Chapter 82: Secret Technique: Tiger Fall
"Putting on airs."
Seeing Asuka looking at her so casually, the figure in red froze for a moment before raising her left fist and throwing a punch.
Whoosh!
The punch was caught.
Asuka tightened his grip around her fist and asked softly,
"I'm curious. Why are you Uzumaki stealing children?"
"Is there too much inbreeding within your clan?"
"Who's stealing children?"
Seeing her opponent block her punch so effortlessly, the red-clad woman's expression darkened. She instinctively tried to pull her hands back.
At that moment, Asuka released one hand, stepped closer, grabbed the gray animal hide covering her body, and pulled it down.
Revealed beneath it was a young girl with waist-length red hair.
For some reason, the girl gave Asuka a strange feeling.
"Hey, this isn't your real body, is it?"
Hearing this, the girl bent forward slightly and spread her arms. A flash of red light passed through her bright eyes.
Boom!
The ground beneath the girl's feet was plowed into a deep trench.
Her two palms opened and closed as she lunged straight toward Asuka.
Seeing the golden light flashing in her palms, Asuka tilted his body slightly to the left and easily dodged the attack.
The girl shot past him and crashed directly into a mud house opposite them.
Boom!
The entire house was destroyed, and the enormous momentum sent the girl flying far, far away.
Trying to run?
Watching the girl flee farther and farther away, Asuka narrowed his eyes and disappeared from the spot in an instant.
He had been worried that she might use some kind of sealing technique.
He hadn't expected her to be such a coward.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Seeing the Konoha shinobi suddenly appear in front of her, the Uzumaki girl asked nervously,
"Are you here to capture me?"
"Have I captured you?"
Asuka scratched his cheek and explained,
"Several children have gone missing from this village. I came here to find them."
Hearing this, the girl visibly relaxed, but her muscles remained tense.
Konoha had sent a jōnin simply because several children had gone missing outside the village.
No matter how she looked at it, that seemed suspicious.
After a moment of silence, seeing that Asuka had no intention of attacking her, she explained while simultaneously searching for an escape route.
"I didn't steal any children."
"Mm. Mm."
Asuka nodded without saying anything else.
He didn't even let his gaze settle on the girl.
His eyes continuously swept across his surroundings, while his muscles gradually tensed.
Why would the Uzumaki clan send only such a weak person?
Although his opponent possessed the strength of a chūnin, someone this weak looked more like expendable cannon fodder sent out to scout.
Where were the other Uzumaki?
Where would they ambush him?
The two of them were thinking about completely different things, and the strange stalemate continued.
Damn it!
The girl discovered that whenever she moved even one step to either side, the Konoha shinobi would move one step in the same direction.
If she stepped forward, he stepped backward.
If she stepped backward, he followed her.
He neither gave her a chance to escape nor attacked her, as though he merely intended to exhaust her stamina here.
Looking at the Uzumaki, Asuka also frowned.
She hadn't used any sealing technique like the Adamantine Sealing Chains.
Nor had she surrendered.
She merely kept probing him, as though she were deliberately stalling for time.
"Are you stalling for time, waiting for your companions to arrive?"
"You're stalling for time, waiting for your companions to arrive?"
The voices of a man and a woman rang out simultaneously.
The atmosphere instantly became somewhat awkward.
Asuka slowly tightened his grip around his kunai.
His Sharingan began spinning rapidly within his eye sockets.
"Forget it. Looks like your companions aren't coming."
He had waited this long, yet none of her companions had appeared.
Asuka suspected that the Uzumaki clan might have abandoned her.
Indeed.
Those people were probably like frightened birds right now.
Once they noticed something was wrong, they would most likely flee.
The kunai in Asuka's hand was nothing special.
But the shinobi holding it was anything but ordinary.
The moment Asuka's Sharingan began to spin, the girl's body visibly trembled, and the hairs on her body stood on end.
The blood-red glow in his eyes, combined with the fading light of sunset, gave her the illusion that her life was about to end.
As a descendant of the Uzumaki clan, she still knew the basics of several major shinobi clans.
For example, she knew what the three tomoe in her opponent's eyes represented.
Jōnin.
And a jōnin of the Uchiha clan.
The girl wanted to run again.
But she discovered that the moment she showed even the slightest intention of moving, those blood-red eyes would immediately turn toward her, as though she had already been locked onto.
Her keen senses were already warning her.
Don't run.
If she ran, she would be stabbed.
