Naruto: Tango with Death

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Now that they all shut up, I took back my aura, causing them to take a longer breath.

My eyes zeroed in on Rira, and I said coldly, "To make things clear, we are not here to be friends. I am your superior officer, and my job is to crush the Land of Water. So I don't care what you think of me, as long as you remember your place. Am I clear?"

Rira lowered her head and replied in a low voice, "Crystal."

I was a little surprised by her sudden 180 turn in emotions, but that was good enough. I lightly breathed out, and said, "Tekuno, you will be laying traps around the camp along with some of our other trap experts."

The large Jonin nodded, his face returning to its earlier smile. Still, I added, "Make sure only you know where all the traps are, and when you are finished, give me a report."

I turned to look at another Jonin, and said, "Kunugi, I want a report on our medical forces, and their limits."

The oldest man in the room nodded, and I continued, "Yada, Rira, Kiko, Shun, Jotaro, you guys will familiarize yourself with the troops, make a full count of our fighting force."

We were almost a thousand, so assigning five people to this task seemed to be the best choice.

All the ones I had assigned a task to left the tent, leaving only three of them with me. After a second of silence, Izumo the Samurai asked, "What about us?"

I mused, "You? You will be fighting with me."

All three of them paused, which I used to walk out of the tent, toward the training grounds. A couple of seconds later, they all ran up to me, flanking me as they all said their own piece.

The Samurai was the loudest, "That would be no honourable fight, three men against you!"

The Shinobi was the quietest, "You are a good assassin, but facing three Kenjutsu Experts as an assassin…"

The Bender… merely sighed, "Please tell me you will hold back."

Both Izumo and Hayama looked at Hideto in shock. I responded, "I will hold back. I think I made a breakthrough in my last mission, so I would like to see how I would fare against three Kenjutsu Experts."

Izumo immediately picked up, "Hoy, Hoy! You can't be serious!"

Hayama, however, picked up on what we said, and asked, "What was that last mission?"

I didn't bother replying, so Hideto sighed and replied, "She wiped out the Explosion Corps this morning. In a frontal combat."

The two gulped, their eyes widening. After a moment, Izumo said in an even quieter voice than Hayama, "Please hold back."

This made me smile, although I understood them. The Explosion Corps had around 5 or 6 Jonins among them, none of which were weaker than those guys. It truly had been a terrible blow to Iwa that I had dealt.

As we reached the training grounds, the men there cleared the grounds after recognizing them, and before soon, the three Kenjutsu Experts stood in front of me, their weapons drawn out.

As for me, I moulded my chakra, and with a thought, a sword made of water appeared in my hand. It was nowhere as good as my old katana, but it would do.

When I fought against the Explosion Corps, I had fought with everything I had, and I had felt my swordsmanship pass the threshold I had been eyeing for a moment, the Expert level.

In most professions, the best of the best were Masters, followed by what I called the Jonin level. Actually, it was called Expert level.

The difference between an Expert and a Master was not that big, but there was still a realm of difference between the two.

As for me, all I knew was that I had reached the Expert level, and made some progress into the level, and this battle was to see how much exactly.

Since I wanted to test my skill, I did not open any of the Gates as I said, "Begin."

The moment that word came out of my mouth, Hideto disappeared from where he was in a burst of lightning, heading for me. His two short sword crossed in front of him as he dealt a blow with both swords.

But he wasn't fast enough.

Merely taking a single, slow step forward, I broke all of his momentum as I firmly stabbed out. The tip of my water sword collided with his swords right at the best time possible, bringing both of his swords to a stop.

This, in many ways, was similar to what Mihawk had done to Zoro the first time they fought in One Piece.

By taking that step forward, I had reached him right at the opportune moment, my sword striking in a way that the force within his two swords cancelled each other.

Hideto looked shocked at what happened, which made me smile as I swung my sword to the right, bending my body to kick to my left at the same time.

This resulted in me parrying Hayama's sword strike with my own sword, and kicking Izumo away. Not giving them a moment I twirled on myself with my other leg, sending a descending strike toward Hideto's shoulder.

Moving even faster, Hideto dodged as he closed the distance, drawing his two swords to strike my liver and my kidneys.

Faced with this attack, I suddenly bent forward, bringing me even closer to Hideto, and caused the swords to hit me even faster. However, they merely slid off my armor, barely leaving a scratch because of the lightning covering it.

They didn't have the time to build any power as he had just started swinging them, which was why they didn't deal much damage. As for the paralysing lightning…

I headbutted Hideto strongly, making his nose bleed as he took a step back, and I swung up my sword. He failed to dodge, and my sword cut across his torso sending him flying.

And in the same motion, right as my sword left his body, I continued rotating around myself, parrying the other two incoming swords.

Taking a step back, I tried to move out of their range, but one sword blocked my path, and the other swiped at my legs.

This made me happy.

Hideto was strong, his speed and power were impressive, but skill wise he relied on them too much. As someone even faster and stronger than him, even if I didn't use them, parrying them was easy.

Moreover, because he did not regulate his speed, his two allies couldn't match his speed, resulting in a one on one. And since I won, I had sent him off the fight in record time.

Now faced with two more challenging opponents, I couldn't help but feel happy.

What followed was a pure contest of swordsmanship as I used both skill and power to match the two, and slowly overwhelm them.

Izumo was the most skilled of the three of them, and if I had to judge his skill, I would say he just shy of Master level. However, his body was noticeably weaker, so he wasn't that big of a threat by himself. He was the polar opposite of Hideto, who was all power and barely any skill.

As for Hayama, he was a good mix of the two. But what set those two apart, was that they knew how to work together, despite this being their first time. It wasn't a perfect teamwork, but it was more than enough to give me enough challenge to rate myself.

After more than ten minutes of heated confrontation watched by what seemed to be nearly the entire camp by the end of it, I finally ended the battle by disarming both of my opponents.