Hidden Leaf's Number One Gunman

The team moved swiftly through the forest.

All morning, Qian Ye silently carried out this extremely dangerous micro-control training.

Whenever his chakra ran dry, he ate half a Military Ration Pill.

After recovering a little, he continued stimulating his chakra points.

His muscles constantly tore, rebuilt themselves, and adapted to this high-intensity pressure-increase mode.

Pakura, walking at the front, occasionally looked back, her gaze sweeping over Qian Ye.

She keenly sensed that the aura around this Hidden Leaf brat seemed to be undergoing some incredibly subtle change.

She couldn't quite put it into words.

It was like a wild cat that had once only known how to scratch was slowly growing a tiger's fangs.

Pakura frowned.

An illusion?

How could a twelve-year-old civilian Genin with such pitifully little chakra produce such a sense of pressure while traveling?

Time passed into the afternoon.

The light in the forest began to dim, and the trees around them grew denser and denser.

Qian Ye had just successfully injected chakra into several chakra points in his right arm and was about to test the increase in his arm strength.

Hyuga Tianfeng, walking at the very front of the team, suddenly stopped.

He abruptly raised his right hand and signaled everyone to halt.

"Everyone, stay alert!"

Hyuga Tianfeng's voice was exceptionally cold.

The veins around his eyes instantly bulged.

Byakugan, activate!

The gilded young masters who had been teasing one another immediately drew their ninja tools and formed a circle with their backs against the prison cart.

Uchiha Yan drew his ninja sword, and his eyes instantly turned into scarlet One-Tomoe Sharingan.

"Captain Tianfeng, what's going on?"

Hyuga Tianfeng did not answer. His pale pupils stared fixedly at a patch of bushes several hundred meters ahead.

Almost at the same moment.

Qian Ye, at the very back of the team, suddenly felt every hair on his body stand on end.

It was an incredibly pure instinct.

In the Pirate World, this was called the rudiment of Observation Haki.

In the Naruto World, this was called absolute perception of killing intent.

Someone was there!

And there was more than one!

Without hesitation, Qian Ye drew the revolver at his waist and pulled back the hammer with his thumb.

Click.

The crisp mechanical sound was painfully sharp in the silent forest.

"Enemy attack."

Click.

The revolver's crisp mechanical sound had barely faded.

The bushes dozens of meters ahead suddenly exploded.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

More than a dozen Explosive Tags detonated in rapid succession almost simultaneously.

The violent shockwave, mixed with rocks and dirt, directly overturned the prison cart in the middle of the team.

The heavy solid-wood carriage rolled twice through the air before crashing heavily to the ground and shattering into pieces.

"Enemy attack! Scatter!"

Hyuga Tianfeng shouted sharply, his hands rapidly forming seals.

Within his Byakugan's field of vision, more than a dozen extremely concentrated sources of chakra were closing in from every direction.

Before the smoke and dust had dispersed, more than a dozen black figures had already shot out from the bushes.

They all wore black skintight combat uniforms.

Their faces were covered by blank masks without any patterns.

The two men at the front held standard short blades in reverse grips, their edges gleaming with an exceedingly dangerous chill.

"For Lord White Fang!"

The leader, A, shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Kill them all! Ruin the peace talks! Let the village higher-ups see our fury!"

The shout was so loud that the leaves around them rustled violently.

Qian Ye, standing at the back of the team, nearly laughed in anger when he heard that.

White Fang's former subordinates?

Bullshit!

Hiding behind a thick tree trunk, Qian Ye looked at the blank masks on those people's faces and cursed internally.

This was clearly Root!

No matter how dissatisfied White Fang's former subordinates might have been, they would never all wear standard black uniforms without even a clan emblem, much less these blank masks that erased all individuality.

That scheming old bastard Danzo!

Qian Ye instantly understood the whole scheme.

Ambush the escort team, kill Pakura, and sabotage the peace talks.

Then pin the blame on Sakumo Hatake's former subordinates and completely grind White Fang's reputation into the mud.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Truly vicious.

"Protect the prison cart!"

Hyuga Tianfeng knew nothing of the political twists behind this. He only knew that the mission absolutely could not fail.

Tianfeng stomped hard against the ground and took the initiative to meet A, who was charging at the front.

Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms!

Blue chakra flared around Tianfeng's hands. His palm strikes were fierce as they targeted A's vital chakra points.

A had no intention of dodging at all.

Holding his short blade in a reverse grip, he violently infused chakra into it.

An intensely dazzling white light flashed through the forest.

Hatake Style Swordsmanship!

Fast.

Fast beyond belief.

A's short blade dragged an afterimage through the air as it slashed directly toward Tianfeng's neck.

Tianfeng was startled. Although his Byakugan saw the blade's trajectory clearly, his body nearly failed to keep up.

