Arriving at the Black Market, Identifying the Killer

After crossing out of the Land of Rain and into the Land of Birds, the air became noticeably drier, but Uchiha Mo had no time to dwell on such minor changes.

He kept his head down and charged toward his destination. Since Terada Yusuke's planned route had deliberately avoided the black markets, even a round trip to the nearest major black market would take Mo quite some time.

Moreover, if the murderer had deliberately erased the traces, he might need to investigate several more targets before finding anything. So even though he only needed to rejoin the team before they returned to Hidden Leaf, Mo still had to finish the investigation as quickly as possible.

The wind howled continuously past his ears as the moon slowly sank from the sky and a streak of morning light spilled from the east...

"Tap..."

A distinct footstep echoed through the empty, deathly silent underground black market. A youth clad in a black high-collared robe, with the Uchiha Clan crest printed on his back, appeared within.

Without any burdens holding him back, Mo had pushed his speed to the limit and reached his destination in the latter half of the night. However, to ensure he remained in peak condition, he had rested for roughly two hours before setting out again.

The black market was located underground, and major black markets generally contained bounty exchange offices.

Mo passed through a pitch-black corridor. After pushing open a wooden door, his field of vision suddenly opened up.

A thick stench of blood rushed into his nostrils, and Mo frowned slightly as he glanced to the side. Large patches of blood scabs, dried over time into a dark red-black, covered the walls. Broken corpses lay scattered across the floor, while the entire hall was riddled with shattered marks and craters left by explosions.

"Looks like no one in the Land of Birds dared to clean this place up. Still, that saves me quite a bit of trouble."

Mo circulated the chakra within his body, and his eyes turned scarlet.

There were no lingering traces of chakra in his vision, since too much time had passed. Mo stepped forward to a crater, crouched down, and looked at its bottom. He grabbed a handful of dirt and rubbed it between his fingers twice.

"The soil is brittle, as if it was scorched by fire. There are signs of carbonization at the bottom of the crater. It was caused by Fire Release."

Mo then stood up, examined the scratches on the wall, and walked over to a corpse leaning against it.

The tomoe in his eyes rotated faintly as he examined the severed neck of the headless corpse. Apart from the neck, the body bore many other slashes as well. Mo then compared them with the marks on the wall.

"Wind Cutter Technique."

Over the next quarter hour, Mo found penetrating, charred wounds caused by Lightning Release on several more corpses.

After inspecting the hall, Mo entered an inner room through a small door at the front right. This was generally where customers and merchants finalized their deals, including the exchange of bounty payments.

This place was far better preserved than the hall, but the moment Mo stepped inside, he saw a row of sharp earthen spikes of varying heights. A corpse with a terrified expression hung from the tip of the tallest spike.

"Earth Pillar Explosion..."

At this single black market alone, the murderer had displayed every one of the five elemental ninjutsu except Water Release. Judging by the power of those techniques, the murderer could be considered highly proficient.

That made the murderer's identity quite obvious.

At this point in the timeline, aside from the Third Hokage and Nagato, the only ninja clearly established in the original story to be proficient in more than four elemental releases was Kakuzu...

Although there were also ninja such as Orochimaru, who possessed all five elemental releases, most of them were only proficient in one or two, and their fighting styles did not primarily rely on multi-elemental ninjutsu.

Just as Mo had basically confirmed his target, footsteps suddenly sounded from the outer hall.

"!"

The instant Mo heard the sound, he deactivated his Sharingan. He then suppressed his presence as much as possible, and with a flicker, his body vanished into the surroundings like glass sinking into water.

He turned around without moving rashly. Instead, his eyes narrowed slightly, and his vision immediately passed through the wooden door and walls, landing in the hall.

Inside the underground black market's main hall.

A figure wearing a conical hat and a loose brown robe that concealed his body was looking around furtively as he made his way toward the inner room where Uchiha Mo was.

Mo focused slightly, and his vision immediately pierced through the hat and robe, allowing him to see the man's appearance clearly.

He was a burly middle-aged man with a centipede-like scar stretching from the left corner of his mouth across his entire face, ending at the corner of his right eye.

With a single glance, Mo judged from his gait and breathing rhythm that he was an ordinary person.

As the man drew nearer, Mo did not act rashly. Instead, he gathered chakra beneath his feet and leaped lightly, hanging upside down from the ceiling.

Although he had essentially identified the murderer, the reasons behind it were still full of doubts, so Mo needed more information. At a time when even the ministers of the Land of Birds dared not approach this place, an ordinary man had actually come here on his own initiative. He was surely connected to the matter somehow.

"Creak~"

The wooden door slowly opened. The man hurried into the room and then shut the door behind him.

"I hope it's still there!"

He muttered quietly, then leaped behind the counter. After fiddling with something for a while, the counter slowly shifted aside with a series of clicking sounds. The man crouched down and lightly pressed a spot on the exposed floor, then hooked something to the left. The ground immediately began to tremble.

"Rustle, rustle, rustle~"

Before long, the wall behind the counter slid aside, revealing a hidden passage.

The man stood up and was about to enter it when a faint breeze suddenly stirred behind him, followed by the sound of feet landing on the ground.

"Tap..."

His body stiffened. He immediately raised both hands and said in a terrified voice, "Sir! I just came back to retrieve some things. I'm not a black market merchant, and what happened before had nothing to do with me!" He held his hands high. Though his voice trembled slightly, he spoke extremely fast, his will to survive fully on display.

"Turn around."

Mo spoke softly. After his words fell, the man ahead suddenly froze, and then his entire body stopped trembling.

Mo quietly watched the scene unfold and began counting down in his heart.

"3..."

"2"

"1..."

"You damn brat! You actually dared to impersonate Kakuzu and make me..."

The burly man suddenly drew his blade and spun around, the flesh on his face trembling as he glared viciously.

But before the long blade could strike, a pair of scarlet eyes entered his vision first.

Genjutsu: Sharingan!

The burly man's eyes flew wide open, his pupils shrinking sharply as his entire body froze in place.

"Clang—"

The long blade hit the ground with a crisp ring, but Mo did not even glance at it. Instead, he watched the burly man and slowly asked, "Who are you? Why did you come back? Why would Kakuzu target the Land of Birds' black market?"