Chương 196: The Hunt Part 8

Shisui POV Now that Noa had taken Sena and Kaen away, I could finally focus on my own situation, and it honestly did not feel too good. The chakra seal was interfering with my already unstable flow, twisting it even further under the distortion field. Every attempt to circulate chakra felt like forcing water through a maze of broken and tangled channels. I still smiled.

"I have not had a good battle in a long time. These handicaps might actually make it fair for you." Rabbit's body language radiated quiet rage, while Ox laughed, his tone cold and heavy.

"Let us see if you will remain this confident after this." Ox flickered to the far edge of the clearing with Rabbit moving in behind him. I tensed, every sense alert. Then Ox slammed both hands to the ground, pouring a tremendous amount of chakra into the soil.

"Earth Release: Mud Surge." The effect was immediate. The ground rippled outward from him like a living tide. The soft moss and dirt turned to liquid sludge that bubbled and heaved, reshaping the entire clearing into an uneven landscape. Thick waves of mud spread through the mist, rising into jagged ridges that cracked apart and sank again. The air was filled with the sound of grinding stone and shifting earth. The field changed completely. Stable footing no longer existed.

Every step threatened to swallow my boots, while sharp spikes burst up without warning, some tall enough to reach my chest before melting back into sludge. The distortion made Ox's control imperfect, causing the spikes to twist unpredictably, but that chaos worked in his favor. He was turning the ground into a weapon that obeyed only him. I could feel his chakra spreading beneath the surface, branching through the soil like veins. He was preparing traps, ready to make the terrain strike at me the moment I moved.

The seal pulsed. The feedback nearly made me stumble as my chakra tried to react and was instantly crushed by the suppression. I steadied my breathing and forced my focus to sharpen.

"I see your style now," I muttered quietly.

"You build your battlefield before you fight on it." Ox did not respond. The mud quaked again. A wall of sludge burst upward, solidifying midair into rough stone spikes that shot toward me, thick and sharp enough to split the air with their speed. I had very few options left. The only real choice was to close the distance. A smirk tugged at my lips.

"Time to show you what real strength looks like." I steadied my breathing and focused on the faint sliver of chakra that still slipped through the seal. The suppression pressed against every major pathway in my body, locking most of the flow in place. To move at all, I had to reroute it through smaller, rarely used channels, guiding the current around seized tenketsu and dead zones by feel alone. It was crude, unstable, and painful, but it was enough.

With what little chakra I could push through, I formed a micro flicker. It was not the kind of movement I was known for. Each burst carried me less than a meter, driven by perfect timing, muscle strength, and control honed through years of ANBU training. My body blurred just to the side of the first spike, then again between the second and third. The movements were so tight that the last spike brushed my cape, tearing through the edge as I passed. I could feel the burn in every limb.

The seal fought me at every pulse, and the distortion field twisted the chakra I forced through, threatening to collapse my control entirely. Yet the world slowed around me as I moved through the storm of stone, every motion precise and calculated. For the first time in a long while, I felt the thrill of a real battle, one fought not with overwhelming power but with the raw edge of survival. It was a refreshing feeling, sharp and honest, reminding me of what it was like before I reached my current level.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I felt danger from the side. From the edge of my vision, I saw Rabbit finish a long series of hand seals.

"Water Release: Pressure Fang." Rabbit clenched his jaw, and a faint hiss escaped from the front of his mask. Water chakra gathered in his mouth, condensing into liquid as it spun under intense pressure. The moisture thickened into a stream so dense it gleamed like molten glass. He exhaled sharply, and the water shot forward, narrowing into a thin, curved blade that extended just beyond his mask. The air split with a sharp, slicing sound.

Each subtle movement of Rabbit's head reshaped the stream, bending it through the mist in tight, controlled arcs. As it reached me, I flickered past another rising earth spike, just before the blade slashed down from above. I moved at the last instant, the edge carving through the ground where I had stood a fraction of a second earlier. Before I could regain my footing, another spike erupted beside me, followed by a second and third. Rabbit's control over the water blade was remarkable.

He turned it vertically in mid-strike, guiding it to flow between the rising spikes. The air filled with the hiss of splitting stone and the whistle of water cutting through the fog. The world became a blur of motion and death. I slid beneath the incoming blade, mud spraying across my face, then jumped as high as my tired body would allow, twisting over a new wave of spikes. While still in the air, I tore several smoke bombs from my belt and hurled them at the ground below.

They exploded in thick gray clouds, covering the battlefield beneath me. The mist and smoke fused, turning the clearing into a dense shroud where nothing could be seen clearly. Rabbit reacted instantly. The water blade moved in wild, random arcs, cutting through the haze in rapid succession. I had only a few seconds before Ox or Rabbit dispersed it completely. With what little time I had, I gathered every drop of chakra I could muster. I forced my focus inward and activated my Sharingan. The seal pulsed in protest.

Pain tore through my body, and blood spilled from my eye from the strain, but the world slowed around me. For a brief moment, everything was clear. I turned my vision inward, scanning my own chakra flow through the Sharingan's perception. Threads of energy glowed faintly beneath my skin, twisted and compressed. That was when I saw it, the seal's core. It was hidden deep near the collarbone, its pattern complex and precise, layered with redundancies. Even with my training, my chest tightened at the sight.

Whoever designed this knew exactly what they were doing. It was crafted by someone with mastery in both sealing arts and sabotage. Every line was reinforced by secondary triggers, every countermeasure hidden behind another failsafe. The more I studied it, the more I understood. This was no ordinary suppression mark. It was something made by a grandmaster of the art, someone who planned for every possible response.

What truly unsettled me was how subtly it had integrated itself, working around my ANBU seal which, as per Lord Third's order and with his permission, I had reactivated before the mission due to a strong suspicion that this might be a trap, hoping to rely on its tracking and defensive functions. That meant the creator had knowledge of the Konoha ANBU seal's inner workings and defensive mechanisms, information known only to a handful of people within the village.

I tore my mind away from the horrifying implication as I realized there was only one thing I could do. A stupid and reckless move, but better than dying. The foreign seal was far too complex to dismantle directly, its formula pulsing with traces of chakra that clearly weren't mine. That residue gave me an idea. If I could draw some of that foreign chakra directly into my old ANBU mark, I could manually force it to react.

The ANBU crest was designed to purge invasive chakra, activating its defense layer the instant it detected a breach. For a brief time, the two seals would collide inside my network, their opposing functions tearing through the pathways like blades. The clash would shred my internal chakra lines, flooding every nerve with pain and turning chakra control into chaos.

It would feel like my entire system was burning from the inside out, but if I cast a genjutsu on myself, I could suppress the pain long enough to keep my mind clear and shape my chakra. The interference would weaken the suppression for three to five seconds before the ANBU seal's failsafe triggered. If it failed to purge the foreign chakra in that window, the second stage would activate and detonate, destroying my chakra system and killing me instantly. So the plan was simple.

Extract the foreign chakra, inject it into my ANBU seal to manually trigger it, suppress the crippling pain, control the chaotic chakra flow, deal with two high-level jonin, and if needed, purge the residue before the failsafe activated. All within three to five seconds. Easy enough. Wouldn't be the first time I've done something impossible on a timer.