The Rogue Ninja took a step forward.
Tsunade did not retreat; her knees were shaking, but her feet remained rooted to the ground.
Many thoughts flashed through her mind—she wasn’t proficient in the Substitution Technique, the Clone Technique was useless, and she didn’t even have a single Kunai in her hand.
Everything taught in the classroom was completely ineffective at this moment.
Her palms were covered in sweat, and her mind was a mess.
Her grandfather’s face flashed before her, followed by the sound of her granduncle’s voice, and then everything shattered.
The final image that remained fixed in her mind was the face looking at her from across the desk.
“Kaede…”
The moment the thought emerged, she bit her lip.
“Don’t think about it.
It’s useless even if you do.”
He was at the mountaintop, and it would take a quarter of an hour to run from here to the top.
“Besides, what good would it do if he came?”
“It would just mean one more person throwing their life away.”
But her mind wouldn’t listen.
It didn’t care about “it’s useless even if he comes”; it just kept thinking about that person over and over, like someone falling into water clutching at driftwood, completely irrational.
Tsunade ruthlessly suppressed this thought.
She was Tsunade.
Her grandfather founded Konoha, and her granduncle was the Hokage.
She did not show cowardice and raised her hands to her chest.
The Rogue Ninja made no unnecessary movements.
He drew his short blade, which was just over a foot long, and swept it horizontally.
Tsunade held her arms up in front of her face.
She didn’t know what this could block, but it was the only action she could take.
The blade did not descend.
A ball of fire slammed in from the side, wrapped in a scorching wave of air, heading straight for the Rogue Ninja’s face.
The Rogue Ninja’s reaction was faster than his thought process; at the last moment, he deflected the direction of his short blade and retreated three steps to the right.
The fireball grazed the hem of his clothes, flew past, and landed on the ground, burning a scorched patch.
Tsunade’s arms were still held up in front of her face.
The sound of branches snapping came from above.
Someone dropped down from the tree canopy, landing two meters in front of her, back turned to her.
Kitahara Kaede did not look back.
From beginning to end, his gaze remained fixed on the man opposite him.
Tsunade looked at this familiar back.
Her throat felt like it was blocked by a stone, and all her words were stuck, unable to be pushed out.
Just a moment ago, she had been desperately telling herself not to think about this person.
Now, he was standing right in front of her.
Kitahara Kaede was making a quick assessment.
That Great Fireball Technique just now hadn’t hit, but the opponent’s dodging movement wasn’t crisp enough—his reaction speed wasn’t at the level of a Chunin.
However, the way he created distance afterward was very seasoned; his footsteps were steady, and he wasn’t panicked.
A Genin who had been on the battlefield; he had plenty of combat experience.
He didn’t have more time to analyze.
The total amount of Chakra in his seven-year-old body was only so much; that one Great Fireball Technique had consumed half of it, leaving him with only one chance left.
Taijutsu as the main focus, finishing with Fire Release; there was no second plan.
The Rogue Ninja was also sizing him up.
The heat from the fireball still lingered in the air.
A seven-year-old child, C-rank Ninjutsu, released with precision.
This was not a capability a Ninja Academy student should have.
The Rogue Ninja’s brows furrowed slightly, and the short blade in his hand pointed downward.
He had originally intended to casually dispose of these two annoying brats and be on his way.
Running into a Ninja Academy exercise was an accident; he needed to cross the back mountain to enter the dense forest to the east and leave the territory of the Land of Fire from there.
But now, there was an extra variable.
No more hesitation.
Body Flicker Technique.
The Body Flicker of an adult Ninja was like vanishing into thin air to seven-year-old eyes—one second he was standing three meters away, the next second he was right in front.
Kitahara Kaede’s body reacted before his consciousness.
He twisted his right shoulder back and lowered his center of gravity.
The Rogue Ninja’s straight kick grazed his left ribs; the instant the instep brushed against his bone, pain exploded from his side.
Kitahara Kaede let out a muffled grunt and, using the force of being kicked, slid back two steps.
“He stayed standing?”
The Rogue Ninja withdrew his foot, stunned for a half-beat.
Jiraiya was still leaning against the tree, half his body numb, his stomach churning.
He saw the Rogue Ninja close in on Kitahara Kaede and his heart jumped—then he saw that guy stabilize himself.
It looked like that kick had the same force as the one that hit him.
When he took it, he flew straight out and hit the tree.
Kitahara Kaede took the same force, slid back two steps, and stayed standing.
Seven years old, both seven years old.
Jiraiya gritted his teeth; he couldn’t describe the feeling.
The battle did not pause.
The Rogue Ninja stopped testing him and slashed the short blade horizontally.
Kitahara Kaede did not retreat; he took a step forward to meet him.
Tsunade’s heart skipped a beat.
Before the blade arrived, his body slipped inside the Rogue Ninja’s arm.
The effective lethal range of a short blade was when the arm was fully extended; being too close made it impossible to swing.
