Chapter 6: First Experience with the Experience Card
The forest on Konoha's outskirts had become an impromptu theater for what could generously be called a "tactical retreat" and what Qifeng privately thought of as "running like hell."
His lungs burned as he leaped from branch to branch, the rhythmic *thud-thud-thud* of his heart drowning out everything except the increasingly close sound of his pursuer. Behind him, Huoshi moved with the fluid confidence of someone who'd done this dance before—and usually came out on top.
Great, Qifeng thought bitterly, his legs already screaming in protest. Two days. Two measly days since I got dropped into this world, and I'm already playing tag with someone who wants to kill me.
The irony wasn't lost on him. His predecessor had spent months hauling corpses around without so much as a paper cut, living the quiet life of a glorified janitor. But the moment Qifeng inherited this body? Boom. Instant death threats.
Maybe I should have stuck to filing paperwork.
A kunai whistled past his ear, embedding itself in the bark exactly where his foot was about to land. Qifeng's eyes widened—not at the near miss, but at the casual precision of it. Huoshi wasn't trying to kill him. Not yet. He was herding him, like a sheepdog with homicidal tendencies.
Qifeng twisted mid-air, abandoning his landing and letting gravity drag him down into an ungraceful slide behind a fallen log.
"Heh." Huoshi's chuckle drifted through the trees, carrying the kind of amusement that made Qifeng's skin crawl. It was the sound of someone who enjoyed their work a little too much.
"Just hand over the body, kid," Huoshi called out, his voice closer than Qifeng would have liked. "No need to make this harder than it has to be."
Qifeng peeked over the log, watching his pursuer approach with the unhurried gait of someone who knew the outcome was inevitable.
"Look," Qifeng said, trying to inject some reasonableness into his voice while simultaneously calculating escape routes. "There are plenty of bodies back at the morgue. Fresh ones. Well, relatively fresh. You could have your pick—"
"Don't be naive." Huoshi's voice carried a note of professional irritation, like a teacher explaining basic math to a particularly slow student.
Right. Because heaven forbid we solve this like civilized people.
"Okay, how about this," Qifeng tried again, desperation creeping into his voice. "Come back tomorrow. I promise I won't run. I'll even make tea. Green tea. The good stuff."
By tomorrow, he'd have had time to examine the corpse, extract whatever mysterious benefits it held, and then Huoshi could take the thing and do whatever creepy spy stuff he had planned. Everyone wins, nobody dies, and Qifeng could go back to his quiet life of supernatural grave robbing.
But instead of a response, Huoshi's hands began moving in the familiar patterns of a jutsu.
Oh, come on.
"Earth Release: Rock Hiding Technique!"
Huoshi's form shimmered and took on the texture of stone before fading from view entirely. The forest suddenly felt much larger and much emptier, with Qifeng standing alone in a clearing that now felt suspiciously like a trap.
"Well," Qifeng muttered, glancing around at the suddenly sinister-looking trees. "This is just fantastic."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his trump card—literally. The experience card gleamed in the moonlight, its edges sharp enough to cut and its surface depicting a stern-faced jonin he'd never met but was about to become very intimate with.
Konoha Jonin Miura Ichigo Experience Card (Rare)
"I really hoped I wouldn't have to use this so soon," he said to no one in particular. "But apparently, subtlety is dead in this world."
He slapped the card against his chest.
The change hit him like a freight train made of lightning and bad decisions.
[Konoha Jonin Miura Ichigo Experience Card (Rare) activated. Calculating compatibility...]
[Success! Compatibility: 50%]
[Ability Assessment Updated:]
[Character: Maruyama Qifeng]
[Age: 13]
[Attribute: Fire]
[Strength: Special Jonin]
[Taijustu: 55]
[Chakra: 48]
[Ninjutsu: 43]
[Genjutsu: 36]
[Control: 45]
[Hand Seals: 40]
[Techniques: Three Academy Jutsu, Fire Style: Great Fireball]
Special Jonin. At thirteen years old. With only half compatibility.
