After Kakashi's warning, Mikami Yuu immediately pulled his attention out of the galgame system, created two water clones at once to take advantage of shared vision, and gripped the hilt of the blade on his back in reverse.
Rin also reached for the tool pouch at her waist.
Once the group had taken up a guarded formation,
there was a rustle in the woods nearby, and then a four-man squad stepped out.
Three men and one woman.
The woman was a pale-skinned girl with short orange hair. The moment Yuu saw her, she looked vaguely familiar, but because she was wearing a Konoha forehead protector and had bloodstained bandages wrapped around her face and body, he couldn't immediately place why.
Of the other three, one had black spiky hair somewhat like Obito's, one was a thin man in a black cloak, and the last was bald.
All of them wore Konoha-marked headbands and looked like they'd just come through a brutal fight not long ago. The orange-haired girl and the bald man were the most obviously injured; even with the bandages wrapped up, blood was still faintly seeping through the wounds.
"Wow, lucky us. Didn't expect to run into comrades out here. Whose squad are you with?"
The black-haired spiky one spoke first.
Kakashi frowned slightly and did not answer. He kept his guard up instead.
"That's a question we should be asking. I know all the patrol teams in this area, and I've never seen you before. Where did you come from?"
"We came from the Oborozuki Castle outpost. We have important intelligence about Sunagakure that must be reported to Lord Jiraiya at the Wildfire City outpost. We ask for your cooperation."
"Code phrase."
"Who built the dam? Everyone's got mud."
"…" The code checked out.
Kakashi asked a few more questions about the situation at Oborozuki Castle, and seeing that they answered smoothly, he finally relaxed a little.
"Your injuries look pretty serious. Do you need treatment? We've got a medical ninja here."
"…If that's alright, then thank you."
The orange-haired girl looked delighted.
At that point, Rin stepped forward a couple of paces and looked at the two wounded ninja.
"Were you hurt fighting Suna? Sit down first. Yuu and I can treat you."
Mikami Yuu didn't move. He just felt a faint sense that something was wrong.
That feeling hit its peak the moment the orange-haired girl started undoing the bandages at her waist, as if she was about to let Rin heal her with medical ninjutsu.
"Rin! Don't get any closer!"
Yuu shouted suddenly.
Hearing his voice, Rin froze for a second and turned her head to look at him.
In that very instant,
the cloaked man and the orange-haired girl exchanged a glance, and the cloaked man suddenly whipped his cloak open. A dense spread of kunai and shuriken glinted in the sunlight, and he threw them all at once straight toward Rin!
"!!"
Rin's reactions weren't slow either. The moment she noticed the change in Yuu's and Kakashi's expressions, she jumped back toward them while grabbing kunai from her tool pouch and bringing them up across her chest and vital areas, deflecting several of the incoming blades.
Clang-clang-clang—!
One after another, kunai and shuriken were knocked away—and attached to them, clearly visible, were explosive tags. They were already at the point of detonation!
At the critical moment,
Mikami Yuu's figure blurred—and turned into Rin.
More accurately—
Yuu's body vanished from where he had been and appeared in Rin's position, while Rin appeared in his at almost the exact same time. The swap happened too fast for the naked eye to distinguish, so it only looked like his figure had gone fuzzy for a moment.
—Substitution Technique: Pseudo-Realm Instant Cast!
The next second,
a shrill explosion and a scorching shockwave erupted! A blinding column of flame shot upward, completely engulfing the spot where Yuu had just been standing!
"Yuu—!"
Kakashi shouted sharply, and for once there was real shock and anger in his usually flat dead-fish eyes. His grip on the White Fang short blade tightened, and he lunged toward the explosion without hesitation.
Rin, meanwhile, had never seen Yuu use his "Amenotejikara"—ahem, rather, his human-swapping Pseudo-Realm Instant Cast. She stood frozen for a full second before dimly understanding what had just happened, then looked up at the figure swallowed by flames, her pupils shaking violently.
"Yuu—"
Compared to them, the other side reacted much faster.
"Move!"
The orange-haired girl gave a sharp order, and she and the black-haired spiky man shot forward like arrows, charging straight at the shaken Kakashi and Rin, their attacks vicious and aimed directly at vital points.
Kakashi could only forcibly suppress his worry over Yuu. The White Fang short blade drew a cold, tragic arc of light as he met the orange-haired girl head-on.
Clang!
The metallic impact rang out sharply. A force far greater than expected traveled through the blade, numbing Kakashi's arm.
"Hm?!"
What monstrous strength!
On the other side, Rin barely managed to raise her kunai in time to block the spiky-haired man's strike. The impact forced her to stumble back several steps, her arm going numb.
As a kunoichi, taijutsu had always been Rin's weak point. Now, facing a Suna ninja whose age and experience both exceeded hers, she was immediately pushed into a defensive position. She could only barely block and evade, and within moments she was already in real danger.
"Haha, die! Just die!"
A vicious grin spread across the spiky-haired man's face as his attacks poured down on Rin like a storm.
Kakashi saw it and tried to move to help, but the orange-haired girl's assault only became fiercer. Her attack speed was absurdly fast. Even with Kakashi going all out, she was still suppressing him, let alone giving him room to break away and help Rin. The frustration gnawed at him.
This woman—
who the hell is she?!
At this age—she couldn't be much older than him. There was no way she was a jōnin, right? Among people his age, aside from Yuu, there was actually someone who could put this much pressure on him with blade work?
The moment he thought of Yuu, Kakashi's eyes moved involuntarily toward the flames and smoke that were starting to thin.
Rin, gritting her teeth, looked the same way too, tears gathering in her eyes.
By then, the smoke had started to clear.
The ground that had been ravaged by the explosive tags was pitch-black, littered with dirt.
And yet—
the crater was empty.
The bald man froze.
The cloaked man, however, seemed to have some sensory ability. He had already realized something felt wrong and was scanning the area with a kunai in hand, trying to locate Yuu at once—
only to feel a rush of wind from above at the last instant—
Sshhk—!
A bright slash of steel, like lightning cutting through shadow, appeared overhead without warning!
And behind that slash—
the white-haired boy's figure, descending from the sky!
~~~
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