When Yan stepped out of the bushes, the moon had just peeked halfway out from behind the clouds.
Ahead, the dried-up riverbed gleamed a grayish white under the moonlight. The deliberately left wheel ruts and footprints now looked especially conspicuous—like prop marks left onstage by a terrible actor.
He walked forward for about two hundred meters.
Then he stopped.
There was no need to go any farther.
Fifty meters ahead, a figure on a low slope straightened up. Then came a second, a third... more than a dozen figures emerged from their hiding places almost at once, scattered across the high ground on both sides of the riverbed.
The Sharingan saw them clearly beneath the moonlight—they wore Iwagakure-standard shinobi uniforms, and the four vertical lines on their forehead protectors glinted in the dark.
More figures emerged from farther away. From the brush, behind rocks, even from tunnels dug beneath the riverbed with Earth Release—one Iwagakure shinobi after another revealed themselves.
Yan's Observation Haki formed a complete picture in his mind: directly ahead, on his left flank, on his right flank, plus the gap behind him that was about to close—one hundred and thirty-seven people in total.
Eleven of them possessed chakra reserves at the jonin level.
One hundred and thirty-seven against one.
Back in his previous life, when he had gone onstage at the company's annual gala to accept the "Model Worker Award" while being watched by over a thousand people, the scene had been no more intimidating than this.
"Not coming out?"
The largest figure on the low slope spoke. His voice was rough, carrying the heavy, murky accent characteristic of the northern Land of Earth.
"Konoha ANBU are more timid than the rumors say. Six came, and all six showed up. I thought there'd be at least twenty."