The End of The Fight, Team Regroup

[AN: Some bad news here, there is a crazy power shortages in my home town and they cut the power for hours each day, yesterday and the day before it was more that six hours without electricity. I have a laptop that I can use for writing but it only works for a few hours before the battery runs out. I will try my best to keep up with updates but it's not much I can do about this whole situation here. I hope they will restore the power supply soon.]

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Yuta, after analyzing how his barrier functioned glanced at Tatsuko, she is just standing in the middle of the barrier and observing it, seeing that Yuta looked at her, she looked back and spoke.

"You still have hope to survive, don't you? Or do you expect that your teammates will come and help you?"

'After checking the barrier once again I'm confident that she is unable to overpower the barrier, and it will be beneficial for me if she start to make moves to break out of it, this way her chakra will be drained much faster and I wouldn't have to spend too much of chakra this way. So, let's just provoke her in the most efficient way.'

 "You don't even realize it, don't you?" Yuta said calmly, ready to reinforce the barrier to hold Tatsuko's attacks.

Hearing that Tatsuko froze for a few seconds, and then she immediately became serious.

"It's draining my chakra!" She exclaimed angrily, "Well, doesn't matter, I just have to break it!"

Tatsuko held her long sword with both hands and jumped at the barrier making a swing with it. The barrier stopped the sword without any problem.

'Seems that normal attacks without chakra involved is not making much damage to the barrier.'

Seeing that her attack is not effective, Tatsuko gets into stance with her sword, ready for another attack, then her sword starts glowing. Yuta sensed how Tatsuko poured a lot of her chakra into the sword.

'Seems that she wants to spend around 30% of her chakra with her next move.'

As Yuta sensed the chakra spike before the sword swing, that is some sort of sword technique, he reinforced the barrier pouring his own chakra into it.

After that Yuta saw a blue flash where Tatsuko stands and felt a huge blow on the barrier, barrier started to ripple but Yuta and his shadow clone stabilized it quickly, they spend a lot less chakra to reinforce the barrier than Tatsuko for making the attack. Besides that, Tatsuko also lost a significant chunk of her chakra because of the barrier chakra drain, so she lost 50% of her chakra already.

"Seems that it is you who will die today, you bitch!" Yuta exclaimed eagerly, being glad that he will have his revenge for that amount of pain that Tatsuko caused him, "By the way, my name is Yuta, you deserve to know the name of your killer at least."

"You little sh*t, I'm not done yet!" Tatsuko yelled with anger, she didn't like that their roles are reversed now, and that she gets her own remark back.

Tatsuko sticks her sword in the ground and makes a series of hand seals. Yuta felt an even bigger chakra spike this time.

'Looks like she went all out this time, if barrier withstand this attack, she will end up dead after it.'

Yuta and his shadow clone poured a maximum amount of chakra into the barrier that it can handle, and right at the next moment a huge dragon made out of water formed around Tatsuko and at a high speed it rammed the barrier.

The place where it hit the barrier started to ripple even more than the last time and barrier started to bend, Yuta and his shadow clone are trying their best to hold the barrier, the flow of water that hitting the barrier continues, with each second the barrier bends more and more.

And a few seconds later the water flow stopped, and the barrier slowly restored itself. Now there is only a giant, gray-colored glass looking cube that can be seen, and it's almost entirely filled with water.

'I don't sense her chakra anymore, she is definitely dead now, completely drained from chakra. But she was experienced and cunning enemy, I shouldn't carelessly approach her body, I bet that she knows that she is done for and might left some trap for me as last effort to kill me…'

But just to be careful Yuta analyzed the barrier again, trying to find out if it stopped draining chakra of anyone that is inside, and it did, so Yuta believed that Tatsuko was dead for sure.

Yuta moved away from the barrier and jumped on a tree branch, after that Yuta's shadow clone canceled the barrier and water poured in all directions.

Shortly after Yuta's shadow clone found Tatsuko's body and approached it, but when he started to examine the body, a small explosion occurred and grayish-black smoke fly in all directions, Yuta's shadow clone inhaled the smoke and dispelled shortly after that.

'As I thought, she prepared a trap.' Yuta thought about getting the shadow clone memories.

