In the darkness, two locations in the village were burning, billowing smoke blending into the endless night and stirring up an indescribable sense of panic.
Without a doubt, they had been invaded by an outside enemy. The ninjas might have anticipated the worst-case scenario of their main base being directly attacked, but ordinary civilians found such a sudden upheaval difficult to endure.
Casualties had already occurred. Even more harshly, the village's vital stockpiles had been destroyed.
Anyone with eyes could see that they might be able to salvage some of the war supplies, but the vast amount of daily necessities accumulated by the Tsugawa Clan would most likely be burned to ashes in one fell swoop.
The Water Release ninjas were all being used as "fire trucks," but things like food, after going through the full service of explosions, fire, and soaking, had been effortlessly processed into soggy carbon. What use could that possibly be? It was probably less appetizing than tree bark.
The Tsugawa Ninja struggled to control the flames, trying to rescue the team members who had just entered the underground storehouse, while quickly clearing the battlefield and digging several bodies out from under the rubble.
It seemed that some important figure had arrived to direct things. Thus, after being dealt a sudden blow and falling briefly into disarray, the ninjas began carrying out their respective duties under his command.
That important figure crouched beside the bodies laid together. After a brief examination, he discovered that the deaths of these ninjas were nearly identical.
"All four died from sneak attacks from behind, suffering fatal blows in an instant..."
"Three were stabbed through the kidneys, and one had his throat slit."
"But there were still superfluous follow-up attacks, as if the attacker was afraid they wouldn't die... A novice? Obsessive-compulsive?"
"Regardless of the enemy's identity, background, or strength, one thing is certain: he is extremely skilled at concealment and ambushes."
"Death came extremely suddenly. Our people most likely never saw the enemy's face from beginning to end... They were picked off one by one, and most likely made no sound when they died."
"Moreover, the enemy was able to sneak silently into the underground storehouse. After setting a trap, he deliberately triggered the barrier, then used the opportunity to take out several of our ninjas."
"If not for that, we most likely would have had great difficulty discovering that someone had infiltrated the village in time."
"Report what happened here to the Clan Leader."
"Yes, Elder." A ninja hurried away.
"Step up the search. Our top priority is finding the enemy's trail. We must confirm whether he is still lurking in the village."
"Understood, Elder!"
After the elder issued his orders, another ninja finally hurried over and reported another piece of bad news:
"Elder, Captain Daisuke is dead."
Hearing this, the middle-aged ninja who had been trying to obtain more information from the bodies abruptly stood up.
"Who? Daisuke? Tsugawa Daisuke is dead?"
He seemed unable to believe that a Combat Captain had died so silently.
"Yes, Elder. Unfortunately... it really is Tsugawa Daisuke."
"Died from a sneak attack from behind?" the elder asked instinctively, a slight tremor in his voice.
The ninja nodded and said, "Yes. He had just left home and seemed to be coming here. He was ambushed on the way."
"Take me to the scene... You several, protect their remains."
The ninja who had brought the bad news froze for a moment, seemingly not expecting the elder to make such a decision. Only under the pressure of the other man's gaze did he react.
"Elder, please follow me."
Led by the ninja, the two hurried to the other incident site.
Before long, they found a body lying at the corner of a narrow alley. His legs were spread apart, his upper body slanted against a wall, and a large amount of blood flowing from his back had smeared across the white surface.
This "Tsugawa Daisuke" was a ninja the elder had held in very high regard. In his eyes, the man might one day have been able to shoulder the fate of the clan. Yet who could have expected him to die such a pathetic death?
He had not even put up any resistance before dying, just like the ninjas in the storehouse.
Struck by the loss of a talented individual and the pain of an elder sending off a younger member of his family, the elder looked extremely anguished. He hurried several steps to the dead man, crouched down, and examined the corpse's waist.
"The kidneys again? If the enemy is skilled at ambushes, why is he so fixated on this location? Wouldn't stabbing straight through the heart be simpler and more efficient?"
In his view, stabbing the chest was definitely more decisive than gutting someone at the waist. Why was the enemy so obsessed with the lower back?
The ninja behind him thought for a moment, then cautiously tried to explain.
"Could it be to reduce their struggles? As someone who is neither a doctor nor an assassin, perhaps he only heard that attacking the kidneys reduces the victim's range of movement more effectively than attacking the heart? After all, not everyone understands the structure of the human body's organs well enough..."
"This..."
The elder looked thoughtful. He stared at the dead man's anguished, bewildered face, then suddenly noticed something wrong.
Wait, the way this ninja behind me speaks is somewhat unfamiliar. The Tsugawa Clan had only a little over a hundred ninjas. The elder could not claim to know every one of them well, but he could detect certain incongruities.
Moreover, looking at the bloodstains left on the ground, they did not seem to have come from just one person. There was simply too much blood.
"You..."
Yet just as his mind was racing, a soft puff sounded. The elder felt a chill behind him, and then, no matter how he moved his lips, he could no longer make a sound.
He instinctively lowered his head to look at his waist, where a great deal of blood was gushing out...
Have I been stabbed in the back too?
Yes, now he could confirm that the other man's so-called "hearsay" was most likely correct.
Then a palm settled on the elder's shoulder. Immediately afterward, he felt his vitality and chakra rapidly leave his body.
He struggled to turn his head and saw the face that had originally belonged to one of his clansmen rapidly transform into a completely unfamiliar appearance.
To Yuzhen, a so-called "broken butt" was simply an opening, and he was far too skilled at sneaking up from behind.
As his consciousness was rapidly drained away, something even more astonishing happened to the elder. The infiltrator's body swiftly grew taller, and his face changed back into a familiar one... The elder's brain was somewhat starved of oxygen. He struggled to think, only to realize that it was his own face.
"What kind of Transformation Jutsu is this..."
That thought flashed through the elder's mind as the final question of his life. It was destined never to be answered.
Yuzhen had noticed long ago that these ninjas wore standardized uniforms, so he did not need to do much. After ambushing and killing the elder, he transformed into the elder's appearance, then carried the body to a nearby courtyard as quickly as possible.
After entering a room, he hurriedly dug a pit and buried the elder's corpse.
The courtyard belonged to the captain called "Daisuke," and that captain was single. After his death, Yuzhen would not need to worry about the elder's body being discovered anytime soon.
After all, the village had already descended into chaos.
The first person Yuzhen had transformed into was a ninja who had been acting alongside "Captain Daisuke." It was from that man's words that he learned the victim was a captain. Thus, after ambushing the two men, abandoning one body and hiding the other, he returned to the original crime scene.
There, he learned the elder's identity from the surrounding ninjas.
However, the fact that the other man had chosen to follow Yuzhen to see "Captain Daisuke's" body had been completely beyond his expectations.
Captain Daisuke really was a good man. He had helped Yuzhen quite a bit.
It seemed that during this operation, he would not need Uchiha Nanami's Summoning Beast. How miraculous. It was clearly his first time doing this, yet Yuzhen felt as if he were naturally adept at this kind of troublemaking work.
Next, he planned to start impersonating this elder whose name he still did not know.
Before you continue