When You’re Too Efficient and the Government Tries to Kill You

After leaving the bounty center with a heavier wallet, Ren returned to his tried-and-tested method of decision-making: the sacred stick toss. Standing just outside the perimeter of the clearing, he looked around to make sure no one was watching, then dramatically took out a thin twig from his bag. He held it like a ceremonial relic, whispered, "Guide me, oh mighty wooden oracle," and flung it into the air with the flair of a drunken monk.

The stick landed with an anticlimactic plop, pointing vaguely northeast. Ren squinted and bent down, rotating his head to get a better angle. "Hmm, Land of Rivers, southern border it is," he muttered, brushing imaginary dust off his hands. He could have returned to the area near the Land of Tea as he'd already cleared out several camps in that region, but that was precisely the kind of thing Yoru had warned him about.

Yoru's Lesson in Political Economics of Rogue Hunting 101 had been long, intricate, and mind-numbingly boring. The gist of it, as Ren understood was simple: "Don't clean the whole house if the landlord's still collecting rent for the mess." That is, wiping out too many rogue ninja in one region made the local people too comfortable. Once peace returned, they'd stop hiring Konoha for protection, reducing the volume of paid mission requests. For the sake of a steady stream of commissions and thus, Ren's point accumulation and village income, he had to rotate areas.

The location the stick had pointed toward would take around two days to reach at his regular bounty-hunting pace. But that pace was too slow. After a month of leisurely camp raids, half-serious hunts, and body collection, he felt bored. He needed speed, wind in his face, and some muscle stretch.

He was just about to bolt when a thought hit him like a rogue shuriken to the back of the head, his Jonin points.

He hadn't spent them yet.

He sat down cross-legged on a nearby rock and opened his system panel. Five jonin-level points blinked at him. He could have dumped all five into strength, pushing past the recent bottleneck at 70 points. But no, he had a better idea. Agility.

His agility was already sitting pretty at 75, but he hadn't reached that beautiful 80-point milestone where S-rank agility began. He spent four points immediately, raising it to 79.

Only one point shy of S-rank.

'Just one more and I'll be a blur even the Sharingan would cry about,' he thought.

The last point? He threw it into strength, bumping it from 70 to 71. Every bit helped, especially since most of his raw damage output still depended on physical blows, and strength scaling got ridiculous after 70.

He briefly considered throwing something into intelligence, but stopped himself. He still had that special reward sitting unused, a +20 intelligence boost that capped at 79. Until he planned to use that, there was no need to push intelligence closer to 80. Let it rise naturally. In the meantime, he could use his points to maintain the physical dominance that had served him so well.

As soon as the stats locked in, a familiar wave of disorientation washed over him. It felt like someone had unplugged and replugged his brain in a new socket. Muscles twitched, balance shifted subtly, and his perception of motion flickered for a moment like a skipping frame in a movie.

Fortunately, he was still out in the open. No high-level chakra signatures nearby, no curious onlookers to question why a child suddenly started staggering like a baby deer learning to walk. This was his perfect adjustment window. By the time he reached the new location, he would be fully used to the boost.

He hopped off the rock and did a quick series of stretches, rolling his shoulders, cracking his neck, bending at odd angles that would make even a medic-nin concerned. Then, with a sharp exhale, he activated his training seal, suppressing a portion of his chakra and increasing the weight load he carried.

And just like that, he was off.

The wind screamed past his ears as his body launched into motion, a blur of motion so fast he startled a flock of birds mid-flight. And this was without chakra. Just raw, baseline speed. The trees began to blur, branches bending behind him like bending reeds under a storm's wind. A few thin branches cracked beneath his footfalls, unable to handle the sudden pressure, but Ren was quick to stabilize.

He slowed slightly, more out of caution than necessity. Even though his agility had jumped significantly, there was always a need for recalibration. High speed without precise control was like wielding a sword with no hilt, it looked flashy, but you were just as likely to cut yourself.

But the joy in his chest didn't dim.

