NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: B Rank Mission
[A/N: Change of update schedule- 1 chapter for today and tmro. After that, we'll be boosting things up to 4 per day.]
With just the sixteen palms as the top technique in her arsenal, she knew that she couldn't deflect all of the shuriken, so she focused on using her eye's observational capabilities to dodge them.
4 out of 120. That was the number of shuriken that managed to touch her and that was all they did. They simply grazed her skin, leaving minor cuts behind.
Raichi silently watched and didn't stop them as he had already knew about Sachi's capabilities. Once all the shuriken fell to the ground and the duplicates disappeared after leaving behind multiple puffs of smoke, she crouched down a little and the next second, she disappeared from where she was.
Kira could clearly see her, but Raichi on the side had to activate his sharingan. It wasn't because he couldn't follow their movements. Instead, it was because Sachi had used a high speed technique and the kunai at the ground gave him a bad feeling.
Sachi used the body flicker to close the distance between them, and once she was close enough, she immediately used the Palm Bottom Strike as she aimed to hit his chest.
Seeing the attack coming and being able to react to it were two different things. Even though he could easily see her, it was hard for him to dodge her.
He instinctively leaned backwards, thanks to the taijutsu practice his clones did every single day for an entire year. The back of his head almost touched the ground and he saw her palm hit the air, the place where his chest was supposed to be a fraction of a second ago.
Sachi's momentum was too strong and when she saw that her attack had missed, she used her other hand to strike his chest one again.
This time though, Kira used his flying raijin and teleported to one of his kunai that he had thrown on the ground in advance.
"Oh god, that was really scary. Damn, if that hit me, my ribs would have been broken! Don't you have any mercy?" he complained as he saw her turn around, her gaze heavily focused on him as she ignored his words and ran towards him.
"This crazy woman..." he cursed under his breath and jumped up high into the air to avoid her. As he ascended upwards, he swiftly made a few hand signs and made hundreds of water senbon appear behind him.
Once he reached the highest point that he could reach, he directed his water senbon to shoot at Sachi. They travelled at incredible speeds, but just as they were about to hit her, she vanished from where she was.
Kira didn't do anything and turned to look at Raichi who had Sachi beside him, away from the Kira's senbon attack.
"Does this mean that I won?" he asked and Raichi nodded before he turned to look at the hyuga beside him.
"Sachi, do you know why you lost?"
The hyuga turned to look at Kira and then shifted her attention back to her team leader, "He's stronger than me?"
"Hm, okay. What about you, Kira? Why do you think you won?"
Kira nonchalantly put his hands at the back of his head, "Well... most people already know a lot about the Hyuga clan's techniques and most of them require the user to be in close proximity to their target. I simply kept my distance and this is the result."
"Great answer, but what do you think Taka?" Raichi asked as he turned to look at him.
Taka glanced at both Sachi and Kira before looking up at Raichi, "Preparation. Scouting."
"Right." Raichi said as he looked at the other two and began explaining, "Sachi, you were at a disadvantage the moment you began telling Kira about your proficiency in gentle fist style. Am I right, Kira?"
"Well... I guess so? Originally I planned on fighting head on and I'm sure that I'll be able to keep up to an extent. But the reality is that if she hits me even one time, it'll be similar to losing an entire limb.
Sure, I can recover using my healing jutsu, but it'll take me at least two seconds and two seconds are more than enough for her to take advantage of the situation. So, I thought that it was a safer and more efficient way to win if I kept my distance."
"Looks like my new team isn't a bunch of idiots grouped together. For once, it feels nice." Raichi said as let out a smile for the first time. He then looked at Sachi and told her not to worry too much about the loss.
"It's fine to lose to your rivals or teammates. You'll learn a lot from experience. Anyways, now that we're done with the so called test that Kira wanted, let's get into the details of your first mission.
It's a regular B rank mission but there is a chance of encountering Jonin along the way. If we're out of luck, then we'll have the choice to either abandon the mission or stick to it.
If you decide to complete the mission no matter what, then you'll receive better rewards. Nothing too special for risking your life, so be wise when it comes to valuing your life." Raichi said as he took out a thin scroll.
"The task is simple. You'll have to escort a merchant who wants to go to the hidden rain village, but there's some news about people going missing around that village, so there's a high probability that it's a ninja and a low probability of this ninja being a Jonin."
Kira nodded and looked at his teammates who seemed like they didn't have any other questions about the missions. Seeing that they didn't have any question, he decided to ask his own instead.
"Sir Raichi, what are we supposed to do if we encounter a Jonin? Also, what are we supposed to do if there's more than one Jonin?"