Chapte 7: The Cards Are on the Table: My Kekkei Genkai is a "Stand"
"Clang—!"
Sparks exploded in the downpour.
Outside the abandoned warehouse, two afterimages clashed and separated instantly.
The Ninja Blade in Yahiko's hand trembled, his thumb web numb, and the mud beneath his feet splattered from the recoil of the strike.
Opposite him, Konan's black robe fluttered, her eyes cold as blades.
Before Yahiko could stabilize himself, she flipped backward, and a sky full of Paper Rain instantly sealed off all routes of retreat.
"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!"
Yahiko performed the hand seals extremely fast; water flowed like a whip, accurately striking and knocking away several paper sheets directly in front of him.
However, the dampened paper sheets did not fall.
Instead, like sharks smelling blood, they ignored the weight of the rain, hovering eerily in mid-air, redirecting their sharp edges, and encircling him from above, behind, and the blind spots on the flanks!
"Oil Paper?" Yahiko raised an eyebrow.
"Waterproofing is a basic necessity."
Konan curved her lips into a rare, sly arc. "Yahiko, checkmate."
The next second, hundreds of Paper Shuriken converged simultaneously!
A fatal checkmate!
On the wheelchair, Nagato, who had been silent, suddenly gripped the armrests, his breath catching.
This move was unavoidable!
However, Yahiko, standing in the center of the blades, did not panic. Instead, he sighed helplessly.
"Konan, how many times have I told you..."
"At this distance, numbers are meaningless."
Yahiko did not perform a hand seal; he even lowered the blade in his hand.
"King Crimson!"
In that instant, the world not only lost its color in his eyes but also seemed to have several frames pulled out of the sequence.
Boom—!!!
Without warning.
There was no wind-up for hand seals, not even a warning of Chakra flow.
A torrent, violent like a high-pressure water cannon, suddenly erupted from the Void Realm behind Yahiko!
This was not the C-rank Wild Water Wave.
This was a heavy cannon capable of blasting through rock!
The sky-full of Paper Rain was violently shredded the moment it met the water cannon, and the terrifying residual force slammed into Konan.
"What?!"
Konan's face paled; she had no time to react and was directly thrown by the water surge, crashing heavily into the mud.
Instant kill.
"Ahem... Are you alright?"
Yahiko dismissed his Stand and quickly stepped forward, offering a hand.
He hadn't controlled his strength well; he almost broke his wife... ah, no, his teammate.
Konan ignored the mud on her body, grabbed Yahiko's hand, and used the leverage to Stand up, her beautiful eyes filled with shock and disbelief:
"What was that just now?!"
"No hand seals, no Chakra wind-up... the Water Release appeared out of thin air!"
Not far away, Nagato also stared intently at Yahiko, his Rinnegan wide open.
As a member of the Uzumaki Clan, he was most sensitive to Chakra.
In that instant just now, an obscure fluctuation did appear on Yahiko, but this completely defied the common sense of Ninjutsu!
If one could instantly cast high-power Ninjutsu without hand seals, what was the point for other Ninja? They might as well chop off their hands!
Watching their expressions of existential doubt, Yahiko chuckled inwardly.
The effect was achieved.
Time to trick them... no, time to be honest.
"This is the power I Awakened after coming back from the dead."
Yahiko had a thought.
Under their horrified gaze, a Paper Shuriken that had fallen into the mud slowly floated into the air, as if grasped by an invisible Ghost Hand.
Rainwater dripped down the paper blade; the scene was eerie yet sacred.
"Beside me, there is a 'Shadow' that you cannot see."
Yahiko pointed to the Void Realm beside him and spoke serious nonsense: "It is the materialization of my spirit, which I call a—[Stand]."
"It can perform hand seals for me, attack for me, and even..."
"A Stand?"
Konan and Nagato chewed on this unfamiliar term, their worldviews shaken.
An invisible Guardian Spirit? A proxy cheat?
Suddenly, Konan seemed to grasp a crucial piece of information and looked up sharply: "Wait! If it is a materialized spirit..."
She urgently asked, "That day in the valley facing Hanzou, Nagato and I both experienced moments of 'conscious disorientation,' like suddenly spacing out, and when we came back to our senses, the fight was already over."
"Was that ability that made everyone 'black out' also a Genjutsu from your Stand?!"
Nagato also nodded repeatedly: "Exactly! I felt it too! That feeling was terrifying and completely indefensible!"
Huh?
Yahiko froze for a moment, then gave Konan a thousand thumbs-ups in his heart.
What a great assist!
I was just struggling to explain a BUG-level ability like [Time Deletion], and you guys filled in the blanks yourselves?
This logical closed loop is simply perfect!
"Ahem... that's right."
Yahiko maintained a straight face, channeling his inner Movie King, and nodded profoundly: "My Stand comes with a powerful spiritual interference that can cause people within range to fall into a brief 'mental blank state'."
"Although it only lasts for a few seconds, in a battle between experts, that is enough to be fatal."
Listen to that, what a reasonable explanation.
Disguising a divine skill involving the Law of Time as a mental Genjutsu.
This not only lowered the enemy's guard but also preserved his greatest trump card.
"It's too strong..."
The worry in Konan's eyes vanished, replaced by ecstasy: "Ninjutsu without hand seals, plus indefensible group control... Yahiko, with this power, and Nagato's Rinnegan, we will definitely win!"
"Avenge Kyusuke and the others, and rebuild the Akatsuki—it's definitely possible!"
The atmosphere instantly became fervent.
However.
Hearing the words "Rinnegan," the previously excited Nagato's eyes instantly dimmed.
He subconsciously lowered his head, his gaze falling on his empty, senseless legs.
Beneath the thick bandages were a pair of completely ruined legs.
That's right.
Yahiko has become stronger, having Awakened an invincible Kekkei Genkai.
But I, who possess the eyes of an Immortal, am a cripple who can't even Stand up.
This immense sense of disparity gnawed at his heart like a venomous snake.
Right now, I'm just a burden, aren't I... A large, warm hand suddenly rested on Nagato's shoulder.
Nagato flinched and looked up.
He met Yahiko's deep, resolute eyes.
In this abandoned warehouse filled with chilling rain, Yahiko squatted down, leveling his gaze with his seated best friend, his tone undeniably commanding:
"Put away that stray dog look, Nagato."
"But my legs..."
"If your legs are broken, I'll reattach them for you; if they can't be healed, I'll go drag the best Medical Ninja in the Ninja World here to treat you."
A wild, arrogant smile curved Yahiko's lips—a wildness the former "Yahiko" never possessed:
"Since we crawled back from Hell, the three of us are destined to Stand at the peak of this world."
"Not a single one of us will be missing."