Chapter 4: The Path of Death
- "Tsk..." -The white-haired ninja clicked his tongue- "You should feel lucky. Others in your place would be dead by now."
The man didn't respond. His priority was to get out of there. When he looked up, the ninja had already started walking in the opposite direction.
- "Now beat it. I'll take care of the ones coming."- said the ninja.
The man said nothing more. He turned on his heels and began to run down the indicated corridor.
As he walked through the dark corridors, the rock walls seemed to close in around him. The tunnel was long, with rough, narrow walls. The echo of his own footsteps echoed around him, that and the echo of the slaughter still echoed in his mind.
-A labyrinth of death.-
Minutes passed in the gloom, Every so often, he passed by forgotten corpses. some were old, dust-covered skeletons. Others were fresh.
The minutes passed. He counted mentally until he reached ten. Then he saw something, the stone door, hidden in the rubble.
-"The secret exit."-the man approached cautiously, feeling the right wall until he found what he was looking for, a small hidden slot.
He dug his fingers in and pulled, a deep sound rumbled in the rock... and the door began to slide slowly to one side,
A cold, damp air came in from the other side. At last, he had found the exit, The man slipped through it without hesitation, he crossed the threshold, he had made it out.
The outside world greeted him with a dark sky. He was in a dense forest, full of tall trees and crooked roots. There was no time to rest. He needed to move.
But before he took a step... he heard something, the echo of screams and the sound of bones piercing flesh. He turned on instinct.
In the distance, back in the compound, the white-haired ninja was facing a new group of ninjas in the same garb as the bodies he saw on the way to the secret exit.
There, in the darkness, the white-haired ninja continued on his way... to more blood.
Because of that small distraction, a new group of ninjas had managed to reach the man.
This time, the enemies wore bandanas with the symbol of two rocks together. Ninjas from the Hidden Rock Village.
The ninjas braced themselves as they saw the massacre around them.
The man didn't know much about this world, but he understood what he was seeing.
The white-haired ninja was not fighting. He was slaughtering.
- "How annoying."- said the white-haired ninja as he swiftly positioned himself between the man and the ninja in front of him.
Bones emerged from his back, his fingers transforming into bony daggers. The ninjas' screams were drowned out by their own blood.
The man did not wait to see the massacre. he watched the scene for a moment, but then, without a word, he turned and disappeared into the trees, continued on his way aimlessly.
He had seen enough death for today, this was not his battle. Not yet.
This world... this world of ninjas, war, and blood... was not so far away from his past life because in it death also lurked in the darkness and dim light of day, you could not live in peace, nor sleep in peace, because death always accompanied them.
After a few minutes walking the only thing that accompanied him was each gust of wind that whistled through the leaves, each broken branch sounded like thunder in the midst of silence. The moon barely illuminated the dark forest due to the great height of the surrounding trees.
The man advanced slowly, each step calculated, his body still resentful from the escape. His mind was a hotbed of thoughts, but there was no time to process it all.
The only clear thing was that he was being hunted, the voices came before he could see them.
- "Damn... where is that bastard?" -grunted a deep voice, barely a few feet away.
The man stopped dead in his tracks and held his breath, instinctively sticking to the trunk of a tree.
-I don't know, but he must not have gone very far," another, younger voice replied. They say those experiments of Orochimaru's don't last long without his medicine.
-Medicine? -
Without making a sound, he peeked through the bushes.
They were three subjects in the same clothes as the ones in the tunnel, dressed in dark clothing, combat vests, and metal bandanas with a symbol of two rocks together.
His eyes scanned the area carefully. They were looking for him.
-What happened to the other guy, the one with the bones, did they kill him? -
The man with doubts in his head could not allow these men to raise the alarm that they had found him, that would mean that more ninjas would be after him.
He moved slowly, stepping only where the leaves were softer, where the ground would not betray his stealth.
One of the ninja broke away from the group, moving a few meters away as he inspected behind some bushes.
That ninja was his target, the man slipped behind him like a shadow, approaching step by step until he was close enough to strike.
There were no words, only action.
In one swift movement, he covered the ninja's mouth with one hand and with the other plunged the sharp bone into his neck.
A precise piercing, he felt skin, muscle, and windpipe give under the pressure. Warm blood washed over his hand.
The ninja tried to struggle, but his movements became jerky and weak. His eyes went unfocused, When the body stopped shaking, the assassin laid him carefully on the ground.
-One down.-
The other two didn't notice anything. They were still talking to each other, they were together, and getting close was dangerous.
Still, he moved fluidly through the bushes until he positioned himself behind another tree, in his hand he now held a kunai, taken from the corpse of the ninja he had just executed.
He took a breath. He aimed and with great precision threw the kunai.
The weapon cut the air with a whistling sound and stuck in the neck of the second ninja, the ninja drowned in his own blood and fell to his knees. The third barely had time to turn before the man was already upon him.
A brief struggle, a quick twist,t and a knife plunging into the ninja's heart was all it took to finish off the last of them.
And then... silence, it was over.
The man took a deep breath and looked at the corpses. He could not stay long in the area. He hurried to grab some of his clothes, covering himself with a light vest to protect himself from the cold. Some Kunais, shurikens, and smoke bombs, he was now better prepared.
But this forest...It had more dangers than just ninjas, the rustling of leaves alerted him.
He spun immediately, his body responding before his mind. Something was stalking him.
Among the trees, only a few feet away, a pair of eyes glowed in the darkness.
Fangs exposed, a low, menacing growl, it was a predator. Upon closer inspection, the man had no doubt what he was seeing... a huge wolf, bigger than any he had ever seen in his past life. Its fur was as black as night, its muscles marked beneath its skin.
The assassin didn't hesitate. He moved the instant the beast leapt, and rolled to the side, dodging the attack by inches. The creature landed with a thud and spun immediately, lunging again with a ferocious roar.
This time, the assassin was more heavily armed, raised the kunai, and embedded it in its eye.
The wolf's shriek echoed in the forest, the creature staggered, shaking its head furiously, but the assassin did not give it time to react.
The sharp bone in his hand went straight to the throat. A spasm and a last growl were the last signs of life he gave before his death.
The man caught his breath. But he was still not alone, he heard more movements in the bushes and saw more eyes glowing in the darkness, little by little through the undergrowth more wolves were approaching.
-Shit...-
The man couldn't fight them all. Not in this state, as a quick escape measure, he picked up one of the smoke bombs and threw it to the ground.
The growling and barking faded into the distance, he had survived, For now.
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