'If this is my base speed, what'll happen when I activate chakra flow? Or the Gates?' he thought to himself, giddy with anticipation.

The thought made him laugh as he zipped from tree to tree, a light blue streak barely visible even to the birds who tried to follow his movement. He was practically invisible in the foliage, like a living shadow that had discovered a need for cardio.

~~~

He continued his full-speed run for more than half a day, cutting through the forest like a blur of wind and blue. It wasn't exhaustion that made him stop, far from it. His recovery rate had long surpassed the level where mere high-speed travel could wear him down. No, the reason he came to a halt now was something else entirely.

He stood atop a large branch, looked ahead with narrowed eyes, and called out calmly, "Come out now. If I ran again, you wouldn't be able to catch me even if you trained for one more lifetime."

'Holy shit, this actually feels really cool to say in real life,' he thought, doing his best to suppress the grin pulling at the corner of his lips. He shook off the excitement quickly and refocused, his eyes scanning the trees and terrain in front of him.

'Hmm, three squads, Five with levels over 75, seven more in the 70–75 range and that one.'

His gaze flicked to a shadow lurking deeper within the woods, a subtle but well-concealed presence.

'Though his chakra signature has changed, he couldn't fool the system.' Ren thought.

'He's definitely the one Commander sent to keep a check of my location.'

For the first time, Ren activated the chain observe function, a reward from his first completed S-rank mission. His eyes focused on the mysterious observer, and the names linked to the chakra signature began to materialize in glowing script.

[Kimura → Dingo → Yoru → Ringo → Mingo]

His eyes locked on to Dingo, the name marked for deeper inspection. Curious, he traced the chain further:

[Dingo → Akamura → Butsuma → Chomi → Danzo]

Ren raised a brow. 'As expected.' 

He narrowed his eyes slightly. 'So even in the people Commander assigned, there are still flies, I wonder if Yoru did this knowingly or if it was a mistake.'

He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head internally. 'No. Definitely intentional. He wouldn't miss something this obvious.'

With those thoughts filed away, Ren turned his attention back to the now-revealed threat. Two of the three squads emerged from the trees in synchronized movement, forming battle formations with precise coordination. One squad, however, remained hidden, and Kimura, the mole, hadn't moved either from the beginning.

Ren readied himself. This was his first real assassination attempt, and with a force this well-coordinated, it was clearly meant to test him, if not outright eliminate him.

The enemy formation was wide, careful. They maintained their distance.

'Hmm, So they won't close in. Smart. This might get tricky.'

But before the thought even settled, all of the root ninja simultaneously formed hand signs, their movements sharp and well-practiced. A moment later, the forest was lit ablaze with multiple simultaneous Fire Release techniques, each one distinctly A-rank, and each one launched with lethal precision from different angles, targeting Ren in a massive area-of-effect bombardment.

Ren's reaction was immediate.

His foot slammed into the ground with a sharp crack, and an earthen cylindrical wall shot up around him, surrounding him in a dome just as the firestorm hit.

Flames roared. The explosion rocked the trees. Smoke and heat exploded outward, lighting the entire forest in a vivid orange glow.

The dome collapsed instantly under the pressure but Ren was no longer inside it.

While the flames still danced across the forest floor, Ren had already burrowed underground, shifting through the earth like a mole, completely unharmed.

Moments later, he emerged from the soil near the base of a tall tree. His hands gripped the trunk silently, and he darted up the side of the tree with the fluid motion of a shadow, unseen and unfelt.

Atop the tree, a Root operative stood with his guard up, eyes scanning the battlefield for any signs of movement however he never got the chance.

Ren appeared behind him like a whisper of death, and with one swift motion, ended the ninja's life without a sound.

Ren crouched silently on the tree branch as the still-warm body of the Root ninja beside him began to slump. He caught it before it hit the branch, lowered it down softly, and then flickered away again.

He didn't stay in one place. That would be stupid.

