A Preemptive Proposal

"I agree we should strike first."

Shisui's voice came from behind the broken wall.

Rainwater ran down the edges of shattered stone slabs. Squatting on the ground, Lin Feng dipped his fingertips into diluted blood and traced the route of the final passage across the slab.

Root Archive Room.

Three levels underground.

The blood-drawn lines gradually blurred beneath the rain, but their outline was already clear enough.

Lin Feng looked up. Shisui's Sharingan turned slowly in the rain, its Three-Tomoe reflecting the route winding in from the northwestern rift.

"You recognize this route."

Lin Feng spoke.

Shisui was silent for a moment, then pointed to an intersection on the slab.

"I carved out this tunnel when I was thirteen."

His voice was soft. Rain hammered against the ruined tiles, nearly drowning out his words.

"Root needed a secret passage leading directly from the Forest of Death to the interrogation room. It took me four days. I alternated Wind Release and Earth Release to cut through the rock, forcibly digging seventeen meters through the rift wall."

Lin Feng's expression did not change. He continued marking coordinates on the slab.

"Then that's even better—you know this route well enough to narrow our window down to the minute."

Shisui stared at the slab and suddenly pressed down on the spot where Lin Feng was about to write.

"Danzo will react to me using the Reverse Crow Summoning Technique within three seconds."

His Sharingan swiftly scanned the marked boundaries of District Seven.

"The fastest route from here to District Seven goes through the northwestern rift of the Forest of Death. Once I release a false chakra signature in that direction, he'll be completely drawn there."

Lin Feng pressed his thumb into the coordinates of the northwestern rift, leaving a deep mark, then wrote down a time beside it.

"Midnight the day after tomorrow."

"A group of Root Anbu will be rotating shifts. During the sixteen-minute handover period, the archive room's outer defenses will have a gap."

Shisui's pupils contracted slightly.

"Where did you get the shift rotation schedule?"

"From the classified document on the corpse in Chapter 42."

Lin Feng wiped away excess rainwater at the edge of the slab with the back of his hand and layered the intelligence on the warning barrier over the route.

"The barrier is chakra-triggered. Your Body Flicker Technique can bypass its detection range, but you're the only one who can do that—"

"That barrier is only the outer layer."

Shisui cut him off.

His tone suddenly turned cold.

The knuckles of the hand pressing the slab turned white.

"Lin Feng. The endpoint you marked in the archive room will only take you to the third level."

Rain slid down the edge of Shisui's forehead protector. He stared straight into Lin Feng's eyes, the Three-Tomoe in his Sharingan turning painfully slowly.

"The level below is guarded by a technique. A forbidden technique Danzo activated using the blood of several Sealing Team members—I've seen it."

Lin Feng was about to speak.

Shisui lowered his voice even further.

"The thing that caught up to you in Chapter 38 was only one of its outer tentacles."

The sound of rain outside the broken wall suddenly grew louder.

Lin Feng's fingers stopped over the slab.

Shisui did not let go.

"If you don't have a way to deal with that technique—"

"You're making excuses."

Lin Feng stood.

Rain ran along the markings of the Curse Seal on his left arm. The black patterns had already spread above his elbow, each branch resembling a living vine.

"You're running from action again, Shisui."

"You don't understand at all."

Shisui stood as well.

For the first time, his voice carried unmistakably suppressed anger.

"That technique is a Living Blood Pact. I saw what happened when it was triggered in Root—three Anbu merely tried to use chakra to sense its boundaries, and the Curse Seal backlash vaporized every drop of blood in their bodies. It is activated with the caster's blood, and requires the blood of someone other than the caster to neutralize—"

"Then we go around it."

Lin Feng cut him off.

"We won't neutralize it. We'll pass through the gaps in the technique."

Shisui's expression froze.

Lin Feng did not look away. He pulled out the classified document he had seized in Chapter 42 from inside his collar.

The rain-soaked pages unfolded.

Amid Root Anbu's encrypted records was a page of forbidden technique research notes sealed in oil paper.

"Read it."

Lin Feng handed him the page.

Shisui took the notes. His Sharingan swept over the first three lines, and his breathing abruptly stopped.

The notes recorded Root's internal test data on the blood pact technique—

The technique's recognition mechanism was based on blood pact sensing.

When the chakra of two casters overlapped.

A zero-point-three-second recognition blind spot would appear.

Shisui looked up at Lin Feng.

"When did you learn about this weakness?"

Lin Feng did not answer.

He crouched again and pressed his finger to the archive room's location on the slab.

"Zero point three seconds. The distance your Body Flicker Technique needs to cross—I'll use the Curse Seal's chakra sensing ability outside the perimeter to catch the instant the blind spot appears and imprint its rhythm into our Dual Visual Sharing Technique. Then you can get through."

