The mention of Takigakure triggered an emergency file in Kenji's mind. Hidden Waterfall Village. Water Release specialists. They possess a Bijū, the Seven-Tails, but that comes later. They're reclusive, but they weren't usually aggressive without reason… unless they were mercenaries. Or desperate.
There was no time for further analysis.
The leader of Takigakure, the one with the scar, charged with his short katana straight at Saito. "The Jōnin is mine! You guys, finish off the brats!" he yelled.
Saito didn't move until the last second. Then, he vanished. It wasn't a visible Shunshin; it was a slip so perfect it seemed like he teleported, appearing behind the attacker and unleashing a barrage of kunai at the other two. "KEEP YOUR DISTANCE! USE THE TERRAIN!" He ordered, his voice sharp as a blade.
The battle erupted into chaos.
The red-haired girl from Takigakure unfurled her scroll and sealed it. "Water Release: Waterfall!" A wall of murky water erupted from the ground, blocking Saito's kunai and splitting the field. The burly man with the hammer roared and charged, not toward Saito, but directly toward Daiki, who was further ahead.
"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" Daiki yelled, his fear transforming into pure rage. Instead of retreating, he charged as well, his chakra clumsily flowing into his fists. The impact was brutal. The war hammer slammed against Daiki's reinforced fist. CRACK!
A sound of bone breaking. Daiki screamed, his right arm hanging at an unnatural angle, but his momentum forced the enemy back a step, surprised by the boy's brute strength.
Hana, pale and trembling, saw her wounded comrade. Something broke inside her, not in the sense of defeat, but of survival. Her fingers wove hand seals with nervous but precise speed. "Genjutsu: Kasumi no Mai!" An illusory mist, weak but effective, sprang up around the man with the hammer, distorting his vision for a crucial second.
It was the opportunity Kenji needed. He didn't use the Sharingan. He couldn't. But his body already knew how to move. He glided like a shadow, not toward the man with the hammer, but toward the water kunoichi. She was focused on maintaining her wall and supporting her leader against Saito, whose fight was a blur of gray movements and flashes of steel.
Kenji's instinct was yakuza: attack the one who appears to be the support, the strategist. His kunai whistled past her. The girl from Takigakure dodged it with disdain, but in doing so, she broke his concentration. The wall of water collapsed. "ANNOYING INSECTS!" she roared, turning to face Kenji. Her hand seals were faster this time. "Water Release: Water Blast!" A fist-sized sphere of compressed water shot out like a bullet.
Kenji didn't try to block it. He threw himself to the ground, rolling among the corpses and rubble, the water scorching the earth where he'd stood. The smell of death and dampness was suffocating. He heard Daiki scream again, mingled with the growl of the man with the hammer. Hana was attempting another genjutsu, but her voice trembled.
Saito, meanwhile, danced with the scarred leader. The man from Takigakure was skilled, his swordsmanship fluid and deadly, but Saito was… efficient. Every move was economical, every block deflected an attack with minimal effort, every counterattack sought vital points: tendons, arteries, eyes. It wasn't a power struggle; it was surgery with steel.
But they were outnumbered, and Saito couldn't protect all three of them and fight at the same time. He saw Daiki with a broken arm, Hana on the verge of panic, Kaito dodging deadly attacks.
"TEAM 11!" Saito roared, for the first time with a hint of urgency in his voice. "RETREAT! NORTH FLANK, TOWARD THE FOREST! I'LL COVER!"
"We won't let them get away, old man!" shouted the water girl, preparing another jutsu.
It was then that Saito did something that made even Kenji freeze for a moment. With a movement that defied the eye, he disarmed the scarred leader, not with force, but with a twist of his wrist that broke several bones in his hand, and in the same twist, he launched a barrage of poisoned shurikens (Kenji recognized them by their bluish tint) toward the kunoichi and the man with the hammer, forcing them to seek cover.
"NOW! RUN!" he ordered, his voice brooking no argument.
The three genin reacted. Daiki, enduring the pain, grabbed Hana by the arm and began to drag her. Kenji covered their rear, throwing smoke bombs he had stolen months before. The thick, acrid smoke mingled with the lingering fog and dust.
They ran. They ran like never before, leaving behind the shouts of the fight between Saito and the two remaining Takigakure. The forest to the north was a dark mass of hope.
But not all the enemies were occupied.
A different, sharper whistle. It came from above, from the trees.
Kenji only had time to shout "DOWN!" before a spinning shuriken, larger and heavier than normal, sliced through the air.
It wasn't meant for him. It was meant for Hana, who was running clumsily, still dazed by the horror and the strain of her genjutsu.
SCHLACK!
The wet, metallic sound sliced through the night. Hana stopped dead, a guttural sound escaping her lips. She looked down in disbelief at the metal now protruding, bleeding, from her left side, just below her ribs. She coughed, and a scarlet trickle stained her chin.
"Han… a…" Daiki groaned, his face a mask of horror and his own pain.
She collapsed like a rag doll. The third ninja of Takigakure, one they had overlooked, an agile and silent tracker, landed in front of them, blocking their route into the forest. He was smiling, a predator's smile.
"Children are always the first to fall," he said, drawing a short tantō. "Game over. Your Jōnin is occupied. Now, die in an orderly fashion, shall you?"
Daiki, with a cry that was half rage, half agony, threw himself between the ninja and fallen Hana, his good arm raised in a trembling fist. "Don't… don't touch them!"
Kenji looked at them. At Hana, rapidly paling, her breath a horrible bubbling. At Daiki, wounded and on the verge of collapse, but planted like a wall of desperate flesh. And the ninja from Takigakure, a cold professional who would see them as flies to be squashed.
This is the moment, he thought, the Falcon's chill enveloping his mind like an icy shell. The plan, the pillars, everything goes to hell if they die here.
There was no choice. No time for subtlety.
"Daiki," Kenji said, his voice strangely calm. "Grab Hana. When I tell you, run toward those thick bushes on the right. Don't look back."
"K-Kaito? What are you going to…?"
"NOW!" Kenji roared, and at the same time, his hands flew in a sequence of hand seals that weren't from the Academy. They were the seals he had practiced in the dark for years, fueled by a fear and rage that now boiled inside him.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
It wasn't the grand fireball of a master Uchiha. It was a smaller, cruder explosion, but real nonetheless. A ball of orange and black flame the size of a pumpkin erupted from his mouth, snaking toward the Takigakure ninja with a roar and a heat that dried the air.
The enemy jumped back in surprise, his tantō raised to block the radiant heat. "Fire Release?! A brat with a nature jutsu?!"
It wasn't perfect. He'd used an obscene amount of chakra. But it bought them the seconds they needed. Daiki, with a strength born of panic, hoisted the unconscious Hana onto his good shoulder and dashed into the bushes.
Kenji didn't wait to see the outcome. He whirled around and ran after them, his mind already calculating: Hana needs a medic NOW. Daiki is incapacitated. Saito is far away. The tracker will follow us. We have to hide, or fight where we have the advantage.
The escape was over. Now it was a race against death, with the scent of fresh blood, fire, and scorched earth marking their path. The innocence of Team 11, if they ever had any, was gone, soaked in the same bloody mud of the ravaged village.
The first blood of his comrades had been spilled. And Kenji knew, with a fierce certainty, that it wouldn't be the last.