"You—"
"I surrender!"
???
Before Asuka could finish speaking, the Uzumaki girl simply dropped to her knees, panting heavily as she wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.
"I surrender."
Poof!
A wisp of white smoke rose into the air.
At that moment, Asuka noticed the Uzumaki girl's abdomen suddenly bulge outward.
Damn.
Buy one, get one free.
He finally understood the strange feeling he'd had earlier.
There was another life inside her.
The Uzumaki woman covered her stomach with both hands and muttered softly,
"Damn, I was too nervous just now. My stomach hurts a little."
At this moment, Uzuki Yugao also came over and supported Hyuga Hanabi.
Asuka looked at Hanabi's slightly pale face.
"Hanabi, do you want your teacher to treat your injuries?"
Hearing this, Hanabi hurriedly covered her chest with her left hand and looked at Asuka as though he were a pervert.
She refused.
"Yugao will help me."
"Then you'll just have to suffer."
Thinking about Uzuki Yugao's mediocre medical ninjutsu, Asuka shrugged.
Although he was an excellent teacher, foolish students could sometimes affect his reputation in the educational world.
With that thought, he looked at the Uzumaki crouching on the ground.
"Tell me. Who are you?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Why are you kidnapping children?"
"And tell me something about your clan."
"My name is Uzumaki Kana. I'm from the Land of Bears."
"I actually don't have any particular purpose in coming here. I simply couldn't stay in the Land of Bears anymore, so my family and I wandered here."
"I didn't steal any children."
"I came down from the mountains this time just to find some food and then leave the Land of Fire."
"My child is about to be born. I want to give him… or her… a stable environment."
"I don't want my child to live in a dark cave like I did."
Family?
Asuka's attention focused on the word family.
He raised his head and looked around, frowning slightly.
Judging by common sense, an ordinary person obviously wouldn't send a pregnant woman wandering around alone.
There had to be other members of the Uzumaki clan nearby.
"You don't have to look. I'm the only one left now."
Uzumaki Kana slowly stood up and leaned against a tree.
Her voice was filled with pleading.
"Please."
"Can you wait until I've given birth before capturing me?"
"I feel like the baby is about to be born."
Seeing her cover her stomach with both hands and look at them pleadingly, Hanabi's heart softened.
No wonder.
Earlier, when she had observed the woman with her Byakugan, she had noticed that the red-haired woman surrendered almost without resistance.
As the setting sun cast a reddish glow over her body, Hanabi raised her head toward Asuka and said softly,
"Teacher, she should be telling the truth."
"Why don't we let her go?"
"She's not part of our mission anyway."
Hearing this, Asuka looked at Hanabi in surprise and praised her.
"Hanabi, I didn't expect you to be able to tell whether someone is lying."
"When we get back, I'll recommend you to the Interrogation Division."
Noticing Asuka vigorously ruffling her hair, Hanabi rolled her Byakugan at him and said coldly,
"My duty is to protect the main family."
"When will the corrupt system of the Hyuga clan change?"
With that, Asuka turned around and began walking in the direction they had come from.
As he continued rubbing Hanabi's hair, he said,
"Why don't you consider supporting the Uchiha clan's bid for the position of Hokage?"
"Then we can use the Sharingan to control the main family and help your branch family remove the Caged Bird seal."
"You know, the Uchiha clan is the strongest clan in Konoha."
"No."
Hanabi shook her head.
Realizing that she couldn't escape Asuka's large hand, she said indignantly,
"The Hyuga clan is the strongest."
"Hey, shouldn't your priority be removing the Caged Bird seal?"
"And besides, the Uchiha clan is the strongest."
"The Hyuga clan. Only the Hyuga clan—"
"Yugao, honestly, is the Uchiha clan really the strongest?"
"Mm. That's difficult to say."
"Yugao, do you know why you haven't grown?"
"Why?"
"Because having a big chest means having no brains. But I didn't expect you to actually grow a brain and start playing both sides over such an obvious question."
"Damn you, Teacher—"
"…"
Uzumaki Kana raised her head and watched the three of them leave.
Their long shadows stretched across the ground.
A bitter smile appeared at the corners of her lips.
A carefree life was true happiness.
She stood up and was just about to determine the direction in which to leave the Land of Fire when a sharp pain suddenly erupted from her abdomen.
"Ah~"
After a painful groan, Uzumaki Kana's vision went black.
Her consciousness sank into darkness.