The morning sunlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains, shining on Taiichi's sleeping face.
Gradually, the glaring light woke Taiichi up. Groggily, he picked up the alarm clock beside him and saw it was almost 7:00 AM.
This was unprecedented since his awakening. The side effects of his excessive mental exertion yesterday were clearly significant.
He shook his head and found that the pain was completely gone. Sleep was indeed the best medicine for mental fatigue.
Taiichi quickly got up and washed. He had already missed his routine training last night and this morning; he couldn't afford to waste any more time.
Besides, he had two newly generated skills whose power and effects he needed to familiarize himself with as soon as possible. Otherwise, it would be easy to misjudge his condition in battle.
After breakfast, Taiichi stepped out of his house and immediately noticed that today's Konoha was much "noisier" than usual.
Walking on the street, he saw Uchiha ninjas from the Konoha Military Police Force patrolling back and forth frequently—at least two or three times the usual rate.
Continuing forward, the masked ninjas flashing past on the rooftops on both sides confirmed his suspicion.
Something must have happened in Konoha today. Otherwise, even the ANBU wouldn't be traveling so brazenly on the rooftops.
Recalling the scarce memories he had of this period, he couldn't think of any major events. Surely his little butterfly wings hadn't already caused a tropical storm in a distant region?
Smirking to himself, Taiichi decided to ignore it. As his panel evaluation said, he was still just small fry. If the sky fell, the tall ones would hold it up; it wasn't his turn to worry about it yet.
Putting it out of his mind, Taiichi quickened his pace toward his training spot by the river.
He didn't know that his sudden acceleration immediately attracted the attention of several groups of patrolling ninjas nearby. If they hadn't seen he was just a brat wearing a Konoha forehead protector, ninjas would have intercepted and questioned him long ago.
...
Running, Taiichi suddenly stopped at the edge of his training spot. Looking around, he found the place exceptionally quiet today. The usual chirping of insects and birds seemed to have gone on strike.
Taiichi walked slowly to the riverbank, drew his short sword, and began to swing it slowly. Unlike his usual sharp and fierce training, this looked more like practicing sword forms.
Taiichi slowly sensed the movement of the blade, the subtle connections and changes between each move. At the same time, he expanded his sensory perception as much as possible, feeling everything around him.
At this very moment, in the small woods not far away, a scar-faced man with a katana at his waist was hiding. Beside him lay a gunny sack with its mouth tied tight; it was unclear what was inside.
The scar-faced man carefully concealed his aura, keeping his breathing as light and slow as possible.
He glanced at Taiichi by the river out of the corner of his eye from time to time. When he saw Taiichi draw his sword, he was visibly tense for a moment.
But upon seeing Taiichi's slow, beginner-like swordplay, his expression turned to disdain.
Meanwhile, Taiichi, whose senses were stretched to the limit, slowly felt the already quiet environment become even more silent. His "Academic Genius" talent was operating at full capacity, his focus heightened to the max.
Gradually, in this stillness, two distinct breathing sounds reached Taiichi's ears.
One was slow and weak, not like sleep, but more like unconsciousness.
The other was almost imperceptible, the breath steady and long. If the two sounds weren't right next to each other, Taiichi would have missed it.
Taiichi had a guess in his heart. Without showing any change in expression, he finished his last move, sheathed his sword, and stood still. After calming himself, he went to the riverside and started practicing ninjutsu against the water.
He intermittently cast Fire Style: Flame Bullet, pausing for a while after each use, as if contemplating the essentials of the jutsu, while constantly practicing hand seals.
Ten minutes passed like this, and Taiichi had only released four Flame Bullet jutsu.
...
The scar-faced man in the woods looked at the brat by the river endlessly releasing ninjutsu with contempt. He could take on ten brats like that. He wondered when the kid would leave; a Genin's Chakra should be running out soon, right?
Suddenly, the scar-faced man seemed to sense something. Without even time to turn his head, he leaped violently to the side.
Thud, thud, thud. Three kunai chased the scar-faced man's shadow and embedded themselves into the ground one after another.
