Sand Ninja Attack

By the time it was Uchiha Matsuri's turn to stand guard, it was already nearing midnight.

After a yawn, Uchiha Matsuri sat down beside the campfire. Looking up at the star-filled sky, he suddenly wondered if the Earth at this very moment also possessed such a brilliant canopy of stars.

I wonder how Mom and Dad are doing over there, Uchiha Matsuri sighed softly.

Even his suicide by jumping off a building had been a momentary impulse. Since arriving in this world and fully calming down, Uchiha Matsuri would look up at the brilliant night sky from time to time. His living environment had changed, his companions had changed, and he himself had changed; the only thing that remained constant was this night sky above his head.

When he first arrived in this world, Uchiha Matsuri existed in the body of an infant, unable to freely express his emotions with language or walk on the ground. Later, even though he "learned" to speak and walk, the word "loneliness" always accompanied him.

Lacking the care of elders or companions, Uchiha Matsuri felt like an extraneous person in this world. Even though he lived under the same roof as Jiraiya, because Jiraiya was often away on missions, the two were not as close as outsiders might have guessed—at the very least, Uchiha Matsuri never felt any heartfelt concern from him.

In his past life, Uchiha Matsuri was someone influenced by his parents to focus only on studying, neglecting interpersonal relationships; thus, he was someone who was "isolated by classmates" at every turn. Although he claimed he didn't care, how could those who constantly formed cliques and chatted with companions ever understand his solitude?

In this life, having come to the world of the Hokage, Uchiha Matsuri remained alone. Without the care of elders at home, he felt the pain of being alone even more acutely. At the Ninja Academy, although the naturally cheerful Kushina Uzumaki had taken the initiative to sit beside him, their conversations over the three years had been limited to simple greetings.

It was not until the formation of Team 6 that Uchiha Matsuri gradually stepped out of his inner loneliness. Over the course of a year, having escaped death multiple times, Uchiha Matsuri, Nohara Shin, and Kushina Uzumaki had gradually become as close as family.

After three days of travel, Sabaku Chiharu and a group of his clansmen entered Scarlet Valley under the cover of night.

In the moonlight, ninjas cloaked in black moved like gods of death, quietly closing in on the four members of Team 6. Their white-gleaming blades would soon be stained with the blood of their sins.

"Clan Leader, according to the sensor ninja, we are ten minutes away from where those four Konoha ninjas are stationed," a ninja from the Sabaku Clan reported to Sabaku Chiharu.

"Once you locate the Konoha ninjas, act immediately. Do not give them a chance to react," Sabaku Chiharu ordered coldly.

"Understood."

Beside the campfire, Uchiha Matsuri was clearly unaware that he was in danger.

However, only a few minutes passed. While lost in thought, a bad premonition suddenly welled up from the bottom of Uchiha Matsuri's heart.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Three kunai flew through the night sky, aimed directly at Uchiha Matsuri by the fire. Just as the blades were about to pierce his body, Uchiha Matsuri subconsciously dodged to the side.

Do not underestimate this dodge; it was the year of repeated combat experience that had forged Uchiha Matsuri's hardened heart, allowing him to accurately sense danger.

The kunai sliced through Uchiha Matsuri's afterimage and buried themselves into the sand.

"Who is it?" Uchiha Matsuri shouted. Hearing his voice, the three people sleeping in the tents were startled awake, hurriedly grabbing their ninja gear as they rushed out.

Seeing that his sneak attack had failed, Sabaku Chiharu was not disappointed; instead, he slowly stepped out from the darkness.

"Who are you?" Seeing a man with a fierce expression and a cross-shaped scar on his right cheek emerge, Uchiha Matsuri held a shuriken and asked vigilantly.

"Sabaku Chiharu," he answered unhurriedly.

"It seems you are our target," Uchiha Matsuri glanced at Kato Dan and the others, who were still shaking off their drowsiness, and continued, "But since you delivered yourself to our doorstep, we won't need to go to Sunagakure to find you."

"Hahaha, you really are naive," Sabaku Chiharu said with disdain. "I have two pieces of bad news for you. Do you want to hear them? After all, I prefer talking to 'dead men'."

"We don't," the four replied in unison.

"First, the fact that my brother, Sabaku Chizuru, started a riot has been exposed. I ended his life myself three days ago, so you will never collect the bounty he placed on you," Sabaku Chiharu ignored them and continued. "Second, you are about to become four corpses, and you will never return to Konoha."

As he spoke, Sabaku Chiharu waved his hand, and dozens of wooden kunai flew out from the darkness surrounding the camp.

"Not good, it's an ambush!" Kato Dan, whose intuition was the sharpest, shouted first.

Hearing Kato Dan's warning, Uchiha Matsuri and the others immediately focused their attention on the incoming kunai.

Just as the four of them put their main focus on dodging the projectiles, over thirty ninjas from the Sabaku Clan swarmed forward.

Kato Dan, who had just been worried that the enemy would launch long-range attacks from the darkness, breathed a sigh of relief. Compared to close-quarters combat with dozens of people, fighting invisible enemies was the most terrifying. Without the assistance of the Sharingan, they would have been in an extremely dangerous situation.

Seeing dozens of ninjas swarming them, Uchiha Matsuri and his teammates clenched their fists in secret.

Although the three of them had completed many missions together in the year since graduation, those missions—whether hunting rogue ninjas or guarding caravans—had been conducted when they held the advantage in numbers or strength. But this mission was completely different. Whether in terms of numbers or overall strength, the aggressive Sunagakure ninjas far surpassed Team 6.

"Lightning Style: Thunderstorm Descent!"

At the very start, Uchiha Matsuri unleashed a powerful technique. The pitch-black sky was instantly covered in thick clouds, and suddenly, several bolts of lightning struck down from the air toward the ground. A few Sabaku Clan ninjas were unable to dodge in time; they were struck by the lightning and killed instantly.

For Uchiha Matsuri, who wanted to end the battle quickly, this number of kills was far from ideal. He had used half of the chakra in his body on this single technique, hoping to maximize its power and kill count. But judging by the results, it had not wiped out a dozen enemy ninjas as he had expected.

In truth, what Uchiha Matsuri did not know was that among the five chakra natures, Lightning Style was naturally at a disadvantage against Wind Style.