Within the vast white mist, the Kirigakure jōnin witnessed with his own eyes as his two subordinates were dismembered in an instant—arms and legs severed cleanly.
A moment later came two heavy splashes as their bodies collapsed onto the water's surface.
The man swallowed nervously, his hand pressing against the hilt of the ninja blade on his back as he scanned his surroundings in panic.
"W-Who's there?!"
"Konoha shouldn't have someone like you!"
Beneath the water, Bai Xing was already irritated. This should have been something Kurenai could've handled alone—his shadow clone could have simply returned afterward to sync things up and be done with it. And yet, Kirigakure's shinobi had been so cautious that they'd sent in an entire jōnin squad.
—As if they were afraid Kurenai wouldn't die thoroughly enough.
"ROOM: Slaughterhouse!"
A second invisible slash swept through. Forced into a life-or-death reaction, the Kirigakure jōnin immediately used Water Clone and Water Substitution, switching positions at the last moment.
Pshhk—
"Tch."
Seeing his attack avoided, Bai Xing stopped wasting stamina on long-range methods.
If he went all out, that Kirigakure jōnin wouldn't have been able to dodge at all. But compared to remote spatial slashes, absolute-hit methods consumed far more stamina—completely unnecessary against a mere jōnin.
Within the ROOM, the Ope Ope–like ability allowed him to alter all numerical parameters of anything inside—including the speed at which a slash arrived.
"Aaaah—!" ×2
"My hands—my legs—!!" ×2
The wails of the two young chūnin echoed as they lay on the sea's surface, screaming in agony.
But with both arms and legs gone, they couldn't even crawl. And without hands, forming seals to use ninjutsu was impossible.
Bubbles slowly rose, surfacing between Yūhi Kurenai and the two chūnin. Seawater slid down around them as the bubble opened.
The disturbance snapped the two chūnin back to awareness. They immediately saw a young man in a long robe, hair tied in a Japanese-style ponytail, wearing a rabbit mask with colorful patterns.
From beneath the mask, icy eyes looked down on them.
"What a troublesome bunch."
The ROOM had already confirmed that Yūhi Kurenai had lost consciousness. That meant all Bai Xing had to do was eliminate the witnesses—then no one would know what had happened inside.
The ROOM existed entirely within the mist's range. From outside, nothing could be seen.
Bai Xing's ears twitched slightly as he caught an almost imperceptible sound. In the next instant, the white gleam of a blade reflected across his back.
"Die! Remember who killed you—Kirigakure jōnin, Kisame—"
Shhk!!
"You're awfully noisy."
Scalding blood splashed across Bai Xing's field of vision, only to instantly evaporate into white steam and vanish.
The two Kirigakure chūnin's eyes widened in utter disbelief.
Before them, the rabbit-masked youth had seized his blade and—at a speed beyond human perception—pierced straight through the Kirigakure jōnin's throat.
—This wasn't an attack conjured by ROOM. It was a direct strike, one that inflicted real injury and death.
Slash!
The blade was pulled free and sheathed. In the next second, a torrent of bright red blood erupted from the jōnin's throat, spraying into the air like a warm rain and splattering across everyone's faces.
Thud.
The Kirigakure jōnin's body collapsed onto the water at Bai Xing's feet, blood quickly staining the sea crimson.
"..."
Because no pain had yet reached them, Hōzuki Sattō and Kurotsuchi Chōta momentarily forgot their own condition, their expressions frozen in shock and emptiness.
Bai Xing ignored them. He stepped forward to Yūhi Kurenai's side and looked down, examining his wounds.
Within the ROOM, there was nothing he couldn't see.
"Thirty-eight external wounds across your body. That kick just now even damaged your internal organs."
"If I'd known, I would've stepped in earlier."
He crouched, pulled the shuriken from Kurenai's left shoulder, and casually tossed it backward.
Under the despairing gazes of Chōta and Sattō, it flew straight into Kurotsuchi Chōta's forehead.
"Chōta!!!"
"You're noisy too."
As Bai Xing's words fell, the shuriken embedded three centimeters into Chōta's flesh jerked free with a wet pshhk.
"No—no, no, no! Don't kill me! I know information you don't! Please, I'm begging you, let me—"
Pshhk!
