Ren didn't even look back as he vanished again.
Up above, the remaining Root squad leaders were issuing quiet signals. Their seamless communication had faltered slightly. Two full formations had already lost half their manpower, and their attacks weren't slowing him down, they were delaying the inevitable.
Still, they pressed on. That was their order. Kill or die.
[Water Style: Piercing Stream!]
[Wind Style: Pressure Burst!]
A two-way combo attack came this time.
Water shot out from two different directions, converging mid-air and followed by a sudden gust of pressurized wind. It atomized the water into fine mist, and then the real jutsu activated:
[Lightning Style: Storm Veil!]
Another member's lightning crackled across the mist, forming a massive pseudo-electric field around the battlefield, hoping to stun or disorient Ren into stopping for just a second as that was all they needed.
But Ren had already moved. He had seen the tell, a slight vibration in the air right before the lightning activation and he had no intention of getting caught.
He flickered forward, not back, but forward, toward the source of the Lightning Style. The man using it was a mid-rank among the team, but clearly positioned behind cover, thinking the other jutsu would buy him time.
Ren appeared beside him in a blink. 'Wrong direction.'
He plunged a tanto into the man's chest and vanished again before the man's teammate could counterattack.
The remaining Root ninja shouted, "Fall back! Regroup!"
But it was too late as Ren leapt into the middle of their retreat arc and flung three chakra-enhanced shuriken in wide angles. The metal screamed through the air and then curved back toward each other with guiding wire.
One of the shuriken pierced through the enemy's midsection. The other two detonated with explosion tags.
A dull boom echoed in the forest.
Only three visible Root members remained and all of them paused.
They didn't speak. They merely repositioned, silent now. Two took the high ground, while the third vanished completely.
Ren stood still in the clearing, visible. Dust clung to his shoulders, and blood stained his kunai, but his breathing was calm.
He flicked a senbon between his fingers and spoke aloud.
"Well, you're persistent. Credit where it's due."
His eyes scanned the treeline.
"And I know at least four of you are still hiding. I haven't forgotten about the squad that hasn't shown themselves yet."
There was no reply. What they wanted was not a battle. Not an engagement.
They wanted an assassination.
A hit.
A quick, clinical, cold assassination in which they had failed, but they couldn't return. That wasn't the order, the order was to kill, and that's what they'll do.
Ren readjusted his gloves, rotating his shoulders lightly. His movements had begun to sharpen now, even more so than before.
He looked up through the breaks in the leaves. The sun was beginning to tilt, casting long shadows across the ground.
"Let's end this," He muttered softly
The air in the forest grew heavier.
The wind stilled. Birds had long fled the battlefield. Even the dust in the air seemed to hesitate, as if nature itself was holding its breath for what was to come.
Ren stood silent in the clearing, eyes flickering across the treetops where the remaining Root operatives had taken position. The sun dipped lower, casting shadows that split the light like fractured glass.
Then, without a signal, they moved. Not only the three who were visible but all seven.
From behind the treeline, the hidden squad emerged in synchrony, converging on Ren's position with brutal precision. Seven black-clad figures, masked and silent, flowed like a tide of death.
No opening remark. No shout. No chakra flare. Just cold and exact movement.
The tempo shifted instantly.
Two came from the front. One from above. Two more flanked from each side. One rose from the earth beneath him.
The last remained distant but raised both hands, forming rapid seals.
Ren's eyes narrowed, "Here we go," he muttered.
Hyperfocus pulsed through him like a second heartbeat. The world slowed to a crawl. He saw muscle twitches, subtle shifts in weight, air pressure displacements. Perfect clarity.
He moved.
The ground beneath him exploded as the Root ninja from below surged upward, aiming a chakra-infused tanto straight for his gut. Ren twisted his torso slightly and caught the wrist mid-thrust, snapping it backward with a sickening crunch. Before the attacker could scream, Ren drove his elbow into the mask, cracking it and caving in the man's face.
