"No. I've caught you."
Hearing the boy's voice echo from behind her, Yūka's blood ran cold. She stared in disbelief at the Mishu trapped inside her Water Prison.
Poof. The trapped Mishu vanished into a cloud of white smoke.
"I see... using your real body as bait to draw out my clone, while another clone hid to deliver the final blow?" Yūka gasped. "You're... quite bold."
Yūka instantly understood how she had been outplayed, but it was far too late to dodge the attack from behind.
"Rasengan!"
Mishu slammed the grinding sphere of dense Chakra directly into the center of Yūka's back.
The force shattered her spine and organs instantly. Yūka collapsed to the ground, a bloody crater in her back. As the darkness of death closed in, a faint, sad smile touched her lips. She seemed to see a familiar face in the void.
Well... in the afterlife... we can finally... get married...
Mishu stood silently, looking down at the dead female Jonin.
"As expected of a Cloud Jonin," Mishu muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. "If it weren't for the passive physical enhancements from the One-Tails' Chakra, I definitely would have been the one to die today."
He quickly analyzed the tactical board. "The remaining two Cloud ninjas will be just as tough to deal with. I won't be able to finish them off quickly, and enemy reinforcements could arrive at any second. It's time to retreat."
With one Jonin dead, the others would likely prioritize caution over a reckless pursuit.
Mishu used the Shadow Clone Jutsu again, sending a single clone back into the mist to its death just to buy a few more minutes. He then turned and sprinted toward the coast.
This time, Mishu didn't bother with any deceptive tracking tactics. He headed straight for the ocean, planning to steal a boat and set sail immediately.
But before he had even run for half an hour, he heard a terrifying, thunderous roar from the forest behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.
Oh, no.
Ay was catching up!
"I'm just a Chunin! There's absolutely no need to send such a monstrous pursuer after me!" Mishu yelled to the empty woods. "It's not like I'm some peerless beauty you're trying to kidnap!"
"Shadow Clone Jutsu! Split up and run!"
Facing Ay, Mishu knew he had absolutely zero chance of winning. He pushed his reserves to the limit, creating ten more clones that scattered in every direction, desperately trying to distract the lightning-clad monster.
At this moment, Ay was a force of pure, unadulterated fury.
He had been dragged from north to south, then back north, and from west to east—all while losing a veteran Jonin in the process.
Damn it all! This is infuriating!
In his blinding rage, Ay's Chakra surged violently. With each step, the ground beneath his boots exploded. Moving with literal lightning-fast speed, he blurred through the forest.
In less than three seconds, all ten of Mishu's clones were violently pulverized.
"He's too fast!"
Knowing he couldn't outrun the monster, Mishu spun around to defend himself. He could barely perceive the crackling blue shadow rushing toward him. Startled, he desperately raised his short sword to block.
CRACK!
Ay didn't even use a jutsu. He simply plowed through Mishu's guard like a freight train. Mishu was sent flying through the air like a broken ragdoll.
A sharp, agonizing pain erupted in his chest. Blood rushed up his throat, and he spat out a massive mouthful of crimson. His right hand lost all feeling, and his short sword spun away into the brush.
With a sickening thud, Mishu crashed heavily into the dirt.
Fighting through intense, blinding pain, Mishu tried to stand, but his muscles violently spasmed, and he collapsed back onto his knees. He gasped for air, his vision swimming, his eyes welling up with involuntary tears.
It wasn't that he was afraid of the pain, or even of death itself. He just felt an overwhelming sense of regret. He hadn't explored enough of the Ninja World, and it felt like a pathetic shame to die here in the dirt.
Moreover...
Damn that fat bastard Kiichiro. He dragged me into this mess, and I haven't even gotten to beat him up for it yet.
At that moment, Ay loomed over Mishu. His massive, burly frame completely blocked out the moonlight, casting a suffocating shadow over the defeated Chunin.
"Kid, in front of me, you don't even have the luxury of committing suicide," Ay growled, his fist crackling with lethal voltage. "Prepare yourself!"
"Heh."
Mishu looked up at the terrifying shinobi and, despite the blood bubbling past his lips, couldn't help but laugh.
Ay frowned, deeply displeased. "Kid, what the hell are you laughing at?!"
"I'm laughing... because you're really... quite ugly!"
In the anime, the middle-aged Fourth Raikage Ay, though not conventionally handsome, exuded a rugged maturity and absolute authority that made him quite appealing.
Who would have thought that the young Ay would look so rough—like an angry, shaggy lion that had just rolled out of bed?
"Don't try to provoke me!" Ay snorted, raising his fist to knock Mishu unconscious for interrogation.
Suddenly, a dozen masked ninjas burst from the surrounding foliage, their hands moving in synchronized, rapid seals.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
Dozens of massive fireballs, fueled by a surging, artificially created gale, swept toward Ay like a towering sea of flames, instantly covering hundreds of meters of the forest in a blazing inferno.
Reinforcements from the Hidden Mist? Ay frowned.
