He was going to leave this place. Who had any interest in playing house with them here?
It was just that there had still been no word from Hanzo.
The others did not believe him at all. The tall Shinobi jumped down from the roof and joined the others.
"You will die here today," the tall Shinobi said in a deep voice.
They had been preparing all this time for today.
Hyuga Akira looked around at them. "Seven in total. Everyone's here."
He looked eagerly at the seven people present. Apart from the two he had killed, all of Kusen's remaining subordinates were here.
If he killed all of them, he really would be wiping them out to the last man.
Even the last traces of Kusen's existence would disappear.
None of the seven made the first move. They were waiting for the poison in Hyuga Akira's body to take effect.
But they waited and waited, and Hyuga Akira had even started doing warm-up exercises without showing the slightest sign of being affected by poison.
"Why are you fine?" someone could not help demanding.
Hyuga Akira stopped warming up and said, "You mean the poison in the tea? I never drank it. I tricked you."
Using poison in front of a Medical Ninja-what were they thinking?
They did not know Hyuga Akira was a Medical Ninja.
Well, that explained it.
He lightly swung the Bronze Blade in his hand.
"Time to pull the mobs."
Whoosh.
A sudden sound cut through the air, and Hyuga Akira vanished before their eyes.
"Where is he?" Everyone looked around in panic.
A scorching wave of heat erupted behind them. They all turned around quickly and saw flames burning on Hyuga Akira's Bronze Blade as he sliced one of their companions through the abdomen. The two halves fell to the floor.
[Experience: 356]
"The first." Hyuga Akira smiled faintly at them.
Kumate + Unknowing Fire.
Hyuga Akira's close-combat fighting style.
Two Rain Ninja charged at Hyuga Akira from the left and right, one holding an umbrella and the other a blade, while the tall Rain Ninja charged straight at him from the front.
Hyuga Akira swung his blade at the Rain Ninja on the left. The man tried to block with his own blade, but he had underestimated both the force behind Hyuga Akira's blade and the flames upon it.
The intense heat made the Bronze Blade glow red. It cut straight through the other blade, making the Rain Ninja's pupils contract. He had never expected this outcome.
The blade continued downward, splitting him in two as well.
[Experience: 412]
Hyuga Akira spun in midair, sweeping his blade upward toward the right. His opponent had also realized that he could not block the Bronze Blade and tried to retreat with the Substitution Technique.
[Cheap Shot]
The Shinobi on the right felt his pupils contract. His chakra would not move. In that instant, Hyuga Akira's blade swept upward and sliced him open.
[Experience: 256]
Only then did the tall Shinobi barely reach Hyuga Akira. Still airborne, Hyuga Akira kicked him and sent him flying.
His body rotated another half-turn in the air before he landed.
Everything happened in an instant: two dead, one sent flying.
"Two." Hyuga Akira grinned at the remaining people.
In just an instant, three of the seven were gone. The white teeth in Hyuga Akira's grin looked like a demon's smile directed at them.
"A monster! This guy's a monster!!" Someone gave up fighting, turned, and leaped toward the window.
Crash.
As the window shattered, several Shinobi moved to jump out after him without a second thought.
That brief exchange alone had made them understand that Hyuga Akira was not someone they could defeat.
This guy already had the strength of a Chunin.
Seeing three of them jump straight out of the window left Hyuga Akira momentarily stunned. That hesitation slowed his movements, and he only had time to throw a few Shuriken.
The Shuriken turned into fireballs and struck the slowest runner, leaving several bloody holes in his body. His momentum carried him out of the window.
[Experience: 457]
"Tsk, tsk." Hyuga Akira walked up to the tall Shinobi. His kick had sent the man crashing to the floor, and he still could not get up.
"Your companions just abandoned you like that."
The tall Shinobi gritted his teeth. Hyuga Akira's kick had left his head spinning. He did not respond, merely staggering to his feet.
He still tried to attack Hyuga Akira, but the world was swaying before his eyes. Even with Hyuga Akira standing still, the tall Shinobi could not hit him.
Hyuga Akira shook his head and cleanly sliced off the tall Shinobi's head with the Bronze Blade.
[Experience: 485]
Only then did he turn and look down through the shattered window. Apart from a corpse lying below, there was no sign of the other two Shinobi.
The darkness concealed them, and finding them would not be easy.
They were only two Genin and would not provide anything good or much experience anyway, so Hyuga Akira simply gave up.
"They sure were decisive." Hyuga Akira shook his head. He had not expected them to choose to flee outright, costing him the best opportunity to pursue them.
He first searched the belongings on the four corpses in the room.
In the end, only two items dropped. The other two yielded nothing but experience.
[Scarlet Eyes] [Attribute: Enhancement +1 (Cannot be used)]
"Completely useless." Hyuga Akira glanced at the Scarlet Eyes. They were purely decorative items, with no use other than being sold.
"I wonder if there are any perverts in the Shinobi World who buy these things." Looking at the eyeballs in his hand, Hyuga Akira put them into his backpack anyway.
