The battle preparations of the two Sand elite jōnin didn't attract Yoru's attention at all.
He was currently staring "affectionately" at his cat sage.
"We're stronger than we thought."
"We really are."
"Some plans need to change."
"They do."
"First, kill Hayano Keisuke…"
"…then deal with the rest."
Their words overlapped perfectly, and both Yoru and Miwa Masayo broke into laughter.
As for the two elite jōnin—
In their eyes, they were already finished.
All the caution, all the careful calculations before—those were because Yoru had failed in one thing: properly understanding both sides.
He had overestimated the enemy.
And severely underestimated himself.
In truth, Yoru was already extremely strong.
He might not be able to defeat the Third Hokage yet, and taking down Danzō might still be difficult—but against ordinary or even elite jōnin, his efficiency in battle was already higher than theirs.
As a transmigrator, the combat system he understood wasn't the current one—
But the system from nearly twenty years in the future.
A system refined through war and perfected through long development.
It wasn't just raw strength.
It was a complete difference in combat philosophy.
To Yoru, the enemy's preparations—whether large-scale sealing techniques or multiple puppets—were all inefficient.
They consumed too much chakra.
They divided attention.
And worst of all—
They slowed reaction speed.
For Yoru and Miwa Masayo, who relied on speed to overwhelm opponents, this meant only one thing:
Weaknesses.
Clear, fatal weaknesses.
Yoru released excess chakra through controlled flames, raising the temperature of the battlefield.
Soon, even the toxins around Fusha ignited as soon as they left his immediate control.
Using such obvious biological toxins in front of a fire-style user—
It was simply ineffective.
Yoru didn't care what those toxins were or how long they had taken to prepare.
In the end, they vanished in the flames without leaving anything behind.
Fusha's trump card was gone.
His techniques were reduced to simple wind-based attacks.
And wind…
Was naturally suppressed by fire.
Yoru stood within flames, effortlessly countering every move.
Fusha felt it immediately.
Despair.
Yoru caught that emotion perfectly.
Through eye contact, his Sharingan amplified it—layer by layer—planting seeds of negative emotions deep within Fusha's mind.
At the same time, in close combat, he disrupted Fusha's chakra flow, making it harder and harder for him to recover.
Fusha's movements slowed.
His eyes lost focus.
His spirit collapsed.
Eventually, his mind shut down completely.
His body was still alive—
But his will was gone.
He became nothing more than an empty shell.
He watched blankly as Yoru approached—
And ended the fight in a single strike.
Calm. Silent. Final.
On the other side, Hayano Keisuke's eight puppets performed even worse.
The Sand Village believed that a puppet master's strength depended only on the number and quality of puppets.
But that belief was flawed.
If a puppet master could fully control multiple puppets, each one could fight at peak performance.
But if they could only barely manage them—
Then all puppets became inefficient.
Interference increased.
Coordination collapsed.
And that was exactly what was happening now.
Miwa Masayo's speed was already too much for him.
With his attention split across eight puppets—and his vision partially blocked by his defensive shell—
He completely lost track of her position.
She moved freely between the puppets.
His attacks missed entirely.
One by one, his puppets were dismantled.
The sounds of impacts and breaking mechanisms echoed all around him.
He didn't even know where the attacks were coming from.
At the same time, the temperature kept rising.
The outer shell of his puppet began heating up.
The heat transferred inward.
He felt like he was trapped in a sealed furnace.
Yoru had already realized—
He couldn't break the defensive puppet directly.
So instead, he surrounded it with fire.
If he couldn't break it—
He would end the fight from the inside.
After the battle, as they cleaned up the area, Yoru suddenly spoke.
"This is strange."
"What is, meow?" Miwa Masayo asked.
"I took down the small one… but where's the big one?"
"Huh?"
"Isn't Hayano Keisuke the son of Ebizō? I thought the old man would show up to save him."
"Why would he appear? He can't just show up instantly, meow."
"…That's how it usually goes in stories."
"You have stories like that? Tell me one, meow."
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