She Was a Monster

The man in an Anbu uniform and Monkey mask raced through the forest.

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He was fast. As a well-rounded ninja, he excelled in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. He had developed in every area and had no obvious weaknesses.

No matter what kind of situation he encountered, he had a way to deal with it, and there was almost nothing that could clearly counter him.

"Has she arrived?"

As he leaped forward, the man turned to look behind him. The sound of something slicing through the air was drawing closer, like a vengeful ghost come to claim his life.

"So fast!"

It hadn't even been three minutes since they began their retreat.

"Damn my luck. Am I the first one...?"

His opponent was too fast. They were nearly four kilometers apart, yet in such a short time, she had moved far faster than he could. There was no chance of escaping. He could only fight.

The ninja stopped and turned toward the dense forest. The sound of rushing air vanished, and the entire woodland suddenly fell silent.

He warily formed Hand Seals, trying to decide which technique to use first to strike his opponent head-on. But first, he had to locate her.

Left? Right? Above?

As a ninja without sensory abilities, he could only rely on his eyes to find the enemy.

The ninja pondered, his eyes fixed warily on the silent forest.

Farther away in the woods, White Fox leaped forward. Seeing what was happening, she couldn't help shouting, "Run, senior! Run! She's right behind you!!!"

Can't you see her!? You can't see anything at all?!

Despair welled in her white eyes!

Even with her Byakugan, which let her see the truth, all she could do was watch helplessly!

Without a sound, deadly strands of hair closed in around their prey. In an instant, the ninja crouched on a tree branch, hands poised to form Hand Seals, abruptly burst into a cloud of smoke.

A Shadow Clone...

What?!

Nearby, the man hidden in a dense thicket of shrubs—the ninja wearing the Monkey mask—widened his eyes.

When!? Had the attack already begun!?

But the next second, a soft laugh sounded beside his ear.

"Hey~"

The man stiffened all over, his muscles tensing as he whipped around and looked up at the girl hovering in midair.

Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees. The girl's crimson eyes gazed down from the backlit shadows, her lips curled into a cruel, icy smile.

The ninja's hair stood on end. Terror seized him. She was so close, yet he hadn't sensed her at all.

No way...

How could there be such a terrifying assassination technique in the Shinobi World...?

The ninja let out a faint breath of cold air. He reached down to his thigh and discreetly drew a Kunai, hiding it behind his back. A trace of hopeless resignation flickered in his eyes.

"How about a deal? Do you want to live?" Yura asked.

"Forget it," the ninja replied. "Don't think I'll betray my village."

Yura had always wanted to acquire the Shadow Clone Technique. It had nearly become an obsession. Since she wasn't from Konoha, learning one of Konoha's techniques was going to be difficult.

"Fair enough. You Konoha Ninja are all so..."

Before she could finish, a cold gleam flashed in the man's eyes, and he launched an attack.

The moment his killing intent stirred, Yura raised her eyelids and gave a slight crook of her finger.

There was no time to form Hand Seals. He could only throw his Kunai. It didn't matter if it missed, as long as it forced her to dodge and gave him a chance to open some distance. That would buy him a little time. Even if she was terrifying, killing him would still take some effort...

Huh?

He sprang up and swung his arm to throw the Kunai, but it soundlessly came apart in midair, sliced into pieces along with the weapon.

As blood spurted from his severed arm, the ninja's pupils contracted. The pain hadn't even reached his brain yet, but thoughts were already racing through his mind.

Was this a technique?

Had she made any special movements?

Hand Seals?

In the unseen world around the ninja, strands crisscrossed and sealed off the space around him, weaving into a dense, three-dimensional web. Perched on a strand running parallel to the ground, Yura looked down at the ninja in the shrubs.

These ninjas were all pretty tough.

Whenever their movements collided with her hair, they ended up dead or maimed.

"Damn it!" Clutching his bleeding stump, the ninja gritted his teeth. He trembled faintly from the pain. Now he would never be able to form Hand Seals again. All his ninjutsu was useless, and with his right arm, his main weapon in battle, gone, he might as well be dead.

"I had a few more questions for you, but you don't look like you're in the mood to talk." Yura smiled faintly and waved a hand. "Goodbye."

As soon as the words left her mouth, his head was cut off and flew into the air, resentment lingering in his eyes as he died.

His body remained standing. The cut had been so fast that it hadn't disturbed the corpse in the slightest; it stayed perfectly balanced on its feet. Blood gushed from the smooth cut at his neck, spraying down in a steady shower.

Racing onward, White Fox gripped the bow in her hand and painfully closed her eyes.

But sadly, even with her eyes shut tight, her Byakugan still let her see this cruelty with perfect clarity.

In the forest, Yura sprang away from her strands of hair, turning into a fleeting shadow. She thrust out her left hand, her wide sleeve sliding down to her upper arm and revealing a slender, pale forearm. Black strands coiled around her hand, quickly dyeing her arm black. In an instant, her left arm plunged into the ninja's chest like a force breaking through bamboo.

The forbidden technique, Earth Grudge Fear, was a fascinating technique.

For now, Yura hadn't learned it. Mastering Earth Grudge Fear in its entirety would take a great deal of time. This kind of bodily modification required meticulous, painstaking work.

But by using her hair as a substitute, she could replicate part of it.

Forbidden Technique: Heart Extraction

Yura's five fingers gently brushed the still-twitching heart as her hair moved through it, severing the blood vessels around it.

Put simply, this was just a technique for cutting out a fresh heart from a freshly killed person. If she didn't care about the heart's condition, she could be as rough as she liked. But to remove an intact heart, she needed a profound understanding of the human body and great skill. It fell under the field of Medical Ninjutsu.

As it happened, Kakuzu had some impressive Medical Ninjutsu in his later years. He understood the human body very well, but his medical skills were self-taught through unorthodox methods. They worked just fine on an immortal body, but using them on an ordinary person was a bit too dangerous.

The Scroll of Seals also contained some Medical Ninjutsu. The old hag Xun had developed them specifically for the forbidden technique Earth Grudge Fear, based on countless experiments on living subjects. They weren't suitable for general use on living people.

So reading about it ten thousand times was no substitute for practicing firsthand. She needed a great deal of practice.

Yura's medical skills were limited to applying medicine and wrapping bandages.

A moment later, Yura pulled out the still-beating heart. Using chakra to keep it alive, she raised it into the sunlight and examined it, using chakra to identify its nature.

This, too, was a technique recorded in Earth Grudge Fear: identifying chakra natures.

"Wind, Fire, Earth, Lightning. You've got quite a few natures..."

She only needed to cultivate one more, and she would have all five.

Earth Grudge Fear required hearts with all five chakra natures to maintain balance. There were many ways to solve that problem, such as using five hearts with one nature each.

But in the Shinobi World, hearts with all five natures were still far too rare. Heavenly Spirit Roots, on the other hand, were everywhere.

"Not in great shape, though."

Racing onward, White Fox watched the scene, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints. What she saw shattered her common sense and her understanding of the world.

In the dense forest beneath the sunlight, a beautiful girl held up a blood-soaked heart and studied it closely. Her smile was elegant and calm, yet wildly cruel.

What kind of hellish scene was this...?

At that moment, she finally understood.

A monster! She was a monster!

Beneath the dappled sunlight, the girl smiled and crushed the heart in her hand. Crimson blood drifted in wild streaks between her slender fingers...