After seeing Kureya Inuzuka off, Kawadera Uchiha turned to the squad captain, Kazu Hyuga.
"Squad captain! Please give me a mission!"
Kazu Hyuga was taken aback.
In all his years, he had never seen such an unconventional Uchiha.
This Uchiha had actually sent his teammate away from the battlefield to alert the squad captain in the safe zone, while staying behind himself?
The Uchiha Clan had the Police Force under its control. Even when the village issued a call-up, they refused on the grounds that the Police Force couldn't spare the manpower.
Word was that, at the most critical point of the Land of Grass campaign, the village had called up a group of Uchiha Ninja and paid out six Jonin positions and fourteen Special Jonin positions.
The other clans were furious. They were fighting tooth and nail on the Front Line, yet couldn't even get two or three Jonin positions.
The Uchiha Clan was powerful and had no fear of consequences, so Kazu Hyuga understood why the village leadership had compromised.
A lone Uchiha like Kawadera, who wasn't a member of the Police Force, was uncommon within the clan.
Kazu Hyuga said, "You'll be a messenger ninja!"
"I'll gather and analyze intelligence, and my assistant will quickly write it onto a Scroll. You'll take it to the command headquarters' staff."
"The staff at headquarters may also have you deliver order Scrolls to the various squad captains on the Front Line."
Kawadera Uchiha was stunned. Wasn't this the same role the leader had served in during the First World War—a communication runner?
That was a dangerous job. Some said the death rate was 98 percent; others put it at 60 percent.
A few dozen seconds later, Kazu Hyuga's assistant handed him a Scroll.
"Take it to the command tent!"
Kawadera Uchiha thought the mission was too dangerous.
In the Sea of Consciousness, Kawadera Uchiha said, "Second! Pay me more! Otherwise, I'm not going!"
Tobirama Senju replied, "I believe in the rules of engagement I established for Konoha. Refusing a mission now is tantamount to becoming a rogue ninja.
"If you refuse, Kazu Hyuga will kill you in half a second.
"When he was young, Kazu followed me for three months. Believe me, his pressure-point strikes are swift and forceful. You'll die comfortably; you won't even have time to feel pain.
"Don't try to abandon the mission halfway through. If you delay Kazu's intelligence work, he'll consider you a rogue ninja and hunt you to the ends of the earth, then kill himself to atone to Konoha."
Kawadera Uchiha felt bitter inside and grumbled:
"Just tell me—are these stupid rules of engagement you came up with inhuman, heartless, and completely insane?"
The exchange with Tobirama Senju had been no more than a few thoughts flashing through his mind, so it hadn't cost him any time. Kawadera Uchiha took the Scroll, leaped up to the tall watchtower, spotted the command tent, gathered chakra in his feet, and used Body Flicker to leave.
The route from the watchtower to the command tent was safe.
Entering the command tent, Kawadera Uchiha expected to find a ninja from the Nara Clan.
Instead, the chief strategist directing the battle from the rear was a ninja from the Aburame Clan.
In the original story, the Aburame Clan had a keen tactical sense too. Hidden behind their dark glasses and collars, they were always observing and thinking.
Only then did Kawadera Uchiha remember that it was a later Konoha convention for the Nara Clan to serve as the village's staff officers.
At this time, the Aburame Clan had the Senju Clan's trust, and under the Second's influence, its members held high positions.
After Kawadera Uchiha handed the intelligence squad's Scroll to a staff officer, the officer immediately began adjusting the layout on the sand table.
"Lord Ku Aburame! Lord White Fang on the left wing and Lord Ken Senju on the right have begun a pincer maneuver to encircle the enemy!
"But Lord Ken Senju is moving too fast and has gotten too far ahead. We don't know whether it's a trap or if Lord Ken has simply charged too far ahead!"
Kawadera Uchiha watched the sand table from a distance. The two wings were closing in—that meant they were trying to wipe out the Cloud Ninja.
