This Time, I Have No Choice but to Go

Izumi once again tasted the agony of social death. Her slender brows drooped, and her large, pitch-black eyes beneath them glittered atop her beauty mark, brimming with grievance.

At this rate...

She was really going to become the team's human compass and the one who eliminated wrong answers from multiple-choice questions.

"Sigh..."

Izumi let out a long sigh inwardly. After feeling depressed for a moment, she imitated Tamao and adopted a novel perspective on the problem.

Thinking about it from the opposite angle, Izumi's eyes suddenly lit up. It seemed that she wasn't entirely unable to accept this special talent of hers.

At least she was useful. She could help Ingetsu Captain and her clansmen.

On that point, Izumi felt that she had beaten Uchiha Mikoto by far, far too much.

As she thought this, Izumi swept away her grievance, widened her beautiful dark eyes, and looked toward Mikoto.

Mikoto was stunned. Being stared at so directly by this girl suddenly made her panic, and her thoughts began to run wild.

Could this girl have seen through my single-minded desire to die?

That shouldn't be...

Mikoto maintained her calm and gentle bearing, reined in her thoughts, smoothed the expression on her face, then turned her softened gaze toward Ingetsu.

The Uchihas also put aside their urge to tease Izumi and turned to look at their captain.

"Izumi stays behind. Tamao and Nanfeng, take the rest of the clansmen and wipe out all the enemies lying in ambush along the other two mountain roads. Leave no one alive.

We'll continue forward with the caravan.

Once you're done, come back and regroup!"

Ingetsu distributed the tasks, gazing at the Uchihas before him, whose killing intent had yet to fade.

"Yes—"

Tamao and Nanfeng looked delighted. They had just been worrying that they hadn't had enough fun. Each took one member of Izumi's patrol team and scattered to the left and right.

Kurenai Yuhi and Nonō had not been named, but neither of them was worried that the Uchiha Clan ninjas would run into trouble.

Just now, they had witnessed the strength of Ingetsu's team.

If the Root Organization's team had not included ninjas of Yamanaka Fu and Aburame Torune's caliber, they would never have been able to kill a four-person Uchiha squad through numbers alone.

After the battle ended.

The valley was filled with a thick stench of blood. Before long, it attracted the crows living on the mountain.

Flap—

Large numbers of crows spread their wings and landed around the corpses, sucking up the warm blood and pecking at the flesh without a care.

A few unlucky crows happened to fly beside Yamanaka Fu's corpse.

They unfortunately inhaled the nanoscale venomous insects in the surrounding air. Their eyes bulged, their claws twitched twice, and they collapsed to the ground in agony, never moving again.

Several nearby crows noticed something strange. They stretched out their necks, tilted their heads, and glanced at their fallen companions.

Without giving it much thought, the crows continued greedily sucking the blood from the corpses.

Ingetsu walked through the corpses, startling countless crows into flight. He came before Zong Quan and calmly said, "Organize the caravan. We're moving out!"

"Okay, okay, okay..."

Zong Quan stammered, sweat beading on his forehead. From the other man's calm face, he could not see the slightest trace of emotion.

It was as if nothing that had happened before had ever occurred.

Zong Quan then acted quickly, leading the guards, whose desire to survive was extraordinarily strong, to drive away the crows and throw the corpses lying across the valley to the roadside.

"They're dead... They're all dead..."

"They were all Konoha Anbu, the elite among elites even among ninjas. And not one of them survived."

"Less talking. Get to work!"

The Tsuchigumo Caravan members whispered among themselves. Looking at the corpses they had once pinned their hopes on, they were seized by waves of lingering fear, their backs turning cold.

Once the valley floor had been cleaned up.

Rumble—

The wheels rolled on.

The Tsuchigumo Clan's caravan continued forward. After what had just happened, the atmosphere within the group had fallen into complete silence.

Ingetsu brought Mikoto, Kurenai, Nonō, Izumi, and Hotaru and sat in the rear compartment of the first carriage as it moved slowly along.

Before setting out this time, Ingetsu had created two Shadow Clones to serve as scouts and clear the way ahead, reducing the risk of being ambushed again.

Everyone remained silent.

After the battle ended, the hot blood of Izumi, who had participated in it, gradually cooled.

