Who Else

Five years later.

Shiraishi Yoshijo moved rapidly through the forest wearing a butterfly mask.

A dozen Amegakure ninja were tailing him.

They were continuously firing shuriken at him, and the sound of Explosive Tags echoed endlessly through the woods.

He was currently on a mission.

Ever since Hanzo of the Salamander rose to power, the Land of Rain had become increasingly restless.

They were not only collecting Ninjutsu, secret techniques, and forbidden techniques from everywhere but also expanding their military forces on a massive scale.

The Five Great Nations were becoming increasingly wary of Amegakure.

The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had also begun frequently dispatching Anbu to gather intelligence on Amegakure.

Shiraishi Yoshijo was one of them.

However, his luck was not very good; he had been discovered the moment he entered the Land of Rain.

He had been chased like a stray dog the entire way.

Shiraishi Yoshijo glanced back at the Amegakure ninja, a smile playing on his lips.

They didn't even understand the principle of not pursuing a desperate foe; their deaths would truly be in vain.

After fleeing for another half hour, Shiraishi Yoshijo came to a stop.

The Amegakure ninja behind him saw the opportunity and immediately surrounded him.

"You guys are truly persistent. You've been chasing me for nearly two hours. I just don't understand, how much did Danzo pay you?"

"Danzo? You guy must be an Anbu from Konoha. Come back with us quietly, and you might suffer a little less."

One of the Amegakure ninja spoke, a mocking glint in his eyes.

For over a year, Konoha Anbu had frequently entered the Land of Rain to steal intelligence, annoying Hanzo to no end.

Hanzo was a ruthless man who had issued a direct order: if any Konoha ninja were encountered, they were to be killed without exception.

These Amegakure ninja were border guards, and the Konoha Anbu they encountered rarely left with their bodies intact.

Shiraishi Yoshijo began to sigh.

"I really overestimated the lower limits of human stupidity. Are you guys even ninja?"

"I had been fleeing for so long and suddenly stopped, yet you just took the initiative to surround me."

"I really don't know what to say. Well, that's that. Time to send you on your way!"

Lightning began to glow on Shiraishi Yoshijo's hands.

The electricity traveled along steel wires.

Dense, crisscrossing steel wires covered every corner of this dense forest.

All of them began to flicker with lightning.

"Lightning Release: Scorch Flow Kill!"

The Amegakure ninja surrounding him turned pale and immediately tried to leap backward.

The ninja who had spoken earlier grabbed a teammate and held him in front of himself.

"A trap? You guy—"

A fist radiating terrifying high temperatures punched straight through him and the teammate he was using as a shield.

Instant death!

Shiraishi Yoshijo looked at the fleeing Amegakure ninja and shook his head.

Within his Flash Thunder Formation, no one could escape his pursuit, not even if Hanzo himself were here.

Half a minute later, he returned to the spot to clean up the aftermath.

He first lined up all the Amegakure corpses and, taking advantage of the fact that their Chakra had not yet fully dissipated, began to absorb it.

Every corpse he drained of Chakra turned into skin and bone.

After absorbing it all, a flash of high-temperature electricity vanished in an instant.

Having destroyed the evidence, he retracted his Flash Thunder Formation and popped a Military Ration Pill into his mouth.

"Tastes terrible. Sigh, I'd better hurry and rendezvous with the captain and the others. If I'm late, I'll get scolded again."

As he traveled, he sensed the Chakra he had just absorbed; among the dozen or so Amegakure ninja, there seemed to be only two Jonin, while the rest were small fry.

It wasn't even enough to fill a single Acupoint Seal.

Shiraishi Yoshijo began to sigh.

He had been fighting and killing for five years just to fill twenty-some Acupoint Seals. If he wanted to fill them all, who knows how long it would take!

He could currently unlock at most twenty Acupoint Seals, but even those twenty provided him with a massive amount of Chakra.

He already possessed the Chakra levels of a Jonin, and with this additional Chakra, he could instantly push his reserves to the Kage level with plenty to spare.

As for his Flash Thunder Formation, it was actually a trap set up using steel wires.

Within this trap, his Lightning Body Flicker could achieve the speed of the Flying Thunder God Technique.

Of course, the development of his Lightning Body Flicker didn't stop there; he could also use it in conjunction with his Thunder Butterfly.

However, he wouldn't use it lightly; after all, the less others knew about his intelligence, the safer he would be.

Even his teammates were unaware of it.

After arriving at the border of the Land of Rain, he followed the secret signals to find a cave.

Firelight flickered inside the cave.

Shiraishi Yoshijo walked in, startling the three people inside.

White Fang Hatake Sakumo, Hanari Kawaigawa Aonobu, and Shincho.

Hatake Sakumo: "You're the latest one again. Can't you be punctual for once?"

Hanari: "It must be that something happened again. No need to ask; if you ask, it's definitely another scapegoat for Lord Danzō."

Shincho didn't speak, her Sharingan slowly closing beneath her mask.

Shiraishi Yoshijo walked in, scratching his head.

"I couldn't help it. I was discovered as soon as I entered the Land of Rain, and I was chased until my legs nearly gave out."

"I don't know what benefits Danzō gave the Rain ninjas, but luckily I was alert enough to lure them into my Flash Thunder Formation."