Using the Body Flicker Technique, Ay instantly teleported hundreds of meters away, entirely unfazed by the scorching heatwave.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The fireballs relentlessly bombarded the ground, setting the dry grass and trees ablaze, filling the clearing with thick, choking black smoke.
Ay was about to rush back in when he suddenly saw a group of masked figures emerge from the smoke. Their bodies were completely covered in lit explosive tags. They were clearly prepared to use a suicidal, kamikaze tactic to delay him.
"Damn cowards!" Ay roared, charging in to slaughter the suicide bombers.
Meanwhile, thousands of meters away from the blast zone, the ground suddenly burst open. A masked figure dragged Mishu into a subterranean tunnel, fleeing for their lives.
"Cough, cough, cough!" Mishu hacked, spitting up dirt. He looked at his masked savior. "Seeing you wear a mask and drag me underground... I thought it was Zetsu who saved me. I really thought I was going to wake up and see Uchiha Madara. What a pity..."
Hearing Mishu's delirious rambling, a very familiar, annoyed voice came from beneath the savior's mask.
"Idiot. You don't have the Sage of Six Paths' bloodline. Neither Madara nor Zetsu would ever care about a nobody like you."
Slap! Kiichiro suddenly struck Mishu hard across the left cheek.
"Ow! Why the hell did you hit me?!" Mishu yelled.
"You bastard, you took so long to get to the extraction point that I almost got captured myself!" Kiichiro shot back. "And that wasn't a slap; it was a tactical sample collection! I'm taking your blood and flesh. If we can't escape, I'll use it to reanimate you with Impure World Reincarnation later!"
Kiichiro held up his hand, his palm indeed sticky with Mishu's blood. Seeing that Mishu was genuinely prepared to die, Kiichiro hurried to reassure his friend.
"Don't worry. If it looks like we absolutely can't escape, I'll give you a quick, painless death myself."
"Gee, thanks."
"No problem, it's the least a friend can do."
The two continued to sprint through the underground tunnel, bickering the entire way. Suddenly, Kiichiro's face paled.
"Not good! All my surface Shadow Clones are already gone! Ay's combat speed is completely insane!"
"Obviously!" Mishu groaned, clutching his ribs. "He can already wrestle the Eight-Tails into submission! We can't beat a monster like him just by passively leeching the One-Tails' Chakra!"
As Mishu continued his pessimistic rant, Kiichiro suddenly dropped him unceremoniously onto the tunnel floor.
"Damn it, if you have the energy to argue with me, then get on your feet and run yourself! I almost forgot you're a Jinchuriki now! Your passive healing factor is ridiculously strong!"
As soon as Mishu hit the ground, he realized Kiichiro was right. Nourished by the Tailed Beast's potent Chakra, his shattered ribs and internal injuries had already healed significantly. They no longer hindered his movement.
He scrambled to his feet and sprinted after Kiichiro.
Moments later, the terrifying sound of thunder echoed from the tunnel behind them. Mishu ground his teeth in pure frustration.
"He's been chasing me all damn day, and he's still coming?!"
Kiichiro looked back and saw a blinding figure wreathed in blue lightning rapidly closing the distance. His expression morphed into pure panic.
"Does he literally always stay in his Lightning Chakra Mode when chasing someone?! Does he have more raw Chakra than we do?! Damn it, we went through all that agonizing trouble to become Jinchuriki, and we're still no match for a genetic freak's natural talent!"
Ay's speed was incomprehensible, and the distance between them was evaporating by the second. Kiichiro looked at Mishu, his eyes wide.
"We probably can't outrun him to the boat. I'll take your blood sample and leave. You stay behind, stall him for ten seconds, and then commit suicide!"
Mishu glared at the distant light of the tunnel exit, which led straight to the docks. "Screw suicide! We spam Shadow Clones to stall him, then we steal that damn boat together!"
Refusing to hold anything back, the two boys flooded the tunnel with their Chakra, creating a combined total of two hundred Shadow Clones. The sheer wall of bodies managed to slightly delay Ay's overwhelming pursuit, giving the real Kiichiro and Mishu the precious seconds they needed to burst out onto the wooden docks.
At the pier, three Cloud Chunin were standing guard over the ships. Seeing Mishu and Kiichiro sprinting toward them, they immediately moved to block the path, throwing a deadly volley of shuriken.
This was a desperate race against death. Mishu and Kiichiro didn't even try to dodge. They let the shuriken bite into their shoulders and arms, charging forward without losing a fraction of momentum.
They crashed into the Cloud ninjas instantly.
"What the—how can this be?!"
The Cloud guards were entirely shocked by the enemy's suicidal ferocity and couldn't react in time.
"Rasengan!"
Kiichiro slammed the spiraling sphere into the lead guard, blasting him off the pier. The remaining two ninjas were terrified, raising their arms and preparing to accept death.
But all they heard were two gusts of wind rushing past their ears. Mishu and Kiichiro completely ignored them, sprinting past the guards and leaping frantically onto the nearest rigged ship.
"We made it to the boat! Cut the moorings and set sail! Now!"