By this point, Yugito Nii had determined Gato's current location. Though he was the underground boss of the Land of Waves, the man was terrified of death. He usually took more than a dozen wandering samurai with him when he went out, so ordinary residents had no chance of assassinating him.
Lately, Gato had been frequenting either his private casino or his heavily guarded headquarters. Yugito and Guy were now lying in wait near the places he often visited.
For the moment, Yugito was hidden above the casino, carefully watching everything happening around her.
"Strange. The others should be making their move at the casino, where the defenses are weaker," Yugito said after waiting a long time without seeing any activity.
To guard against danger at the other location, Yugito had stationed Guy there. Even if danger arose, she would notice the disturbance immediately.
"Boom!"
As she was thinking, an explosion suddenly came from the direction of Gato's headquarters.
Yugito instinctively sensed that something was wrong, then realized that someone might have launched a direct attack on Gato's headquarters.
She quickly headed toward Might Guy.
Gato was undoubtedly the unluckiest of all. He had been in the headquarters he had painstakingly built up when a kid with an afro suddenly burst in and attacked him without a word. If he hadn't ordered his men to block the attack in time...
As they spoke, the attacker came at him again, and Gato was unable to dodge.
"Konoha Whirlwind!" A green figure descended from the sky and sent the attacker flying with a kick.
The newcomer was none other than Might Guy.
"Damn it, there really are other contestants," Shu said angrily after being sent flying.
After his attempt to join forces with Hozuki Mangetsu had failed, he had decided to strike first. Once he found Gato's base, he had charged straight in, only to find another contestant there.
Might Guy extended his right hand and took a stance, ready to respond to Shu's attack at any moment.
Shu glanced at Might Guy disdainfully. From the information he had obtained, he knew that the contestant named Might Guy couldn't use Ninjutsu at all. There was no need to get into a Taijutsu fight with him.
"Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"
The moment he spoke, the earth beneath Might Guy's feet turned to liquid, forming a vast swamp that made it difficult for him to move.
Seeing that Might Guy couldn't move, Shu went after Gato again. Might Guy was growing anxious when he suddenly thought of a solution.
"Summoning Technique: Ninja Tortoise!"
He hurriedly used the Ninja Tortoise as a stepping stone, planting a foot on its back and charging straight at Shu. Shu saw that Might Guy had escaped and could only abandon his attack to guard against him.
But when the kick landed, Shu felt as though he had been struck by a lead-weighted chunk of iron and was sent flying several meters.
How is this guy a dead last? Who could deliver a kick like that without twenty or thirty years of training? What is the intelligence department doing?
"Leaf Great Whirlwind!" Guy followed up with a series of kicks to Shu's body, spinning at high speed and chaining high kicks together before ending the rapid assault with a strike from his heel.
Shu had no choice but to use the Substitution Technique to escape Might Guy's relentless assault for the moment. After taking more than a dozen kicks, he also understood that his mission to kill Gato would probably fail.
He could only look for another way. Just as Shu was preparing to leave, a rat-shaped flame flew at him. Yugito had heard the commotion and rushed over.
"Fire Rat Ball!" Yugito formed several hand seals, then spat out several more balls of flame.
Shu thought they were ordinary flames and tried to scatter them with his Explosion Release. But when the Fire Rat Balls broke apart, they split into a multitude of blue flames. Caught completely off guard, he was hit.
"Shu of Iwagakure's Explosion Release." Seeing that he was from Iwagakure, Yugito held back even less and spat several more Fire Rat Balls at him. This time, Shu couldn't block so many flames and was engulfed.
[ Ding. Shu of Iwagakure has died. Mission failed. Transmitting out of the instance immediately. ]
A flash of white light followed, and even Shu's corpse disappeared. Gato, of course, noticed nothing amiss and assumed the flames had reduced him to ashes.
As the people in the real Shinobi World saw that someone had failed his mission, Shu had already suddenly returned to Iwagakure.
[Hiruzen Sarutobi: What happened, Ōnoki? How come your Iwagakure was the first to be eliminated?]
[Third Kazekage: I'm just watching. It's got nothing to do with my Sunagakure, anyway.]
Ōnoki's face darkened. Mocked like this in front of the entire Shinobi World, even someone as thick-skinned as him was left speechless. He ordered someone to bring Shu over so he could ask exactly what had happened in the instance.
If Ōnoki knew that Shu had been scared off by Hozuki Mangetsu as soon as he entered the instance, then beaten up by Konoha and Kumogakure working together, would he be even angrier? After all, Shu's strength was at least average among the contestants, yet he had been eliminated on the very first day.
In the instance, after eliminating Shu, Yugito walked up to Gato with Might Guy.
Gato looked at the two ninja who had just saved him. He was about to say something when he saw Yugito's displeased gaze and instinctively withdrew the hand he had extended. He did have some ability to read the situation, after all.
It wasn't just Yugito. Might Guy couldn't stand Gato either. Who would want to protect a local tyrant who preyed on the people? Guy was simply more cheerful and didn't show it openly.
Little did they know, Hozuki Mangetsu, hidden in the shadows, had watched their entire fight with Shu.
As the leader of the second generation of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, Hozuki Mangetsu was naturally not someone a simple-minded man like Shu could compare to.
Hozuki Mangetsu was the only man capable of summoning all seven Ninja Blades at once, and his combat strength afterward was no weaker than that of any other member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
Moreover, his personality was exactly like Uchiha Itachi's. Both were geniuses, both doted on their younger brothers, and both even died young.