He didn't watch him fall as the two from the front were already upon him, slashing with short blades crackling with lightning chakra. Ren dropped low, letting the first blade whistle above his head. The second came sweeping at his side. He parried it with the hilt of his kunai and used the clash to launch himself backward into a somersault.
As he landed, a Fuinjutsu seal struck the ground beneath his feet.
Ren's pupils dilated as he jumped.
The seal glowed purple and snapped shut, forming a six-pointed containment field, but he was already airborne only a breath too late.
From above, one of the Root dropped toward him with an extended blade aimed for his shoulder.
Ren didn't dodge as he leaned into the blade, letting it graze his arm, then slammed his heel into the man's face mid-descent, using the momentum to drive him straight into the ground.
Blood sprayed upward.
The Root's partner was already behind Ren, aiming for the neck.
This time Ren twisted and caught the incoming kunai barehanded, fingers bleeding slightly from the blade's edge. He ducked low and struck the enemy's inner thigh with a precision nerve punch, crippling his footing.
With a backhanded slice, Ren cut through the tendon of the man's knee. He collapsed, silent, as Ren jammed a senbon into his neck.
One of the flankers lunged forward at that moment, both arms crossed. He detonated two explosive tags wrapped around his forearms but Ren ducked into a tree's shadow.
The explosion rocked the clearing.
The fireball tore through the air and blasted the landscape apart. Smoke billowed. Trees fell. The area around Ren lit up in orange and black.
But the real attack came from behind.
Through the smoke, a Root operative wielding twin chakra threads tried to bind Ren's arms. Each thread was reinforced with lightning, paralyzing on contact.
Ren spun mid-air, body coiled like a spring.
"Nice trick," he said quietly.
He threw two kunai into the ground to redirect his motion, evading the threads. As they passed, he yanked them upward and used the trajectory to find their source.
The hidden operator barely had time to flinch before Ren appeared beside him and drove a palm strike into his chest.
Ribs shattered audibly as the man coughed blood and collapsed.
Three down. Four to go.
However they didn't retreat. Instead, the remaining Root pushed harder.
They abandoned ranged combat entirely. The three remaining front-line fighters surged forward together. The final operative in the back launched continuous Fuinjutsu scrolls, hurling them in arcs to create fields of suppression.
The trees bore seals. The dirt beneath Ren's feet glowed with ink.
He felt a faint pull on his limbs. Chakra suppression. Nothing too strong, but enough to be annoying.
One of the Root flickered behind him and tried to punch a seal directly onto his back.
Ren tilted his head. "You think I'd let that stick?"
He slammed his elbow backward into the man's ribs and delivered a reverse axe-kick that shattered the mask. The attacker fell back with a muffled grunt, and another Root used the opening to come in low, blade aimed at Ren's thigh.
Ren used the downed Root as a stepping stone, pushing off his back and flipping high above the slash. While airborne, he threw three shuriken down, each embedded with a minor explosive tag.
Boom.
The dust scattered, but the other attacker charged straight through the blast. Blood leaked from his forehead, but he didn't stop.
He punched.
Ren blocked the punch with his forearm, but a small chakra spike activated from within the glove. It sparked on impact.
A surge of lightning jolted Ren's arm as his body convulsed slightly. The Root used that moment to tackle him.
They crashed through a tree, snapping the trunk. Mid-air, the Root wrapped both arms around Ren, binding his arms. From inside his vest, he pulled another explosive tag and pressed it to Ren's chest.
The seal glowed and Ren's eyes sharpened. "Not enough."
He kicked upward using the enemy's body as leverage and twisted them both mid-air. At the last moment, he flipped the Root downward and used the impact to bury the man in the ground.
The explosion went off half a second later.
Dirt and debris shot up. Ren had already spun out of the blast radius, arm twitching slightly from the lingering shock.
Two left.
The next attacker didn't hesitate. He used his partner's death as cover.
