remember for the rest of his life.
The pale blue vacuum slash sliced into the flames like a razor-sharp blade.
It forcibly severed the chakra balance inside the fire tornado!
With their connection broken, the Wind Release and Fire Release collapsed explosively to either side.
The combined ninjutsu also wore away most of the vacuum slash's power.
What remained skimmed forward along the ground.
Several large trees along its path were sliced clean through their trunks.
The cuts were as smooth as if a blade had shaved them.
Agent B stood at the front and took the brunt of it.
As he watched the blue slash break through the flames and continue toward him, his pupils contracted sharply.
There was no time to dodge it completely.
It was too close.
What kind of taijutsu was this?!
Why didn't it even require hand seals?!
Agent B twisted his body with all his strength, trying to keep his chest and abdomen out of its path.
Riiip.
The slash grazed Agent B's chest as it flew past.
The blank mask on his face split in two and fell to the ground.
His tough, close-fitting combat uniform was torn open too.
A wound deep enough to expose bone stretched from his left shoulder to his right ribs.
Blood gushed out.
Agent B grunted, his body flying backward and slamming into a broken tree trunk.
The other Root ninja were also caught in the backlash of the uncontrolled ninjutsu.
Several nearby ninja collapsed, coughing blood, while the others were forced to stop forming hand seals and retreat in disarray.
A massive gap opened in the encirclement they had just formed.
The forest fell quiet again.
Only the crashes of broken trunks hitting the ground and the crackle of flames consuming leaves remained.
Qian Ye slowly lowered his right leg.
He had just been about to brush the dust off his trouser leg when his right leg trembled involuntarily.
"Hiss..."
Tempest Kick really was ridiculously powerful.
With the pressure boost from his chakra points, its destructive power surpassed the basic Six Powers by far more than a single level.
It truly made him a walking Wind Release artillery piece.
But the price was steep too.
In the distance, Pakura stood with her mouth hanging open, unable to close it for a long while.
She glanced down at the revolver in her hand, then back at Qian Ye, standing amid the wreckage.
A monster.
This brat was definitely a monster wearing human skin.
Twelve years old.
No publicly known kekkei genkai.
No powerful family backing.
He hadn't even used a single conventional ninjutsu.
With nothing but his body and a bizarre set of taijutsu techniques, he had smashed straight through an encirclement of Root elites.
Where on earth had the Hidden Leaf dug up someone like him?
Hyuga Tianfeng swallowed hard.
Suddenly, the wound on his thigh didn't seem quite so painful.
Compared with his physical injuries, his pride as a Main Family genius had already been cracked by that kick.
Not long ago, Uchiha Yan had mocked Qian Ye as a commoner who was only there to make up the numbers.
Looking at things now...
Who was really there to make up the numbers?
Without this commoner genin they had always looked down on, all of them, these supposed heirs of prestigious clans, would probably have died here today.
Qian Ye drew his right leg back.
The muscles in his leg ached terribly.
On the surface, he was steady as a rock, but inside, he was panicking like mad.
That Tempest Kick had drained every bit of chakra stored in his right leg.
Fortunately, the results had been spectacular.
Root's encirclement had been completely torn apart.
The dozen or so masked figures remaining exchanged looks.
They were killing machines, that much was true.
But even machines calculated losses.
Agent B lay gravely wounded, and Agent A's right shoulder had been crippled.
The twelve-year-old commoner genin facing them had unleashed jonin-level destructive power without forming a single seal.
There was no fighting this battle anymore.
"Retreat!"
Someone shouted the order.
The remaining Root ninja didn't hesitate for a moment.
They threw down several smoke bombs.
Under cover of the smoke, they vanished into the dense canopy in a few bounds.
They didn't even bother with their comrades' bodies on the ground.
The forest fell quiet again.
Only the crackle of burning tree trunks remained.
Hyuga Tianfeng braced himself against a tree trunk and stood.
As he looked at Qian Ye's back, his gaze had changed completely.
That was how brutally practical the ninja world was.
Strength decided everything.
Before, Tianfeng had thought Qian Ye was dead weight, tagging along to steal military merits.
Now, he could only feel the sting of humiliation.
Without that dead weight, the genius of the Hyuga Main House would have met his end here today.
The fat boy from the Akimichi clan also climbed to his feet.
