Gift

"Who are you looking for?"

"You." Even when facing this extremely dangerous mastermind, Ning Qi remained relaxed.

"Are you one of Danzo's men?" The masked man sized Ning Qi up and down, his gaze lingering on those pale, ghostly eyes for a long while. He seemed to recognize him, and his already icy voice dropped several degrees further. "Hyuga... Ning Qi."

Ning Qi paused slightly, then understood. This was not wartime, and the major ninja villages were relatively closed off. The reputation of Konoha's Twin Prodigies might not have truly spread that far. He had never encountered Obito before, so it was more likely that White Zetsu, that freak with an extraordinary talent for gathering intelligence, had told Obito about Hyuga Ning Qi under Danzo's command.

Saved the trouble of introducing himself, Ning Qi nodded and smiled amiably.

"Yes. I want to cooperate with you. Help me wipe out the Hyuga Clan, and as payment, I'll join Akatsuki afterward and work for you. How about it?"

"..."

The masked man tilted his head as he looked at him.

"You?"

Danzo was not seeking cooperation with him. It was this puppet from the branch family?

An inexplicable chuckle came from beneath the mask. It seemed to mock the Hyuga Family's internal strife, yet also seemed to ridicule the absurdity of the man before him.

What value was there in cooperating with someone who could be turned by the Hyuga Main Family at any moment?

As the laughter gradually faded, the masked man's tone became more relaxed as he looked at Ning Qi, like two friends chatting casually.

"How did you know I belong to Akatsuki?"

Though his voice was calm, the question struck directly at the heart of the matter.

Ning Qi blinked and realized the problem.

At this point in time, although Obito had already pushed Nagato to rebuild Akatsuki around the goal of capturing the Tailed Beasts, he was not yet the reserve member of Akatsuki known as Tobi in the future.

When he attacked Konoha, caused the Nine-Tails Rebellion, and even helped Itachi massacre the Uchiha Clan of the police force according to the original plot, he had not done so as a member of Akatsuki.

On the surface, the masked man had no connection whatsoever to Akatsuki.

Which made Ning Qi's source for directly approaching Obito to join Akatsuki highly suspicious.

"Thinking up an excuse?"

The masked man shook his head and walked toward Ning Qi step by step.

Ning Qi pursed his lips. He had no intention of sitting around and waiting to die, and directly drew the short blade from behind his back, its edge pointed straight at the man before him.

He warned him calmly.

"I wouldn't advise you to come too close."

The masked man did not care in the slightest and waved a hand.

"If you can't make one up, don't force yourself."

"I'll help you."

The instant the masked man took another step, Ning Qi's expression sharpened.

"Wind Sword Style: Zephyr!"

A gentle breeze swept past. Layer upon layer of sword shadows stabbed into an invisible barrier and passed straight through the masked man, leaving him completely unharmed!

Meanwhile, the masked man's lightly extended hand was about to press against Ning Qi.

"Lightning Sword Style: Lightning Walk!"

In the next instant, Ning Qi moved like lightning, evading the hand and appearing some distance behind the masked man. A massive tree was severed in a single blow. Violent lightning clung to the short blade, hissing and roaring as the blade sliced through the masked man's waist. Yet the man remained as though nothing had happened.

He withdrew his hand from the air, slowly turned around, and looked at Ning Qi, offering what sounded like praise.

"Not bad swordsmanship. Abandoning your Hyuga Family's Gentle Fist wasn't mere self-deception after all."

Fusing swordsmanship with chakra elements was indeed a unique idea, and Ning Qi, who had mastered both wind and lightning attributes, was clearly exceptionally talented.

What a pity.

"Only not bad..."

Ning Qi muttered, narrowing his eyes as his mist-colored gaze quietly watched the masked man before him.

A rare opportunity.

Then he would give it a try.

"Wind Sword Style: Storm Slash!"

Ning Qi rushed forward like the wind, his blade cutting out a tornado that swept toward the masked man!

"Is that all you've got?"

"I'm already tired of seeing it."

The tornado storm passed through the masked man's body. At the instant he fully emerged, a flash of light flickered through Ning Qi's eyes.

Weakness Insight!

"Trick Sword Style: Withering!"

Ning Qi raised the short blade high. A thick, strange curtain of black light swallowed the starry sky.

The surrounding plants rapidly decayed and withered.

The masked man likewise felt his skin rapidly aging and his limbs becoming incomparably stiff.

