Not Cute at All

Yue and his opponent arrived at the outskirts of the district, at a barren mountain.

The lighting here was better, with no obstructions around. A silver moon had emerged in the night sky, scattering its pale radiance.

After the two took their positions, the man assumed a standard Opening Stance, facing Yue.

There was no disdain in his eyes. He regarded Yue as a formidable enemy.

Still, he asked, "Are you only using that dagger of yours?"

"I know how to use more than one weapon."

Yue gripped his short blade and replied calmly.

The slightly cool night breeze brushed across their bodies.

They stared at each other in silence.

In an instant, the man struck first, stepping forward as a torrent of blade light poured forth.

All Yue saw was the intimidating gleam of the blade. He was about to twist aside, widen the distance to evade it, and then counterattack. Yet midway through its flight, the arc of the blade suddenly vanished and changed course, turning from a slash into a thrust.

Moreover, the man's footwork and movement worked together flawlessly. This move caught Yue almost completely off guard.

First, it was a change in technique. Second, the blade and body underwent a "variation" during the attack.

It was a shift in speed and rhythm.

He couldn't dodge... Yue could only meet it with his weapon.

With a clang, metal rang against metal. Sparks flew where Yue's dagger scraped against the blade, and he seemed to have blocked it at the last moment. But his opponent had already closed in with an adult's larger frame and reach. He sheathed and drew his blade in one fluid motion, almost like an Iaido slash.

A silver line flashed through the dark night.

So fast!

Yue's heart jolted.

This was... exceptionally skilled swordsmanship.

Not only did the enemy possess a solid foundation in swordsmanship, he had also honed killing techniques suited to himself through countless bloody battles.

Crack.

Yue's clothes were sliced open by the swift blade, and the exposed skin on his chest was cut open as well, blood flowing from the wound.

Yet his opponent gave him no chance to catch his breath. One move had barely ended before another followed, unrelenting.

The man's features were grim. Now, like an enraged tiger, his blade pressed down like an avalanche, advancing step by step and leaving Yue no room to evade.

His arm had become an afterimage, and the sharp blade light resembled a ball of silver threads enveloping Yue.

All Yue could do was parry and shift within the limited space.

He wanted to retreat or dart away to create some distance, but the man seemed to have anticipated his intentions. The angles and force behind several descending slashes had already sealed off his openings, forcing him to clash head-on.

Clang, clang, clang...

The sound of the two weapons colliding was crisp.

But a closer look revealed that after every block, Yue's footprints left clear marks in the ground.

His opponent's swordsmanship was impressive, but his physical strength also far surpassed Yue's.

Yue had thought that, since he had trained with the Fuma Clan's large ninja tools since childhood, his strength would definitely exceed that of ordinary adults. Though this body was still young and not fully developed, he was still a ninja. At least in the Ninja World, age was not an absolute measure of a ninja's strength; it was merely a rough baseline. During wartime, even in Konoha, many students who had not graduated from the Ninja Academy joined the battlefield.

This was the result of different environments and systems in two different worlds.

But... the man before him was also someone who had absorbed part of the power system of the world of Soul Reapers. Even if he was not a true Soul Reaper and was not especially proficient in Slash, Fist, Stride, Ghost, he could still be considered one of the leading thugs in the lawless areas of the Soul Society Outskirts.

Finally, Yue seemed unable to keep up from exhaustion. Unable to evade the blade light, he stumbled and fell.

A plume of white smoke burst from the head struck by the vicious blade.

Substitution Technique.

As the wooden stump hit the ground, Yue had already used the Substitution Technique to shift positions and dart behind the leader. He leaped high into the air, preparing a sneak attack.

But he had still underestimated his target's strength.

Almost the instant the stump fell, the man twisted his waist and turned around.

The chilling blade force swept around with him.

The blade missed Yue by a fraction, just a little too slow.

But that reaction speed alone made Yue's heart pound. If he had hesitated even slightly, his abdomen would already have been cut open, and his organs might have spilled all over the ground.

