"Shhk!"
Kaze plunged her blade into Xue Ge before her.
"Die, you slippery bastard!" Her voice held nothing but disgust.
God, he kept running, never facing her head-on even once, but the moment Kaze tried to leave, he would fling a ninjutsu at her. How could a fighting style be this revolting?
Xue Ge was fast to begin with, and his flexible control of chakra threads let him make unexpected movements in midair. He was not much of a threat, really, but killing him was genuinely difficult.
Fortunately, after a barrage of attacks, Kaze finally sealed off Xue Ge's escape routes, caught up, and drove her blade straight into his chest.
Looking at Xue Ge's still lifeless expression, Kaze actually felt a flicker of secret satisfaction.
But that satisfaction did not last even a second.
"Poof!"
"Xue Ge" vanished in a cloud of smoke.
Kaze froze for a moment, then flushed with fury.
She had utterly disgraced herself as a jonin-
I spent all that time fighting a shadow clone-and the worst part is, it took me this long to catch it-what an absolute humiliation.
Wait!
A chill suddenly ran through Kaze.
If this was a shadow clone, then this guy's real body must be-
"Oh no," she murmured, immediately preparing to chase after Afui.
After a few steps, she stopped. With a wary expression, she backed all the way out of the woods into a forest clearing.
An eerie slithering sound came from the dense woods, countless overlapping sounds coming from every direction.
Before long, thousands upon thousands of snakes surged out from all sides, surrounding Kaze in the center of the clearing.
"This is-"
Kaze's expression stiffened. She looked around and saw a figure with flowing black hair slowly approaching across the sea of snakes.
A large snake,