Exploding Talisman to the Face

The flames were still burning.

Broken wooden beams crackled, the half-collapsed roof teetered precariously, and scorching smoke billowed into the night.

Uchiha Shingetsu stood in the center of the ruins.

His left shoulder was still bleeding.

His chest felt stifled from the impact of the explosive tags, and every breath felt like a knife scraping against his lungs.

Yet, his eyes were terrifyingly bright.

A single tomoe Sharingan rotated slowly.

Deep within those scarlet pupils, the figure of the Root ninja standing before him was reflected.

The opponent wore a greyish-white mask, making his expression impossible to discern.

But Shingetsu could feel it.

This Root ninja was furious.

It was not because his comrade had died.

In a place like Root, there was no such thing as normal camaraderie.

What angered him was that a nine-year-old Uchiha orphan had dared to resist Root.

Dared to kill a member of Root.

More importantly—

This Uchiha brat, originally assessed as having "low salvage value," had awakened the Sharingan in the face of life and death.

What did this mean?

It meant he was no longer mere material.

He was a pair of eyes that were currently growing.

The Root ninja's voice was cold and sinister.

"Uchiha Shingetsu."

"It seems the intelligence was flawed."

"You are not without value."

Shingetsu bared his teeth; his face was pale, but his smile was icy.

"And so?"

"Planning to gouge out my eyes and present them to Danzo?"

The Root ninja's pupils constricted slightly.

The mask obscured his face, but the shift in his aura at that moment was still captured by Shingetsu.

He had guessed correctly.

Danzo had already begun collecting Sharingan.

Perhaps, he had even started human experimentation long ago.

Thinking of this, the killing intent in Shingetsu's heart grew heavier.

He knew that in the original Naruto series, Danzo had an entire row of Sharingan on his arm.

But watching the anime and being in this world personally were two completely different things.

Those eyes did not come from thin air.

Behind every single Sharingan lay the corpse of an Uchiha clansman.

Perhaps stolen after they died in battle.

Perhaps secretly assassinated by Root.

Or perhaps, like himself tonight, taken away as a "specimen," never to return.

This world was colder than he remembered.

Darker.

The Root ninja slowly drew the short blade from his back.

The blade was long and narrow, shimmering with a faint, cold light.

"You know too much."

"Therefore, you cannot live."

Before the words had even faded.

The Root ninja vanished from his spot in an instant.

So fast!

Shingetsu's pupils contracted violently.

The Sharingan captured the opponent's movements, but his body could not keep up.

This was the gap.

He had only awakened a single tomoe for now.

He had managed to kill the first Root chunin earlier only by relying on a sneak attack, the environment, explosive tags, and the opponent's underestimation of him.

But the person before him was different.

The opponent already knew he was dangerous.

He would not be given the same opportunity again.

The next instant, a cold glint arrived before Shin-getsu.

The short blade aimed straight for his throat.

Shin-getsu dodged to the side almost instinctively.

Ssh!

The blade grazed past his neck.

A line of blood sprayed into the air.

It was only by a hair's breadth.

Just a fraction more, and his throat would have been slit.

Shin-getsu did not retreat.

Instead, taking advantage of the moment he dodged, he kicked a burning piece of wood on the ground.

Sparks and smoke billowed into the Root ninja's face.

The Root ninja let out a cold snort.

"Boring little tricks."

He waved his left hand, and a burst of chakra instantly dispersed the smoke and dust.

But the moment the smoke cleared, he saw three shuriken flying in from different angles.

High, middle, and low.

They sealed off his path forward.

The Root ninja slashed his short blade in rapid succession.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

All three shuriken were knocked away.

But just as he blocked the shuriken, his feet suddenly tightened.

Wire!

The sparks Shin-getsu had kicked up earlier were merely a cover.

The true objective was to use the shuriken to guide the wire and entangle his ankles.

The Root ninja's eyes turned cold.

"Still using this same routine?"

He pulsed chakra through his feet, and the wire snapped instantly.

However, in that half-breath of hesitation, Shin-getsu had already lunged before him.

He thrust his kunai toward the man's heart.

The Root ninja did not dodge.

He simply raised his hand and precisely grabbed Shin-getsu's wrist.

Crack!

The sound of bone fracturing rang out.

A sharp, agonizing pain surged instantly from his wrist.

Shin-getsu's face turned pale, and the kunai nearly slipped from his hand.

The Root ninja's voice was icy.

"Your combat instincts are decent."

"Unfortunately, your body is too weak."

"And your Sharingan has only just awakened."

"This level of resistance is meaningless."

He raised his knee and slammed it hard into Shin-getsu's abdomen.

Bang!

Shin-getsu was sent flying backward, crashing into a broken wall.

Fresh blood spilled from the corners of his mouth.

His internal organs felt as though they had been shifted out of place.

The Root ninja did not stop.

He walked forward, step by step.

Every step was steady.

Unrushed.

Composed.

It was as if he were harvesting prey that had already fallen into a trap.

Shin-getsu struggled to stand, his vision swimming with darkness.

Too strong.

At least for him right now, this Root ninja was absurdly powerful.

Even if the opponent were only a Special Jonin, or perhaps just an elite Chunin, it was not something his nine-year-old body could face head-on.

Just then, the system prompt rang out in his mind once more.

[Special Trait: Causality Perception, activated.]

[Effect: The host can capture short-term threads of dangerous causality during combat.]

[Warning: The current enemy is about to launch a fatal attack.]

The moment the voice faded, the world before Shin-getsu's eyes suddenly changed.

Flames, ruins, smoke, the Root ninja.

Everything seemed to slow down by a beat.

And on the Root ninja, Shin-getsu saw an extremely faint black line.

That black line extended from the opponent's right hand, which gripped his blade, and connected directly to his own heart.

A thread of dangerous causality.

The next strike: a stab to the heart!

Shin-getsu's heart skipped a beat.

The Root ninja moved the very next instant, just as expected.

His speed was even greater than before.

The short blade tore through the air.

It thrust straight toward Shin-getsu's chest.

Without Causality Perception, Shin-getsu would never have been able to dodge.

But now, it was different.

Before the opponent had even struck, he already knew the point of impact.

Shin-getsu lunged violently to the left.

The short blade pierced empty air, grazing his clothes.

The Root ninja's movements faltered for a split second.

"Predicting my move?"

After hitting the ground, Shin-getsu did not hesitate for a moment; he grabbed a handful of dust from the earth and flung it directly at the other man's mask.

The Root ninja tilted his head to dodge.

But Shin-getsu had never intended to hit him.

He only wanted to force the man to turn his head.

The very instant the Root ninja turned, the last kunai slid from Shin-getsu's sleeve.

He gripped it in a reverse hold and slashed upward with all his might.

The target was not the throat.

It was not the heart.

It was the small patch of jaw exposed beneath the mask.

The Root ninja's eyes darkened as he raised his hand to seize Shin-getsu's wrist.

The same position.

The same suppression.

But this time, Shin-getsu smiled.

A sudden sense of foreboding rose in the Root ninja's heart.

The next moment.

Shin-getsu suddenly released the kunai from his captured hand.

The kunai fell.

The Root ninja instinctively looked down.

Wrapped around the handle of the kunai was an explosive tag that had burned down to the very end.

Explosive tags again!

The Root ninja's pupils constricted violently.

He finally understood.

From the very beginning, this brat never intended to kill him with a kunai.

Every close-quarters engagement, every struggle, every seemingly desperate attack—it was all to deliver that explosive tag right in front of him.

A madman!

This Uchiha brat wasn't afraid of dying at all!