Ku Aburame studied the sand table, thought for a moment, then said:
"Lord Ken Senju is moving too fast. The Cloud Ninja will focus their counterattack on him. We have to warn him!"
He glanced around the tent and spotted Kawadera Uchiha, the messenger ninja.
He knew Kawadera Uchiha was a member of Seigetsu Senju's squad.
Since he was Seigetsu Senju's subordinate, Ku Aburame figured he could set aside Kawadera's Uchiha affiliation for the moment.
This Uchiha wasn't quite like the others.
The staff ninja had already prepared a Scroll and handed it to Ku Aburame.
Ku Aburame tossed the Scroll to Kawadera Uchiha and said:
"Messenger ninja! Get this intelligence to Lord Ken Senju or one of his subordinates! Warn him to slow down!"
After taking the Scroll, Kawadera Uchiha memorized the troop deployments on the sand table, then turned and left without hesitation.
Just as he dashed out of camp, a dense whistling suddenly rang out overhead.
Dozens of Kunai flew straight toward him from the sky.
Judging by their speed and trajectory, they weren't aimed at him. They were stray projectiles from the battlefield.
Some ninja skilled with weapons had probably missed with a volley.
The Kunai stuck into the camp's wooden walls, thudding one after another.
With the camp as the apex of a parabola, the Konoha Ninja on either side were closing in around the enemy.
Dodging the Konoha and Cloud Ninja engaged in battle, Kawadera Uchiha raced along behind the front line.
Kawadera Uchiha had just been about to tell Tobirama Senju he wanted an A-rank mission reward. But the fighting was fifty meters to his left, and after running several hundred meters, he still hadn't encountered any danger.
If this was all there was to it, it seemed awkward to ask.
Come on, Cloud Ninja, you can't be this weak. Put up a fight!
Just then, Konoha's defensive line ahead suddenly collapsed!
Two Konoha squads were overwhelmed, and Cloud Ninja burst through the gap in the line.
Kawadera Uchiha had been behind the Konoha Ninja, but now several Cloud Ninja appeared right in front of him.
One of the Cloud Ninja noticed Kawadera Uchiha and pulled a Kunai from his weapon pouch.
Kawadera Uchiha instantly activated his Sharingan, the two Tomoe in his pupils slowly spinning.
Genjutsu: Mind Guidance!
He immediately planted a suggestion in the Cloud Ninja's mind, trapping him in a convincing illusion.
He had spent this whole time thinking about how to use his advantage in genjutsu. Now, he was testing the illusion he'd created himself for the first time.
The Cloud Ninja saw Kawadera Uchiha cross a Konoha ninja's corpse and threw a Kunai at him.
A long blade was embedded in the corpse's abdomen, and the Cloud Ninja thought it would trip up the Konoha ninja.
But the Kunai passed through Kawadera Uchiha's figure without resistance, as if it had passed through thin air!
What was going on?
What kind of jutsu was that? Clone Technique? Or Shadow Clone?
Neither made sense. When hit, both Clone Technique and Shadow Clone left behind a puff of white smoke.
When the Cloud Ninja blinked again, Kawadera Uchiha had vanished. He had already crossed the corpse and appeared several meters away.
The Cloud Ninja suddenly understood: he was under a genjutsu!
The illusion made him keep believing in the scene from one second earlier.
He had fallen under the genjutsu one second ago, before the Konoha ninja had crossed the corpse.
For that whole second, he kept seeing the Konoha ninja before he crossed the corpse, even though the ninja had already appeared somewhere else.
What he saw was actually the scene from one second earlier.
The Cloud Ninja hurriedly searched for the Konoha ninja again, only to see something bizarre.
The Konoha ninja wasn't moving continuously. He was in a different place each second, as if the image were skipping frames.
In this frame, the Konoha ninja was thirty meters away. In the next, he was barely over twenty meters away.
Why was this Konoha Uchiha ninja moving in jerks, teleporting from frame to frame?
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