She Looks More Like a Ghost Than a Person

"Then, I shall leave it to you all."

Situated in the most central and largest building in the town, within the ornate meeting hall on the top floor of the Heavenly Guardian Pavilion, the town mayor sat in the seat of honor, looking down at the three ninjas below.

His cheeks, slightly gaunt from day and night of toil, were filled with arrogance.

Due to their status, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio from Konoha wore expressions of humility, bowing respectfully as they replied, "Leave it to us, my lord."

"Hehehe~ Then I shall look forward to the performance of you Konoha ninjas."

"Ha!" The three responded in unison.

"By the way, besides eradicating the bandits in the surrounding area as soon as possible, there is another commission I would like to entrust to you three. It will not go through your village's mission hall; consider it a private transaction between us."

Hearing this, Ino-Shika-Cho exchanged glances. Immediately, the leader from the Nara clan stepped forward and asked in a low voice, "My lord, may I ask what this mission is?"

"For the three of you, it should only be a minor nuisance." The mayor smiled brightly. "The bandit suppression mission I posted in Konoha offers a generous reward, enough to attract Konoha jonin to compete for it. You have a jonin leading your team, don't you?"

Though it was a question, his tone was certain.

Beside the mayor, his trained samurai bodyguard scanned the three with eyes like blades, attempting to identify the jonin.

However, a ninja's strength is difficult to judge from their outward appearance.

But as a highly skilled samurai, he had his own way of judging: finding the one with the most killing intent through their aura.

Yet, none of these three triggered his sense of crisis, and he couldn't help but let out a disdainful and arrogant snort.

The Ino-Shika-Cho trio looked at each other, and the Nara clan member spoke again: "Yes, my lord, I am the jonin." He revealed his own intelligence.

The Ino-Shika-Cho trio, as a team, could exert an effect where 1+1 is greater than 2 through long-term tacit cooperation. The strength of the three was nearly equal; if one's strength were insufficient, they would easily drag the team down, becoming a fatal link in the Ino-Shika-Cho battle formation, which would naturally lead to the dissolution of the team.

"Then that makes it simple; it won't be more troublesome than the bandit suppression mission." The mayor was like a smiling tiger, cold light flickering in his eyes as he said indifferently, "Recently, the townspeople have reported a particularly troublesome ninja. She is a child of about twelve, female, a shorty, and not only is she a big eater who can consume a massive amount of food, but most importantly, she doesn't pay her bill—she pays with high-value explosive tags."

Hearing this, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio looked at each other, feeling as if their eyes had been opened.

In a sense, she was indeed a troublesome character, and quite bizarre, but being a twelve-year-old girl, she surely couldn't be anyone formidable.

"If this continues..." If it continued, it would affect his tax treasury. There were already unruly citizens paying their taxes to him in explosive tags, which was quite infuriating.

Pausing slightly, the mayor continued coldly, "You three, just deal with her for me."

In a remote guesthouse on the edge of town, Yura leaned against the windowsill, a faint smile curling her lips.

"Interesting..."

A small hand covered her right eye. From her finger, a strand of hair extended into the void, crossing half the town to reach the mayor's Heavenly Guardian Pavilion. Under the eaves of the top floor, a pure black butterfly, no longer than a finger, flapped its wings elegantly, floating silently like a ghost in the night.

On its abdomen, a scarlet eyeball rotated with a cold, evil air, watching everyone inside the room.

"My lord, we accept this mission."

The conversation turned into invisible sound waves, rippling through the air. As the ripples swept past, they struck the pure black butterfly under the night sky. The vibrations of the sound traveled along the hair, translating into the content of the conversation within Yura's mind.

Black Secret Technique: Hell Butterfly Jutsu.

The butterflies that travel between the world of the living and the Soul Society in the realm of the Shinigami serve to convey information and guide the dead.

Yura looked up toward the Heavenly Guardian Pavilion. Within the hollow, dark socket of her right eye, it was eerie and terrifying. In the distance, the scarlet eyeball rotated, its gaze landing on the blond youth of the Yamanaka clan.

It seemed he did not perceive Yura's presence.

However, to be cautious, the gaze only swept past briefly to avoid the human instinct of sensing a stare.

"However, my lord, this involves combat with a ninja, and since we cannot determine the ninja's rank or origin, and ninjas defy common sense, we cannot view the target through the eyes of a child. The mission difficulty is at least A-rank." Since it was a private transaction, it had nothing to do with Konoha's reputation. A flash of shrewdness and cunning crossed the eyes of the Nara clan member.

In short, pay more.

"Hehehe..." After a short laugh, the mayor said, "Bring me her head!"

