Seimei looked back at Reina and saw her spacing out as she watched his precise killing operation. He waved his hand at her and said, "Hey, Reina. Stop spacing out and do your part of the chore."
Reina looked at him blankly before jumping down the tree and landing beside him.
She observed the battlefield and asked, "Do my part of the chore? Did you even leave anything for me to do?"
Seimei was about to reply when his Tenseigan detected the AA-rank Mutated Rending Earth Bear channeling steel release chakra to the ground, causing several spinning steel spikes, each at least half a meter in length, to emerge.
Reina, whose activated Sharigan and the partial Uzumaki bloodline granted her greater chakra and visual perception than most sensor ninjas, also noticed a sudden movement of chakra around the AA-rank beast.
Seimei and Reina looked at the Mutated Rending Earth Bear, gave each other a sideways glance, and instantly activated the Body Flicker Technique to move left and right, respectively, to get out of the trajectory of the incoming attack.
Sure enough, not even a fifth of a second had passed since their figures moved, and the spinning steel spikes shot toward their previous position like a barrage of oversized bullets.
However, since they had already moved out of the attack's way, the spinning steel spikes ended up hitting a tree.
Bang! Bang! Crack! Bang! Crack!
The stem of the thick tree, which was at least two meters in diameter, was obliterated and cracked, causing the sixteen-meter-tall tree to tilt and fall with a loud boom, kicking up dust and debris around it.
BOOM!
Reina shouted, "Damn you, Seimei. Since you took action on your own, at least finish them off properly."
Seimei shouted back, "What are you talking about? I kept the AA-rank and A-rank Rending Earth Bears for you. Didn't you want to have fun? I cleared most of the canon fodder, so you can focus on the main event without distraction."
As Seimei said that, he channeled earth-natured chakra to the ground.
Earth Release: Shackles of Gaia
Several enormous linked chains made of hardened earth with pointed, spearhead-like sharp tips erupted from the ground around the A-rank and the AA-rank Rending Earth Bears, completely shackling them, making it difficult for them to move.
"Roar??"
"Roar!!!!"
"Release…Us…Puny…Humans!"
"How…Dare…You…Attack…My…Horde?"
"…I..***...I…Will…Kill…You…And…Shred…Your…Body…Into…Thousand…Pieces…!"
They clamoured violently. Unfortunately, Seimei kept pouring chakra into the chains, making it almost impossible for the two chakra beasts to free themselves with physical strength alone.
Additionally, he had bound their limbs tightly, making it hard for them to move or use innate skills like Rending Earth Claw to damage and sever the earthen shackles.
Still, the AA-ranked one should have lightning affinity, right? So, why isn't it using it to break the chains? Earth is weak against lightning. It's common sense. Though with me overflowing my Jutsu with chakra and my mastery over Earth affinity, this bear can forget about breaking free.
Seimei's thoughts churned. He focused on studying the beast's internal chakra flow and the intermingled chakra attributes flowing through its chakra pathways using his Tenseigan.
After studying a bit, he finally had an epiphany.
I can see its control over lightning affinity has weakened after evolution. It's quite ironic. Steel affinity it had mastered after its evolution and mutation came from the fusion of Earth and Lightning-natured chakra. But the steel affinity itself is weak against lightning Ninjutsu.
As Seimei was thinking about it, he moved toward Reina, grinned, and said, "Look, I have captured them for you. Just give me the signal, and I will release them, so you can have a satisfying battle with these two big bears."
Reina rolled her eyes and retorted, "Satisfying battle, my foot. If it were an S-rank Shinobi or an old AA-rank chakra beast that had mastered its combat skills, I might have been tempted."
Then she looked at the shackled Rending Earth Bears with disdain. "But these pieces of trash?"
Reina shook her head and added, "Never mind. Let's just finish them and collect their bodies. Then, we can unwind a bit in Hachijima town today."
Seimei nodded in agreement, "Indeed. Although the leader of the group had evolved into an AA-ranked Rending Earth Bear, achieved a mutated affinity, and even gained spiritual intelligence to talk in the human tongue, without enough time to develop its new evolved skills, its strength is still significantly weaker than the usual AA-ranked beasts."
