The border of the Land of Wind, the Red Desert.
Unlike the suffocating humidity of the Land of Rain, this was the other extreme.
The scorching sun baked the earth, the air distorted by the high temperature. As far as the eye could see, there was not a trace of life, only endless sand dunes.
A ninja unit was moving through this sea of death as silently as ghosts.
They all wore special cloaks that blended in with the color of the sand, and their faces were covered with uniform animal masks, revealing only pairs of cold eyes.
Konoha's Assassination Tactics Special Unit—the Anbu.
Not a single person in this unit made a sound. All communication was done through a complex and efficient set of hand signals.
They were like a group of silent reapers. Where they passed, only the moaning of the wind blowing over the sand dunes remained.
At the very front of the unit walked a tall, straight-backed man.
He also wore the Anbu uniform, a white dog mask on his face, and his striking silver-white hair fluttered slightly in the scorching wind.
Hatake Sakumo.
He stopped, raised a hand, and the entire unit came to a halt in an instant, their movements perfectly synchronized, as if they were one person.
He crouched down, pressed his palm against the hot sand, and closed his eyes.
His chakra, like the most precise radar, spread out in all directions along the sand.
A moment later, he opened his eyes and made a few simple hand signals to the squad leaders behind him.
'Three kilometers ahead, under the sand dune, there are five chakra signatures.'
'Sunagakure scouts.'
'Eliminate them.'
A young Anbu wearing a cat mask had a glint of eagerness in his eyes.
He was a genius who had recently joined the Anbu, with outstanding strength but a somewhat arrogant personality.
He made a hand signal to Sakumo, requesting to lead a team to deal with them.
However, Hatake Sakumo just glanced at him and then shook his head.
Then, he made a hand signal that stunned everyone.
'I'll go alone.'
'You, wait here.'
Before the cat-masked Anbu could react, Hatake Sakumo's figure vanished on the spot, as if melting into the air.
There was no chakra fluctuation from a Body Flicker Technique, not a single sound.
He was just... gone.
The cat-masked Anbu was shocked. He considered his strength to be at the top among his peers, but just now, he hadn't seen how the captain had disappeared at all.
He subconsciously focused chakra in his eyes, staring intently at the seemingly empty desert ahead, trying to find a trace of his captain.
But no matter how hard he tried, he found nothing.
It was as if that person had never existed.
Time passed, minute by minute.
In the desert, there was only the sound of the wind.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Just as the cat-masked Anbu was beginning to feel anxious, thinking that something might have gone wrong.
Hatake Sakumo's figure reappeared as silently as he had vanished, back in the spot where he had been standing.
It was as if he had never left.
The White Fang short sword in his hand was still securely in its sheath, without even a grain of sand on it.
He made a simple hand signal to everyone.
'Threat eliminated. Continue forward.'
The cat-masked Anbu was filled with doubt. He couldn't help but ask with hand signals.
'Captain, did you... take care of it?'
Hatake Sakumo did not answer, but simply glanced at him with his calm eyes.
Then, he raised his hand and pointed to the sand dune three kilometers ahead.
At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew.
The sand on the surface of the huge sand dune was blown away, revealing the five bodies buried underneath.
The bodies of five Sunagakure ninja.
Their faces still held the expressions of vigilant patrol, but on each of their necks was a barely visible line of blood.
A single, fatal blow.
They hadn't even been given a chance to react or form hand seals.
Seeing this, the cat-masked Anbu felt a chill run from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, his back instantly drenched in cold sweat.
He finally understood why this man had been entrusted with such a heavy responsibility by Lord Hokage.
The other Anbu members in the unit, although their faces were covered by masks, also had looks of shock and awe in their eyes.
They were the elite of the elite. Killing was as common as eating for them.
But to perform killing as a silent art, like Hatake Sakumo, they knew they could never do it.
The unit continued to advance, like ghosts in the desert, quietly approaching their first target.
An oasis marked as Kandar.
This was one of Sunagakure's most important supply transit stations on the front lines.
It was garrisoned by over three hundred Sunagakure ninja, including several elite jonin.
Heavily guarded, it was like a fortress.
Sakumo, leading his hundred-man unit, lay hidden behind a sand dune several kilometers from the oasis, observing quietly.
He spread out a map. On the map, the troop deployment, patrol routes, and even the guard change times of this transit station were marked in detail.
This intelligence had been obtained by Danzo's Root at the cost of countless lives.
Sakumo's gaze slowly moved across the map, finally settling on a location marked as a water source in the center of the oasis.
A cold glint flashed in his eyes.
He knew that the ninja of Sunagakure, in order to conserve water, would mix a special kind of military ration pill into their drinking water to maintain their stamina.
And he only needed to do one thing.
He took out a very small scroll from his ninja pouch and handed it to a team member behind him.
That team member was an elite from the Aburame clan.
Sakumo made a few hand signals to him.
'Let your children go and deliver this to them.'
The Aburame ninja took the scroll, opened it for a glance, and his body trembled imperceptibly.
Sealed in the scroll was not some explosive tag, nor some powerful ninjutsu.
It was a powder.
A colorless, odorless powder specially concocted by Orochimaru. Once dissolved in water, it would, after twelve hours, unleash a terrifying neuro-relaxant effect.
The Aburame ninja nodded heavily to Sakumo.
He unbuttoned his collar, and countless tiny kikaichū flew out with a buzz, picking up the powder and flying silently towards the oasis.
The night gradually deepened.
Hatake Sakumo still lay quietly on the sand dune, like a lifeless statue.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the moment of slaughter to arrive.
He looked up at the name on the map that he had circled in red—Sunagakure Jonin, Yasha.
Then, he slowly made a throat-slitting gesture to all the Anbu behind him.
Their first target was set.
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