The Underground Exchange, a private room.
Senju Ryosuke leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping a steady rhythm on the tabletop with a soft "tok, tok." He had been waiting here for nearly two hours, and his patience was wearing thin.
By rights, four elite ninja should have had something to report by now.
But there had still been no word at all!
Four elite Jōnin, one of them an assassination expert skilled in sensory techniques, had gone after Orochimaru and three green kids—two of whom were only there to make up the numbers.
Even if they couldn't win, surely they could at least get away!?
They were four elite Jōnin!
With a lineup like that, they could even have launched a surprise attack on the Daimyo's Mansion in a small country and still had strength to spare.
After all, the guard detail they had planned for the next Daimyo consisted of only twelve ninja in total, and they were only planning to hire three or four elite Jōnin.
The rest could be ordinary Jōnin or Chunin.
It was obvious that a mission carried out by four elite Jōnin couldn't possibly yield nothing!
How could the mission have failed!?
The only thing he needed to consider now was how to avoid paying the extorted balance once Nawaki's death was confirmed—and how to make sure those greedy rogue ninja never talked again.
"Knock, knock, knock—"
The door to the private room was knocked on three times, no more and no less. It was the agreed-upon signal.
The muscles at the corner of Ryosuke's mouth relaxed, and a confident, triumphant smirk spread across his face.
They were here.
The Exchange's manager pushed open the door and entered. His expression was as calm as ever; only his manner of walking—
"How did it go?" Ryosuke didn't even bother to stand. He asked in a tone of condescension, "Was it taken care of? Has Kakuzu responded? Can you help me put off the balance for those four guys—"
"The mission failed."
The manager's voice was flat, but his words landed like a cold hammer, crashing down on Ryosuke's sentence.
The smile on Ryosuke's face froze. His fingers stopped tapping the table.
He jerked upright, disbelief filling his eyes. "Failed? How could that be?! Four Jōnin! They couldn't even take care of three kids?"
"Is Orochimaru really that strong!?"
"Even as the Hokage's student, he's still just an elite Jōnin at most! How could he take on four people!? I hired four whole elite Jōnin! You guaranteed that the mission would succeed!"
"Please calm down. This was caused by your inaccurate intel. We're not responsible for money that's already been paid."
The manager looked at Ryosuke without a flicker of emotion. "Because of your intel, we've lost four bounty hunters. That's a serious failure."
"Four—?" Ryosuke froze for a moment, then his expression changed drastically!
All four!?!
Did that mean... "They—they were wiped out?" Ryosuke felt his heart skip a beat.
"Yes." The manager lifted his head and looked straight at Ryosuke. "Not one of the four ninja made it back. Our informants stationed along the border have just sent in the latest report."
The manager paused, as if gathering the words to describe something so shocking.
"According to the autopsy results, all four ninja died directly from poisoning. It was an unknown, colorless, odorless, and traceless neurotoxin. We haven't determined how it was made, and there's no antidote. At least two of the ninja were also attacked with Genjutsu before they died. We found signs of disrupted chakra in their bodies."
Disrupting one's own chakra was one way to break free of Genjutsu.
Even Ryosuke knew that. "Poison... poisoned... Genjutsu..." he muttered. Forcing himself to calm down, he thought quickly. "It was Orochimaru! It had to be Orochimaru! He's best at things like that! That bastard... he did it all by himself—"
"No."
The manager calmly rejected his guess. He took a scroll from inside his clothes and spread it out on the table. It showed a rough reconstruction of the scene and an analysis report.
"Based on the traces of chakra left at the scene and the extent of the damage from the battle, Orochimaru fought two of the ninja head-on from beginning to end."
"And judging by their positions and distance, the ninja responsible for the assassination and the one responsible for sensory detection couldn't have been killed by Orochimaru."
The manager tapped the center of the scroll hard. "In other words, the four elite Jōnin you hired—" Ryosuke's breath caught. He stared fixedly at the manager, as if hoping he would take it back.
But the manager simply stated the facts in a detached tone, revealing the information that would upend Ryosuke's entire worldview one word at a time. "—at least two of them didn't even approach Orochimaru at any point. They were likely killed by the three Genin."
"The assassin, Skinny Monkey, lost all signs of life the instant he used [Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu] and grabbed one of the children by the ankle. The medical ninja at the scene made an initial assessment: his body seemed to have been poisoned, and his kidneys showed signs of failure within a minute. His heart also stopped before he died."
