Genius Ninja

Land of Fire border.

A deep, man-made canyon stretched across the land, thirty meters wide and extending beyond sight, with a raging river below.

Whoosh!

A cold gleam shot over—it was a kunai thrown from the other side of the border canyon, with a steel wire attached to its end.

The kunai embedded itself straight into the rock wall, and the steel wire connected to its end pulled taut, forming a wire bridge over the canyon.

Whoosh!

A figure skimmed across the wire like a dragonfly touching water, moving as swiftly as if on solid ground. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the wire bridge and entered the Land of Fire.

"Phew... I'm safe!"

The newcomer looked back and secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Once he crossed the border, the border patrols would make things much safer.

Those mad dogs from Kumogakure probably wouldn't dare cross the border to pursue and kill him.

The Land of Fire's border patrols were equipped with large-scale Chakra sensing spheres, which could quickly detect intense Chakra fluctuations across a wide area and pinpoint their location, then notify the patrol ninjas to provide support or investigate.

Every member of a border patrol was a jonin.

Only jonin could hold out until rapid-response reinforcements arrived when enemies invaded the Land of Fire. Chunin could not.

Thus, Konoha Ninja carrying out missions abroad were much safer once they crossed the border.

At the very least, they no longer had to worry about facing multiple enemies without any support on their side.

Therefore, Uchiha Keisuke, who had just returned from a mission, relaxed considerably and lowered his guard.

"S-rank mission complete!"

Uchiha Keisuke tossed the mission scroll in his hand, smiling inwardly. Once he returned, he would see whether anyone in the village still dared question the Uchiha Clan's ability to complete missions.

He had easily completed even an S-rank mission to infiltrate Kumogakure deep within the Land of Lightning and retrieve "highly classified intelligence." Who else could do that? And who else could safely return all the way from an Anbu pursuit in Kumogakure?

It was him. It could only be Uchiha Keisuke.

After all, he was the genius of the Uchiha Clan!

Uchiha Keisuke traveled along with a relaxed expression, smugly lost in thought, and before he knew it, he had entered a small forest.

Suddenly, Uchiha Keisuke's heart tightened. Before he could react, the ground all around him abruptly rose... No, it had not risen—it was the ground beneath his feet that had suddenly dropped.

And it fell fast. In an instant, Uchiha Keisuke was suspended in midair with nowhere to brace himself, plunging in free fall.

"Enemy attack!"

In that instant, Uchiha Keisuke realized he had fallen into an enemy ambush.

Yet he did not panic in the slightest. His three-tomoe Sharingan activated instantly.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

At that moment, six kunai flew at him from each of the upper left and upper right sides, all aimed directly at vital points such as Uchiha Keisuke's head and heart.

Although Uchiha Keisuke had nowhere to leverage himself in midair, his hands remained nimble. In an instant, he drew four kunai from the ninja tools pouch at his waist.

The Uchiha Clan's unique kunai-throwing techniques, combined with the Sharingan's terrifying perception, and finally, the calculating power of Uchiha Keisuke's genius mind.

In just an instant, Uchiha Keisuke found four angles and four different methods of throwing kunai with varying speeds and force. Using ricochets, he could instantly knock away nine of the kunai flying toward him, while twisting his body to evade the remaining three.

However, just as Uchiha Keisuke prepared to throw his kunai, he saw that an Explosive Tag was wrapped around every kunai handle. They had even been dyed black to match the kunai, making them impossible to notice without close inspection.

Only the Sharingan's astonishing perception could spot the anomaly on those high-speed kunai.

Had it been any other ninja, after knocking away nine kunai and twisting to dodge the remaining three, they would have been severely injured by the Explosive Tags on the three kunai that closed in on them.

"Too bad you ran into me, a genius of the Uchiha Clan."

Thoughts raced through Uchiha Keisuke's mind at a frenzied speed as he instantly altered his response. His body was somehow able to react to that change in thought just as swiftly.

Uchiha Keisuke immediately released the kunai in his hands and formed hand seals.

"Water Style: Water Shockwave!"

A ring of water instantly condensed around Uchiha Keisuke's body, then surged diagonally upward like an explosive torrent.

The twelve kunai fired from both sides were swept away by the water and could no longer approach Uchiha Keisuke.

The people who had fired the kunai seemed to know that their concealed Explosive Tag attack had been discovered.

But they still detonated the Explosive Tags on the kunai.

Boom, boom, boom...!

The Explosive Tags on all twelve kunai detonated. In an instant, the high temperatures from the explosions evaporated a huge cloud of water vapor.

Combined with the two-hundred-square-meter semi-enclosed trap formed by the collapsing ground, the massive amount of water vapor created the effect of the Water Style - Hidden Mist Technique.

Uchiha Keisuke's Sharingan vision was instantly heavily suppressed, and the Sharingan genjutsu ability that required eye contact was also countered.

Without the influence of Sharingan genjutsu, the Uchiha Clan's ninjas were not necessarily weakened, but at least it gave other ninjas a fair fighting environment.

It couldn't be helped. Sharingan genjutsu was just that powerful.

But even without the support of Sharingan genjutsu, Uchiha Keisuke was not panicked in the slightest.

Although the Hidden Mist Technique countered Sharingan genjutsu, a Sharingan that could see Chakra still retained a certain sensory advantage within the mist. It was not much worse than someone proficient in the Hidden Mist Assassination Technique.

Uchiha Keisuke swiftly pulled two more kunai from his Ninja Tools pouch.

These two kunai were specially made, each with a steel wire attached to its tail end.

Uchiha Keisuke intended to fire the kunai at the stone walls on either side, pulling the wires taut to give himself a foothold.

He was still suspended in midair.

With his vision obstructed by water vapor, he could no longer spot the Explosive Tags wrapped around the kunai handles in advance as he had a moment ago.

Moreover, relying solely on his hearing would always delay his reactions, making it impossible for him to respond as quickly as before.

The enemy understood the Uchiha Clan's abilities very well.

They had first used the Earth Tremor Nucleus to make the ground beneath him sink, leaving him stranded in midair with nowhere to brace himself while also creating a relatively enclosed space.

When their sneak attack with Explosive Tags failed, they had used the water vapor stirred up by the explosion's heat to form the Hidden Mist Technique, suppressing his Sharingan's visual perception and genjutsu in preparation for the next attack.

Uchiha Keisuke barely needed to think to know that, after suppressing his Sharingan's vision and part of its perception, the next attack would inevitably be kunai wrapped in Explosive Tags coming at him from all directions.

Within this semi-enclosed space, while he was still in midair, there was no way he could stop so many hidden kunai and Explosive Tags.

As for using Water Release again for a wide-range defensive attack?

Only an idiot would respond that way.

Would the enemy not have considered him using Water Release to wash away the incoming explosive-tag kunai?

They had definitely considered it. If he continued using Water Release, there might even be another round of targeted attacks waiting for him.

And he had too little information about that next targeted attack to blindly trust his own judgment.

If he guessed wrong, he would be injured even if he did not die.

Once he was injured, he might not be able to hold out until the border patrol arrived.

So the best response was to disrupt the enemy's rhythm of attack.

When the enemy expected him to fall, he would do the opposite. He would use the steel wires attached to the kunai tails to create a point of leverage in midair, then rebound out of the encirclement as he had when crossing the border gorge.

As long as he got outside the trap, the open terrain would allow his Sharingan to exert its greatest suppressive power.

Finally, once the border patrol arrived, if this group of enemies who had attacked him did not flee, they could all stay behind.