Late at night, above the head, the night sky was boundless, but a lonely moon hung in the vast darkness, looking a bit desolate. The stars flickered timidly in the distance with a lonely glimmer, but these gleams were insignificant to the bright moon.
Coo, coo~
Coo, coo~
In the forest, insects chirped, and some birds also cried from time to time. An owl on the branch would vigilantly turn its head from side to side, every now and then.
Uchiha Tonan sprinted across the mountain forest without making any sounds, much like a ghost. Right ahead of him, white pigeons had already spread out, clearing the way for him.
Under the moonlight, these pigeons were conspicuous, like pure white dots in the abyss. However, these were no ordinary birds. They could transform into extremely ferocious birds of prey at a moment’s notice.
The cool autumn night breeze blew the leaves all over the sky. The entire forest was enveloped in shadows that seemed to be moving at a fast speed, making it difficult for people to see.
In his pursuit, something caught Uchiha Tonan’s attention. He immediately changed his direction and advanced stealthily towards the target location. Among the lofty ridges and towering mountains, there was a lone dilapidated cabin, surrounded by barren land bereft of even a blade of grass.
Since it was already midnight, the bonfire had already become ashes. Hachimoto Yuki sat on the haystack and expressionlessly used a wooden stick to extinguish the remaining sparks. Without any preamble, Yuki controlled a puppet and dodged to one side.
Bang!
A stone pillar leaped up from the ground, breaking through the cabin. In the next moment, Yuki was outside the cabin, while controlling the humanoid puppet. He looked up and saw Tonan with a pair of scarlet eyes turning around slowly on the stone pillar.
Tonan looked down at the pair of a human and a puppet. “You dared to light a fire while fleeing. Were you afraid I couldn’t find you? It seems you were already prepared to block my attack.”
Yuki didn’t answer but moved his hands. He controlled the humanoid puppet beside him to take out a sword and jump toward Tonan.
Boom~
The humanoid puppet was very powerful. With a single slash, the stone pillar was split in half from top to bottom. The cut itself was smooth as if its target was not stone but a slab of butter. But Tonan’s figure had disappeared long ago. Yuki instinctively turned around and saw him standing behind, with his three tomoe Sharingan spinning rapidly.
Swish~
At some point, the humanoid puppet had already appeared above Tonan, and the sword in its hands was coming down on him. A hint of surprise flashed through Tonan’s eyes, and he immediately activated Lightning Spirit Wind Flash.
“Interesting,” Tonan’s appeared on a tree branch. He was now very curious about this sand ninja. He hadn’t made any hand signs but was actually able to ignore three tomoe Sharingan’s genjutsu. In fact, he seemed to be completely immune to it.
“How exactly did he do this? He didn’t close his eyes too.”
Yuki moved his hands, controlling the humanoid puppet to continue rushing towards Tonan. Tonan knew the importance of this mission, so he didn’t want to continue wasting his time here. Lightning covered his right hand, and he punched the humanoid puppet’s abdomen.
At the same time, he used Lightning Spirit Wind Flash and instantly appeared behind Yuki. A chakra tanto had already appeared in his hand at some point, with which he aimed at Yuki’s neck. When Tonan used Lightning Spirit Wind Flash, Yuki had also made hand seals. And the instant Tonan appeared, Yuki exploded like a balloon.
An earth-shaking sound of an explosion was followed by a mushroom cloud rising up in the forest. With Yuki as the center, everything nearby was destroyed. Many birds fled into the sky in succession. It was just an instant but there was not even a blade of grass left in the area where the two were standing. Even the cliff had almost collapsed.
Coo, coo~ Coo, coo~
Other than a few birds’ cries in the forest, there was no movement of other creatures nearby. There were burnt black rocks in the crater created by the explosion.
At this moment, the humanoid puppet that was lying under the big tree made some strange noises. The humanoid puppet stood up slowly, but its limb seemed unbalanced. After staggering two steps, it fell to the ground again. Slowly, the humanoid puppet’s shell opened, and there was a middle-aged man inside.
This middle-aged man was the real Hachimoto Yuki. There were bloodstains at the corners of his mouth. He covered his stomach with one hand and used the other hand to take support on the ground and stood up with difficulty. He dragged his body and leaned against the big tree. Looking at the crater, his face was full of joy.
“Fifty explosive tags, your death is also not unjust.” This humanoid puppet, in fact, was nothing more than hard metal armor. And the one who perished together with Tonan just now was the real puppet. It was a puppet that was capable of self-detonation.
It was just that that puppet was covered with a layer of human skin, which made it difficult to identify. Yuki reached out his hand with difficulty, took out a pill from his ninja bag, and ate it.
Cough, cough~ After swallowing the pill, he still felt extremely uncomfortable. He lowered his head and looked at his stomach, cursing in a low voice, “That Uchiha kid is a monster. He was able to dent such a hard armor. I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d fought head-on.”
Yuki looked at the desolate night sky and was a little lost. After an unknown period of time, he suddenly saw a spark in front of him. He immediately raised his right hand, picked up the wooden stick beside him, and extinguished the spark.
Suddenly, he felt tingling pain in his head, and he immediately broke out in cold sweats. It’s the sign of the seal of annihilation activating! In an instant, he came back to his senses and looked around.
“No… impossible…” Where is the explosion scene? At this moment, he was still in the humanoid puppet. Moreover, he was still in the cabin. And he had just extinguished the sparks on the ground.
“Something similar to Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal? You can’t even think about it, it’s truly overbearing.”
Crackle, crackle, crackle~ Swish~
Lightning flashed, and in an instant, Yuki was beheaded in a single sword move. His hard metal armor was unable to stop Tonan’s blade coated with lightning and wind attributed chakra. With his death, the human-skinned puppet beside him fell as well.
Tonan, who was standing behind the corpse, shook his head, “This trick was pretty good but it’s a pity you met me.”
How could he know that Tonan had Byakugan’s see-through ability? At a glance, he could see Yuki’s real body that was pretending to be a puppet. Even without Byakugan’s ability, he could identify the real body by its breathing sound through the Wind Communication. This was the technique’s advantage.
After finding the real body, he directed genjutsu at the armor’s eyeholes. He wanted to find out more about this person’s companions. Unfortunately, a curse seal was placed in his mind. As long as he recalled anything about his companions, he would be warned automatically. And if he continued to do so, he might just die.
Tonan immediately determined that this person should be a member of a unit similar to Root of other ninja villages. This detail was enough to rule out Suna. But also this person was middle-aged and his skin condition was not bad. It was obvious he was not someone who grew up in the Land of Wind, which had bad weather.
Someone who dared to infiltrate Konoha to steal secrets, and also had a mysterious unit similar to the Root. It could only be the other three big ninja villages – Iwa, Kumo, or Kiri.
But there were too few clues to proceed further. If he was from Kiri, which was foggy all year round, his skin should be fairer due to the lack of ultraviolet radiation. But this person had a healthy wheatish complexion. He obviously gets a lot of sun exposure.
Just by the theory of elimination, he must be either from Iwa or Kumo.