The scar-faced man glanced back, his pupils constricting. The three kunai were buried halfway into the earth—evidence of immense force.
Only now did the scar-faced man have the leisure to look in the direction the kunai came from. He saw a burly man wearing a Konoha forehead protector rushing toward him rapidly. The hand seal was already complete—it was the Tiger seal.
"Fire Style?" The scar-faced man thought to himself, his hands already preparing seals to counterattack.
He had just been forced away from the gunny sack by the kunai; he needed to get back to it quickly. That was his mission objective; he couldn't lose it.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" The burly man spat out 36 fireballs in one breath, which surged toward the scar-faced man like a blanket. The man himself followed closely behind, charging forward regardless of the high-temperature fireballs.
The scar-faced man had been smug about guessing the jutsu correctly, but seeing the swarm of fireballs, he was scared out of his wits. He quickly canceled his hand seals and hurriedly used the Body Flicker Jutsu to retreat.
The 36 fireballs seemed to chase him relentlessly, smashing into the ground along his retreat path with booming explosions.
Just then, the burly man burst out from the flames, swinging his fist with all his might at the scar-faced man.
The scar-faced man crossed his arms and barely blocked the heavy punch, but he was sent flying out of the forest.
"At least there's only a Genin brat outside," the scar-faced man rejoiced while mid-air.
But when he looked up at the burly man, his expression changed drastically to one of horror. The burly man who had just punched him flying was slowly dissolving into a puddle of water. "Water Clone!"
He turned back frantically, adjusting his posture mid-air to prepare for an attack.
Taiichi was already standing in the scar-faced man's flight path, short sword in hand. The "burly man" was a Water Clone Taiichi had secretly created while practicing Flame Bullet by the river earlier.
Taiichi had controlled the Water Clone to swim upstream, come ashore, quietly circle behind the scar-faced man, use the Transformation Jutsu to confuse the opponent, and then launch a surprise attack.
The scar-faced man didn't realize until the Water Clone dispersed from Chakra exhaustion that there had been only one person attacking him from start to finish.
Watching the scar-faced man flying toward him, Taiichi used the Body Flicker Jutsu to meet him. The short sword in his hand hummed with infused Wind Chakra, a thin layer of wind blade appearing on its surface.
The few meters of distance vanished in an instant. The scar-faced man didn't even have time to draw his sword to block. He could only channel all his Chakra into his arms in hopes of offering some resistance, while trying his best to dodge the blade's trajectory.
It happened in a flash. With a gleam of blood, the scar-faced man's right arm was severed at the elbow, and the blade carved a long gash across his chest.
Blood gushed out. Forgetting all about the gunny sack, he turned and fled toward the river without looking back.
Having dealt a heavy blow, Taiichi wasn't about to let him escape. He quickly formed seals and unleashed a Wind Style: Pressure Damage.
The high-pressure wind sphere hit the scar-faced man rapidly, exploding instantly to form a large-scale storm zone that enveloped him completely. In an instant, the scar-faced man was cut all over by wind blades and collapsed to the ground, unable to get up.
From the ambush to the kill, the entire battle took less than two minutes. This showed just how quick ninja battles could be when one side seized the initiative.
Taiichi didn't dare approach the fallen scar-faced man rashly. He threw two kunai from a distance to confirm death before stepping forward to inspect.
There were no obvious identifying marks on the body, nor any items to prove his identity. It seemed he would have to hand the body over to the Torture and Interrogation Force to find out anything.
Thinking this, Taiichi left the corpse and walked toward the only spoil of war—the gunny sack.
Opening the sack, sure enough, just as Taiichi had guessed, there was a little girl inside. She looked to be only two or three years old. He wondered whose child she was.
After a brief examination, he found she was simply unconscious and would likely wake up naturally in about two hours.
Taiichi breathed a sigh of relief. At least his effort wasn't in vain. It would have been a pity to go through all that trouble only to rescue someone injured or disabled.
"Brat, did you kill Ito?" A cold voice came from behind him.
...