Naruto: We Agreed on a Simulation, But They Actually Came to Life? Chapter 9 9: Great Fireball

The missing-nin took a step forward.

Tsunade didn't retreat. Her knees were shaking, but her feet remained nailed to the spot.

A whirlwind of thoughts flashed through her mind—she wasn't proficient with the Substitution Technique, the Clone Technique was useless here, and she didn't even have a single kunai in her hand.

Everything they had taught in the classroom was completely useless in this mont.

Her palms were slick with sweat, and her mind was a chaotic ss.

Her grandfather's face flickered by, followed by the voice of her second grandfather, and then everything shattered.

The final image that remained was the face of the boy who had looked at her from across the desk.

'Kaede—'

The mont the thought surfaced, she bit her lip.

*Stop it. Thinking about it is useless.*

He was at the summit; it would take fifteen minutes to run from here to the peak.

Besides, even if he ca, what would change?

It would just be one more person delivering themselves to death.

But her mind refused to listen.

It didn't care about "uselessness." It simply thought of that person over and over again, like a drowning person clutching at a piece of driftwood, irrational and desperate.

Tsunade violently suppressed the thought.

She was Tsunade.

Her grandfather had founded the Hidden Leaf, and her second grandfather was the Hokage.

Refusing to show cowardice, she raised her hands to her chest.

The missing-nin made no wasted movents.

His short blade slid from its sheath—a blade barely a foot long—and swept toward her in a horizontal arc.

Tsunade threw her arm up in front of her face.

She didn't know what this would actually block, but it was the only move she knew how to make.

The blade never landed.

A sphere of fire slamd in from the side, trailing a wave of searing heat as it roared straight toward the missing-nin's face.

The man's reactions were faster than his thoughts. At the last possible second, he jerked the blade's trajectory and leaped three steps to the right.

The fireball grazed the edge of his clothes and slamd into the ground, leaving a scorched, blackened crater.

Tsunade's arm was still raised in front of her face.

Above her, the sound of a snapping branch echoed.

Soone dropped from the canopy, landing two ters in front of her with his back turned.

Kitahara Kaede did not look back.

From start to finish, his gaze remained locked on the man opposite them.

Tsunade stared at that familiar silhouette.

It felt as if a stone were lodged in her throat; all the words she wanted to say were stuck, unable to be pushed out.

Just monts ago, she had been desperately telling herself not to think of him.

Now, he was standing right in front of her.

Kitahara Kaede was making a rapid assessnt.

The Great Fireball had missed, but the enemy's dodge hadn't been clean enough—his reaction speed was below Chunin level.

However, the way he had created distance was seasoned; his footing was steady, and he hadn't panicked.

A Genin who had seen the battlefield. Plenty of actual combat experience.

He didn't have more ti for analysis.

The chakra reserves of a seven-year-old body were limited. That single Great Fireball had consud half of his pool, leaving him with only one more chance.

Taijutsu to engage, Fire Style to finish. He had no second plan.

The missing-nin was also sizing him up.

The heat from the fireball still lingered in the air.

A seven-year-old child using a C-rank jutsu with such precision.

This was not a capability a Ninja Academy student should possess.

The missing-nin's brow furrowed slightly as he lowered his short blade.

His original plan had been to casually dispose of these two nuisances and move on.

Stumbling upon a Ninja Academy exercise had been an accident. He needed to pass through the back mountain to enter the dense forests to the east and leave the Land of Fire's territory.

Two children blocking the path were simply obstacles to be cleared.

But now, there was a variable.

He stopped hesitating.

Body Flicker Technique.

To the eyes of a seven-year-old, an adult shinobi's Body Flicker looked like vanishing into thin air—one second he was three ters away, the next he was right in front of him.

Kaede's body reacted before his conscious mind could.

He twisted his right shoulder back and dropped his center of gravity.

The missing-nin's straight kick grazed his left ribs. The mont the top of the foot brushed against the bone, a burst of pain exploded through his side.

Kaede let out a muffled groan and used the montum of the kick to slide back two steps.

*He stayed on his feet?*

The missing-nin retracted his leg, montarily stunned.

Jiraiya, still leaning against the tree, felt half his body numb and his stomach churning.

Seeing the missing-nin close in on Kaede, his heart leaped—then he saw the boy stabilize himself.

It looked like that kick had the sa power as the one that hit him.

When Jiraiya had been hit, he had been sent flying directly into a tree.

Kaede had taken the sa force, slid back two steps, and remained standing.

Seven years old. Both of them seven years old.

Jiraiya grit his teeth, tasting a complex emotion he couldn't quite na.

The battle didn't pause.

The missing-nin stopped testing him and swung the short blade in a horizontal slash.

Kaede didn't retreat; instead, he stepped forward to et the attack.