The moment the initial attack failed, the two visible squads had regrouped and repositioned themselves further apart, keeping a triangle-like formation to cover Ren from three sides. They maintained elevated positions on the trees and some high ground nearby, their eyes constantly moving, their chakra signatures well-suppressed, and their strategy clear, contain and eliminate from range.

They weren't here to fight. They were here to kill.

'Assassination squads for real, huh?' Ren thought as he moved from branch to branch, his footsteps too light to disturb even the most sensitive sensory jutsu. 'They've got a good formation, distance control, and multiple chakra types to layer attacks. Not bad.'

Suddenly, a whistling sound split the air.

[Wind Style: Piercing Fangs!]

Three Root ninja in perfect sync launched razor-sharp wind bullets toward Ren's general direction. Even though they couldn't see him, they had deduced his movement pattern through instinct and calculation.

Ren's head snapped to the side as he picked up the trajectory.

He leapt back into motion immediately, zigzagging mid-air, chakra still suppressed, his movement so rapid it looked like flickering afterimages.

Boom!

The branch behind him exploded. Wood splinters scattered into the air as the wind jutsu tore through multiple layers of tree bark and trunk.

He landed lightly and slid backward on the ground, eyes narrowing. In the moment of stillness, he responded.

[Lightning Style: Arcing Blades.]

Two thin arcs of blue lightning shot from his fingers, humming with lethal intent. He aimed not at where the enemies were, but where they would be based on their prior movement and formation.

Crack!

A short yelp was heard in the distance. One of the enemies had caught the lightning to the shoulder as he transitioned trees and slipped. Before he could correct himself.

Thud.

Ren's kunai found his throat before gravity did.

'Two down,' Ren counted.

In that moment, another barrage came. This time from the other side.

[Fire Style: Twin Dragon Comets!]

Two spiraling fire dragons curved through the trees like serpentine comets. Behind them, a secondary jutsu flared.

[Earth Style: Fragmented Spikes!]

The ground around Ren burst with sudden sharp stone pillars aimed at impaling him from below while the fire closed in from above.

'Hm. Classic sandwich technique. Elemental suppression from below and above.'

Ren made a hand sign as the ground cracked under his feet.

[Lightning Style: Rolling Burst!]

A dome of arcing lightning exploded from his body, disintegrating the rock spikes and scattering fragments in all directions. The lightning clashed against the fire dragons just enough to weaken them. Ren backflipped twice, letting the fire dissipate in front of him, brushing off the smoke.

The attacks however didn't stop.

From the left flank, five shuriken coated in lightning chakra were thrown, following a curve trajectory.

Ren ducked one, then slid under two more and raised a kunai to deflect the remaining two. Sparks flew in the air.

'They're not wasting a second. This formation's meant to keep me off-balance, force my movement, and let them wear me down.'

It might have worked for someone else but Ren's mind was quiet.

All hail the Hyperfocus..

He surged forward. He didn't just run, he launched.

Using the residual lightning from his Rolling Burst, Ren pushed chakra into his feet and kicked off, flying through the trees like a human missile.

The two Root operatives in the far-left position barely had time to react. One of them shouted, "He's coming!"

Too slow.

Ren flickered between them and launched four senbon in two different directions at once. One senbon hit the ninja in the knee, crippling his leg and causing him to fall from the tree. The other two caught the second in the neck and shoulder, forcing him to dodge mid-air.

Mid-dodge, Ren appeared above him, spinning once and a single axe-kick drove the man's head into the branch.

Crack.

The branch broke. So did his skull.

Ren twisted in the air, falling toward the injured one below, kunai already out.

He landed in silence.

Three down.

~~~~~

{Well, we finally have an assassination attempt on Ren, and how could we not, after all he is not in Danzo's camp.}

{Anyway, tell me what you thought of the largest group fight yet. I think I am getting better in group fights too but for all it's worth the group fights till now and few more in the future are just practice for the true fight I have in mind.}

{If you want, you can support me on pat-reon}

{ h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / Z e e n o n }

{Thanks Florida man, SVDDXNLY and kyle for becoming members on pat-reon}

{You know what else}

{200 Stones = Extra chapter}

{STONES!!!!}