Chapter 393 ~ Childish Moves

Chapter 393: Chapter 390 ~ Childish Moves

The fight went on. Ryu held his ground against all five in taijutsu, alone. The four watchers in the bushes had learnt more in the last minute than any academy class could have taught them.

**

Koharu caught the pattern too, from the doorway of Hokage’s office. Ryu could escalate past anything these five could handle — she had no doubt of that now. But he wasn’t. He was choosing to keep it contained, turning his own restraint into a tactic. She also knew he could use Senju taijutsu.

She allowed herself a small, knowing smile. She thought, ’He’s holding back on purpose — and not even using the Senju taijutsu Tsunade drilled into him....Good... Breaking him will be easy without that taijutsu.’

But then she frowned. ’Why are they holding back this much when he clearly can handle them? I told them to make it hurt — not to dance with him.’

**

The jonin stepped in now.

He’d been content to direct from the edge, letting the chunin fight the boy. Now he changed with a fast pace to end things in just one hit.

A kick, fast and low, slammed into Ryu’s ribs.

Ryu took it with both his forearms—then rolled with it in the direction of impact, the way taught in the academy. The jonin followed him through it with a punch ready, and Ryu came up counter and answered with an elbow hit. Punch versus elbow, cleaner, more direct.

The jonin pulled back a half-step. His eyes were flat and appraising now.

"The kid’s got more fight than your average genin," he said to the others, low. "Now stop holding back a little and fight seriously... like Elder Koharu said ... no permanent damage."

Then they charged.

The jonin came in hard, committed to a follow-through, and Ryu — smaller, faster inside — slipped past the guard and, after a sudden acceleration and a jump, brought his open palm across the man’s face in a single clean, contemptuous slap.

Smack.

The sound carried down the plaza.

It was possible only because the jonin had been caught off guard, expecting one thing and getting another, and because Ryu had been running slower all fight, so the burst caught him by surprise. He did not expect a kid to use such a tactic or to have such speed. and Ryu did not give him time to get surprised until it was too late to reach.

**

In the bushes, Takeshi’s eyes went wide. "He wasn’t using his real speed this whole time," he said.

Shikanoboru said, "The Tanaka sensei taught it that day. Showing them a false limit, making them read him wrong."

Saya nodded slowly and said, "The moment they trusted that the speed Ryu gave them was his limit, he took advantage of it. " A grin tugged at her mouth. "A ninja who shows all his strength first is already losing."

She remembered the lesson, the exact words, from the taijutsu class.

**

A red handprint bloomed across the jonin’s cheek. He went rigid for half a heartbeat — stunned not by the force but by the insult — his hand rushed to the stinging skin before he caught himself and forced it back down.

His face tightened into something colder.

Ryu let the moment hang. When the jonin’s composure settled again, he spoke, mild, almost kind.

"That was the Bitch Slap Jutsu," Ryu said. "I hope you like it."

In the bushes, Fumi and Saya smothered a laugh.

The jonin’s eye twitched.

Ryu reached into his pocket, crushed a smoke bomb against the ground, and a cloud of thick white smoke erupted between them, and it started spreading out. Koharu’s guards lost their visual contact in an instant. But high up all the elites could see clearly.

Inside the smoke, Ryu moved — silent footfalls, held breath and no active chakra.

A kunai spun from his fingers — thrown just so — and the sound of it and its trajectory in smoke drew every eye and every ear in one direction. It was a lure, and the guards took it. Their attention snapped after the glint of steel.

The kunai’s flight clipped a wire he’d laid in the smoke — a thread the eye wouldn’t catch, strung between the rail and a bracket. The wire yanked a second kunai loose from a hidden slingshot rig, and that one came in from the other angle, fast and unexpected, where the first had drawn their eyes away. The jonin was walking right into it.

The jonin reacted to what he thought was a real threat. He turned, pivoted, and committed his weight to intercept the projectile.

Ryu was behind him now. And he was even faster than before.

Ryu folded his fingers except for his index and middle, forming a tiger-hand seal. The others watching must have expected a close-range ninjutsu, but what Ryu did next surprised even the elite ninjas in the plaza. With full force, he drove the pair of two extended fingers of the tiger seal straight into the jonin’s buttocks.

