Scatter

Gari looked towards Mizuki, a newfound look of respect in his eyes after seeing his previous attack.

Even as one of the strongest jonin in his village, he knew that if he got hit by those white flames, he would be a dead man.

Gari: "It's not every day you see an average chunin use a technique like that"

Mizuki: "It's not every day you need to fight for your life against one of the most powerful shinobi alive"

Gari: "Touche"

Immediately after saying those words, Gari flexed slightly before rushing forward.

This time, his target being Mizuki.

However, again, Gari was forced to retreat upon seeing several blades of wind come flying towards him.

Shinku: "Futon: Vacuum Sword"

Gari: "Bakuton: Claymore Step"

However, this dodge still did not allow Gari to fully dodge on time, as he noticed a pair of hands emerging from the earth before holding him in place, forcing him to take the wind blade head-on.

Neko had a sly smirk on his face seeing this, as he was the one who executed the immobilization with a clone of his, as his mastery of Doton Jutsu was even better than Mizuki's.

Using explosions under his feet, Gari was quickly able to launch himself back and evade the attack which would have otherwise hit him.

Mizuki: "Captain, what should we do? He is quicker than us on the retreat, and we can't keep up with him in a straight fight. We've been had"

Shinku ground his teeth, desperately trying to find a strategy that would allow them to all walk free.

Alas, no such strategy came, and so, Shinku was forced to use the one which he did not want to do.

Shinku: "All right, here's the plan . . ."

Shinku quickly whispered the plan to the two remaining shinobi, making sure that Gari could not see or hear them before turning back around to face him, noticing that he had now recovered after the last exchanged, and was now ready to slaughter them.

Shinku: "GO!"

Hearing the queue, all three shinobi quickly slammed smoke bombs against the ground, causing clouds of gas to occur which obstructed Gari's vision.

Quick to react, Gari focused his chakra into his feet before launching upwards, a massive explosion adding to his already impressive jump height.

Gari: "Bakuton: Grenadier Leap"

A second later, and Gari now had a bird's eye view over the battlefield, able to see everything that was going on below him, and negating most of the use of the aforementioned smokescreen.

However, what Gari saw, still surprised him nonetheless.

Out of the smokescreen were three identical people. Three of him.

All of the now transformed shinobi then scattered in opposite directions, ensuring that Gari could not catch up to them.

After all, regardless of how strong he was, Gari did not have infinite chakra, and the shadow clone technique required massive amounts of it which he could not spare if he got into a fight.

And so, Gari randomly selected one of the shinobi to follow before rocketing towards them mid-air, using his explosions as propulsion to guide himself towards the shinobi as he prepared for impact.

Gari: "Bakuton: Missile!"

. . . . .

Mizuki thought that he was safe.

Mizuki thought that he was in the clear.

After all, there was a 66% chance that they would go for somebody else and not him.

And yet, despite this, the reality of the surges of chakra and explosions rapidly advancing towards him did not change.

Mizuki: "WHAT IS IT WITH ME AND THE UNIVERSE WANTING TO KILL ME!?"

Mizuki: "God Damnit, looks like I got the short end of the stick for this plan, huh?"

. . . *Flashbacks to Plan* . . .

Shinku: "If we continue to fight, he will pick us off one by one until we all die, or blow us all up in a lucky shot."

Neko: "But we can't run either captain! It will be a cakewalk for him to catch up to us and take free shots whilst our backs are turned."

Shinku: "I know, I know, which is why I have a different strategy in mind"

Neko: "Thank Fuck"

Mizuki: "So long as we can get out of this thing alive, I honestly don't care what it is."

Shinku: "Ok, here it is. We all transform and scatter in different directions, he'll be forced to go after only one of us, two max."

Shinku: "After all, Gari won't be able to spare the chakra for that many shadow clones and still use his Bakuton to its fullest extent."

Shinku: "As he chooses the bait, it's totally random, so no hard feelings to whoever gets that crazy son of a bitch on his ass."

Shinku: "We will meet up at the base that we are heading towards now. If it is destroyed or already taken over, meet up at the largest hotel in the surrounding town. Clear?"

Neko: "Good luck to you guys if you get the bastard tailing you"

Mizuki: "Knowing my luck, I am willing to bet that he will be."

Shinku: "Well, made peace with the fact that you might be chased by explosion boy over there"

Mizuki: "Nope. But I can't think of anything better, so here we fucking go!"

From there, the beginning of the strategy went by as planned, with the three of them all using smoke bombs and then using transformation before rapidly shuffling themselves around in the cloud before finally all rushing out at the same time.

. . . *Flashback Ends* . . .

Sensing the oncoming danger of the human missile behind him, Mizuki continued to wait until the last possible second, before using his flames to push himself away in order to dodge the attack.

Which went silently over his shoulder before crashing into the ground meters in front of him, causing a loud and large explosion, in addition to a crater formed where Gari hit the ground.

Mizuki looked towards the smoking crater, only to see Gari standing in it casually as if nothing was happening.

Gari: "Well, well, well, I wonder which one of you I caught? The Inuzuka Brat? Shinku? Or perhaps that boy with the strange flames?"

Mizuki: {Oh shit}