It was midnight, and fierce winds howled through the desert of the Land of Wind.
The bone-chilling night wind carried a pungent stench of blood, forcing its way into people's nostrils.
Uchiha Qiongyue was covered in wounds, some of which had already turned purple.
He panted heavily, the kunai in his hand riddled with nicks.
He could no longer straighten his back, but his resolve remained firm.
Dragging his legs, with a senbon still embedded in them, he fought his way toward the Shinobi ahead.
By now, the Sunagakure Jōnin's puppet had been destroyed, and large patches of his body were scorched.
He dragged his battered body along as he fled for his life, glancing back from time to time, his eyes filled with fear.
Both the pursuer and the fleeing man were in terrible shape, and neither moved very fast.
Before long, Uchiha Qiongyue finally caught up to the Sunagakure Jōnin.
Seeing that escape was impossible, a flash of grim resolve crossed the Sunagakure Jōnin's eyes. He roared, raised his kunai, and charged back at him.
The clang of metal striking metal soon rang out amid the desert winds.
The noise quickly stopped with the sound of a blade piercing flesh.
At last, Uchiha Qiongyue had killed the dozen or so Sand Ninja who had surrounded and attacked him.
But he himself was badly wounded and poisoned.
If he hadn't brought an antidote prepared by Tsunade, he probably would have been the one to die.
Now that the battle was over, Uchiha Qiongyue no longer had the strength to stand and collapsed in the desert.
Weak all over and having lost too much blood, he desperately needed rest.
Although there was something very suspicious about this ambush, he had no energy to think too much about it for now.
Just as Uchiha Qiongyue fell, at the instant his muscles and mind relaxed-
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Several sounds of objects slicing through the air rang out.
Uchiha Qiongyue's eyes flew wide. Experience told him those were kunai flying toward him.
Uchiha Qiongyue instinctively tried to roll aside, but his exhausted muscles refused to obey his brain.
He actually failed to get up.
Uchiha Qiongyue was startled, and the threat of death drove him to lunge up with all his might.
Scrambling on all fours, he finally managed to roll swiftly aside.
Just before the incoming kunai struck the desert floor,
Bang, bang, bang!
The explosive tags detonated at precisely that moment.
The shock wave hurled Uchiha Qiongyue far away.
At the sight, Uchiha Qiongyue's expression grew grave, and he clenched his teeth.
The timing of that attack was so precise. Had he moved even a little later, he would definitely have died.
Startled or not, exhausted or not,
Uchiha Qiongyue knew this was no time to linger and fight. Using the dust raised by the explosion as cover, he quickly fled away from the direction the kunai had come from.
Bieshu Feifan, who had launched the ambush from the darkness, was a little surprised to see Uchiha Qiongyue turn and run.
He had thought the man would be like Sasuke in the future, refusing to run even if it killed him.
This Uchiha didn't seem quite pure-blooded enough.
Bieshu Feifan would never let such a good opportunity pass. He had coveted that Two-Tomoe Sharingan for a long time, and its owner was now severely wounded.
Relying on the Byakugan's vision, Bieshu Feifan easily followed Uchiha Qiongyue through the darkness.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Several more kunai shot toward Uchiha Qiongyue's neck.
Although Uchiha Qiongyue couldn't see clearly in the dark, his keen hearing and experience still allowed him to dodge.
Bang, bang, bang.
Several more explosions missed their mark.
Bieshu Feifan frowned. At range, Uchiha Qiongyue was even stronger than he had expected.
He felt the kunai he had just picked up. Together with the explosive tags he had saved earlier, he didn't have much left.
After hesitating for a while, Bieshu Feifan decided to take a gamble.
A severely wounded Two-Tomoe Uchiha wasn't beyond his ability to fight.
Having made up his mind, Bieshu Feifan immediately went on full alert and charged toward the fleeing, bedraggled Uchiha Qiongyue.
He threw explosive tags first, followed by countless kunai, while his real body brought up the rear as a safeguard, relying on observations from the Byakugan and Sharingan.
Yet the moment Bieshu Feifan charged out, a powerful aura suddenly erupted from Uchiha Qiongyue, who had been fleeing so desperately.
"Found you."
A wicked smile suddenly curled Uchiha Qiongyue's lips as his hands rapidly formed hand seals.
Bieshu Feifan's pupils contracted. Those were the seals for the Great Fireball Technique.
Bieshu Feifan hadn't expected him to have that much chakra left, and he stopped in his tracks.
Uchiha Qiongyue's Great Fireball swallowed all the explosive tags and kunai Bieshu Feifan had thrown, and the surging flames were about to engulf him.
Bieshu Feifan sucked in a cold breath. A Two-Tomoe Uchiha was this terrifying.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Everything in the path of Uchiha Qiongyue's Great Fireball was reduced to nothing, and even a large stretch of sand melted.
Bieshu Feifan, meanwhile, had vanished.