While Ren was landing, the next Root was already upon him. This one didn't carry weapons. Instead, his hands were glowing, coated in raw chakra like knives.
He struck with a flurry of open-handed swipes. Each strike aimed to slice rather than bruise.
Ren blocked the first. Parried the second. Twisted under the third.
But the fourth grazed his ribs, drawing blood. His coat tore slightly, but his eyes never wavered.
He caught the attacker's wrist and broke it in a clean snap. The man didn't flinch. He just used his other hand to grab Ren's shoulder and pull himself closer.
From inside his mouth, a Fuinjutsu tag activated. A black mark extended toward Ren's collar.
Ren bit his lip and headbutted the man at full force. The impact sent cracks down the Root's mask and The tag burned out prematurely.
"Persistent little freaks," Ren muttered, exhaling.
He looked to the last one.
The only one who hadn't moved much. The only one still standing on a tree branch some distance away.
Ren stepped over the body of the attacker he just knocked out and stared up.
"You gonna do something or just keep playing support?"
The last Root made a hand sign and every tree in a fifty-meter radius suddenly flared with ink.
Ren thought, 'The seal looked new so I let him make it but this one's not that interesting.'
The ground beneath him cracked and five suppressing tags flared to life.
Ren's body locked momentarily.
The final attacker blurred forward. He had no weapons.
But his hands formed a jutsu Ren hadn't seen so far.
[Wind Style: Final Pierce!]
A straight-line thrust, wind compressed into a narrow spike from the extended index and middle finger. Not flashy, but piercing.
The seals had reduced Ren's chakra flow by half. His limbs felt slightly sluggish.
The enemy closed in.
Ren breathed in as Hyperfocus took over.
Observe.
The angle. The timing. The breath. The wind pulse.
He leaned just a little and the spike passed beside his neck, slicing through a tree behind him and cutting it in two.
Ren reached out and grabbed the attacker's wrist. "Nice move."
Then he rotated, used his momentum, and dislocated the shoulder in one seamless throw.
The attacker flipped mid-air and tried to recover but Ren was already there, waiting on the other side.
He thrust his fist into the man's abdomen.
A geyser of blood shot out of the mask as the body folded around his fist and crumpled to the ground.
Ren stood still as the seals fizzled out one by one.
The air calmed. A breeze passed through the trees, rustling leaves like faint applause.
Ren looked around the field. Seven bodies. Burned. Broken. Silent.
None of them had spoken once, but their actions had screamed cooperation, sacrifice, precision and commitment to the mission.
They were never meant to survive. Just ensure that he didn't.
Ren exhaled slowly. His muscles buzzed from exertion. There were minor cuts along his ribs, a few scorch marks along his sleeve. Blood dotted his coat, but none of it was his own anymore.
Hyperfocus deactivated.
His breathing became heavier as the world rushed back to normal speed. He took a few steps back, sat on a tree stump, and looked up at the sky as he started healing himself.
As he healed he thought, 'My fighting style is becoming a bit reckless, I can see what attack is coming with Hyperfocus but that also gives me the opportunity to attack so I just let it come knowing that it would just heal on it's own with my recovery speed.'
"That was a pain," he muttered. "But thanks for the practice, I guess."
Ren reached into his backpack and pulled out a water bottle, uncapping it and taking a slow sip.
His fingers trembled slightly from the residual effect of the chakra suppression, but nothing permanent, there wasn't even a single scratch that wouldn't heal in a minute or two.
He glanced once more at the fallen Root corpses.
"Next," he muttered.
He could already sense the remaining presence he hadn't dealt with yet.
~~~~~
{I wanted to add some self sacrificial elements from root but couldn't use them properly so this time it was a bust for the root, but next time I will include many more things that would just scream 'Run bitch, it's an assassination that doesn't necessitate us living.'}
{If you want, you can support me on pat-reon}
{ h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / Z e e n o n }
{You know what else}
{200 Stones = Extra chapter}
{STONES!!!!}