Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique!

Flawless coordination!

At this moment Orochimaru, hidden in the shadows of the tree trunk, suddenly wore a look of panic and instinctively took a step back, prompting the ninja's face to break into a savage, ecstatic grin, Courting death!

Close! He was almost scared out of his wits, and had he not cleverly spotted the opponent's opening, being scared back like that would have been utterly humiliating.

A dark shadow flashed as a figure landed on the thick tree trunk. Just as his savage smile widened and the long sword in his hand slashed toward the somewhat panicked Orochimaru, the opponent's face abruptly broke into a mocking expression. Realizing too late that something was terribly wrong, a cold shiver ran down his spine.

The hands hidden within the sleeves had already formed hand seals: Tiger-Rat-Boar-Rat-Tiger. As chakra circulated through the body, the panicked Orochimaru instantly wore a mocking smile the very moment she raised her hands.

"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"

Amidst the hoarse, mocking chuckle, five or six poisonous snakes suddenly lunged from the opponent's arm straight toward him. Fear gripped the heart of Orochimaru, one of the Sannin, and at that instant terror washed openly over the ninja's face.

"Orochimaru!"

People can be faked using the Transformation Jutsu, but ninjutsu cannot be faked! This signature ninjutsu instantly stripped the elite chunin squad leader of his fighting spirit. He hurriedly hurled the ninja sword in his hand while driving strength fiercely into both legs, his body leaping backward.

Run!

Upon seeing that signature ninjutsu, the man was left in no doubt. At that moment he completely lost the will to fight, his mind filled with only one thought: escape!

Yet at that exact moment, the sound of chirping birds rang out from behind—endless chirping!

"Chidori!"

Splatter! Amidst flying blood, the chunin let out a miserable scream as lightning transformed into a blur, sweeping past his body and taking away one of his arms.

"Damn it! Uchiha Yoru, why haven't you mastered this ninjutsu yet?"

At this, the Orochimaru on the tree trunk showed an annoyed expression, giving off the three-tenths petulant vibe of a young girl. Following a puff of white smoke, Anko's figure appeared, instantly causing the elite chunin whose severed arm fell from the sky in the distance to wear a furious look.

"You're not Orochimaru!"

Only then did the elite chunin realize he had fallen for a trick. The enemy had used Orochimaru's fierce reputation from the very beginning to bluff him with a mix of truth and falsehood. Under a single Hidden Shadow Snake Hands, anyone would have truly believed they had run into Orochimaru; who could have guessed it was fake?

"Captain!"

At that moment two students hurried over, the three of them forming a arrowhead combat formation. Yet Anko, having revealed her true form on the tree trunk, glared angrily at Uchiha Yoru who had landed nearby.

At this time the lightning in Uchiha Yoru's hand was still crackling and slowly fading. As a single tomoe spun within his eyes, he let out an embarrassed chuckle and said, "Anko, the target is a taijutsu ninja and managed to dodge the fatal strike at the very last second."

He had originally aimed for the opponent's heart, but ended up with just a right arm. Still, it wasn't bad; at the very least, once an ordinary ninja lost an arm, their combat power would drop drastically, especially since they could no longer release ninjutsu.

The lightning in his palm dissipated. Feeling that one-third of the chakra in his body had been consumed, Uchiha Yoru stared at the prey below and smiled.

Twelve thousand gold coins! Used to speed up the cultivation of Chidori, an A-Rank Ninjutsu. He was no genius, but he could use pay-to-win tactics to forge himself into one. Though not entirely polished yet, it was already fully usable in combat.

In a flash, Uchiha Yoru hurled a flurry of shuriken from his elevated vantage point. Dense clouds of shuriken rained down from above, prompting the one-armed elite chunin to yell in panic and fury, "Quick! Stop him!"

He was merely an ordinary elite chunin. Now that one of his arms had been severed—not to mention being unable to use ninjutsu—the numbness radiating from his arm left him with no choice but to use his subordinates to buy time.

