Screams echoed through the streets of the Land of Snow's capital.
It wasn't only the civilians who'd rushed out at the commotion. Even Utaha Kasumigaoka and the other two, who'd spent three months alongside Makoto Nishikado, stared in open shock at the Snow ninja being consumed by black flames.
Nadare Roga and his subordinates thrashed on the ground, rolling wildly. Some desperately cast Water Release jutsu over themselves, but the streams passed through the black fire as if hitting a mirage, sliding around it without the slightest effect.
All they could do was watch their own bodies devoured inch by inch.
"Who said this fire can't kill?" Makoto gazed down at the writhing Snow ninja, a vicious smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Um... Makoto-sensei."
Megumi Katou's voice came from beside him. He turned to find her holding out a handkerchief.
He took it and wiped the trail of bloody tears from his right eye.
That small motion, lifting his gaze, finally gave all three girls an unobstructed view of his eyes.
Crimson irises. Strange black patterns spiraling through them.
What kind of eyes are those?
"What the hell are you?!"
The roar cut through their thoughts.
A hulking middle-aged man burst from the depths of the palace. The Chakra armor encasing his body was nothing like the sets Roga Nadare's men wore. Thicker, denser, crafted with an entirely different level of precision.
The civilians who'd been brave enough to gawk instantly screamed and scattered.
Dotou Kazahana.
The current daimyo who ruled the Land of Snow through blood and terror.
And its strongest fighter.
His gaze swept over the subordinates still howling on the ground, and his entire frame trembled. Not out of concern for their lives. What made his teeth grind was the Chakra armor burning away on their bodies.
Forging Chakra armor required a rare mineral called Rainbow Crystals, found nowhere else in the world and mined only in this country.
Their scarcity was the very reason he'd murdered his own brother to seize the throne.
"You did this?!" He fixed Makoto with a murderous glare.
Makoto didn't waste a single word. His hand dipped to the kunai pouch at his waist, drew a blade, and flicked it through the air in a lazy toss.
Dotou laughed through his rage. This was meant to threaten him?
He backhanded the kunai aside with an armored forearm. It rang off the barrier with a sharp clang and spun away.
The Chakra armor's automatic shield. Thrown weapons couldn't even scratch it.
But in that same instant, Makoto closed the gap. One heartbeat he was thirty meters away; the next he stood at Dotou's flank, left hand catching the deflected kunai mid-spin.
"Impossible!"
Dotou's pupils contracted to points.
There was no time to react. A Rasengan had already formed in Makoto's right palm, and he slammed it ruthlessly into him.
The explosion tore through the street, throwing smoke and debris in every direction.
From a distance, Megumi and the others could only stare, wide-eyed and breathless.
Too fast. Was this what a jonin-level fight looked like? Their eyes couldn't even track the movement.
A staggering figure stumbled backward out of the smoke.
Dotou. His immaculate slicked-back hair hung in tangled strands across his forehead. Over forty percent of his reinforced Chakra armor had shattered, leaving his exposed skin covered in bloody fissures.
"Didn't I say so?" Makoto strolled out of the haze, unhurried. "The ninja of this country are nothing but dead weight propped up by their armor."
Megumi and the others nodded thoughtfully.
"Who sent you? I'll pay. Ten times whatever they're offering!"
Dotou's voice had gone thin and hollow. He was jonin-level himself, and that single exchange had been enough to hammer reality home. This kid was beyond him.
Makoto's expression didn't change. He kept walking.
Dotou saw the answer in those steady steps. No negotiation. No mercy. He clenched his jaw, hands blurring through seals.
"Ice Release: Twin Dragon Blizzard!"
The ground erupted. Two serpentine dragons of solid ice exploded from the frozen earth, wreathed in howling blizzard winds, and lunged at Makoto with gaping jaws.
This was Dotou's strongest technique.
The gale kicked up by the twin dragons forced Utaha and the others to stagger backward, shielding their faces.
They watched the sky-blotting ice dragons close around Makoto and went white.
"Makoto!" Megumi couldn't stop herself from crying out.
A triumphant grin spread across Dotou's face.
Try throwing your kunai through this wind.
He hadn't fully understood the mechanics of that instant movement, but he was still jonin enough to grasp that the kunai played a role. In a storm like this, any thrown blade would be ripped off course before it traveled ten meters.
The same trick wouldn't work on him twice.
And yet...
Makoto closed his right eye.
His left eye locked onto Dotou.
The twin dragons crashed down, devouring the spot where Makoto had stood. The impact detonated outward, a bloom of ice spreading across the street in a monstrous frozen flower.
Technically, it wasn't true Ice Release. The Land of Snow had no Kekkei Genkai like the Yuki Clan of the Hidden Mist. They used Wind Release in tandem with the country's natural environment to brute-force the effect.
"Hahahahaha!" Dotou threw his head back and laughed.
In the distance, Megumi and the others stood ashen-faced.
Utaha gritted her teeth, yanked a kunai from her pouch, and moved to rush in and support him.
Then a voice drifted up from behind Dotou, casual as a passing remark.
"What are you so happy about?"
It landed like a funeral bell.
Dotou's pupils shrank. He whipped around.
A black kunai filled his vision.
A wet, heavy sound. A head separated from its neck.
Before it could hit the ground, a hand caught it.
Under the disbelieving stares of all three girls, Makoto hefted the severed head once, then produced a storage scroll and sealed it away.
He ambled back to his students and clapped his hands clean.
"Alright. Let's head back."
Several seconds ticked by before any of them remembered how to breathe.
Utaha let out a long, shaky exhale, then drove her fist into Makoto's chest.
"You scared me half to death! You did that on purpose, didn't you? Waiting until the last possible second to move!"
Makoto grinned with exaggerated innocence. "Oh? You noticed?"
She shot him a withering look. "Every showoff male lead in every novel pulls that stunt. Especially when there are girls watching."
He reached over and ruffled her hair. "As expected of a light novel author. You really know your tropes."
"Makoto-sensei." Megumi spoke up. "How did you do that? It wasn't the Flying Thunder God, was it?"
Even Mouri Ran, who'd been keeping her distance from him for the past few days, couldn't hide her curiosity.
Makoto mentally toggled off the item usage in the Reincarnation Game system, then answered with an easy smile.
"Left eye: Shinatsuhiko, the wind god. Right eye: Amaterasu."
"Those are my Mangekyou Sharingan abilities."
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PS: Shinatsuhiko is the name of the wind god in Japanese mythology, it's fanon ability.
*The bonus chapter*
Every 80 Powerstones = 1 Bonus Chapter