Come to the Battlefield with Me

"I really hit the jackpot on this trip." Shin pulled Heaven Cloud Sword from the Blood Ninja's body.

Taking advantage of the smoke from the collision of their jutsu, he had used Shadow Clone and handed his Heaven Cloud Sword to his clone, letting it disguise itself as him and attack from the front. Meanwhile, he had used Flying Thunder God to teleport behind his opponent.

The other man naturally hadn't considered a jutsu that hadn't even been invented yet, and had fallen for the trick without a doubt. Shin couldn't help but reflect that intelligence really could get you killed. Decades later, any Jonin fighting an opponent would instinctively consider the possibility that the other was a Shadow Clone.

He searched the Blood Ninja's tool pouch, but it held only a few common kunai and shuriken. Uninterested, Shin searched the rest of his body.

"A scroll for the Blood Secret Technique?"

Shin found two scrolls in his clothes. He opened the first one, which contained instructions for practicing the Blood Secret Technique.

Secret techniques were, in fact, a type of ninjutsu and weren't Kekkei Genkai. They were called secret techniques because they were passed down in secret, usually within a family, and had unique training methods. They were generally more powerful than the ninjutsu that circulated among the public.

There were many family secret techniques in the original story. The Aburame Clan's insect-control technique, for instance, involved raising insects inside the body and feeding them chakra over many years until they became like extensions of one's arms, useful for all kinds of things.

The Inuzuka Clan also raised Ninja Dogs from a young age and never separated from them. By channeling their chakra into the dogs in a special way, they eventually reached a state where human and dog were as one. It was a fearsome technique, too.

The Blood Secret Technique in Shin's hands used a special method to mix chakra with blood. After years of practice, a user could eventually control the flow of blood throughout their body at will. The technique was extremely powerful, and the scroll described around a dozen Blood Secret Techniques. The last was an S-rank technique called Blood Release: Blood Regeneration. According to the description, as long as one-tenth of the user's blood remained in their body, they could survive even a pierced heart or a severed head.

Shin glanced down at the Blood Ninja. Clearly, the man hadn't mastered that jutsu.

He tucked the Blood Secret Technique scroll into his clothes and thought, Not bad. Then he opened the other scroll.

This one wasn't a secret technique, but a straightforward Earth Style scroll. It contained three jutsu: "Earth Release: Earth Flow Ocean," "Earth Release Barrier: Earth Prison Dome," and "Earth Release: Earth Stone Explosion." One was B-rank, and the other two were A-rank.

He tucked the scroll away as well. Another search turned up nothing useful, so he searched Chiba Tengfei, too. Aside from some money and ninja tools, there was nothing to be found—not even a Chiba Clan secret technique. But that made sense. Most clan shinobi didn't carry jutsu scrolls around with them, unlike rogue shinobi like the Blood Ninja.

Shin used Heaven Cloud Sword to cut off the Blood Ninja's head, then tore off a strip of his clothes and wrapped it up. He would need it to complete the mission once he returned to the clan. His main reason for taking the job had been to earn points, but no one would turn down extra rewards.

On the way back, Shin kept wondering whether to trade the scrolls to the system for points. In the end, he held back. The system's buyback prices were a rip-off, and he wasn't short on points right now. There was no need to waste them.

"The Blood Secret Technique is pretty strong. Ninjutsu is a rare resource these days, and if I want to build a force of my own, I'll need it. I'd better keep it. As for Earth Style, I'll need to train in it after I exchange for an Earth affinity anyway, so I might as well save myself the points."

When he returned to the clan and tossed the Blood Ninja's head to the one-eyed old man, the elder was thoroughly startled.

He opened the bundle and stared at the Blood Ninja's head in shock, looking at Shin as if he were a monster. For a long while, he couldn't say a word.

If a Uchiha Jonin had taken the mission, the elder wouldn't have been surprised at all. He could even have accepted it if three or more Uchiha Special Jonin with the Sharingan had teamed up.

But the one who had completed the mission was a child who was only a Special Jonin. That was enough to upend everything he knew.

"Are you going to settle the mission or not?"

At last, Shin grew impatient and prodded him.

The one-eyed elder came to his senses and hurriedly recorded Shin's mission and verified the head's identity. When he finally handed over the reward, he couldn't help saying, "I thought you were simply a once-in-a-century genius for our clan. Now it seems you may be the most prodigious shinobi our clan has ever seen."

Shin smiled without replying. He took the reward, counted it, and left.

After leaving the mission hall, he walked along the streets of the Uchiha Clan Compound, glancing casually at the buildings on either side. The atmosphere was clearly more tense than when he had left. Mountains of supplies were already being sent toward the border between the Senju and Hyuga.

The Uchiha Clan was like a war machine. They had prepared in the shortest time possible, and in two more days, they would be ready to march.

When he got home, the maid was naturally overjoyed and waited on him attentively. Shin let her. This trip to the northwestern edge of the Land of Fire had taken five days round-trip, and life on the road had been harsh.

He sank into a tub of warm water and closed his eyes in comfort, letting the maid give him a full-body massage. She had learned to use a little more pressure now.

He casually asked how things had been in the clan while he was away.

"Master Madara came by yesterday and asked if you'd returned. Other than that, things were as usual."

Shin nodded and said nothing more. After his bath, he handed the reward for this mission to the maid to look after. When she took the money pouch, her eyes lit up, and she refused to let go.

"The Uchiha Clan really is loaded. That Blood Ninja was a Jonin, and the Kigen Clan's bounty of eighty thousand was already far above the Warring States Period average. At the last Clan Meeting, Uchiha Tajima offered a hundred thousand for every Hyuga Jonin. I really can't understand the world of the rich."

He sat down with a cup of tea and chatted idly with the maid, enjoying a rare moment of peace.

Suddenly, the door swung open, and Uchiha Madara strode in. Shin frowned deeply at the sight.

He's quick to hear things. I've barely been back, and he's already gotten the news.

"Shin, how about coming to the battlefield with me?" Uchiha Madara announced as soon as he walked in, brimming with confidence. Shin nearly spat out his tea and stared at him strangely.

Has this guy been kicked in the head by a donkey? That was, without a doubt, Shin's most honest thought at that moment.