Yue's dagger had pierced through the man's other raised hand, punching a bloody hole through his palm. Yue had intended for that strike to pierce the man's skull, but he had neutralized it at the cost of injuring his hand.

To block that fatal strike, the man had made his decision in an instant, without the slightest hesitation.

After turning around, the man grinned at Yue. He actually clamped the dagger blade between his teeth and pulled the weapon embedded deeply in his palm free. Then he stuck out his tongue and licked the blood from his hand. "I saw that strange hand gesture you made just now. You hid it well, but it couldn't escape my eyes... Is that how you perform those wicked transformations?"

Yue narrowed his eyes and remained silent.

"Now you don't have a weapon either..."

The leader gave a sinister smile.

It was as if victory were already in his grasp.

Hearing that, Yue immediately formed hand seals. A puff of smoke burst up beside him and dispersed as he used the Clone Technique.

The Three Basic Jutsu were the most fundamental techniques for every ninja.

"Two?"

The leader's eyes shifted.

Then Yue reached behind his back and pulled out another hidden weapon, a strangely shaped spike.

"What were you thinking... Since this is a fight to the death, how could I make such a fatal mistake?"

Yue sneered in response.

"So you still had something up your sleeve... What a troublesome brat."

The smile vanished from the leader's face as he cursed, "But I already have a general idea of your level."

"Next... I'm going to feast on you!"

With a furious roar, the man accelerated and charged forward.

Yue's clone was in front, while his real body followed behind, and they took the initiative to meet him.

With the clone restraining and covering for him, the pressure on Yue immediately lessened when they clashed again.

The two figures constantly circled their target, launching sneak attacks and darting about, making it impossible for the man to focus all his energy and attention on one target.

But Yue knew the clone would not last long. Once it disappeared, he would immediately fall into a disadvantageous position.

His opponent had not realized that the clone's attacks were an "illusion."

Let's try that move.

A gleam flashed in his eyes.

A moment later, he seized an opening and immediately had the clone throw itself into danger.

The other man had been observing him all this time, but hadn't Yue also been studying his attack patterns and habitual movements?

With a bang, the long blade cut the clone apart.

The man's eyelid twitched as he sensed something was wrong. Lowering his gaze, he saw Yue's real body had already slipped into the opening beneath him.

Yue threw the spike in his hand, forcing him to turn his head and shift his line of sight.

Yue planted both hands on the ground, gathered his strength, and kicked the man in the abdomen... The full-force kick sent the tall leader flying off the ground, suspended in midair. Then Yue vanished from the ground and shot upward.

As a transmigrator, Yue's advantage was not merely his familiarity with the plot, but his grasp of most of the information from both worlds.

It was not limited to a single fragment.

For example, as a ninja, Taijutsu was one of the required subjects at the Ninja Academy, aside from ninjutsu.

Although there was no decent Taijutsu to practice at the Grass Hidden Village's Ninja Academy, and even his father had not taught him any systematic Taijutsu, that did not prevent him from exploring and training on his own according to the "templates" in his memory.

The prerequisite was that his physical condition and skill allowed him to do it.

Something that did not require too much technical expertise.

The Taijutsu he had set his sights on, Lion Combo, was one of them. Sasuke had created it by copying Rock Lee's Front Lotus with the Sharingan, and it had appeared during the later Chunin Ninja Exams. But Yue at present certainly could not compare to Sasuke at that time, nor did he have the cheat that was the Sharingan... So the Taijutsu he used was practically a bargain-bin version of a bargain-bin version. He had spent a great deal of time exploring and training, combining it with his own habits and techniques to recreate it.

As for its power... it was certainly much weaker. The target's airtime and his own continuous striking motions were neither as complex nor as powerful. But at a moment like this, it was enough to catch his opponent off guard and inflict some damage.

It didn't matter what color the cat was, as long as it caught mice.

Yue drove a flying knee into the man's abdomen, making saliva spray from his mouth.

Then his body spun like half a top. Using the momentum, he swung a heavy kick like a battle-axe across the leader's neck.

He sent him crashing down like a cannonball.

After landing, Yue took advantage of his opponent's dazed state to swiftly close in. He casually scooped up the spike lodged in the dirt and pounced.

He drove the weapon into the man's heart.

Yue had planned that entire chain of attacks.

That included the direction in which he had thrown the spike beforehand, predicting where it would land so he could successfully use the Taijutsu.

And kicking the man toward the same direction as the spike, among other things.

His brain was operating and analyzing at high speed.

Yue sat astride the fallen man, both hands tightly gripping the handle of the spike embedded in his opponent's chest. His expression was weak.

His face was covered in sweat.

Using that Taijutsu had nearly drained all his strength.

After all, he had fought this group of desperadoes, openly and covertly, for nearly an entire day.

He had barely rested at all.

And to turn the battle around in a single strike, he had poured nearly all his strength into that Taijutsu killing move.

"It's over..."

Yue muttered absentmindedly.

He had won.

The man beneath him had stopped breathing.

An overwhelming sense of exhaustion flooded his body.

This had probably been the closest he had come to death since transmigrating.

It was also the first enemy he had encountered who was truly powerful and posed a threat to his life at his current level.

This life-and-death battle had indeed taught him many things.

He could feel himself growing.

However, just as Yue was about to release the spike, a sudden change occurred.

The man lying on the ground suddenly opened his eyes and glared at him, his eyes bloodshot.

His face was filled with a crazed, predatory ferocity.

He looked like an evil ghost.

As though making a final burst of life, he erupted with tremendous strength.

One of his arms suddenly seized Yue's arm, leaving him unable to move.

"Hahahaha... Die with me, brat!"

"In the Soul Society Outskirts, unless you dismember your enemy or cut off their head, you must never let your guard down... That is one of the rules we live by here."

"Even if I die, I'll drag someone down with me!"

"A clash between beasts allows not the slightest lapse!"

As the man roared madly through a mouthful of blood, he plunged his blade into Yue's body.

Giving him a strike straight through the heart.

"Hahahaha..."

"What a pity... You'll have to wait until your next life to learn these things..."

Seeing that he had dealt Yue a fatal blow, the man laughed heartily.

But his laughter gradually weakened.

And halfway through, it abruptly stopped.

Because... the familiar scene appeared again.

The "corpse" sitting on top of him turned into a wooden stump.

When he lifted his eyelids, he found Yue's real body standing beside his head, bending down to stare at him.

"..."

At death's door, the man fell silent.

This brat seemed to have sensed the danger and kept another trick in reserve.

He... had been played by a child, thoroughly and mercilessly humiliated.

The leader released his grip on the blade, and his hand fell limply to the ground.

"I lost."

The man looked at the moon in the night sky and spoke softly.

"I enjoyed our battle."

"Thank you for teaching me."

Yue's face was pale. After saying those two sentences, he did not finish the man off. Instead, he turned and walked away.

Because he knew the man would not survive. He would soon breathe his last.

He had spoken those words sincerely.

As the man listened to Yue's unsteady footsteps fading away, the light in his eyes gradually dimmed.

He felt the stillness and silence beneath the night sky, as well as the last remnants of sensation in his body and the gentle breeze that drifted past.

"How could a brat like you exist..."

"Your thoughts are so meticulous, so steady... You're nothing like a child."

"You're absurdly seasoned... So calculating, not cute at all."

"Am I going to die..."

"My eyelids are so heavy... Is this what death feels like? Being killed by a child is really hard to accept."

"But... if it's you, you should be able to survive quite well in this 'hell.' Someone like you is perfectly suited for this place."

"I really wanted to see it with my own eyes... what you would do, and how far you could rise here... What a pity I won't get to see it."

"The streets will surely become very interesting in the future..."

In the quiet outskirts, the faint, threadlike murmurs gradually vanished as the temperature of a certain body fell.