On the third day of his activities, Shiki's peaceful training time was interrupted by something he caught on the edge of his Enlightened Mind's Eye's range.
The second major encounter of importance for the boy in the Land of Wind was fast approaching and, depending on how one viewed it, it was destined to be less pleasant.
'Hostile intent.' Shiki noticed immediately.
'Does Kurogane Saburo have better connections than we assumed?' The boy pondered.
A group of unknown shinobi, hirelings, he assumed, was stealthily following a group of Rinha clan shinobi heading back to their village with clear ill intent oozing off of them like an aura, easily picked up by Enlightened Mind's Eye.
The caravan's situation being what it was, Shiki preemptively assumed this hostile group was there for them.
It might not be the case but playing it safe by assuming that was the case and preparing accordingly was definitely the way to go.
At the very least, Shiki thought so himself.
The shadow clone using Enlightened Mind's Eye popped itself and the information he had on the attackers was transmitted to the original that was off training his Nirvana Art: Elemental.
"Really? More interlopers already?" The boy was annoyed that his beloved training and jutsu development was being interrupted but his response was not slow.
In fact, being irritated just increased the prejudice and swift violence of his reaction.
He quickly created a shadow clone to double back to the town and warn the rest of the team while his original self body flickered in the direction of the oncoming hostile group.
At his speed, it only took about a minute to get close as the direction the group was coming from coincidently matched with the direction he left the town in to go train, so he was relatively close by.
Once the majority of the distance was covered, Shiki immediately slowed down, using his Chakra Camouflage and Transparent Escape Jutsu to hide his presence and form while he approached.
However, after closely analyzing things with his Kukyo Six Senses, the boy's adaptation of the Inori taught five sense based chakra sensing jutsu and Sixth Sense Jutsu, he started to notice some unexpected things.
'This hidden group is not just following the Rinha shinobi but preparing to ambush them.' Shiki realized.
In his mind, if the hostile shinobi were there for the caravan, needlessly antagonizing the Rinha clan was a bad move.
'Then again, maybe they know how close the Rinha are with the caravan? But that is limited to the Daikin and Yamakaze clans, the Kurogane ladies are not included.' The boy mused.
'Do they want to get hostages to force the Rinha into helping them or do they mean to capture these folk to interrogate and/or impersonate them to aid in infiltrating the Rinha Village?'
'Their chakra signatures are pretty weak so they probably know not to take us in a direct fight after we took out that near Elite Jonin level samurai.'
Multiple explanations floated within the boy's head but he did not like any particular one.
None of them was that unreasonable but his ever accurate intuition told him he was missing something critical and was drawing all the wrong conclusions because of it.
'When in doubt, just eliminate all hostels with extreme prejudice.' Shiki shrugged and decided.
'Whatever their intentions are, Inori-sensei will be able to get it out of them.' And with this in mind, the boy quickly ascertained the most likely enemy to be the leader so he could take him alive.
As for the other, he would be gifting them with an express one way ticket to the Pure Land.
There were six enemies, two squads of three, one being the main force and the other being a backup in the case of unforeseen circumstances, based on their formation, that was Shiki's analysis.
'If I take out the main force quickly the backup will bolt and report to whoever sent them so I should start with the backup squad.' The boy decided.
'Thankfully, my target for capture is in the main squad so I can still leave him for last.'
Noting that, Shiki got to work.
He had to take out the backup before the main squad started their assault on the Rinha shinobi squad or there was a chance of casualties that were best avoided.
If he could do it stealthily and remain undetected which would allow him to mount a second ambush, best case scenario.
Silently drawing his short sword, Shiki crept up on the backup squad by adjusting his own speed to just a smidge above theirs.
Second by second, he got close little by little, his prey completely unaware.
And once he was in range . . .
'Flicker Phantom'
Dropping the Transparent Escape Jutsu but keeping up the Chakra Camouflage Jutsu so as to not alarm the main squad up ahead, the boy vanished in a burst of speed.
Before they even noticed something was wrong, the three shinobi had a nice view of their own bodies from above as their decapitated heads flew through the air.
Shiki quickly collected the corpse in a storage scroll and kept moving but he became full of doubts.
'That was way too easy . . . Suspiciously so.' He thought to himself while creeping to the main squad.
Yes, there was a clear gap in strength.
Even without leaning onto his more double edged Ryumon abilities that allowed him to go toe to toe with a top Elite Jonin . . .
Shiki was still regular jonin level in his base state, without using stuff like Dragon Heart or his EIght Inner Gates equivalent which he still needed to convert into a proper jutsu.
In a perfect ambush using his strongest aspect, speed, he could very easily take out a squad of competent shinobi but for the enemy to not notice him attack entirely before they were off to the Pure Land . . .
With the instinct of a shinobi, experienced ones in particular, could tell when something was about to go down.
Their lack of stats and skill would make their ends just as swift because their reaction speeds would be insufficient but they should still show some reaction.
'Whatever. I can worry about the discrepancies once I've neutralized them all.' Shiki decided and slightly upped his pace again, reactivating the Transparent Escape Jutsu while creeping closer to the second squad of enemies.
Just like before, the boy planned to finish it all in a burst of speed.
'Flicker Phantom'
The first two enemies fell before they realized what was happening, mirroring the fates of their companions earlier but the last one did manage to raise his arms in defense in a futile attempt to defend himself as Shiki knocked him out.
Unfortunately for the boy, the man's last struggle was not as worthless as he had believed.
In a last act of defiance, the man seemed to trigger a special scroll on his person which Shiki sensed as soon as it began activating and so, he vanished away with his Flicker Phantom.
The "explode on death" trap was not common but had plenty of use cases and the boy was not planning on sticking around to find out.
It seemed however, that this particular trap was not the explosive kind as the smoke cloud typical of a storage seal being released, covered the area around the man Shiki had just knocked out.
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Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -