When Ryuga turned to see where this voice was coming from, his heart nearly escaped from his mouth. The fucker was standing next to his second in command, the only other Jonin on the ship, with his blade straight through his friend's heart.
His rage started boiling to an insane degree, but he knew that if he lost his calm, he may meet his friend very soon, so he calmed down and quickly scanned the surroundings, scouting for a chance to get any extra help.
But once again his hopes were shattered. Majority of the people on the ship were dead, some from friendly fire due to the genjutsu, while others at the hands of the clones of this boy.
Only three chunin, which he knew were at elite Chunin rank, were still fighting, but seeing the number of injuries they had accumulated, the chance of any of them coming to join him for the fight against the boy was almost negligible.
"You know what, I don't think I will get any better chance to practice Kenjutsu than a Kiri Jonin, so let's do this. We will have a duel. If you win, I will let you live," Kaida said, taking out his sword from the now dead ninja.
"Hahaha, let me live? Why don't you worry about your own life, brat? When I am done with you, I will pay your bitchy mother a visit... hehehe," Ryuga said, trying to rile up the boy in front of him. No matter how powerful, he was still a young boy. With him being an Uchiha, his emotions should already be in turmoil because of that cursed eye.
"..." The boy was just looking toward him, not saying a word for quite some time. Only the sound of metal clashing in the background was reverberating on the ship.
"Huh, Brother was correct. I don't have control over my emotions. Even though I know you are trying to make me angry, I still fall for it. Good, now you have really made me angry... let's stop this background music for a second," Kaida said and vanished from his position.
Ryuga tried to go after him to save the few who were still alive at that moment, but a shadow clone intercepted him. Ryuga tried the same attack once again, but this time the shadow clone was using Iron skin Jutsu. The attack failed miserably in dispelling the clone.
And suddenly the sound of the battle went silent, though Ryuga didn't even have a chance to check what happened, as he was busy defending against a f**king clone.
But before the clone could have landed an attack on him, it also vanished, along with all others on the ship. Only a single boy was sitting on the corpses of the last three chunin of his crew.
"You think by making me angry you will have a chance, right? Let's see how true that is," Kaida said, as he stood up and moved toward Ryuga.
...
Taizen stared at the enemy ship, his grip tightening around the telescope stand until his knuckles turned white. His breath hitched as the rest of his teammates scrambled for their binoculars, eager to witness the madness unfolding before them. Only he had the ship's lone telescope, but at this point, none of them wanted to blink, let alone look away.
The chaos aboard the enemy vessel had momentarily stilled when Kaida arrived, holding a white flag. When he had first proposed his plan—to walk onto a rogue ninja's ship and offer them one million Ryo to avoid a fight—every single one of them had opposed it.
It wasn't just about pride; the idea of handing protection money to criminals was an insult none of them could stomach. And worse, Kaida himself had pointed out the possibility that these were not mere pirates but Kirigakure ninja in disguise. There was no chance they would take the money and abandon their mission.
But that was the entire point. Kaida never expected them to accept the offer—he just needed to get close enough to cast his genjutsu.
The entire crew had been against this reckless gamble, unwilling to put Kaida in mortal danger when an all-out assault could secure victory. But Kaida had been adamant. Even when they tried their best to make Kaida give up on the idea, he proposed the absurd term of running back and fighting from the ship. The confidence in the boy was almost borderline over-confidence.
And now, watching the horror unfold on that ship, Taizen understood why.
When the supposed leader of the enemy vessel emerged from his cabin to speak with Kaida, the talk naturally didn't go peacefully, and from the maniac laugh and gestures of the enemy Jonin, they could tell what he was trying to say:
'I want all of the ship, not some protection money' or something similar.
All within the expectation of the Konoha ninja, but what happened next was not within their expectation, not at all. The enemy crew exploded into violence, attacking each other with unrestrained fury as if avenging generations of blood feuds. The ship became a battlefield of frenzied betrayal.
"What the hell...?" one of the Jonin whispered in disbelief.
Kaida wasted no time. He created multiple shadow clones in quick succession, each one seamlessly boarding the ship and cutting down enemies with brutal efficiency. The real Kaida engaged a seasoned ninja—one whose kenjutsu was so refined that even Taizen would hesitate to face him head-on.
And yet, Kaida won.
His swordplay was near flawless, reading through the enemy's unpredictable strikes like a book, parrying every attack with chilling ease. He fought with measured patience, waiting for that one mistake. The moment the enemy overcommitted to a strike, Kaida struck—his blade sinking into his opponent's chest, aimed directly at the heart.
Taizen's throat ran dry.
This wasn't just skill. This was something else entirely.
By now, nearly all the enemies had been slaughtered. Only the leader and three others remained, all clearly ninja. They had barely processed the carnage when Fushiro spoke up.
"Wait... he won against the clone?"
They saw Kaida's shadow clone dissolve into smoke after taking a hit from the enemy leader.
"He's talking to the enemy?" another Jonin muttered, still trying to make sense of what was happening.
Until now, none of them had dared to speak, too mesmerized by the sheer spectacle of Kaida tearing through an entire ship's worth of fighters. It was only when the battle neared its end that their disbelief finally turned to words.
"He's toying with them..." someone murmured, voice tinged with both awe and unease.
But then, something changed. Kaida stopped moving, staring at the enemy leader with an expression so unreadable it sent a shiver down Taizen's spine. A tense silence stretched across the battlefield. Then, without warning, Kaida disappeared from sight.
The enemy leader lurched forward to chase him, only to be intercepted by another clone. This time, the Jonin struggled, unable to defeat it so easily. The duel between the enemy leader and Kaida's clone was impressive, but no one aboard their ship was watching that.
Their eyes were locked onto Kaida.
Because somehow, within mere seconds, he had dispatched the remaining three ninja like they were nothing more than livestock led to slaughter. And then, in an action that sent a ripple of shock through his teammates, Kaida dismissed all of his clones.
"What the... Is he out of chakra?" one of them asked, baffled.
"No." Fushiro chuckled. "He's angry. That Jonin must've said something that pissed him off."
"Fushiro-san, why are you laughing? Giving in to your emotions during battle can be fatal," Akito, the youngest of them, said in concern.
"That's true," Fushiro admitted, eyes still locked on Kaida. "But when the difference in strength is this overwhelming—when even his clones are enough to dominate the enemy—getting him angry might just be the worst mistake that Jonin has ever made."
Kaida took a single step toward his opponent.
And the Jonin—seasoned, battle-hardened, and deadly—instinctively took a step back.
A step not made out of strategy.
Not out of calculation.
It was pure, primal fear screaming at him to run.