Chiba Shun's heart dropped straight to the bottom.
Swordsmanship was the one thing he could truly rely on. Against ninjutsu specialists, he could at least fight smart, use footwork, buy time, and force the battle into terrain that favored him.
But this enemy used a blade too—and he was clearly better.
Today might really be the day he died.
The thought flashed through him in less than an instant. By then, his body had already moved, his sword whipping up to meet the descending slash.
The moment steel struck steel, Shun understood just how dire the situation was. The other man's swordsmanship was viciously precise, fast enough to make his skin crawl, and the quality of his blade far exceeded Shun's own.
After only a few exchanges, he was already being forced back.
This man's skill wasn't at the level of an ordinary chūnin. Judging from the sharpness of his techniques, he was at least a special jōnin who specialized in kenjutsu.
If not for the sudden reveal of Shun's third and fourth swords startling him for an instant—if not for the fact that the man seemed unwilling to take even a minor wound—Shun would have already been dead.
And that wasn't even the worst part.
The other ninja, the one hanging back, didn't stay idle for even a moment. He formed hand seals with practiced speed, then spat out one earth spear after another, sending the hardened spikes screaming toward Shun from the side.
Shun's scalp went numb.
He was actually ignoring his companion and firing into the melee anyway.
Did that mean he was careless? Confident? Or so sure of his ally's ability that he didn't care if the swordsman had to adapt on the fly?
Whatever the answer was, it changed nothing. Shun knew with brutal clarity that he was finished.
There was no way he could handle a swordsman better than himself while dodging earth spears at the same time.
Right then, a storm of kunai and shuriken came whistling in from the side, all of them aimed at the swordsman.
Shun didn't have any spare attention to see who had thrown them. He only felt the murderous pressure in front of him lessen all at once, and when the man unexpectedly disengaged, Shun immediately retreated without hesitation.
At that same instant, one of the earth spears slashed across Shun's left hand. Flesh tore open with a wet sound, a chunk of meat ripped away, and the burst of pain nearly made him lose his footing.
If the swordsman had pressed in right then, Shun would have died.
No—if the man hadn't pulled back at the crucial moment, Shun would already be a corpse.
The swordsman's face had gone ugly. Though he had avoided the incoming attack, he had only just realized what those projectiles were.
Children.
A bunch of little brats had attacked him.
More importantly… what had they even thrown?
Toy kunai? Toy shuriken?
He could hardly believe it.
The ones who had intervened were the children who had entered the Ninja Academy a few years earlier—the same group Shun had once taught to climb walls with chakra.
Hearing the commotion tonight, they had come running out in curiosity. Then, seeing their teacher getting cornered, the ignorant, hot-blooded little fools had thrown whatever weapons they had on hand without the slightest regard for the gulf in strength between themselves and the enemy.
Their attacks were clumsy to the point of absurdity. A moment ago, someone had nearly hit Shun instead.
But once the swordsman saw another wave of kunai about to fly, his expression darkened at once. He yanked out a kunai wrapped with an explosive tag and hurled it straight at the children.
He didn't dare ignore them anymore.
He couldn't afford to be hurt.
He still had to stay hidden inside Kumogakure. If he took even a minor injury, the odds of his identity being exposed would rise sharply.
Boom.
The explosive tag detonated with a thunderous roar, followed instantly by shrill screams.
Shun had no time to look.
He didn't know how many of the children were wounded, or if any had died. He didn't even have the luxury of turning his head.
Gripping the sword in his uninjured hand, he stared at the two enemies with bloodshot eyes, every muscle in his body taut.
He expected them to attack again immediately.
Instead, the ninjutsu user shouted, "Retreat!"
"If we don't leave now, we won't be able to leave at all."
It wasn't easy for Root to plant an intelligence operative directly inside a Cloud-nin team. There was no way they would casually throw that kind of asset away.
And the blast from the explosive tag had been deafening. By now, who knew how many people were already rushing toward the academy?
They had only dared to strike tonight because Aoki Yuuichi was away from the academy. If they dragged this out until Kumo reinforcements arrived, they were finished.
The moment he said it, he began forming hand seals again.
The swordsman, however, hadn't given up. He clearly still wanted one final charge.
Then he froze.
His eyes had locked onto Shun's hands.
Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger.
The Great Fireball Technique?
The man was a Konoha intelligence operative. There was no way he could fail to recognize one of the Uchiha clan's most iconic jutsu.
Chiba Shun knew the Great Fireball Technique?
And that hand-seal speed—what the hell was that?
Six seals in less than a second?
Six, maybe even seven seals per second. It was outrageous.
Worse, the intelligence reports had never mentioned Shun having any proficiency in Fire Release.
The swordsman shifted aside in an instant.
A moment later, he realized he had been fooled.
He wasn't just a swordsman; he also had sensory ability. Yet from Shun's body, he had sensed no fire-nature fluctuation at all.
It had been a bluff.
A pure bluff meant to scare him off.
No wonder the hand seals had been so fast.
But by the time he realized it, it was already too late.
Using that tiny opening, Shun had already widened the distance between them.
And the instant he did, his hands flashed into motion again.
This time, the swordsman carefully checked with his senses first. There was no mistake now. Shun really was gathering chakra and preparing a jutsu.
Earth Flow Wall.
He recognized it at once.
Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall was a common enough technique. He had seen it many times before.