Reina unsheathed her ninja sword and remarked, "Right. So, keep them shackled. I will finish them off real quick."
With that, Reina walked toward the shackled Rending Earth Bears.
The two chakra beasts, seeing Reina approaching them with a sharp sword, instantly understood her intentions.
As a result, they tried to break free from the chained shackles with even greater force and urgency.
Unfortunately for them, Seimei's earthen chains proved to be more solid and durable than reinforced steel, leaving them completely helpless.
So, Reina didn't need to do anything flashy or complex to kill them.
Reina walked to the A-rank Rending Earth Bear first.
The beast growled at her.
But Reina didn't even flinch.
She began to channel so much fire-release chakra into her sword that the blade turned red with heat. Tongues of blue flames danced on the body of the blade and its edge, causing the air around Reina to distort.
She just made one horizontal swing.
Whoosh!
And the edge of her blade sliced through the thick fur, tough skin, dense muscles, and rock-hard bones of the bear like a hot knife cutting a block of butter.
The bear's head was decapitated in one smooth motion. And the heat of the blade also singed the open wound, preventing the blood from flowing like water from the fountain.
Thud!
The corpse and the head of the heavy chakra beast fell on the ground with a loud thud.
But she didn't look at the fallen beast and had already shifted her focus to her last prey, the Mutated Rending Earth Bear.
"Roar…"
Seeing Reina approach, the oversized bear snarled at her.
Its figure radiated ferocity, but its eyes held fear.
It couldn't be helped.
It was powerless due to the strange shackles of the white-haired human. Its limbs were shackled. It couldn't resist or exert power at all.
And due to the recent evolution, its power hadn't yet consolidated properly, leaving it unable to access many of its lightning-natured innate skills.
Even when the earthen chains suffered from cracks due to the beast's intense resistance, biting attacks, and sharp steel protrusions it released from time to time, that white-haired human's chakra instantly repaired the cracks on the shackles and strengthened them.
Plus, the human girl's merciless strike that decapitated its partner.
Easily. Mercilessly.
So, it could only snarl and growl to exhibit its ferocity, resistance, and unwillingness.
Of course, neither Seimei nor Reina cared about the chakra beast's feelings.
Reina wasted no time.
She stabbed the beast's left eye with her sword, pushed the blade deep into its brain, and channeled a large amount of fire-natured chakra, completely frying the bear's brain.
And just like that, the life of the AA-rank Mutated Rending Earth Bear, who should have ruled its territory, ended anticlimactically.
At the same time, Seimei deployed a shadow clone to kill the remaining few D-rank and C-rank Rending Earth Beats.
Seimei told Reina, "Stuff the B-rank and higher Bears' bodies into the storage seal scrolls. I will go ahead and burn the corpses of the rest of the bears."
Reina nodded. "No problem."
After a couple of minutes, Seimei gathered all the corpses of all C-rank and D-rank Rending Earth Bears in one place, breathed a stream of white flames, incinerating them to ashes.
Once it was over, the Aburame clan ninja and their supervising instructor for the test suddenly appeared.
He looked around, scribbled something in the notebook in his hand, and then put it away.
He was about to say something when he saw Seimei's head snap to his right all of a sudden, and his expression tightened.
Seimei frowned and warned, "Be alert. Someone with a massive chakra reserve and quality, probably an S-rank ninja, is approaching us rapidly."
Reina's brows were knitted tightly as well. She asked, "Who?"
Seimei could only smile wryly and shake his head. "No idea. But he doesn't look friendly."
At the same time, he thought, Reina, oh Reina, you really jinxed it. Now, a random S-rank ninja with chakra quality so refined that even we can't take it lightly is approaching us. Just a moment ago, he concealed his chakra so well that even I didn't pay attention to him when he entered my Tenseigan's visual range. He seems at least three times stronger than the Kaguya clan's S-rank Shinobi I fought last time.
Reina's expression turned solemn. "Why is a potentially hostile S-rank ninja appearing so deep inside the Land of Fire all of a sudden?"
How am I supposed to know? Seimei complained inwardly.
Their supervising instructor adjusted his sunglasses with his index finger and said, "I have already sent a signal and requested backup from the nearby Konoha forces."
"For now, we can only try to hold on."
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