In the next moment, the world spun wildly. The previously vast and endless Duel Arena transformed, its sky now stained blood-red, signaling the slaughter that was about to unfold.
The drunken bandits sobered up quickly. Seeing the completely altered surroundings, even the dullest among them realized something was terribly wrong.
"Damn ninja!"
The one who spoke first was a fierce-looking man with a long scar across his face, bare-chested and muscular. Clearly, he was their leader.
"Get them, boys!"
"Let's show these so-called ninja what we're made of!"
As soon as the bandit leader barked the order, the rest of the gang erupted with shouts and battle cries. "Charge!"
Uchiha Haru instinctively wanted to ask what was going on with this strange battlefield, but Minato stepped in front of her and gave a subtle shake of his head.
Blocked from moving forward, Haru glanced at Minato, then at Seisui, and quietly pursed her lips.
Sure enough… when it comes to understanding him, she was still no match for Minato.
Meanwhile, Seisui had no time to concern himself with their reactions. His gaze followed the bandit leader, who was attempting to sneak away through the chaos.
"Idiots," the leader muttered as he casually slipped away from the battle. "If we could actually beat ninja, I wouldn't be stuck doing this crap."
A smug grin spread across his face. He didn't understand what kind of jutsu had dragged them into this strange realm, but all jutsu had their limits. As long as he escaped its range, he could simply start again elsewhere.
Seisui didn't waste time chasing the coward. Instead, he turned to Minato and Haru.
"Let's end this quickly."
"Right!" Minato nodded, pulling a tri-pronged kunai from his gear pouch. In a single motion, he unleashed a slash of chakra that sliced through the air like a blade.
The lead bandit didn't even have time to react. Blood sprayed from his waist as his upper and lower body separated and crashed to the ground.
Even in death, the bandits couldn't comprehend what had happened, how they'd suddenly been cleaved in two. A few of them, their minds still barely functioning, actually tried to crawl toward their severed lower halves.
"Wh-What the…?"
The rest of the bandits froze on the spot, paralyzed with fear.
Gulp.
"These are Konoha ninja?"
"How are they this strong?!"
"But the ones we fought before were all so weak!"
Meanwhile, the bandit leader had put some distance between himself and the chaos. A few smarter bandits followed him, glancing back only to pale in horror.
"Damn ninja!" the leader growled, quickening his pace.
As the bandits hesitated in confusion, Seisui gave them a cold smile.
"Iaijutsu: Water Severing Strike!"
As soon as the words left his lips, Seisui's speed exploded. His body blurred as he shot forward like a phantom, reappearing right in front of the stunned bandits.
Not to be outdone, Minato charged in with explosive speed, slicing cleanly through any bandit who strayed within two meters of him, each one falling with their throats cut.
Haru moved with eerie precision, blinking in and out of sight using her Body Flicker Technique. One second she'd appear behind a bandit to deliver an elbow strike, the next she'd reappear elsewhere with a slash of her blade. Her movements mirrored Seisui's, swift, efficient, deadly.
To them, the bandits were nothing more than fish laid out on a Chopping block, helpless, unarmed, waiting to be butchered.
In under a minute, more than forty bandits had been wiped out completely.
As he looked down at the blood-soaked corpses, Seisui muttered under his breath,
"Ninjas really are killing machines."
Back in his previous life, he thought, you'd need automatic weapons just to kill this many people in such a short time. No way a human could pull this off with blades alone.
But now? He felt no revulsion, no nausea. If anything, the sight of the fallen bandits gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.
Once someone takes a life, human life stops meaning what it used to.
Besides, he had already accepted the reality of killing long before today.
Minato and Haru, on the other hand, were visibly shaken. Their expressions still bore traces of unease.
Once they'd had a moment to collect themselves, Seisui finally spoke up.
"That was the combat mode of the Duel Arena."
Minato blinked in surprise. He hadn't planned to ask, but now that Seisui brought it up, he couldn't help himself.
"Combat mode?"
Seisui nodded and casually tore a strip of cloth from a fallen bandit to wipe the blood from his blade.
"The Duel Arena has two forms. One is the training mode, it's just a space where you can practice jutsu or spar with others."
"Your physical body stays in the real world, training your physique. It's ideal for improving skills over time."
He paused, then looked both of them in the eye with a serious expression.
"The other form is what you just saw: combat mode."
"In that state, your real body is pulled inside. There's no countdown, no warning. And if you die in here… you're really dead."
Minato and Haru both widened their eyes, stunned.
"That's seriously powerful," Haru said, unable to hide her amazement. "In a wartime setting, that ability would rack up an insane amount of merit…"
There was a hint of envy in her voice, but then she thought of the future. If her child might inherit such a power… and she had her own Sharingan on top of that…
Her envy quickly gave way to excitement. Her cheeks turned red, and she drifted into a fantasy world of her own.
Minato, on the other hand, looked like he'd just swallowed something disgusting.
"Your ability is… kinda broken, honestly."
Seisui gave them a quiet smile and said nothing more.
This wasn't the kind of ability he needed to keep secret. Sooner or later, people would find out. Better to control the narrative than to wait for exposure.
He had a clear understanding of his "cheat": the Duel Arena could pass for a bloodline ability, something people would find rare but plausible.
But the real secrets, like gaining chakra from daily first victories or the monthly ten-pull gacha, those were the things that could never be revealed.
It was all about balance.
Revealing just enough to seem like a natural genius, without looking too suspicious.
Right now, Danzo had only just begun planting the seeds of his infamous "Will of the Pot." The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, wasn't senile yet, and Seisui was under Jiraiya's wing, part of the Hokage's inner circle.
In Hiruzen's eyes, Seisui had proven himself a loyal inheritor of the Will of Fire.
If he couldn't take advantage of this situation, then what was the point?
He might as well have died in his previous life, never come to this world at all.
If he was going to live timidly again after being granted a cheats like this…then maybe he should just go find a quiet place and die.
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100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter
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