c158 — It's So Irritating!
Could it be that the captain of that Kirigakure team was kicked in the head by a donkey?
No… that's impossible. Even if the captain had been hit by the donkey's rear legs, there's no way every single elite under him was as brainless as he was.
Didn't Kirigakure's original plan involve one team intercepting Konoha's reinforcements while another conducted a surprise assault on the material transfer station?
If that's the case, then their bizarre behavior might actually make sense.
But then… what exactly is their goal?
Judging from how they arranged their ambush near Lion's Head Mountain, if Uchiha Gen hadn't known about it beforehand and altered his route with careful precision, even the slightest deviation would've led him straight into their trap.
Were they planning to swallow up Konoha's support forces first, then concentrate their entire combat power to destroy the transfer station and cripple the logistics network that kept the front line alive?
That would be a bold but greedy plan.
Tch, tch. How very Kirigakure of them.
Kirigakure shinobi were notorious for their cold and cruel efficiency. During the Third Shinobi War, the Blood Mist Village often used corpses and clone illusions to lure enemy squads into traps before launching a Hidden Mist–assisted slaughter.
But even so, this formation felt off. Uchiha Gen couldn't sense their usual discipline, it was too chaotic, as if someone was deliberately baiting him.
Still, it would never occur to him that he himself was Kirigakure's true target.the deputy commander of Konoha's front-line forces, a young Uchiha whose mastery of the Flying Thunder God Technique and forbidden soul-based jutsu had already spread through whispers among enemy intelligence.
He wasn't afraid of facing such a force head-on, but he knew most of the Konoha ninjas accompanying him would be wiped out within minutes.
If he wanted to win, he had to weaken their numbers first silently. Then, once they were crippled, he would strike with his full squad and destroy them utterly.
The souls of ten Jōnin, twenty Special Jōnin, and a dozen Chūnin… just imagining that harvest made his pulse quicken.
An incredible supplement for both chakra and spiritual energy.
If it were a straight thirty-versus-thirty confrontation, he'd have to use trump cards that could expose his true abilities. But now, with the enemy split into groups and his own movements concealed, he had far more freedom.
With that thought, Uchiha Gen's spiritualized form flashed from high above Lion's Head Mountain and slipped silently into the earth.
He knew Kirigakure ninjas were trained to detect chakra through dense mist, so he chose to move underground where chakra signals were heavily muted by the terrain's mineral density.
His translucent soul moved swiftly through the cold darkness, phasing through roots and stone. As he reached the base of an evergreen cypress, he shot upward through the trunk.
High above, a Kirigakure Jōnin crouched on the canopy, scanning the distance with a telescope. For a moment, his eyes went wide, terror flashing in them. Then he froze, motionless.
The next second, his body trembled then relaxed. His chakra flow became still.
Uchiha Gen had already invaded the man's body.
Through the Jōnin's own hands, Gen performed seals and pressed his palms to the bark, etching the mark of the Flying Thunder God (Hiraishin no Jutsu) into the wood.
Then, with calm precision, he conjured a shadow clone through the Jōnin's body. The clone drew a kunai, slashed the host's neck open in one smooth motion, and dissipated in white smoke.
Blood splattered across the branches and dripped onto the soil below.
At that exact moment, Uchiha Gen's soul retreated into the ground once more, unharmed.
From there, he continued hunting selecting isolated targets who possessed stronger chakra signatures, meaning they likely had some level of spiritual resistance or jutsu worth stealing.
Every time a Kirigakure shinobi fell, he left another Flying Thunder God seal behind, hidden in the foliage or on the corpse.
He faked signs of conventional assassination.kunai wounds, severed throats, or lightning burns.to mask the true nature of their deaths.
He didn't want the Konoha high command.or Orochimaru to know that he'd already mastered the Spiritualization Technique (Reika no Jutsu) that once made Kato Dan famous. Not yet.
To the outside world, these would look like swift, silent kills from an unseen assassin.
In truth, each death added another soul to Uchiha Gen's growing reservoir.
It was horrifyingly efficient. Even for Kirigakure.
Those who died were all Jōnin or Special Jōnin their Chūnin were left untouched. Kirigakure's battle doctrine paired Chūnin together, while higher-ranking shinobi scouted alone.
That isolation made them easy prey.
Sensing-type shinobi were rare, and Kirigakure's front lines had already lost several during earlier skirmishes against Yamanaka and Aburame specialists.
Out of desperation, the Watermelon Mountain Puffer Ghost (Suikazan Fuguki) had sent only two sensory-nin into enemy territory.
They compensated by placing lookouts with telescopes and coded sound wave transmitters, using trained auditory signals to coordinate ambushes.
Once a Konoha squad was spotted, the lookout transmitted a short-range ultrasonic signal through special water-filled tubes that carried sound more efficiently through fog. The signal would then relay from ninja to ninja until reaching the commander Ghost Lantern Moon (Guiden Mangetsu) and Suigetsu's elder brother, Shui Yuetang.
By the time the command signal was sent back, the ambush teams would already be in position.
A terrifyingly tight formation normally.
But this time, it worked in Gen's favor.
The Kirigakure ninjas were too spread out.
Every few minutes, another life was silently extinguished in the fog.
Eventually, it was the sensing-nin who noticed something was wrong.
"Captain Mangetsu! Ten chakra signatures just vanished from my range… I-I think I made a mistake."
The sensor, Kondo Kunihiko, looked pale, sweat dripping down his face.
"Ten?" Mangetsu's expression hardened instantly. "Junichi! Confirm it!"
"Yes, Captain!" Sakata Junichi's fingers blurred through a hand seal, his Byakugan-like eyes flaring with faint blue light from the sensory focus technique.
Moments later, his voice dropped.
"Confirmed. Ten chakra sources are gone. Not moving… they've all vanished completely."
There were only three possibilities for that to happen.
Either the targets had used advanced concealment far beyond sensory detection, they had left the range altogether, or most likely they were dead.
And there was no mistaking it: Kirigakure's upper echelon was being assassinated one by one.
Mangetsu's jaw tightened, fury flashing across his face. "Those damned Leaf rats! They're hiding right under us!"
He exhaled sharply, forcing himself calm, then barked orders.
"Emergency protocol: regroup immediately! No one stays alone. Form pairs and move toward my position. We'll assemble at Point C and flush this assassin out!"
"Yes, Captain!"
Two flares shot into the air, exploding with sharp crackles blue and red fireworks intertwining in the mist to form coded symbols.
Across the mountainside, Kirigakure's surviving ninjas began converging toward the signal point.
Underground, Uchiha Gen paused, watching through the faint vibrations of their chakra.
A slow smile crossed his translucent face.
"Found you."
Then his spiritual body melted deeper into the earth, racing forward like a streak of lightning beneath the mountain.
Time to get serious.
As long as no one survived… nothing would ever be exposed.
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