Chapter Eighty-Seven: Poisoning, Part Two, Seeking First Subscriptions

Your repeated acts of poisoning drew the attention of the Blade of Dawn... no, the approval of the Alchemist, and bestowed upon you a skill.

Toxic Trail

Open a vial of poison and leave a trail of slow-acting venom behind you.

"Damn it! Stop talking nonsense, I never did that. Poisoning is a major crime!" Bai Mu cursed loudly, clutching the poison vial that had suddenly appeared in his arms.

"Damn..." Hyuga Hizashi narrowed his eyes in pain. For the Hyuga clan, the most precious spherical organ in the body was the Byakugan. A crude onion tear bomb was agony for those eyes.

Study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics well, and you can travel anywhere without fear. Bai Mu simply had not studied them well; otherwise, with a real canister of tear gas, he could have made these people, who lived by their eyes, clutch their peach-like sockets and weep on the ground.

(Students, study hard. You never know when you might end up crossing over.)

"In the ebb and flow of fate, performing a clumsy trick, playing the comic role that pleases the crowd, beneath the mask lies a charming and lovely villain. The devilish jester, Shaco... arrives."

Bai Mu and his shadow clone bowed together, each tugging at his cape.

A long-winded introduction meant one thing: the true battle had begun.

Cough... cough...

The pungent, biting stench made it impossible to open one’s eyes. The priority was to disperse the smoke with fresh air. The ventilation system could not be opened, so the only choice was to smash the lookout window.

But the entire watchtower had been designed to repel invaders; naturally even the glass had been specially made. It was not something easily broken.

Hyuga Hizashi immediately unleashed his strongest attack, slamming a palm toward the window.

Gentle Fist Technique: Eight Trigrams Mountain-Crushing Strike.

"For a magic show, no stage matters more than one shrouded in smoke, so I can’t let you break it so easily." Bai Mu, together with his illusion clone, hurled chain blades with a clatter.

"Damn..." Seeing the two chain blades coil toward him, Hizashi had no choice but to redirect the Mountain-Crushing Strike against the chains.

Clatter! The chains rebounded, sending several Leaf ninja who were struggling to recover their sight flying.

Bang! Bai Mu planted the newly acquired vial of alchemical poison hard in the center of the watchtower. Wisps of poison drifted from the mouth of the bottle. There were at least thirty people on this tower top; without some underhanded measures, this would not be easy to win.

"Despicable outsider, using poison..." Hyuga Hizashi frowned. Fortunately, he was not alone in the tower. The others had also begun trying to shatter the glass. No matter how hard it was, a single explosive tag would absolutely be enough.

What worried him more was the Purple Rock Hidden Detachment stationed outside.

"Aren’t ninja themselves supposed to be synonymous with despicable?" Bai Mu grinned. Of course he did not intend to take down a tower by himself. He had already had Xiangji contact the Iwagakure forces outside. As for whether the Old Purple would buy it, that was another matter entirely.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The surrounding windows were all blasted to pieces by explosive tags. The searing haze was steadily replaced by fresh air, and the Leaf ninja gradually recovered, covering their mouths and noses as they closed in.

"Surrender and reveal your intel. Perhaps you’ll still be left with your life," Hizashi said, once again feeling victory within reach.

"What, you think this wave is secure?" Bai Mu said with a light laugh. Together with his clone, he flung open his cloak, revealing explosive tags plastered over his entire body, not even sparing the groin.

The Leaf ninja all recoiled in horror. With so many explosive tags, this cramped tower could be blown straight into the sky.

"Even if I’m not a person, you’re really a dog," the illusion clone said to Bai Mu’s true body. The tags on him were real. Bai Mu’s were fake.

"Lord Hizashi, this is bad. Maybe because of the explosion just now, the Hidden Rock forces have moved," a Hyuga ninja reported anxiously.

"These explosive tags on me only need a little spark to flatten this place, but I don’t want to leave this beautiful world just yet, so... how about a cease-fire?" Bai Mu suggested, tilting his head.

"Dream on! Even if we must sacrifice ourselves, we cannot give up this place! No one is to use chakra! Be careful not to trigger the explosive tags. Fight with taijutsu alone. I bet he doesn’t dare die with us!" Hyuga Hizashi was not the sort to yield easily.

"Ha... that’s exactly the result I wanted." Bai Mu did not want to be buried under a sea of ninjutsu.

"The Thornmail is still a little short on funds. First, a Thorn Vest and a Warden’s Armor."

Thorn Vest: When struck by taijutsu, it deals back damage equal to 3 plus 10 percent of your bonus armor, applies a mild bleeding poison effect to the attacker, and counters some medical ninjutsu effects.

Warden’s Armor: When struck by taijutsu, it briefly reduces the attacker’s attack speed by 15 percent.

"Father’s vest on my body, and hitting me is the same as hitting yourself!"

"Someone undo my pressure points... I want to fight too. My youth... it shouldn’t end..." Might Guy had all his major pressure points sealed, but no one paid him any mind.

