Red Nara

- Ryo-sensei, can we do that too? - Asani woke up from her stupor, turning to him.

- No," Ryo shook his head, "it's a personal development that can't even be shared with the clan library of technicians, let alone outsiders, and you're not even my personal students.

- Lame," Hoshi said, puffing up her cheeks and turning away.

- No one's stopping you from creating your own jutsu when you get older," the clone grinned, "just as cool.

- Are we going back? - Surizawa suddenly asked.

- No, we'd better wait for the boss here, just in case," the clone waved his hand negatively, "if the battle is over, he'll catch up with us quickly.

***

When I landed in a crater of tamped earth, I staggered, but I was still on my feet, despite the weakness, and I was glad in passing that my outfit protected me from the dense dust that flew into the air. A moment later, a gust of wind blew the cloud aside, and I was able to look around warily, ready to react to a possible attack - even if the last blow was supposed to kill Kakuzu, who could guarantee it when it came to a monster like that?

- Boss, are you okay? - The kage bunshin (shadow clone) that swung over the edge of the pit and landed next to me allowed me to relax a bit.

And I realized that even my own chakra was a little hard to feel, let alone someone else's.

- Average," I shook my head, "Is Kakuzu dead?

- I have no idea," the clone shrugged, "the chakra surge from activating the technique and creating the construct drowned out all other sources, and even now it's only just becoming possible to sense something.

Yeah, that's the obvious disadvantage of the used trump card - almost complete blanking of sensorics after use. A kind of blinding-deafening of the senses, so to speak. The closest analogy to a bonfire is when you sit at night with your back to a small fire and look around for candles, torches and other fires, when suddenly your own suddenly turns into a three-story blazing blast furnace, flooding everything around you with light and covering other sources of light. And if the clone was in front of this metaphorical bonfire, I was in the center of it, having to rely solely on my eyesight, and the sharingan was a negative factor.

- It's bad, I'd rather kill him," I pulled the mask down around my neck and spit the viscous saliva on the ground, "I was able to surprise him this time with the unexpected pressure and the amount of chakra, but a bug like Kakuzu won't fall for it a second time.

- We'll be ready next time, too, because we know what he can do and we'll be prepared," he smirked and patted me on the shoulder.

I already know that - I relaxed early with the chunin attack and didn't expect any more tricks, but look how it turned out on a simple C-rank mission. There is definitely a curse of some kind, because such bad luck simply does not happen! It's a good thing that our charges didn't get hit by a tangent, or else we've gone wild here - about a couple of square kilometers of forest were blown away, leaving only scorched earth, water-filled craters, and pieces of fallen trunks. It looked as if several teams had fought here, not just two shinobi.

It was a picture of the front lines. And it was almost certainly the kind of light show that attracted attention, which meant that the place would soon be overrun with curious people - the city wasn't far away.

- Let's get out of here before they get here," I shook my head at the clone.

- And the body? If there is one, of course," he raised an eyebrow as he helped me out of the crater, examining and treating the chakra damage as he went.

- And where to look? - I snorted and looked around the empty crater defiantly. - If Kakuzu's alive, it'll be a gift," I hinted at my condition, "and only a complete idiot would take the bounty.

Looking around, I determined the direction in which the clone with the students was retreating and hurried in that direction, leaning on my double and trying not to strain myself with minimum chakra use. The huge amounts of chakra pumped through the keirakukei in a very short period of time had not been good for his body.

A lot of damaged small chakra channels, strained main chakra channels, overworked tenketsu, which responded with pain even at the slightest use, in general, it's too early for me to start jutsu of this level. Despite my current body development, my keirakukei is not yet mature enough to withstand such stresses without problems, unlike older shinobi like Sakumo or Mito.

I'd invested an inordinate amount of chakra in the technique, simply because Kongo Fusa: Goriate no Kouchikubutsu (Adamant Sealing Chains: Goliath Construct) existed on paper in theory, but had never been fully tested due to its extreme conspicuousness and size, even for a clan training ground, let alone a personal one.

I simply had no experience in managing such gigantic amounts of chakra and it affected me. Twenty of my reserves were licked away, and almost half of it went into the surrounding space simply because I couldn't control the flow of chakra at first, and a couple of tenketsu were knocked out by the pressure, almost destroying my concentration.

The conclusion is that fighting at this level is not for me, and I survived against Kakuzu only thanks to the initial pressure and last chance scrolls. And if in the future I want to be able to survive against really serious shinobi, I need to increase the number of scrolls I carry by three or four times, despite their high cost. The materials alone cost nearly eighty thousand ryo, not to mention the difficulty of creation and the chakra costs. I've got a lot of work to do before the S-rank.

- Boss, we've almost caught up with them," the doppelganger said, nodding forward.

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