He frowned.

A genjutsu?

If so, why couldn't his Sharingan undo it?

Before he could think further, an intense sense of danger enveloped him.

There were still two seconds before he could use intangibility again.

This Ning Qi had already seen through the pattern of his ability. As expected of the Byakugan, it was even more outstanding than the Sharingan when it came to insight.

Yet even at this point, the masked man remained calm.

Ning Qi was hiding too many secrets. He intended to interrogate him thoroughly afterward.

In the final second, the short blade in Ning Qi's hand finished charging and slashed down at the masked man below with extreme speed. The black curtain wrapped around the blade, producing a sound like the vicious laughter of a demon as it tore through the air.

The masked man had become frail with age, but it did not greatly affect his movements. His palm was already pressed against the ground. All he needed to do next was use the Uchiha Flame Formation to block the attack and he would be safe.

Yet before he could act, there was a bang, and the blade before him, engulfed in countless black curtains, suddenly shattered into fragments!

The genjutsu was undone, and the masked man's aged body returned to normal.

Both of them froze.

...So it had been an incomplete technique?

The blade had shattered all over the ground. Seeing Ning Qi standing stupidly before him with only a hilt left in his hand, the masked man shook his head and placed a hand on Ning Qi's shoulder, who appeared to be utterly exhausted.

"There really is still a long way to go," Ning Qi muttered, as if evaluating the gap between himself and the masked man.

"We can talk afterward," the masked man said indifferently. He would not let the other man die without extracting all of his intelligence.

The enormous suction bursting from the eye beneath the mask twisted even space into a spiral vortex.

"Then I suppose that will be a long time from now." Ning Qi smiled faintly and continued delivering his final words.

"I brought you a little gift."

"Do me a favor and make sure you take them all out."

The masked man's brows furrowed. He had no idea what gave Ning Qi the confidence to speak of "a long time from now." He was about to pull Ning Qi entirely into the Kamui dimension.

The next second.

Thud.

Ning Qi's head suddenly drooped, and he immediately transformed into a short blade that fell to the ground.

A-rank ninjutsu.

Sword Shadow Clone.

The inspiration for it came from the Lightning Release Shadow Clone.

Both clone techniques consumed half of the user's chakra and possessed most of the original body's combat power.

The only difference was that the Lightning Release Shadow Clone could only use Lightning Release, while the Sword Shadow Clone could only use swordsmanship.

The masked man did not know how this technique had come to be, but he clearly understood that he had been played. No wonder the other man had seemed bizarrely reckless from beginning to end. It turned out he had merely sent a clone to toy with him, so he had not cared at all.

At some point, the Mangekyō Sharingan beneath the mask had become filled with killing intent.

Using me as a tool to test your sword? You really don't value your life.

He picked up the short blade from the ground. There was an obvious tracking mark on it.

When he looked up, birds flitted through the forest beneath the moonlight.

Someone was coming.

They were likely Konoha ninja following this tracking mark.

Remembering Ning Qi's earlier words, he snorted coldly.

"Trying to kill with a borrowed blade?"

The other man had deliberately angered him, clearly intending for him to eliminate those Konoha ninja following the tracking mark.

Though his killing intent had swelled and he desperately wanted to find someone to vent on, the thought that he might be helping Ning Qi eliminate rivals made him forcibly suppress his emotions. He had no intention of walking into Ning Qi's trap.

This inexplicable encounter had left him simmering with anger. Ning Qi was quite strong, but compared to his audacity, that strength seemed almost insignificant.

Just as he was about to leave first, the masked man seemed to sense something. He abruptly turned his head toward a direction in the darkness and softly repeated the word Ning Qi had mentioned.

"Gift..."

Ning Qi wanted to kill with a borrowed blade, but he clearly did not know that what had come to his door really was a fine gift.

Take it?

Or not?

Not far away, Kakashi suddenly covered the eye beneath his forehead protector.

"What's wrong, Kakashi? The tracking mark Ning Qi left behind is right ahead. We need to hurry over and support him."

"Let's go. It's nothing." Kakashi shook his head. Though he was somewhat puzzled, he still suppressed the disturbance in his Sharingan.

Their enemy now was the man called Madara Uchiha. They had to eliminate him to ensure that tomorrow's war between Konoha and the Uchiha would proceed without unforeseen complications. That was the purpose behind forming this Dagger Squad!