A few shadows flickered, launching a black kunai with deadly precision. In the dim light of dusk, the kunai cut through the air without a sound, aimed straight at Shin's back.
With heightened awareness, Shin caught sight of his tailing attackers. He grabbed the kunai mid-flight effortlessly with a faint clink, sparks flying where his fingers met the metal.
"A pointless ordeal… I was just looking for some material to experiment with. Congratulations, you've volunteered," Shin said with a sneer, turning to face the assailants.
"Looks like we bit off more than we could chew," one of the bounty hunters muttered. Recognizing the misjudgment, they quickly threw their remaining kunai and began to flee.
With a scoff, Shin ignored the kunai completely. Thanks to his Munch-Munch Fruit powers, he had absorbed so much metal that his skin could resist these attacks like steel.
He pressed forward, his feet striking the ground with enough force to propel him toward his target, one of the fleeing bounty hunters. Despite the slight reduction in agility from his metallic transformation, his speed was more than enough to close the distance.
"Fight!" the bounty hunter ninja shouted, swinging his blade in desperation. Shin didn't dodge. The blade struck him, sparking on contact, yet failed to hinder his advance. A moment later, Shin's body collided with the ninja, reducing him to little more than a crumpled form on the ground.
"Trying to trick me with a substitution jutsu? Dream on." Shin smashed his fist into the earth, following his heightened senses to pinpoint his foe's actual location. He grabbed the bounty hunter ninja hiding underground and pulled him out with ease.
"Aargh!" the ninja screamed, thrashing as Shin's grip crushed his bones. But the struggle didn't last. With a powerful strike, Shin silenced him, leaving nothing but a bloody mess in his wake.
When Shin lifted his gaze, the remaining bounty hunters had scattered. Transforming his hand with his Devil Fruit power, he morphed it into a six-barrel machine gun. He fired a rapid burst in moments, his metallic arm smoking from the discharge.
"One of them got away. Ninjas are really different from pirates," Shin muttered, noting that the last ninja had somehow escaped his detection. Unlike pirates, ninjas rarely fought to the death if they saw no chance of victory—survival was always a priority. Well, except for Naruto Uzumaki, maybe.
"No matter. Three is plenty," Shin said, looking at the bodies. He hesitated, then opened his mouth and devoured one of the corpses in a single gulp, his face turning pale as the taste hit him.
"Ugh! That's awful," Shin grimaced, feeling his stomach churn. The Munch-Munch Fruit typically made eating anything tolerable, but consuming a human body still made him queasy.
As Shin swallowed, he noticed something unusual. Besides the physical matter, he felt chakra within the body's remains. After extracting and absorbing the chakra, he spat out the dry husk left behind.
While feeling the chakra flow within him, he furrowed his brow. "The chakra gain is significant, but only a fraction of the total chakra must have been in the body."
He quickly calculated the rate of increase. "It'd take hundreds of corpses just to double my chakra at this rate. I might as well steal the Hashirama cells and use the Munch-Munch Fruit to merge with a sage body directly."
Pushing through his unease, Shin consumed the other two corpses, repeating the extraction process to gather their chakra. Though unpleasant, he managed to keep down his discomfort. Once finished, he looted the bodies for valuables and buried what remained.
"At the very least, I know I can gain chakra through this method. I'll keep it in mind if I run into more opponents like these," Shin thought, resolving only to repeat this method in extreme cases.
With no further interruptions over the next few days, Shin spent time gathering items unique to the ninja world—mainly ninja tools, explosive tags, sealing scrolls, and, as luck would have it, a piece of chakra metal.
Given his unique abilities, Shin viewed most weapons as expendable sources of power. He didn't need to craft them into anything complex; consuming the metal allowed him to integrate its properties, transforming parts of his body into chakra-infused blades at will.
Three days later, he returned to the black market.
This time, those who had previously eyed him with greed now regarded him with silent fear. Rumors had spread about the young bounty hunter ninja who'd walked in with four shadows on his tail and emerged unscathed, leaving only one injured survivor.
"Are the items ready?" Shin asked the black-market boss.
The boss smiled nervously, presenting a set of scrolls. "Of course, everything you requested is here."
Shin inspected a medical ninjutsu scroll and nodded. His understanding was advanced enough to judge its authenticity.
He handed over the remaining gold to complete the transaction, then departed with a stoic expression.
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Mass Release: [1/5]
For every power stones milestone: 50,100, 200, 300,400,500 I will release a bonus chapter.
I will also release a bonus chapter for every two reviews until it reaches ten reviews.
Review status: [4/10]