NOVEL WEB Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Kill at All Costs
Chapter 22: Kill at All Costs
At the most critical and desperate moment, reinforcements arrived.
The despair in Hozuki Genren's eyes instantly gave way to a surge of determination—his comrades had come. All he had to do was endure this last wave of assault, and he would live.
"Splurt!"
"Ugh!?"
Still unable to fully dodge the attack, he narrowly avoided a fatal blow, letting the enemy's strike tear into non-vital flesh instead.
Buying himself a few more precious seconds, Genren forcefully leapt backward.
"Rumble—!!"
A wall of water surged in, an incoming tide of jutsu crashing toward the battlefield.
"Shadow!"
Black Hawk shouted sharply at that instant.
"Got it!"
Kakashi, Foxhound, and Phosphor immediately caught the signal.
The latter two darted off to intercept the approaching Mist reinforcements—each one burning through a massive amount of chakra without hesitation.
"Earth Release: Great Mud River!"
"Earth Release: Rock Fissure!"
Two large-scale B-rank destructive jutsu erupted in unison, tearing into the terrain to divide the battlefield and stall the enemy's advance. For any regular chunin, repeatedly casting B-rank jutsu took a heavy toll on chakra reserves—but it had to be done.
Each knew their role.
Boom! Boom!
A thunderous series of explosions echoed through the area.
From the front line, the Mist ninja commander—face twisted with killing intent—gave a sharp signal.
"Kill them all!"
Dozens of Mist shinobi surged forward. Most were mere genin, but sheer numbers were enough to seize momentum.
At that exact moment, Kakashi knew: he could not let them rescue Hozuki Genren—not now.
"Zzzzzzzzt!"
With zero hesitation, he made his decision.
Lightning chakra burst from his body—
His figure wrapped in crackling blue-white arcs of electricity.
Lightning Release—cellular stimulation!
A full combat-mode activation!
This was Kakashi's first time using it in actual battle.
The chakra boiling through his body.
The uncontrollable surge of power.
"Tch…"
Even the sharp stinging and numbness across his limbs—he welcomed it.
"This is the feeling!"
And all of it—decided in under one second.
BOOM!
SWOOSH!
A thunderclap, a blur—Kakashi vanished from view, a bolt of living lightning.
In the blink of an eye, he closed in on the retreating Hozuki Genren.
"What!?"
In mere breaths, Genren couldn't even process what had happened.
Even though this Lightning Release technique was still imperfect, still riddled with drawbacks—including rapid cell degradation—at that moment…
Kakashi's speed had already surpassed that of an ordinary chunin.
Even most jonin wouldn't react in time, let alone a severely wounded Genren.
More critically—
In their earlier exchanges, Genren had mentally written off the masked Kakashi as a mid-tier threat—just another average Anbu.
He'd mapped out his retreat path with that assumption.
But everything—
Everything—
Had been turned upside down.
"Die!"
Point-blank range.
"Buzz!"
"Zzzzzzt!"
The thunderous hum of lightning chakra surged from Kakashi's short blade.
Genren's instincts screamed for him to dodge—but it was far, far too late.
A perfect gap. A perfect angle.
Kakashi, lightning-wreathed and silent, slashed downward with brutal force.
"Guh!?"
The blade plunged directly into Genren's throat.
CLANG!
The sound of steel shearing through reinforced armor—
Piercing straight through his throat guard—
SPLURT!
Ice-cold steel.
Agonizing pain shot through him.
Genren's hands reflexively rose to his neck—but Kakashi was already withdrawing the blade with a brutal flick.
SWIPE!
WHOOSH!
Blood sprayed in every direction.
THUMP!
His severed head flew into the air, his corpse crumpling moments later.
The once-feared Hozuki Genren—elite jonin of the Mist—had been slain by Kakashi.
His lifeless eyes, wide open in disbelief, seemed to scream unwillingness.
"Nice work, Shadow!"
From a distance, Black Hawk's eyes gleamed with a mixture of joy and shock.
Because in that moment—
The speed Kakashi had unleashed…
Had surpassed his own.
That fierce, explosive form—
It reminded Black Hawk of elite Cloud Village jonin he'd once faced. That same blitz-style dominance.
But Kakashi? He was only eight years old.
To possess that kind of strength already—
Black Hawk couldn't help but feel: They'd struck gold with this recruit.
With Genren dead, the Mist's rescue attempt fell apart.
More importantly—
They had lost their most powerful combatant on the field.
The Mist reinforcements? Over ten ninja—most of them genin, only three or four with chunin-level strength. Not a single jonin among them.
In warfare, numbers alone couldn't make up for quality.
Not even in the Five Great Nations.
A jonin was not common.
They were a village's true apex fighters.
Why were the Uchiha so feared by Konoha's ruling council?
Because they had dozens of jonin—and hundreds of awakened Sharingan wielders.
That kind of force couldn't be ignored.
If the Uchiha had only a few jonin and a handful of ninja?
Konoha's higher-ups wouldn't have feared them at all.
In any era, in any world—
The upper echelons never fear your intentions.
They fear your power.
Dozens of three-tomoe elite jonin—that was the Uchiha clan's true foundation.
Throw in the possibility of Mangekyō holders, and it's no surprise the elders stayed wary.
(And indeed, had there been no traitors, with three Mangekyō users and a full force of elites—while Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade were all away—Konoha might not have won a head-on conflict. At best, mutual destruction. But not an effortless purge.)
To become a jonin—
Was to stand at the pinnacle of the ninja world.
A sign of exceptional talent.
And now, at only eight years old, Kakashi Hatake had just killed one.