The Incident (Please Bookmark and Vote)

The sun reluctantly sank into the sea, and the pitch-black curtain of night slowly began to cover the sky.

Zabuza returned to the entrance of the training ground, drenched in blood. He did not say much to Araki, merely standing there in silence. Yet the intense, bloody aura of slaughter around him was as impossible to overlook as a firefly in the night.

"Tsk, tsk. With such an enormous murderous aura, being called the Demon really was only natural!"

Araki marveled inwardly.

Swords were weapons of slaughter by nature. In many schools of swordsmanship, killing intent and murderous aura were auxiliary forces that could enhance the power of one's blade.

For example, there was a very famous technique called Killing Intent Wave, which could transform one's intense killing intent into wave-like energy and release it in every direction, crushing the enemy's mind.

To Araki's eyes, Zabuza was simply the perfect material for learning the Asura Sword Path!

Unfortunately, Araki did not know Killing Intent Wave himself. Otherwise, he would have liked to see what effect it would produce when paired with Zabuza's overwhelming killing intent.

At that thought, his mind began to wander again.

Come to think of it, waves are also a form of sensory ability. Asura gained this ability at the cost of his eyes, but there is a ninjutsu that can achieve something similar, even if only half as effective.

That was right—the signature ninjutsu of Zabuza, or rather, the signature ninjutsu of Kirigakure: the Hidden Mist Technique!

A ninjutsu named after the village itself—one could easily imagine just how impressive it was!

Although it was only a D-rank ninjutsu, meaning even genin could master it.

Its combat effectiveness, however, was exceptional.

Other than its weakness against powerful Wind Style Ninjutsu, the Hidden Mist Technique could block an enemy's vision over a wide area. Meanwhile, with the assistance of sensory ninja, the caster could locate enemies within the thick fog.

It was not especially remarkable in a one-on-one fight, but in large-scale battles, this technique was devastating. Enemies would often be unable to attend to both front and rear, allowing Mist Village ninja to split them apart and then concentrate their superior forces to destroy them one by one.

The way Araki looked at Zabuza now was like someone who had drawn an SR card, thought it was useless and planned to toss it into storage, only to suddenly discover one day that the SR card had the potential of an SP!

It might even undergo a super evolution!

A powerful curiosity and interest rose within him.

Just as Araki was considering how to train Zabuza, the last glow of the setting sun vanished completely from the horizon, and the ninja academy graduation exam came to an end.

Click!

The lock on the gate at Entrance No. 1 turned. The chief examiner opened the gate and walked in, frowning at Zabuza and Araki by the entrance, as well as the corpses scattered across the ground nearby.

"Only two people from Group A survived?"

He had yet to realize the severity of the matter. He merely assumed that Group A had been unlucky in its allocation, with the stronger candidates all ending up in Group B, leaving Group A utterly crushed.

"Alright, you two, come with me. Go meet up with the people from Group B. Congratulations, brats. Starting today, you're genin!"

The chief examiner pulled a savage grin as he prepared to lead them away.

Whoosh!

A faint breeze passed by, and a familiar figure suddenly appeared before him.

"Ueno?"

Chief Examiner Kuryu looked puzzled.

"Why did you come here alone? Where are the people from Group B?"

The newcomer was Ueno Seiseki, the examiner who had previously led Group B into Training Ground No. 4.

His face was filled with horror, as though he had witnessed something indescribable. He shouted at Kuryu:

"Dead! They're all dead! Every one of them is dead!"

Seeing Ueno in such a state, shouting like a madman about how they were all dead, Kuryu's instincts as a ninja told him that something was wrong.

He stepped forward, grabbed Ueno by his vest, and stared hard into his eyes.

"Make yourself clear. What do you mean, dead? Who died?"

Under Kuryu's piercing stare, the distraught Ueno finally managed to calm down somewhat.

"The candidates from Group B. All the candidates from Group B are dead. Not a single one made it back to the entrance alive!"

"What did you say?!"

Kuryu's pupils contracted. It felt as though an electric current had struck his spine, leaving his entire body numb and powerless. Even his grip on Ueno's collar loosened.

"How could that be?"

His eyes went blank as he muttered to himself.

Kuryu knew that if Ueno was not lying, then this was a serious disaster.

Kirigakure's ninja academy graduation system was cruel, but its ultimate purpose was to select more outstanding new ninja, not to wipe out an entire generation of them.

As a special jonin, Kuryu was considered part of Kirigakure's backbone. Born a civilian, he too had graduated from the ninja academy and experienced the pain of fighting his classmates in pairs.

Back then, he had not understood it either. He had even hated the Third Mizukage for establishing this system.

But as his strength grew and his horizons broadened, Kuryu's perspective gradually stopped being limited to individuals. He had learned to consider problems from the village's point of view.

For the Five Great Shinobi Villages, how to balance the relationship between clan ninja and civilian ninja was an eternal challenge.

When ninja villages had first been established, the ninja clans were powerful and numerous, often holding an absolute advantage. Without policy support, ninja born as civilians would never have had a chance to rise.

After all, ninja born into clans had long histories and access to excellent education. Not to mention those clans with Kekkei Genkai or inherited secret techniques—their starting line was naturally far ahead of civilian ninja.

Under such circumstances, civilian ninja had no way to contend with them.

But the reason the era of ninja villages differed from the Warring States Period was that the largest population in every village was not made up of ninja clan members, but civilians.

Anyone with insight could see that the popularization of the ninja profession and its spread among civilians was an unavoidable future trend.

Whoever fell behind in this regard would likely face a despairing situation in future wars—having only several thousand people while the enemy fielded tens of thousands.

Kirigakure was naturally no exception. Moreover, Lord Byakuren, the First Mizukage, had been born a civilian himself, and his policy was to support civilian ninja in their struggle against clan ninja.

But the greatest obstacle to that policy was the village's strongest military faction at the time: the Kekkei Genkai Clan Alliance.

The First Mizukage, Byakuren, was already advanced in age and passed away not long after Kirigakure was founded.

The one who inherited his position as Mizukage was Hozuki Gengetsu of the Hozuki Clan, the Second Mizukage.

Strictly speaking, Hozuki Gengetsu was not a bad person. He was optimistic, humorous, intelligent, and battle-loving, with tremendous personal charisma. Under his leadership, Kirigakure had flourished.

But his greatest problem was his origins in a major clan. The stronger he became, the more support he gained, and the more powerful the Mist Village clans led by the Hozuki became. This undoubtedly ran contrary to the policy established by the First Mizukage.

Fortunately, during the First Shinobi World War, the Second Mizukage and the Second Tsuchikage perished together. The Third Mizukage, who had once served as the First Mizukage's guard and inherited his ideals, took office.

The moment he assumed power, he immediately changed Kirigakure's ninja training policies. In order to make up for the civilian ninja training progress that had fallen behind other nations during the Second Mizukage's administration, the Third Mizukage decided to use even crueler methods to select and focus on cultivating outstanding geniuses among civilians.

That was the origin of the Bloody Mist Policy.