Deadly Plans in the Structural Blueprints, Blowing Up the Foundations to Throw Everything into Chaos

Kakkō's eyes blazed with wild excitement, reflecting the cold, precise lines on the <Mist Anbu Underground Base · Zone B-7 · Core Load-Bearing Structure Layout>.

It wasn't a blueprint.

It was the skeleton of a giant, stripped bare and laid out before him after its skin had been flayed and its sinews torn away.

And he, Mizuki Han, was the butcher holding the cleaver, ready to smash every joint in that giant's body.

The near-manic smile curling across his lips seemed to lower the temperature throughout the entire Armory by several more degrees. The air no longer carried only the chill of metal and gunpowder. Now it was thick with a soul-deep madness that made one's blood run cold.

"Han... big brother?"

Haku's voice came from nearby, trembling with caution. She had already stuffed several large ninja tool packs full. Explosive Tags, each one capable of starting a small war in the outside world, now lay piled at her feet like cheap merchandise.

She looked up—and saw an expression she had never seen on Mizuki Han's face before.

It wasn't the coldness he'd shown when striking back at the guards, the restraint he'd displayed in front of Kisame, or the composure he'd maintained while plotting against Captain Hozuki. It was a strange blend of two extremes: the excitement of a child who had found the ultimate toy, and the absolute indifference of a king surveying his own chessboard.

Mizuki Han didn't answer her.

His entire mind was immersed in the enormous blueprint.

Escape?

That hadn't been among his best options from the very beginning.

The encrypted scroll he'd deciphered had already ruled out every conventional route. The exits were sealed by Genji's personal forces, and poison gas would flood every inch of the place within seventy-two hours. It was a carefully planned, silent siege. The Mist Village's leadership wanted all the "trash" underground to rot away here quietly, without anyone knowing.

They wanted to save face.

They wanted silence.

But Mizuki Han was determined to give them the grandest, noisiest, bloodiest funeral imaginable!

He would make every tremor in this land a stinging slap across the faces of the Mist Village's leaders! The flames soaring into the sky would be the only salute announcing his return from hell!

His fingers, pale and slender as works of art carved from ice, drifted slowly over the structures marked on the blueprint.

"The B-3 load-bearing column group supports the main Anbu office building and Intelligence Center above..."

"C-5 load-bearing column. The Interrogation Department and prison are directly underneath..."

"The F-9 composite load-bearing structure supports the base's central Energy Hub. Once it's destroyed, the backup power will last ten minutes at most..."

His voice was soft, as though he were talking to himself—or calling out each name in turn for the destruction to come.

Every name represented buildings above, and the lives of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Kirigakure Ninja.

Haku didn't understand the complicated structural terms, but she understood "office building," "prison," and "Energy Hub." Her small face gradually turned deathly pale, and fear drained all the color from her lips.

At last, she understood what Mizuki Han intended to do.

This person... he wasn't trying to blast open an escape route.

He was going to... blow up the entire world.

The realization swept through her like an icy current, rushing from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She stared at the back of the boy crouched on the floor, poring over the blueprints with rapt attention. For the first time, she felt that perhaps the one she was following wasn't really human at all.

He was a monster from the abyss, wearing a human skin.

Mizuki Han knew nothing of her thoughts and wouldn't have cared if he had.

His mind was racing at a speed it had never reached before.

Simply destroying the load-bearing columns wouldn't be enough, and Earth Release Ninja could reinforce them with ease. He needed an irreversible, chain-reaction structural collapse.

He searched the metal cabinet again and pulled out several more blueprints.

Sewage Pipeline Distribution Map, Ventilation System Layout Map, Chakra Circuit Layout Map...

He spread the blueprints side by side on the floor. The engineering, physics, and logic he had learned in his previous life might have grown rusty, but under the pressure of his instinct to survive, they resurfaced like silt rising from the depths. They began to fuse in a strange way with the Ninjutsu system of this world.

His gaze darted rapidly between the blueprints as an enormous, intricate demolition model took shape in his mind.

First, he would use the sewage pipes to deliver Underwater Specialized Type Explosive Tags to the deepest parts of the load-bearing columns' foundations. Underwater blasts produced more penetrating shock waves, capable of breaking apart the structure from within.

Then, he would place Delayed Trigger Type Explosive Tags at key points in the ventilation ducts. They would detonate the instant the main structure collapsed, using the pressure difference to funnel poison gas and flames into the sealed shelters and clear them out a second time.

Finally, and most importantly, he would concentrate the greatest number of High-Explosive Improved Type Explosive Tags—the most terrifyingly powerful ones—on the F-9 composite load-bearing structure supporting the Energy Hub!

He didn't want a simple collapse. He wanted an irreversible vertical plunge, driven by gravity itself!

He would make the main Anbu office building, Intelligence Center, Interrogation Department prison, ninja barracks...everything lose its support in an instant and drop straight down into the earth, like a castle made of blocks with its foundations pulled out!

It would be an unprecedented mass burial!

Against this plan, every life was nothing but a cold number, a variable used to measure the effectiveness of the demolition.

The Anbu patrolling above, the Ninja at rest, even the Kekkei Genkai users locked away in other cells...there was no difference between them on Mizuki Han's chessboard.

They were all pieces.

They were all props and sacrifices in this grand performance.

"In this game, there are only two kinds of roles: those who make the rules, and the pieces crushed beneath them."

A flame called "control" flickered in Mizuki Han's eyes.

He was sick and tired of having his fate toyed with by others.

So he would become the one and only person who made the rules!

"Are you packed?"

At last, he lifted his head from the blueprints and looked at Haku.

"I... I'm done." His cold gaze swept over her, making her shudder. She hurriedly sealed the last enormous scroll packed with Explosive Tags.

Mizuki Han rose to his feet, carefully rolled up the crucial blueprints, and tucked them away against his body.

He went to the mountain of "spoils" and casually picked up the heaviest scroll.

The solid weight in his hands, and the terrifying energy it contained—enough to level a mountain—finally settled the heart that had been constantly gripped by his Firepower Deficiency Phobia.

A sense of security had never come from anyone else.

It came from having enough power in your own hands to destroy everything.

He glanced at the water clock on the wall. Less than sixty hours remained before the poison gas was released.

There wasn't much time left.

He strapped the heavy scroll to his back, then picked up two specially made Black Steel Short Blades and crossed them into the sheaths on his back.

A brand-new Anbu combat uniform, cold weapons, and enough terrifying firepower to wipe everything away.

At last, he had some means of standing up to this world.

"Follow me."

Mizuki Han said nothing more. He turned and headed for the blasted-open doors of the Armory.

Beyond them stretched a deep, winding underground maze, like the bowels of some monstrous beast.

There were Anbu squads searching for them, dangers unknown, and the ever-approaching countdown to death.

Yet Mizuki Han's footsteps didn't falter in the slightest.

The firelight behind him cast his shadow long across the entrance to the maze, where it twisted into the shape of an enormous figure—a primordial demon god about to step onto the battlefield.

Haku hurriedly hefted two smaller scrolls and stumbled after him.

She watched the figure ahead of her. He wasn't especially tall, yet his presence was suffocatingly oppressive. An uncontrollable thought rose from the depths of her heart.

In this vast underground maze, sprawling like an anthill, could they really evade every search party and plant these world-destroying "offerings" at all the deadly key points?