"Black Bear and Rattlesnake, who led the frontal assault, showed signs of having been restrained and were very likely captured alive. But they also died from this strange 'poisoning.' Their deaths were exactly like Skinny Monkey's: their bodies were curled up and twisted..."
"As for Scar, who was in charge of command and sensory detection—he was more than a hundred meters away from Orochimaru." The manager lowered his voice further. "But he didn't escape the toxin's range either."
To the manager, these details sounded less like a description of an attack on Orochimaru.
They sounded more like a description of an attack on Hanzo of the Salamander.
After all, only Hanzo of the Salamander's salamander, Ibuse, could produce an odorless, colorless poisonous mist with a range of over a hundred meters.
"Could they have been attacked by some unknown Genjutsu?" Ryosuke's voice was hoarse. It was the only explanation he could think of.
"You could put it that way. But it's unlikely." The manager nodded, then shook his head. "The faint traces of spiritual energy left at the scene point to traditional Genjutsu. It wasn't nearly powerful enough to cause deaths that looked like poisoning."
"So the most likely explanation is that one of Orochimaru's three students, whom you mentioned in your intel, is a master of poison with the strength of a Special Jōnin."
"..."
Senju Ryosuke swayed, then dropped back into his chair, his face as pale as paper.
They were four Jōnin!
Four of them!
How could they have died just like that!?
This... this was beyond everything he knew about ninjutsu and combat.
In his mind, being a Chunin was already an impressive achievement in the Land of Fire. Jōnin were one in a hundred, one in a thousand.
And elite Jōnin were candidates for the Shadow Guard Squad. If they were a little older and had served long enough, they might even have a chance to become the Shadow!
And now, four elite Jōnin had died just like that!?
"Who—who did this?" His teeth chattered.
The manager rolled up the scroll and returned to his usual businesslike indifference. He looked at Ryosuke, who seemed utterly lost, like a gambler who had lost his entire stake.
Though voicing this guess wasn't quite in keeping with the rules, the rules had been made by people, after all.
For the sake of making money, the manager could certainly forgive what the distraught man before him had done.
"So, based on our most reliable intelligence—"
"Of the three children, only Sawada Hiroki fits the criteria above. During the Genin graduation exam, he destroyed the Shadow Clone of Jiraiya, who was also a student of the Third, with a single strike."
"Based on what we've determined so far, it could only be—"
The manager paused, then clearly spoke the name.
"...Sawada Hiroki."
"Boom—!"
Ryosuke's mind went blank. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. All that remained in his eyes was endless fear and bewilderment.
Sawada Hiroki?
Wasn't that kid from a civilian family?
He wasn't Uchiha, and he wasn't a child from the Hyuga Clan! How could he kill two elite Jōnin!?
What!?
It wasn't that Ryosuke couldn't understand how some geniuses could rise above the ninja ranks and kill ninja who seemed stronger than they were—
But those were assassinations carried out on the battlefield, against veterans with plenty of combat experience!
And how old was Sawada Hiroki, anyway!?
He was only ten!
How could he kill two elite Jōnin at ten years old?
Were elite Jōnin cabbages, just waiting for him to chop them up!!??
Even if there were four ninja pigs! It would still take a Jōnin some effort to kill them!
If they ran in four different directions as fast as they could, they could still have brought back two of them. But now he was being told that all four were dead!?
The manager ignored his breakdown and calmly added, "Since the target's threat level was seriously underestimated, the fee for Kakuzu's mission will need to be renegotiated. In addition, the contract to hunt down those four bounty hunters will require an added 'Super S-Rank Risk' surcharge."
"Besides, few people will be willing to take on this mission right now. However, members from our other branches recently informed me that we've notified Kakuzu, and he'll be coming to see you soon."
He looked at Ryosuke, who had collapsed on the floor, as if he were a pile of coins about to be paid out. In an even tone, he delivered his final conclusion:
"If you're willing, you can negotiate with Kakuzu. His price is high, but he's worth every penny."
"We're confident you'll be satisfied with his services."
"I'll do it!" Ryosuke agreed through gritted teeth!
He had no choice! He had already paid so much. If he tried to cancel now, wouldn't all the money he'd spent so far go to waste!?
"What are those damned kids doing now!?" Ryosuke asked the manager, unwilling to accept it.
The manager lowered his head slightly.
Then he took out a sheet of paper.
After glancing at it, the manager replied, "The targets are looking for a place to rest. They seem worried you still have an accomplice at the Konoha Outpost."
Meanwhile.
Up in a tree, Hiroki opened the files on the newly copied ninjutsu.
Before you continue