Heavenly Gift Fruit

The two Hoshi Clan ninjas each had a piece of flesh cut from them and were tossed aside. The blade had moved so quickly that neither had time to react, but the pain that followed still left them drenched in cold sweat.

Hiugo placed the two pieces of flesh into separate bottles of nutrient solution, labeled them, then called softly into the air, "Come out."

Dark Seven appeared nearby in an instant. The two Dark Ninja were still busy protecting him; without Space-Time Ninjutsu, it would have been difficult for Hiugo to shake them off, given their speed.

He tossed the two bottles to Dark Seven.

"Deliver these to Tobirama in my name."

Dark Seven glanced at the bottles, nodded, then vanished again. Delivering two pieces of flesh could be left to Flying Eagle, but important items had to be personally escorted by a ninja. As for what the two boys were up to, that wasn't something he needed to concern himself with.

Hiugo touched the tree that had absorbed the two men's Chakra. Through the Chakra absorbed with Wood Style, he had learned their ninjutsu.

For a ninja who possessed Wood Style, most techniques like the Mysterious Peacock Method weren't really necessary. However, one ability could temporarily make up for a weakness.

That was the ability to fly. Hiugo couldn't use Wood Dragon yet, so he needed something to fill that gap.

The technique essentially used Chakra to conjure birds and gain their abilities. But the Hoshi Clan's Chakra had mutated, so his ordinary Chakra would need some adjustments before he could use it.

After fiddling with it for a few minutes, a bird-shaped mass of Chakra emerged behind Hiugo. Its wings flapped, lifting his feet off the ground.

The two men resting nearby as they bandaged their wounds stared in bafflement. They had worked so hard to master the technique, yet this man had learned it in mere moments.

After testing it a little more, Hiugo returned to the ground. The idea seemed sound, though it could still be improved. He looked at the two men beside him and asked,

"Why did you leave the Land of Bears and come here? Were you on a mission?"

Hoshizhuo Guang wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"We came to 'pick up some things,' but we've already decided to head back."

"Pick up some things" meant looting corpses—scavenging the weapons and money of dead ninjas for profit. In other words, it was one way of making a fortune on the battlefield.

As long as a Kunai wasn't damaged, it could change hands many times after someone found it.

But there were sensor ninjas on the battlefield between the Senju and Kaguya Clans, and these two were only about Chunin level. At most, they had come to scavenge from the smaller clans.

Hiugo nodded.

"Fair enough. So what was the robbery about?"

"We couldn't carry everything, so we wanted to buy a ninja tool pouch."

"So you have accomplices?"

Hoshizhuo Guang immediately said, "Of course not. There were only the two of us this time."

Hiugo pointed at them.

"You wanted a ninja tool pouch to carry your loot, but both of you came out here. So the stuff must either be hidden somewhere or left in someone's care."

"This area belongs to the Yekage Clan. They're in the intelligence business, so there's a good chance they'd find anything you hid."

Hoshizhuo Guang and Xing Chenguang fell silent. They closed their eyes, looking ready to accept whatever punishment came. In truth, they knew that if they talked, they'd have no further value and would be killed outright.

"You've got guts. But I have my ways, too."

Hiugo clapped his hands and took a storage scroll from his robes. A jar appeared in a puff of smoke.

The moment he opened it, a bizarre stench filled the area.

"What is that...?"

"An old recipe of mine. It's just hard to eat, drink, and smell," Hiugo said with a cheerful smile. "It's called 'oliguai'—in other words, shit. Let's see if you still refuse to talk."

"You... You... You really are a demon!"

"You talk too much."

Gulp... gulp...

"Ugh! Ugh!"

"Ugh! Ugh!"

The two ninjas immediately tried to spit it out, but the liquid in their mouths was rapidly hardening. They could only retch; no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get it out.

At that moment, they desperately wished they knew Water Release instead of the Mysterious Peacock Method.

"Last chance. If you don't talk, heh..."

At his words, Xing Chenguang's face went pale.

"We have two other accomplices. Our main goal this time was to steal the Guoxiang Clan's 'God-Given Fruit' and take it back to our clan. We've already succeeded."

Hiugo thought for a moment. The Guoxiang Clan...

He realized the fruit didn't ring any bells, so he asked,

"The Heavenly Gift Fruit? What is it?"

Seeing that his companion had confessed outright, Hoshizhuo Guang spoke first.

"It's a fruit that takes a hundred years to grow. It gives ordinary people without any talent the chance to become ninjas."

Hiugo's first thought was that it sounded like a wonderful thing. His second was that it wasn't of much use to him—and probably not much use to the Senju Clan, either.

The odds of a Senju being born with ninja talent were already fairly high. Those without it could still handle support work. Besides, a hundred years was far too long. They could train several more ninjas in the time it took to grow one fruit.

"Take me there."

The two sighed and led the way.

The two guards watching over the "Heavenly Gift Fruit" were a Chunin and a Special Jōnin. The moment they saw Hiugo alongside the two men, they understood what had happened and attacked him at once.

The two used the Mysterious Peacock Method to conjure beast shapes and close in from either side, attacking together.

But two wooden stakes shot up from the ground beneath Hiugo's feet, knocking them away and sending them unconscious. Two sharp branches flew toward the heads of the fallen men.

Hiugo clenched his fist. He hadn't been off the battlefield long, and his combat instincts were still there. The habitual move of knocking an enemy down and finishing him with a blow to the head had become second nature.

When it came to the Kaguya Clan, he couldn't feel at ease without finishing them off with a strike to the head. But not everyone had a body like the Kaguya Clan's.

After the wooden stakes struck, most of the Chakra protecting the men through the Mysterious Peacock Method had been absorbed. The hit had left them unable to fight.

He didn't know what exactly had happened. He had killed them with a finishing blow out of pure instinct.

Never mind. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

Hiugo composed himself and glanced at the two men standing dazed beside him.

"Why aren't you looking for it?"

Hoshizhuo Guang and Xing Chenguang snapped out of it and hurried to search. Earlier, when they'd been subdued, they hadn't felt much because Hiugo had caught them off guard.

They'd even held on to a sliver of hope that the four of them could work together to take him down. It wasn't rational; it was just a desperate fantasy born of their hopeless situation.

But they hadn't expected him to kill their two clan members in an instant, proving that his strength far surpassed theirs.

In this situation, obeying was their only chance.

Before long, four fruits wrapped in cloth appeared before Hiugo.

"Only four?"

"Sir, the Guoxiang Clan only grew seven fruits in total. We did everything we could just to get these four," Hoshizhuo Guang said with a wry smile.

Hiugo looked them over and nodded. He took three and said, "You can take the last one back to report."

The two were overjoyed. They'd gone from four fruits to one, but at least they had something to show for it. And this man even intended to let them go. Their impression of him changed at once.

"But you have to do one thing. Before I see you again, keep a close eye on where the 'Star' is."

The two nodded repeatedly. If they refused, they'd probably die right there. If they agreed, they might live—and could even end up better off later.

Dark One had been observing silently. He didn't think this violated the Senju Clan's principles, so he hadn't intended to interfere.

The Hoshi Clan had attacked Hiugo, and Hiugo had fought back and claimed the spoils of victory. There was nothing wrong with that. As for letting them go as spies, that was nothing unusual either. The Senju Clan had done the same thing throughout its history—they just called it "reforming" them.