He Used It All on Himself

Two squads of Konoha Anbu entered the Land of Waves. After two months, their supplies had been completely depleted.

Without Soldier Pills, obtaining food became difficult and easily exposed them.

Without ninja tools, many Anbu had to carefully clear the battlefield, making it easy for them to fall into traps the enemy had set on ninja tool pouches.

The Uzumaki Ninja had no such concerns. Uzu Hidden Village had always protected the nobles of the Land of Whirlpools and could obtain replenishments from them.

To put greater pressure on the Whirlpool Ninja, they needed to cut off their supplies and make the nobles realize that helping the Whirlpool Ninja at this time was dangerous—fatal.

The noble mayor Yagami's mission required him to kill was the ruler in the area most firmly supportive of Uzu Hidden Village.

Yagami did not tell Matsutori where they were going or what they were going to do.

Anbu members only needed to carry out orders. They did not need to think.

With a change in identity, Yagami had also become an exploiter who cared nothing for his subordinates' lives.

The two headed toward the target town. They did not seek to complete the mission quickly, only to avoid rash advances and avoid dying miserably.

"Matsutori, how old are you?"

"Captain Fox, I'm twelve this year."

He had just graduated and had only barely become a Chunin after the village lowered its requirements for Chunin.

Yagami did not know what to say to his team member, so he asked, "What is your dream?"

"My dream?" Matsutori said,

"My dream is to be like Lord White Fang, build up a record of missions in the ANBU, and become the strongest ninja!"

Konoha's White Fang was an ANBU legend. He had continuously grown stronger through ANBU battles, constantly honed his swordsmanship, and become a Kage Level Ninja.

Konoha Ninja had three ways to learn ninjutsu.

The first was family inheritance.

Top-tier ninjutsu and secret techniques were like infectious diseases, spreading only through mother and child, blood, and bodily fluids.

White Fang's swordsmanship was a family inheritance.

The second way was to earn the trust of a squad leader or captain and be taught ninjutsu.

Finding a teacher or captain whose temperament matched your own was difficult and rare.

The third way was to join the ANBU and render meritorious service to the village.

This path required luck—the luck to keep surviving.

It was also the fairest path, one of the underlying reasons ANBU ninja remained loyal.

"Good luck, Matsutori. Sooner or later, you'll become a ninja like Lord White Fang."

Once they arrived outside the town, Yagami cautiously observed it from afar through binoculars.

The town had roughly a thousand households and was surrounded by wooden walls. Watchtowers stood every few dozen meters along the walls, manned by samurai trained by the mayor.

Ordinary samurai trained their bodies every day and carried long swords. Even a Genin would need several moves to take down one of them.

More advanced samurai could refine Chakra and use it to strengthen their taijutsu, making them equivalent to Genin from ninja villages.

Even more advanced samurai could only be trained by the Land of Iron.

These samurai were paid very little and were extremely cheap to employ.

Yagami and Matsutori found a blind spot in the samurai's field of vision. After avoiding the patrolling samurai, they climbed into the town.

The town was divided into an inner city and an outer city.

The inner city was where the noble mayor lived and worked.

Lively nights were a luxury reserved for major cities like the Capital. For defense, small towns enforced strict curfews.

The streets of the small town were empty. Everyone had hidden in their homes.

Ordinary people might die at the hands of ninja village shinobi or Missing-nin.

All civilians gathered around the nobles, hoping the nobles and the ninja they hired would bring them peace.

Yagami and Matsutori successfully infiltrated near the inner city.

"Careful!"

A group of samurai appeared to the side, and Yagami was the first to duck into an alley.

Matsutori hurried after him.

There were several trash bins in the alley. Yagami and Matsutori each hid behind a different one.

After the samurai squad left, Yagami said, "Matsutori, be extremely careful from here on. Find a weakness in their defenses and climb over the inner city wall."

Like the outer city, the inner city also had watchtowers and samurai.

After climbing into the inner city, the two dropped to the ground and quickly pressed themselves against the base of a building's wall, slowly moving along it.

More than ten minutes later, they finally reached the brightest-lit area.

The mayor's study was in the distance.

Two figures were silhouetted in the study window, and it was impossible to tell which one was the mayor.

The window suddenly opened, and someone burst out from inside.

A Uzumaki Ninja!

The mayor stood beside the window. He saw the Uzumaki Ninja suddenly stop speaking, then smash through the window and rush toward the corner of a building.

Two more Uzumaki Ninja emerged elsewhere, along with samurai who had received word and hurried over.

The whistling of Kunai slicing through the air and the clatter of the samurai's armor made Matsutori extremely nervous.

When he saw his captain signal for retreat, he hurriedly ran outward.

He had never expected there to be a Whirlpool Ninja squad here.

Kunai thudded into the surrounding wooden walls.

One Kunai evaded his dodge and pierced Matsutori's shoulder.

Another Kunai stabbed into his foot.

Just as he wanted to call for his captain's help, he saw Captain Fox get struck by a Kunai and turn into a puff of white smoke.

What?

A Shadow Clone?

When had he made it?

Matsutori suddenly remembered that when they infiltrated the inner city, his captain had vanished for an instant. Later, he had hidden behind a different trash bin.

He gave a bitter laugh, recalling the key point his teacher had taught when the Ninja Academy instructed them in the Substitution Technique.

The Substitution Technique turned a wooden log into one's likeness while the user hid in the shadows, waiting to launch a sneak attack when the enemy attacked the log.

The key to the Substitution Technique was finding or creating the moment when the enemy lost sight of you.

A Shadow Clone could be considered an advanced Substitution Technique.

Captain Fox had used all those underhanded tricks he used on enemies on himself.

His own life, like the Shadow Clone's, was meant to deceive the enemy.

Matsutori looked toward the noble.

He had already suspected that the mission might be to kill the noble in this town.

Sure enough, Captain Fox had somehow infiltrated behind the noble at the window and raised a Kunai.

Captain Fox actually possessed such exquisite infiltration methods.

The Uzumaki Ninja and samurai had all focused their attention on him. His captain's timing was truly perfect.

He and the noble mayor would die in the same second.

When Matsutori had first been recruited into the ANBU, he had thought he possessed some special talent that had caught the higher-ups' attention, and that he was about to rise to greatness.

Only after several months in the ANBU did he realize that he was merely a tool.

That morning, his captain had still wished him well, hoping he would fulfill his dream and become a ninja like White Fang.

Now, to complete the mission, he was dying miserably in his captain's scheme.

Was this the ANBU?

The Uzumaki Ninja came to Matsutori's corpse and crouched down, using a Kunai to slice open his mask.

Beneath the mask was a young face.

It bore a venomous resentment, though no one knew what he resented.

Yagami's order to Matsutori had only been to infiltrate the inner city. He had not even said what they were doing, so Matsutori knew no secrets.

Even if they took the corpse away, Uzu Hidden Village would obtain no evidence.

"Not good! The mayor is dead!"

Hearing the samurai's shout, the Uzumaki Ninja turned in alarm and saw that the mayor had died in front of the window, slumped over the sill with a Kunai embedded in the back of his neck.

"Damn it!"

The Uzumaki Ninja cursed. The support they had just finished negotiating had now gone up in smoke.