Chapter 9: Progress

"Ackk!"

Sora struggled to breathe as the burnt hand held him up by the neck, restricting his air flow. He wasn't ready for it so there wasn't enough time to use the replacement jutsu.

"Ughh…H-how…" He managed to say as his hands struggled to release himself. The man's burnt face twisted in what would have been a grin if he still had a proper face.

"You underestimated me. I am far more powerful than you can imagine. Even if you kill this body, it won't be over! I'll be back!" He replied sounding less sane as the seconds passed.

"I-is that…s-so?" Sora replied, flooding his right hand with the remaining chakra he had. His hand right hand hid behind his back as the burnt man spoke.

"It is…aahhh!" He screamed as Sora's right hand that was hidden behind his back, burst forward towards his throat with a kitchen knife in his palm.

He raised his hand to stop its path but was ignorant to the blue shine that was present on it. Upon contact, it easily tore through his hand and into his throat, causing him to release Sora in shock.

He clutched his already burnt and bleeding throat as the red essence poured out. Trying to stop it, he didn't notice Sora dashing at him with another knife in hand.

Sora, upon reaching him, thrust the knife into his chest, where the heart was supposed to be located.

By this point, it was already over. The soon to be dead man held his throat in his hands as his body gave out. He fell to the floor like a puppet without strings and once again into the flames. Within seconds his skin and muscles was completely gone, leaving only the bones behind.

'It's finally over.' Sora thought as he lay on his back to regain his breath. His chakra was mostly depleted meaning that if anyone found him, it would be the same as killing a tied up chicken.

'The fire is bound to spread and grab the attention of the cops. I have to get out of here!' He thought as he struggled to pull himself to his feet.

He looked to the doors and windows that were still bared and cursed a bit. He looked at what was once a human being but was now a collection of warm bones.

'I didn't get the remote and I highly doubt that it would be working right now.' He thought. The remote was in the pocket before he was burnt but nothing was left of the clothes, meaning that it was also gone.

He looked around for any other possible means of escape. Air vents were out of the question due to how small they were.

'My only option is to wait for my chakra to recover a bit before blowing a hole through the door. But by then the police would already be here.' Sora cursed at his limited options, mostly due to his lack of chakra.

He silently vowed to find a way to increase his chakra capacity when he got out of here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The familiar siren of the police vehicles rang out continuously as the police force surrounded the burning warehouse. Behind the was a fire truck that was working to put out the fire.

They surrounded the entrance as they tried to figure out a way to get it open. They had already found the dead body outside and were anxious about what they would find inside.

"That door isn't coming open anytime soon at this pace." The officer reported to the police captain who was a short man in his early forties.

"I know but we have to find a way in. We don't know if there were people in there. Besides, two fires in one day, the first one killed a few people before we got there and now we find a dead body outside this one. Something's going on and I don't like it." The captain said with a tired sigh.

He took out a communicator and silently spoke into it. He then turned to his men and spoke.

"Boys it looks like we have to bring in the big guns."

In less than ten minutes another police vehicle arrived. The officers got down and unloaded something from the trunk. They got out a battering ram and pushed it to the entrance.

Four officer gathered around it, each picking a side to hold up and support. And with that, they began smashing the barred entrance.

Little by little, dents began to form until it finally broke through, creating a hole. Although a hole was made, they had to repeat the process as the hole was too small for anyone to enter.

Not long later a sizable entrance was made. The fire department then proceeded to put out the fire burning inside. The officers spread into the warehouse, hands on their guns for caution.

"Check for any survivors!" The captain had ordered. They moved around unaware of the battle that had happened here. It didn't take long for them to find something.

"I found something over here!" One of them shouted to inform the others. Without wasting time, they rushed to his position.

"Oh my god!"

"What the hell! This is messed up!" One of them commented, looking at the scene in front of them.

They looked down on what was once a man. All that was left of him were what was supposed to be muscle barely covering the exposed bones. The muscles looked more like thin strips of burnt meat. The rest of him were the ashes below the skeleton.

"Keep looking. See if you can find anything odd or suspicious." The captain order as the moved from the corpse.

They searched the warehouse but found nothing else besides the fact that it stored a large amount of chemicals.

"That would explain how the fire spread so quickly. Though it doesn't explain the body that we found outside. Get the forensics team to autopsy the body and search the scene properly to see if they find anything we missed." The captain ordered as he exited the ware house with a tired look on his face.

"Captain?" One of the officers who remained outside said, looking at the captain in confusion.

"Is there something wrong?" The captain asked curious as to what caused the other man to act like this.

"Didn't you just leave a few minutes ago?" The man asked as he looked around confused. The other men behind him shared his confusion.

"I don't follow. What do you mean I just left? I've been in there for the past few minutes." The captain replied confused and not in anyway amused.

"You left a few minutes ago. You said it was an emergency." The man tried to explain but he was cut off.

"If this is your idea of a joke then you need to work on your sense of humor." The captain said tiredly as he got into his car, leaving the other man confused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Far away from the scene, Sora ran as fast as he could. He wanted to put as much distance between him and the police as possible.

He had ended up waiting for the police to arrive. As expected, they did the job of creating an exit for him to leave. With a clever use of the transformation jutsu, he escaped without trouble.

He didn't have a watch or anything to tell the time but he took a guess that it was nearing evening already. He was quite a distance away from his apartment. Despite him being mentally prepared to take the trip on foot, his body had other plans.

*Growl!*

With all the things happening recently at the same time, he had skipped out on a lot of detail. One of them being that he hadn't had actual food in almost two days. He had gone into that fight with an empty stomach and a weakening body, increasing the level of damage he sustained.

He stopped at fast food restaurant nearby to get something to eat. Tokyo had no shortage of stores and restaurants around. He sat on a bench eating his meal while waiting for a bus to come by.

He took a look at the panel and was pleasantly surprised by what he saw.

[Template Name: Sasuke Uchiha]

[Template Progress: 8.9%]

'It increased!' He thought with a satisfied smile on his face.

'Though, all that and only two percent? It looks like I'll have to work much harder to take it higher.' He thought as he threw a french fry into his mouth.