Being ridden with spears all over his body, Iwamoto had difficulty in breathing and there were only few words he could muster.
"I… cough-wheeze, my pre-wheeze… monit-cough-cough… premonition, gulp… was correct, y-you… cough are a threat-wheeze!"
Kuroto who was sitting on the ground while covering the wound on his right leg with one hand gave a death stare to Iwamoto!
'Bastard, you are still alive!!'
Judging from Iwamoto's chakra reaction, he still has high vitality, so his current weakness may just be a disguise.
Iwamoto continued weakly, "Heh! You're being a little too cautious kid; won't you come here and give me a good ending?"
Kuroto has also experienced a shinobi war, he may still be green but he is not an idiot!
He thought suspiciously, "He wants to lure me to approach him!!?"
Not giving any time for Kuroto to consider, Iwamoto suddenly broke free of the Iron spears, all the injuries and holes in his body were covered and filled by mud, and he unexpectedly ran away deeper into the forest, leaving Kuroto flap his mouth like a fish in a dazed state!
"He wants to escape!!!" Kuroto was taken aback by Iwamoto's unexpected action, and secretly cursed: "Bastard! Come back here! You think I'll let you escape!!??"
The secret of Kazekage's puppet can't be leaked, so without any thought, Kuroto stretched out his hand and used Rein Wheel pull with all the chakra he could muster!
Under the huge pulling force of Rein Wheel Pull, Iwamoto could barely struggle as he got attracted towards Kuroto.
Regardless of the injuries on his body, Kuroto used the Gossip Palm strikes on Iwamoto with all the strength he has.
… tuk…. tuk….… tuk…. tuk….… tuk…. tuk….
In the muffled sound of palm strikes, the whole forest now returned to silence.
From the touch Kuroto felt while delivering the strikes he could be quite sure that Iwamoto didn't have the opportunity to use skin and muscle hardening jutsu, so this time even if he couldn't crush Iwamoto's heart; the lungs were completely damaged.
As he expected, Iwamoto's body fell lifelessly at his feet.
But just as Kuroto was about to take a breath of relief thinking it was finally over, Iwamoto on the ground suddenly jumped up, and wrapped himself around Kuroto like a Koala, as he muttered in a hoarse voice: "Young genius of Konoha, I'll take you to the Pure Land with me!!!!!"
Hiss…
From the hissing sound of ignition, Kuroto realized that this bastard has altered his body by planting many detonation charms under his skin that can be ignited at any moment by directing chakra through them, this didn't come into Kuroto's perception as it was covered with various seals.
Looking at Iwamoto's calm face, Kuroto suddenly had an epiphany!
From the beginning, since Kuroto was led into an ambush this bastard never once thought of fleeing in this battle, the only reason he even pretended to escape was so that he could get close to Kuroto for the final suicide attack!
...Booom Booom… Booom Booom Booom Booom .........….
A rain of explosion swept the whole forest in shocking disturbance as the resulting impact razed the surrounding area into meters long burnt hole, with no signs of life left. Only smoke and fire were left and the whole forest was shaking due to after effects.
On one edge of the forest.
Shisui has solved the last ninja under the effect of genjutsu with his Anbu sword.
Currently, nine corpses were already lying around him and only one of them was a member of Beheading unit while the rest were all wandering Shinobi.
Just as he sheathed his anbu sword, a violent explosion shaking the entire mountain came from the other end of the forest.
"What happened!!?"
In a fit of astonishment, he hurried over to the site of explosion.
On the other End.
Kakashi pulled out his right hand covered in the lightening of Chidori from the enemy's heart that was nothing more than a corpse now.
While panting heavily, he also looked in the direction of explosion.
Based on the experience as a shinobi he has had up to now, Kakashi can judge this is not the result of some mere Jutsu or detonation charm, as a result his face was gloomy, because he is quite sure that none of his teammates have any such attack method.
Even if he was suffering from Chakra exhaustion, even if he didn't have much strength to continue fighting, but he didn't hesitate and limped towards the site of explosion because…
"…Those who abandons their comrades are worse than scums!"