The jonin’s eyes bulged.

He folded — pain shot up through his body. He stumbled forward and fell face forward on the ground with his hands covering his butt.

Ryu stepped back and, rubbing salt in the wound, declared the name of the attacker.

"Thousand Years of Pain."

On the building, Kakashi’s hand flew up and covered his mouth — the gesture of someone watching something unbelievable and shocking. Asuma let out a low whistle.

In the bushes, Shikanoboru stared at the wire with intense focus, tracking exactly where it ran. This was a teaching moment — about traps and misdirection. Around him, the other kids exchanged glances at Ryu’s and were more focused on humiliating ’Thousand Years of Pain’, their faces a mix of disbelief and dawning understanding.

Shikanoboru leaned forward, tracking every movement like it was a lecture he didn’t want to miss a syllable of. "He uses misdirection — throws one kunai to draw their attention, then a second one comes from somewhere. They expected it to be a real attack, but it was also a misdirection. He must have laid that trap in the smoke, where they couldn’t see him setting it. Smart. We only saw the whole trap once the smoke cleared."

Takeshi nodded, memorising the trap layout in his head.

"Look at their faces," he said. "They must be feeling humiliated... violated. But they brought it on themselves when they gang up on a kid."

The plaza held its breath.

The ANBU on the rooftop perimeter stayed silent, watchful, faces unreadable — with the single exception of Kakashi, who broke the quiet with a dry, carrying remark.

"Kid is ruthless."

At Kakashi’s side, Kinoe — partnered with him only a few months now — went very still, watching the boy, Yugao Uzuki a short way off on the same perimeter. Seeing Ryu do what he did now was barely a surprise at all — they all knew what had happened with Ryu and the Cloud ninjas in the Land of Rivers.

"He’s not even trying," Kinoe murmured, low, for Kakashi alone. "I knew he was a genius, but I didn’t believe you when you told me he was good at being a ninja, Kakashi senpai."

At the plaza edge, Guy laughed, delighted. "Now that’s a kid who knows how to use his body — clean, efficient, no wasted motion. I want to see more of that!"

Asuma shook his head, shocked at the ruthless, painful move. "He poked him in the ass — that’s not a taijutsu move."

Kurenai winced, embarrassed. "That’s right — not a taijutsu move, just a childish move. Humiliating someone like that. I doubt they would be able to hold back now."

After he humiliated the elders with words and her guards through actions, clan leaders watched from the rooftop, all thought not to mess with the Ryu directly.

Fugaku’s gaze had already seen through the trap used by Ryu even before it happened through his Sharingan. He had seen misdirection before, plenty of it. It was a trick from the Uchiha clan, not the humiliating ass poke but the trick with wires and kunai. What unsettled him was that a child had set a trap mid-fight, calmly, between two exchanges, as if the smoke were his element and not an obstruction.

’The smoke did not hamper him at all,’ Fugaku thought. ’Is he fighting with his eyes closed?’

Itachi studied the boy a moment longer, then the corner of his mouth curved. "He is now just playing with them," he murmured.

Saya was quiet a moment, then, reluctantly: "He’s smarter than the five of them put together. And he made it look easy."

Koharu had not moved from her doorway. Five of them were sent to manage a single kid — and they were still struggling.

Idiots, she thought.

The jonin straightened.

He had recovered from the strike — mouth a hard line, fury bottled and buried, the humiliation made him colder and far more serious.

"Enough games," he said. "I was going easy on you because you were just a kid. Not anymore."

He disappeared and appeared right in front of him.

Ryu’s guard came up for the strike to the face that never came — and the jonin drove low, a boot sweeping into his ribs with the full force of a man who had stopped holding back.

Ryu took it and jumped back at the impact.

The remaining chunin closed in from both sides. Ryu looked up at the jonin as the ring tightened around him, and a faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.

"Good," Ryu said. "It was boring so far. Make it fun. Use ninjutsu from now on."

"Lesson Two is basic ninjutsu."

A/N:

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