"Dammit! Using civilians as shields is despicable!" Tsunade hissed, her knuckles white as she watched from the hillside. The Suna rogue ninja below cracked his whip, making a group of prisoners flinch. "And there are children down there!"
Beside her, Yuta shot her a sidelong glance.
'She sounds like a grizzled veteran,' he thought, a flicker of amusement cutting through his focus. 'Children? That's a teenager. She should look in a mirror sometime.'
"What's the plan?" whispered Meyuri, her own fists clenched so tightly her nails bit into her palms. She looked ready to leap down and dismantle the rogue ninja herself.
Yuta's voice was low and steady. "We wait. Let the chaos inside the camp do the work for us. Then we move."
As if on cue, his eyes caught a shift below. The feasting rogue ninja and his bandit companions suddenly stiffened, their raucous laughter dying.
Even the guard tormenting the civilians turned his head sharply toward the main gate.
The lead rogue ninja dropped a half-eaten piece of meat, his face twisting in annoyance. "Calm down. I'm here, aren't I? What is there to fear?"
His words gave a visible relief to the nervous bandits.
"You, with me," the rogue ninja commanded, jerking his head toward the gate. "Let's see what's causing this fuss. To think we'd be found in this gods-forsaken place... what a nuisance."
Yuta watched the man's grumbling retreat, his eyes narrowing to slits.
During his last simulation, he'd dismissed the Root's assassination techniques as a useless reward. Now, he saw their potential. Combined with his stealth techniques, the Body Flicker Technique, and the Rasengan, he had the tools for a perfect, insta kill.
He took a silent breath, exchanging a final, decisive look with Tsunade and Meyuri. Then, he vanished.
To their eyes, he didn't just move fast; he simply ceased to exist on the hillside, leaving not even a blur of motion in his wake.
'He's fast,' Tsunade's breath hitched.
"Stay here. Provide backup when it's time. I'll get the civilians out," Meyuri instructed, her voice all business.
Tsunade nodded, forcing her shock down. Meyuri hadn't even blinked. 'Was this level of speed normal for him?'
She'd always considered Orochimaru the pinnacle of genius, but this... this was something else entirely.
"He's attacking," Meyuri murmured.
Down in the camp, Yuta materialized beside the guarding rogue ninja like a phantom conjured from the shadows.
'Now!'
Meyuri launched herself from the hillside, landing softly within the compound. She didn't waste a second, rushing to the huddled civilians with urgent, hushed assurances, quickly herding them toward the safety of the perimeter.
The rogue ninja guard sensed the danger a heartbeat too late. His body tensed, his eyes widening in dawning horror.
By the time he registered the flicker of movement, the seething, azure sphere of chakra in Yuta's palm was already driving into his chest.
The man—a normal Genin—had no time to scream, no time to block. The impact was brutal and final. He crumpled to the dirt, his body lifeless before he even knew what had hit him.
Yuta let out a slow, controlled breath.
He had the techniques, the power, but this was his first time killing. He expected nausea, remorse... something. Instead, a cold, unfamiliar thrill coursed through him. A deep, primal part of him relished the efficiency of it.
'Get a grip,' he chastised himself, his lip twitching. He shoved the unsettling feeling down, locking it away.
"What in the...?That Jutsu! What was that?!"
Up on the hill, Tsunade stared, stunned. Shaking herself into action, she vaulted down to help Meyuri coordinate the civilians' escape.
—
Meanwhile, the frontal assault was meeting fierce resistance.
Orochimaru had known the diversion would be dangerous, but he hadn't expected a Chūnin—and a highly proficient one at that.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Wave!" the rogue ninja roared, a vicious grin splitting his face as he unleashed a slicing torrent of air.
Orochimaru's eyes snapped to the technique's trajectory.
"Jiraiya!" He kicked off the ground, soaring upward as his hands flew through a sequence of seals. "Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
But it was a feint. A volley of shuriken sliced through the air toward him, and the rogue ninja himself followed, a kunai gleaming in his hand as he closed the distance mid-air.
'A trap!' Orochimaru's blood ran cold. 'He used Jiraiya as bait to draw me out!'
He twisted his body, narrowly avoiding the shuriken, but the evasion left him exposed to the killing blow descending from above.
"Earth Style: Earth Wall!"
Osamu's voice rang out as a solid barrier of rock erupted from the ground, shielding Orochimaru.
Jiraiya, finally processing the near-fatal ambush on his friend, reacted with a surge of adrenaline.
Though often the squad's "dead-last," his jutsu speed in a crisis was nothing to scoff at—in this moment, it even surpassed Osamu.
Thwarted, the Suna Chūnin snarled in frustration, aborting his lunge and pushing back through the air to retreat and reassess.
But as he landed, Yuta was already there, waiting silently on his intended escape route.
'Another one?! Where did he come from?!' The Chūnin's confidence shattered into alarm. He hadn't sensed the boy's approach at all.
'Kegeshi, you fool! Where are you I need support?!'
Panic set in. Without breaking his backward momentum, the Chūnin's hands flew up again, forming seals for another, desperate jutsu.
But Yuta was gone, vanished back into the shadows like a ghost.
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