Taro stood still without any sign of moving forward to fight.
The gesture made Hotsu chuckle, "What are you doing? Look at me, I'm on my deathbed. Fight me, little man!"
With his remaining limb, he threw a kunai that Taro quickly dodged. Taro gathered some chakra onto his feet and lunged forward.
The ground cracked from the pressure, but the immense speed wasn't enough.
Hotsu ducked, cocked his arm back, and punched Taro with full force.
Hotsu grinned, mocking the young man, "Well, aren't you a weak one."
Taro was on the floor, coughing, mind racing. "How the hell did Nao injure this guy?! He's so fast!"
As Taro coughed up saliva from the punch, Hotsu walked leisurely toward him with a grin on his face. Once he was close enough, he kicked him.
However, Taro was faking the pain, as the ache had already dispersed after a few seconds. He dodged the kick and swung his chakra-infused sword, causing Hotsu to leap backward.
Hotsu mocked, "Feisty, aren't we?"
He took one of the swords his goons wielded and used it as his own. "Although I can't use ninjutsu anymore, this should be enough for you."
In a blink of an eye, he reached Taro and swung his sword vertically.
Taro blocked horizontally, but he was being overpowered. He used his agile body to step back and threw a few kunai. All the kunai were deflected, but none were meant to actually hit Hotsu—only to distract him.
The distraction was enough for Taro to perform a ninjutsu. "Wind Release: Hundred Needle Jutsu!"
An array of needles formed by high-pressurized wind burst out of Taro's mouth. The needles were fast, but they had little to no power.
Hotsu blocked with his arm while the jutsu created only minor damage to his body.
The defensive stance made Hotsu more vulnerable, which Taro used to his advantage, quickly rushing toward Hotsu with his chakra-infused sword.
He slashed horizontally, causing Hotsu to curse, "Shit!"
Hotsu tried blocking with his sword, but because it was a run-of-the-mill weapon, it was easily cut in half by the chakra-conductive blade.
While Hotsu was off balance, Taro took the opportunity to gather back his momentum and unleashed a kick that struck Hotsu's stomach. Although powerful, the kick wasn't strong enough to do any real damage, and the off-balanced Hotsu soon stood straight.
He coughed and caught Taro's neck, who tried to reposition. "Well, I'll be damned—you've got some tricks." His smile vanished. "But at the end of the day, it's just tricks."
Hotsu's grip tightened on Taro's neck. Taro couldn't breathe, and as the seconds passed, he was nearly unconscious. But just as his vision turned blurry, a sword pierced Hotsu's back, missing the heart by a few inches as Hotsu sensed something.
Hotsu dropped Taro and turned around, seeing another Taro. "W-What the hell is this?!"
He punched the Taro in front of him, but the moment his fist met flesh, a puff of smoke replaced the standing Taro.
*Squelch*
*Squelch*
*Squelch*
*Squelch*
Before Hotsu could question the real Taro, four Taros pierced his body—one sword in each lung, one in the liver, and finally, one in the heart.
Hotsu glared at the four Taros as he coughed up blood. "You…"
His eyes rolled back, finally ending the man who terrorized the borders of the Land of Wind.
Puff
The three Taros disappeared, leaving only one—the real body.
Before Taro could rest, he rushed toward his brother, who was now so pale you could call him Snow White.
Taro tore up some of his clothes and wrapped them around Nao's wounds. The bleeding slowly stopped, but he had already lost so much blood that Taro feared the worst.
Then suddenly, Taro heard clapping echo through the cave. He pulled out his sword and stood up, ready to fight at any moment. But when he saw who it was, he just glared and slumped to the ground.
The man clapping was Mashiro, and behind him was Kise. From the beginning, they'd been watching—from the moment the two entered the cave.
"Well done, son," praised Mashiro.
Taro didn't care for the praise. Instead, he raised his voice, "Why didn't you—"
Before he could finish, Kise cut him off. "Don't worry. We checked Nao's injuries earlier and covered his more serious wounds when you were fighting. He'll be fine; he just needs a few days of rest."
Taro checked Nao's body once again and saw that he was telling the truth. There was brown ointment placed on the larger wounds.
Taro sighed, "Even so, why didn't you guys help?"
Mashiro scoffed, "Those guys were pathetically weak. If you two couldn't handle these bandits, then you aren't deserving of the title 'Shinobi.'"
Kise smiled, "Although you guys beat them, it was poorly done. If I had to grade your performance, Nao would've gotten a B, and you a C+."
Taro frowned, "Why so low? I think we did fine."
Mashiro intervened, "Nao did fine, but you didn't. One, you purposely hid your capabilities. This isn't a solo mission, Taro. This is a mission where your comrade—your brother—placed his life behind your back. Two, you were so fixated on saving only yourself rather than working as a team. Not once did you ask to work together. Not once did you even think about helping Nao. You didn't even look back to see the situation—you were just focused on surviving, and that's it."
Kise added, "Dad's right. If you didn't hide anything and fought with everything you had, you would've easily overwhelmed the three ninjas you were up against. They knew nothing of that strange jutsu. After that, you could've helped your brother and not been in such a state."
Taro contemplated his actions. He hadn't meant to cause harm to his brother. He was so fixated on surviving and hiding his abilities—like those main characters who always conceal their powers until the last moment—that he didn't even look around him.
Kise, noticing his brother's inner struggle, comforted him. "You're still learning. I'm sure you didn't mean any harm by it. But remember this—there are times when you can hide your abilities, and times when it's necessary to reveal them."
Taro nodded, still feeling down. But his emo phase was cut short as a prompt from the system appeared.
[System Rewards:
5 Bronze Cards
12 Silver Cards
6 Gold Cards.]
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Thank you guys for the 400+ collections! I didn't think I would make it this far hahahahaha.
I wanted to wrap this short arc because it was kinda boring for me to write lol, but I hope you guys at least enjoyed it. The next arc will be pretty cool in my opinion.
Also, we're really close to top 200 on power stones, if you guys have any, please spare this man some change