Heavy Rain (11)

BOOM. Another explosion. With swooshing sounds, the ninjas vanished from left and right.

Lower your bodies, the three of you! Watch out for the incoming projectiles, and watch your steps! Ensure that you don't trip and unnecessarily injure yourself!

Turn my head left and right. Check if it's safe for us to go. Dead bodies. Quickly scavenge ninja tools that they have with them, uncaring of the fact that they are the bodies of the ninjas that we've been talking to just few hours ago. Kunai, explosive seal, med-kit, pouch, whatever. Take whatever I can, to an extent where I can carry without much burden.

A sudden chill. Having Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato momentarily take my front, I turned back, and saw... Hanzo of the Salamander's eyes reaching me.

Ba-Bump.

Am I going to die? Did he find us irking to watch, with us being the despicable kids who scavenge from their carers and blatantly run away?

Ba-Bump.

My heart beated fast. I raised my shaky hand and told three others to hurry their run. However, they, seeing that I was frozen, returned to me.

"...kashi..."

Hanzo. Why is that man looking at me? For what—

"Akashi!"

I jolted up from Yahiko's shout right in my ear. When I looked back, Hanzo's gaze was headed elsewhere; perhaps I was hallucinating.

"...Let's go."

We ran into the woods, away from the brutal war-zone.

__________

"Haa... haa..."

Nagato was breathing heavily already, being the most fragile one among us. But unfortunately for him, we didn't have time to rest. We had to get away from that monster as much as possible.

"Ah—!" Then, Konan slipped due to stepping on top of the wet and slippery leaf that fell on the ground, and lost her balance.

With her falling on the ground, all of us came to a stop.

"Are you alright, Konan?" Quickly approaching her, I supported her weight and lifted her up.

"Y-yeah."

Although the wound wasn't too deep, her right knee was bleeding quite bad, due to the fact that our malnourished bodies are more fragile than that of an average person's. Carrying her, I quickly placed her behind the bark. Scuffling through the pouch that I attained previously, I took out what seemed to be a roll of white bandage, and clumsily applied on her bleeding area.

Seeing that Konan's eyes were dull and exhausted, I grabbed her cheeks and stared directly into her eyes, "Hey, don't worry. Just a little more to go. Don't give up."

Konan's eyes met mine.

"I will ensure that all three of you survive, no matter what. Hold on for just a little longer."

Konan teared up and sniffed, but nodded regardless. Ruffling her hair, I returned to where Yahiko and Nagato were catching their breaths, and was about to head out again—

"Grrr..."

A growl. It was a noise that belonged to a predator. With widened eyes, I quickly motioned Yahiko and Nagato while lifting Konan up. Swiftly, we hid behind the bush and silenced our breathing.

"Yes, Sanimaru... they are here somewhere."

Then, one... Konoha shinobi revealed himself along with the big wild-looking dog.

The four of us couldn't help but be surprised. This man was someone whom we recognized. He was the one who's been glaring at us throughout our stay in the camp,

<Ah, don't mind that dude. His name is Inuzuka Takahiro. He's a good man, but been like that after losing his teammates. Can't fault him, really.>

Inuzuka. And from what I managed to learn during the stay in the camp, Inuzuka specializes in tracking. S***.

"Blood. Although rain serves as an annoying barrier here, blood is always strong enough for us to smell."

Step by step, Takahiro and his nin-can, Sanimaru, began to close in on us. For whatever reason, this man bore hatred for us, and I knew that we couldn't sit here and await for our deaths.

Think, Akashi. What can you do? That man is a trained ninja. He specializes in tracking, so hiding is nigh-impossible. He has a drastically superior physical capability. He's not alone, but with his nin-can. He has many means to murder the four of us. Tch... there seems to be no answer—

—blood. Rain disrupts the man's tracking, but blood is something that rain is unable to cover.

In front of Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato, I took off my top.

"Konan, make sure that you hold my shirt on your knee tight, got it?" I said grimly, before turning to Yahiko, "While she does so, you carry her."

