"I am Genkai," the itinerant shinobi said in a voice like gravel. "A member of the Black Erosion Group. In my name, I guarantee your safe departure."
"Black Erosion Group—" The wooden–release clone's tone remained flat yet probed every nuance. "Mr. Genkai, can you speak for the entire Black Erosion Group? Will their leader, Lord Komainu, approve? And what of your comrades?" Each question dropped like a stone into dark water, testing hidden currents.
Genkai, about to reply, tensed with alarm.
No—it was a trap!
His goal was to extract intelligence. Delay only increased risk. His carefully laid seals stood ready—he could wait no longer!
"Of course…" he murmured, but before his words finished, his right hand shot up from beneath his cloak. The ancient copper bell inscribed with "hunger" on his wrist suddenly vibrated with a sharp ring.
Ding—!
As the sound rippled outward, the wooden clone's room floor, walls, and ceiling flared to life! Dark-red vein–like sigils twisted across every surface, forming a complex sealing array in an instant.
Bloody heat and crimson light surged as if the air itself was ablaze. From the array's center sprang pure–energy chains glowing ominous red like hungry serpents—striking the clone's position with blinding speed!
Yet Genkai's victorious gleam curdled into dread.
Ssshhh—!
A nearby window shattered with a thunderous crash, spraying wood and glass shards like fireworks in the noon sun. From the breach a figure shot forth—precise, fluid—tracing a swift arc before landing at the courtyard's center beneath the martial-law gloom. Dust swirled around him as he faced the shadowed alley where Genkai lurked.
"Impressive trap," Shuji observed calmly. "But a moment late."
Before Genkai's fury could flare, he stifled it—anger would play into Shuji's hands.
Without further word, Genkai's hands blurred into afterimages. A cluster of cross–shaped shuriken, each immersed in faint glow, whistled across the space, targeting top, middle, and bottom lanes of Shuji's approach!
Simultaneously, his left fingers formed seals faster than sight's edge.
In the shadows by the walls and beneath the shattered window, faint crimson outlines of multiple micro sealing arrays snapped into view! These seals, like ravenous insects, sucked and twisted the surrounding air and residual chakra into a warping vortex around Shuji.
Faced with the flying shuriken and the unseen trap beneath his feet, Shuji's expression barely flickered. As a wooden clone, his chakra was finite—he lacked his main body's inexhaustible reserves—and thus avoided chakra–heavy techniques.
He lightly tapped his toes on the rubble-strewn floor, evading both the kunai's arcs and the slow–forming trap's sickly draw.
Shuriken thudded into the wall and floor behind him with muted "thwacks."
Amid his evasions, his hands quietly completed seals.
"Wind Release: Thousand–Leaf Cut!"
His palms slammed together before his chest with force! A translucent pale–green cyclone—barely a foot across—burst into being. Not a raging gale but a spinning disc of countless razor–sharp wind blades compressed into a circular shield of whirling steel!
The incoming shuriken struck this micro wind shield—
Clang clang!
Their metal edges ground against humming wind, then shattered into glittering fragments that skittered across walls and floor.
"Wind Release: Chaotic Gale Arrows!"
Seals shifted again! Several strand–thin pale air bolts formed and shot toward the alley shadows harboring Genkai's real form!
Yet halfway, each bolt was engulfed by the surrounding crimson trap vortex!
Puff puff puff!
Muffled detonations rang out as the wind arrows plowed into the alive trap, then squelched into nothingness like stones dropped into tar.
At that moment, Genkai's slit green eyes flared—he had miscalculated!
Haah…!
He expelled a sound racked with mingled triumph and pain—then spat the copper bell from his teeth! The coin flashed as it spun into a nearby crack.
His binding broken!
"Stray Dog's Dream…" Genkai hissed through the flames of his mind, forming a twisted, bestial seal with both hands as a savage growl rumbled in his throat. The "hunger" bell at his wrist vibrated fiercely—swelling into a piercing, soul–shaking toll.
AOOORRR—!!!
An invisible soundwave, amplified by the bell's cursed resonance and laced with Genkai's own chakra and the captured essence of Shuji's wind jutsu, crashed across the shattered courtyard and into the wooden clone!
The clone froze!
A hollow emptiness—like his core had been gouged out—rushed through him, blanketing senses with voracious despair. In that void, an instinctive lust for destruction erupted—an unholy impulse to slaughter and consume!
The duplicitous trap proved nearly his undoing.
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild