Chapter 40: Took a Shower
Honestly, Qifeng would have preferred to avoid the whole situation entirely. His ideal evening involved collecting his quota of corpses, filing the appropriate paperwork, and going home to binge-watch whatever passed for entertainment in the ninja world while nursing a beer and contemplating his questionable career choices.
He really didn't want to get tangled up in this political clusterfuck.
But apparently, the Mist ninja had other plans—plans that didn't include letting him clock out peacefully and pretend this was just another Tuesday at the office.
Even the most patient person has their breaking point, and Qifeng was discovering that his tolerance for workplace harassment had its limits. The Mist ninja kept poking at him like children prodding a sleeping dog, seemingly determined to find out what happened when it finally snapped.
Conveniently, he'd managed to completely forget about his own role in targeting their village during the first round of exams. Selective memory was such a useful psychological defense mechanism.
Besides, when someone metaphorically points a gun at your nose, doing nothing tends to leave you with a bad case of existential anxiety. The kind that keeps you up at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if you've become a doormat with a pulse.
For the sake of his future sleep schedule, some form of retaliation seemed not just warranted, but practically therapeutic.
At least the Mist ninja had been thorough about dismantling the surveillance equipment. Nothing quite like enemy competence to make workplace violence more feasible.
After triple-checking that they were truly alone—no hidden cameras, no backup recording devices, no nosy witnesses—Qifeng slowly drew his sword from its sheath. He ran one finger along the blade with the gentle reverence of someone greeting an old friend.
Then the rock beneath his feet exploded into dust and debris as he vanished in a blur of motion that would have made a high-speed camera weep with envy.
Kisame's expression shifted from smug confidence to controlled panic in record time. He launched himself backward through the air while his hands flew through seals with the desperate efficiency of someone who'd just realized they might have bitten off more than they could chew.
"Water Style: Water Shark Bullet Technique!"
The stagnant water in the cave suddenly came alive, rippling and churning as several liquid predators materialized from the surface. The chakra-formed sharks lunged toward Qifeng with the single-minded hunger of creatures that existed purely to bite things in half.
But Qifeng moved like he was made of smoke and bad intentions, flowing around each attack with an almost insulting ease. His movements were so fluid they bordered on the supernatural—the kind of grace that came from either years of training or a complete disregard for the laws of physics.
Without superhuman reflexes and the kind of dynamic vision that could track a hummingbird in a hurricane, what he was doing should have been impossible. It was like watching someone casually stroll through a wood chipper and emerge unscratched.
*Flowing Sword Technique.*
One moment Qifeng was dodging sharks, the next he was standing beside one of the Mist ninja like he'd teleported there. The familiar stance and blade work made the enemy ninja's eyes widen in recognition and dawning horror.
"Wait, how do you know our—"
The question died in his throat as pure, primal terror flooded his system.
The Mist genin's expression crumbled from confusion to pants-wetting fear as he realized two things simultaneously: first, that he'd somehow become the primary target, and second, that the harmless-looking corpse collector had just revealed combat skills that belonged in an entirely different weight class.
The ninja's hand flew to his kunai, drawing it in a desperate attempt to intercept Qi Feng's blade.
But Qifeng's eyes remained eerily calm as the muscles in his sword arm bulged with sudden, terrifying power. He abandoned the elegant flowing technique in favor of something far more direct and considerably more fatal.
*CLANG!*
The silver arc of his blade cut through the air like a meteorite, slicing through the kunai as if it were made of wet paper before continuing its devastating trajectory.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed frozen. The Mist ninja stood perfectly still, his eyes locked on Qifeng's face with the desperate intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle while bleeding out.
Then a thin red line appeared between his eyebrows, widening into a crimson waterfall as his body toppled backward into the growing pool of his own blood and cave water.
The entire exchange had lasted maybe three seconds.
The remaining Mist ninja stared in shock that went beyond surprise and straight into existential crisis territory. His teammate—a chunin-level fighter with years of training and battlefield experience—had been dispatched like he was nothing more than a practice dummy with delusions of grandeur.
This wasn't just a skill gap; it was a demonstration of such overwhelming superiority that it redefined their understanding of what they were dealing with.
Qifeng wasn't particularly surprised by the outcome.
The system might have rated him as an elite chunin, but he knew the truth was more complicated. That rating was based purely on his physical capabilities, which had been dramatically enhanced by his awakened Shikotsumyaku bloodline. Strip away everything else—his mediocre ninjutsu, his limited tactical knowledge, his questionable social skills—and his pure physical abilities were probably on par with a decent jonin.
Granted, that was only his physical abilities. But when you were facing opponents who were barely scraping chunin level, physical superiority was often all you needed.
"Look, I'm just here to collect dead bodies," he said conversationally, flicking blood off his blade with the casual air of someone cleaning up after dinner. "You really didn't need to make this personal. I'm honestly not that interesting."
He glanced at Kisame, then simply squatted down and resumed his corpse collection duties as if nothing had happened. Just another day at the office, really. The only difference was that his workplace occasionally tried to kill him.
