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The rapid chain of events left the Blood Ninja completely dumbfounded. He couldn't wrap his head around what had just happened. Wasn't the Uchiha kid trying to save the boy? Why the hell did he just kill him? What was the difference between letting the mercenary finish the job and doing it himself? Did the two of them have a grudge?
"Did you two have a grudge or something?" the Blood Ninja blurted out, unable to make sense of the bizarre situation.
"No," Xuan replied flatly.
"Then why did you kill him?" the Blood Ninja asked, bewildered.
"I didn't just come to kill him," Xuan stated matter-of-factly. "I'm going to kill you, too."
The Blood Ninja stared blankly for a second before bursting into uproarious laughter. "Hahaha! A mere Tokubetsu Jōnin, shamelessly boasting that he's going to kill me! That's hilarious!"
Xuan ignored the mockery. He simply adjusted his grip on his kunai, his three-tomoe Sharingan locked coldly onto the mercenary in dead silence.
The Blood Ninja managed a few more chuckles before the laughter died in his throat. Looking into the boy's scarlet eyes, he recognized the dense, suffocating killing intent radiating from him. It was the authentic, blood-soaked aura of someone who had taken lives before. This little brat... was dead serious.
He sized Xuan up carefully. The boy wore the traditional black robes of the Uchiha and carried a longsword. He couldn't be older than five or six, yet his temperament was steady and unnervingly calm—nothing like a child. Those three tomoe spun lazily in his blood-red eyes, but his chakra signature undeniably hovered strictly at the Tokubetsu Jōnin level.
The Blood Ninja sneered. "I've long heard that the Uchiha are a clan of arrogant lunatics who look down on everyone else. Seeing you today, the rumors are definitely true. Reaching the rank of Tokubetsu Jōnin at five years old makes you a monstrous prodigy, without a doubt. But being arrogant enough to hunt me down? You're actively digging your own grave. That Chiba brat you just stabbed belonged to one of the Fourteen Great Clans of the Land of Fire. Even if they aren't quite on the level of your Uchiha, they are still a top-tier faction, and yet he still ended up dead at my feet. Since you're throwing your life away, brat, don't blame me for taking it."
Truthfully, if Xuan possessed the chakra reserves of a full-fledged Jōnin, the Blood Ninja wouldn't even consider fighting; he would have turned and fled immediately. The mercenary vividly remembered the horrific beating he had received from a Senju Jōnin just days prior. Although he had technically won that encounter, it was largely due to a stroke of sheer luck. The Uchiha were the only clan capable of standing as equals to the Senju, and the terrifying reputation of the Sharingan was known across the entire Warring States. 'If you face a Sharingan user one-on-one, run.' That infamous battlefield proverb existed for a very good reason.
"The Fourteen Great Clans of the Land of Fire?" Xuan raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine interest crossing his face. It was the first time he had ever heard of such a classification; no one back at the compound had ever mentioned it.
Catching the boy's reaction, the Blood Ninja chuckled darkly. "So, you're just a freshly hatched chick who hasn't seen the world yet. Judging by your age, this is probably your first time taking a mission outside your borders. It's a shame you're about to die... but fine. I'll humor you and explain it. I'd hate for you to die in total ignorance."
Naturally, the Blood Ninja wasn't acting out of the goodness of his heart. He was deliberately stalling for time to recover his depleted chakra. Tsubasa had been a surprisingly formidable opponent. After a drawn-out battle involving multiple high-level A-rank jutsu, the mercenary had burned through more than half his reserves. While he was utterly confident he could crush a mere Tokubetsu Jōnin, years on the battlefield had ingrained a deep sense of paranoia into him. He would recover every drop of chakra he could before engaging. In the Warring States Era, it wasn't uncommon for arrogant veterans to capsize in a shallow ditch.
"Listen closely, brat," the Blood Ninja began. "The 'Fourteen Great Clans' refer to the fourteen strongest factions in the Land of Fire. They are divided into the Two Sovereigns, the Three Houses, the Four Factions, and the Five Secret Arts.
"The Uchiha and the Senju stand at the absolute apex of the Warring States. No one else even comes close. They are the Two Sovereigns, the undisputed kings of the fourteen. Below them are the Three Houses: the Hyūga, the Kaguya, and the Onmyō. They are second only to the Sovereigns. Next are the Four Factions: the Uzumaki clan, the Sarutobi clan, the Fūma clan, and the Chiba clan. Finally, the Five Secret Arts refer to the clans renowned across the continent for their exclusive hidden jutsu: the Aburame, the Inuzuka, the Akimichi, the Nara, and the Yamanaka. Together, these fourteen factions dominate the Land of Fire."
