Death God Wearing a Mask and the Thunderous Methods of Black Market Hunts

The thick fog of Howling Canyon was violently torn apart by a sudden flash of golden light.

"Clang—"

A specialized Three-Pronged Kunai embedded itself deep into the rock, the paper charm attached to its tail vibrating violently in the gale. A split second later, a blond figure clad in a Konoha jonin vest appeared out of thin air above the kunai, his toes resting lightly on the hilt as he looked down at the camp.

Namikaze Minato.

Deep within the canopy, Baishi pressed his body flush against the rough bark. He severed all chakra flow throughout his body, forcing his heart rate down to forty beats per minute, his breathing perfectly synchronized with the cold wind weaving through the canyon. The blood-red lightning pattern on his pure white mask exuded an extreme, chilling coldness amidst the dim mist.

"The Yellow Flash of Konoha?" Raija stood up abruptly, the flesh on his rugged face twitching as his single eye locked onto the intruder. He shoved aside the campfire he had been roasting meat over, and violent blue lightning exploded from his body, scorching and shattering the surrounding rocks.

Minato did not draw the short blade from his back. His azure eyes held no extraneous emotion, only the absolute rationality of a mission in progress: "Cloud Hidden Grade A missing-nin Raija, you attacked a Land of Fire medical supply line one week ago, murdering three Konoha chunin. By order of the Hokage, you are to be executed on the spot."

"Big talk! When I was killing people in the Land of Lightning, you were still nursing at the Ninja Academy!" Raija laughed out of pure rage, his hands blurring into afterimages. "Kill him!"

Though terrified, the three rogue ninjas gritted their teeth at the lure of the bounty and lunged at Minato in a triangular formation.

Minato didn't even bother with hand seals.

"Swish!"

Golden light flickered. Only three faint, whistling sounds remained in the air.

The three rogue ninjas didn't even see their opponent's movements before three columns of blood sprayed from their throats. Their bodies collapsed forward from momentum, hitting the mud with a dull thud.

One-hit kills.

A flicker of wariness crossed Baishi's eyes from the canopy. The absolute spatial suppression of the Flying Thunder God Technique was essentially a dimensionality-reduction strike when clearing out fodder. Yet, he did not retreat. His gaze moved past Minato, cutting through the lightning surrounding Raija like a scalpel, and locked onto Raija's chest.

There, a thumb-sized, deep-blue multifaceted crystal hung from a coarse black cord. Even from a dozen meters away, Baishi could sense the pure lightning-attribute chakra sealed within, practically overflowing.

A high-purity Chakra Crystal. The key to unlocking the second "Life Script Simulator."

"So fast..." Raija's eyelid twitched violently; he finally realized the terror of the blond youth before him. Without hesitation, he bit his tongue and slammed his hands onto the ground. "Lightning Release: Earth Run!"

A blinding web of lightning spread madly across the ground like a spiderweb, sealing off all of Minato's landing points. Simultaneously, under the cover of the lightning, Raija turned and bolted toward the depths of the canyon. He knew full well that against a monster with space-time ninjutsu, fighting head-on meant certain death.

"You won't escape." Minato's voice echoed through the lightning web. He casually threw three Flying Thunder God Kunai, sealing Raija's retreat in a fan shape.

Now!

The muscles Baishi had been keeping dormant in the canopy tensed instantly. He had been waiting—waiting for Minato to force Raija's opening, waiting for the Flying Thunder God coordinates to be fixed, and waiting for the distance between the two to reach the threshold where he could intervene.

He could never let Minato kill Raija, or the crystal would inevitably be turned over to the Konoha Sealing Team as a trophy. He was going to snatch the prey right from under the nose of this Konoha genius!

"Lightning Release: Micro-Activation!"

The long-suppressed chakra within Baishi erupted. The cell activation provided by his max-level Lightning Release allowed his muscle fibers to unleash a spring-like force exceeding human limits in a tenth of a second.

"Bang!"

The thick tree trunk beneath his feet exploded into a sky full of wood chips. The figure in the blood-red lightning mask transformed into a silent, dark-blue shadow, using the thick fog as cover to close in on the sprinting Raija in a bizarre, low-altitude gliding posture.

Ahead, Raija was forced to halt by Minato's kunai. He roared and turned, preparing to take Minato's attack head-on.

Minato's figure flashed in mid-air, a high-speed rotating sphere of chakra—the Rasengan—already condensed in his right palm. The violent airflow pushed the surrounding white mist away.

Just as Minato was about to press the Rasengan into Raija's back, a sudden change occurred!

To save his life, Raija ripped open his ninja tool pouch and detonated every lightning-attribute Explosive Tag inside.

