Before the attackers could react any further—
a flash of gold appeared beside Rin. The ninja who had been about to strike her only felt his vision blur, and then a tremendous force sent him flying. With a bang, he slammed into a nearby tree, and by the time he slid down, his chest had already visibly caved in.
—As someone who could slice off one of the Eight-Tails' tails with a kunai, the Yellow Flash's taijutsu might not have been quite on the level of a younger Hiruzen Sarutobi or the Third and Fourth Raikage, but it was still leagues beyond that of an ordinary jōnin.
At the same time, the tall, thin man caught sight of a streak of white and instinctively tensed his entire body, raising his kunai to block!
Clang—!!
A piercing metallic crash rang out!
It was Mikami Yuu, using Substitution Technique to appear right in front of him, slashing forward hard with the short blade in his hand and colliding head-on with the man's kunai! The sheer force numbed both their palms, and the tall man's face showed shock.
This brat… he was faking being unconscious just now?
And also—
Was that Body Flicker?
Why was it that fast?
The doubt lasted only a moment.
Then—
"You little genin brat, looking to die!!"
The tall man's face twisted with rage. His wrist jerked in a strange motion, sliding his kunai along Yuu's blade before reversing it toward Yuu's side like a striking venomous snake!
Mikami Yuu bent backward and slipped aside with a nimble step, barely dodging the stab.
Seeing that, the tall man stamped forward, his kunai turning into a continuous chain of cold flashes, stabbing again and again at Yuu's vital points! But Yuu brought up his blade and blocked them all!
For a moment, the constant ringing of steel on steel came down like torrential rain on broad leaves, while dirt kicked up beneath their feet as the two figures flickered through the blades' afterimages!
It was obvious the tall man was no weakling. Who knew about his ninjutsu, but his knife work alone was at least at elite chūnin level. And because he was a few years older, his basic physical stats were stronger than Yuu's.
But not by an overwhelming margin.
A opponent of this level…
was the perfect test subject for that move!
And with Minato nearby as insurance, even if it all went wrong, Yuu didn't have to worry about things collapsing completely…
"Haa…"
Mikami Yuu exhaled again, letting the man's offensive knock him back. Then he used Substitution Technique to blink twenty meters away, drove his short sword into the ground to stabilize himself, and brought his thumbs, index fingers, and middle fingers together into an unusual hand seal.
In a low voice, he said:
"Shadow Prison Phantom Kill Formation—Open!"
Buzz!
An invisible ripple exploded outward from Mikami Yuu at the center, instantly covering an area eighty meters across!
The air shimmered like water, and even the light seemed to warp for an instant. The tall man felt the scene in front of him waver slightly, as if he had been pulled into an illusory stage—
the Phantom Stage!
"Genjutsu? Or…"
He stopped at once and raised his hands in a seal to dispel illusions, but nothing around him changed.
Then—
Mikami Yuu's figure split apart!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
At that moment, Mikami Yuu was like a cell undergoing mitosis: one became two, two became four, four became eight…
In just a few seconds, he had divided into twenty or thirty bodies. Some were water clones, some were illusion clones, but from the outside they all looked exactly the same—impossible to tell real from fake.
Clone Technique ×4.
Then Yuu's real body activated Partial Transformation, and together with the twenty-plus clones around him, all stepped forward at once and charged the tall man trapped in the middle, blades cutting from every treacherous angle with speed and ruthlessness:
"Hatake Swordsmanship: Gale Slash!"
The tall man's scalp went numb. Unable to tell which was the real Mikami Yuu, he could only rely on instinct and swing his kunai at the "Yuu" whose attack looked the most vicious!
Clang!
He blocked the frontal slash.
But before he could breathe in relief, the "Mikami Yuu" in front of him suddenly shifted from illusion to reality, while another phantom at his rear-right instantly became solid and slashed from behind, cutting across his side and sending a spray of blood into the air!
When he spun around and stabbed back, that "Yuu" scattered into an illusion as well, while a third slash chopped at his calf from the side!
Substitution Technique ×3!
Three slashes in a second!
And then—
Mikami Yuu's real body kept flashing to different positions around him, cutting and hacking from all sides. Meanwhile, the water clones created by Clone Technique hurled kunai and shuriken from a distance, throwing off the tall man's rhythm—or rushed him directly to slap explosive tags onto him.
The tall man fought with everything he had, nearly turning his kunai into an airtight curtain of light, yet he still couldn't stop the attacks coming from his back and sides. Especially after he burst out with a blade technique and cut down two water clones, Mikami Yuu's speed suddenly ticked up another notch, and his attacks became even harder to predict.
In an instant—
the man felt like he was surrounded on all sides by lethal blades and phantoms, while he himself had become nothing more than a fly caught in a spider's web, unable to bring even half his strength to bear. After fighting for so long, he still hadn't even touched the hem of his opponent's clothes.
And all of it happened in under twenty seconds.
His flak vest was already tattered, and no fewer than six or seven cuts had opened across his calves, side, and back. Blood poured freely, and his movements had started to lag from the pain.
Worse, the enemy's blade seemed to be coated in some kind of poison—the wounds it left behind carried an unbearable prickling numbness.
—To be precise, it wasn't poison, but a special anesthetic. It was normally used in surgery at Konoha Hospital, and Mikami Yuu had deliberately taken some with him when helping out there. Now it was finally proving useful.
The tall man didn't know the details, but he knew his situation was getting worse by the second.
With a desperate roar, he lunged forward, forcing his way through the injuries and smashing apart every "Mikami Yuu" directly in front of him. Then he threw all the kunai and shuriken in his pouch in every direction and rapidly formed hand seals:
"Earth Style: Earth-Style Wall!!"
The ground shook, and a ring of earthen walls rose like bamboo shoots, sealing him inside and cutting him off from every "Mikami Yuu." Several illusion clones passed straight through and burst into smoke.
Just as the tall man prepared to follow with Earth Style: Earth Spear Rampart and wipe out every clone and the real body in one shot—
a wave of heat suddenly appeared.
Fwoosh—!!!
Then came the scorching blast!
The tall man jerked his head upward, and a horrifying sight was reflected in his eyes:
At some point, Mikami Yuu had leapt into the air. He opened his mouth, and a nearly ten-meter-wide mass of white-hot fire—like a miniature sun—came crashing down over him! The terrifying heat made the air crack and snap, and the surrounding grass and trees shriveled black in an instant!
The defensive ring made by his Earth-Style Wall had become a coffin—one he had sealed himself inside!
"Great Fireball: Burn to Ash!!"