Chapter 42 first contact

First, it was one signature, one clearly belonging to a shinobi. They weren't alone, within a split second of the first signature, another entered, and then another. Soon enough, five shinobi entered my range, still at the edge, but moving deeper.

Their target didn't seem to be us, and if we stayed here, it was unlikely we would get spotted. They would run past us by at least a kilometer. But we weren't here to hide; we were here to hunt and to kill.

"I got visual," my voice came out calm and cold, and everyone instantly stiffened for a moment, before giving me their full attention.

"Five shinobi, still about fifteen minutes out. They won't cross our path, but we can intercept them." I quickly got the map out and found where they were. "Here, and they are moved this way." I showed with my finger.

Koji was already moving before I finished tracing the path, crouching beside me, eyes sharp and focused. Kuro leaned forward, tail still, nose twitching in the wind.

"Winds in our favor," Koji said quietly. "They won't smell us unless they circle wide."

I nodded, "We got the advantage here; we could move here." I pointed at a specific spot. "And set up an ambush, take them out fast and clean."

Haruto stepped up beside me, arms crossed. "We bottleneck them there—narrow clearing, lots of roots and boulders. No room for wide jutsu."

"Exactly," I said. "Arata, take high ground on the northeast ledge. I will join you and direct you to strike, we should be able to take one down before they have a chance to react, even the numbers. Koji, you and Kuro take the opposite side." I pointed to another spot.

"From here, you move, attack them hard and fast as soon as Arata's attack lands, we give them no time."

Koji gave a sharp nod, I could tell he was ready, only slightly tense, but nothing that would last.

"Haruto, you go in from the front. I want you to break any formation they might try to get into. If possible, pushing them back would be better. That would make Koji's attack more likely to hit."

Haruto tightened the strap on his arm guard, face grim. "Got it."

"Once the initial attack is dealt with, you and I," I said, looking at Arata. "We go in, I will move first, take them on in taijutsu if possible, you will stay behind, support us with ninjutsu."

Arata gave a crisp nod, already pulling a pair of scrolls from his sleeve. "I'll keep it fast and clean."

With the plan in place, we split off, each vanishing into the trees with practiced silence.

The ambush site was ideal—narrow and cluttered, hemmed in by tall roots and uneven stone. Visibility was limited. Movement would be choked. That meant no wide formations, no large jutsu arcs, no easy escape routes.

Perfect.

I took my position beside Arata, settling low behind a thick outcropping. From here, I could see the kill zone clearly. A flat stretch of dirt, barely six meters across, the only clear path through the gnarled woods.

Koji was already in place opposite us, Haruto lay low behind a log near the entrance to the path, ready to burst out as the Suna shinobi passed.

Then we waited.

The tension built slowly. I kept my Byakugan active, tracking the five signatures as they approached. Their movement was steady, controlled—experienced but not cautious. Still unaware.

Just as they reached where Koji was hiding, I signalled to Arata to attack. He stood ready, having been for a while as we slowly waited.

He wasted no time, with a small metal cylinder in his mouth. He quickly went through the hand signs for his ninjutsu.

Arata's fingers moved in a blur—tiger, bird, dragon, snake—and a second later he spat the cylinder high into the air, where it exploded in a burst of crackling lightning.

Or at least it looked like it exploded, in truth, it just shut out at such speeds that even my Byakugan couldn't fully track it.

The cylinder of black chakra metal instantly crossed the distance of around two hundred meters between us and them.

The enemy moved in a classic diamond formation, and without warning, the man in the middle exploded into a shower of gore.

The warning came while the gore was still in the air, a loud boom of lightning style.

The others were quick to react, but how do you react to that? Where do you go?

They for sure weren't going forward, because Haruto had hidden himself right in front of their path, and he was quick to react. A wall of hardened earth rose from the wet ground, instantly forcing them to jump backwards, breaking their formations as the remaining four split into two groups.

Two jump backwards and to the right, the others jump more to the left.

The second the enemy split, our trap fully closed.

Koji and Kuro launched out of the left-side foliage like twin spears. They used their Fang over fang, two spinning figures of death that moved with frightening speed. The two each targeted one of them.

Kuro hit the first one, then Koji the second one. They didn't stop because they hit them, they kept moving, claws and fangs digging their way through the two suna shinobi, then taking a shot at the next target, just to be safe.

At the same time, I was already moving. Pushing my speed to the max, I was beyond a blur; it was basically teleportation over this short distance.

Feet hitting the ground just behind the pair that had jumped to the right. They heard me a split second too late—one turned, kunai in hand, but I was faster.

My palm slammed into his chest, chakra pulsing into the tenketsu beneath his ribs. My chakra merciless as I forced it into his heart, locking it up, stopping it from beating while locking down his entire chakra network.

I hit a lethal tenketsu point, stopping the use of all chakra, and causing certain death. It wasn't instant death, but the target wouldn't be able to move properly, and even then, without chakra, they could do nothing.