The chūnin's miserable screams abruptly ended.
With his back to the two corpses, Bai Xing applied the Hemostasis Technique to Kurenai, then used ROOM to extract a senbon lodged in his waist.
"Too many wounds."
"I really can't handle all of this."
"And these internal injuries—you'll have to be taken back to Konoha Hospital. I don't have the medical ninjutsu to treat this."
—Internal injuries required opening the abdomen with a chakra scalpel, then stimulating the damaged cells directly with high-level medical ninjutsu.
For example, the A-rank Palm Sage Technique, which only the hospital director or chief physicians could use solo.
Or the A-rank Healing Resurgence Technique, used by multiple chūnin medics together.
In short, Bai Xing knew none of them. And by his calculations, the ROOM alone couldn't afford the stamina cost to heal Kurenai either.
Before long, from the direction the Konoha team had retreated, a black-haired youth swam over the water and looked at Bai Xing.
"Main body, how is it?"
"He won't die, but he's severely injured."
"I see. Then do we leave the two Kirigakure outside alive?"
"Doesn't matter. What's important now is getting Senior Kurenai back."
Bai Xing reverted to his original height and build, removed the long robe and rabbit mask, and revealed a cool, handsome youthful face.
"Process their hearts and brains, then dispel the jutsu yourself."
"Yes, yes, yes—"
The shadow clone clicked his tongue and walked toward the three corpses. Just as he was about to begin, he looked up—
A Kirigakure ANBU who had awakened from the mental attack was struggling up from the water.
"Damn it… that cursed Konoha jōnin…"
"What in the world is—"
Hōzuki Tōru froze the moment he looked up. Beneath his mask, those ferocious eyes turned utterly vacant.
"Y-You… who are you…?"
Bai Xing ignored the muttering jōnin and continued bandaging Kurenai, leaving only a single sentence behind.
"I'll leave it to you. I gave you plenty of chakra—should be enough to finish him."
The ROOM remained active.
"Tch, you really know how to boss people around, Main Body," the shadow clone complained lightly. Compared to the main body's coldness, the clone was livelier.
He turned forward, smiling cheerfully at Hōzuki Tōru, whose body was trembling from an unknown terror.
"All right, next is our game."
"Be a good boy, okay~"
Shadow clones could also use the ROOM—but the stamina cost still returned to the main body.
And if that cost was excessive, when the clone dispersed, it would also shave off lifespan.
"N-No… who are you?! Konoha shouldn't have a jōnin as strong as you!"
Still recovering from the genjutsu, Hōzuki Tōru tried desperately to crawl away as he stared at the demon-like smile approaching him.
"No… I still have my dreams."
"I can't end up like them… like them…"
At that moment, the two Kirigakure chūnin maintaining the Mist Hiding Technique were nearly exhausted. The fog around them was about to dissipate.
As the mist thinned, the three cold corpses on the sea's surface were reflected clearly in Hōzuki Tōru's terrified eyes.
"I'll fight you!!!"
"Water Release: Great Water Arm Technique!!!"
After forming seals, Tōru's entire right arm bulged with exaggerated muscle lines. He forced himself upright, gripped his blade, and charged forward.
"DIEEEEE!!!"
Ahead of him, the shadow clone calmly crouched down and picked up Kurotsuchi Chōta's ninja blade, weighing it in his hand.
"Not bad. As expected of a village that specializes in ninja swords—this blade's quality isn't inferior to the one I custom-made."
"But unfortunately, the gap between our strength is just too big."
As his words landed, the clone boosted his speed parameter through ROOM and appeared directly behind Hōzuki Tōru.
Tōru's all-out swing tore through the air ahead of him, creating a violent gust.
In his vision, his blade passed cleanly through the body of the Konoha youth.
"Kana."
That was the last word Hōzuki Tōru heard before his head fell.
In his final moment of awareness, he finally understood what he had struck—
An afterimage.
Author's Note:
◇ Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know that I'll be completing all remaining chapters within the next 3 days. The free chapters will be available here for only 3 days.
I've already published around 75% of the chapters on my Patreon, so if you're interested in reading most of the story early, you can check it out there.
Thank you so much for your support and happy reading!
◇ You can read more than 150 chapters ahead on P@treon if you're interested: patreon.com/CanonBreaker