After explaining the rules of engagement to the clones, they fanned out, encircling him as they waited for him to start the match. Ren couldn’t fault them for it. Fairness had no place in a ninja fight.

That said, Ren smirked and after saying a short, ‘Begin.’ he disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing that he was just a clone.

The original Ino and her clones gawked at the dissipating smoke in utter bewilderment as they wondered when he managed to swap himself for a clone. She had been watching him like a hawk ever since they left her parents’ house.

As for the Hinata clones, they cursed and instantly started looking around, trying to find his location because the game had just shifted from a straightforward fight into a hunt in the forest.

Of course, clones or not, it was six against one so they had to admit that it would have been quite dumb of Ren to try fighting them head-on.

Maybe if they were average ninjas, this would have forced them to pair up and split up to get a better chance at finding Ren in the forest. Alas, Byakugan.

It took Hinata’s clones exactly ten seconds to locate Ren, considering that the entire nearby forest was in her vision range.

Ino and Hinata’s clones quickly reorganized, made a plan, and jumped into the forest, knowing that Ren was aware there would be no hiding from them.

Which meant… traps.

Joy.

…

Ren smirked as he felt the girls split into three pairs and run straight toward him through the detection seal. He had three kunai in his hand, all sporting a new exotic exploding seal.

He did not prepare any traps. It was pointless. Hinata would see them. At most, that would slow the girls down and well, the whole purpose of this little exercise was for him to test his seals so he was kind of half-assing it.

But it was okay. There were only six of them.

Six chunin-level kunoichi clones versus him. Easy-peasy. He could play around a bit.

… He hoped.

One pair of Ino and Hinata clones burst out of the foliage, running straight at him. His senses focused on the sides where the other pairs were currently encircling him and he gave the visible Hinata clone a cheeky wink.

Her eyes widened as he disappeared… but it was too late.

Ren substituted with a pre-prepared rock currently to their left side and instantly threw one kunai straight at the visible Hinata’s clone.

Then, he had to quickly substitute again because a second later, a wind bullet courtesy of the Ino clone impacted his position, shredding everything in its path.

The attacked Hinata clone spun into Kaiten and Ren’s eyes widened when his kunai impacted it and the seal exploded. It should have turned her to salt but unexpectedly…

The effect was chakra-based. It was basically a wave of chakra that turned things to salt. And the Kaiten repelled the chakra. So, the wave of chakra was repelled and pushed away from Hinata, turning everything three meters in front of her into salt.

Including Ino’s clone.

Ren mirthfully giggled. He just couldn’t help it. The expression of Hinata’s clone, when she realized she had ‘saltified’ her teammate by accident, was pure gold.

He opted to not finish the shocked Hyuga clone and instead quickly noted in his notebook that chakra-repelling techniques might be an inconvenience for his bombs.

That was honestly a downer. His bombs no longer felt so… invincible.

Well, it is what it is.

Ren jumped back while putting his notebook back into his back pocket, a senbon landing where he previously stood. His eyes widened a bit and he resisted the instinct to shield himself with his arms or substitute again. He just activated a seal on his chest.

The senbon exploded with an ear-shattering boom, sending metal shrapnel all over the place, shredding the nearby trees but Ren was left unharmed, a thin layer of a spherical chakra shield flickering in and out of existence around him.

He frowned. It was way weaker than he hoped for. He wanted it to be something like a forcefield but… ah. How disappointing. One explosion and metal shrapnel was all it took to almost destroy it? He decided he needed to refine this seal more.

But he wasn’t given the time to note that into his notebook because another Ino clone did not wait even for the dust cloud from the explosion to clear before rushing into it, swinging her katana sheathed in intense wind chakra.

Ren used his speed to sidestep a pressurized wind slash, letting it pass him by and cutting straight through the trunk of the tree behind him, loudly felling it.

He then ducked under Ino’s follow-up sword slash, releasing one kunai from his grip and letting it harmlessly and lazily spin through the air. Ino was already slashing down at him when he substituted again.

From his new position, Ren could see how the clone’s eyes widened and she instantly used a wind technique to push the kunai away from her. A viable tactic but she was just a tad bit too late.

The kunai exploded, and caught the clone’s face in the exploding radius, making Ren cringe with a bit of guilt when the clone released a piercing shriek of immense pain as the surface of her face turned to salt that instantly rubbed into the injury and blood, causing the girl to let go of her sword and clutch at her no longer existent face in sheer suffering-filled shock.