Shisui was silent for a long time.

Rainwater poured into the cracks in the ruins and flowed down along broken stone.

At last, he spoke.

"I once had a teammate."

Shisui's voice became very quiet.

"He carried out missions for Root for seven years. In the end, Danzo chose him as blood sacrifice material for the Sealing Team. He died in that archive room. His blood is etched into the activation sequence of that technique."

The Three-Tomoe in his Sharingan stopped turning.

"I can't bring myself to touch this."

Lin Feng's finger paused over the slab, rain dripping from his fingertips.

"So deep inside that archive room, there isn't just Danzo's plan to control you."

He looked into Shisui's eyes.

"There are also records of more than one living experiment. Those are the core crimes that can bring Danzo down."

Shisui did not deny it.

Lin Feng stood and folded the classified document shut.

"I won't use anyone's blood to neutralize that technique."

He raised his left arm. The black markings of the Curse Seal gave off an unnatural dark-red sheen in the rain.

"This thing's abnormal chakra sensing can catch the technique's recognition fluctuations within zero point three seconds. As long as I remain outside the archive room and maintain sensory focus, your Body Flicker Technique can pass precisely through the blind spot."

Shisui stared at the spreading Curse Seal on his arm.

"You're using your own body as the key to pass through that technique. If the chakra sensing is even slightly off, you'll be the first one hit by the backlash."

"Then it won't be off."

Lin Feng's finger stopped at the archive room's location on the slab.

"The infiltration the day after tomorrow will have three stages."

He drew three lines across the slab.

"First. You release a false chakra signature outside and draw Danzo and Root's main force to District Seven."

"Second. I use the Curse Seal's sensing to catch the technique's zero-point-three-second recognition blind spot, and you use Body Flicker to break through directly to the archive room's core."

"Third. You set up a reverse sealing barrier outside the archive room to prevent Danzo from remotely activating an evidence-destruction technique. I retrieve the evidence."

After hearing him out, Shisui did not respond immediately.

He bent down and marked three points along the route Lin Feng had drawn.

"On the east and west sides of the old interrogation room ruins, there are intersecting shift-change points for Root's hidden sentries."

"At the third turn of the underground waterway, the chakra Sensing Barrier has a zero-point-eight-meter detection dead zone."

"In the ventilation shaft on the first level directly above the archive room, the chakra fluctuations of every forbidden technique in Root are disrupted by the shaft's sealing technique—that is the only place where I can enter the second underground level without triggering an alarm."

The three points were marked.

Shisui straightened.

"The route is complete."

Lin Feng looked at the now densely packed map on the slab.

The sound of rain concealed the silence between them.

"What about Itachi?"

Lin Feng spoke first.

Shisui's gaze shifted slightly.

"I'll see him tonight."

Lin Feng frowned.

"Itachi is one of the people Danzo wants most to win over. Are you sure—"

"He'll stand with the truth."

There was no hesitation in Shisui's tone.

"But I won't tell him the exact time or route of the infiltration. He only needs to know two things—Danzo plans to control my eyes before the coup, and there is evidence of forbidden technique experiments in the archive room."

Lin Feng tapped the slab once with his finger.

"If Danzo launches a countermeasure when we move, Itachi could be used to stop us."

"Precisely because that is possible."

Shisui raised his Sharingan and met Lin Feng's gaze.

"I need him to retain a position from which he can judge the truth. That way, even if Danzo tries to mobilize him, his choice will be based on facts rather than orders."

Lin Feng was silent for several seconds.

"Fine. But the infiltration plan remains unchanged. No matter what choice he makes—"

"The operation proceeds as planned."

Shisui finished for him.

He raised his hands and formed seals.

The Three-Tomoe in his Sharingan began spinning abruptly, chakra forming a two-way linked technique circuit between their gazes.

The complete infiltration route.

Ways to avoid every alarm point.

The rhythm for catching the technique's recognition blind spot.

All the information imprinted itself into both their vision as though carved directly into their minds.

Dual Visual Sharing Technique.

It ensured that even if they were separated during the operation, they could still act in the same rhythm.

The technique seal was complete.

Shisui released his fingers.

"Split up."

He turned away.

The afterimage of his Body Flicker Technique lingered in the rain for only an instant.

Lin Feng lowered his gaze to the slab.

The rain had washed the blood-drawn route into nothing but blurred traces.

He crushed the last remaining fragment on the slab beneath his toe, then turned and vanished into the forest in the opposite direction.

The rain fell harder and harder.

Behind the ruined wall, only pooled water reflected the dark-red bloodstains.