168. Hunting a Bear
Sora arrived at the land of Bears, fortunately without any more obstacles including Teenager Jounins who scream when they see a beetle.
'So, where are the bears?' Sora thought while looking at the trees in a forest through which he entered the Land of Bears.
'Maybe I should enter more deeper area... but before that' Sora bit his thumb and slammed his hand on the ground while making a few hand seals with his other hand.
"Polly is here for a mission" A parrot appeared out of smoke.
"Hehe, your mission is to find these guys," Sora said while showing the parrot photos of a Hyuga, a girl and 2 youthful people.
"Polly will take care of it" The parrot saluted and started to go in the air.
"Wait, let me tell you which area you will find them," Sora sweatdropped at the enthusiasm of his summon.
He told him to only survey first the borders of Land of Bears and Land of Mountains and then Land of Mountains by showing him the directions and how much distance in that direction and so on.
'Well, now that it's out of the way, let's fight some bears' Sora thought while activating his shape-shifting jutsu and body flickering at very high speeds.
Despite the area being a forest, Sora easily outmanoeuvred the obstacles in his way which included - trees, terrain, random snakes coming, and some booby traps on the ground which probably were traps set by a ninja a long while ago, but forgotten to remove and so on.
He would look like a blur to any genin or Chunin alike.
He was going at that high speed.
'Oh, found my target' Sora thought while stopping right in track upon seeing a bear.
The bear and the kid looked into each other's eyes.
They looked at each other for a few seconds which turned into a few minutes.
'This bear... is dangerous' Sora could feel that this bear would pose a threat to him.
'Would my luck be considered good or bad to meet a bear of such level at the first try?' Sora thought while looking at the bear who was looking back at him with a cautious demeanour.
It could also tell that the hooman in front of him is strong enough to pose risk to his life.
He was wondering whether to fight the human or retreat.
Sora also wondering the same thing, his body refused to move, kind of similar to times when he is awake on bed, but his body don't want to leave the warm embrace of the blankets.
However, just as a leaf fell exactly in the middle of both, they moved at each at the same time.
Sora with his right hand formed a Rasengan immediately which clashed with Bear's right rock-covered paw.
'Damn, that is some power' Sora could deduce the amount of power that fist had. Luckily, Rasengan was A-rank jutsu, otherwise, his hand would have been pulverized if he had met the bear's fist with his own.
'Still, with time, Rasengan would penetrate through that bear's paw' Sora's deduction was right on the spot.
But bear being the animal he is, comes with instincts, that are naturally superior to human's instinct due to environment he had lived in since birth.
He naturally deduced that he would be at a disadvantage if this clash took place for more time, so he concentrated the chakra in his mouth.
Sora sensed that and did the same.
Both being at point blank distance they are to each other, released a concentrated water ball and earth projectile at each other.
Both Jutsus clashed, but in the next instant, Earth one overpowered the water one and passed through it.
Sora calmly tilted his head along with his body to dodge that earth projectile and decreased the intensity of rasengan such that bear overpowered it and sent Sora hurling back in the air.
'His speed is not that slower than mine, but his strength is hugely more than me, I can't come in contact with him without any rasengan' Sora tilted his body mid-air and landed on a tree's branch.
The bear and the man went into a staredown again.
Just after the first clash, they could gauge each other's abilities.
'I should be able to beat him, but that's considering if he doesn't have some outrageous hidden cards... Just in case, I should take some precaution... I have a bad feeling about this' Sora cast a genjutsu at the bear, who dispelled it in the next instant and saw Sora having changed his position and was sending some kind of rocks at him.
Well, those were kunai and shurikens, but to a bear as strong as him, it would look like a fancy stone only.
He didn't even bother defending against those, despite those rocks being sharp.
The rocks hit the bear, but in the next instant fell off his body, with not even a scratch on him.
'Okay, so that guy's hide is very tough, I don't think water senbons of heavenly weeping will even be able to pierce it, until and unless I concentrate them with chakra' Sora thought while trying out the latter.
Bear this time cautiously looked at the water projectiles, and decided that those could cause him pain, so he spatted multiple concentrated stones which collided with that.
'Hmm, Let's try to harass him with long-range jutsus' Sora thought while summoning water and hurling a water dragon at the bear.
While that dragon was heading towards the bear, he changed his position and fired multiple concentrated water senbons at the bear.
The bear had already noticed that he wouldn't be able to dodge that fully, so he stomped on the ground.
In the next instant earth walls were erected in front of the water dragon and the senbons.
'They won't last for even a few seconds' Sora thought while changing his location a bit more, he was moving a circular radius around the bear since he had released the water dragon.
To his astonishment, he saw the bear clad in rock armour throughout his body when the earth walls broke.
The bear slowly punched the water dragon and the latter exploded with water in all directions.
The senbons landed on the earth's armour on his body but weren't able to penetrate it.
The armour already started to repair the damage it had suffered.
The bear looked at Sora and taunted him with his paws.
Sora smirked. 'Oof, this bear doesn't knows the immensity of the other party's power, let me humble him' He thought while rushing at the bear with a rasengan in hand at full speed.
The bear's stone-covered paw glowed, ready to collide with the blue ball.
However, Just a few meters away from bthe ear's location, Sora's smirk widened as 2 identical Sora appeared beside him and started forming a blue Rasengan while inching closer to the bear.
Bear's instincts had already started working just as Sora had arrived closed to him and he stomped on the ground.
Earth Spears/thorns started appearing from the ground, from his location.
The middle Sora jumped instead and his blue ball went for the bear who met it with a fist.
The other two Sora manoeuvred around those earth thorns.
The bear made sure that earth spears were launching in the air too around him, such that the other two clones wouldn't lungw him at him like the original one did.
The main had to use wind jutsus to keep the projectiles from hitting him while clashing with the bear.
"Checkmate," Sora said.
The bear's eyes widened in horror as his instincts were blazing in alarm.
The other two doppelgangers of the Sora had hurled the blue ball flying at him from behind.
He didn't know that those blue balls could be hurled from a range, if that was the case, why would Sora not use it earlier while attacking him from long range?
It was simple, it was a trap set to kill the bear as both of the rasengans were launched towards his heart from behind.
The clashed with the stone armour for a second but started penetrating the armour.
Bear's heart grew heavy as it saw it felt its inevitable doom.
It stopped with the earth spears from the ground and concentrated almost all his chakra in his mouth.
If he is going down, then he will take the human down with him.
Like him, the human could also not move, so it was best time to take each other down.
The bear with his final gambit released his most concentrated earth projectile at the human who didn't bother trying to defend himself.
It passed through the human's head it converting into smoke.
The dual rasengans reached his heart and made a hole in his chest from behind to front hitting a tree, making a hole even there, before dissipating.
Sora's main body which was looking at this spectacle from a long distance looked at the now-dead bear. 'So, he chose to take me down with him, instead of using all his chakra to try to defend against the Rasengan'
He then quickly left the area.
In a few minutes, a roar could be heard throughout the forest, every beast in the forest froze in fear.
Sora himself froze in horror of the aura, but then broke out of it and started running away from it very quickly.
Despite not knowing the exact cause of the roar, it could tell that it was an S-rank beast.
***
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