Xue Ge did not hesitate for a second. He flicked his left hand, lashing the Strangling Line at the middle-aged man before him.
"Oh?"
Then, before Xue Ge's incredulous eyes-the middle-aged man caught the Strangling Line with his bare hand.
An exceedingly thin layer of chakra coated his hand, controlled with such precision that it forcibly stopped the Strangling Line's spiraling destructive force.
Before Xue Ge could react, a cold gleam flashed before his eyes. He instinctively raised his left hand to shield himself, and a kunai punched straight through his prosthetic limb in the blink of an eye.
Xue Ge immediately drew his short sword and slashed horizontally at the middle-aged man, only for the man to dodge effortlessly and send him flying with a follow-up punch.
But Xue Ge rolled with the momentum, then sprinted off in another direction.
"...Interesting." The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow, flashed in front of Xue Ge again, and thrust a kunai at his throat.
This time, Xue Ge had nothing left to block it with.
Facing the blade as it drew ever closer, Xue Ge felt time slow down. Staring death in the face, his nerves stretched to their limit, something seemed to snap in his mind. Countless pieces of knowledge suddenly clicked together.
The Body Flicker Technique, one-handed hand seals, external ninjutsu, chakra flow control...
"Flicker!" Xue Ge closed his eyes and shouted, his right hand forming several seals in an instant.
A moment later, he flickered away in an utterly ungainly posture and slammed facedown into the ground. Undignified as it was, he had escaped the middle-aged man's fatal strike.
But before he could catch his breath, a kunai flew straight at his face!
In desperation, Xue Ge brought his half-mastered Rasengan up in front of the kunai, managing to deflect it.
Then his vision blurred. Before he could even think about what had happened, the Rasengan in his hand was slapped clean away!
He looked up to find the middle-aged man staring coldly down at him.
"What kind of Body Flicker Technique was that? Hideous!" The middle-aged man planted a foot on Xue Ge's chest.
His left prosthetic arm was severed with a single slash, and at some point he took another kick to the face. By the time Xue Ge came to his senses, the middle-aged man had clamped a hand around his throat and lifted him into the air, his feet dangling above the ground.
"Cough... cough, cough..."
Xue Ge slapped at the middle-aged man's hand as suffocation set in.
Watching the child struggle in his grip, the middle-aged man seemed to narrow his eyes in thought for a moment. Then he slammed Xue Ge into the ground!
Bam!
Spiderweb cracks spread across the earth. Xue Ge spat out a mouthful of blood and instantly lost consciousness.
"Splash..."
The sound of running water reached his ears, and Xue Ge slowly opened his eyes. Dense leaves and scattered patches of sky filled his vision.
"!" He sprang to his feet and scanned his surroundings, rapidly mobilizing the chakra in his body.
That middle-aged man... that monster... that...
"Are you looking for me?"
That nightmarish voice reached his ears, and Xue Ge's body instantly stiffened.
He turned his head with difficulty. The middle-aged man was sitting casually on a large boulder.
Knock, knock, knock! His knuckles rapped against the boulder, producing a series of resonant sounds.
"Come here."
"..."
Xue Ge hesitated for a moment and immediately felt murderous intent envelop him again.
With cold sweat covering his forehead, Xue Ge walked over to the boulder and sat down stiffly, his face pale with a sickly green tinge.
His insides churned. He felt nauseous, his head aching and spinning... Now that he was awake, the severe injuries from being slammed into the ground came crashing down on him all at once. The intense discomfort made even breathing difficult.
"Brat, what's your name?"
"Xue... cough, cough, cough, cough... pfft... Xue Ge..." The moment Xue Ge opened his mouth, he spat blood onto the rock. Only after panting for a while did he manage to finish.
It took a long time before Xue Ge finally suppressed the blood welling up in his throat and raised his head to look at the middle-aged man.
The man looked at him as though he were some unusual pet.
"You... you... who exactly are you..." Xue Ge asked laboriously, forcing out each word.
Madara Uchiha was still thoroughly bewildered.
He had performed the Summoning Technique exactly as instructed on the stone tablet, but what on earth had he summoned?
The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path? The legendary Demonic Statue of the Outer Path... was a little child?
But he looked so confused. Did the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path not know he was the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path? Could the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path die too? Was this a reincarnation?
Puzzled, Madara Uchiha released a sliver of his murderous intent at Xue Ge to test him. The test sent Xue Ge fleeing in terror.
Such a little child could move that fast? Huh, this was actually rather interesting.
Madara Uchiha leaped into Xue Ge's path, and the lash coming straight at him surprised him further. Chakra Threads were, more or less, a form of ninjutsu. Threads with destructive power of their own already fell into the category of ninjutsu that required no hand seals.
A child could use seal-less ninjutsu Madara Uchiha had never seen before. Whether it was a technique Madara Uchiha had never seen or a child knowing seal-less ninjutsu, neither was normal.
Yet just as Madara Uchiha's opinion of Xue Ge rose a notch, the Body Flicker Technique Xue Ge used next infuriated him beyond measure.
Hideous! Absolutely hideous! That could even count as a Body Flicker Technique?! How was he supposed to dance on the battlefield with a Body Flicker Technique like that!
Although that ball-shaped, seal-less ninjutsu was also quite unusual, Madara considered it flashy but impractical. Without a second thought, Madara Uchiha slapped the Rasengan away, then battered Xue Ge's body and limbs into disarray and clamped a hand around his neck, still wanting to see what else was special about this brat he had "summoned."
But Xue Ge had nothing left to offer. His greatest strength was taijutsu, and clearly, calling it an overwhelming defeat would not even be accurate-his meager taijutsu might as well not have existed in Madara Uchiha's eyes.
After a long stretch without any response, Madara Uchiha felt a little disappointed. Still, after some thought, he refrained from killing him outright. Setting aside the fact that he had yet to understand the connection between the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and this brat, the child himself was rather unusual.
In a shinobi clan during the Warring States Period, Xue Ge's level of strength would have seemed fairly normal to Madara Uchiha. But in this era, which Madara Uchiha believed had wallowed in false peace and utterly degenerated, Xue Ge's abilities stood out. And that was before taking all his disabilities into account.
Thinking it over carefully
, Madara Uchiha felt that the Body Flicker Technique had not really been a poor performance after all. He could not demand too much precision from a disabled person performing ninjutsu with one-handed seals.
So Madara Uchiha had not beaten him to death. Instead, he knocked him unconscious and took him out of the base, lest the brat remember its location.
Then he carried Xue Ge on his back to another location and waited for the brat to wake up so he could question him.
But... he might have hit a little too hard. The brat slept for an entire day and night before waking.
"You... you... who exactly are you..." Xue Ge asked laboriously, forcing out each word.
"Who am I?" Madara Uchiha snorted. "Call me 'Shura.'"