"You... that whole act before was fake? Who the hell are you?"
Watching "Tobiou" rise to his feet looking like a completely different human being, Miyuki felt a cold weight settle in his gut.
This man was strong. Nothing like the Tobiou from before. Not even in the same universe.
"Sss-ss-ss... forced to reveal my true self in Konoha of all places. And by a brat who hasn't even hit puberty. Tobiou really is a hopeless waste of flesh."
The thing wearing Tobiou's body didn't bother acknowledging Miyuki. It just laughed. An ugly, scraping sound.
True self? So the Tobiou from before wasn't a disguise. It was more like a second personality. Something dormant that just woke up. This is the real one.
Once Miyuki had a rough grasp of what he was dealing with, he opened his mouth on instinct. "That's a pretty bold claim to..."
The sentence died halfway. Not because Miyuki chose to stop talking. Because he physically couldn't continue.
The man's eyes had locked onto him. And riding that gaze was a wave of killing intent so dense, so saturated, that it hit Miyuki's nervous system like a hallucination. The air itself seemed to curdle.
This was the first time in either of his lives that Miyuki had felt murderous intent this strong. Strong enough to distort perception. Strong enough to feel like a physical thing pressing against his skin.
One wrong step and I'm dead. Next second. That's not paranoia. That's the actual situation.
"How many people have you killed?"
Miyuki swallowed quietly, lowered his center of gravity, and asked the question with a face like stone.
A wolf that had tasted meat and a sheep that had only ever eaten grass gave off fundamentally different auras. You could tell the difference the instant they moved. And the sheer volume of killing intent radiating from this man suggested a body count that defied imagination.
"How many? Heh heh heh. Can you remember how many rice balls, ramen bowls, dumplings, sushi plates, and mochi you've eaten in your life?"
"I can't. But your diet seems a little excessive."
Staring down the blood-freezing grin on "Tobiou's" transformed face, Miyuki kept his comedian's reflex alive. But inside, his heart was pounding war drums.
I can't beat him. The verdict had come the instant that killing intent hit the air. It wasn't even close.
What do I do? Run? I'm not sure I can outrun him. And even if I could, what about Naruto?
His eyes flicked toward the trash can where Naruto was hidden. The future savior of the world was currently five years old. Aside from the fox sealed in his belly, he was no different from any other helpless kid.
In other words, the current Naruto had zero ability to defend himself against a hostile combatant. And even if the Kyuubi decided to intervene, at this stage it probably wouldn't matter much.
Forget it. Stall. If I buy enough time, the shadow guard should be able to track me here.
Miyuki suddenly missed that shadow guard he'd ditched more than he'd ever missed anything. But the guard was skilled. Relocating the heir shouldn't take long. All Miyuki had to do was survive until then.
After a few seconds of calculation, he sighed, and squared up. Full Juuken stance. Facing the predator head-on.
Running meant a high chance of dying and an even higher chance of leaving Naruto exposed. So fighting it was.
"Oh? "the young have no fear of the unknown." Or just too ignorant to know better? Standing your ground against Diavolo instead of running. Bold."
Watching this tiny Hyuuga child actually adopt a combat posture, the "real boss" Diavolo flashed a smile full of teeth. The kind of smile that belonged on something that hunted for sport.
Diavolo was an A-rank rogue ninja. A man whose origin was unknown, whose existence was barely even a rumor. His combat strength wasn't the most overwhelming on paper, but what made him terrifying was his assassination record. He completed jobs that other killers couldn't even attempt. Almost no one escaped him once he'd picked up their trail.
It was as though he'd erased himself from the world entirely. A ghost drifting through the underworld, leaving storms of blood wherever he passed. A ten-million-ryo bounty sat on his head, and yet no one had ever found him.
Now Miyuki understood why. The man literally lived inside another person's body. This wasn't a disguise or a transformation jutsu. It was a genuine psychosomatic switch between two complete identities. Of course nobody could find him. He didn't technically exist as a separate person most of the time.
But even knowing all that, Miyuki kept his voice level. "Don't flatter yourself. You're a rogue ninja, right? This is Konoha. If you get discovered here, there's nowhere to run."
"Exactly. So all I have to do is kill you before anyone finds out."
Diavolo's lean, predatory body flickered once, and then he was simply gone. Vanished from the spot as if he'd never been standing there.
Fast! Miyuki felt the air shift behind him before his eyes could track anything. Pure survival instinct fired through his spine and launched his body upward in a desperate vertical leap. The hand-blade that would have punched through his back from behind carved through empty air instead.
Being five years old and barely a meter tall had its disadvantages. Strength and durability were practically nonexistent. But the flip side was that he presented an absurdly small target.
Combined with his natural agility and the ability to channel chakra into his movement for bursts of superhuman speed, actually landing a clean hit on Miyuki was harder than it looked.
Tch. Slippery little brat. This is why I hate kids. Like a dung beetle swimming in a toilet bowl.
But jumping was a mistake. Diavolo watched the small body floating at the apex of its leap and surged forward even faster.
A person in midair had nowhere to push off from. The nearest wall was out of reach. The only thing that tiny body could do next was fall, and Diavolo would be waiting at the bottom with a hand through his chest.
Because Diavolo was, above all else, a man who loved putting holes in people's torsos. Cold, cruel, decisive, and savage, his entire combat philosophy revolved around the singular art of punching through someone's ribcage from front to back. In his mind, this wasn't violence. It was a hobby. Like needlepoint, but wetter.
Years of practicing this particular passion had honed his hands into instruments sharper than blades. One thrust and he'd give you a brand-new window where your lungs used to be. Lethality rate: near perfect.
"Die!"
His right hand drove upward like a javelin aimed at Miyuki's chest. One more fraction of a second and blood would bloom in the air like a red flower.
But the miracle happened.
In the instant before Diavolo's hand connected, Miyuki's body shifted sideways in midair. Roughly half a meter. Laterally. With zero momentum, zero leverage, and zero warning.
No wind-up. No lean. No visible force acting on him at all. Hyuuga Miyuki's body simply... drifted. As though an invisible thread had tugged him sideways like a marionette. The killing blow sailed past his ribs. And instead of retreating, Miyuki's trajectory carried him closer to Diavolo, not further away.
WHAT.
Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming. How is this not a dream?
Watching a five-year-old child ghost sideways through empty air with no foothold, no surface, no chakra burst, nothing, to dodge a killing strike and then close the distance, Diavolo's face twisted into an expression of pure disbelief.
But that expression froze in the very next instant. Because a small palm had already swept across the underside of his chin at blinding speed.
Swept. Not struck. Not slapped. Not hammered. The contact was feather-light, barely a brush, with a hair's width of space between skin and skin.
Against a battle-hardened killer like Diavolo, a hit that gentle should have felt like a mosquito landing. Barely worth registering.
So why? Why, after that whisper of a touch grazed his jaw, was the world spinning? Why did it feel like he'd just taken a sledgehammer to the skull?