When the Cloud's jōnin closes in, Adrian stops holding back—and the forest learns what a monster looks like.
Ninja ranks were officially simple—genin, chūnin, jōnin, and Kage.
But that system was too crude.
Adrian preferred a more practical scale—one based on actual danger.
Genin.
Chūnin.
Elite Chūnin.
Special Jōnin.
Jōnin.
Elite Jōnin.
Kage-class.
Above-Kage.
And then… Six Paths.
Of course, you couldn't judge a shinobi by title alone. Chakra reserves, chakra quality, affinities, jutsu mastery, taijutsu, tactics—everything mattered.
By fundamentals alone, Adrian was at least Special Jōnin level.
With his "cheat" on top of that, he had jōnin-grade chakra—and paired with the Flower-Flower Fruit, he could even trade blows with Kage-class opponents if he had to.
So facing this group from Kumogakure?
He wasn't afraid.
He had already twisted six genin's necks in an instant. The two elite chūnin hadn't died, but they were injured badly enough to lose balance and breath.
The only problem—
Was their jōnin.
Adrian hadn't even learned his name yet, but the man was fast. The moment arms began blooming from his shoulders, he reacted immediately.
Not only did arms erupt from the jōnin's shoulders—
Hands bloomed from his abdomen and waist too, locking down his arms and preventing seals. Another pair clamped his head.
In the next breath, Adrian would've snapped his neck.
But Kumo shinobi weren't built like most.
The Lightning Release Chakra Mode was a secret passed down through the Raikage line—too valuable to spread, and too punishing for most bodies to withstand.
Even if this man didn't have the true version…
Kumo's high-ranking shinobi still trained a simplified form—Lightning Release stimulation that "activated" cells, boosting speed and strength.
A lesser, brutal cousin of Chakra Mode.
At the instant death closed in, the jōnin erupted in lightning.
A surge of violent chakra blasted through the arms restraining him—burning and shredding them.
Pain snapped back into Adrian's real body.
His technique was forcibly canceled.
If Adrian didn't already possess Lightning affinity—and a strong resistance—
His arms would've been ruined.
Because of that counter, Adrian only managed to kill the six genin.
He didn't get the chance to finish the two chūnin before the jōnin broke free.
And frontline chūnin weren't academy trash.
These were elite—hardened, ugly to put down.
Tsume had seen it all unfold.
And she acted.
"Tsume-sensei—don't!" Adrian warned sharply.
Too late.
"Fang Over Fang!"
Adrian's opening had shaken their formation. The two chūnin were off-balance, still half-stunned from nearly having their necks twisted clean off.
Charging into the enemy line was risky.
But it was also the best chance they would get to cripple those two chūnin—because if they didn't…
Neither she nor Adrian would have any chance of escaping the jōnin.
Tsume and Blackmaru became twin black cyclones, drilling forward like living augers.
BOOM!
The spiraling impact smashed into the two chūnin's chests.
Armor shredded.
Flesh tore into spiral wounds.
Their bodies folded, eyes bulging, blood exploding from mouths and noses as they were hurled away like broken dolls.
At the center of it all, the jōnin—whose raw strength was the highest on the field—recovered instantly.
He didn't have time to form seals, not even to shield his subordinates…
But he did have time to punish the attacker.
"You're dead!"
The same words left two mouths at nearly the same time.
"You're dead."
Adrian's voice was colder.
The jōnin yanked a long blade from his back—moving to cut Tsume down—
And Adrian's hand went to the sword at his waist.
Lightning crawled.
Steel hummed.
"Lightning Blade Art!"
"Chidori Blade!"
If not for their headbands and uniforms, someone might have assumed they were from the same village.
Both swords flared with Lightning Release.
When people thought of Naruto, they thought of Naruto and Sasuke—Rasengan and Chidori.
Adrian had tested himself thoroughly.
Like Kakashi, he was born with all five basic chakra natures—Fire, Wind, Lightning, Water, Earth—plus Yin and Yang.
And over three years, with Tsunade's guidance and scrolls left behind by Tobirama Senju's insights into technique development…
Adrian had recreated Chidori—and the sharper, deadlier variants that followed.
Chidori and Raikiri weren't the same thing. Raikiri was more like a refined evolution—less flexible, but far more lethal in cutting power.
But Raikiri required preparation.
Chidori could be launched instantly.
And Adrian didn't have time.
The jōnin's blade was already descending toward Tsume's spinning cyclone—
So Adrian chose the technique that could fire now.
The jōnin's strike slammed into the black whirlwind—
And at the same moment, Adrian vanished in a burst of lightning-speed movement, appearing behind him and cutting toward his arm.
Adrian wasn't trying to kill the jōnin.
He could.
That wasn't the point.
The point was to stop Tsume from taking a fatal wound.
Everything happened in the span of a heartbeat.
Tsume attacked the chūnin.
The jōnin struck Tsume.
Adrian struck the jōnin.
Chidori's "blind rush" weakness didn't exist for Adrian.
Daily cultivation of that strange inner breath didn't just keep his stamina high and chakra stable—it had sharpened his perception into something that bordered on instinctive foresight.
His reaction time and awareness were terrifying.
Because of Adrian's intervention—and the swirling chakra layer created by Fang Over Fang's rotation, similar in principle to a defensive barrier—
The jōnin failed to cleave Tsume in half.
And then he made a choice.
Between killing Tsume…
…or losing an arm.
The jōnin chose the arm.
He snapped his blade back, twisting away.
He believed he could still kill them later.
He didn't need to trade for a fatal injury.
"Aah!"
Tsume hit the ground as the cyclone ended, and her cry of pain tore through the trees.
"Tsume-sensei!"
Adrian dropped to her side instantly, reaching to check the injury.
His rescue had been fast—fast enough to prevent death.
But Fang Over Fang was an offensive chakra technique, not a perfect defense like the Hyūga's Rotation.
Tsume had still been cut.
Blood spread rapidly across her thigh, soaking her pants dark.
Adrian's hand hovered, focused, ready.
Tsume grit her teeth, forcing the words out through pain. "Don't waste time on me! Run—now!"
The jōnin stared at the wreckage around him.
Two chūnin crippled beyond saving.
Six genin dead without even throwing a single kunai.
And his squads—gone.
His face sank into something ugly.
Something poisonous.
"You think you can run?" he hissed. "Where? You're all going to die."
He was furious.
But not stupid.
Adrian's technique—arms blooming from nowhere to snap necks—had carved itself into his mind.
He was guarding against it now.
And beneath his cold rage, he had other thoughts.
Adrian looked ten. Maybe a little older.
Yet his ability and strength screamed genius.
Konoha had produced another monster.
To the jōnin, Adrian represented two possibilities.
Take him back to Kumogakure as breeding stock…
Or kill him and bring the body back for research.
Either way, Kumogakure profited.
The jōnin kept control.
Adrian didn't.
For three years, Adrian had never truly belonged in this world. He didn't even like Konoha much.
But bonds didn't require loyalty to a flag.
He had Tsunade. Shizune. People who mattered.
And in the last ten days…
Tsume had mattered too.
She'd bled protecting him.
That was enough.
Adrian stood, sword in hand.
His eyes were ice.
"You're dead."
Then—
Petals drifted.
Behind Adrian, something immense took shape.
A giant figure, nearly three meters tall—only an upper body—thick with muscle and terrifying presence.
Three heads.
Six arms.
A red, fanged face that looked disturbingly like Adrian's—only twisted into wrath.
Each of the three faces wore an expression of pure fury.
Its six hands formed three different seals.
And from that half-body… chakra poured out like a storm breaking.
"Immovable Wisdom King."
The air trembled.
The forest itself seemed to flinch.
The jōnin's eyes widened—
And in the next instant, Adrian vanished.
"Thunder Sever."
A single arc of blinding light cut through the world.
The jōnin barely had time to raise his blade to block—
Clang.
The sound didn't even fully form.
Adrian's lightning-wreathed sword and the jōnin's body crossed paths.
Adrian reappeared more than ten meters away, still holding the finishing posture, sword crackling with fading lightning.
Then—
Clink.
The jōnin's blade snapped into two pieces and fell.
His body froze for half a breath.
