~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter!
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A man stood in the grass.
Lean.
A sheathed short sword tucked at his waist.
His clothes were caked with mud and crushed grass, like he’d been out in the wilderness for a long time.
Both sides went still.
Silence.
About two seconds.
Jiraiya reacted first.
Or rather, his brain skipped past every question a normal person would have asked and jumped straight to the answer he wanted most.
“Oh,—!”
He clapped his hands, voice full of excitement.
“The exercise has a segment like this too?!”
Tsunade didn’t move.
Jiraiya turned to look at her.
“The teacher didn’t say anything about this, they actually set up people to play enemies and intercept us?
This is way too exciting!”
Halfway through the sentence, he’d already yanked the wooden kunai from behind his back.
“Watch me!”
He flicked his wrist and spun it into a blade flourish.
He’d practiced that move in front of the mirror over a hundred times.
He thought it looked really cool.
Then he dropped his center of gravity and charged.
Seven-year-olds aren’t actually that fast.
But Jiraiya’s strength was nerve.
No tactics.
No terrain.
Just a straight-line charge.
Wooden kunai raised at his side, planted in the textbook Number Three Thrust Stance.
He thought: Tsunade is watching.
Back at the academy, he couldn’t beat Kitahara Kaede in a proper match.
His grades were near the bottom of the class.
But actual combat was different.
Actual combat ran on guts.
And guts, Jiraiya had plenty of.
The man saw the white-haired kid charging and his whole body tensed.
Instinctively, he tightened his grip on the tree branch in his hand.
His eyes moved fast, sweeping the area.
No one else.
He brought his gaze back and looked the two “enemies” over.
A blonde little girl.
A white-haired little boy.
Neither one came up to his chest.
They were shouting something about acting and teachers.
Ninja Academy kids, from the sound of it.
The white-haired one was charging straight at him with a wooden kunai.
The man’s body relaxed.
The corners of his mouth pulled wide.
Tsunade’s gaze didn’t follow Jiraiya.
She was looking at the man’s forehead.
The symbol on his Forehead Protector wasn’t Konoha’s.
Four wavy lines.
Kirigakure.
And right through the center of those four lines, a deep slash mark cut straight across.
Tsunade’s mouth opened.
“Jiraiya, fall back,—!”
She was already moving by the time she finished shouting.
Not Jiraiya.
The man.
No preparatory motion.
No wind-up.
One second he was standing in place.
The next he was directly in front of Jiraiya.
The wooden kunai was still raised mid-air.
The thrust only half-finished.
Jiraiya’s eyes caught one image, a grayish-blue hem sweeping past the bottom of his vision.
Then the impact hit his stomach.
Everything surged upward.
The rice balls from breakfast did a somersault in his throat.
Both feet left the ground.
His body flew sideways.
His back hit the tree trunk with a dull, heavy crack.
The wooden kunai tore from his grip and disappeared somewhere.
Charge to collapse.
Three seconds, no more.
The rest of Tsunade’s sentence locked in her throat.
Her mind ran through everything in those three seconds.
Kirigakure Forehead Protector.
Slash mark.
Appearing in Konoha’s rear mountains.
Attacking without a word.
No hesitation when he moved.
He’d chosen the cleanest method of subduing, knee strike to the abdomen.
Knock out, don’t kill.
This wasn’t something a Ninja Academy exercise would arrange.
This was a real Rogue Ninja.
Tsunade dropped into a standard defensive stance.
It probably wouldn’t do much.
It was the only thing she could do.
From the corner of her eye, she checked the base of the tree.
Jiraiya was slumped against the trunk, body curled in on itself, one hand pressed to his stomach.
Not unconscious.
But his face was white.
“…Jiraiya!”
A muffled sound from over there.
“Don’t — don’t shout so loud…”
He coughed twice and spat out a mouthful of sour bile.
“…I’m fine.”
He braced against the trunk and tried to stand.
His legs buckled, and he slid halfway back down.
His knee caught a tree root.
He winced, teeth clenched.
But he kept pushing himself up.
“I’m fine…
that bastard…
sneak attack…”
The words came out in pieces.
Tsunade didn’t look back.
Her eyes stayed fixed ahead.
The man didn’t pursue.
He stood where he was, tilted his head, glanced at the wooden kunai on the ground, then at Jiraiya under the tree.
No killing intent.
No pity either.
Just a faint impatience, the kind you feel when something’s delayed your schedule.
His gaze shifted to Tsunade.
His right hand rested on the hilt of the short sword at his waist.
He took one step forward.
Tsunade’s breath stopped for half a beat.
One thought was all that was left in her mind.
Can’t run.
…
Summit.
Kitahara Kaede tossed a wooden plaque back and forth in his hand.
Eight points.
He glanced down at it.
Satisfied enough.
He’d searched half the mountain for it, wedged into a crack in the cliff face, a nasty spot to find.
Not far away, three kids lay sprawled across the ground in a tangled heap.
Not his fault.
Alright.
His fault.
These three were from another team.
Figured their numbers gave them an edge.
They’d swarmed him all at once trying to steal the plaque.
Kaede used two moves to put two of them down.
The third tripped over a tree root while running and knocked himself out.
He tucked the plaque into his waist pouch, dusted his hands off, and started back the way he came.
Time to regroup with Tsunade.
A chime rang in his head.
[Ding, Side Quest triggered: Hero Saves the Beauty]
[Quest Objective: Eliminate hostile target.
Ensure Senju Tsunade’s survival.]
[Quest Reward: Settled by combat evaluation.
Flawless completion and target emotional surge will greatly increase rating.]
[Failure Penalty: Simulation Terminated.
Current evaluation reduced to zero.]
Kitahara Kaede stopped walking.
He stared at the text on the light screen.
His brow slowly drew together.
Hero Saves the Beauty.
Eliminate hostile target.
…This cliche?
The next second, something clicked.
Wait.
“Eliminate.”
Not “defeat.” Not “drive off.”
Eliminate.
Ninja Academy exercises didn’t have targets that needed eliminating.
Something had happened on Tsunade’s side.
…
➤ Next: Great Fireball — Clash