The Most Powerful Ninjutsu

Ever since the day he entered the Ninja Academy, Soji reminded himself over and over again.

As a special combat unit that gathers the great forces of nature into one body, the destructive and lethal power a ninja can unleash is far greater than their own defensive capabilities.

Even the "God of Shinobi," Senju Hashirama, whose name is passed down by word of mouth to later generations, could not fully withstand the damage generated by battles at his own level, let alone Uchiha Izuna, who was killed by the Flying Raijin, or the Second Hokage, Tobirama, who was ambushed by Kinkaku and Ginkaku...

If such great figures, who held the power to split heaven and earth, could still perish under various schemes and calculations, then ordinary ninjas need not even be mentioned.

As long as their bodies are still carbon-based organisms composed of 206 bones and 639 muscles, and as long as they cannot break free from their high dependence on mitochondrial energy conversion, they are, in the end, nothing more than ordinary flesh and blood.

Even Orochimaru, one of the Sannin who mastered core technologies!

Regardless of his thousands of skills and myriad methods, as long as sufficient preparations were made in advance, he could still have everything he had accumulated over the years buried under the blade of the Sword of Totsuka due to a gap in intelligence gathering...

To solve this predicament of "high attack, paper-thin defense," Soji could only think of two solutions.

First, simply do not appear on the front lines of the battlefield!

A pitcher that goes to the well too often will eventually break, and a general can hardly avoid dying on the battlefield.

Years of war have given the high-level officials of all ninja villages a profound understanding of this inescapable truth!

The "Kage," who enjoys the name of the strongest in the village, is indeed a key combat force capable of influencing the course of a war, but if they truly compete to be the first in every battle and charge to the front, they are instead handing their greatest weakness to the enemy on a silver platter!

In other words, as long as Soji can climb to a high position, Konoha, out of consideration for maximizing its interests, would naturally not send him to be cannon fodder to fill the lines, and the enemy would never have the chance to scheme against him!

...However, for an ordinary Ninja Academy graduate from a civilian background with no connections, this path is far too distant for the young man, and there is simply no room for it to be practiced in the short term.

Therefore, he eventually compromised and turned to the "Keeper of Secrets" plan, which has a more complex execution process.

--Ever since the development of the Rain Woman's Heart technique was completed, the number of times Soji has used it in daily combat can be counted on one hand.

Even in unavoidable situations, the young man would try his best to avoid exposing the specific effects of this technique in front of the public.

Even during that brief exchange with his teacher, Nara Motonari, Soji suppressed the effects of Rain Woman's Heart on various levels, intentionally or unintentionally leaving behind all sorts of "smoke bombs."

This had nothing to do with whether he trusted his teammates. It was simply out of respect for intelligence studies, to eliminate the possibility of leaks at the source.

After all, no one can guarantee that his teammates in Team Five will not encounter accidents on the battlefield, nor can one guarantee that the enemy's interrogation department will not use some special examination methods on the corpses of captives.

...Conversely, this is also the reason why, once Soji uses the Rain Woman's Heart technique in actual combat, he must erase all living witnesses by any means necessary!

For example, when facing this group of Takigakure ninjas ambushed in the jungle.

Soji, who held every advantage, was fully capable of wounding them without killing them and bringing them back to the camp alive to broaden the intelligence-gathering channels for the logistics support brigade.

But in actual combat, the young man unhesitatingly pushed his newly mastered methods to the limit, refusing to stop until he had wiped out every single "tester" of his new ninjutsu!

Only in this way would the weaknesses and limitations of "Sudden Rain" remain forever shrouded in mist...

And the analysis of his own bloodline limit would also remain forever in the stage of unverified speculation...

It was just that even Soji himself did not expect that this innate caution would play other unexpected roles when facing these Takigakure assassins who had set a death trap for him tonight!

--In the drizzling blood-rain, a "corpse" with a silhouette significantly sturdier than the others fell to the ground after the Rain Woman's Heart technique was activated, crashing heavily into the bushes near the roots of a zelkova tree.

However, as the black robe used to conceal his figure was blown away by gravity, Noguchi, the Jonin responsible for this encirclement mission, finally revealed his "true form."

Although his main torso had suffered severe damage under the ravages of the glass fibers, just like the other victims, what protruded from under his skin at this moment was not the ghastly white bone stained with blood foam...

Instead, it was a row of brush-like black threads, which twisted and burst in a very short time, forming many hideous and terrifying long tentacles!

Those scalp-numbing, eerie lines replaced most of his internal organs and bones, stitching together the human-shaped skin that had split into many pieces.

So much so that where his arms should have been, they were now completely replaced by coiled balls of thread, turning into an indescribable, deformed entity...

Soji had not anticipated encountering such a monster before.

But the memories inherited from his past life allowed him to quickly see through the opponent's background.

--Although the completion level was far inferior to that of Kakuzu, who would later join the Akatsuki, the assassin from Takigakure before him was clearly using the secret technique of human body modification inherited from the Warring States period... Earth Grudge Fear!

Only in this way could it be explained how the opponent was able to exempt himself from a portion of the "true damage" dealt from the inside out under the baptism of "Sudden Rain," and even continue to maintain combat power when his internal organs were destroyed!

...Fortunately, although there were twists and turns, compared to the chaotic emergency situation when he suddenly received the distress signal earlier, this bait operation was, after all, carefully designed by the Konoha side.

Thanks to this, Soji, who knew he was not good at improvisation, had already made a contingency plan before the "fight" began!

Looking at the Takigakure ninja who was using black tentacles to support his body again, the young man did not flee in a panic; instead, he stretched out his hands and pointed toward the enemy's position.

He gathered half of the remaining chakra in his body into his palms, preparing to give the Rain Woman's Heart technique other changes on a scale never seen before.

The glass fibers scattered in the jungle were also summoned by the power of the spell, fluttering and floating up one after another!

However, just before the young man launched his second attack, a black shadow with blurred edges suddenly manifested from within the body of the Takigakure ninja who was using Earth Grudge Fear...

Unlike the shadow secret techniques that Nara Motonari was good at.

When the mysterious person who had always served as a messenger to deliver messages for Director Inoue detached from Noguchi, it was more like some kind of parasite existing between illusion and reality!

This allowed him to be closely connected to the Takigakure ninja modified by Earth Grudge Fear on one hand, while completely ignoring the piercing and grabbing of the black tentacles on the other!

...Noguchi, who had just escaped death and had one of his hearts destroyed by Soji, had absolutely no way to deal with this elusive killer!

As he gradually detached from the body woven by Earth Grudge Fear, the sturdy body of the Takigakure ninja was aging, decaying, and losing its vitality at a speed visible to the naked eye.

It wasn't until the mysterious person's body silhouette became complete that Jonin Noguchi, who hadn't fired a single shot throughout the entire encounter, finally turned into a cold corpse after being subjected to successive sneak attacks...

"He won't wake up again, will he?"

"No."

"That's good then..."

Soji let out a sigh of relief.

Looking at the unlucky fellows sprawled across the ground in every direction before him, he reaffirmed his original conviction in his heart once more.

--The most powerful ninjutsu in this world is called a sneak attack!