There was no need to say much about the second item. Hyuga Akira could not use it yet, so he could only put it into his inventory.
Just as Hyuga Akira was looking around the office, wondering how to clean the place up,
he suddenly turned toward the window.
A man was crouching there. Seeing Hyuga Akira look over, he waved, a foxlike smile on his face. Hyuga Akira's gaze shifted to his hand, where he held a severed head that still wore an expression of terror.
"You're Muyu, then. Not bad. You already have the strength of a Chunin."
Hyuga Akira watched the man gravely and silently activated his Byakugan, seeing an enormous amount of chakra at the Jonin level.
He looked at the Amegakure Forehead Protector on the man's forehead.
This was the man Hanzo had sent.
Chapter 57: Going premium, please subscribe to the first release!!!!
The book goes premium tomorrow, and I'm honestly bewildered. Because I've been ill lately, I still haven't managed to get my schedule sorted out.
Then suddenly I was told it was going premium.
I've been pretty nervous writing this book, and I don't know how it'll perform. As long as it does reasonably well, there's plenty I can write.
I won't make any guarantees. After all, I need to eat. As long as the results are decent, I'll definitely keep writing.
The outline for this book is already finished, so completing it shouldn't be a problem. The main problem might be my own sleep schedule.
It goes premium tomorrow, and normal updates will resume too.
From now on, updates will be ten thousand characters a day. If something comes up and I need time off, I'll announce it beforehand and only update two chapters. I absolutely won't stop updating.
I'll try to write a little extra so I can release a burst of chapters sometime.
As for how much I'll update tomorrow,
at least ten thousand characters.
Thank you all for your support. Your love for the book is what drives me to improve. I'll do my best to write the rest of it well.
Chapter 58: Hanzo's men finally arrived
Although he had already suspected as much,
Hyuga Akira still pointed the Bronze Blade at the man, even though this was an opponent he had absolutely no chance of beating.
"Who are you?"
"Murakami Hana, a Jonin of Amegakure." The moment he finished speaking, he vanished. Moving at a speed Hyuga Akira could barely glimpse, he circled behind him and twisted one of his arms behind his back. Hyuga Akira could only lower his body to ease the pain.
Crack. With the crisp sound of bone, Hyuga Akira felt excruciating pain shoot through his arm. His arm bone had broken.
The pain did not affect him at all. He also had Naufra to let him ignore pain, leaving his expression unchanged as he half-crouched against the floor, looking for an opportunity.
The gap between them was simply too great.
A Jonin was not someone Hyuga Akira could contend with yet.
"Remember, in Amegakure, you must show respect to those stronger than you," Murakami Hana said into Hyuga Akira's ear before releasing him.
Hyuga Akira rolled forward and turned, crouching on the floor to face Murakami Hana, one arm hanging limply. The Bronze Blade vanished from his right hand, and he pressed that hand against his broken arm. With two cracking sounds, he set the bones back into place.
He clenched the fist of his newly set arm. It was barely usable.
Just then, another person jumped through the window and casually tossed a head at Hyuga Akira's feet. Both heads belonged to the Genin who had just escaped.
"Bullying the newcomer again, senior?" A slightly overweight man wearing a breathing mask walked over to Harugami Hana.
He seemed to be speaking up for Hyuga Akira, but his tiny, beady eyes carried a malicious look.
"After all, he'll be working for Lord Hanzo from now on. Naturally, he needs to learn a few rules," Murakami Hana told the man with a smile.
Hearing Murakami Hana mention Hanzo, Hyuga Akira grew even quieter, waiting to hear what the two would say next.
"Then leave it to me, senior."
"Sure."
Murakami Hana did not object to the fat man's suggestion. He merely smiled as he watched him approach Hyuga Akira.
"Brat." The fat man's voice was full of malice as he raised his foot to step on Hyuga Akira.
But the next moment, his foot came down on empty air.
The instant the man raised his foot, Hyuga Akira darted left. Using the blind spot in the man's vision, he seemed to disappear as he circled behind him, drew the Bronze Blade, and slashed.
The man might have been fat, but he was anything but slow. He drew a Kunai and quickly turned.
"I'm not like those useless fools." He raised his Kunai to block Hyuga Akira's Bronze Blade, but the flames burning along it heated the edge so intensely that it cut through the Kunai almost instantly.
The fat man's expression changed. He pushed off and leaped backward, dodging Hyuga Akira's slash.
"You bastard!!! How dare you humiliate me like this!!!"
He was supposed to let me bully him, yet he actually dared to fight back.
Hyuga Akira raised his head, his mouth stretching into a wide grin and exposing his stark white front teeth, like a predator smiling at the sight of prey, or a murderer who had found his target.
The sight frightened the fat man into taking an involuntary step back.
This guy.
Something's wrong with him.
Hyuga Akira stamped down and shot forward like an arrow, instantly reaching the fat man. He jumped, spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees, and slammed a vicious kick into the man's face. The force shattered his respirator, and the fat on his face could be seen quivering.
Bang!!
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