On the last battlefield.
Guy clutched his injured left arm with a serious face.
Being in the siege, he was less worried about the battle in front of him but more about his other companions of Class-11. Even if wanted to go after them, the enemy wouldn't let him and this also made him realize that the others would be in the same situation which made him more worried!
But the sudden violent explosion that shook the entire forest, attracted the attention of both sides.
Guy's heart sank, he was having a bad feeling about this.
Seeing the explosion even the beheading unit ninja's face changed greatly and suddenly ignoring the slightly injured Guy he led the rest of the wandering shinobi towards the sight of explosion.
Guy was stunned because of this but he took a calming breath and followed after them in the same direction.
Site of the explosion.
After the dust settled, Kuroto's figure slowly appeared.
He glanced around calmly and sighed lightly.
At the final moment, Kuroto used Revolving Heaven along with expelling chakra from all his tenketsu following which he used Rein Wheel Push to send Iwamoto as far away as possible and used a combined Iron Sand Wall along with Revolving Heaven jutsu to make a protective shell that covered him from all the direction and took the whole burnt of the explosion.
The damage around goes to show just how threatening the explosion was. Even with the several layers of defense of Combined jutsu, Kuroto still suffered some injuries merely from the resulting vibrations and heat of the explosions leaving him in a very embarrassed state.
On the other hand, there is not even a single bone left of Iwamoto, only a half burnt and broken forehead protector fell on the ground while Kuroto repelled him.
Kuroto dragged his injured leg and picked up the broken forehead protector.
As a sign of his respect for the enemy Kuroto decided to keep it as trophy.
In this battle of life and death he won.
"Ha ha ha ha…cough-cough… hahaha… cough."
No matter how injured or burnt Kuroto was but he was still laughing, this laugh was not because he is a battle maniac or loves the thrill and adrenalin rush of life and death battle. NO! It's because of the joy he is feeling.
Not long ago, he was just a ninja that could even be ignored if necessary, he was a threat to no one, not many would even bother taking him seriously, in short, he was just a pathetic ninja who could be easily killed. Someone on whom Jonins like Iwamoto would even be reluctant to waste any Chakra to kill.
And today, Iwamoto died in his hands, he did everything to kill Kuroto, even relied on such a large-scale suicide attack, but all for none, at the end Iwamoto died in his hands.
This feeling of power was what made him laugh.
His heart was full of emotions.
Of course, this was also his first battle against an elite Jonin, so even if he had to rely on sneak attacks and cheap tricks to win, his performance in this battle was still remarkable. Of course, not counting those embarrassing situations he had to go through under Iwamoto's deceptive actions.
While still thinking about this and that Kuroto suppressed his laughter and put away the Kazekage puppet into a scroll and sat cross-legged on the non-damaged ground, bandaging and medicating his injuries, his face was calm as if he was only tying shoelaces.
While Kuroto was busy wrapping his wounds, a group of shinobi arrived in front of him with the member of the beheading unit as their leader, their total number was eight.
After a short inspection of the ragged battle site their leader immediately shouted towards Kuroto who was still not perturbed by their arrival or number.
"Damn brat, where is our captain!?" Shouted the Rock ninja.
However, there was no reply from Kuroto as he continued wrapping his wounds calmly, completely ignoring the others.
Kuroto's actions were putting a lot of psychological pressure on the wandering shinobi as traces of sweat started coming of their forehead.
Nobody dared to make a move on him even if ignored them because for some reason they all had a feeling if they rushed to attack, only death would await them.
Kuroto was silent and the enemy was also silent, only the sound of breathing could be heard, even the birds didn't dare shit in this place.
Finally, after a full 2 minutes of silence, when he has completely wrapped all the wounds, Kuroto got up and said lightly, "Don't worry you'll meet him soon enough!"
And without even waiting for the enemy to react he rushed towards them without the slightest hesitation.
In the battle against Iwamoto, there are many things that Kuroto learnt, but his biggest gain is the Fearless Heart of The Strong!
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Read up to Chapter - 117 on P.A.T.R.E.O.N. : p atreon.com/Milta_translations