Tsunade's heart skipped a beat.

Before the blade could reach him, Kaede dove inside the missing-nin's reach, slipping past the arm.

The effective killing range of a short blade is when the arm is fully extended; if the opponent is too close, the weapon cannot be swung effectively.

Once inside, Kaede's right hand clamped down on the wrist holding the blade.

The missing-nin instinctively tried to shake him off.

He couldn't.

The five fingers of a seven-year-old were locked around his wrist joint, chakra flooding into the fingertips, anchoring them like a vice.

The missing-nin's expression changed.

He twisted his wrist and flipped his elbow to counter, while simultaneously swinging his left hand to smash into the side of Kaede's head.

Kaede tilted his head to dodge, but the force of the wrist-twist made him stumble.

The missing-nin drove a knee upward.

It slamd into Kaede's flank, causing his vision to blur with pain, but his grip never loosened.

The two were entangled, less than half a ter apart.

The missing-nin began to truly panic.

He had underestimated this child.

Not in terms of strength—no matter how strong a seven-year-old body was, there were limits.

He had underestimated the boy's will.

The child had taken two hits and still wouldn't let go, clutching his wrist as if it were a lifeline.

In that exact instant, Kaede gave a sudden, violent pull.

The missing-nin's body was yanked forward, his center of gravity shifting ahead—

And then, the boy let go.

The missing-nin instinctively tried to recoil, but in that gap, he saw the hand signs.

Too close.

There was no ti to dodge.

Kaede opened his mouth.

The missing-nin saw light within the boy's mouth.

The mont chakra completes its nature transformation in the throat and is about to surge forth, it produces a visible, high-temperature glow.

Zero distance.

Great Fireball.

A pillar of searing fla slamd directly into the missing-nin's chest and face.

The man let out a scream—but the sound lasted less than a second before it was cut short.

High-temperature gas flooded his airway, causing his vocal cords to spasm.

He struggled desperately, rolling back four or five ters, tumbling twice before coming to a stop.

The front of his short tunic was burned away in a large hole; his chest and half of his face suffered massive burns.

Charred black and raw red overlapped, the flesh beneath the skin peeling away, with faint wisps of smoke still rising from the edges.

The missing-nin lay flat on the ground, fingers clawing at the dirt, trying to push himself up.

He couldn't.

Soone with burned airways makes a distinct sound when breathing—a wheezing, hissing noise, like wind forcing its way through a crack.

The missing-nin lay there, mouth open, making that sound. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped face-down into the mud.

Now, the only sounds in the forest were the wind rustling through the leaves and the heavy breathing of three children.

Kaede bent over, hands resting on his knees.

His chakra had hit rock bottom; he couldn't squeeze another drop of energy from his cells.

He felt dizzy, his ears were ringing, and the area around his left ribs was numb with pain, making every breath a struggle.

He turned around first.

Tsunade was standing five ters away, motionless.

"Are you hurt?"

His voice was slightly raspy.

Tsunade's lips moved a few tis, but no sound ca out.

She shook her head.

Kaede nodded and turned to the other side.

Jiraiya was still leaning against the tree trunk, his face pale, but his eyes wide with awe.

"What about you?"

Jiraiya stared at him for two seconds, his mouth opening and closing as if a mountain of words were crowded in his throat. In the end, only one sentence leaked out.

"...That was pretty cool."

The voice was muffled, squeezed out through gritted teeth.

After a brief pause, he spat, "Damn it."

Kitahara Kaede walked over and extended a hand.

Jiraiya looked down at the hand, hesitating for a mont. When he was finally pulled up, his legs were still shaking; he had to lean against a tree just to steady himself.

He didn't speak again.

His gaze drifted over Kitahara Kaede's shoulder to the Missing-nin lying prone on the ground, then shifted back. He stared at the hand Kitahara Kaede had pressed against his ribs for a long while before finally looking away.

Tsunade approached, her pace steady. When she reached him, she first looked down at where he was holding himself.

Nothing was visible through the fabric of his clothes, but there was a slight bulge over the ribcage, and he hadn't moved his hand.

"Let see," she commanded, reaching out to lift the hem of his shirt.

Kitahara Kaede took a half-step back. "It's just a surface wound."

"I said, let see."

This ti, he didn't dodge.

Tsunade lifted the hem. A large, purple bruise covered his left ribs, the color already darkening and spreading outward. Her fingers pressed against the skin, barely touching it.

Kitahara Kaede caught his breath.

"Nothing's broken," Tsunade said. "It's a contusion. Go to the hospital and get it treated once we're back."

She lowered the hem of his shirt.

The two of them were standing very close. Tsunade looked up at him, her lips parting as if she were about to say sothing—but she swallowed the words back.

Nearby, there was a sudden movent in the trees.