Starving…
The bitter, bone–chilling wind whipped snowflakes against his face like dull blades against flesh.
His vision blurred, legs heavy as lead. Each step sank into snow up to his ankles.
His stomach was no longer empty—it felt like a burning, all–consuming black hole. His consciousness, squeezed by cold and hunger, sank toward a lightless abyss.
"I'm…going to die, kid," rasped a gravel–voiced figure through the howling blizzard. A shadow fell over him, granting slight refuge. He forced his eyelids open to see a tall, indistinct silhouette with a sword at his waist.
Hungry…
Survival instinct overrode his fear, and a ragged whimper escaped his throat, like a dying beast.
"Oh? If you want to live…" the voice purred with dark amusement, "then follow me. Make it to the next town alive, and you shall live."
Hungry…
Komainu… Genkai… my brother… my master…
"Uagh—!"
Reality shattered through Genkai's mind like broken glass, tearing at his soul.
The backlash of the stray dog's dream had never been so clear—his own inflicted frenzy of hunger and destruction, magnified through their invisible mental link, now turned on him with full force! It felt as though countless savage dogs gnawed at his nerves!
His glowing green eyes reddened with blood–veins, clouding utterly.
Clear drool dripped from his lips, stringing long threads that fell onto his filthy robe.
His white teeth ground together with a rasp of gum–bled friction. Each breath stank of hot rust.
"Kill him! End this bond!" The primal roar rising from his soul overpowered the last shred of reason.
Dragging himself forward as if weighed by mountains, he limped toward the unmoving figure of Shuji in the street.
Each step made the stone pavement groan under the strain. His body trembled with agony and frenzy, driven by the stray dog's dream—a mad obsession to destroy his target.
On the high seas, Shuji's main body raced over the waves, wind and spray at his back.
Through the psychic link, he sensed the clone's assault by the stray dog's dream—a tidal wave of onslaught in an instant.
"Ugh!" Shuji grunted as his vision turned blood–red! His chakra footing shattered! He plummeted into the icy water like a broken bird!
Gurgle…
The shock of frigid water pricked his nerves and he kicked hard, bursting above the surface. Waterlogged hair plastered his cheeks as droplets rolled down his jaw.
Genjutsu?!
A clone hit by genjutsu?!
Genjutsu works by distorting the target's five senses with the caster's chakra, disrupting their flow.
Usual counters:
The afflicted shinobi perceives the illusion and uses dispelling methods to restore order—ineffective against master illusory users.
A third party severs the mental link with raw chakra to free the victim.
For skilled shinobi, a technique exists—cloning jutsu. Whether shadow clones or solid etheric clones, these are extensions of the caster's chakra and mind, not true flesh with five senses or meridians. Illusion upon them should be like lighting empty air.
Yet, the wooden clone had truly been fooled.
Elsewhere…
Shuji wiped seawater from his face, stifling shock. He did not simply passively receive clone data—he reversed the link's flow by force, imposing his own will over the distorted consciousness!
Drawing a breath of salt–sea air, he re–condensed chakra beneath his feet and surged forward toward Degarashi Port.
Simultaneously, his focus steered the wooden clone in the port's darkened street.
On the street…
Genkai had closed to under twenty paces, his muddied green eyes fixed on the unmoving clone. He breathed heavily, drool dripping as he produced a kunai from his sleeve—his movements stiff and strained, as if against invisible shackles, yet resolute.
"Huh…die…" he hissed through clenched teeth.
The kunai's tip—aloof with lethal intent—crept inch by inch toward the clone's throat, then, slow and certain, thrust inward!
Skkk!
A faint yet distinct crack rang out—wrong!
There was no flesh tearing—only the crunch of biting into dry, dense wood!
The clone's eyes, once aflame with the stray dog's frenzy, flickered with lucid clarity beneath the illusion's haze—a spark of the real Shuji's admiration breaking through!
"I see…" Shuji's voice sounded near, calm as if the kunai had never struck. "A two–way psychic link? Overwriting the target's state with one's own?" He lifted his eyelids. "Underestimate no rogue shinobi."
As he spoke, the wooden clone's simulated flesh at the kunai wound peeled away like receding tide, revealing solid, gleaming wood grain beneath!
"Wha—?!" Genkai's eyes narrowed in horror!
Impossible! He had clearly sensed Shuji's chakra and life signs! Clones? No—under the stray dog's frenzy, any chakra anomaly should have been immediately detected!
That material…puppet wood? No—puppets lacked such authentic chakra and mental presence!
Genkai recoiled to sever the link—but too late!
Pfft!
A wooden arm, lifelike and swift as lightning, erupted from the alley shadows and impaled him through the unguarded chest!
The touch was cold, hard, and fibrous—nothing like warm flesh.
"Ugh—!" Genkai's body buckled as agony blacked his vision.
From the wooden arm that pierced his flesh, countless hair–thin yet unbreakably tough wooden fibers burst forth like living tendrils, burrowing into his body's crevices, veins, and sinews! The alien intrusion and draining sensation engulfed him!
"Well done, Genkai." Shuji's clone spoke close by, its tone colder than ice—like a death sentence. "Your comrade— the one who chased us at sea—fought well, too."
"Komainu…dead?!" Genkai's cloudy eyes widened in despair and fury! Whether from the revelation or the fibers' surge of agony, he let out a bestial wail.
Indeed a member of the Black Erosion Group! Shuji's main body, racing toward port, stiffened at the thought.
Komainu, Genkai—two enemies down.
Was Komainu also alternate? In any case, by the bizarre jutsu and prowess they displayed, the remaining foes were no ordinary rogues.
But this wooden clone—fueling the illusion's backlash, countering, and wielding wood release—had reached its limit.
The clone watched Genkai's dying gaze dim as it felt the last pulse of life through the fibers.
Gently, it withdrew its wooden arm, releasing a plume of dark red mist laced with wooden splinters.
Genkai collapsed like a marionette whose strings were severed, face down in dust. The "hunger" bell clattered to rest—silent at last.
The clone bowed its head to its wooden palm, noting fine cracks spidering from its fingertips, racing upward like webbing.
"Guarding the Wasabi estate…looks like that must be done without clones."
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild