"His arm looks broken," Hyuga Akira remarked coldly, without jumping down to treat Nawaki.
Instead, he leaped backward and quickly vanished.
Minato Namikaze and Kushina also lost all trace of Hyuga Akira.
After a while, when Hyuga Akira still had not appeared, the two finally jumped down from the tree.
"Wait." Minato Namikaze suddenly stopped Kushina from entering the hole to rescue Nawaki, picked up a few stones, and tossed them toward the entrance.
Only then did he nod to Kushina, and the two approached the opening.
"Nawaki, how are you doing?" Minato Namikaze peered down into the pit.
Clutching his arm, Nawaki looked up at Minato Namikaze, wanting to cry but unable to shed a tear. "My arm's broken."
"Nawaki, I'm coming to save you!" Kushina jumped straight down the moment she heard him.
Minato Namikaze scratched his cheek. He had not expected Kushina to jump down so recklessly, either.
Shouldn't they have checked where Hyuga Akira was first?
In fact, Hyuga Akira had already abandoned them and headed straight into the depths of the Forest of Death.
He had placed plenty of traps near Nawaki and the others. They would have their hands full later.
If this still failed to fix Nawaki's bad habits, he would increase the difficulty after finishing the arrangements at the front and returning to Konoha.
Training Nawaki was not his only reason for choosing the Forest of Death. He had his own objectives, too.
He darted swiftly through the woods.
The Forest of Death was a forbidden area in Konoha. Ordinary Genin could easily encounter danger here, for it contained not only wild animals but also quite a few wild ninja beasts.
Soon, he caught glimpses of a cave in the distance.
He knew he was almost at his destination.
Hyuga Akira was a regular here.
He had farmed both his killing intent and his level of twelve in the Forest of Death.
How could he have killing intent without killing anything?
Those bandits last time had merely been his first time farming humanoid life.
Stopping on a branch, Hyuga Akira rapidly formed hand seals.
Snake-Ram-Tiger.
His chakra began to drain slowly.
"Let's say hello first."
He took out a shuriken and threw it into the cave. As it flew from his hand, it burst into flames, turning into a small fireball that slammed into the cave.
Firelight exploded inside the cave.
A huge, pitch-black figure flashed past.
"Roar!!" A deafening beastly roar rang out, and the ground shook as some ferocious beast charged out of the cave.
Hyuga Akira flicked his right hand, and the Bronze Blade appeared in his grip.
"Time to pull the mob."
Chapter 20: Settling an Old Grudge with the Brown Bear
Brown fur, a massive body, and a scarred face accompanied an enraged roar.
It was a brown bear.
It was also the ninja beast that had once sent Hyuga Akira packing.
A bear with chakra.
Though it was still a bear.
"Long time no see, old friend." Hyuga Akira regarded the brown bear with a hollow smile.
The brown bear also spotted him in the tree. Enemies saw red when they met.
Just as Hyuga Akira had never forgotten him, the brown bear had never forgotten Hyuga Akira. Hyuga Akira had given him the scar on his face.
This bastard actually dared show himself again.
Back then, he had been a handsome fellow among bears. Just because he had glanced at Hyuga Akira a little longer while passing by, the boy had come right at him with a shuriken.
What had he done to deserve that?
The thought made him even angrier.
"Roar!!"
The brown bear charged straight at Hyuga Akira.
Hyuga Akira tucked the Bronze Battle Blade at his waist and gripped shuriken in both hands. His hands blurred as he hurled them at the brown bear.
"Flame Shuriken!!"
The shuriken turned into fireballs and struck the brown bear, but his body was exceptionally tough. Sparks scattered, and shuriken flew in every direction.
All they accomplished was scorching the brown bear's fur black.
This enraged the brown bear even further. He rushed beneath Hyuga Akira's tree and struck its trunk with one swipe, snapping it outright.
Hyuga Akira jumped straight to another tree, never stopping his barrage of shuriken.
Unable to bear it, the brown bear lunged aside and ducked behind a rock.
Only then did Hyuga Akira stop.
This rock was harder than the last one. He jumped down from the tree and began running around it.
Seeing that Hyuga Akira actually dared come down, the brown bear stopped hiding and charged at him on all fours.
Hyuga Akira's version of a shuriken machine gun started up again.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The shuriken became fireballs in midair and flew toward the brown bear, who plowed through them and charged heedlessly at Hyuga Akira.
Hyuga Akira stopped running. Rather than taking out more shuriken, he drew the Bronze Battle Blade.
"This guy's defense is really tough."
