"He spotted us!"
The squad leader immediately flashed a series of hand signals to his teammates. All three wore forehead protectors etched with four wavy lines—the symbol of the Hidden Mist.
"Something's definitely wrong with this kid. What's the play?" The fierce-looking ninja beside him signaled back.
"Kill him. Anyone capable of detecting us in these conditions can't be ordinary—even if he's not from Konoha." The third ninja's hands moved quickly. "We can't take the risk."
Their silent exchange lasted only seconds. The moment they reached consensus, they moved.
The squad leader drew a short sword and melted into the thick fog, flanked by two clones. Meanwhile, his teammates had already produced clones of their own. Their real bodies slipped away, circling wide to flank their target.
Zenji's body went rigid.
The instant two additional humanoid shapes materialized alongside the original three, he knew he was in trouble. His obvious stare had given him away—they knew he'd spotted them.
Damn it.
He clenched his fists and forced himself to stand, pretending he hadn't noticed anything. But his act was pathetic at best, his gaze darting around randomly as he feigned confusion.
He used the opportunity to track the two flanking him, careful not to let his eyes linger this time.
It didn't matter. The squad leader's gaze had already turned cold. Killing intent radiated from him like heat from a forge.
Two cross-shaped shuriken appeared in his hands. Without hesitation, he hurled them.
Zenji had been on high alert, but the speed still caught him off guard. He stumbled backward, feeling the rush of displaced air as the blades scraped past him.
He dodged—but his foot slipped on the wet grass. His balance vanished, and he crashed to the ground.
"Now!" The squad leader's hands blurred through seals.
"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!"
A high-pressure torrent erupted from his mouth, rocketing toward Zenji.
There was no time to dodge. Zenji lay sprawled on the slick grass, completely exposed.
Move. MOVE!
Chakra exploded from the tenketsu in his hands and feet, flooding through his entire body. Desperately, he tried to simulate the effects of Cursed Energy Enhancement, curling into a ball to protect his head and vitals.
Chakra and Cursed Energy shared certain properties. Replicating the enhancement effect wasn't impossible—
The water slammed into him like a battering ram.
Zenji felt the impact in every bone as he was launched backward. His spine cracked against a tree trunk with enough force to snap it clean through. He tumbled across the ground before finally skidding to a halt.
Agony twisted his face. But whether due to the enhancement or the strange transformation his chakra-saturated flesh had undergone, he hadn't suffered any serious injuries. Despite the pain, not even a trace of blood rose in his throat.
A shadow materialized behind him.
Kunai in hand, the ninja thrust toward his exposed neck.
Simultaneously, another appeared in front of him, hands weaving through seals with blatant confidence.
A normal person's attention would have been drawn to the obvious threat ahead, leaving them blind to the danger behind.
But Zenji was no longer normal.
The uncontrollable chakra flooding his body might be killing him slowly—but it was also making him something more than human.
His chakra-coated arm whipped backward at an unnatural angle.
Perhaps due to his earlier pathetic display, the flanking ninja had let his guard down. He never expected his target to detect him. All he could do was watch, wide-eyed, as a chakra-wreathed fist hurtled toward his skull.
BOOM.
An unnatural roar split the air.
Blue chakra coated the fist—and the instant it connected with the Mist ninja's head, something impossible happened.
Synchronization.
Physical energy, spiritual energy, and chakra achieved a high-frequency resonance in that single moment of impact.
The blue chakra turned black, spreading outward in a faint wave of distorted light. Then came the force—raw, devastating power unleashed directly into the ninja's skull.
CRACK.
His head exploded in a mist of crimson. The headless corpse crumpled to the ground.
The remaining two ninjas froze. Then their expressions twisted with rage.
The squad leader charged forward, fury etched across his face. His companion completed his seals, conjuring a whip of water that coiled around his arm as he rushed in from the opposite direction.
But Zenji wasn't afraid anymore.
"This feeling..." His contorted expression relaxed for the first time. "Incredible."
He rose fluidly to his feet. The chakra flowing through him had never felt so smooth, so responsive.
Black Flash.
That's what had just happened. In the split second before the attack, Zenji had pulled two pieces of knowledge from the sphere in his mind—the simplest and most immediately applicable techniques he could find.
Cursed Energy Enhancement was the foundation of jujutsu combat. Nearly every sorcerer used it, channeling cursed energy to reinforce their body. The results varied based on control and raw power.
Gojo Satoru achieved it through absolute precision—near-zero energy loss. Okkotsu Yuta relied on sheer volume—an almost limitless reservoir of cursed energy. Both possessed physical striking power that rivaled or exceeded those born with Heavenly Restriction.
And right now, Zenji's body contained a massive amount of chakra.
More importantly, his impromptu simulation of Black Flash had actually succeeded, inheriting most of its characteristics.
The effect was like a shot of pure adrenaline. His understanding of chakra had deepened dramatically. Controlling it felt effortless now—smooth as silk.
"You two..." Zenji's lips curled into a cold sneer. "The tables have turned."
His eyes blazed with ghostly blue light, like twin flames burning in the sockets of a vengeful spirit.
Then he vanished.
The ninja with the water whip barely had time to react. His opponent's speed was simply too fast.
He managed to raise his arm—
A fist filled his vision.
BANG.
His head burst apart, spraying a fan-shaped arc of blood across the clearing. The impact drove his body into the earth with bone-shattering force.
Terror flooded the squad leader's eyes. In that single moment of distraction, he'd lost track of his target completely.
Then two hands wreathed in blue light clamped around his throat.
He hadn't been fooled by the clones. Zenji had found the real body instantly.
A tremendous force wrenched sideways.
SNAP.
The ninja's eyes bulged. Bloody foam frothed at the corners of his mouth as the life drained from his gaze.
Dead. Completely and utterly dead.
Zenji stood there clutching the corpse, chest heaving as he gasped for air.
That transcendent state was already fading. The chakra enhancement remained, but it no longer responded with that effortless fluidity.
Naruto squads usually have four members, he reminded himself. Only three here. One's missing.
This wasn't a place to linger.
He glanced at the other two corpses. With their heads destroyed, blood pooled rapidly beneath their ruined necks.
"Good thing I held back on this one," he muttered. "Otherwise I wouldn't have any materials to work with."
Grabbing the intact body, he leaped onto a nearby tree trunk, picked a direction at random, and fled.
Drawing on half-remembered survival knowledge, he found a small river and plunged in, letting the current carry him downstream. After emerging on the far bank, he gathered handfuls of pungent plants and crushed them over his skin to mask his scent.
Not long after he disappeared, a four-man squad arrived at the battle site.
Their leader was a cold, arrogant-looking ninja wearing a Konoha forehead protector. A distinctive fan crest adorned the back of his clothes.
His eyes shifted.
Within his crimson pupils, a single tomoe began to spin.