After that single attack, Uchiha Qiongyue immediately slumped to the ground, panting heavily.
His whole body shook like a leaf, and he could barely remain upright.
At that moment, a kunai suddenly shot out of the ground where Bieshu Feifan had been standing, hurtling toward Uchiha Qiongyue with a sizzling sound.
Having only just caught his breath, Uchiha Qiongyue's eyes flew wide, and he hurled the kunai in his hand with all his strength.
Bang!
The explosive tag detonated in midair.
The blast knocked Uchiha Qiongyue to the ground.
At that moment, Bieshu Feifan also crawled out of the sand.
Although he was unhurt, cold sweat had soaked his back.
If the ground hadn't been soft sand, he really wouldn't have been confident of avoiding Uchiha Qiongyue's fire release attack over such a wide area.
As expected of an Uchiha, even with almost no stamina left, the little bit of chakra he squeezed out was several times more than Bieshu Feifan had as a genin.
Although Uchiha Qiongyue was now in terrible shape, Bieshu Feifan was even less willing to charge at him.
Looking at the hunched Uchiha Qiongyue, Bieshu Feifan gritted his teeth. Even if he used up everything he owned today, he would kill Uchiha Qiongyue.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Bieshu Feifan threw his weapons once again.
He had scavenged all of them from the bodies of those dozen or so Sand Ninja.
They came in all sorts of odd shapes-kunai, senbon, and shuriken-but as long as they could kill, they were good enough.
Hearing the countless weapons slicing toward him, Uchiha Qiongyue quickly judged that, in his current condition, it would be hard to dodge them all.
In that case, he would fight.
Uchiha Qiongyue roared, once again squeezing out what little chakra remained in his body.
He pulled out a scroll and clapped his hands together, and a dense swarm of shuriken instantly flew out of it.
Uchiha Qiongyue activated his Sharingan again, tracking disturbances in the air.
Then, with light flicks of both hands, he threw shuriken using as little strength as possible, deflecting every attack that could hit him.
Bieshu Feifan activated his Sharingan's ocular power and saw that Uchiha Qiongyue did indeed still have strength left.
He immediately pulled out all his concealed weapons, anticipating Uchiha Qiongyue's movements as well and throwing them at his body wherever possible.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!
Their weapons instantly struck countless sparks in the darkness, like someone putting on a shoddy fireworks display.
Bieshu Feifan was doing his utmost to wear him down, but Uchiha Qiongyue was shocked.
He had already seen that his attacker was Bieshu Feifan.
Yet as they fought, Bieshu Feifan felt like another Uchiha to him.
Stranger still, his opponent could pinpoint his position in the darkness.
They exchanged volleys of concealed weapons for a while, ultimately ending in Bieshu Feifan's defeat.
He was almost out of scavenged weapons.
Bieshu Feifan immediately pulled out more explosive tags.
Hearing the sizzling, Uchiha Qiongyue barely managed to retreat another two steps.
The blast hurled him away once again.
Bieshu Feifan immediately anticipated where Uchiha Qiongyue would land and kept throwing explosive tags.
Bang, bang, bang!
After an unknown number of explosions, Uchiha Qiongyue finally exhausted his strength, and his left arm was blown off.
He retched, spitting out a considerable amount of blood.
Bieshu Feifan grinned, grabbed a kunai, and charged in to finish him off while he was weak.
If he hadn't been afraid of destroying that precious pair of Two-Tomoe Sharingan, Bieshu Feifan wouldn't have wanted to take the risk either.
After spitting out blood, Uchiha Qiongyue lay motionless on the ground, apparently without the strength to fight back.
Seeing Bieshu Feifan charge toward him, Uchiha Qiongyue's eyes filled with defiance.
"Bieshu Feifan, I won't accept this! Aaaaaah!"
Bieshu Feifan chuckled. What difference did that make?
He didn't need the man to submit. All he needed was his Sharingan.
Not far from Uchiha Qiongyue, Bieshu Feifan flicked his wrist, sending two kunai straight toward his chest and throat.
Thud, thud.
The kunai pierced him.
Before Bieshu Feifan's smile had fully spread across his face, Uchiha Qiongyue suddenly burst into a cloud of white smoke.
"A Shadow Clone?"
"That's right."
An icy voice suddenly rang out behind Bieshu Feifan, accompanied by a sound slicing through the air-the sound of a kunai cutting through it.
Bieshu Feifan's scalp instantly prickled, and he ducked sharply, just avoiding the decapitating strike.
But even as he dodged the fatal blow, a kick struck his left arm.
The heavy impact instantly bent Bieshu Feifan's arm, breaking it.
Bang!
Bieshu Feifan slammed into the desert sand.
With no time to feel the pain, Bieshu Feifan quickly scrambled up, turned, and ran.
Glancing back out of the corner of his eye, he saw Uchiha Qiongyue's battered body, and three tomoe in each of his eyes.
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