Sudden Downpour

The battle plan has been finalized.

What is needed now is patience, caution, and the determination to see the plan through!

As it happens, Yamada Soji lacks none of these precious qualities.

Young as he is, not only has he not lost his composure under the weight of such a heavy responsibility, but he has also managed to handle those subtle emotional shifts with extreme precision.

At the very least, in the eyes of outsiders who are unaware of the truth, Yamada Soji is nothing more than a brat executing his first mission, nerves constantly frayed as he tries to act mature.

He continues to stand guard at his usual rhythm and converse with his medical colleagues in the camp...

Most importantly, just as before, he leaves the central area of the camp in the middle of the night to develop that unfinished ninjutsu.

This small detail grants Yamada Soji a period of solitude every day that others do not have, while objectively creating favorable conditions for enemies intent on intercepting the logistics team to make their move!

After all, from the perspective of the attackers, this is not only a prime opportunity to silence witnesses and weaken the defensive force, but also an excellent window to use the Transformation Technique to impersonate him and dismantle the Konoha Ninja Village defensive line from within!

As long as they act swiftly to minimize the commotion, the temporary infiltrator taking Soshi's place could serve as a pathfinder for the operation, eliminating the most feared shadow technique user before the chaos begins, thereby greatly reducing the pressure of a frontal assault.

Thus, following a brief operational meeting, the Waterfall Ninja assassins who arrived later to carry out the mission reached a consensus the day after the fighting began and drafted a meticulous plan for the raid on the camp that night.

"Squad 2 and Squad 3, follow me to ambush the perimeter of the camp and monitor the movements of the Konoha ninjas at all times;

Squad 4 and Squad 5 will act as the main force for the assault, waiting for orders at a concealed location;

As for Squad 1..."

The Waterfall Ninja wearing matte earrings drew a simple diagram on the ground with a twig while assigning tasks.

When he mentioned Squad 1, he shifted his gaze to his companion opposite, who was shrouded in a wide black robe, and instructed solemnly: "Leave that brat who regularly leaves the camp to Noguchi. Strike fast and strike true; do not give him any chance to call for help from his companions."

"Can I use that?" The black-robed Noguchi did not respond to the leader's order, but instead asked a question that seemed to come out of nowhere.

At that very moment, his arms, covered by the black robe, began to squirm in a grotesque fashion...

Beneath the black fabric, various twisted and coiling lines were imprinted, as if they were not human bones and muscles, but some kind of terrifying monster parasitic within his body.

"According to reports from our scouts, the brat's practice time is relatively fixed, and the overall situation is very favorable to us. So, as long as you can ensure that the Konoha ninjas in the camp do not notice anything unusual, you are permitted to use any means necessary for this operation."

"Understood. I have no further questions." The black-robed man nodded slightly, and the contours of his arms returned to normal.

The earring-wearing leader nodded to himself upon seeing this, then turned his attention to the others.

"Is the deployment clear?"

"Yes!"

"Very well, start preparing. Disperse!"

In the dense forest, more than twenty Waterfall Ninja assassins scattered, each entering their respective positions according to their commander's instructions.

It was not until the sky grew dark and the Konoha logistics brigade set up camp again that they finally began their action after a long period of concealment.

The surveillance team led by the leader himself kept every sentry's position in full view!

The assault team preparing for the forced attack also successfully reached their combat positions!

At the same time, Yamada Soji, completely unaware of the danger, left the camp as usual and began his ninjutsu development work for the day.

--At this time, the prestige left behind by Konoha Ninja Village during the First Shinobi World War had not yet fully dissipated, and the shaken Waterfall Ninjas did not act immediately after Soshi appeared.

For the sake of caution, Noguchi's squad, responsible for the encirclement and killing, chose to remain in a state of ambush, waiting for the target to exhaust his chakra during his practice before launching a full-force strike to take him down!

Self-proclaimed mantises that they were, they naturally did not expect that the shadow lurking in the dark had already leaked their every movement to the oriole.

...Having received an early warning, Yamada-kun adjusted today's training program without a change in expression.

He no longer stubbornly struggled with the tree branches; instead, he quietly opened the hidden clasps on the back of his tactical gloves and scattered the pre-prepared Glass Wire in batches.

On this dim, moonlit night, these tiny, needle-like objects, which were almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye, were already extremely difficult to guard against, let alone when the Waterfall Ninjas lying in ambush here had received no prior intelligence regarding Soshi's bloodline limit.

Thus, they watched as the boy "clumsily" concentrated chakra in his palms and fired it outward repeatedly, secretly mocking the brat for failing to even master the most basic chakra conversion process.

"Noguchi, should we move in early?"

"Wait a little longer."

The black-robed man instinctively sensed something was amiss.

But how could he have guessed that, with the aid of the Superman Drug, Soshi had made a breakthrough on the very night he received the "investment" from Master Motochika!

Not only did he quickly master the external conversion method invented by the Second Hokage Tobirama, but he also optimized and adjusted the chakra flow patterns within his entire meridian system while the drug's effects were active!

Nowadays, although his knock-off version of the Almighty Push was far from the power of the original, when combined with the bloodline secret technique the boy had developed earlier, it greatly enriched his originally meager arsenal.

Especially in a special situation like today, where he could prepare the battlefield in advance, Soshi was able to play to his strengths and avoid his weaknesses, pushing his combat style—which favored planning and calculation over reactive improvisation—to the extreme!

--Through the bonus of the external conversion method, the control strength and range of Accio over the Glass Wire had received a massive boost.

Correspondingly, the armor-piercing ability and lethality of the Rain Woman's Heart technique were immediately enhanced.

Therefore, Soshi took the opportunity to improve the way he threw his ninja tools, sacrificing attack density while further promoting the technique's characteristic of high concealment.

Thus, under the cover of the dim night, countless Glass Wires, thinner than a strand of hair, continuously spread outward with Soshi as the center, quickly enveloping the forest where Noguchi and his squad were lying in ambush...

These inconspicuous killers were no longer limited to clustering to pierce the relatively thin skin of wrists, fingertips, or armpits; instead, they drifted and attached themselves to the nose, mouth, corners of the eyes, or any part exposed outside the protection of their equipment.

Thanks to the fact that the Glass Wire, which made contact with the targets in this manner, was less than the original Rain Woman's Heart technique, none of the on-guard Waterfall Ninja assassins noticed anything unusual.

Thus, the minuscule death slowly permeated, soaking in with fine precision.

It was not until Soji crossed his palms and leisurely formed the "Ram" seal that the latent killing intent suddenly tore through its gentle facade, revealing its true, cruel, and cold-blooded nature!

...Accompanied by a series of scalp-tingling "pfft" sounds, the trace amounts of glass fiber that had invaded the targets' bodies began to wreak havoc from the inside out!

"How could this be..."

"It hurts! It hurts so much!"

"Save... save me..."

Within a dozen seconds of the technique taking effect, their hearts, livers, spleens, and lungs were pierced into sieves one after another...

Wounds that could neither be guarded against nor healed began to spread across every vital point of their human bodies.

The panicked Waterfall Ninja first vomited large mouthfuls of fresh blood! Then, one by one, they resembled punctured blood balloons, their entire frames shriveling at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Beneath their feet, the crimson blood mixed with tissue fragments to form shallow "puddles," dripping down the branches and leaves of the great tree like an unexpected autumn rain, causing anyone who witnessed it to bristle with terror and shudder in horror.

"Secret Technique: Rain Woman's Heart - Sudden Rain."