Pretty resilient.
Yoru sneered inwardly.
Trying to desensitize?
Not a chance.
You don’t stop harvesting just because the leek’s gone bald — you switch sickles.
Since a simple physical chase could no longer squeeze out meaningful emotional value, it was time to give the young master of the Hokage some high-intensity, hardcore treatment.
Yoru quietly slid his right hand into his pocket, fingertips brushing a few kunai.
Products of the system’s ten-pull blind box.
Those “will absolutely never hit a living target” causality-defying kunai lay quietly at the bottom of his pocket.
Yoru drew three of them, clamping them between his fingers.
He stopped abruptly, mobilized the freshly replenished chakra in his body, and bellowed at the back ahead of him.
“Asuma, catch!”
Fifteen meters ahead, Asuma shuddered.
Almost on reflex, he turned his head numbly — and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
To his horror, Yoru’s right hand was raised high, and three black glints released from between his fingers.
Trailing a sharp, ear-splitting whistle, they flew straight at his face!
Asuma’s scalp prickled; his heart skipped a beat.
He’s going for the kill!
He’s actually serious!
Asuma wanted to dodge, but his aching legs simply wouldn’t obey.
His mind went utterly blank.
He even forgot to duck — he just squeezed his eyes shut in despair and waited for the steel to punch through him.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Then something deeply eerie happened.
A hundredth of a second before impact, all three kunai wrenched themselves onto new trajectories at angles that spat on the laws of physics.
One grazed his left earlobe, wind shrieking against the shell of his ear, carrying off three broken strands of hair.
One brushed past his right cheek.
The last one absurdly skimmed his scalp, precisely shaving away a small tuft of slightly greasy black hair.
Asuma could feel every breath of wind those blades stirred as they sliced the air.
The suffocating sensation of the Shinigami’s scythe grazing his neck was ten thousand times more terrifying than actually being stabbed.
For an instant, Asuma felt half his foot cross the threshold of the Pure Land.
“AHHHHHH!”
He let out a shrill, inhuman screech and clutched his head with both hands.
His spent reserves detonated all over again.
Those utterly exhausted legs erupted with astonishing speed once more, blurring as he frantically accelerated!
Ding!
［Emotional Damage Points from Asuma Sarutobi, +999!!!］
The system’s crisp chime rang in Yoru’s mind.
He smacked his lips in satisfaction.
Sure enough, the points harvested when life itself is on the line are the purest. This story is hosted at g.com.
Fear is like chili peppers: once you build a tolerance, you have to up the dose.
A brick is mild spice.
A kunai shaving past your face is extreme spice.
From that point on, the chase turned into Yoru’s one-sided cattle drive.
The moment Asuma’s pace flagged even slightly — the moment the numbers on the panel dipped back into single digits —
Yoru would pluck a kunai from his pocket with surgical precision and flick his wrist.
Whoosh!
The kunai would absolutely not hit him.
But it would, without fail, give him the world’s closest shave, skimming his vitals along the most vicious possible lines.
Grazing the nose.
Brushing the Adam’s apple.
Threading the gaps between his fingers.
Now skimming his neck, now whispering past the inside of his thighs.
Each cold gust of wind wrung a pig-like squeal out of Asuma, followed by another desperate scramble forward.
［Emotional Damage Points from Asuma Sarutobi, +888!］
［Emotional Damage Points from Asuma Sarutobi, +777!］
Yoru followed behind, listening to his balance skyrocket, grinning so wide his face nearly split.
The young master of the Hokage truly was an inexhaustible gold mine.
Just then, a thunderous roar rolled up from the rear of the column.
“BURN!!!”
Might Guy, drenched in sweat, bowl cut bobbing, was pumping arms and legs to keep pace.
He watched the kunai flying ahead, watched Asuma’s figure fleeing in panic — and his eyes brimmed with hot tears.
Trembling with emotion, fists clenched so tight they cracked, Guy roared at the top of his lungs, voice thick in his throat.
“What magnificent training!”
“Weighted running under extreme fatigue — AND live kunai-evasion drills at the very brink of life and death!”
“Driving a classmate into desperate straits to awaken his dormant potential! Using the ultimate pressure between life and death to force a comrade past his limits!”
“Is THIS the deepest expression of the Uchiha clan’s bonds of friendship?! It’s too beautiful! This cruel gentleness!”
“Uchiha Yoru! I acknowledge you completely! Asuma — do not let Yoru’s good intentions go to waste!”
Ding!
［Recognition Points from Might Guy, +500!］
Listening to Guy’s roar, Yoru very nearly lost his composure.
Cruel gentleness?
What the hell are you on about?
And what the hell are Recognition Points???
Guy’s roar echoed down the empty street.
Asuma, running in the lead, heard every word — and the surge of rage brought a sweet tang of blood to his throat.
He nearly sprayed a mouthful onto the road.
Deepest expression, my foot!
What good intentions?! New chapters come out on g.com first.
Is that thick-browed guy’s skull stuffed with nothing but muscle?!
Which eye of yours sees this as training?!
This is attempted murder!
Are you blind?!
［Emotional Damage Points from Asuma Sarutobi, +999!!!］
Another massive deposit.
Yoru almost laughed out loud.
Guy’s god-tier assist — that conversation happening on two entirely different wavelengths — had landed a devastating second critical hit square on Asuma’s psyche.
Under this twin torture of body and mind, Asuma lost all sense of direction and fled blindly.
He plunged into a narrow alley, clawing along the walls as he rushed inside.
Three meters.
Five meters.
Eight meters.
The moment he was in, despair took him.
A dead end.
Before him rose a five-meter red brick wall, its top studded with broken glass to deter thieves.
At its base lay a jumble of discarded wooden crates, old baskets, and sacks.
No way out.
Asuma’s legs gave way, and with a thump he collapsed onto the filthy ground.
Back pressed hard against the wall, hands clawing helplessly at the sand and grit, his whole body shaking uncontrollably.
He gasped for air, face streaked with tears, eyes fixed on the mouth of the alley.
Praying frantically to every past Hokage: Please.
Don’t come in.
Please don’t let that demon follow me in.
Tap.
Tap.
Steady, unhurried footsteps sounded at the alley entrance.
Each one landed directly on Asuma’s fraying nerves.
The blood-red glow of the setting sun spilled into the alley, casting a slender shadow across the ground.
Yoru strolled into the alley mouth.
He stood against the light, face hidden in shadow — nothing visible but that hair-raising, kindly smile.
The sunset at his back stretched his shadow long, swallowing the collapsed Asuma whole.
His left hand still held the red brick.
His right hand’s five fingers were slightly spread — clamping four kunai.
And one of them shimmered faintly gold.
The system’s top-grade pity reward: the “Gold-Plated Edition Absolutely-Cannot-Hit Kunai.”
Its gilded coating threw off a dazzling gleam in the dying light.
Step by step, unhurried, Yoru walked in.
Asuma’s pupils contracted violently, his lips trembling too hard to form a full sentence.
“D-don’t… don’t come any closer…”