Breakthrough.

It had gone surprisingly easily—so easily that it was unexpected—and Ringo reached the Hokage Office.

Using basic ninja footwork, she sprinted all the way along the tree wall without taking any passage, and not a single ninja spotted her along the way.

Before her was a broad, open platform. Wooden, ornately carved railings surrounded it, and the exquisite openwork was covered in incantations. It looked like some kind of Barrier.

Ringo looked at the building on the platform.

Or rather, the palace.

Three stories tall, it had been built against the giant tree, with its main interior space hollowed out inside the trunk.

Green tiles and vermillion pillars, upswept eaves and curling corners. Small birds such as sparrows had built nests beneath the flower-basket-like brackets of the vermillion structure, flying in and out. It possessed the grandeur and elegance of ancient architecture, along with a harmonious tranquility that blended into nature.

With no time to admire it, Ringo vaulted over the railing and landed. In an instant, all the surrounding railings lit up. As Chakra surged, a crimson Barrier rose, enveloping the entire platform and the building upon it.

She had been discovered.

And trapped.

Ringo stopped. One after another, ninja figures emerged from hidden positions around the palace—some high, some low, some standing, some crouching, some leaping out through windows, others dropping from the treetops above. Amid sharp gusts of wind, they used the Body Flicker to land on the green tiles, glaring down at the small square on the platform.

"Intruder!"

"This is as far as you go!"

A Kunai was thrown, landing precisely at Ringo's feet.

The ninja who had thrown it met her gaze with a pair of Byakugan and Rinnegan.

Ringo's eyes narrowed. What a troublesome Byakugan.

Her figure slowly emerged from transparency.

At the