After closing the distance, Kitahara Kaede clamped his right hand onto the Rogue Ninja’s wrist holding the blade.
The Rogue Ninja instinctively shook his hand.
It didn’t budge.
The seven-year-old child’s five fingers clamped onto his wrist joint, Chakra pouring into the knuckles, locking it tight like a pair of pliers.
The Rogue Ninja’s expression changed.
He twisted his wrist and flipped his elbow to counter, while his left hand simultaneously swung horizontally toward the side of Kitahara Kaede’s head.
Kitahara Kaede tilted his head to avoid it, but his body stumbled from the force of the wrist twist.
The Rogue Ninja drove a knee into him.
Kitahara Kaede took the hit to his flank; the pain blurred his vision, but he still didn’t let go.
The distance between the two was less than half a meter, entangled together.
The Rogue Ninja began to truly panic.
He had underestimated this child.
It wasn’t an underestimation of strength—no matter how strong a seven-year-old’s body was, it couldn’t be that strong.
It was an underestimation of his will.
This child had taken two hits from him and still wouldn’t let go, gripping his wrist as if he were gripping his own life.
At that very instant.
Kitahara Kaede gave a violent tug.
The Rogue Ninja’s body was pulled forward half a step, his center of gravity shifting forward—
Then the child let go.
The Rogue Ninja instinctively wanted to retreat, and in that gap, he saw the hands forming seals.
Too close.
Too late to dodge.
Kitahara Kaede opened his mouth.
The Rogue Ninja saw light inside the child’s mouth.
The split second after the Chakra completed its nature transformation in the throat and before it surged out of the mouth, a visible, high-temperature glow.
Point-blank range.
Great Fireball Technique.
A pillar of high-temperature fire plastered directly onto the Rogue Ninja’s chest and face. This story is hosted at g.com.
The Rogue Ninja screamed—the sound lasted less than a second before it cut off.
High-temperature gas poured into his respiratory tract, causing his vocal cords to spasm.
He struggled desperately to break free, rolling back four or five meters, tumbling twice on the ground before stopping.
A large hole was burned into the front of his short tunic, and there were large-scale burns on his chest and half his face.
Charred black and bright red intermingled; the flesh beneath the skin was exposed, and thin smoke was still rising from the edges.
The Rogue Ninja lay on the ground, fingers digging into the dirt, pushing up twice.
He couldn’t push himself up.
People with respiratory tract burns make a special sound when inhaling, a hissing sound, like wind squeezing through a crack.
The Rogue Ninja opened his mouth and made that sound, rolled his eyes back, and face-planted into the muddy ground.
At this moment, the only sounds left in the forest were the wind passing through the leaves and the heavy breathing of the three children.
Kitahara Kaede was hunched over, hands resting on his knees.
His Chakra was bottomed out; he couldn’t squeeze any extra energy from his cells.
He was dizzy, his ears were buzzing, the area around his left ribs ached until it went numb, and even inhaling caused a pulling pain.
He turned around first.
Tsunade was standing five meters away, motionless.
“Are you hurt?”
His voice was a bit hoarse.
Tsunade’s lips moved twice, but no sound came out.
She shook her head.
Kitahara Kaede nodded and turned to the other side.
Jiraiya was still leaning against the tree trunk, his face pale, but his eyes were wide open.
“How about you?”
Jiraiya stared at him for two seconds, his mouth opening and closing, as if a whole bunch of words were crowded in his throat, but in the end, only one sentence leaked out.
“…That was cool.”
The voice was muffled, squeezed out through his teeth.
He paused for a moment.
“Bastard.”
Kitahara Kaede walked over and reached out a hand.
Jiraiya looked down at that hand and hesitated for a moment.
When he was pulled up, his legs were still shaking, and he had to hold onto the tree to stand steady.
He didn’t speak again.
His gaze passed over Kitahara Kaede’s shoulder to glance at the Rogue Ninja lying on the ground, then shifted back.
It shifted to the hand Kitahara Kaede was pressing against his ribs, looked for a while, and then looked away.
Tsunade walked over, her pace neither fast nor slow.
When she reached Kitahara Kaede, she first looked down at the spot he was pressing.
You couldn’t tell anything from outside his clothes, but the area around his ribs was slightly swollen, and his hand hadn’t moved away.
“Let me see.”
She reached out to lift the hem of his shirt.
Kitahara Kaede stepped back half a step: “Just superficial wounds.”
“I said let me see.”
Kitahara Kaede didn’t dodge again.
Tsunade lifted the hem of his shirt.
There was a large patch of bruising on his left ribs, the color already beginning to darken and spreading outwards.
Her fingers pressed onto it, very lightly.
Kitahara Kaede sucked in a breath.
“It’s not broken,” Tsunade said.
“It’s a contusion; go to the hospital to get it treated when we get back.”
She put down the hem of his shirt.
The two stood very close.
Tsunade looked up at him, her lips moving.
Something was on the tip of her tongue—but she swallowed it back down.
Not far away, there was movement in the trees.