บท 71: Explosive Tag

As the mysterious ninja realized he had been tricked by Ryo, he looked in the direction where the young ninja was flickering and opened his eyes in shock. 'No! He's heading towards the Hokage!' Indeed, Ryo was flickering across the rooftops of Konoha, heading straight for Hiruzen's residence.

On the other side, Ryo had a tense smile on his face as he thought about the whole situation. 'There's no way old Hiruzen won't notice everything. If he talks so much about the Will of Fire, then he better protect it!' With that thought in mind, he made another shadow clone jump.

His chakra was dangerously low due to the day's training with Tora, but it wasn't something that overly concerned him; he could recover a portion of his chakra if needed. However, he didn't know if the ninja following him had sensory abilities. Using his chakra recovery technique right away could reveal one of his secret cards.

Yet, Ryo's choice had been well-considered. What kind of ninja would want to face the Hokage of Konoha? There were very few Ryo could think of, and clearly, if this ninja was one, he would have been long dead.

Ryo was tense; this whole situation was making him anxious. Would the mysterious ninja follow him, or would he let Ryo go? Nevertheless, the young ninja continued flickering across buildings without looking back. His mind ached from sending out tracking waves constantly. Ryo had reduced the range to 500 meters, but even so, he still sent out the 7 waves. This inundated his mind with a massive amount of information, filtering only what mattered: the location of the ninja.

'Damn, I can't tell if he's going to come!' He could no longer sense the location of his clone, as it was beyond the 500-meter range, but that didn't worry him since the clone had flickered in the direction of the ninja just a few seconds ago. Ryo hoped to buy some more time with this.

However, he was wrong. Seconds after the clone vanished from Ryo's range, he received the clone's memory, nearly causing Ryo to fall mid-leap. The memory of the clone was shocking.

A few seconds earlier;

'I have to buy some time for the main body to escape!' The clone thought, appearing in front of the mysterious ninja. Ryo had a slight smile on his face. "You've lost. You won't get what you want. Give up." But the masked ninja said nothing, and with a subtle movement, he pulled out a small scroll. With extreme speed, the scroll unfolded around the ninja, and immediately, a large number of stone shots were fired at the clone.

The clone managed to create a stone wall but didn't have time; the speed of the scroll's release was insanely high. Then, the clone was destroyed.

Ryo didn't have much to do; apparently, the ninja would pursue him regardless of his actions. But, unlucky for the ninja, Ryo was soon leaving the isolation perimeter around his house. He could feel the presence of ninjas patrolling the city again, not far from Hiruzen's residence.

'Damn, this has turned into a game of tag with death. Who sent this after me? Could it be Orochimaru who somehow found out about me?! No, no, I think it's too early for him to be active around Konoha, and I haven't even met Kabuto yet!'

He was someone Ryo was supposed to encounter during the Chunin exams, and Ryo was sure of it. But first, he had to survive the night. But then, he felt movements behind him. Three kunais flew towards him, which he narrowly dodged, but that wasn't all.

As he saw the kunais embedding in the wall ahead and to the side, Ryo's eyes widened as he noticed the paper bombs attached to each of them. "Shit!" He managed to say just before the area he was in exploded!

Ryo was thrown by the explosion away diagonally from the direction he wanted to go, landing on another rooftop. Fortunately, he was still intact but now injured. His shirt had been burned off, and his pants had turned into shorts due to the fire. He had minor burns on his body, all of which were very painful.

But nothing vital had been hit, considering that at the last moment, he sent the three coins spreading across his body, especially at vital points for protection, acting like a bulletproof vest, or in this case... against explosions. He was still hit by debris and rubble flying from the explosions.

Ryo was now lying on the roof floor, his body emitting smoke, his last defensive attempt having consumed most of the remaining chakra. With no choice left, he had to recover 40% of his chakra with the reserve chakra in the golden coin.

Slowly he stood up, his body screaming in pain, and he felt he had some broken ribs. His forehead was bleeding from a cut, and he coughed a few times, standing up. He could feel the ninja approaching him at high speed, but also the patrol ninjas were coming into action due to the explosion. It had been a risky move by the mysterious ninja to do this.

But analyzing what had happened, if Ryo hadn't had the golden coins for defense, he would have been knocked out at the least. The kunais were thrown with precise speed so that Ryo could only narrowly dodge them, and then they would explode. As if the ninja already knew his combat information.

Ryo cursed every report that existed about him at that moment. Information about ninjas like this falling into the wrong hands could lead to situations like this. Fortunately, whoever was pursuing him didn't know about the coins, and with that, Ryo had bought some time to try to get out of this situation completely.

[ Author here

Thank you for reading this far. I know there are many who faithfully follow it every day. And I'm happy with that, but I'm going to take a break for a few days. I released the chapters I had accumulated on Patreon. Since I'm pausing Patreon for now.

The break will be due to reformulating some concepts and improving the pace of the story and a few more small details.

As soon as I return, I will let you know, so anyone who is following the story can continue.

When I come back I will release some chapters all together.

Thanks again! ]