She suddenly thought of an interesting question. After some consideration, she decided to ask Ingetsu anyway.

I can't keep embarrassing myself!

"Captain, when you killed someone for the first time, did you feel afraid?" Izumi widened her beautiful eyes and looked at Ingetsu's profile, asking curiously.

At this question, the women and girls in the carriage all turned toward Ingetsu. Clearly, they all wanted to know the answer.

Uchiha Mikoto's eyes rippled. She felt that a cold man like this probably would not have been afraid even the first time he killed someone.

Kurenai Yuhi and Nonō were not so sure.

They asked themselves.

Even after becoming ninjas, when they killed someone for the first time, their hearts had been filled with mixed emotions. As for fear, it had stemmed from morality and various other factors.

That was why they were very interested in the feelings of someone like Ingetsu.

Ingetsu did not avoid the question. He looked directly at Izumi, thought for a moment, and answered seriously:

"When I killed someone for the first time, the person being killed should have felt afraid. However, my blade was very fast, so I didn't let him remain afraid for too long."

"Uh, you didn't let him remain afraid for too long, Captain... So you... you're actually quite a good person." The corner of Izumi's mouth twitched.

She always felt that the angle from which her captain answered questions was extremely unusual, and strangely familiar.

He truly was the person who had raised Tamao.

After saying that, Ingetsu fell silent again.

The other women wore strange expressions as they stared at him, not knowing what to say. One by one, they grumbled inwardly:

I asked whether you were afraid of killing someone, and you said your blade was fast??

What was that supposed to mean?

In the second carriage of the caravan.

A guard occasionally turned his head, pretending to look toward the forest while actually stealing envious glances at Ingetsu, who was surrounded by a group of beautiful women and girls.

If one day...

If he could also be surrounded by such a group of beauties, his life would probably be complete!

Zong Quan noticed something was wrong. He angrily kicked the good-for-nothing guard and scolded him in a low voice, "What are you looking at? Is someone of that stature someone you can stare at?"

After taking the kick, the guard lowered his head, looking aggrieved, and complained with a sigh, "Weren't you also staring enviously..."

Zong Quan immediately flew into a rage. He slapped the other man across the scalp and cursed, "You know nothing! I was observing the important figure's expression!"

About ten minutes later.

The caravan drew closer and closer to the Earth Spider Clan Territory.

A mission-completion notification popped up in Ingetsu's mind.

Side Mission:

Eliminate the Root Organization pursuit team.

Options:

1. Eliminate the Root Organization team lying in ambush on Katsuragi Mountain.

Mission Complete!

Reward: Forbidden Jutsu Replication Scroll!

Tamao and Nanfeng had led their teams to complete the mission. Ingetsu looked back at Zong Quan in the second carriage and signaled for him to slow the caravan down.

The carriage gradually slowed.

Ingetsu shifted his attention to the Storage Space. A pitch-black scroll had appeared in a corner.

He turned his right hand, and space trembled.

The Forbidden Jutsu Replication Scroll appeared out of thin air in his palm. With a mere touch, he sensed how to use it.

He only needed to hold it in his hand and look at the target he wanted to replicate. Then he could replicate one of the forbidden techniques that target knew. If the target knew too many forbidden techniques, the scroll would randomly replicate one.

Ingetsu performed a magic trick in front of everyone and returned the scroll to the Storage Space.

Hotaru, the future heir of the Tsuchigumo Clan, looked amazed. She was rather envious of Ingetsu's ability to make objects appear from empty air.

Just as she was eagerly anticipating what Ingetsu would do next, she was shocked to discover that his bright, pitch-black eyes were calmly fixed on her.

"..."

Hotaru hurriedly lowered her head, afraid she had angered the S-Rank Missing-nin.

Ingetsu moved his gaze away from Hotaru's petite body. Originally, he had not planned to go to the Earth Spider Clan Territory.

But now that he had the Forbidden Jutsu Replication Scroll, it seemed he had no choice but to go to the Earth Spider Clan Territory.

It was on the way, anyway.

It would not delay his escape.

Forbidden Technique: Raging Heavenly Hair... Its destructive power covered a radius of several hundred miles. A large-scale destructive forbidden technique like this was enough to tip the balance of an entire war.