Qifeng flexed his fingers, feeling muscles that suddenly knew exactly how to kill a man in seventeen different ways. His body thrummed with energy he'd never possessed, and his mind filled with combat experience that felt both foreign and intimately familiar.
Well, he thought, a grim smile playing at his lips. This is either going to go very well or very poorly.
He scanned the forest with eyes that now caught details his previous self would have missed—the slight displacement of leaves where Huoshi crouched, the subtle pattern of his breathing, the way his chakra signature painted him like a neon sign against the backdrop of natural energy.
There you are.
Qifeng moved before Huoshi could react to the change in his demeanor. Where before he'd been a panicked genin running for his life, now he was something else entirely—a predator who'd just realized his prey had been stalking him.
The kunai in his hand caught moonlight as he closed the distance, his speed no longer the desperate scramble of before but the fluid motion of someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
Huoshi's eyes widened behind his disguise as Qifeng appeared in front of him like a vengeful ghost. The boy's—no, the young man's—expression had changed completely. Gone was the fear, replaced by something colder and far more dangerous.
How is he so fast?
Huoshi barely managed to get his kunai up in time, the clash of metal on metal sending shockwaves up his arm. But even as he blocked the first strike, he realized with growing horror that it had been a feint.
Qifeng spun, using Huoshi's own momentum against him, and suddenly the older ninja found himself staring at empty air while a line of fire traced itself across his throat.
This is impossible, was Huoshi's last coherent thought. He's just a genin. He's just a—
The body hit the ground with the kind of finality that suggested the conversation was over.
Qifeng stared down at the corpse, feeling oddly detached from what had just happened. The borrowed instincts were already fading as the experience card's power waned, leaving him with the uncomfortable realization that he'd just killed a man with moves he barely understood.
"You know," he said to the still form at his feet, "this could have been avoided if you'd just listened to reason. I literally offered you tea."
He glanced at the countdown timer floating in his peripheral vision—twenty-eight minutes remaining on the card's effects. Enough time to clean up and disappear before Konoha's inevitable response team arrived.
Because of course they'll send someone. A chakra flare-up this big probably lit up every sensor in the village like a Christmas tree.
He pulled out a storage scroll and efficiently sealed away Huoshi's body. No point in wasting perfectly good examination material, and besides, he was curious about what secrets a deep-cover spy might be carrying around.
"Sorry about this," he said, patting the scroll. "But you really should have taken the tea offer. I make excellent tea."
As he prepared to leave, he caught sight of the blood splattered across the clearing and sighed.
"And now I'm talking to dead people. This world is really doing wonders for my mental health."
He vanished into the treeline just as the first ANBU began converging on the scene, leaving behind only questions, bloodstains, and the kind of mystery that would keep intelligence analysts busy for weeks.
Almost immediately after Qi Feng left.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several ANBU ninjas appeared where they were fighting.
"The noise just now was indeed here."
One of the perception-type ninjas simply glanced around through the holes in his mask and basically determined the general situation.
"The one who died was a ninja with an unfamiliar chakra aura. He must be an intruder."
He walked to the bloodstain on the ground and touched it.
The other two ninjas also came over.
"The blood is still warm."
Among them, the Anbu ninja who was proficient in earth escape ninjutsu said: "The Rock Hidden Technique was performed perfectly, at least a Chunin."
"The battle was simple and efficient, and the dead had almost no power to resist."
The three of them couldn't help but look at each other, with surprise flashing in their eyes.
"He was able to kill a Chunin in such a short time. He must be a Jonin from the village. The residual chakra fluctuations around him make me feel familiar, but I can't remember who he is all of a sudden. It seems that he doesn't intend to meet us."
They thought there would be Konoha ninjas who needed their support, or might even be dead, but they didn't expect this to be the result.
"But where is the body?" someone couldn't help but ask.
Yeah, where's the body?
"Collect the information and report it to the Hokage."