"That guy actually woke up at the last moment!" Asuma clicked his tongue, looking disappointed.
"Then let's take out the others first." Seiki pulled a shuriken from his tool pouch.
"I'll handle the left."
"Then I'll take the right."
The lead ninja's eyebrows twitched violently as he shouted, "Wake up already!"
If they couldn't disrupt their own chakra flow internally, aid from allies could work too. The problem was, this method only allowed him to save one person at a time.
So now all he could do was hope his voice would create that "bonding effect"!
However, it had absolutely no effect!
Just as he saw a Vacuum Sphere flying toward the left and a shuriken shooting toward the right,
The leader gritted his teeth and immediately tried to deflect the enemy's shuriken with one of his own. Then he sprinted wildly to the left, aiming to shove his comrade out of the way before the Vacuum Sphere hit.
"Phew, barely made it!"
But before he could catch his breath, Seiki and Asuma launched another round of attacks.
"Ah! You brats are dead meat — just you wait!"
"Not again?"
"Come on, wake up already — don't be such pigs!"
After going back and forth like this three times, even a thickhead would've caught on to something weird.
Each attack seemed perfectly timed, leaving just enough gaps with slightly offset timing so he wouldn't completely lose hope of saving his comrades.
"No good, those two brats are doing this on purpose!" A cold sweat broke out on the leader — those kids deliberately left tiny openings, forcing him to run himself ragged until exhausted, then easily defeating him.
Kushina was taken aback as well, "It's been this long and nobody has woken up yet. This definitely shouldn't happen with normal Fox's Inner Mind jutsu."
"My little brother really is something else!"
Seeing those two brats launching another assault, the leader roared in fury and charged forward with bloodshot eyes. "You damn brats, you're both dead!"
Being forced to abandon his comrades filled him with shame while pushing his anger to its peak.
"Oops, looks like we really pissed him off!" Despite saying that, there wasn't a trace of fear in Asuma's voice — he sounded positively thrilled.
"A Chunin-level opponent, huh? I wonder how strong he'll get?" As Asuma was getting excited, suddenly brilliant purple lightning burst forth from the enemy's hands.
[Lightning Release · Wolf Pack Assault!]
The lightning transformed into a pack of hungry wolves chasing prey, opening their bloody mouths toward Asuma.
"So fast!" Asuma was startled — the speed of this Lightning Release seemed much faster than what he'd seen back in the village.
"No wonder he's from the Cloud Village!" Asuma rapidly formed hand seals, spitting out balls of flame from his mouth toward the wolf pack.
Lightning clashed with fire, exploding in dazzling brilliance amid the night forest.
Amidst the roaring aftershock waves, the leader viciously broke through the lightning-fire barrier charging straight at Asuma.
Seeing the charred enemy rushing toward him, Asuma's pupils constricted violently — clearly hadn't expected such brutality. But thanks to numerous past battles against Seiki, he wasn't unfamiliar with such aggressive assaults.
A substitution technique allowed him to dodge just in time.
The Cloud Village ninja, now in a berserk state, naturally wasn't satisfied with this outcome. He pushed off from a nearby tree with both legs, using the recoil force to launch himself at Asuma once more.
"Hey, did you forget something?"
Shanlan!
Seiki's voice rang out at just the right moment. His punch caught the Cloud ninja midair.
Boom!
Hit like a cannonball, the Cloud ninja rocketed backward, scraping a deep trench into the earth.
"Turns out Seiki is even more brutal after all!" Asuma muttered before asking, "Do you think this guy might be dead already?"
Beside him, Kushina nodded appreciatively. No wonder she took him on as her younger brother—underneath his gentle nature was that same raw power she had!
"Heh...heh...the hell are you guys?!" The Cloud ninja's terrified voice came from amidst the rising dust.
Right now, he stared in shock at the fragments on his chest.
If not for this armor plate protecting his heart, he would've been completely blown apart.
No—even with the armor absorbing the impact, he'd almost died from the transmitted force alone.
"But I won't give you another chance! You'll soon learn that Chunin aren't something brats weaker than Genin can handle!"
"But we almost killed you!"
"That was just carelessness!"
"But we almost killed you!"
"Damn it damn it damn it!" The Lead Ninja bellowed in rage as he charged straight at Asuma.
Yet Asuma simply began rapidly forming hand seals without even attempting to dodge.
Realizing something, the lead ninja instinctively thought of a possibility—but before he could react, that familiar unsettling sensation overtook him again.
[Genjutsu again?!] "I'm breaking through this time!" Knowing he couldn't afford delays, the leader clenched his left fist hard, forcing the hidden shuriken embedded in his palm deeper into his flesh.
The intense pain jolted him free from the illusion.
Then came an overwhelming wave of heat.
Having experienced this before, the lead ninja rolled away desperately but still got caught partially in the flames.
"Tsk! Did I really get backed into this corner?" Gripping his left hand, the leader glared furiously at Seiki and the others.
He never imagined that he—a Chunin—would actually struggle against two mere kids.
It wouldn't have been so difficult if he were facing just one of them individually. But these two brats worked together far too well, while his own teammates were all useless bastards who couldn't even wake up!
Seiki looked expressionless, yet inwardly he sighed, [So this is what a Fire Release feels like, huh?] "If he survived that, he's got serious stamina."
"We can't go on like this," the lead ninja mused. "I must deal with that genjutsu user first."
With this thought fixed in mind, the leader gritted his teeth and charged toward Asuma again.
Unhesitatingly, Asuma and Seiki started forming seals instinctively.
"Three...two...one—now!" The Cloud ninja's eyes flashed with calculation—he'd anticipated the timing of their genjutsu activation, and precisely at the moment before its effects took hold, he crushed the Smoke Bomb in his hand without hesitation.
"Damn it! I can't spot the enemy anymore!" Asuma thought grimly, but he had already finished the hand seals — all he could do now was hope for luck.
The huge fireball surged forward before plunging into the smoke.
With a roaring blast and crackling flames, the rising dust swirled together with the smoke, shrouding nearly half the battlefield.
As Asuma kept watch for any movement from his opponent, suddenly a pitch-black figure burst from the smoke, blending seamlessly into the night.
Its clear target: Kushina Uzumaki.
"You damn bastard! Don't move!" Seeing this, Asuma instinctively grabbed a handful of shuriken and hurled them at the figure.
"Trouble! I can't finish the seals in time!" Seiki feigned panic as he shouted, while inwardly shaking his head. The fool charging toward him still managed to glance sideways — as if afraid Seiki wouldn't understand his intention otherwise?
"Falling for such a clumsy act is actually kind of insulting to my intelligence. Though I suppose I can just call it a case of 'caring clouding one's judgment.'"
Thinking this, Seiki threw himself forward on purpose.
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