Kenji was making his way back to the mountain after accomplishing what he had come to do. He was feeling slightly better than before. The years he had spent on the mountain were like a fog in his brain. Now there was light in it that showed a direction for the future.

Otsu was carefully following behind Kenji and maintained some distance not allowing herself to be exposed.

When Kenji was away from the town, he deactivated the transformation jutsu, morphing back to the form of a child with two horns. As he was making his way up the mountain someone suddenly popped up from the snow catching his ankle.

“Shit” Kenji was momentarily shocked as he hadn’t expected something like this out of nowhere. However, his training hadn’t been for nothing as he drew the blade at his waist and quickly slashed at the person’s arm. His fight or flight reaction had been beaten into being only fight response by Hakai.

The person let go to avoid getting hit and completely emerged from the snow scattering it everywhere. He was wearing thick fur allover and had a simple red mask on his face. He gave off the aura of a wild beast that had come out to hunt.

With no weapon in his arm the person rushed over to Kenji while he tried to regain his footing as he was dashing back to create some distance between them.

He was so quick that Kenji didn’t have the time to even remove his shuriken to thrown it at him before he was tackled into heavily. Thankfully Kenji used the side of his blade to block his attack. He used the momentum to fall back and create distance between themselves. But the person was too quick again. Kenji had already tried to cast a genjutsu over the person with his Ketsuryugan but for some reason it wasn’t working. It was as if this person knew all about his techniques.

Kenji raised his blade and cut his own arm letting a large amount of blood seep out and fall into the snow. The wounds that he caused magically closed themselves in a matter of a few seconds.

‘Blood release: Binding ropes!’ His blood that had fallen into snow wasn’t absorbed by it and remained on top like some red blanket. As soon as Kenji commanded it took the shapes of ropes and latched onto the person that was almost about to tackle him again. The blood latched themselves around his limbs and restricted his movements. Kenji didn’t bother using his blade as it wouldn’t even cut past the thick fur of the man and decided to end it in another way.

He used the little time he had made to create two shadow clones. Shadow clone jutsu was one of the only ninjutsu techniques he had been taught by Hakai. The two clones gathered around him and concentrated chakra into his arms. It had taken him a long time even with the horns granting him greater chakra control to master this technique. But it was well worth all the trouble he had been through to learn it.

The chakra took the shape of a sphere and spun rapidly in his arm while letting out a sharp noise. The jutsu did have downsides like- it required clones and too much time to make. It also took a huge chunk of his chakra that was supposed to be quite large. Of course, it made up for it with its monstrous attacking output.

“Rasengan!” Kenji quickly slammed the person in their abdomen just when they had almost freed themselves using only their brute strength.

The person got blasted into the distance and crashed into a pile of snow, sinking into it. Kenji quickly ran after the person to make sure the job was done and to figure out who it was. He smirked at his achievement while looking at the abdomen o the man. The fur which was unable to be cut through a blade had been blasted apart into bits. His body was covered with bruises and there was a huge wound in his abdomen that was bleeding out large amounts of blood.

Kenji was proud that he had been able to beat this unknown man. After all it was his first time fighting alone against someone in this fashion. He was training all the time and although he knew that ordinary ninjas couldn’t beat him it was quite nice to let loose on someone other than Hakai.

When he moved forward to remove the mask of the person, they suddenly evaporated into a puff of smoke. Kenji who was flabbergasted for a moment was slammed onto the ground with his hands behind his back. ‘Shit a shadow clone!’

He tried to squirm his way out but the person held onto him tightly and even sat on his back. Their weight threatened to crush his small body.

“Reckless and too overconfident. “The person said in a berating tone.

“Hakai?” Kenji asked surprised, recognizing the voice. After all he had been listening to the same tone for almost three years now. “What are you doing? Why did you suddenly attack me?”

“You broke the rules.” Hakai said which made Kenji stop squirming his way out from under him. “I merely used only one clone and taijutsu to expose all your cards and subdue you. That strange chakra ball was quite surprising but it isn’t any good if it doesn’t actually do damage. Do you understand the position you are in? If it was someone other than me you would be dead right now.”

Kenji grew angry at him when he received his criticism. “It’s only because it’s you! You know everything about my techniques. If it was someone else they would be dead! Besides I went into the town and came out without causing any trouble.”

“Is that what you truly think?” Hakai pointed to a tree in the distance and made sure Kenji could see his finger. Kenji looked at the tree with his face planted against the ground. Another one of Hakai’s clone came out from behind the tree holding a young woman’s hands behind her back and put her onto her knees.

“Her?” Kenji remembered the girl as the receptionist at the ninja association. ‘What the hell was she doing here? Was she following me?’ Of course, he kept a straight face and didn’t let his shock be seen on his face. “I knew about her. I was about to deal with her after I was done with you. Look-” He activated the Ketsuryugan to put her into a genjutsu.

He smirked when the woman looked at his eyes with a dumbfounded expression still probably rattled at being captured. Her face froze for a split second before it went back to her usual expression.

“What?” Kenji received a bolt of the blue. He had clearly cast a genjutsu on her using the Ketsuryugan, yet she hadn’t even reacted to it. When he had the few chances to try it, it had worked flawlessly. It was the first time it had failed so uselessly. Only Hakai was good at avoiding it. It was also Kenji’s strongest trump card so he was quite confident in it.

“Ugh!” He repeatedly casted genjutsu at her as his eyes kept bleeding staining the snow red.

“Stop” Hakai put a hand over his eyes and made him forcefully stop his technique. “Don’t let your anger control you.”

Listening to Hakai, he calmed himself down by taking deep breaths. He was right. It was useless to try something repeatedly if it wasn’t working.

“Do you see why I told you not to use eyes. It is your strongest trump card but you can’t rely on it completely. It won’t work. Whether or not you truly knew this woman was following you doesn’t matter. Your strongest card didn’t even affect her.” Hakai finally got up letting Kenji breathe in deeply and stand up.

He dusted the snow off from his clothes. “I understand. I’m sorry.” He put his head down a bit in shame and irritation.  “Now what? Do we kill her?”

Hakai chopped at his head hardly.

“Ouch! Why are you hitting me now?!” Kenji asked surprised. Wasn’t sitting on him enough?

“Don’t talk about killing someone so easily. Now that you have created this mess, take care of it.” Hakai replied.

“What do you mean? What am I supposed to do with her then?” Kenji asked perplexed.

“I don’t know. But you can’t kill her. If you kill her then whoever has sent her will know and will make an investigation. We would have to relocate… again, because of you. We will run out of places to stay at faster than the rate you create trouble.”

I groaned in frustration when I heard that.

“I’m also letting the clone go in ten seconds so you better decide fast.” Hakai walked away casually as if nothing had even happened.

I groaned even harder at that. Kenji approached the woman and took his katana out.

“W-W-wait! W-we can talk about it! I have a lot of information about Konoha!” Otsu was completely unaware about the conversation between Hakai and Kenji. At this moment she really believed that she was going to be cut down.

“Well, he didn’t say anything about hurting you.” Kenji raised the hilt of the sword and hit her hard on her head.

“Argh!”

“What the hell wasn’t that enough?” Kenji struck her head a few more times hearing her scream miserably. He thought he might cause some brain trauma to the girl if this continued but she finally fainted allowing Kenji to tie her up and carry her away.

TMBTL

Please leave a comment or a review or both! I would appreciate it :) Also we hit 100 readers. Thank you to everyone one of them who made the milestone possible. This week i'll upload a bonus chapter.