"All of you, attack!" Hyuga Hizashi ordered, and the crowd surged forward together. Even a single punch from each of them would be enough to beat him down.

"A tiny hint: hold your breath." Standing beside the poison vial wreathed in wisps of green smoke, Bai Mu crooked a finger with the utmost insolence.

EX Counter Storm, activate!!!

Bai Mu and the shadow clone both shook out their wide cloaks, their figures nimble beyond compare, transforming into a pair of wandering dragons as they threaded freely through the crowd, not even a leaf brushing their bodies.

"So smooth?" Hizashi was stunned. It was practically the clan’s inherited Eight Trigrams Palm style, the Wandering Dragon Step, that no one practiced anymore.

"Exactly that smooth." Bai Mu and his clone yanked hard on the chain blades, actually binding more than a dozen people around the waist. The drifting poison smoke floated right before their faces; merely touching it burned the skin with a stinging pain, let alone breathing it in.

Sometimes having more people does not mean being stronger. Instead, it just means more chaos.

Unfortunately, coolness did not last five seconds. Once Counter Storm ended, Bai Mu fell into a passive position. Fortunately, the defense granted by the Thorn Vest and Warden’s Armor, together with the Leaf ninja’s hesitation over triggering the explosive tags on his body, kept him from being beaten too badly.

"He’s wearing armor!"

"Damn it... there are spikes on this armor too. My palm split open."

"So vile!"

...

"Don’t hit me, don’t hit me, I’m a shadow clone. Ow, damn it, who kicked me in the balls!" That bastard illusion clone was still betraying the true body, though sadly he did not get any fewer punches for it.

Layering the thickest armor and taking the cruelest beating—this was Bai Mu’s truest portrait now. Two fists could not stand against four hands. Once Counter Storm went on cooldown, he was completely forced into taking blows, and could only curl into a ball, clutching the poison vial and running in panic, silently enduring attacks from every direction.

"Boss, I can’t take it anymore. I’m leaving first." The illusion clone, taking 50 percent more damage, was beaten black and blue. At last, with injuries too severe to bear, it exploded. Out popped three prank boxes. After a brief moment of alarm, they were stomped flat, and the crowd turned to swarming Bai Mu again.

Bai Mu could no longer endure the furious beating. The Hyuga clan’s fists and palms were one thing, but the group of people who chased after him with kunai, stabbing at his backside, had nearly torn his armor to pieces. Even his last-ditch stand had been triggered, and A Fei was about to collapse.

"Bad judgment, bad judgment. I should have asked Kakuzu to rent me a heart before leaving," Bai Mu muttered. He had accounted for everything, yet never imagined Hyuga Hizashi would be here, and by himself at that, pressing down on him so brutally.

He had already spent every skill he had. The momentum dash had barely started before someone shoved it down. The moment he used Deceptive Trickery to vanish, a whole cluster of Byakugan eyes saw through him.

Seeing Bai Mu’s blood spilling across the floor, his torn clothes revealing ribs and organs beneath, the Leaf ninja grew ecstatic, faces twisted with manic grins. This fellow was simply too hard to kill—but beating him was truly satisfying!

"Yes, yes, yes, yes..."

One Last Stand triggered. Senju cells split frantically, and in the blink of an eye his wounds knit shut once more.

The Leaf ninja’s smiles slowly froze.

"Keep hitting him!" Hyuga Hizashi was getting heated as well. He refused to believe a man on the brink of death could still turn the tables.

"Lord Hizashi... I think I’m a little dizzy..."

"I... I’m getting a nosebleed..."

"Where are the medical ninja? Come quick and give me a mouthful!"

...

The group was having too much fun and had completely forgotten how much of the slow poison gas they had inhaled. A few breaths of it did not seem like much; it could even make one excited and exhilarated. But once you truly realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

"Damn it... he’s already crippled! We can kill him. Don’t stop, keep pursuing!" Hyuga Hizashi wiped away his nosebleed. His Byakugan peered inward; chakra channels were already stained with mottled green poison gas. Even so, he still wanted a desperate one-for-one trade at the limit.

"Stop!!! Don’t hit me anymore!" Bai Mu suddenly roared.

The crowd froze, and to his surprise, actually stopped.

"What now? Do you have anything to say?" Hizashi panted.

"Old Purple is here..." Bai Mu’s hands were trembling as he pointed outside the tower, where flames towered into the sky. Scorching magma had even already flowed down to the base of the tower. Without support from Minato Namikaze and the watchtower, the defenses below had been effortlessly shattered by Old Purple.

"Damn it, I didn’t notice at all..." Hizashi immediately drew a Flying Thunder God kunai from his pouch, flooded it with chakra, and began summoning Minato Namikaze.

One second... two seconds... one minute... two minutes...

Bai Mu’s injuries were almost healed, yet that reassuring golden flash still had not come.

"Why don’t... you look on the other side of it?" Bai Mu said with a wicked smile.

Hyuga Hizashi flipped the Flying Thunder God kunai over. Seeing the four crooked ink-brush characters on it, his vision went black and he nearly fainted.

Sword of Love.