She Is a Monster

A man wearing a Monkey mask and Anbu attire sprinted through the forest.

He was fast. As a balanced ninja proficient in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, he was a well-rounded operative with no obvious weaknesses.

No matter what situation he encountered, he had a countermeasure, and he was almost never hard-countered by any specific style.

"Is it here?"

Mid-leap, the man turned his head to look behind him. The sound of air being torn apart was rapidly approaching, like a vengeful ghost coming to claim his life.

"So fast!"

Less than three minutes had passed since he began his retreat.

"What rotten luck. Am I the first one..."

The opponent's speed was too great. Over a distance of nearly four kilometers, they had closed the gap in such a short time—far faster than his own movement speed. Running was clearly not an option; he had to fight.

The ninja stopped, turned, and faced the dense forest. At that moment, the sound of tearing air vanished, and the entire woodland fell deathly silent.

He formed hand seals with a wary expression, contemplating which technique to use first to land a heavy blow, but he had to locate the enemy first.

Left? Right? Above?

As a non-sensory type ninja, he could only rely on his naked eyes to lock onto his target.

The ninja pondered, his eyes scanning the silent, dense woods with grim vigilance.

Deep in the forest, White Fox leaped forward. Seeing this scene, she couldn't help but scream, "Run! Senior! Run! She is right behind you!!!"

Can't you see her!? Can you see nothing at all!!!

A flicker of despair welled up in her white eyes!

Even though she possessed the Byakugan, which was capable of seeing through reality, she could only watch helplessly!

Silently, lethal strands of hair completed their encirclement around the prey. In an instant, the ninja, who had been crouching on a tree branch and preparing to form hand seals, suddenly exploded into a puff of smoke.

Shadow Clone...

What!

Nearby, hidden in a dense thicket, the eyes of the man in the Monkey mask widened in shock.

When did this happen!? When was the offensive launched!?

But the next second, a soft chuckle echoed in his ear.

"Yo~"

His entire body stiffened. Muscles tensed, the man jerked his head back to look up at the girl standing in mid-air.

Dappled light filtered through the trees, and the girl's scarlet eyes peered down from the shadows of the backlight, her lips curling into a cruel, cold smirk.

The ninja's hair stood on end, his soul nearly leaving his body. He hadn't sensed her at all, even at such close range.

This can't be real...

How could such terrifying assassination techniques exist in the ninja world...

Exhaling a cold breath, the ninja pressed a hand to his thigh, stealthily drawing a kunai and hiding it behind his back, a flash of resigned death-intent in his eyes.

"How about a trade? Do you want to live?" Yura said.

"Dream on," the ninja replied. "Don't think I'll betray the village."

Yura had always wanted to acquire the Shadow Clone technique; it had become something of an obsession. Since she wasn't from Konoha, learning Konoha's techniques was difficult.

"I suppose so. You Konoha ninjas, every single one of you, are just..."

Before she could finish, a cold glint flashed in the man's eyes, and he launched a preemptive strike.

The moment his killing intent surged, Yura raised her eyelids and flicked her fingers.

There's no time for seals, I have to throw the kunai. It doesn't matter if it misses, I just need to force them to dodge and create some distance to buy time. Even if the opponent is terrifying, killing me should still take some effort...

Eh?

In an instant, as he rose to throw the kunai, his arm disintegrated silently in mid-air, the kunai along with it, sliced into fragmented pieces.

Looking at his spurting, severed arm, the ninja's pupils contracted. Before the intense pain could even reach his brain, thoughts raced through his mind.

Is this a technique?

Did she perform any special movements?

What about the seals?

In the world invisible to him, crisscrossing threads had sealed the space around the ninja's body, weaving into a dense, three-dimensional web. Standing on a parallel thread, Yura looked down at the ninja in the thicket.

These ninjas were all quite spirited.

Every time they moved and hit the strands, they ended up dead or maimed.

"Damn it!" Clutching his bleeding stump, the ninja gritted his teeth, his body trembling slightly from the agony. He could never form seals again; his entire repertoire of ninjutsu was useless. With his primary fighting arm severed, his current situation was no different from being dead.

"I originally had some questions to ask you, but it seems you're not in the mood to talk." Yura smiled faintly and waved her hand. "Farewell."

As the words fell, the head was severed and sent flying, the eyes still lingering with the unwillingness of the moment of death.

The standing body did not collapse; the strike had been too swift to cause the slightest tremor in the corpse, which maintained its balance as blood gushed like a fountain from the smooth, severed neck, raining down in a steady patter.

While sprinting, White Fox gripped her bow and squeezed her eyes shut in agony.

Yet, tragically, even with her eyes tightly closed, those Byakugan still saw the cruelty of it all with perfect clarity.

In the forest, Yura sprang forth from her hair, transforming into a fleeting afterimage. She extended her left hand straight out, her wide sleeve sliding down to her shoulder to reveal a fair, slender forearm. Black threads coiled around her palm, rapidly staining her arm black, and in an instant, her left arm pierced the ninja's chest like a hot knife through butter.

Forbidden Technique: Earth Grudge Fear was a very interesting jutsu.

For the time being, Yura had not mastered it; learning the complete Earth Grudge Fear required a considerable amount of time, as this kind of bodily modification was a delicate, grinding process.

However, using hair as a substitute could simulate a portion of its effects.

Forbidden Technique: Heart Extraction.

Yura's five fingers gently caressed the still-quivering heart, her hair weaving through to sever the blood vessels surrounding it.

To put it bluntly, this was simply a technique for slaughtering and harvesting fresh hearts on the spot. If one didn't care about the quality of the heart, one could be crude about it, but to extract a complete heart required a profound understanding of the human body and technical skill, placing it within the realm of medical ninjutsu.

Come to think of it, the later Kakuzu possessed quite formidable medical ninjutsu and an intimate knowledge of the human body, but his medical skills were self-taught, unorthodox methods—perfect for maintaining an immortal body, but rather lethal for ordinary people.

The Forbidden Technique scroll also contained some medical ninjutsu content, which the old hag Xun had developed specifically for the Earth Grudge Fear technique based on a massive number of live experiments; it lacked the universality required for use on living people.

Therefore, reading a book ten thousand times was not as good as getting one's hands dirty and practicing it a few times; it required a great deal of practice.

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

The next instant, Yura pulled her hand out, clutching the still-beating heart. Using chakra to maintain the heart's vitality, she held it up to the sunlight to inspect it, using her chakra to discern its nature.

This was also a technique recorded in Earth Grudge Fear: Chakra Nature Identification.

"Wind, fire, earth, lightning... you certainly have quite a few attributes, don't you..."

Just one more to cultivate, and she would have all five attributes complete.

Earth Grudge Fear required hearts with five chakra attributes to maintain elemental balance. There were many ways to solve this problem, such as five hearts with single attributes.

However, in the ninja world, hearts with all five attributes were far too rare; Heavenly Spirit Roots, on the other hand, were a dime a dozen.

"The quality is a bit poor, though."

While sprinting, White Fox watched this scene, her pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks. The sight before her assaulted her common sense and worldview.

Deep in the forest, under the sunlight, a beautiful young girl held a bloody heart, admiring it closely before her eyes, the smile on her lips elegant and calm, yet crazed and cruel.

What kind of hellish scene was this...

At this moment, she finally confirmed it.

A monster! She was a monster!

Under the dappled shadows of the sunlight, the girl smiled and crushed the heart in her hand, the scarlet blood fluttering in a chaotic, miserable spray between her slender fingers...