It lasted barely two seconds before the clone destabilized and popped out of existence, yet Ren knew he would have nightmares today of Ino dying like that.

That soured his mood quite a bit.

Only the utterly enraged expression of frustrated fury on the last remaining clone of Ino managed to make him crack up a small smile again. He was so glad that he refined his detection seal enough to give him a visual effect. Even though it was far from perfect just yet.

The last clone of Ino actually winced when her counterpart popped. Then she indignantly stomped her foot on the ground in frustration and almost yelled out but she stopped herself, knowing it would give away her position.

Well, Ren already knew where she was but she didn’t need to know that.

Okay. He felt a bit bad. He did enjoy Ino’s body for hours on end last night and this morning so he decided to cut her some slack. It was time to target Hinata.

But hmmm, the salt seals would not work on her unless he took her by surprise. A grin spread on his face just as one Hinata clone finally found him and decided to engage him in close-quarter combat.

A wise choice, now that she knew she could use Kaiten to no-sell his salt seal.

Sadly for her, it played directly into his hands. He threw a kunai at the girl running at him. She was almost upon him, only four meters away by then so even if she Kaiten’ed it, she wouldn’t be hitting him with the splash damage.

That was important. He didn’t want her to hesitate due to the possibility of harming him like she did with the Ino clone.

Predictably, the Hinata clone used Kaiten to block the explosion as Ren eagerly waited and observed the effect because… what he threw at her was not a salt seal.

The seal exploded, sending time-stopping waves of chakra that instantly clashed with the Kaiten technique and it turned them around, flinging them back in the opposite direction.

But there was not just one wave from his time-stop seal, so waves of stopped time going in one direction impacted waves of stopped time pushing in the opposite direction.

Split second. That’s all it took.

The air as if hardened and the time surprisingly did not stop within the explosion radius as it should have.

Instead, the place where the two waves met became a sort of immovable object. That’s how it seemed to Ren and he abruptly got a new idea for a barrier.

But his mind couldn’t dwell on it as the moment the air solidified, Hinata’s Kaiten suddenly stopped and Ren flinched, his expression twisting in horrified wonder.

A human woodchipper is how he would describe what happened next.

Hinata’s body rammed in a rapidly spinning speed straight into the immovable hardened air made out of stopped time and went through it like a knife through butter. Except, that turned her body into a fine red mist.

There was no resistance. One second there was the spinning Hinata, the next, there was red mist floating in the air. Just like that.

Ren inwardly winced. Heh, that was supposed to be his non-lethal option. He doubted the clone actually realized it was dead yet. His body subconsciously shuddered as he gulped. His new toys were… quite something.

Then the red mist puffed out of existence and Ren forcefully calmed his tension-filled discomfort. This might not have been such a great idea, after all.

He did not enjoy seeing his girls die in such a gruesome way. Even if it was just their clones. If they simply popped out of existence upon being killed, it would have been fine but his bombs were too instantaneous. The clone technique did not register its demise before the vivid visual effect happened.

Releasing a sigh, Ren showed a self-deprecating smile as he idly wondered where the other two Hinata clones and the last remaining Ino clone were. They should have been all over him by now.

Oh, well. Ren pushed through his rising apprehension and focused on the task. Three clones were done and dusted, three more to go.

He checked the detection seal and owlishly blinked as his head robotically turned toward the sky. Blinking again, Ren groaned.

“You gotta be fucking shitting me, Ino.” He whinily complained as he gawked at the completely silent and barely visible but massive dragon made of directed wild wind currents spooling on each other glaring at him. It towered not only over him but also over a good part of the surrounding forest around him.

It was so damn quiet that if he didn’t check the seal, he might have totally missed it before it rammed into his posterior. The wind chakra control necessary for that monstrosity to exist was not something Ren could even comprehend.

Ino was totally holding out on him, the cheeky girl. Fortunately, they were far enough from the village so hopefully nobody would notice it.

And look! He had found the remaining Hinata clones too. They were fuelling lightning chakra into the wind dragon, causing violent streaks of lightning to course through its body.

With a strained smile, Ren started to regret teaching the girls combination techniques.

The wind dragon suddenly slightly leaned back in preparation to strike before lunging forward, directly at Ren, releasing a roar full of shrieking winds.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep