CHAPTER 11

FIRST BLOOD

Two months have passed in a blink of an eye. Under the night sky full of stars, a boy is lying under a tree, the boy was soaked in his sweat and was breathing roughly.

"Wow, I didn't know that practicing chakra with tree climbing was so hard. Not only concentrating my chakra under my feet is hard, but also standing straight vertically is physically taxing, especially on my core." The boy said while taking deep breaths. He looked down on his abdomen and he could see the outline of his abdominal muscles.

"Damn! I didn't have this in my past life. This world sure works wonder. After a proper meal and training, I regained my body back to full health and gained a few centimeters in height. Now I am as tall as a 7 year old kid while I am still a few months before reaching my 5th birthday."

Many things happened in these two months. In these months, Ranmaru mastered his chakra ghost technique. His illusions now looked realistic enough to fool genins and possibly chunins, except when the phantoms are touched or attacked, as it will dissipate like rippling water then come again after a few seconds.

Ranmaru also had great control over his emotions now. Using his mind reading ability is really useful but at the same time dangerous. He is really careful in using this ability because when reading the thoughts of others, it may affect him and in serious case, he might become another person or change his personality permanently if he is too immersed in others consciousness.

Ranmaru also mastered simple genjutsu's that changes the appearance of things and fool his target of its sense of touch, hearing and smell to a certain extent. Such as modifying his face, making hot water cold, coffee as milk, making bird sound or tiger roars and the like. Of course at the expense of experimenting a few times on the villagers. No worries though, there was not much harm done....maybe.

Ranmaru thought so, while laughing at the pranks that he did these days. 'ahhh such joy.'

Ranmaru also tried to siphon the life force of a rabbit when he went to the forest to train, but he failed. He felt that he can do it, but he felt that there is something blocking him in performing this.

He noticed that the rabbit was struggling hard when he activated the ability, so he knew that this was possible. So he slit the throat of the rabbit and the life of the poor animal slowly left its body. At that time, Ranmaru activated his ability and he succeeded, albeit he did it poorly as it still resisted him even though it was dying. In the end, he only received a small amount of life force enough to heal a small cut. This small amount is closely related to the amount of vitality the rabbit had. If he absorbed the life force of the toad sage, it would definitely thousands or even ten thousand times more.

He thinks that since almost all living things have consciousness or spiritual power, they will instinctively resist this ability just like this little animal. If he wants to absorb their life force, he needs to wipe out this resistance meaning to erase their consciousness without harming the body. In regards to the part where original Ranmaru healed Raiga in the anime, he thinks that it is because the the original Ranmaru was willing to transfer it to Raiga.

If this is the case, Ranmaru hypothesize that if someone is also willing to give their life force to him, he won't be met with a strong resistance like earlier.

With that in mind, Ranmaru jumped on his back and stood up stretching his sore body. He gave a yawn and went to his home to take a bath and eat something good after a day of hard work.

The next morning he arrived at the shop. But what he saw was a broken door, and he can see that the chairs and tables inside were in a mess. Ranmaru hurriedly ran inside and saw the unharmed mother and son pair. He sighed in relief and asked the two about what happened.

"Grandma Sho, what happened here? Are you both okay? Ranmaru asked in concern while clenching his fist. These two people really helped him a lot, especially with the food and clothing. Grandma Sho also helped him understand a lot of things in the world of shinobi. He wanted to repay the two sometime if there is a chance, and now he can finally show his gratitude.

"There were bandits that came here last night and demanded food and other supplies. We didn't have much so they destroyed the shop in anger." Grandma Sho told him about what happened while Karashi on the side had red eyes from anger.

"Those parasites, they are really so brazen attacking civilians. I need to teach them a lesson" Ranmaru said in anger.

"Calm down Ranmaru, they are all adults and even if you have chakra, you don't know any ninjutsu or taijutsu and you are still a kid." Grandma Sho persuaded him and he calmed down a little.

Ranmaru helped Grandma Sho and Karashi to clean up the mess until noon so they were closed for the whole day. The ingredients were stolen and tables smashed, fortunately some of them can be repaired.

That night Ranmaru decided to investigate the whereabouts of those bandits. Although they were already reported to the magistrate, it will still take a few days for them to come. At that time, those bandits may be gone and escape to other places.

Even though he's still not strong as a genin yet. He can still take a few of those bandits with a knife and genjutsu if he used it well. Ordinary people can't resist his genjutsu and he knows this because he tried this on almost all the villagers. There were even rumors going about him saying that there are ghosts in the village and about some strange things happening to them like hearing babies cry at night even though they don't have one, eating something then the food suddenly disappears, some dancing suddenly in the middle of the streets, some finding a gold bar on the road then it turns out to be a cow dung. Many of these things were almost all done by Ranmaru himself. He had so much fun doing pranks that time, and he's still doing it till now and will do so too in the future.

Ranmaru went out in an all-black attire. He went to Granma Sho's shop while running sneakily like a cat, his steps were making almost no audible sound because of his body control when yureigan is activated. When he arrived outside the shop, he looked around for traces. With the help of yureigan, he can see the tracks made by the bandits and he can almost see what their actions were as if rewinding the past.

After looking around for some time he finally found the direction where they left. Ranmaru followed the tracks for a few miles and arrived at a clearing where a campfire was lit and some raucous laughter and music could be heard.

Ranmaru stopped a few hundred meters away from the camp and observe the situation. He counted about 12 people in this group, 8 people were around the fire drinking alcohol, 2 were standing in front of the tent while a person is lying inside probably their leader. Ranmaru noticed that their leader had larger chakra amount than him probably a genin, but the gap was not too big. Ranmaru saw the last one sleeping on a log few meters away from the camp.

Ranmaru hesitated a little, he didn't know if he can handle the possible genin but he can probably kill him silently without him knowing because of how peaceful and calm his chakra were, meaning that he is in a deep sleep. Ranmaru waited for a few hours until most them were asleep except for the two guarding the tent. He knew that he can't take on two adult so he waited more and his chance came when one of the bandits guarding the tent decided to answer the call of nature.

The bandit walked further away from the camp. The bandit stopped in a darker area so no one would see and thinking that it would be embarrassing to let them hear the sound of his erupting butt.

When the bandit was taking of his pants, he heard the sound of rustling leaves on his left and when he looked, he saw red eyes flashing in the dark and he was pulled into a genjutsu. Ranmaru approached him and took a deep breath his knuckles turning white from gripping it too hard. He looked at the man in front of him and with his blood red eyes. He can tell that this man is not a good person and took many lives. Ranmaru can almost observe the dark aura around the man accumulated from killing and doing bad deeds. Ranmaru strengthened his resolve and slashed with a quick backhand grip of his knife. The bandit returned to his senses but he was already dying and choking on his own blood so he can't scream like he wanted to. Ranmaru hurriedly caught the body and laid it down silently. Ranmaru didn't notice that his eyes were glowing redder than usual.

With eyes as bright as blood, Ranmaru looked at the body and silently cast life drain on the bandit. Because this is first time draining a person, he encountered greater resistance, but after struggling for a few moments the body loosened up and Ranmaru freely harvested his life force. Ranmaru noticed that when the body is at its last breath, the resistance quickly weakens and made him happy a little. He receive a small amount of vitality, greater than the rabbit and other animals that he hunted but definitely not enough to recover a lost limb.

Ranmaru calmed his emotions and started to cast genjutsu to himself to look like the bandit that he killed. He slowly stood up and started walking to the campfire with stronger resolve.