Chapter 23: The Wolf's Cry
"Fuck you!" a Kiri ninja cursed, his voice raw with fury. Damn it, he'd never encountered such a shameless shinobi. Turning around, performing hand seals with all the gravitas of preparing a grand technique, only for it to be a complete bluff?!
The Kiri team felt their intelligence had been insulted. Their rage fueled their pursuit; they were determined to carve this insolent brat into pieces.
Seeing them close in again, Akatsurugi repeated his maneuver: he spun around, running backward, his hands flashing through another sequence of seals. The Kiri ninjas' breath hitched. Instinctively, they braced for defense. They might not know the fable of the boy who cried wolf, but battlefield caution was ingrained. Better safe than dead.
But once again, Akatsurugi simply turned and kept running without releasing a single jutsu.
"Damn it! When we catch this little bastard, we'll flay him alive!" another Kiri ninja roared, his patience frayed to nothing. This kid was going too far.
Every time they got close, he'd pull the same stunt. It was infuriating. Yet, as Jōnin, they couldn't afford to be ruled by anger. On the battlefield, life was singular. Caution, caution, and more caution were the rules. So, every time Akatsurugi turned, they slowed, even if it meant letting him gain a few more yards. They wouldn't waste chakra on preemptive defenses, but they wouldn't recklessly charge in either.
Akatsurugi knew this trick's effectiveness was waning. Still, it bought him time and kept them hesitant, which was better than nothing.
As the Kiri team closed the gap once more, Akatsurugi performed his now-familiar pivot and seal sequence. The pursuers slowed on cue. But this time, Akatsurugi didn't run.
"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
It was the most powerful Fire Release technique he currently possessed. A veritable sea of flame, supercharged by the Flame-Flame Fruit, erupted from him, roaring towards the five Kiri ninja. The inferno was immense, instantly swallowing the path between them and blinding the pursuers with its intensity.
The moment the flames left his lips, Akatsurugi's hands were already moving again. "Shadow Clone Technique!" Another clone split off and bolted. The real Akatsurugi poured his remaining energy into his legs and fled in the opposite direction.
This single Fire Release had consumed over half of his chakra. If it didn't stop them, he was truly doomed.
Fortunately, the enhanced flames proved formidable. At such close range, the lead Kiri ninja, caught off-guard by the genuine attack, took the brunt of the blast. Even as the others desperately formed Water Release seals, the frontmost ninja was severely burned.
"Captain... do we still pursue?" one of them asked, supporting their injured comrade.
The captain stared into the fading heat haze where Akatsurugi had vanished. He shook his head. "Forget it." Their condition was poor. A forced pursuit against a cunning, now-distant enemy could easily turn into a trap. Those Konoha brats were as slippery as eels. It wasn't worth the risk.
Finally feeling no pursuit, Akatsurugi allowed himself a shaky sigh of relief. He'd shaken them off. But his worry for his teacher resurfaced. There was nothing he could do now. He swallowed a soldier pill, found a hollowed-out tree trunk, and crawled inside to recover.
This battle had starkly revealed his shortcomings. He lacked a reliable, decisive killing move. The Rasengan was powerful, but it required close quarters. He might take one enemy down with it, but the others would be on him in an instant. The risk was unacceptably high.
It all boiled down to one thing: he was still too weak.
Insufficient chakra reserves. No effective area-of-effect attacks. He was at a severe disadvantage against multiple opponents. These weren't problems he could solve overnight.
His best bet for a power spike was still Ryūjin Jakka. But based on his observations, awakening it seemed to require... a significant body count. And to rack up a high body count, he needed great power to begin with. It was a vicious cycle.
His immediate path to power lay with the Flame-Flame Fruit. If he could achieve full-body elementalization, it would be a qualitative leap. Close combat would no longer be a primary concern.
And he needed to master chakra nature transformation for Fire. Fire nature transformation was about intensifying heat and combustion. The Flame-Flame Fruit already granted him a degree of that. But if he could master the formal nature transformation and then layer the fruit's power on top... what level of destruction could he achieve?
Sitting in the dark hollow, Akatsurugi meticulously recalled the sensation of channeling the fruit's power through his Fire Release, trying to imprint that feeling into his muscle memory, to make it an intrinsic part of every flame he produced.
Combat truly was the fastest path to improvement for a shinobi.
While Akatsurugi was deep in thought, two figures appeared outside the tree hollow. They exchanged a silent glance. One drew a kunai, attached an explosive tag, and hurled it into the opening.
The sound of the whistling metal snapped Akatsurugi from his reverie. He exploded from the hollow just as the kunai embedded itself inside. He rolled as he landed, avoiding the subsequent blast. The second shinobi had already completed his seals, slamming his palms on the ground. "Earth Style: Earth-Style Spike!" A sharp pillar of rock shot from the earth, aiming for Akatsurugi's heart.
"Rasengan!" A swirling blue sphere materialized in Akatsurugi's free hand. He met the earthen spike head-on, grinding it to dust.
He glared at the two shinobi. Iwagakure. So the chaos was spreading. Even the Rock ninja were here now.
Since they had attacked, there was nothing more to say.
Akatsurugi shook Ryūjin Jakka, the blade glinting. "Konoha Ryū!"
The sudden genjutsu overlay made the Rock ninja's eyes widen in shock. He struggled to break it, but Akatsurugi was already upon him. A high leap, a downward slash, and the Rock ninja was bisected.
He was only a Chūnin, after all. Dispatching him wasn't difficult for Akatsurugi.
And it was the real body. Akatsurugi saw the faint wisp of soul being drawn into Ryūjin Jakka.
The other Rock ninja reacted, trying to create distance, but Akatsurugi's gaze locked onto him. "Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique!"
The Iwa ninja faltered, his mind ensnared. In that moment of hesitation, Akatsurugi thrust his blade forward, piercing the man's heart without ceremony. There was no time for interrogation.
As another soul wisp was absorbed, Akatsurugi didn't linger. He vanished from the scene.
Minutes later, three more ninja arrived. Their leader examined the two corpses, his brow furrowed. He found no useful intelligence. With a grimace, he signaled for the bodies to be collected.
After putting significant distance between himself and the encounter, Akatsurugi checked his bearings. He oriented himself towards the border between the Land of Rain and the Land of Fire. That was the rendezvous point. He had to find his teacher. Uchiha Kagami's orders had been clear: if separated, meet at the border.