The hand-seal speed was decent—about three and a half seals per second, by his estimate. But even so, Shun still needed nine seals to complete the technique.
Pathetic.
In Konoha, Earth Flow Wall was so widespread that plenty of chūnin could perform it with six or seven seals.
He'd spent half a year and only managed this much?
Almost laughable.
Still, he didn't hesitate.
He launched forward for his last chance to kill.
At the same time, he had already guessed what trick Shun intended to use.
Before he reached him, a curved wall of earth surged up from the ground, cutting off the vision of both him and his companion.
A moment later, the wall was smashed open when his partner's Earth Dragon Spear burst through it. The impact tore a large hole straight through the structure.
But even through the breach, there was no sign of Shun.
Then, just beyond the wall, a figure suddenly bolted away at full speed.
The swordsman sneered inwardly.
A clone.
You think something this cheap can fool me?
Without breaking stride, he hurled two kunai at the fleeing figure and vaulted over the Earth Flow Wall in one fluid motion.
He expected an ambush the instant he landed.
Nothing.
There was no one there.
His heart skipped.
Underground?
At that very moment, his companion's urgent shout rang out behind him.
"That was the real one! He's escaped! Get out of there now!"
The swordsman went still for half a beat.
He had been fooled again.
Not by some brilliant strategy, either. By the kind of cheap, shameless trick he would normally laugh at.
But there was no time left to curse.
Knowing his last chance had slipped away, he ground his teeth, then turned without hesitation and fled from the Ninja Academy.
The ninjutsu user didn't linger either. After throwing out one final deceptive technique to cover the retreat, he also prepared to escape.
It sounded like a long exchange when laid out step by step, but in reality only a few jutsu had been used. The clash had been brutally short.
Shun looked in the direction the swordsman had gone, fear still clinging coldly to his back.
Then he spun and chased after the other one instead.
That man was somewhat plump, with a body that looked nothing like a proper combat ninja. He was obviously an intelligence operative disguised as a civilian.
If he couldn't catch the mole hidden inside Kumogakure's ninja ranks, then he would at least catch an enemy spy.
Shun didn't attack. He simply trailed the man from a short distance behind.
He didn't need to make a move himself.
Someone else would do it.
Sure enough, after only a dozen or so breaths, a streak of lightning tore through the darkness and appeared beside the fleeing man.
The next instant, the spy was blasted sideways and crumpled to the ground.
Shun's pupils contracted. Then he immediately lowered his head and said respectfully, "Lord Raikage!"
The one who had arrived first to reinforce them was none other than the Third Raikage himself.
And he was furious.
Tonight, he had been convening a meeting of the village's jōnin. Aoki Yuuichi had been summoned away because of that very meeting.
And while that was happening, the Ninja Academy had been attacked.
The Third Raikage was no fool. It was obvious at a glance that there was an intelligence operative inside Kumogakure—someone at the middle or upper level, someone who knew the movements of the village's jōnin.
He gave the dead spy one cold glance before asking, "What happened?"
Shun replied at once, "They didn't come to massacre the academy. They came straight for me."
"There were three of them. Besides this one, I killed another. The body is still back at the academy."
"The last one escaped. He was far stronger than I am. If the students of the academy hadn't risked themselves to buy me time, I'd already be dead."
He paused for only a heartbeat before continuing.
"He had dark skin and used the village's swordsmanship. He should be a registered Cloud ninja."
"My judgment is that his strength is at the level of a special jōnin focused on kenjutsu."
The Third Raikage narrowed his eyes.
"A special jōnin?"
Then his gaze grew colder.
"No. He's hiding his strength. If he were really just a registered special jōnin, he would have been in the meeting with the others tonight."
After a moment, he asked, "Was he injured?"
Shun shook his head with obvious regret.
By then, more figures were already racing in from every direction. Some came straight to the Raikage's side. Others headed directly for the Ninja Academy.
The Third Raikage turned to one of them and said, "Ask every taijutsu ninja in the village where they were tonight."
The man was stunned for an instant, then understood at once what that implied. His expression turned just as grim.
"Yes, sir."
He shot Shun a quick glance, then vanished at high speed.
For Chiba Shun, this was destined to be a sleepless night.
He returned to the Ninja Academy with Aoki Yuuichi.
After the wounded were settled and the dead were accounted for, Shun stood before the gathered students and staff. The children were frightened, shaken, many of them still pale from the explosion and the bloodshed.
And then he spoke.
"Future of the village—look at this. This is Konoha."
"We did nothing to them, and still they refused to let us go."
"Tonight, twelve young heroes gave their lives for the village."
"Seven more have been gravely injured."
"All of it happened because of Konoha's ambition."
"They thought this would scare us. They thought we would back down."
"But they were wrong. There are no cowards in Kumogakure!"
His voice rang across the courtyard like iron striking iron.
"Even students of the Ninja Academy dared to attack a jōnin-level enemy tonight!"
"I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the Will of Lightning being passed on through you!"
The children trembled. Some were crying. Some were staring blankly, fists clenched so tightly their knuckles had gone white.
Fear still lingered in the air, thick and raw.
But under Shun's words, something else began to rise with it.
Anger.
Hatred.
Resolve.
And in that moment, standing beneath the night sky of the Hidden Cloud, with blood still not fully dry on his body and the smell of smoke hanging over the academy, Chiba Shun knew one thing with utter certainty.
This battle was far from over.
If anything, it had only just begun.