"Boom!"

A deafening explosion rocked the canyon, and violent lightning mixed with shrapnel scattered in all directions. Minato frowned; to avoid being caught in the suicide blast, he was forced to abandon the kill, flashing back to another kunai ten meters away.

Half a second.

The half-second Minato spent retreating was the only vacuum period in this battle.

And Baishi captured that thousandth-of-a-second gap with precision.

The fire from the explosion had not yet dissipated, and Raija was in a state of rigidity—his old strength spent and his new strength yet to be born—due to the impact of the Explosive Tags. Before he could even catch his breath, a pure white mask painted with blood-red lightning suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision.

"What?!" Raija's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

Too fast! This speed, this terrifying control that kept his Lightning Release chakra completely contained within an inch of his skin, even surpassed his own as an elite of Cloud Hidden!

Baishi didn't waste a word, nor did he use any flashy ninjutsu. At this distance, the most primitive physical slaughter was the most lethal.

His left hand shot out, accurately gripping Raija's wrist and snapping it outward with a brutal force. With a crisp "crack," Raija's hand seals were forcibly interrupted.

Immediately after, Baishi's right hand formed a blade with his fingers, the lightning-attribute chakra compressed at his fingertips into a thin, razor-sharp electric edge.

Without a moment's pause, without a shred of hesitation.

"Puchi!"

The hand blade, wrapped in high-pressure lightning, tore through Raija's prized Lightning Release Armor as easily as cutting tofu, piercing precisely into his throat. His trachea, carotid artery, and cervical vertebrae were all shattered in this single strike.

Warm blood sprayed in a mist onto Baishi's pure white mask, dripping down his chin.

Raija couldn't even let out a scream; his body twitched violently twice, and the light in his eyes faded rapidly.

Baishi's gaze was cold as his right hand pulled downward, snapping the black cord holding the Chakra Crystal. The deep-blue crystal landed firmly in his palm, its icy touch causing a satisfied curve to form at the corner of his mouth.

The entire process was fluid and seamless; from Baishi's appearance to the one-hit kill and the seizure of the crystal, it had taken less than a second in total.

Ten meters away, Namikaze Minato, having just regained his footing, looked up, his azure eyes filled with absolute, disbelieving shock.

Someone had snatched his target right from under his nose!

"Who's there?!" Minato barked, the Three-Pronged Kunai in his hand transforming into a golden streak as it shot directly toward the masked shadow in the thick fog.

Baishi did not even look back. He had already calculated his escape route. The moment Minato threw the kunai, chakra erupted beneath his feet, propelling his body backward while his hands moved in a rapid sequence of seals.

"Poof!"

A burst of white smoke exploded. Minato's kunai pinned itself precisely into a wooden log plastered with an Explosive Tag that ignited instantly.

"Boom!"

The violent explosion kicked up a sky full of dirt, completely disrupting the airflow and residual chakra within the canyon. Using the cover of the blast, Baishi's figure merged completely into the boundless white mist of Howling Canyon, leaving not a single trace behind.

Cold wind poured in, and the canyon returned to silence, save for the crackling of the campfire.

Minato used a Body Flicker technique to arrive beside Raija's corpse. He did not give chase, for the opponent's anti-tracking methods were incredibly seasoned; the moment the explosion occurred, they had severed all scents and chakra fluctuations.

He crouched down, his gaze heavy as he examined Raija's wound.

The incision at the throat was incredibly smooth, the edges charred to a deep black. This was the result of being pierced instantly by high-intensity Lightning Release chakra.

"A one-hit kill achieved through chakra nature transformation combined with taijutsu, without a single hand seal..." Minato extended a finger clad in a tactical glove and lightly touched the edge of the wound.

"Zzz—"

A faint blue arc of electricity traveled along the glove, sending a slight tingling sensation to Minato's fingertip.

Minato's finger froze abruptly.

A cold gust of wind blew through the canyon, carrying the lingering scent of blood and ninjutsu smoke from the corpse into Minato's nostrils.

Beneath that thick, bloody stench hid a very specific, scorched smell of lightning-attribute energy, carrying an aura of violent destruction.

This scent.

This technique of compressing Lightning Release chakra to its absolute limit.

Minato's azure pupils trembled violently, a thunderclap exploding in his mind. He suddenly recalled the Redwood Forest on the border of the Land of Fire three days ago, and the low-ranking ANBU he had marked as a prime suspect—the one who had deceived the higher-ups with a perfect performance.

The boy who had been coughing up blood in the hospital ward, the one Kushina had shielded so fiercely behind her.

"Baishi..." Minato slowly stood up, staring into the depths of the white mist, his hands at his sides clenching into tight fists.