Ren narrowed his eyes as Minato smeared unknown liquid onto his kunai.
Poisoned weapons were nothing new in the shinobi world.
Puppet masters loved it. Hanzō was famous for it.
Ren himself had used poisoned kunai to kill a Special Jōnin once, back in his brief genin days.
He understood poison's power—especially for punching above your weight.
But poison had a ceiling.
Trying to beat a near-tailed-beast vitality monster with poison alone?
That was beyond delusion.
And yet Minato's face wasn't the face of a man making meaningless moves.
Which meant—
Orochimaru.
Clang—!
Ren swung a bone blade behind him without looking.
Steel met bone with a sharp crack—
Then the kunai vanished mid-force, trying to steal his balance.
Clang—!
Ren blocked again with the bone spike at his ankle.
"Taijutsu won't beat me, Minato."
"I still have to try."
"Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
A flood of shuriken screamed in—
Ren raised a bone forest as cover—
But something changed.
A kunai struck his blade—
And turned into a white snake.
It twisted up the bone blade in an instant.
Minato burst into the one-meter kill zone, ignoring the spikes, and slashed Ren's shoulder with the venom-coated kunai.
Pshk.
The toxin entered.
Ren's body seized—
He lost control of limbs and chakra—
Only for his monstrous vitality to burn it away in about a second.
But that second was enough.
The snake struck.
"—HISS!"
It bit Ren's neck—
And the wound burned into a three-tomoe mark surrounded by black.
Ren screamed in pain.
"It worked!" Minato snapped.
He and Kushina surged in, sealing tags ready—
Two Four Symbols Seals slammed onto Ren's chest and back.
The seal patterns formed instantly, suppressing his chakra—
And the cursed wound's glow dimmed.
Kushina's chains wrapped him.
Minato exhaled.
"…We got him."
But Ren's voice—still steady—rose from within the bindings.
"Please don't talk like sealing chakra means I can't speak. Shikotsumyaku isn't that inconvenient."
Kushina's eyes widened.
Ren flexed.
Muscle swelled.
With raw physical strength alone, he snapped three chains apart.
And as he did—
A red eye-shadow began to form around his eyes.
Ren sucked in a breath, grimacing.
"Tch… I didn't plan to use this yet."
"Orochimaru really did send me a 'gift' I don't need."
Somewhere back at Kanayama, in Ren's quarters—
A Ren sitting in meditation burst into smoke.
An identical one remained.
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
patreon.com/Inkveil_