[ Author note :
Cloak of invisibility - Uses a cloth or camouflage sheet to blend into walls or surroundings, hiding the user from plain sight. No chakra required, taught in the academy for stealth fundamentals.
]
-------
They still hadn't spotted Kazeo. The darkness in the alley and the dumpster he was crouched behind offered just enough cover. But his heart was pounding like a drum.
Opposite to him, The attacker wasn't relying on sight alone. He was known in the Root division as Mantis, a Genin-level operative with a specialty in sensory-type techniques. A quiet predator trained for silent execution and clean get-aways. As he advanced, he activated a chakra field stretching out ten meters in all directions, a standard scan. Oddly, it returned nothing.
That was exactly the problem. A can had been kicked and sound didn't lie. Something had made it move. But the field sensed no animals or people. Not even a rat scurried nearby. That kind of emptiness in an area that should have life? That was suspicious. That was exactly why he was on alert.
Behind the dumpster, Kazeo's chest was tightening. He didn't know who the man was. His mind spun in panic. He'd just seen his grandmother bleeding out, her eyes dimming with every breath. And now— her killer was coming toward him.
'Am I going to die too? Just like this? Without even seeing their faces? Without even knowing why she was killed? Without avenging her...?'
His fists clenched tightly, nails digging into his palms. A fire lit behind his eyes—not just fear. Rage and Desperation were also there now.
'No… no, I won't die. Not here. Not yet. And if I do… I'll take at least one of them down with me.'
The panic in his chest didn't vanish, but something colder replaced it—resolve. All this happened in mere seconds.
He quickly tilted his head, scanning his surroundings, and spotted a narrow alley just two steps behind him. Crouching even lower to keep his body hidden behind the dumpster's bulky frame, he moved silently toward the side passage.
But as soon as he entered, his heart sank.
A dead end.
'Shit… now what?' he cursed inwardly, adrenaline coursing through his veins. 'Should I run? But I still haven't seen their faces… how would I even find them later?'
The pressure grew. He could feel the man getting closer. Kazeo's breath caught, with no time to think, he bit his lip and made a snap decision.
He reached into his storage scroll with shaking fingers, pulling out a cloth and a single kunai. His breathing slowed as he pressed his back against the wall, using the cloth to perform Cloak of invisibility technique— one rarely used in real combat but enough to fool eyes. He slipped the kunai behind his waistband, hidden beneath his T-shirt, and pressed his body into the wall.
On the other side, Mantis was just one step from the dumpster. His senses were sharp, trained but something was… off. As he moved forward, a subtle ripple of chakra brushed his awareness, someone had used a storage scroll nearby.
His eyes narrowed. Without hesitation, Mantis picked up his pace and turned into the narrow alley Kazeo had just entered.
It was.... empty.
There was no one. His brows furrowed. No footsteps, no scent, no visual trace. He didn't relax. Instead, he raised his blade and began probing the wall. A light jab. Then another. Moving left, then right. He poked four different spots, but found nothing.
Still…
He knew someone had been here.
From back at the alley near Kaori's body, the leader's cold voice called out."Mantis, Did you find anything? If not, let's go back."
Mantis replied without turning, his eyes still scanning the shadows."Nothing here. Coming."
But his eyes lingered a second longer. Whoever had been there was either gone or still hiding, dangerously close.
The faint sound of metal scraping against concrete crept closer.
Kazeo tensed.
His breath slowed as he carefully joined the two ends of the cloth, clutching them tightly in one hand. With the other, he reached into the pocket of his black pants, fingers brushing against the thin chakra wires he had hidden there. The moment he heard the soft whisper of a blade just inches away, he acted.
Chakra surged through the wire.
And at that very instant, behind the mask Mantis's lips curved into a sharp smirk. He'd sensed it, finally. A flicker of chakra, faint but enough to give away the rat hiding in the shadows. Without hesitation, Mantis pivoted his blade already poised to strike the exact spot where the chakra had flared.
But Kazeo wasn't idle either.
He released the cloth and let it drop, snatching his kunai in the same breath. Chakra surged again, this time into the blade. His grip tightened, heart pounding.
Then metal flashed. A chakra-coated sword came slashing toward him.
Reflexes kicked in. Kazeo raised his kunai just in time. The blades collided with a muffled clang, the chakra coating dulling the sharp ring of steel against steel. That split-second was all Kazeo needed.
With practiced precision, the chakra wire in his hand sprang to life, twisting like a snake and shooting toward his attacker. It coiled fast, instinctively wrapping around the enemy before he could react.
Even Mantis, a rising prodigy within Root, feared for his silent kills and sharp instincts was momentarily stunned.
A kid?
The moment the cloth fell, he'd glimpsed a boy barely seven, at least five or six years younger than him yet the brat had blocked his sword, countered with chakra control and now—
His limbs locked up. The wire had bound him. Before he could cut through or burn it off, something shifted.
The chakra in the wire stopped flowing steadily. Instead, it pulsed. The wire vibrated.
And in the next breath, pain bloomed across his body. The last thing Mantis registered was the thin, humming wire wrapped around him, vibrating like a live current—before everything went black.
-------
The wire hummed softly—almost innocently. Then came a voice, muffled behind the mask, sharp with confusion and pain.
"What the—Ahhhhhh!"
In the next heartbeat, the humming escalated into something far deadlier. The chakra wire hissed as it sliced through flesh and bone—from chest to waist, in one gruesome stroke.
A sickening wet sound followed as the masked figure's body split into pieces—more than ten, each one falling apart just a moment after the next. Blood spattered across the narrow alley walls and pooled around the broken pieces of what used to be a man.
Kazeo froze, eyes wide.
'What the hell just happened? Did I just killed him?'
He hadn't meant for that. He didn't even remember deciding to send the chakra pulses, it was just instinct and desperation. But the result… It was absolutely brutal.
And he knew what would follow. Other two were coming. His body jolted into motion.
To be continued....
[ A/N : The total time passed from the can tumbling sound and Kazeo running is 12 seconds. ]