Ginji strolled out of one of his smuggling warehouses. His Chunin bodyguard walked closely at his right side. Three other guards formed a protective ring around them. It was late at night, and the moon remained hidden beneath a thick cover of heavy clouds.
Ginji pulled up the collar of his jacket and grumbled. "It is very cold today. Looks like it is going to rain. Let us get to our headquarters fast."
His subordinates quickly agreed and matched his brisk pace.
Whenever they passed people on the streets, those civilians immediately pressed their backs against the brick walls. They kept their heads down in absolute silence. A few even bowed out of fear. This display drew a wide, satisfied smile across Ginji's face.
He had been born a worthless orphan, but through pure grit and cruelty, he had carved out his territory. Now he dominated a big part of the port city's shady businesses and even controlled several legitimate ones.
A glimmer of deep ambition flashed in his eyes as he surveyed the dark streets of his part of the city. He let out a low chuckle. "Give it another year. Once we lock down the eastern docks, every single crate moving through this port will pay our tax."
The Chunin guard beside him nodded with absolute conviction. "It will. As long as I am here to protect you, brother, no one will dare to as much as look at you the wrong way."
Ginji felt a profound sense of safety under the protection of this man. Ginji had saved his life years ago. He had fed him when he was on the edge of starvation and spent a fortune out of his own pocket to send him away to learn the shinobi arts from a hidden village. That investment had returned a fiercely loyal warrior.
A sudden, freezing wind swept through the alleyway. Ginji shivered as his long hair whipped around his face. A single, heavy drop of water struck his cheek. The sky then lit up with a blinding flash of lightning. A deafening thunderclap shook the earth beneath their feet. Heavy rain immediately began to pour from the black sky. They had just reached the outer edges of the warehouse district.
"Brother, come here," the Chunin guard said. He pointed toward a narrow side street between two large warehouses that offered some cover.
They hurried out of the punishing rain. The edge of a warehouse roof extended just enough to shield them. The guard stood close while scanning the shadows.
"I really hate it when it pours like this," Ginji muttered. He stepped out slightly, intentionally letting the rain hit his shoulders. "It reminds me of the bad old days when I did not even have a ceiling over my head to protect me from the storm. Looks like things have not changed much."
The guard smiled and nodded. Then his eyes went wide.
He exploded into motion. A massive blade was already drawn from his back. He swung the heavy weapon upward with terrifying speed. He clashed heavily with a shadow that had shot down from the roof exactly as the next clap of thunder roared.
The impact was devastating. The ground cracked beneath the guard's feet as he caught the falling strike. Sparks violently erupted into the dark alley as the two weapons grinded against each other. The air itself grew heavy with killing intent.
"For a sword to handle a full swing from me," the Chunin grunted, straining against the immense downward pressure of the attacker. "Your blade must be exceptional."
He focused his chakra into his arms and used his superior raw strength to throw the attacker back into the pouring rain. While the attacker was airborne, he flicked his wrist and sent a shuriken flying through the storm. The spinning blade struck one of the subordinates directly in the throat, killing him instantly as the other guard watched in absolute horror.
The surviving civilian guard panicked and tried to run. However, the attacker flickered right into his path and swung his blade with lethal precision. The subordinate did not even realize he had been cut in half until his upper body slid off and his head hit the wet floor.
The final subordinate stepped directly in front of Ginji. He held his sword up with trembling hands and shielded his boss with his own body. Ginji pressed his back firmly against the cold brick wall as he eyed the area for an escape route. The Chunin guard extended his hand to halt them.
"Ginji, stay exactly where you are. If we get separated, he might use his flicker technique to reach you before I do."
The guard eyed the attacker with immense concentration. He noted the cheap wooden mask that was typically sold on the streets, along with the unique green insignia on the assassin's cloth clearly stating that the attacker belonged to his greatest rival gang. Ginji noticed this as well and growled. "So the old man finally lost the last marble he had in his mind. He actually dared to send someone from his gang to deal with me. Did he finally decide to make a move on my territory? And look at that, only one person. I am actually quite offended. Well, it does not matter. Even if he sent hundreds, it still will not work."
A confident grin appeared on Ginji's face as his Chunin guard began weaving through hand seals at blinding speed.
The surrounding rainwater coagulated and a fearsome water dragon emerged from the ground, taking its full, intimidating form. The massive beast was sent flying toward the attacker, crushing everything in its path and causing destruction. However, because the warehouse district was abandoned at that late hour and the rolling thunder covered the noise, no one was the wiser to the fierce battle happening in the dark alleyway.
The attacker flickered backward and narrowly evaded the crushing jaws of the jutsu.