He didn't need to say anything more; to this day, no one had ever escaped from the Flash Thunder Formation.

His three teammates naturally knew of this.

Yet, hearing Shiraishi Yoshijo pin another scapegoat on Danzō after only two sentences, Hanari: "Why do you hold such a grudge against Lord Danzō? I heard that even when you go to the bathroom and forget paper, you blame Lord Danzō."

Shiraishi Yoshijo: ""

Hatake Sakumo: "Lord Danzō is a high-ranking official in Konoha, after all. Can't you show some respect? In these past few years, you've pinned at least a thousand scapegoats on him, making it incredibly awkward for us every time we see him."

Shiraishi Yoshijo sighed and said, "I know."

That was what he said, but that wasn't what he was thinking.

If the King of Scapegoats in Konoha didn't carry the blame, would he still be Shimura Danzō?

Shiraishi Yoshijo figured that as long as he was alive, two scapegoats a day were a guarantee.

He used to fear Danzō because he was weak, but now, who was he afraid of? If he really got pushed too far, he could take people to raid his nest in a heartbeat!

He was a man with a background; it would be a waste of such a good upbringing if he still lived like he used to.

With the improvement of his strength, Shiraishi Yoshijo lived in Konoha with increasing confidence.

Danzō basically took a detour whenever he saw him—not out of fear, but because he couldn't afford to lose face like that.

Every time he met Danzō, he would say something sarcastic and cryptic, making it impossible for Danzō to either act or speak; he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had talked to him several times about this, but unfortunately, it was useless.

Saying one thing to his face and another behind his back—Shiraishi Yoshijo claimed he learned it all from these old schemers.

As for whether Danzō would turn against him, Shiraishi Yoshijo felt there was no hope for that in Konoha.

But every time he left the village for a mission, he would be extra cautious.

Just like this time, being discovered as soon as he entered the Land of Rain, Shiraishi Yoshijo felt it definitely had something to do with Danzō.

That was why he said those things to the Rain ninjas.

Whether there were dates or not, he'd strike the tree twice just in case.

Even if it really had nothing to do with Danzō, Danzō was destined to take the blame.

It could only be said that once a person's perception is formed, it is truly difficult to change it.

Some people grow up seeing cows flying in the sky, and one day they suddenly find a cow eating grass on the ground.

They would wonder how the cow fell to the ground; didn't cows eat clouds?

Even if others told them cows couldn't fly, they wouldn't believe it.

Shiraishi Yoshijo had determined that Danzō was not a good person, having grown up in Danzō's shadow since he was a child. If you wanted to make him believe Danzō was a good person...

Heh, you must be a mole sent by Danzō; take my blade first!

Fortunately, he hadn't encountered any fatal crises in these few years, otherwise, he would have drawn his blade to find Danzō the moment he returned to the village.

As for causing the decline of Konoha's power, would someone planning to become a missing-nin care about that?

Don't think he was joking; in these few years, he had fully understood just how much power the ninja clans possessed.

Take the Takemoto clan, for example: over a dozen jōnin, and hundreds of chūnin and genin combined.

And that was just one clan; there were at least thirty-plus ninja clans in Konoha now.

Hiruzen Sarutobi represented the largest group of ninja clans, supported by two major families: the Senju and the Shimura.

Below them were the Yamanaka, Akimichi, Aburame, and other small-to-medium clans, forming an interest group composed of nearly twenty ninja clans.

The Uchiha stood as their own faction, while the Hyuga were a traditional prestigious clan that had always remained neutral.

The rest were basically all on his side; as long as he didn't die, or even if he were to court death, Hiruzen Sarutobi would have no way to deal with him.

If his clan were still around, he wouldn't be afraid even if he were to butt heads with them.

It was just a pity that he was the only banner left for his clan.

However, Shiraishi Yoshijo was not panicked in the slightest.

He was a man who relied on his clan; it didn't matter that his clansmen were all dead, had you heard of the Ninja Butterfly corps?

Under the guise of mutual trust over these past few years, he had taken plenty of benefits from Mei.

The old rule forbidding Ninja Butterflies from entering battle had effectively ended with him.

He conducted a census in the Butterfly Habitat Valley, and the results were truly shocking.

There were over one hundred and thirty Ninja Butterflies who had been jonin in life, and nearly two hundred who had been chunin or genin.

There were over a dozen past clan heads, all of whom were ruthless individuals who had raised at least three Butterfly Seeds.

These clan heads were all part of Mei's collection; she used her ability to manipulate life force to continuously extend the lives of these clan head Ninja Butterflies.

As for the combat strength of these Ninja Butterflies, Shiraishi Yoshijo had also roughly tested it.

Because Ninja Butterflies were a race formed by clansmen using the Cocoon Binding Technique, they inherited everything from the user.

Whatever abilities the user could use in life, these Ninja Butterflies could all use as well.

They could possess human bodies—not through the Transformation Technique, but truly human bodies.

Shiraishi Yoshijo had asked Mei about it, and she said it was her ability; her power had allowed these Ninja Butterflies to evolve.

Regarding this, besides calling her a freak, Shiraishi Yoshijo also had all his wishful thinking shattered.

He had become a complete kept man.

After finishing the census, Shiraishi Yoshijo got carried away.

He really got carried away.

He just wanted to ask, who else was there?

Who else!