He didn't even bother brushing off the dirt; his gaze was filled with awe as he looked at Qian Ye.
A trace of curiosity entered the Nara boy's eyes.
Uchiha Yan was the sole exception.
The young master of the Uchiha clan had just regained consciousness.
He clutched his swollen cheek, still somewhat dazed.
All he remembered was being sent flying by that masked man's kick.
Now, he saw that the masked men had fled and Qian Ye was standing in the middle of the clearing.
Uchiha Yan's arrogance as the scion of a great clan flared up again.
"Qian Ye, you useless bastard! Where were you hiding just now?"
Uchiha Yan pointed at Qian Ye and hurled abuse at him.
"If I hadn't risked my life holding them off, you'd have died a hundred times over!"
Qian Ye turned and looked at Uchiha Yan as though he were an idiot.
Was this guy missing his brain stem?
That Tempest Kick had caused such a huge commotion, and he really hadn't seen any of it.
Hyuga Tianfeng couldn't stand watching anymore.
"Shut up, Yan."
Tianfeng's voice was weak, but his tone was stern.
"Qian Ye saved us."
Uchiha Yan froze.
He looked at Tianfeng, then at the masked leader lying gravely wounded nearby.
His expression looked worse than if he had swallowed a fly.
Qian Ye couldn't be bothered with this moron who possessed conqueror's will.
He walked over to Agent B, who had been caught by Tempest Kick.
The wound across Agent B's chest was deep enough to expose bone.
His blood had already stained the surrounding dirt dark red.
Qian Ye lifted his foot and planted it against the edge of Agent B's wound.
"Talk."
Qian Ye looked down at him.
"Who sent you?"
Agent B convulsed with pain.
But the eyes behind his mask remained utterly lifeless.
"I will never betray Lord White Fang!"
Agent B clenched his teeth and forced the words out between them.
"Lord White Fang is the Hidden Leaf's true savior!"
Qian Ye rolled his eyes.
These Root ninja really were dedicated.
Even on the verge of death, they didn't forget to recite Danzo's script.
"Enough. Save your breath."
Qian Ye pressed down slightly with his foot.
"If Hatake Sakumo had suicidal loyalists like you, he'd already be sitting in the Hokage Office smoking a pipe."
"That sneaky old bastard Danzo wouldn't get to spend every day hiding in a basement, growing mold."
At the sound of Danzo's name, Agent B's pupils abruptly contracted.
Qian Ye pretended not to notice.
He had only been making an offhand bluff, never expecting such a strong reaction.
It looked like this really was Danzo's work.
That old bastard had truly thrown away all shame in his efforts to sabotage the peace talks.
Just then, a message suddenly popped up in Qian Ye's mind.
The Cross-Border Mutual Aid Group lit up.
[Zhao Hai]: "Qian! I just got into a real fight!"
Keeping his eyes on Agent B on the ground, Qian Ye split his attention to reply mentally.
[Qian Ye]: "Aren't you doing special training at Marine Headquarters? Who did you fight?"
[Zhao Hai]: "Old man Garp took me out on patrol at sea, and we happened to run into a pirate crew that didn't know better."
[Zhao Hai]: "The Quick Blade Pirates. Their captain's called Buck the Guillotine."
[Zhao Hai]: "According to old man Garp, this guy's considered pretty formidable in the first half of the Grand Line. His bounty's fifteen million Beli."
[Zhao Hai]: "And guess what happened?"
Qian Ye curled his lip.
[Qian Ye]: "You took him out with one punch?"
[Zhao Hai]: "Nope. I used Iron Body to take his full-power slash head-on."
[Zhao Hai]: "His cleaver's edge rolled right over, and he didn't even break my skin!"
[Zhao Hai]: "Then I hit him with a Finger Gun and punched a hole in his gut."
Reading Zhao Hai's description, Qian Ye couldn't help glancing at Jia, whose right shoulder he had just ruined.
Why does this sound so familiar?
So we both spent today catching blades with our bare hands.
[Qian Ye]: "All right, quit showing off. I just finished a fight too."
[Qian Ye]: "That trick of yours, using Chakra to stimulate pressure points, really works. It's just murder on the legs."
[Zhao Hai]: "Heh, just eat more Sea King meat to recover. Old man Garp's got me hauling cannonballs again. Talk later!"
Before you continue