"Another one," the captain sighed discontentedly, turning to his crew. 'Prepare your arrows.' Then he turned to me. "Shinobi, I can't hold this pirate back on my own."
"I'll help," I nodded, not objecting to the intervention, since a wooden ship is very vulnerable to fire, adding with a quick glance at the crew beginning to arm themselves, "but bolts and arrows won't help against jonin.
"Sometimes even such a trifle can tip the scales in an equal fight," the powerful old man grunted and easily jumped overboard, pulling a straight sword slightly longer than a meter from the scabbard on his belt, which looked too small in his paw.
Shrugging, I followed him, pulling out a pair of kunai — I had no intention of flashing conspicuous weapons, especially against an ordinary enemy.
Naturally, our maneuver did not go unnoticed, and the enemy shinobi decided not to waste time, beginning to form hand seals.
"Katon: Karyu Endan (Fire Release: Flaming Fireball)!
A fire dragon rushed at us and Iero slammed on the brakes, cursing briefly, but did not delay his response.
"Suiton: Mizurappa (Water Release: Water Gun)! He shot a powerful jet of water from his mouth, which turned into a stream almost a meter and a half long and crashed into the flames.
Of course, he couldn't maintain the technique for long, but it gave me more than enough time to do my part.
"Suiton: Daibaku Suikousha (Water Release: Great Water Wave)," a thick wall of water shot up in front of us and rolled forward, crashing into the enemy ninjutsu with all its enormous mass. I didn't put much chakra into it, but considering the sea beneath our feet, it wasn't necessary; it was enough to use what I already had. The fire dragon couldn't break through and ended its existence in huge clouds of steam, limiting visibility to the limit for a couple of moments, but thanks to my senses, I could clearly feel the source of the enemy's chakra trying to get around us on the right under this cover. Grabbing a few shurikens from my pouch, I charged them with raiton and threw them where the jonin should have been in a moment.
"Gah!"
A painful cry from the clouds of steam that began to disperse showed that the shinobi had not expected such accuracy and had caught the gifts after all. Captain Iero also did not stand still and rushed forward at a decent speed toward the figure that was beginning to emerge.
The enemy may have noticed him, but his accumulated injuries significantly reduced the jonin's combat effectiveness and reaction time, allowing the captain to get within sword range, and then I saw the old man's excellent weapon skills — wounded, yes, but a jonin, whose physical condition was almost twice that of his own, he simply did not allow the shinobi to do anything but defend himself from blows and stabs with his blade.
And this style did not seem very familiar — it seemed that something similar was used by the ronin in Hiroshi's squad. So, an old man from the land of iron?
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