A man was standing in the grass.
He was thin, with a sheathed short sword tucked at his waist.
His clothes were covered in mud stains and blades of grass, as if he had been in the wild for a long time.
The two sides stared at each other.
It was quiet for about two seconds.
Jiraiya was the first to react—or rather, his brain skipped over all the questions a normal person should have had and jumped straight to the answer he wanted most.
“Oh—!”
He clapped his hands, his voice full of excitement.
“The exercise has this kind of stage too?!”
Tsunade did not move.
Jiraiya turned his head to look at her: “The teacher didn’t say anything about arranging people to act as enemies to intercept us, did he?
This is too exciting—”
Before he finished speaking, he had already pulled a wooden Kunai from behind his waist.
“Watch me!”
Jiraiya flicked his wrist to spin the weapon; he had practiced this move in front of a mirror at least a hundred times and thought it looked very cool.
He then lowered his center of gravity and charged out.
A seven-year-old child couldn’t actually run that fast, but Jiraiya’s strength lay in his daring.
He didn’t think about tactics, didn’t look at the terrain, and charged in a straight line.
Holding the wooden Kunai at his side, he assumed the No.
3 thrusting starting stance taught in the textbooks.
Jiraiya thought to himself that Tsunade was watching.
Usually at the Ninja Academy, he couldn’t beat Kitahara Kaede in a proper spar, and in terms of grades, he was still at the bottom.
But actual combat was different; actual combat was a test of guts.
Jiraiya might not be good at other things, but he had guts to spare.
Seeing the white-haired child charging over, the man opposite him even tensed up, subconsciously gripping the tree branch in his hand tighter.
His eyes darted around quickly, and after scanning the surroundings and confirming there was no one else, he withdrew his gaze and re-examined the two “enemies” in front of him.
A little girl with blonde hair and a little boy with white hair.
They weren’t even as tall as his chest.
They were shouting about exercises and teachers, so they looked like they were from the Ninja Academy.
The white-haired one was charging at him with a wooden Kunai.
The man’s body relaxed, and the corners of his mouth pulled back.
Tsunade’s gaze did not follow Jiraiya.
She was looking at the man’s forehead.
The symbol engraved on his forehead protector was not the Konoha emblem.
Four wavy lines—the Hidden Mist Village.
And right in the middle of those four wavy lines, there was a deep scratch mark running across it.
Tsunade’s mouth opened.
“Jiraiya, fall back—!”
It wasn’t Jiraiya who had moved.
It was the man.
There were no unnecessary preparatory movements.
One second he was standing in place, and the next, he was right in front of Jiraiya.
Jiraiya’s Kunai was still raised in mid-air, his thrusting motion only half complete.
His eyes caught a glimpse—a flash of gray-blue fabric sweeping past the bottom of his field of vision.
Then came the impact to his abdomen.
Jiraiya felt everything in his stomach surge upward; the rice ball he had eaten that morning churned in his throat.
His feet left the ground, and his body flew off sideways.
The sound of his back hitting the tree trunk was dull.
The wooden Kunai in his hand had also slipped from his grip and flown off somewhere.
From the charge to falling to the ground, no more than three seconds had passed.
The second half of Tsunade’s sentence stuck in her throat.
Her brain processed a lot of things in those three seconds.
The Hidden Mist forehead protector, the scratch mark, appearing in the mountains behind Konoha, attacking without a word.
There was no hesitation when he struck; he chose the most efficient way to subdue someone—a knee to the abdomen, knocking them out without killing them.
This was not something the Ninja Academy would arrange.
This was a real Rogue Ninja.
Tsunade assumed a standard defensive stance; although it probably wouldn’t be of much use, it was the only thing she could do at the moment.
She glanced out of the corner of her eye toward the base of the tree.
Jiraiya was leaning against the tree trunk, his body curled up, one hand clutching his stomach.
He hadn’t passed out, but his face was pale.
“…Jiraiya!”
A muffled voice came from over there.
“Don’t, don’t shout so loud…”
Jiraiya coughed twice and spat out some bile.
“…I’m fine.”
He tried to stand up by leaning against the tree trunk, but his legs went weak, and he slid down halfway.
His knee knocked against a tree root, making him wince in pain.
But he was still trying to push himself up.
“I’m fine…
that guy…
a sneak attack…”
His voice was intermittent.
Tsunade did not turn her head, her eyes fixed in front of her.
The man did not pursue.
There was no murderous intent, nor was there any pity.
It was a faint impatience—the kind of impatience from having one’s schedule delayed.
His gaze shifted to Tsunade, and his right hand rested on the hilt of the short sword at his waist.
He took a step forward.
Tsunade’s breathing hitched for a split second.
Only one thought remained in her mind—
There’s no running away.
…
Mountain peak.
Kitahara Kaede was tossing a wooden plaque in his hand.
Eight points.
He looked down at it, quite satisfied.
He had searched half the mountain to find it, hidden in a crevice on the cliff face; the location was tricky.
Not far away, three children were lying on the ground, scattered about.
He hadn’t hit them.
—Well, he had hit them.
These three were from another group; relying on their numbers, they wanted to snatch the plaque and rushed up in a swarm.
Kitahara Kaede used two moves to take down two of them, and the third one tripped over a tree root and knocked himself out while trying to run away.
He put the wooden plaque into his waist pouch, clapped his hands, and headed back the way he came.
It was time to go back and meet up with Tsunade.
A sound suddenly rang in his mind.
[Ding—Triggering side quest: Hero Saves Beauty]
[Quest objective: Kill the hostile target, ensure Senju Tsunade survives.]
[Quest reward: Calculated based on combat score.
Clearing without taking damage and the target’s emotional outburst will significantly increase the rating.]
[Failure penalty: Simulation terminated, this rating reset to zero.]
Kitahara Kaede’s footsteps stopped.
He looked at the words on the light screen, his brows slowly furrowing.
Hero saves beauty.
Kill the hostile target.
…So cliché?
The next second, he realized—no, that’s not right.
“Kill.”
Not “defeat,” not “drive away.”
It is to kill.
In the Ninja Academy’s exercise, there wouldn’t be a target that required “killing.”
Something happened on Tsunade’s end.