Kisame's expression had lost its earlier confidence, replaced by the tense alertness of someone who'd just realized they were swimming with a much bigger shark than they'd bargained for.
He caught the eye of his remaining teammate and nodded almost imperceptibly.
Both ninja began forming hand seals simultaneously.
"Water Style: Great Waterfall Technique!"
"Water Style: Great Shark Bullet Technique!"
The combined assault turned the cave into something resembling the inside of a washing machine designed by someone with serious anger management issues. Water crashed down in torrents while a massive chakra shark—easily the size of a small building—swept through the flood with predatory efficiency.
Qifeng's frown deepened as he surveyed the transformed battlefield. The repeated water techniques had successfully turned their small cave into an aquatic death trap perfectly suited to Mist ninja combat preferences. With unlimited chakra expenditure, they'd essentially imported an ocean into a hole in the ground.
Not ideal conditions for someone who preferred solid footing and breathable air.
His eyes flashed scarlet as the Sharingan activated, the single tomoe spinning rapidly as it analyzed the chaotic water patterns and the massive shark's attack trajectory. In the space between heartbeats, he identified a hairline gap in their assault—a tiny window of opportunity that existed for maybe half a second.
The Sharingan deactivated immediately. He didn't need enhanced perception anymore; he'd already locked onto his target.
*Flowing Water Sword Technique.*
If you can't beat water, become water.
Qifeng's form seemed to merge with the rushing flood as he dove directly into the maelstrom. To the watching Mist ninja, it looked like he'd been swallowed by their combined assault, torn apart by chakra sharks in the churning depths.
The surviving genin let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"Finally. That's—"
Kisame started to respond, but something in his peripheral vision made him freeze. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the darkness beyond the flood, then his body began slowly sinking backward into the water. In seconds, he'd vanished completely.
"Huh?" The remaining genin looked around in confusion. "Kisame, where are you—"
The wet, sliding sound of steel parting flesh cut off his question permanently.
Blood sprayed across the cave walls in arterial patterns that would have impressed a forensics expert. The genin's head separated from his shoulders with surgical precision, his final expression frozen in a mask of terror and disbelief.
*Clang.*
Qifeng emerged from the water like some kind of aquatic assassin, completely soaked and looking mildly annoyed by the whole affair.
He glanced around the empty cave, clicking his tongue in disappointment.
"Kisame really is something else."
The future shark monster of the Akatsuki was currently just a talented young ninja without his legendary sword, but his survival instincts were already razor-sharp. He'd recognized the shift in battle dynamics and evacuated before things went completely sideways.
"Slippery bastard," Qifeng muttered, pulling out a thoroughly waterlogged cigarette from his vest pocket.
He stared at the soggy tobacco with the expression of a man whose day had gone from annoying to actively insulting.
"Tsk."
Heat radiated from his palm as he channeled chakra to dry out the cigarette. It emerged looking somewhat worse for wear—wrinkled and slightly bent—but still functional enough to smoke.
A post-combat cigarette was better than being a living god, as the old saying went. Probably.
He lit up, took a deep drag, and began collecting the fresh corpses with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd made peace with his career choices long ago.
That's when the Konoha support team arrived, appearing at the cave entrance like the world's most punctual cleanup crew.
Their leader surveyed the scene—the flooded cave, the blood-splattered walls, the completely calm corpse collector enjoying a cigarette—with the expression of someone trying to solve a puzzle while having a migraine.
"What the hell happened here?" the team leader demanded.
Qifeng exhaled a perfect smoke ring and shrugged. "Got a bit warm in here. Decided to take a shower."
The support team exchanged glances that clearly communicated their shared opinion that this explanation was somewhere between inadequate and completely insane.
"Where are the Mist ninja?" the leader pressed.
"What Mist ninja?" Qifeng replied with the innocent confusion of someone who'd never heard the term before. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
The awkward silence that followed was broken only by the gentle dripping of excess water from the cave ceiling.
Qifeng was reasonably confident that Kisame wouldn't spread word about how three Mist ninja had cornered a single corpse collector and two of them had ended up as additions to his collection. That kind of story didn't exactly enhance one's reputation in ninja circles.
And really, wasn't it just common sense that a chunin-level examiner would be able to handle a few genin students? Nothing suspicious about that at all.
He took another drag of his cigarette and waved casually at the support team.
"Well, if everything's sorted here, I'll be heading out. These corpses won't collect themselves, and I've got paperwork to file."
He strolled out of the cave with the unhurried gait of someone whose biggest concern was whether the cafeteria would still be serving hot food by the time he got back.
The Konoha support team was left standing in the flooded cave, surrounded by evidence of what had clearly been a significant battle, listening to their colleague whistle a cheerful tune as he disappeared into the forest with his grisly cargo.
They looked at each other with the shared understanding that some questions were better left unasked, and some reports were better left vague.
After all, what was the point of creating unnecessary paperwork?
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