The Nara clan member bowed, his eyes cold as he said, "I guarantee with Konoha's reputation that we will complete the mission."

The scarlet eyeball rotated, scanning the Ino-Shika-Cho, the samurai, and the mayor one by one, as if looking at dead men.

The mayor waved his hand to dismiss them.

The three responded with spirited shouts before following the maid waiting outside to take their leave.

The butterfly flew back under the night sky and landed gently on Yura's fingertip.

Looking at oneself through one's own eyes was quite peculiar and interesting; it could serve as a mirror.

With a light flick of her finger, the Hell Butterfly flapped its wings and took flight, landing on Yura's eye socket before burrowing back in. The hair retracted and faded along her face, and the eyeball returned to its place.

Yura rubbed her eyes. The cold moonlight spilled down, draping over her body, her skin glowing white. She stretched, rolled off the window, and collapsed onto the bed.

The next day, early in the morning, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio left the town. Sitting on the city wall, Yura watched their backs as they departed.

At dusk, the blood-stained trio returned, looking relaxed and chatting happily.

They had easily completed the C-rank bandit suppression mission.

Picking the softest persimmon to squeeze first—nothing wrong with that.

Yura watched their returning figures from the city wall. She did not follow them; they were just some wandering samurai, easily slaughtered by mere taijutsu and the Human Bullet Tank. There was truly no intelligence to be gained from them.

The following day, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio began secretly gathering information about Yura within the town.

Following the list of clues provided by the mayor, they sought out everyone who had come into contact with Yura.

Most were restaurant owners, and based on the intelligence, they quickly pinpointed Yura's residence.

Yura sat atop the city wall, her back to the town, humming a soft tune. Her small feet dangled in the air, swaying gently, completely indifferent to the trio's movements.

"Strange..." Nara furrowed his brows as he looked at the information compiled in his small notebook.

"What's strange? Is it that the target has a massive supply of explosive tags?" the Akimichi clan member asked vaguely, his mouth stuffed with a pig's trotter.

Beside him, the Yamanaka member shot him a look reserved for idiots and let out a soft sigh.

"No..." Nara shook his head, frowning. "That's not the reason. What I find strange is that, aside from those who had direct contact with the target, most other people claim they never saw her. They have no impression of her at all. That is far too bizarre."

"Smart guys always overthink things," the blonde laughed. "Maybe you're just being paranoid. The target probably used genjutsu to erase her own presence, perhaps while carrying out some secret mission."

Giving the blonde a look that suggested he wasn't much smarter himself, Nara took a deep breath and explained, "If she were on a classified mission, she wouldn't be clearing her tracks by eating lavish meals in public, nor would she refrain from using genjutsu on the owners, let alone paying her bills with explosive tags."

Tapping the notebook in his hand, Nara continued, "Furthermore, I cannot piece together her activity trajectory within the town at all. Aside from knowing where she eats and sleeps, I have no idea what she does the rest of the time. With so many eyes in this town, this is absolutely incredible. She's as elusive as a ghost!"

The blonde chuckled sheepishly and asked, "Why make it so complicated? Since we've locked down her address, why not just go to the inn and find her?"

"No..." Nara shook his head, his expression grave. "This whole affair reeks of something peculiar. This isn't how a ninja operates. The target's unbridled behavior suggests a powerful, fearless confidence. I have only seen such a ninja once before: the God of Shinobi, First Hokage Senju Hashirama. Ordinary ninjas, no matter how arrogant they appear on the surface, always harbor a core of caution. The very methods she displays prove she is an incredibly formidable ninja, certainly not some twelve-year-old brat! Do not let your guard down!"

"Hey, hey, don't go comparing some random ninja from nowhere to Lord Hashirama," the fat man said.

"My apologies..." Nara replied. "Perhaps I am overthinking it. But for the sake of caution, we still need to gather more intelligence on the target."

Closing his notebook, Nara added, "This is the final lead: Little Bamboo Women's Wear. It is said the shopkeeper there also possesses explosive tags."

With that, the three vanished using the Body Flicker Technique, heading toward the clothing store.

They began questioning her the moment they entered. Seeing that they were clearly formidable adult ninjas, the shopkeeper spilled everything she knew like beans from a bamboo tube.

Upon careful inquiry, most of the information was repetitive; they only had a description of her appearance, and nothing else.

It was just...

A headache.

"Do you know her name?"

The shopkeeper shook her head.

Nara gritted his teeth, thought for a moment, and changed his approach. "You said she was a ninja. Did you see her use any kind of ninjutsu? Did she glare at you, or perform any hand seals? Do you remember the seals?"

