Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu.
This was a ninjutsu that used Earth Style to burrow underground for surprise attacks. But after Ronin realized he could perform it with simplified hand signs, a new idea occurred to him—using it purely to hide beneath the ground.
Uvogin's arrival speed didn't exceed Ronin's expectations by much. What truly caught Ronin off guard, while he was hidden underground, was the phone call Uvogin made.
The moment Ronin heard what Uvogin was saying from above, a bad feeling crept into his chest.
And in that instant, Ronin made his decision.
The ground beneath Uvogin's feet split open without warning. An arm shot up from below, lunging straight for Uvogin's leg, as if trying to drag him down into the earth itself.
But before Ronin's pale, slender hand could clamp onto Uvogin's ankle, Uvogin had already looked down. A savage grin curled at the corner of his mouth. Wearing thick bearskin boots, he lifted his foot in one smooth motion, dodging the grab—and setting himself up to stomp down hard.
However, when Uvogin brought his foot down, he felt no solid resistance. With a thunderous boom, his stomp smashed straight into the ground.
The sheer force of that step exploded outward, blasting the already cracked earth into a much deeper crater.
At the same time, the Ronin Uvogin had struck burst apart into a cloud of white smoke the instant he was hit.
Seeing the smoke, countless questions flashed through Uvogin's mind—but they lasted less than half a second before vanishing completely.
Because at the exact moment the smoke erupted, another figure appeared abruptly at his side and launched a surprise attack toward his head.
Bang!
Ronin's left leg whipped out like a steel lash.
More precisely, it struck Uvogin's right hand—the one holding the phone.
That kick, powered by everything Ronin had, knocked Uvogin's head slightly to the side. More importantly, the phone clenched in Uvogin's hand was crushed to pieces by his own grip.
Ronin had known from the start that, at his current level, seriously injuring Uvogin would be nearly impossible. Still, he hadn't expected that a full-power kick would do nothing but stoke Uvogin's rage, without causing even the slightest real damage.
If anything, the attack was probably more insulting than harmful.
Ronin was shocked, but his hands didn't slow down. Even as his attack landed, he was already forming hand signs again.
The next second, Uvogin's fury-filled punch slammed into Ronin's body.
But once again, something unexpected happened.
The Ronin Uvogin hit instantly transformed into a chunk of dry wood.
The real Ronin was gone.
At the same time, Uvogin noticed a thin layer of mist rapidly spreading through the surrounding area—and it was thickening fast.
What the hell…?
When Uvogin tossed aside the shattered phone, his face had already gone completely dark.
In the next moment, he yanked up the eyeless head hanging from his waist and spoke in a voice like a demon's whisper:
"What's wrong? Running away already? Don't you want to take another look at your father's head? He was begging me to spare you right up until the moment he died!"
At that moment, Ronin was hidden in a tree less than twenty meters away.
His chest heaved violently as his hands formed the final Ram seal.
This was the last hand sign of Water Style: Hidden Mist Jutsu. It was a technique famously used by Zabuza Momochi—and Ronin had never forgotten how cool Zabuza looked disappearing into the mist.
Hidden Mist Jutsu was also a D-rank technique, well within the range of what Ronin could currently use.
However, while casting it, he quickly realized that maintaining and expanding the mist required continuous chakra consumption. Only by steadily pouring chakra into it could he make the fog thick enough to fully conceal himself.
Ronin's heart was pounding.
He was just an ordinary office worker. Before today, he'd never imagined he could stay this calm in a life-or-death fight.
But he knew this calmness was the only reason he was still alive.
Uvogin being able to track him through the forest wasn't unexpected. In fact, after escaping right under Uvogin's nose, Ronin had already been thinking about how Uvogin would chase him down.
Even if Ronin himself lacked survival experience in the wild, his former self didn't—especially when it came to being hunted.
Because of that, as their memories merged, Ronin gained a solid understanding of how to erase traces in a forest and how to conceal his presence.
The moment he chose to use Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu—another D-rank technique—to hide underground, he had already completed his disguise.
What he never anticipated was Uvogin making a phone call and directly asking for his location.
Hearing Uvogin's booming voice from underground, Ronin immediately formed a hypothesis:
I've been marked.
And the person who marked him came to mind instantly—it had to be Kortopi.
In his memories, more than one member of the Phantom Troupe was capable of placing marks. But Ronin had previously examined himself using the Sharingan.
He detected no foreign aura on his body, which was enough to rule out Machi.
Machi's ability turned aura into threads that attached themselves to targets. As long as the target didn't notice those threads, she could track them with ease.
Even if Machi used In to conceal her aura, Ronin didn't believe she could evade detection after he used Gyo, focusing aura into his eyes, and then double-checked with the Sharingan.
That left only one possibility within the Phantom Troupe—someone who could secretly leave behind replicas on a target and then locate them by touching the original object.
Kortopi.
Objects copied by Kortopi remained real for twenty-four hours. The problem was, Ronin had no idea which item on his body was the replica.
That left him with only one viable plan.
First, temporarily cut off Uvogin's contact with Kortopi. Then, use that short window of time to identify the copied item—or simply abandon everything he was carrying.
That was why, from the very beginning, Ronin had focused on a single target:
The phone in Uvogin's hand.
When he burst out of the ground, he used a clone technique. While Uvogin destroyed the clone, Ronin slipped in with a taijutsu strike.
Everything went smoothly. Uvogin probably never imagined that a tiny "ant" like Ronin would dare to strike back.
But now, Ronin was facing more than just the choice to flee.
Because when he got close to Uvogin, he sensed something—something overwhelmingly tempting to him.
It was at Uvogin's waist.
Hanging beside his former father's head was a bloodstained cloth pouch.
Thinking about the empty eye sockets in his father's skull, it wasn't hard to guess what was inside.
The Scarlet Eyes.
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