He gave up on shooting. Ordinary shuriken could not hurt the brown bear at all. Last time, he had spent ages fighting and only managed to wound his face.
Flame Shuriken consumed chakra too quickly.
He might as well slash him with his blade. The Bronze Battle Blade increased attack power, after all.
With one step, he appeared beside the brown bear in an instant.
The brown bear slammed a paw into Hyuga Akira.
Bang!
Smoke billowed out, and Hyuga Akira turned into a log, which the brown bear smashed to pieces.
He had finally used the Substitution Technique properly.
Hyuga Akira appeared behind the shattered log and gripped his blade with both hands, hacking hard into the brown bear's arm and leaving a bloody gash.
"Roar!!" The brown bear howled in pain and lunged to bite Hyuga Akira.
Hyuga Akira flicked his wrist, throwing a kunai that had appeared in his hand at some point into the air.
The brown bear had clearly been biting at Hyuga Akira, yet unexpectedly ended up biting down on a kunai, which pierced the soft flesh inside his mouth.
Hyuga Akira appeared above the brown bear and brought his blade down hard on his neck.
The edge did cut into the brown bear's neck, but powerful resistance met it at the same time.
"So thick." Hyuga Akira gritted his teeth.
Chakra began gathering in his hands.
"Pseudo Monstrous Strength!!"
Veins bulged along his arms as he pressed down hard on the hilt, fighting the tremendous resistance while the blade laboriously sliced through the brown bear's neck.
After cutting through the brown bear's neck, the blade swept into the air, its remaining momentum carrying it through a semicircle.
The brown bear's massive head fell to the ground and rolled several times.
A notification flashed across Hyuga Akira's vision.
[Experience: 763]
"Whew!" Hyuga Akira breathed a soft sigh of relief. This brown bear really had been hard to kill.
A bear claw gleamed on the brown bear's corpse.
Hyuga Akira stepped forward and collected the dropped item.
[Skill book: Bear Grappling Fist]
"Why didn't any equipment drop?" Hyuga Akira looked troubled. He already had enough skills, but nowhere near enough chakra to use them.
He picked up the book and learned it immediately.
A flood of memories appeared in his mind. Bear Grappling Fist was not a ninjutsu that required hand seals, but a method of controlling chakra to increase the strength of his hands.
"Something like Monstrous Strength? But it doesn't look as useful as Senju Monstrous Strength."
Using it granted the strength of a bear, and its power could increase with its level.
The Senju's Monstrous Strength boosted strength according to the amount of chakra used, and it enhanced the entire body. This skill could only enhance the hands.
"Too bad I haven't learned Monstrous Strength."
He had watched Nawaki use Monstrous Strength many times. His Byakugan could see chakra flow, too, so after watching it enough and making several attempts himself, he had grasped an imperfect imitation.
But the fact that no skill had formed told him this was purely a matter of technique.
Although Monstrous Strength was ninjutsu, its chakra requirements were enormous. Only someone of Senju descent like Nawaki could use it without strain.
The Senju bloodline probably enhanced Monstrous Strength, too. Otherwise, even with its high chakra consumption, it should not have kept failing to form a skill.
Hyuga Akira used his blade to keep cutting wounds into the brown bear's body, letting the smell of blood spread outward.
How could he possibly finish so easily with just one brown bear?
The smell of blood was the best way to lure monsters.
As the sky gradually darkened, pairs of green beast eyes slowly appeared in the darkness.
Hyuga Akira flicked the blood off his blade and walked into the darkness with a slight smile. He gradually accelerated, then finally leaped up, raising his blade in both hands and bringing it down into the dark.
Elsewhere.
Nawaki hung upside down from a tree with a rope wound around his ankle, looking utterly defeated. His broken arm was already completely healed.
Minato Namikaze had helped set the bone. With the Senju Clan's powerful regenerative ability, half a day had been enough for him to recover completely.
But although he had recovered,
His way of thinking would not change anytime soon.
They had originally intended to look for Hyuga Akira, only to keep triggering his traps.
Standing a short distance from the tree, Minato Namikaze looked at Nawaki and at Kushina, who was hanging beside him, wanting to speak but holding back.
"Aaaah!! Bastard!! I'm going to kill that bastard!!" Kushina roared. The Kushina who had seemed like an injured little animal could no longer keep up the act and had turned into a raging she-rex.
"How twisted is he inside, setting up this many traps?"
There really was a trap every two steps and an explosive tag every three around here.
She and Nawaki had stepped on them all.
Actually, she had done a little better. She could still spot some of the traps.
Before you continue