The Year 47 of the Hidden Leaf Village

The Year 47 of the Hidden Leaf Village

Pop—

The instant his toes touched the branch, chakra gathered in his legs. The branch bent only slightly before the boy sprang more than ten meters away.

Leaping and darting, he swept through the dense forest like a gust of wind.

He was still young, with handsome features. He wore a black bodysuit beneath a standard green flak vest, his thick black hair tied at the ends with a red cord. His demeanor was gentle and calm.

If a stranger saw him, they would immediately notice the boy's two distinctive marks of identity:

First was the metal forehead protector engraved with the Hidden Leaf Village's symbol.

Second were those snow-white eyes, completely without a trace of any other color!

—He was a member of the Hyuga Clan of the Hidden Leaf Village in the Land of Fire!

A powerful ninja village and the formidable Byakugan bloodline limit gave the Hyuga Clan a strength that could never be ignored.

"Fifteen kilometers to the border of the Land of Fire..."

Hyuga Yuto calculated the distance as he ran.

"Too dangerous."

Hyuga Yuto abruptly halted, stomping heavily against a tree trunk. He came to a stop in the middle of his sprint, transitioning from extreme speed to complete stillness in an instant, displaying his powerful yet flexible physical abilities.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Four figures swiftly converged around him, standing back to back in a standard tactical formation.

"What is it, Hyuga Yuto? Did you find something?"

A middle-aged man with short hair and an indifferent expression spoke softly.

Hyuga Yuto nodded.

"Senior Tetsujiro, there are footprints in the woods... They look like they were made by women's shoes."

A breeze passed through the forest, and the other three genin instinctively tightened their grips on their kunai.

The team led by jonin Sugisaki Tetsujiro was a surprise reconnaissance unit temporarily assembled for wartime: one jonin, one Hyuga chunin, and three civilian genin. There were no women among them!

"So they're enemies?" Sugisaki Tetsujiro said calmly. "Well done, Hyuga Yuto. We could go around them... Forget it." Sugisaki Tetsujiro drew his kunai and rubbed its sharp blade. "If they can block the end of this route, they might have ambushes elsewhere too. We'll charge through. We have the Byakugan, after all."

The three genin let out quiet sighs of relief and looked at Sugisaki Tetsujiro and Hyuga Yuto with respect.

A thousand years of ninja history had proven that the Byakugan's scouting ability was trustworthy.

"Yes, Lord Tetsujiro," Hyuga Yuto replied respectfully.

He pressed his index and middle fingers together before the tip of his nose, forming a hand seal.

In an instant, a great amount of chakra gathered around his optic nerves. Veins bulged around Hyuga Yuto's eyes, and pale bluish pupils emerged at their centers.

His vision abruptly changed. A unique three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of view unfolded before him: the flow of chakra, the chakra pathways, birds hidden behind trees, beasts drinking water several kilometers away...

X-ray vision, extraordinary range of sight—everything was revealed in minute detail beneath those eyes.

Hyuga Yuto lowered his hand.

Although activating the Byakugan only required concentrating chakra, members of the Hyuga Clan liked to use various hand seals to focus their minds. Over time, it became a family habit.

Seeing that Hyuga Yuto was ready, Sugisaki Tetsujiro took the lead and charged forward. Hyuga Yuto followed close behind, while the other three genin formed a semicircle around him to protect him. The five of them resumed their mad dash.

This time, however, every one of their nerves was stretched taut.

Within Hyuga Yuto's vision, everything became faded black and white. The semi-transparent trees and grass rushed backward as he observed his surroundings at high speed, overlooking no suspicious place.

Finally, several tiny "streams" abruptly appeared before Hyuga Yuto's eyes as he sped along.

They were chakra flowing through chakra pathways!

"Found them..." Hyuga Yuto exhaled a breath of stale air, tapping out several concealed signals to his teammates with his fingers. Then he accelerated to reach Sugisaki Tetsujiro at the front and relayed the intelligence to him.

Though Hyuga Yuto was fast, by the time he completed that series of actions, they were less than four hundred meters from the enemy.

Ninjas living beneath the shadow of war possessed superior combat discipline.

Though the team had not been formed long, Hyuga Yuto's squad maintained their speed with remarkable coordination, pretending that nothing had happened.

Until Sugisaki Tetsujiro, the jonin at the front, came within twenty meters of the first enemy.

Twenty meters—for a Hidden Leaf jonin... it was practically face-to-face.

Bang!

Hyuga Yuto's vision blurred. By the time he caught sight of Sugisaki Tetsujiro again, the jonin had appeared directly above an enemy lying in ambush underground.

Sugisaki Tetsujiro drove his kunai into the ground, abruptly released it, and stomped down viciously with his foot. A scream and blood burst through the earth at the same time.

A basic Body Flicker Technique, coupled with Hyuga Yuto's precise intelligence, allowed him to instantly kill an enemy.

However, the Hidden Leaf jonin's attack was not over.

Ignoring the furious shouts and whistling projectiles coming from elsewhere, he calmly formed hand seals.

Using the kunai as a foothold was an unconventional maneuver, but the small risk had been worth it. It freed both his hands, giving Sugisaki Tetsujiro more time to form seals.

Ox—Monkey—Rabbit—Rat—Boar—Rooster—Ox... forty-four seals, formed with flawless precision.

The jonin's chakra surged and churned through his body along a specific route. At its peak, Sugisaki Tetsujiro suddenly opened his mouth.

—Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!

Tons of water erupted from Sugisaki Tetsujiro's mouth, transforming in midair into a water dragon thicker than a great tree before crashing violently into the ground.

Rumble...

The enemy beneath Sugisaki Tetsujiro was crushed into bloody pulp. The massive torrent overturned the earth and swept down trees, washing countless chains, explosive tags, and iron hooks into the distance. The traps vanished completely beneath the devastating Water Release.

Fighting amid traps the enemy had spent so long preparing was unwise. The experienced Sugisaki Tetsujiro had immediately destroyed the terrain of the battlefield.

Hyuga Yuto and the three genin rushed to Sugisaki Tetsujiro's side, ready to fight at any moment.

When the water receded and the dust no longer obscured their sight, several ninjas emerged from the opposite side.

The five Hidden Leaf ninjas' hearts sank at once.

There were simply... too many enemies. Six had openly stepped forward already, and by ninja convention, there had to be at least three more hiding in the shadows.

The enemy leader was a tall man with dark bronze skin. He silently walked at the front, wearing a forehead protector bearing the symbol of the Hidden Cloud Village.

After a brief silence, the two groups in the dense forest charged at each other simultaneously.

There was no exchange of words, not even verbal probing for information.

In the current Year 47 of the Hidden Leaf Village, immense pressure from war hung over the daimyo of every country and the leaders of every ninja village. Border conflicts never ceased. That taut string could snap at any moment, unleashing a world-spanning ninja war.

Within the dense forest, ninjas of the Hidden Leaf Village and Hidden Cloud Village collided. In an instant, lives were lost.

Yet no one mourned their comrades. Kunai flashed with cold light, and dazzling ninjutsu never ceased for even a moment. They took one another's lives, colder than the iron in their hands.

—Those who gave their lives for sufficient, or insufficient, reasons.

Were ninjas.