Even if we are unable to prevent the noise when we are running, there is the heavy rain all around us. The man's sense of smell is the only way to track us down, especially when he's never lived long enough in this land like we did.

"Nagato, follow them." I said in a surprising calmness while ripping off Konan's white cloth-like bandage that was already smeared in bloody red, before replacing with my much thicker shirt.

"Go first, you three."

Yahiko stared at me in a disbelief, "Aka—"

"Go. I won't say it the third time."

Pulling out the kunai from the pouch, I bit it between my teeth. Holding the bloody white bandage with one hand, I took out the explosive seal with my other hand. Then, I attached the explosive seal on the kunai and wrapped the cloth around it.

"...Yes, leader." Then, Konan said with a faith. In a shock, Yahiko and I turned to Konan, who smiled at me, "Make sure to come back. We will be waiting for you."

"...Yeah." Nagato nodded as well, clenching his fists resolutely.

Yahiko frowned in a complex emotion, but nodded nonetheless.

"...You already know what I am going to say."

'Watch yourself, please.'

Turning around, the three of them began to run away.

And at a little distance away from them, I began to run in the same direction.

"Where do you think you are going, you mongrels?!"

"Woof!!!"

A shout, followed by a bark. They reacted only after I began to run, meaning that my thought was indeed correct.

Now, turn. while Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato are running straight, start to curve slightly, so that Takahiro won't notice anything suspicious.

Swoosh. I could hear the air whistling as I ran at my maximum. Plop plop. The raindrops. I could hear them for some reason, in this heavy rain. How come, I wondered. And how come I wasn't caught already, I wondered.

That's when I realized, that my body was glowing in a faint blue hue—I somehow enhanced my physical prowess with chakra.

"Ha... ha..."

'Perfect.'

Though breathing hard from stressing my body to its utmost limit, I grinned wildly while adjusting the angle slightly. I knew that I still was being caught up rapidly, but this bought me few more seconds.

Just a little more, and then... throw.

While injecting my chakra into the explosive tag roughly, I threw the kunai, attached with the explosive tag and bloody cloth, to the bush nearby, before holding my breath and lying deep down in the puddle nearby. Now, I could only hope that the plan will work.

Then,

"I know that you are here. Do you take me as a stupid—"

A cold voice, followed by the sudden rush from the nin-can and Takahiro to the bush, before,

BANG.

A pre-destined explosion right in their faces. The sudden burst of smoke and steam engulfed the two of them, at a moment when they were unprepared.

A trained shinobi, along with a trained partner, from the ninja clan. Due to letting their guards down, they ended up having an 8-year-old boy deal a fatal blow to them.

"Haa... haa..." Raising my head above the water, I breathed heavily out of exhaustion. My body shivered due to how cold my body currently was. My heart beated so fast that I felt as if it was going to explode.

Climbing out of the puddle, I immediately hid behind tree bark. It was a blatant action, and there probably was no way that it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. But regardless of the fact, I couldn't afford to stay in the puddle any longer.

When the smoke and steam finally cleared,

"Sanimaru!!" Takahiro cried in anguish with a broken left arm and left leg, upon sighting the bloody pulp of what used to be Sanimaru. It seemed that his faithful nin-can protected him.

My eyes narrowed. That nin-can has been dealt with, and the shinobi was wounded quite severely. However,

one kunai. That's all that was left in my hand now, and nothing more.

"You..." Takahiro snarled in rage as he let the corpse of his nin-can down and turned to... where I was hiding. Damn it!

I quickly leaped back from the tree bark that I was hiding, just to avoid Takahiro's drill-like attack that shredded the entire tree. Immediately after,

Swoosh.

CLANG!

I found myself panicking in shock as the kunai was knocked out of my weak grip by Takahiro's shuriken, in a single go.

Takahiro whispered in a low tone, with his eyes gleaming murderously, "I... I will ensure that you meet a painful death."

I was left defenseless against this adult who bore hatred for me, for an unknown reason.

The rain seemed to be heavier than it ever has been.