Based on the unified intelligence from multiple sources, the target's pair of scarlet eyes might be some form of ocular genjutsu.

"Yes, yes!" the shopkeeper said, actively cooperating. "She just flicked her fingers like this, and a two-pound wooden box went flying whoosh!"

The three exchanged glances. Nara asked, "What do you think?"

"There's no mistake," the fat man said in a muffled voice. "It's the technique of the Sand Village's secret puppet corps: chakra threads, the Manipulated Shuriken Technique."

Although the ninja world had entered a period of peace, going abroad for missions inevitably led to conflicts with ninjas from other nations, and they had plenty of experience in combat, hence their knowledge of such techniques.

The blonde muttered, "Genjutsu plus puppets? What kind of weird combination is that? It's completely useless."

The shopkeeper didn't understand, but her eyes darted around, and she said, "Oh, right, Ninja-sama, unless you're in a profession like tailoring, you probably wouldn't notice some of the details."

Nara's gaze sharpened. "What details? Explain."

"She..." The shopkeeper swallowed hard, lowering her voice and looking nervous. "Although I only saw her once, she left a deep impression on me. Not only was she light and silent when she walked, but even though she was barefoot, not a speck of dust stuck to her feet. Moreover, she wore her clothes in the style of the dead. Unless you're a tailor, only a mortician from a funeral home would notice that. She even asked me if she looked like a human or a ghost. I think she looks more like a ghost than a human! She's definitely some kind of monster!"

The three stared at the shopkeeper in silence, their expressions clearly conveying: Do you really think we believe that?

Under their gaze, the shopkeeper's face fell. "I have nothing else to say."

Nara nodded and decisively led his team to turn and leave.

"Wait!" the shopkeeper cried out urgently. "Ninja-sama, don't you want the explosive tags?!"

Nara turned around and asked with interest, "Of course we do. How much? If it's only a few, forget it."

"A full 109 tags," the shopkeeper said, a smile blooming on her face. "3,000 ryo each."

Nara turned around decisively, the other two followed, and the blonde shot the shopkeeper a mocking glance.

With a mournful face, the shopkeeper hurriedly shouted, "Wait! 2,500!"

The three didn't slow their pace.

"2,000!" the shopkeeper yelled, her volume increasing!

The three didn't look back.

"1,000!!!" the shopkeeper shrieked, her voice nearly cracking.

The three paused, their feet on the threshold.

This was perhaps the last chance of her life.

The shopkeeper's eyes welled with tears, and as if burning out, she said calmly, "500. That is my final bottom line."

The three stopped, turned back, and wore identical, sly grins. "Deal."

Looking at those smiles, the shopkeeper felt a wave of mental exhaustion, and she couldn't help but recall the faint smile of that girl. That girl—she was a ghost! She was absolutely a ghost!

After leaving the women's clothing store, the three exchanged a knowing look and headed straight for the inn.

In the streets surrounding the inn, the ninjas took cover behind the buildings, watching the old structure. The three-story inn stood silently, like a predatory beast crouching in wait to devour its prey.

"How is it, Futa?"

"She isn't here. I can't sense any chakra fluctuations." The blond-haired man shook his head.

Had they missed her?

"We're going in."

Leading the way into the inn, they approached the kind-looking old woman at the counter.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Has a twelve-year-old girl with red eyes checked out of here?"

The old woman at the front desk pushed up her spectacles, scrutinized the three of them carefully, then closed her eyes with a look of indifference, showing no intention of speaking.

Seeing this, Nara pulled out a stack of money and placed it on the counter.

"A small token of our appreciation. Please, accept it."

The old woman opened her eyes, glanced at the money, and closed them again, completely ignoring them.

The blond man stepped forward, faking a friendly smile: "Ma'am, we are ninjas from Konoha, the strongest ninja village in the world. We are the good guys."

"There are no good guys among ninjas." With her eyes still closed, the old woman said, "No matter which village you are from, this old woman knows nothing."

The expressions on the three men's faces stiffened, and a faint flicker of anger, mixed with arrogance and contempt, appeared in their eyes. The fat man said, "Old woman, don't force me to use violence."

"Heh..." With a light chuckle, the old woman leaned back in her chair, adopting an attitude of complete non-resistance.

"You do it, Futa," Nara said coldly.

The blond man nodded, sneered, performed a rapid series of hand seals, and lunged forward, grabbing her head with one hand.

"Old hag! Let me see what's in your brain!"

The old woman's feet left the ground as she struggled in intense agony.

