Chapter 44: Farewell! Dimensional Slash
The blade concealed by the rain curtain—nearly fusing with nature—didn't strike Yoru.
Seeing that bizarre-looking rat suddenly emerge from the ground in the rain curtain, Yoru instantly realized something was wrong.
This scene was exactly as weird as Team 7's first arc in the original series—spotting snow rabbits in the forest.
Unable to see the enemy, Yoru's first thought wasn't where the enemy hid but disrupting his own chakra flow to avoid falling into genjutsu.
As expected, he'd truly been caught in genjutsu.
Fortunately, Yoru reacted swiftly. Watching the incoming blade, with Space-Time chakra already flowing through his body, he didn't use intangibility to evade the attack but instead became a blur, silently vanishing.
"Such fast Body Flicker..."
Tokiya—his figure materializing—looked somewhat surprised at Yoru, who'd put over ten meters between them. He hadn't expected this brat skilled in Earth Body Flicker to possess such speed on the surface too.
Because the rain was so loud, Tokiya didn't notice Yoru's Body Flicker actually made no sound.
"Looks like a tough customer."
Watching Tokiya—wearing a vest, forehead protector, respirator mask, fierce eyes, and accompanied by a summoning beast—Yoru couldn't help ripping off his raincoat and retrieving the chakra blade sealed in his wristband storage scroll. His gaze filled with gravity.
Though having sensed death's aura many times with Orochimaru, none gave as much pressure as this moment.
Survival exercises were ultimately just exercises.
This battle was Yoru's first true life-or-death confrontation since arriving in this world.
His opponent also seemed to be the shinobi world's most disgusting genjutsu specialist. One careless moment might mean dying at his hands.
"Kid, hand over that scroll and I'll leave you a complete corpse." Tokiya spoke coldly.
Yoru gripped his chakra blade in one hand while keeping his other hand hidden within his open-front coat's sleeve. His face displayed a provocative smile: "If you've got the skill, take it from my corpse."
"As you wish."
The moment his words fell, Tokiya transformed into a water puddle.
The next second, Yoru became two-and-a-half Yorus—his body cleaved at the waist.
Even the rain curtain was torn open.
Yoru looked down at his body split in two and murmured: "Such a fast blade..."
SPLAT. The two halves transformed into mud puddles falling to the ground, quickly washed away by rain.
Then three Yorus emerged from the nearby ground, charging at Tokiya.
Tokiya merely glanced at the three Yorus and sneered: "Clone Technique? Save shinobi games for your next life."
After speaking, Tokiya retrieved three senbon and threw them.
If not for assassins needing caution, he'd be too lazy to even disperse these three Yin Release chakra phantom clones that couldn't be touched.
The senbon predictably passed straight through. Just as Tokiya prepared to work with his summoning beast to locate Yoru's real body, he suddenly thought of something. His expression changed drastically.
"Something's wrong!"
Watching the three Yorus already rushing to his front, Tokiya's eyes filled with shock. Yet his actions weren't slow—retrieving a pellet from his tool pouch and flicking it groundward.
BANG. Purple smoke enveloped Tokiya and the three Yorus.
SWISH SWISH SWISH—
The moment poison smoke appeared, it was immediately dispersed by multiple blade flashes.
Not Yoru's doing, but Tokiya's.
Tokiya's figure flew from the poison smoke, landing and immediately using Body Flicker to appear atop a rocky mountain. Then forming one-handed seals while looking at the three Yorus who still hadn't dispersed, his face ugly: "What kind of clones are these? Not phantom clones, not genjutsu, the real body isn't among them either. Could it be a special secret technique or bloodline limit?"
After speaking, Tokiya looked at his summoning beast emerging beside him and asked: "Did he run away?"
Seeing the rat shake its head, Tokiya asked again: "Those three below—can you smell anything?"
The rat shook its head again, unclear whether it couldn't smell anything or there was no real body.
Watching Tokiya communicating with his summoning beast, Yoru maintained the same expressionless face as his phantom clones, pretending to be an illusion while internally feeling lingering fear.
That was close. Almost took a major fall!
This guy was truly no simple opponent.
When others first discovered something wrong with phantom clones, they could only passively respond.
Tokiya actually chose to throw poison smoke pellets.
Good thing after creating chakra-undetectable phantom clones, Yoru liked using full-body intangibility to blend among them.
Once entering intangibility, even the strongest sensory abilities couldn't detect Yoru's chakra—they'd only perceive him as a phantom clone.
Genjutsu didn't work on phantom clones, nor on Yoru merged with space.
Seeing Tokiya retrieve poison smoke pellets, Yoru had immediately heightened vigilance, not revealing his real body to attack.
Otherwise, he'd have inhaled the poison smoke.
That guy's summoning beast could burrow underground and track his position through heavy downpour—clearly no ordinary rat.
It definitely knew his real body hadn't left yet.
If he used Phantom Body Flicker to attack again and Tokiya discovered his real body was hidden among them, he'd certainly deduce Yoru possessed space-merging abilities. Once intelligence was grasped, he'd become difficult to handle.
Using Earth Body Flicker and intangibility, he could easily escape, but genin-level Space-Time chakra flowing throughout his body could only maintain for a few minutes at most.
That rat's sensory range was unknown. He couldn't exhaust his strongest ability this way—getting caught would mean certain death.
Only he and that guy were here. Nagato was still young. Black Zetsu and White Zetsu—who could use Mayfly Technique to merge with earth—should both be secretly protecting Nagato or monitoring Madara Uchiha.
His battle with this guy probably wouldn't be so unlucky as to attract their attention.
Take him down!
Yoru immediately decided. His gaze transformed.
The next second, under Tokiya's watch, Yoru and his two phantom clones slowly sank into the ground.
"Squeak squeak..."
Moments later, the rat made sounds.
Tokiya immediately formed seals, using Water Body Flicker to vanish from the rocky mountain peak.
When reappearing, he stood on rain-shrouded ground. Not far ahead, Yoru ran with his back turned.
Tokiya didn't immediately attack but used the rain curtain to deploy genjutsu. Invisible Yin Release chakra infiltrated Yoru's brain.
The next second, Yoru's footsteps paused slightly, then continued running wildly as though not noticing he'd been caught in genjutsu.
Sensing the opponent's current chakra lacked the ability to instantly break his genjutsu, Tokiya still didn't close in but formed seals controlling rainwater into high-speed rotating water columns shooting toward Yoru.
Water Release: Water Fang Bullet!
The water column struck Yoru but produced a crisp POOF as the target transformed into white smoke.
Seeing this, Tokiya's face grew ugly again.
Just as he prepared to continue searching for Yoru's real body, his peripheral vision inadvertently glimpsed something. His expression changed dramatically.
"Farewell!"
Three Yorus had somehow positioned themselves left, right, and behind him, adopting iaido stances.
Grinning at Tokiya, the three Yorus became three black lines crisscrossing around his body.
Several seconds later, Yoru's figure appeared before Tokiya, back turned as he sheathed his blade.
CLICK. With the last section of blade returning to its sheath...
Tokiya—expression frozen—his body like a jigsaw puzzle revealed countless dense lines before flesh and blood fell piece by piece.
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