Just as Nonou Yakushi was about to close her eyes—desperate to shut out the sight of her own demise and the skin-crawling sensation of thousands of insects swarming her—a violent gale swept through the clearing.
With the buff from his Windrun skill, Hatani blurred into motion, intercepting Koubachi just as the bees were about to fully entomb the girl.
At his command, countless miniature, whirling wind blades spun around him, relentlessly harvesting the bees that dared to get close.
"You..."
Nonou stared at him, her eyes swirling with a complex mess of emotions. She hadn't expected the first person to come to her rescue would be Hatani—the guy who had been nothing but prickly, judgmental, and downright hostile toward her since they met.
Surprise, gratitude, and a surge of relief washed over her, followed quickly by a stinging sense of guilt.
Raised in an orphanage, Nonou had been scouted by Root for her innate talent for intel and reconnaissance. They had absorbed her, molded her, and turned her into a spy. But she wasn't like most Root members; she wasn't fanatically loyal to Danzo. Deep down, her greatest wish was to be like the Matron of her orphanage—someone gentle and kind, a sister of mercy who could provide warmth to orphans just as she had once been warmed.
At this stage, she wasn't yet the legendary "Walking Maiden" who would later infiltrate nations under the guise of a wandering nun. She was still a rookie on her first real mission, and her heart hadn't yet been replaced by cold stone.
Seeing Hatani risk everything to save her despite his "sharp tongue" made her realize she had completely misjudged him. She felt a profound sense of shame for her earlier suspicions.
However, if Nonou could see what was actually going on inside the "heroic" Hatani's head right now, that guilt would have vanished faster than a Body Flicker.
What is the most beautiful sound in the world?
Ask a thousand people, and you'll get a thousand different answers. The answer might even change for the same person depending on the day.
But for Hatani, ever since he had transmigrated into this world and bound his System, the answer had been set in stone.
Ding!
That was the sound of a gold reward. Although it only echoed in his mind and he had the settings to mute it if it got annoying, why on earth would he ever silence such a heavenly melody?
Hatani's only regret was that, usually, the sound was a solitary note—not enough to form a proper song. Or rather, in all his time here, he had only ever heard a brief "musical sample" made of those beautiful notes: when he had slaughtered the poisonous insects bred by Shikuro Aburame.
Back then, nearly a hundred notes had converged into a sweet, rhythmic jingle.
Since that day, he had been craving a encore. He wanted more than a sample; he wanted a full-blown sonata.
Today, he finally got his wish.
While fighting Kagebachi, his modified Focus Fire had let him hear that same jingle again. The quality of the individual bugs was lower, but the sheer quantity made up for it.
He had been just about to finish the "movement" by claiming Kagebachi's 300-gold bounty when Sakumo—a man with zero musical appreciation—had swooped in and stolen his kill.
Fuming with indignation, Hatani had scanned the battlefield for a new "composition." The moment he saw Koubachi summon a swarm to entomb Nonou, his eyes lit up.
He hadn't found a teammate in distress; he had found a gold mine. A symphony was waiting to be conducted.
From the start, Hatani hadn't even registered Nonou's presence. His eyes were fixed solely on the bees, each of which had already been converted into a shiny, glinting gold coin in his mind.
If Hatani were in a video game right now, his head would be obscured by a constant stream of floating numbers: "+1, +1, +1..."
Mathematically, it would take over three hundred of these bugs to equal the bounty Sakumo had stolen from him. But there was something about the sheer frequency of those "+1" pings that provided a much stronger hit of dopamine than a single "+300" ever could.
It was the same psychological trap that kept people scrolling through short-form videos or grinding low-level mobs in an RPG. It was cheap, high-frequency dopamine, and Hatani was currently an addict.
But war is a zero-sum game. Where there is a satisfied winner, there is an infuriated loser.
While Hatani was happily "farming," Koubachi was so angry her head felt like it was going to explode.
Anyone would feel their blood pressure spike watching their life's work—thousands of precious, specially-bred bees—being mowed down like common weeds. The fact that her goal was so close, yet being stripped away by this brat's casual destruction, turned her rage into something primal.
However, even with her chest burning with fury, Koubachi didn't lose her head.
She didn't know where this Konoha kid had come from or how he maintained that constant shroud of wind, but she recognized a hard counter when she saw one. His "Wind Style Nintaijutsu" was the ultimate predator for her insect-based secret arts.
She stopped throwing her bees away. Controlling the remaining swarm, she pulled them back, keeping them away from the reach of Hatani's wind.
"Earth Style: Rock Fist!"
She focused her Earth Style chakra into her fist once more. If her bugs couldn't get the job done, she would use brute force to smash through his tricks. The dense layer of rock and chakra around her arm would protect her from the abrasive wind.
"Watch out!"
Nonou, having finally scrambled out of the pit while Hatani was occupied with the swarm, saw the basketball-sized, brownish-yellow fist hurtling toward him. She cried out in an instinctive panic.
Hatani, who was currently immersed in the "Greatest Symphony on Earth," found his concentration shattered by the high-pitched scream. He knit his brows in annoyance.
Root people are the worst. I'm busy saving your life and all you can do is make noise and ruin my music.
"Wind Wall!"
Faced with a literal boulder-sized punch, Hatani didn't dare get cocky. He waved his hand, summoning a massive amount of wind to form a vertical barrier. He even threw in a few hand signs to fortify the wall with extra chakra.
An instant later, the Rock Fist slammed into the Wind Wall. The invisible but physical barrier groaned under the pressure, like a siege ram hitting a reinforced gate.
But air is a fickle thing. The more you compress it, the higher the pressure becomes. If Koubachi had used a piercing attack—a needle or a blade—she might have stood a chance of puncturing the barrier. But a flat, heavy fist with a large surface area was the worst possible weapon for the job.
When the wall had been compressed to the thickness of a sheet of paper, the momentum of the punch finally died. In that split second of total compression, the Wind Wall snapped back. It unleashed all that stored potential energy directly back at the source.
With a muffled boom like a clap of thunder, Koubachi was sent flying backward like a broken kite.