After a long moment, he dropped the unconscious old woman and said with a playful tone, "I saw her face; she's actually quite cute. The target hasn't checked out, but this old woman doesn't know her whereabouts either. She's only seen her a few times—she's incredibly elusive. Perhaps she just left temporarily. The room is 306; hopefully, she left some clues behind."

"Let's go!" At Nara's cold command, the three went upstairs and reached the door of 306. They slid open the paper door, and in the next second, their bodies turned icy cold. They froze on the spot, their pupils dilating and contracting violently.

Inside the room, dense layers of explosive tags covered every inch—the walls, the ceiling, the floor, even the bed and chairs. At a glance, there were at least ten thousand of them.

An explosion of this magnitude would be enough to blow the inn and all the surrounding buildings to smithereens.

"DISPERSE!!!" With a shrill, cracking scream, they didn't need to be told twice. The three moved in perfect, tacit synchronization, turning into flickering afterimages. In less than a second, they scrambled in a panicked, desperate flight, crashing through the walls of the inn. Amidst the flying wood splinters, suspended in mid-air with no leverage, their chests heaved like bellows from the surge of adrenaline. A touch of madness flickered in their six eyes.

Was there still time to escape!?

Listening to the wind, which seemed to slow down in their ears, their ninja experience told them: No! There was no time at all!

Deep despair surfaced in their eyes simultaneously, and the flashes of their lives before death seemed to flicker wildly before them.

The next instant, they hit the ground and used continuous flickering movements, leaping across the roofs of low-lying houses. After retreating a hundred meters in a blur, the three formed a defensive triangle, panting heavily as they stared back at the inn that stood silently in the distance.

There was no explosion. Only a long, lingering silence.

Their bodies were weak and trembling, and beads of sweat the size of peas rolled down their foreheads, hitting the roof tiles with a sharp tap.

A long time passed...

"We were played..." Nara whispered, his face dark.

Behind him, the blond man's knees buckled, and he fell to his knees, smashing a fist into the tiles in a fit of relentless, snarling rage.

"Damn it—!!!"

The fat man pulled out some grilled meat, tearing into it mouthful by mouthful in silence to soothe his fear, and muttered, "Three years of peace have dulled our vigilance. This time, we really ran into someone with a twisted sense of humor."

Nara took a deep breath and said, "No, not someone with a twisted sense of humor. A very troublesome opponent. The target has already discovered us; she has likely retreated to safety by now."

A look of frustration flashed across the faces of the blond and the fat man. Then, the blond man said with murderous intent, "Are we just going to let it go?"

"With no leads, how can we track her? Given how troublesome she is, she certainly won't leave any traces." Taking one last deep look at the inn, Nara turned around and said, "Let's go. The mission isn't a failure; the target has already left the town."

A forced attempt to save face.

"Damn it!" After another punch to the tiles and a display of impotent rage, the blond man stood up and followed him away.

Hearing the commotion, the homeowner looked up to see the "great ninja lords" leaping across his roof, but he dared not speak a word despite the damage to his tiles.

On the city wall, Yura yawned, resting her chin on her hands, her small feet swinging leisurely in the air.

As long as one doesn't refine chakra, it is equivalent to having no chakra. This was the ninja technique of breath concealment, which was especially useful for a ninja like Yura, whose natural chakra reserves were already low.

Yura hummed a soft tune, her fingers dancing nimbly with a string of hair, playing cat's cradle. As she amused herself, the sun set and the moon rose. She tilted her head back and raised her hands, aligning the complex pattern of the string between her fingers with the moon. The pattern of the Nine-Tomoe Rinne Sharingan overlapped with the moon as she stared quietly at the solitary full moon. The cold moonlight bathed her entire body, as if she were holding the moon firmly in the palm of her hand.

At the same moment, under the same moonlight, a middle-aged man with spiky long hair, dressed in crimson Warring States-era armor and carrying a giant fan on his back, stood in the deep mountains. He looked up at the moon, his scarlet Sharingan spinning rapidly, gradually transforming into a magnificent Eternal Mangekyou. He suddenly raised a hand, aiming it at the moon with an imposing air, as if he, too, intended to grasp it.

Yura closed her eyes gently, lost in thought, when she suddenly let out a soft, stifled giggle.

She whispered...

"Do you want to dance, too?"

The next day.

At the main gate below the city walls, the three disgruntled ninjas set off on their journey back to the village.

Possessing a long life and having learned the virtue of patience, Yura opened her eyes and watched calmly as the three figures grew smaller and smaller in the distance. A bloodthirsty yet gentle smile curled the corners of her lips.

"It's my turn now."

She stood up, walking as if strolling through the air. With her small hands behind her back, she skipped forward step by step like an elf, moving elegantly along the threads of her web.