The last one leapt back, trying to disengage, already forming hand seals.

"Wind Style—"

Arata cut him off mid-sentence. A burst of sharp water blades tore from his position on the ledge, carving through the air like scythes. The shinobi twisted midair to avoid the worst of it—but one blade caught his arm, another nicked his ribs. He hit the ground in a stagger, blood smearing his vest.

He disappeared with a substitution.

But I also disappeared from the spot.

Not with substitution, but body flicker.

The thing with the substitution jutsu is that you need to move an object into your place using chakra; it's stupidly easy, but it does cause the chosen object to get covered in your chakra before the shift.

And I could see that chakra.

I knew where he was going to appear again, which meant I could target that spot as well, or right behind it.

Even mid-flicker, even as he reappeared behind a tree some twenty meters out—barely a blink later—I was there.

His hands moved towards one another as he prepared to use a jutsu of some kind.

Too slow.

I was already there, my palm coming out, chakra flaring in the Gentle Fist.

My palm slammed into his sternum, blasting chakra forward in a concentrated burst. The impact sent him flying back through the trunk behind him, splintering bark and shattering ribs with a single blow.

He hit the ground hard, a limp tangle of limbs and blood.

And I jumped away, one can never be too safe. He was out of it, but alive, not that I intended to let that continue.

In one smooth motion, I drew a kunai and let it cut through the air and sink into his eye socket. I would have gone for the forehead, but he had the protector on.

Sure, it saved that one spot, but it didn't do much good. Few people catch a kunai with that thing, and he was already dying, so yeah, he stood no chance.

From across the clearing, Koji emerged with Kuro beside him, fur bristling and red-tinted. The two shinobi they hit hadn't stood a chance. One was missing half a torso. The other was still twitching, but not for much longer.

With my Byakugan, I could see that his internal organs had been shredded and ripped out of his body, the large gaping wound showed his broken spine, a horrible way to go.

Haruto stepped into view a second later, pausing a few meters short of one of the fallen bodies. "This one's still twitching. Might be alive."

I landed beside him, my Byakugan already sweeping the corpse. "He is. Barely. Don't get close."

Koji approached as well but kept his distance. "You think it's trapped?"

I focused on him for a second, tracking all the chakra in his body, it was in chaos due to the closed tenketsu. "With Suna?" I said flatly. "Always assume it is."

Without a word, Haruto formed a seal. A mud clone rose from the damp earth and walked ahead. The clone knelt beside the body, tilting the head, checking the limbs—no sudden movement, no reaction.

Still alive, unconscious, dying. I could save him, unlock the tenketsu, and he wouldn't die… fast. His heart suffered a lot of damage, and with proper medical attention, he could recover, but out here? He was doomed.

Koji mirrored the move, summoning his own clone, which began checking another corpse with cautious precision, never applying chakra directly to the body.

"They're clear," Haruto's clone said after a moment, voice gruffer, flatter than the original. "No threads, no puppeteer link. No pressure tags."

"Strip them of anything valuable, careful, and let's dispose of them." I said as I also made a shadow clone of my own.

My own clone went to the final one I killed, and started to carefully search him. It crouched down, and within moments, it was removing scrolls and weapons from his person.

We had no need for bloody and dirty clothes, but weapons, supplies, possible order scrolls, those were valuable, or even a map like my own.

While we might not have the ability to properly interrogate them, we could still learn a thing or two from them.

The others followed suit—standard field looting. Tags, scrolls, tools. Koji's clone used a small iron spike to lift the hitai-ate from one of the corpses, checking it for traps before slipping it into a pouch. Haruto's clone worked in silence, hands quick but methodical.

"Not much," my clone reported. "Mostly utility scrolls. One of them had a sealed pack of antidotes. Might be worth keeping."

I nodded. "Mark it, seal the rest."

We moved fast. Once the gear was secured, I nodded again. "Gather them all up, one big grave." I said as my clone lifted up the body and moved it over to the pile of gore left behind by Koji, Kuro, and Arata's kills.

There, we dumped the others, and Haruto used an Earth-style ninjutsu to drag their bodies, blood, gore, everything down under the ground. Leaving only the faint smell and a few bits of blood on a few of the trees and large stones around.

I scanned the area one final time with my Byakugan. No chakra signatures. No movement. Just death.

"Move," I order, my voice quiet but firm." We go back to the outpost, where we can go through the spoils while checking if someone follows the same path as them.

Koji fell into step beside me, Kuro padding silently just behind. Haruto vanished into the trees without a word. Arata was the last to leave, casting one last look at the shallow grave before sealing his scroll again.

This was war. Cold. Efficient. Unforgiving.

(End of chapter)

Their first fight, not that it was much of a fight, that's the thing that makes shinobi so deadly, their ambushes, where even a Genin can take down a Jōnin if caught off guard.