Liuyu's gaze turned cold.
He stopped holding back.
His right hand shot out and clamped precisely around Torune's knife-wielding wrist. He twisted hard.
Crack.
The sound of breaking bone made one's teeth ache.
The short blade slipped from Torune's hand and hit the ground.
At the same time, Liuyu raised his left knee and slammed it into Torune's chest.
Thud! Crack!
The sound of ribs breaking rang out clearly.
Torune flew backward like a broken sack, smashed through a tree as thick as a bowl, and finally rolled to a stop on the ground.
He spat out a mouthful of blood and could no longer get back up.
The fight had lasted less than a minute.
Two elite Root shinobi at Special Jonin level hadn't even managed to touch the hem of Liuyu's clothes before he thoroughly defeated them.
Liuyu dusted off his hands, walked over to Torune, and crouched down.
The eyes visible beneath Torune's mask glared at Liuyu, bloodshot.
They held a mixture of shock, unwillingness to accept defeat, and a trace of fear that was difficult to detect.
"You... what... what jutsu did you use..." With every word he forced out, blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
Liuyu didn't answer. He simply reached out and removed Torune's mask.
Beneath it was an ordinary-looking face, around thirty years old, with a fierce glint in the eyes.
"Go back and tell Danzo." Liuyu's voice was calm, but carried a chill that sank to the bone.
"If you want to test me, send someone stronger next time. That sort of trash—"
He stood and planted a foot on Torune's head, grinding his face into the dirt.
"—isn't even worth making me get serious."
Torune let out a muffled, humiliated groan, but couldn't fight back.
Liuyu lifted his foot and gave one last glance at the two men sprawled on the ground before turning to leave.
After walking a few steps, he stopped. Without looking back, he left them with a few light words:
"Oh, and pass one more message to Elder Danzo for me: a Root hidden in the shadows will never see the light.
"If he insists on reaching too far... I don't mind helping Konoha trim a few unnecessary branches."
With that, Liuyu's figure flickered a few times and vanished into the depths of the woods.
Only the two badly injured Root shinobi remained, struggling to breathe amid the swirling dust and the smell of blood.
[Defeated Root shinobi. Karma Points increased by 500.]
Half an hour later.
Root Base, stone chamber.
"Useless!"
Danzo slapped the stone table. The hard rock surface cracked at the blow.
Before him, Torune and Fu knelt on the ground, wrapped in bandages from head to toe, their breathing weak.
"Two of you ambushed a ten-year-old brat, and not only did you fail to learn anything, you got beaten like this with Taijutsu?"
Cold light gleamed in Danzo's single eye. "You're Root, not a bunch of useless Academy students!"
"Lord Danzo..." Torune struggled to speak, his voice hoarse. "That Uchiha Ryūha... what he used wasn't the Body Flicker Technique.
"He didn't use Hand Seals, and there was no Chakra fluctuation. He was so fast... so fast we couldn't even track his movements. And..."
He swallowed a bloodied mouthful of saliva, a lingering fear flashing in his eyes. "His fighting style... was too calm.
"Calm in a way no child should be. It was more like... he was toying with us."
"Toying with you?" Danzo narrowed his eye.
"Yes," Fu said with difficulty. "He didn't use a single ninjutsu the entire time, and he didn't use genjutsu either—not the kind that 'controls the five senses,' at least.
"He completely overwhelmed us using only Taijutsu and that strange speed.
"And... he seemed very familiar with our fighting style. Every movement put him in our blind spot, and every strike hit our weakest points."
Danzo fell silent.
With his hands clasped behind his back, he slowly paced around the stone chamber. The tap of his cane against the floor rang especially clearly in the silence.
"Familiar with Root's fighting style... Could it be because the Uchiha Police Force has information on us?
"No, impossible. Root's tactics are classified."
"Then... battle instincts?
"No. Even the strongest instincts couldn't achieve that."
"Unless..." Danzo stopped walking, a sinister glint in his single eye. "He saw through everything you did."
A Kekkei Genkai that controlled the five senses...
If he could even "sense" and "predict" his enemies' intentions, Chakra flow, and the signs of their muscles tensing...
Wouldn't that mean every tactic and every technique was useless against him?
"Uchiha Ryūha..." Shimura Danzo murmured the name, his voice thick with wariness and murderous intent.
"Pass the word. Spread the news about his Kekkei Genkai in secret."
That boy absolutely couldn't be allowed to live.
But he couldn't make a move yet.
Fugaku had already taken notice of him, and the Third Hokage had probably heard as well.
Openly assassinating a Uchiha prodigy who had just emerged and was valued by his clan head was too risky.
"Go recover." Danzo waved a hand, his tone cold. "I don't want to see you again for a month."
"Yes." The two men withdrew unsteadily, as if granted a pardon.
Danzo was left alone in the stone chamber.
He walked over to the wall and pressed a hidden mechanism.
The stone wall slid open, revealing a huge glass container behind it.
Inside floated one blood-red eyeball after another, each with tomoe spinning in its iris.
Sharingan.
"Uchiha... Sharingan..." Danzo stroked the container's cold surface, greed and feverish longing shining in his single eye.
"A Kekkei Genkai that controls the five senses... If I could get my hands on it, if I could combine it with the Sharingan..."
He whispered, like a snake flicking its tongue.
"Lord Liuyu, we... will meet again."
Meanwhile, at the Third Training Ground in the Uchiha Compound's rear hills.
Uchiha Ryūha sat cross-legged in the center of his newly arranged training area, with the B-rank ninjutsu scroll he had just received spread out in front of him.
But he wasn't reading it.
He was reviewing the fight.
"Flash Step takes less out of me than I expected, but it puts a lot of strain on my body.
"With my current Reiatsu and physique, five consecutive uses are my limit."
"The Root shinobi are indeed skilled. They work well together and strike without mercy.
"If Flash Step's speed hadn't been completely beyond their understanding, and if Kyōka Suigetsu's perception and prediction hadn't helped, winning wouldn't have been so easy."
"Still..."
Liuyu adjusted his glasses, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
"Shimura Danzo won't let this go.
"This time was only a test. The next ones he sends might be real elites."
"I need to pick up the pace."
He lifted his head and looked toward the center of Konoha.
There were three months left before the White Fang incident.
And if he wanted to get close to Konoha's hero, he needed a suitable opportunity.
One that wouldn't arouse anyone's suspicions.
Liuyu closed his eyes. In his mind, Konoha's map appeared, along with the information he had gathered over the past few days about Hatake Sakumo.
"The izakaya he often visits... the route he likes to walk alone after missions... and that white-haired boy who always trains alone until late at night..."
A plan gradually took shape in his mind.
He stood and walked to the edge of the training ground, looking toward the statues of the Hokage through the generations carved into Kage Rock in the distance.
"A hero shouldn't meet his end that way," Liuyu murmured. "Especially not at the hands of the very people he protected."
He tightened his grip on Kyōka Suigetsu at his waist.
The blade hummed softly in its scabbard.
As if answering its master's resolve.
"Graduation and team assignments are in a couple of days, right? I hope I get a reliable captain."
Before you continue