A diagonal line opened from the left side of his forehead down to the right side of his abdomen.
His pupils trembled with shock.
And then gravity finished the sentence.
His body slid apart.
Flesh and bone collapsed into pieces.
Red and white spilled across the forest floor like a shattered offering.
Even at the end, he didn't understand what had happened.
But it was simple.
Someday, Uchiha Madara would have Susanoo to assist with seals.
Today?
Adrian had his own version.
A flower-born "Susanoo" that formed seals and amplified his movement.
The constructs created by the Flower-Flower Fruit were strange—both part of Adrian, and not.
They were "one" because any damage to them fed back into him, and his awareness synchronized perfectly.
His clones weren't illusions. They were him.
If they were injured, he was injured.
If they ate, it was as though he ate.
If they—
He refused to think about it.
But they were "not one" because each clone carried its own body and mind, an extension that could act independently without slowing his control.
That was why Adrian could manage so many arms and movements at once.
And there was another advantage.
A clone could refine chakra too.
Each flower clone possessed physical energy and mental energy—meaning it could produce chakra just like Adrian could.
To Adrian, it wasn't just a clone technique.
It was a multiplier.
A body-and-mind amplifier.
A chakra amplifier.
A jutsu amplifier.
His Immovable Wisdom King wasn't a single construct.
It was twenty clones combined into one.
Twenty sets of seals.
Twenty sources of refined chakra.
Twentyfold support.
One seal was for Body Flicker.
One was for lightning cutting.
One strengthened perception.
And because the sealing effect fed back into Adrian's main body…
His acceleration stacked violently.
Not twenty times—ninjutsu didn't scale that cleanly.
But even five or six times was obscene.
So obscene that Adrian nearly couldn't control it.
That was why the strike looked like teleportation.
That was why the jōnin couldn't react.
That was why he died.
Adrian had used his full strength to end it instantly.
And even then… he felt a sting of regret.
The clones' chakra couldn't directly "transfer" into his body as a refill. Their chakra existed temporarily, tied to the constructs. When the constructs vanished, so did that chakra.
Still, even this was already absurd enough to border on cheating.
…
Tsume stared at what remained of the jōnin, forgetting pain for a moment.
A jōnin.
In Konoha, out of tens of thousands of shinobi, only a few hundred were jōnin and special jōnin combined.
A jōnin carried authority, influence, weight.
And yet—
He'd been carved apart without resistance.
Tsume had always known Adrian was strong.
But this… was beyond "strong."
This was the difference between talented and monstrous.
Adrian steadied his breathing.
That kind of burst wasn't free.
Even with a tough body, the chakra surge and speed strain rattled his muscles and joints.
He guided the breath from his core through his meridians, calming the ache. Fatigue and pain faded quickly under that circulation.
Then he sheathed his sword and hurried back to Tsume.
"Tsume-sensei, are you okay?"
He reached toward her wound.
Tsume grabbed his wrist, voice tight. "Don't. We leave first. If more of them arrive, we're finished."
Adrian glanced at the blood soaking her thigh. "Can you stand? If not, I can carry you."
Tsume shook her head. "Blackmaru will."
At her call, the big dog stepped closer. Tsume climbed onto his back with a grimace.
Adrian wanted to bandage her properly right here—
But Tsume's caution was right.
Adrian formed seals, checked his sensing.
Shizune and Yuanhai were already far—beyond his range now. His clones hadn't dispersed, meaning they were still safe.
Good.
Adrian released a Fire Style jutsu and burned the battlefield clean—trees, tracks, bodies, everything reduced to ash and smoke.
The corpses were worth money.
But he hadn't come out here expecting a war. He didn't bring sealing scrolls for transport.
He had thought this was a simple escort.
Instead…
Trouble had found him anyway.
If Adrian were better at genjutsu, he'd have been tempted to wipe today from Tsume's, Shizune's, and Yuanhai's memories.
He was cautious like that.
He didn't want fame.
He didn't want Konoha's upper ranks turning their eyes toward him.
Because attention didn't bring peace.
Attention brought missions.
Attention brought politics.
Attention brought endless problems.
But the shinobi world didn't care what he wanted.
And right now…
He was still too weak to refuse it.
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