Clang, clang!

In an instant a barrage of black shuriken were batted away, but the next moment a bald genin cried out in alarm, "Look out!"

It was already too late for the two of them to dodge. The one-armed chunin, however, reacted with lightning speed and leaped high into the air. Staring in shock at the scene below, he saw that the shuriken clearly had fine steel wire bound to them. In the dim forest where the light was poor, ordinary people would find it hard to notice.

Instantly Uchiha Yoru pulled hard with both hands, and the airborne shuriken miraculously looped around under the momentum of the yank. In the blink of an eye, the two genin were bound tightly together by the steel wire.

With a furious roar, the elite chunin who had leaped into the air thrust his kunai downward, clearly intending to sever the steel wire binding his two students.

Yet someone was even faster than him. Moving with seamless coordination, Mitaraishi Anko by Uchiha Yoru's side rapidly formed hand seals: Snake-Dragon-Hare-Tiger.

"Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique!"

Anko let out a sharp cry and suddenly drew in a deep breath, instantly swelling her youthful chest with a formidable display of might. She then spat out a monstrous, straight-line dragon of fire that surged fiercely downward.

Ah!

Amidst miserable screams, the flames dispatched the two young genin in a mere fraction of a second, leaving a sickening, retch-inducing stench lingering in the air.

Having landed on the ground with blood still flowing from his right arm, the elite chunin stared in shock and covered in sweat at the realization that only he remained after just a few short seconds. He involuntarily swallowed hard.

"You! You are Orochimaru's Disciple Mitaraishi Anko!"

At this moment the elite chunin turned deathly pale, staring in shock at the two figures who had appeared. It was obvious that their tacit coordination, coupled with the distinct and unmistakable ninjutsu just now, perfectly matched the intelligence reports regarding Orochimaru's disciple.

Hidden Shadow Snake Hands and Dragon Fire Technique both belonged to C-Rank Ninjutsu and consumed very little chakra. Seeing that the trouble had been resolved in the blink of an eye leaving only a disabled man, Anko wore a mocking smile on her face.

"That's right, I am Orochimaru's disciple Mitaraishi Anko. Now you'd better surrender obediently."

The opponent then turned a sweat-soaked gaze toward the other person. Upon catching sight of the red eyeballs in the youth's eye sockets, he immediately gritted his teeth and said, "I never expected the other one to be an Uchiha ninja—the Sharingan!"

They were too cunning! One possessed the awakened Sharingan, while the other was the disciple of one of the Sannin. He wouldn't stand a chance of walking out alive even in a straightforward, head-on clash—let alone when the opponents were clearly cunning enough to set interlocking traps.

"Hehe, ninjas rely on their brains to make a living, especially when it comes to intelligence."

Watching the opponent grit his teeth, Uchiha Yoru smiled. It was the kind of remark guaranteed to infuriate someone to death.

Yet what he said was also the truth. Unless one reached the late-stage realm of defying the heavens and earth, ninjas prior to that were a glass-cannon profession where a single kunai could cost you your life.

In the early stages, ninjas relied entirely on intelligence and scheming to overcome the strong with the weak, or defeat the many with the few. The notion of standing face-to-face, forming hand seals, and trading ninjutsu was sheer nonsense.

Huff, huff!

Amidst ragged breathing, the opponent's expression suddenly shifted and his body stiffened. His plan to escape had just been dashed. Feeling the changes inside his body, he stared in disbelief at the two impossibly young Konoha genius ninjas before him and trembled, "When did you plant the poison?!"

He had rambled on with so much nonsense precisely to secretly scout an escape route. Yet at that moment the chakra within his body refused to obey him, accompanied by a wave of dizziness washing over his brain. Experienced as he was, he knew this meant he had been poisoned.

As his consciousness began to blur, he remembered the youth executing the Chidori to sever his arm—that was the only time he could possibly have been poisoned. Seeing the young man and woman across from him each wear a smile, he collapsed with a heavy thud onto the soft grass.

Seeking support