'Well, I still have some chakra left, better be safe than sorry.' Yuta thought intending to create another shadow clone to check Tatsuko's body once more, but then, when he started performing the hand seal for the Shadow Clone jutsu he realized that he can't do that, as he doesn't have the right hand now…

'Damned, I forgot about that, that will be inconvenient to continue like that, isn't it?' Yuta thought looking at his missing arm, 'Forming hand seals with only one hand is possible, but it's hard and will take time to master it. Should I time-travel to get my hand back? Definitely! But should I do that right now? There is no reason to rush with it. I can use my injury as an excuse to get a month or two for myself to train in the time-loop without any interference.

I will have to master performing jutsu with only one hand seals, it can be considered a time waste, but it can actually help me. Before that I was trying to master the Shadow Clone jutsu to do it without a hand seal and I didn't manage it, but I never tried to do it with only one hand, so maybe it will help me after all.'

With that thought Yuta jumped down from the tree branch on the ground and walked closer to Tatsuko's body, still being on guard and preparing to flicker away.

He moved closer and grabbed a sealing scroll, he opened it, threw it at the body, and activated it from the distance, sealing Tatsuko's body into the scroll without any additional problem.

'I shouldn't forget to inform Koichi that this body can still contain traps…'

After that Yuta come and looked at his right arm on the ground, he sat and examined it, at this point the entire skin was black, and it emanated a scent of rotten flesh.

'My entire body would be like that if I didn't cut off it in time…'

Yuta thought while sealing his right arm in to the sealing scroll.

With that taken care of Yuta started to move further away from the bandit camp. For this kind of situation, the team have the protocol to gather at the place where they spend the previous night, and Yuta is moving at his best speed to that place.

It's already dusk, and Yuta has to travel at night. As Yuta moved through the night forest for a few hours, he felt more and more tired, his right shoulder was hurting, and he was not feeling well. Considering his conditions, Yuta slowed down his pace and continued to move through the forest, activating his sensory technique frequently, trying to spot the enemy first if there is any.

Early in the morning at dawn, Yuta started to move faster and soon after that he came close to the place where his team spent the previous night.

As Yuta moved closer to the forest clearing, he sensed three chakra signatures, he recognized them as Itachi, Hikari and Koichi. The moment Yuta sensed Koichi's chakra signature 200m away, he sensed that it moved right to his right side.

Sensing that Yuta stopped and turned to the right, looking at Koichi, while Koichi with a grave expression looked at Yuta's missing arm.

After a second of silence Itachi and Hikari appeared beside Koichi.

After a few seconds of silence Yuta said in a calm and tired tone, "What is the status? Is there any enemy left?"

Koichi replied with low and emotionless voice, "All the enemy is dealt with, the mission is over, what is your status?"

"One enemy, body in the scroll, body can still contain traps." Yuta responded tiredly, handing over the sealing scroll to Koichi, then continues with the details, "I was chased by a strong Chunin level shinobi, she was faster and had more chakra, so I set up a trap and killed her, but she managed to hit my arm with poisoned senbons. She claimed that this poison is unique, and my general antidote will not work, so I didn't wait to find out if it's true or not and immediately cut off my arm. The poisoned arm is also in the scroll, so the poison can be examined back in the village. I need a few hours of rest before going back to the village, if that is fine."

"Sure, you can rest for a few hours before we go back to the village but let me examine your injury first" Koichi said in a low and regretful tone.

While Yuta sit at the camp and Koichi started to take out the bandages from Yuta's right shoulder to check the injury and apply the first aid if necessary, and Itachi with Hikari sat not far away with a grave expressions, Yuta thought, 'Damned, they worried about my arm much more than I do, but I can't tell them that it's fine and it will grow back, can I?'

Yuta glanced at Hikari and Itachi, they seemed just fine. He glanced at Koichi and saw that his left sleeve was burned a little, but his arm seemed fine.

'So Koichi did encounter someone who managed to burn his clothes a little, it's a shame that I still don't know the Koichi's power level, his chakra feels immense, I don't think that he is a low-Jonin level, but I can't understand yet how much stronger than that he actually is.'

Koichi while removing and reapplying the bandages on Yuta's right shoulder saw how Yuta glanced on his left sleeve and most likely misunderstood Yuta's thought process completely…

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[AN: Well, it seems that everyone except Yuta will make a big deal from this…

8 chapters in advance on patreon /SycoreNovels Any support will be appreciated!

Thanks for the power stones! I would appreciate a few more reviews so we can finally get a rating.]