Xuan silently mulled over the names of the fourteen clans. Aside from the Onmyō, the Fūma, and the Chiba—which he didn't recall playing any major role in the original storyline—and the Kaguya, which was an entirely different matter across the sea, the remaining ten clans were all founding members of Konoha in the future timeline.
He finally understood why no one in his clan had ever mentioned the so-called "Fourteen Great Clans." Given the Uchiha's towering, ingrained arrogance, why would they ever acknowledge thirteen other factions as their peers? In the minds of the Uchiha, there was only one clan in the entire Warring States Era that mattered: the Uchiha.
Perhaps they would begrudgingly add the Senju to that list. But a third clan? Absolutely out of the question.
"Earth Style: Earth and Stone Burst!"
Seeing the momentary lapse in Xuan's attention, the Blood Ninja mercilessly seized the opening. "You're still too green, brat! Die!"
Slamming his palms into the dirt, the ground violently ruptured. A jagged, pitch-black fissure tore through the street like a bolt of lightning, surging directly toward where Xuan stood.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion ripped through the town. Jagged fragments of stone erupted outward like a deadly volley of shuriken, covering a thirty-meter radius in a lethal barrage. The surrounding storefronts were instantly riddled with holes. Several unfortunate civilians hiding inside couldn't dodge in time; they were turned into human pincushions, collapsing to the floor in absolute terror, their eyes wide open in death.
When the dust settled at the epicenter of the blast, nothing remained but a smoking crater two meters wide and a meter deep. Not a single trace of a corpse was left.
"Hahaha!" The Blood Ninja threw his head back and laughed uproariously. "A mere Tokubetsu Jōnin dares to hunt me? Remember this lesson in your next life, brat! Not everyone is an easy target! The Uchiha clan? Ptui!"
It had been a long time since the Blood Ninja felt this incredibly smug. He had just slaughtered two prodigious children from major clans back-to-back without sustaining a single scratch. Once he fled into the Land of Earth, this flawless double-kill would serve as the perfect bargaining chip to join a new faction. The only pity was that the Uchiha brat had been blown to bloody ribbons. Those Sharingan eyes would have been priceless.
Then again, he wasn't too greedy. If he had actually managed to harvest the eyes, the Uchiha clan's endless pursuit would have been relentless. Even a major clan in the Land of Earth might not have been able to protect him from that nightmare.
Just as he turned around, preparing to gather some dry rations and leave, a sharp, cold glint suddenly expanded in his peripheral vision. Startled, his combat instincts took over, and he violently threw himself to the side. A steel kunai whistled past his ear, narrowly missing his skull.
What the hell? Is there another bounty hunter? The Blood Ninja's heart sank. He spun around, ready to fight—only to freeze in utter disbelief.
Standing exactly where he had been spectating moments ago, completely unharmed and untouched by the explosion, was Uchiha Xuan.
"Where are you looking?"
The chilling whisper brushed directly against the mercenary's ear, accompanied by the blinding flash of a drawn sword.
How?! The Blood Ninja's pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. The kid was standing dozens of paces away a fraction of a second ago! How had he instantly materialized right beside him with a blade aimed at his throat?!
Once again, his decades of life-or-death battlefield experience saved him. Before his conscious mind could even process the sheer impossibility of the situation, his body reacted on pure instinct. He violently shoved his kunai upward to parry the strike while simultaneously channeling his chakra to trigger the Body Flicker Technique.
Because his defense was a desperate, panicked reflex, he managed to deflect the lethal trajectory of the longsword, but he couldn't block it entirely. As his Body Flicker carried him backward, a chilling breeze swept across his forehead. Reaching up, his fingers came away slick with warm blood. The blade had sliced a shallow gash straight across his brow.
When the Blood Ninja finally stabilized his footing and locked his eyes back onto his attacker, a wave of inexplicable, suffocating terror washed over him.
The young Uchiha child was still standing in his original spot, his sword casually resting by his side as if he had never moved an inch.
In all his years of brutal warfare, the seasoned mercenary had never encountered something so profoundly bizarre.