"Clang!"
Shin'un leaped onto the treetop and engaged the Special Jōnin leading the group, sparks flying as their kunai clashed.
Caught off guard, the Special Jōnin hurried to meet his attack. His lack of preparation actually gave Shin'un the upper hand in their contest of strength, forcing him two steps back to ease the force.
Shin'un kept up the pressure, following with another attack. As his blade swung, the electric current constantly surrounding him passed into the opposing Special Jōnin whenever their kunai briefly crossed.
After only two clashes, the Iwagakure Special Jōnin keenly noticed his normally nimble hands growing sluggish. Without needing to think, he focused his gaze on Shin'un's hands, which were constantly wreathed in electricity...
"What ninjutsu is this?"
The Stone Ninja was certain he had never seen this type of ninjutsu anywhere in the Shinobi World. Like simps catching sight of their goddess, these currents appeared on their own and kept circling that brat.
Looking at the Konoha brat bathed in electricity before him, the Stone Ninja felt as though he were looking at a hedgehog with no opening whatsoever.
Although the situation was unfamiliar, his past combat experience quickly led him to decide to distance himself from the brat and fight with mid- to long-range ninjutsu.
Presumably, a brat as small as this one had very little chakra he could freely use.
The thought made the Stone Ninja all the more certain of his decision.
During a gap between exchanges, the Stone Ninja seized his chance and attempted to form hand seals to unleash a ninjutsu.
Through his seemingly slow-motion vision, Shin'un keenly detected this.
Twisting his ankle nimbly and driving through his lower body, Shin'un followed the recoil from their last exchange and leaped into the air, sending an immensely powerful kick straight at the Stone Ninja's face.
To defend against the kick, the Stone Ninja had no choice but to abandon his attempt to form hand seals.
A dull thud of flesh rang out. The Stone Ninja successfully blocked the kick, but his plan to form hand seals and use ninjutsu to escape his position fell apart with it.
The instant he blocked the kick, the Stone Ninja had an idea. The hand held defensively before him shot out, catching Shin'un's ankle before he could retract his leg.
With his height advantage, the Stone Ninja only needed to stand upright to leave Shin'un dangling in midair without any footing.
The Stone Ninja swung his arm, hurling the brat in his grasp hard toward the ground, intending to let him experience free fall from high up.
In that instant, the Stone Ninja had even decided how he would look down on the brat and deliver his victory speech after the attack.
"Bzzzt..."
Suddenly, a tingling numbness spread through his hand, snapping the Stone Ninja to his senses.
Although the currents mainly wound around Shin'un's surroundings and upper body, no one had said they could not move to his lower body.
"Aah!"
The intense electrical stimulation sent the Stone Ninja's entire body into spasms, leaving him completely unable to control his movements.
Looking at the foolish Stone Ninja before him, Shin'un laughed aloud, still dangling in midair by his captured ankle.
This is an Iwagakure Special Jōnin? He must have just been promoted.
As Shin'un inwardly snarked, he raised his kunai to kill the man before him.
Holding up his kunai, Shin'un tried positioning it for quite some time before discovering, to his dismay, that even if he curled his abdomen up and added the kunai's length, he still fell short of the Stone Ninja's vulnerable throat.
Speechlessly mourning his height, Shin'un instead began forming hand seals, preparing to use ninjutsu to end the Iwagakure Special Jōnin's life.
"Hm?"
An unusual sensation at his ankle alerted Shin'un that something was wrong.
Looking up, he saw that a layer of rock had appeared over the Stone Ninja's entire body at some point, blocking the current's effects and intrusion. He could see the Stone Ninja's violently convulsing body gradually steadying, seemingly about to shake off the current's effects.
Shin'un immediately understood what he was seeing.
While he had been trying to wield his kunai to end the Stone Ninja's life, the Stone Ninja, though unable to form hand seals, had still been able to use his clear consciousness to precisely control the flow of chakra through his body's pathways, continuously producing layers of rock on his skin to counteract Shin'un's current.
Achieving this required precise chakra control and great familiarity with ninjutsu that produced similar effects.
It was just like how Shin'un's extraordinary talent for Lightning Release caused erratic currents to appear around him on their own whenever he circulated chakra without carefully controlling it.
The principle was the same, but the difficulty was not.
Seeing that the Stone Ninja was about to shake off the current's effects, Shin'un had no time left to form hand seals and instead chose the more reliable kunai.
Raising his kunai, Shin'un aimed at the Stone Ninja's abdomen.
"Shlick!"
The sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out. To ensure the strike was effective, Shin'un wrenched the blade sideways after driving it in, carving a large gash across the Stone Ninja's abdomen.
Blood surged out and splashed all over Shin'un's face, briefly robbing him of his ability to see.
"Aaah!"
The Stone Ninja screamed.
Shin'un realized that his opponent must have already shaken off the current's effects. Otherwise, the electrical stimulation should have kept every muscle in his body, including his vocal cords, convulsing uncontrollably, making him completely unable to produce a sound.
He hurriedly opened his eyes. With the Stone Ninja's blood in them, his vision had turned entirely red.
Through the blood-red haze, Shin'un saw himself held in midair as the Stone Ninja clenched an enormous, rock-covered fist and drove it savagely toward him with tremendous force.
In his haste, Shin'un curled into a ball and raised his arms to defend himself.
Then a tremendous force struck his side, sending him flying.
For a moment, Shin'un felt the world turn upside down. His brain seemed to briefly lose consciousness, and his vision went completely black. Only by forcing himself to focus did he manage not to pass out.
"Rustle... rustle..."
"Thud!"
Countless small branches snapped along his flight path before Shin'un slammed bodily into a fairly thick tree not far away.
Afterward, an eerie silence fell over their battlefield, broken only by the sounds of Yūichi fighting another Stone Ninja nearby.
Shin'un swayed on a branch and barely managed to steady himself. He spat out a mouthful of blood, then his legs gave way and he dropped straight to his knees. Clutching the side of his chest, where he did not know how many ribs had broken, he stared directly at the Stone Ninja in the opposite treetop.
The Stone Ninja was also staring at Shin'un. Kneeling on the tree, he controlled his chakra to condense rock, slowly covering his abdomen like a bandage to reduce the bleeding.
Shin'un glanced at himself and slowly drew back the fine currents surrounding him.
Although the currents looked exceptionally cool as they coiled fiercely around him, these entirely passively generated currents were actually extremely weak and could, at most, paralyze someone. That was also why the Stone Ninja opposite him could resist them with Earth Release.
Having suffered from them once, the Stone Ninja would not fall for the same thing twice.
Since they were useless, Shin'un certainly would not waste extra chakra for nothing maintaining these "electricity effects" unique in the Shinobi World.
Exhaling heavily, Shin'un gradually grew accustomed to the pain in his body and stood again, ready to continue his unfinished battle with the Stone Ninja opposite him.
At the same time, seeing that Shin'un was ready to resume their fight, the Stone Ninja immediately stood up.
Abandoning his earlier attempts to distance himself from Shin'un, he actually leaped toward him first, as though he had guessed how weak the currents surrounding Shin'un were.
Maintaining the rock armor covering his body and raising his enormous stone fists, the Stone Ninja, his entire figure a size larger, hurled himself down at Shin'un's tree as though he had no regard for his life.