What does a normal ninja battle look like?
First, you throw a few shuriken—just to set the mood. After all, if you've got shuriken in your pouch and don't throw them, how are you supposed to get reimbursed?
Then you toss out a couple of ninjutsu. That burns through a decent chunk of chakra.
After that, you trade some taijutsu blows.
Finally, you finish things off with a trap—or a decisive technique.
As long as you don't die midway, everyone more or less follows this routine.
But who the hell opens with endless shuriken like they're free?
Crack.
The rock finally shattered.
Panic appeared on both men's faces.
Were they about to face that nightmare barrage again?
No. Please no.
They couldn't block it.
They were already mentally preparing for death.
Then—
Nothing.
"…Huh?"
They looked up in confusion.
Akira was standing there, perfectly still.
He gave them an apologetic smile.
"Sorry. I ran out."
WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING?!
"YOU'RE DEAD, BRAT!!"
The two men snarled at the same time and charged him, faces twisted with rage.
Ugly. Truly ugly.
Then they felt something wrong under their feet.
They froze and looked down.
Explosive tags.
"You—!"
BOOM!!
Flames and shockwaves swallowed them whole.
"I still had explosive tags," Akira said calmly.
The wind whipped his clothes as he stood there, looking completely innocent.
He hadn't gone brain-dead throwing shuriken. When he noticed his supply running low, he'd attached the last few to explosive tags and tossed them during the rock's collapse.
The timing was perfect.
This was a shooter game.
And shooter games had grenades.
If you didn't use explosives with the Byakugan, that was just a waste.
[EXP +156]
[EXP +135]
Their bodies were blown apart.
On the ground lay several items:
A bronze saber.
A bronze armor vest.
A blue scroll with a white emblem.
A red money pouch.
[Bandit Warblade: +10–15 Attack]
[Bandit Armor: +15 Defense]
[Skill Scroll: Fire Release · Unknowing Flame]
[Money Pouch: 100 taels]
"A skill scroll dropped." Akira's eyes lit up.
He stored everything away, then pulled the scroll out separately.
He'd always wanted more skills.
The ones he currently had weren't especially helpful for his playstyle.
He was a ranged fighter.
A pile of close-combat techniques didn't do him much good.
The Hyūga clan technically had plenty of ninjutsu, but they were stubborn to the extreme—obsessed with Gentle Fist and barely valuing anything else.
Only the main house kept decent scrolls.
Branch family members mostly had access to Gentle Fist and Byakugan-related techniques—and little else.
It was honestly depressing.
If he wanted ninjutsu scrolls, his options were:
Work for Konoha.
Kneel before the main house like a dog.
Or—
A third path.
Farm monsters.
And not just Naruto-world skills. Other worlds' skill books could drop too—though only from specific enemies, and purely by chance.
Akira chose Use.
A flood of memories poured into his mind.
[Fire Release · Unknowing Flame (Lv.1) | EXP (0/100) | Trait: None]
Unknowing Flame was a D-rank technique.
It temporarily granted fire damage to attacks.
"…This actually suits me pretty well."
Its real strength was that it could imbue weapons with flames.
Like shuriken.
"Flaming shuriken have real potential."
Akira began forming hand seals.
Snake—Goat—Tiger.
Only three seals.
Chakra flowed continuously as he finished.
He struck forward, flames flickering briefly around his hands.
Picking up a shuriken, he threw it.
The blade ignited mid-flight—
Like a miniature fireball.
"Decent power. Worth leveling."
Skill progression had two paths:
Practice relentlessly—no EXP gain, but eventual level-ups.
Or dump EXP directly from the pool.
Aside from Substitution Technique, he'd trained everything manually so far.
He checked his EXP pool.
[EXP Pool: 311 + 918 = 1229]
"Over a thousand in one run," Akira muttered. "Eight hundred more and I level up."
Satisfied, he equipped all his loot.
[Equipment:
Bandit's Left Leg Guard
Bandit's Right Leg Guard
Bandit's Right Bracer
Bandit Warblade
Bandit Armor]
There was no visible change—except a bronze saber now resting in his hand.
With a thought, it vanished.
Another thought—and it reappeared.
"Too bad there's no attribute panel."
Since he'd entered during beta, the stat system was incomplete.
That limitation had carried over here.
Otherwise, he could've seen his growth clearly.
Durability was missing too—hidden, just like in beta.
All things that would've been finalized at launch.
Too bad he never made it that far.
With a push off the ground, Akira sprinted toward the mountain peak.
He wondered how many enemies were left.
Maybe—just maybe—he could complete the Bandit set in one go.
That Cheap Shot skill was god-tier early on.
He wanted it badly.
When he reached the summit—
He saw Tsunade waiting with the Hyūga brothers.
Tsunade stared at him expressionlessly.
Hiashi leaned against a tree, his hand wrapped in bandages.
Hizashi glared at Akira with hostility.
Akira's expression darkened.
"Where are the bandits?"
Did these three steal his kills?
He scanned the area.
Not a single corpse.
Tsunade frowned. "They ran before we arrived."
This kid's killing intent was intense.
Charging up with a bronze saber like that—she refused to believe he'd come to help.
Akira sighed deeply.
He'd wasted time testing skills.
Otherwise, he might've caught them.
Tsunade looked at Akira's regret-filled face, then at Hiashi.
This mission…
Couldn't really be called a success.
One injured ally.
Enemies almost entirely wiped out—only seven or eight escaped.
The bandits' combat strength was completely erased.
By Akira alone.
And that fighting style…
It was… expensive.
The only injury came from internal conflict.
This mission was supposed to train Hiashi.
Not turn Akira loose.
Tsunade had no idea how she'd explain this.
Seeing there were no enemies left, Akira flicked his wrist.
The bronze saber vanished.
Even Tsunade couldn't tell where it went.
Akira turned to leave.
"Where are you going?" Tsunade asked.
"Cleaning up the battlefield," Akira waved back.
There were shuriken everywhere.
He wasn't about to leave those behind.