He forcibly twisted his waist and struck the side of the blade with his left palm, knocking it aside.

He formed his right hand into a blade and viciously jabbed it toward A's chest.

Puff.

A neither dodged nor blocked, allowing Tianfeng's Gentle Fist strike to hit the chakra point on the left side of his chest.

Borrowing that force, A flipped his wrist and drew his short blade downward.

Rip!

A terrifying gash opened across Tianfeng's right thigh, and blood instantly sprayed out.

"You!"

Tianfeng groaned and dropped to one knee, his hands quickly striking the chakra points around the wound to stop the bleeding.

He had never expected his opponent to use such a wound-for-wound fighting style.

This was not how normal ninja fought.

This was a suicide operative!

On the other side, Uchiha Yan had already drawn the ninja sword from his back.

The scarlet One-Tomoe Sharingan spun wildly in his eye sockets.

Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!

Yan rapidly formed seals with both hands, his chest swelling as a massive fireball burst from his mouth and hurtled toward B.

B did not even slow down.

He bent his legs and launched himself upward, leaping directly over the fireball.

In midair, B formed seals with both hands.

Wind Release: Vacuum Wave!

Several razor-sharp wind blades shot from B's mouth, instantly cutting through the fireball's lingering flames and flying straight toward Uchiha Yan's face.

Yan raised his ninja sword to block.

Clang! Clang!

The wind blades struck the blade, numbing Yan's palm and nearly knocking the sword from his hand.

Before he could catch his breath, B had already landed and rushed in at blinding speed.

Yan's One-Tomoe Sharingan frantically tracked B's movements.

He saw it!

The left!

Yan swung his sword fiercely toward the left.

But B's body twisted through the air at an incredibly strange angle, evading the blade. His right leg came down in a vicious axe kick with a piercing howl.

Bang!

B's heel slammed heavily into Yan's shoulder.

Yan felt half his body go numb in an instant. He sank uncontrollably, both knees smashing hard into the ground.

"Too slow."

B's voice beneath the mask was completely flat.

He spun and delivered a side kick straight into Uchiha Yan's abdomen.

Blegh!

Yan spat out a mouthful of blood and was sent flying, crashing heavily into a tree trunk more than ten meters away. He slid down and could not even stand.

The battle on Ino–Shika–Cho's side was equally brutal.

Human Boulder!

The fat boy from the Akimichi clan had just expanded his body and had not yet begun rolling.

Two Root lackeys moved with perfect coordination, throwing out four Explosive Tags and accurately sticking them along the path he was about to roll through.

Boom!

The fat boy was blasted into a filthy mess. He forcibly canceled his ninjutsu and staggered back while clutching his burned arm.

Shadow Imitation Technique!

The boy from the Nara clan formed seals with both hands. The shadow beneath his feet rapidly stretched out, trying to restrain the two Root lackeys.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Several Senbon crackling with lightning shot down from the trees and pierced the shadow's path of extension.

Lightning-nature chakra instantly severed the shadow's advance.

"Damn it! They know our ninjutsu too well!"

The Nara boy gritted his teeth and drew a Kunai, preparing for close combat.

The girl from the Yamanaka clan was being forced into a desperate struggle by two Root lackeys.

Her prized Mind Body Switch Technique had no opening to be used against enemies moving at high speed and holding a numerical advantage.

If she failed to cast it, her real body would fall unconscious.

In less than two minutes, the entire escort team had completely collapsed.

The young masters and young ladies from the clans might have been strong when sparring in the village.

But against Root machines that had crawled out of mountains of corpses and existed solely to kill, the gap in real combat experience was magnified without limit.

Crouching behind the tree trunk, Qian Ye watched his teammates rolling across the ground, his brows tightly furrowed.

The situation was completely rotten.

Hyuga Tianfeng had taken a blade to the thigh, cutting his combat strength in half.

Uchiha Yan lay on the ground coughing blood.

Ino–Shika–Cho had been split apart and surrounded, their situation perilous.

Near the prison cart, Pakura had been blasted out and fallen into the grass.

Chakra Suppression Shackles still bound her wrists and ankles, leaving her completely unable to move.

A Root lackey carrying a short blade strode toward Pakura.

His mission was to silence her.

Pakura watched the blank mask draw closer and clenched her teeth.

She was Sunagakure's ace, yet she was going to die at the hands of such a nameless nobody?

The lackey raised his short blade and viciously stabbed it down toward Pakura's heart.

Bang!

An incredibly abrupt gunshot exploded through the forest.

A burst of blood erupted from the lackey's right thigh. He lost his balance and fell headfirst beside Pakura's feet.

Pakura froze.

She turned her head and looked toward the source of the gunshot.

Qian Ye stepped out from behind the tree trunk, holding that strangely shaped revolver. A faint wisp of smoke still rose from its barrel.