24 Chapter 24

'Is it teleportation? Even if I ask her now, she would definitely not answer. I guess I can only wait till we get to the training site.'

Just as planned, she proceeded to block that entrance. It was loud. Unnecessarily so. 'sigh. This woman truly is tiring.'. She grabbed me once more and appeared before another entrance. Guarding the entrance were two bandits. Before they could register what was happening, I appeared before one and drove the tanto into his heart before pulling it out quickly. My next movement saw me behind the other guard who was still shocked by the sudden events and slit his throat.

It seemed to get easier, but I still felt slightly nauseas. I wiped the blood off the tanto and looked back only to discover she was not there. I shook my head and walked in; we had already made the plans after all. The moment I walked in a wall rose up and blocked the entrance.

"Whatever, I don't even care anymore."

Walking through the cave, I kept reaping lives like they were nothing. They were civilian bandits after all, without any chakra training. In a weird way, I was rather looking forward to battle someone stronger. After seeing me kill so many of their comrades, they tried to flee but there was no way I would let them. It did not matter if they run or surrendered.

Not long after, an ugly burly looking man appeared before me. He held a large iron club as he looked at me as if I was already dead. "Oh, I heard there was an intruder, but to think a little girl like you would deliver herself to us just like that. How nice of you."

'He must be one of the two barely genin level she talked about.' I thought before replying, "To tell you the truth I am actually thirty years old you know."

"Huh, wha--?" Before he could finish, I quickly appeared behind him and slashed at his right Achilles tendon completely severing it. The severed leg no longer unable to hold his burly figure forced him to fall screaming in pain, but before he could completely fall, I was already beside his head as I slashed upwards, completely severing his head before his headless corpse fell to the ground in a loud thud.

Thankfully it worked out right and he fell forward instead. I hated that she was right. No, I will definitely make excuses. It was my first fight for my life. Even if I knew I had it in my repertoire of skills, the tension did not allow me to think about using it.

'What battle instincts Negative two?' I really hated to admit it but she was right. Fine. How many GOW and MK and SF have I played? Including all the battle animes and mangas I have read and watched. Since I can think clearly now, then I will use it all to my advantage.

I began walking away before stopping. 'How can I forget.'. I went back and began to search his body for loot, but I only found a few Ryo.

I continued on, appearing and reappearing here and there, reaping bandit lives. Of course, I was tweaking the body flicker to suit me each time I moved. No matter how much they begged for their lives or surrendered I did not stop. I just kept cutting and slicing. Maybe they should have read the brochure; Death was an occupational hazard as a bandit.

After a while I had reached a large space. In there were quite a few bandits in there with their weapons pointed at me. In the far back of the room, there a man lay on the ground drenched in sweat. His legs and arms bent in odd angles.

Looking back to the group with their weapons aimed at me made me sigh tiredly.

"Let me guess, you get to leave if you can beat me?" I asked the men and women with reddened eyes wishing to cut me to pieces. Answering my question, one person at the front screamed out a high-pitched battle cry and charged towards me as if he had nothing left to lose.

He got to me and swung down his blade hard, intending to split me in half. I side stepped and slashed my tanto, slitting his neck clean as he fell on his knees, trying to stop the bleeding with both hands. There was no form, no style. All I had to do was make sure my blade could reach you, and swing. To me for now, that was all there was to it.

I saw most of the bandits' bodies shiver at the sight of their comrade's expiry. The look of fear on their faces reminded me of a philosopher's quote; 'All men are mortal'. A logical entity yet a statement, a judgement, an affirmation. I had read it but I did not truly understand it till now, staring at them. It made me chuckle out loud.

"All men are mortal, huh?" Right in that very moment, so many things were reaffirmed for me. I smiled and only felt one thing. "KILL!!". I dashed into the bandits like a wolf thrown into a flock of defenseless sheep. With every swing of the blade, either a neck opened up or a head flew off. For some reason, none of them were able to move and it was just a beautiful, mad and senseless slaughter. There was no change in my expression though.

I was done with all except one. He had been standing a distance behind the earlier group. He held his katana shivering uncontrollably with tears flowing down his face. I purposely walked towards him slowly, my face and attire covered in blood. My slow walk probably made me look badass. Well, I felt badass.

I finally got to him and stood in front of his blade. Maybe I was waiting for him to at least make one move or say something. Nothing. He just stood there and continued to shiver uncontrollably. I shook my head and walk past his katana and drove my tanto into his heart. His body fell backwards but not before I appeared beside him with body flicker and severed his head.

Why do you think I kept going for throat slash and complete decapitation? The near death earlier had woken me up. Plus, I had read too many novels and series to make sure to properly finish the job. I have no interests in any kind of 'return for revenge' type nonsense. Thankfully there were no children among the bandits.

From the shadows, Mebuki walked out the moment my victim's head fell to the ground. She looked at me and looked around, "Not bad. You actually used your head this time. Not bad at all."

"So how many points for this?" I asked in anticipation, hoping I could reduce the negative ten I owed.

"Huh? What are you talking about? You only get graded when it becomes a challenge. It may have been with the genin rank you just killed but he practically begged you to kill him. Please, what you just did was barely a warm up." She spoke all in one breath and was already standing before the person that was on the ground.

I was tongue tied. I was definitely being bullied. I decided to ignore it for now and ask her what I had been wondering all the while.

---

Current reached = 426

Chapters owed = 5

From next week, new stone targets. Happy we could cross the old target and more.

200 stones = 2 chapter

400 stones = 3 chapters

600 stones = 5 chapters.

Current reached = 426

Chapters owed = 5