The dragon roared, rotated in the air, and shot forward again toward the attacker's new location. The attacker immediately sprinted to the side and started running vertically up the warehouse walls. The water dragon rapidly approached. Just before it could crush him against the brick, the attacker jumped backward into the open air. The dragon's heavy head followed his trajectory perfectly. Lightning lit the sky above, covering the water dragon in an ominous blue glow and casting the falling attacker in deep, terrifying shadows.
The attacker landed his feet heavily against the opposite wall and pushed off violently. He shot forward through the rain.
"He is a shinobi," the Chunin guard shouted to the last subordinate. "Be careful and stay close."
The attacker threw multiple shuriken their way, but the guard quickly weaved through another set of hand seals. A thick wall of water rose up from the puddles and blocked the frontal assault. Meanwhile, the water dragon kept trying to crush the attacker, but he was far too nimble. He jumped gracefully from wall to wall and ran at full speed, proving his chakra control was absolutely impeccable. The attacker finally closed the distance. In a single fluid motion, he dropped low and pushed incredibly hard off the brick wall. He was sent flying forward with his two swords shining in the dark.
The guard was forced to cancel the dragon jutsu before it crashed into his own team. He gripped his massive sword and swung again, putting even more raw power into the heavy strike. The attacker reacted instantly. He rotated in mid-air, spinning his body to narrowly evade the huge, crushing slash.
The guard followed through with his downward swing, fully intending to rotate his body using the momentum to bring the blade back up. Desperate to protect his boss, the last subordinate also jumped into the fray and swung his own sword. Now the attacker had two separate blades coming toward him, one from the front and one from the back.
With absolute mastery of movement, the attacker kicked against the side of the guard's heavy slash. He used that impossible timing to propel himself forward. He effortlessly deflected the subordinate's clumsy sword to the side and then slashed smoothly with his second blade, slicing cleanly through his throat as he fell to the ground choking on his own blood, the light of life leaving his eyes.
Lightning ignited the world in blue once more. The flash revealed the attacker standing sideways on the vertical wall. His dual blades were perfectly stable and dripping with fresh blood. The Chunin guard was sweating heavily now, and Ginji was finally starting to panic.
"Is this it?" the crime boss asked with a trembling voice.
The guard replied with a resolute, heavy tone. "No. I will take care of him and keep him occupied while you run, brother. This is not a goodbye. I will see you after I deal with this assassin."
Ginji nodded quickly. The guard weaved through a new set of hand seals, and multiple water bullets materialized in the air. They shot forward with tremendous speed. Instead of escaping to the rooftops, the attacker landed softly on the muddy ground and shot straight ahead, evading the lethal bullets by the thinnest of margins.
The guard charged forward to meet him. He was willing to suffer a glancing blow just to entangle the attacker in close-quarters combat, knowing he held the absolute advantage in raw physical power. But the moment he met the attacker in melee range, the Chunin felt something was terribly wrong. He launched a high kick, but the attacker simply ducked under the heavy strike and stepped dangerously close.
Through the narrow slit in the attacker's wooden mask, the guard finally saw something horrifying. A Sharingan looked back at him, its ominous red hue spinning wildly in the dark. The guard suddenly felt a deep, sickening feeling in his guts.
He tried to disrupt his chakra as he kicked the attacker back to give himself space away from those cursed eyes. However, that moment of distraction was more than enough for the attacker to swing one of his swords and slash the guard's throat. The cut was not deep enough to be fatal, and the guard swung his sword in return, but the attacker flickered to the other side of the wall. Suddenly, the guard felt like his movements were too slow, as if he were moving through molasses. Before he could react, the attacker pushed off the wall and a thin line of red crossed from one side of the alley to the other. The guard's head rolled to the ground, a look of disbelief frozen in his eyes for eternity.
As he ran away, Ginji looked backward in pure horror. He watched his final line of defense collapse dead into the mud. The masked attacker walked slowly toward him, both blades dripping heavily with blood and rainwater.
Ginji opened his mouth to say something, but the attacker gave him no chance. He pivoted into a perfect throwing stance and launched his blade through the rain with such violent force that it tore a path through the downpour. The weapon struck in the blink of an eye, piercing Ginji's heart with incredible momentum and violently pinning him to the ground. Bright sparks ignited as the driving steel punched straight through his body and collided with the hard stone beneath the mud, casting a brief flash over the explosive burst of his blood as it mixed into the dark water.
Kaen took a deep breath to steady himself. He walked over and collected his thrown weapons, a task made incredibly easy by his active Sharingan. He approached the very first victim he had killed with a shuriken and slashed the area where the weapon had struck, severing the head completely to mask the precise nature of the initial attack. Before leaving the alleyway, he deliberately placed the physical insignia of the rival gang on the dead bodies, a signature calling card they were known to leave behind. Then, he simply melted away into the dark, rainy night.
---
A/N: Whew. That was a huge chapter. I'd love to hear what you all thought of this fight in the comments <3