That Acting Deserved an Oscar

Qian Ye pressed down harder with his foot.

A dull crack of breaking bones came from Yi's sunken chest.

The intense pain made the Root ninja's entire body convulse.

But he did not beg for mercy.

Black blood trickled through the cracks in his mask and onto the muddy ground.

Yi suddenly laughed.

His laughter was hoarse and grating, like two rusted sheets of metal scraping against each other.

"What do you know..."

There was a sickening fervor in Yi's voice.

The chakra that had originally been exhausted within his body began to surge out of control at an utterly abnormal speed.

Qian Ye sensed the violent energy fluctuations beneath his foot.

This was not ordinary ninjutsu exertion.

A sealing formula was operating in reverse.

These masked deathsworn had long been implanted with self-destruction curse marks.

"Lord White Fang is Hidden Leaf's only savior!"

Yi roared with all the strength he had left.

His voice was loud enough to pierce the surrounding woods and reach the ears of every surviving Hidden Leaf ninja.

"Hiruzen Sarutobi is weak and incompetent! He only knows how to compromise before the immense costs of war!"

"Only iron-blooded measures can cleanse the rot within the village!"

The black bodysuit on Yi's body began to rip apart inch by inch.

Dense black formulas crawled from beneath his neck toward his cheeks like centipedes.

"Lord White Fang will cut away all weakness!"

"Let him lead Hidden Leaf! Let Hidden Leaf be great again!"

By the time he shouted those final words, a blinding crimson light had begun to shine through beneath Yi's skin.

His entire body had swollen like an overinflated balloon.

Listening to this impassioned final speech, Qian Ye could only marvel inwardly.

Danzo's brainwashing skills were seriously something else.

It was one thing for his deathsworn to work without pay.

Even when blowing themselves up before dying, they made sure to max out their framing-and-smearing quota.

The lines were delivered with such raw sincerity.

Anyone who did not know better would think Sakumo Hatake was going to storm the Hokage Building tomorrow and force a rebellion.

If the heartless bosses from Qian Ye's previous life had even a tenth of Danzo's skill, their employees would probably pay to go to work.

"Fall back!"

Qian Ye shouted at Hyuga Tianfeng and the others in the distance.

He did not dare remain where he was for even half a second.

The chakra in his meridians surged directly into the Zusanli acupoint on his right leg.

His muscles tensed.

Qian Ye grabbed the back collar of Pakura's prison uniform.

This woman was his cash machine for trading with Orochimaru for S-rank forbidden techniques. He absolutely could not let her get blown to pieces.

Pakura only felt her neck tighten.

A brute force dragged her off the ground, lifting both feet into the air.

Qian Ye stomped across the ground, each step exploding with a sharp report.

Geppo!

The two of them left an afterimage through the forest as they retreated more than forty meters in one breath.

The moment they landed, a deafening explosion erupted behind them.

BOOM!

Violent flames mixed with black shockwaves soared into the sky.

The fierce wind hurled shattered stones and burning splinters in every direction.

The shockwave from the self-destruction snapped more than a dozen surrounding trees in half.

The heat blast that struck Qian Ye's face carried the foul stench of scorched flesh and blood.

A five-meter-wide crater appeared where they had just fought.

Yi was gone.

Not even a fragment of bone remained.

Root truly was professional when it came to destroying evidence.

They left absolutely no brain tissue for the interrogation unit to extract memories from.

The forest was filled with the thick smell of gunpowder.

Hyuga Tianfeng leaned against a distant tree trunk, his face pale.

The veins around his pure white eye sockets had yet to fade.

He had clearly seen the chakra flowing through the black-clad ninja's body before he self-destructed.

There had not been the slightest hesitation.

He had detonated his core meridians with the resolve to die.

"Sakumo Hatake's former subordinates... have actually become this insane?"

Hyuga Tianfeng's voice trembled as he spoke.

This genius of the Hyuga Main House was deeply shaken.

In his view, only fanatics who worshipped their commander to an extreme degree would choose such a brutal death to protest the higher-ups.

The fat boy from the Akimichi clan tossed away the crushed bag of chips in his hand.

The Nara boy's brows knotted into a deadlock.

He scratched at his hair, muttering that the village was in serious trouble this time.

Uchiha Yan, who had just awakened while sitting on the ground, wore an ashen expression and said nothing.

Qian Ye took all of this in.

He sighed inwardly.

They believed it all just like that?

Danzo's shoddy script had actually fooled these young masters and ladies of the major clans completely.

Then again, it was hardly surprising.

These children of great families normally received nothing but orthodox education in the village.

How could they have ever seen the filthy political sewage that lurked in the underground gutters, with no bottom line whatsoever?

Once these young masters returned to the village alive and told their families about being ambushed today by "White Fang's fanatical former subordinates,"

the major clans would inevitably become wary of Sakumo Hatake.

The front lines were fighting and dying, while someone in the rear was trying to sabotage the bargaining chips for peace negotiations.

With that huge accusation pinned on him, Sakumo Hatake could jump into the Nanga River and still never wash himself clean.

"Hidden Leaf's higher-ups are filthier than Sunagakure."

Pakura, who had been thrown into the grass, spat the dirt from her mouth and laughed mockingly.

She might have been wearing sealing handcuffs, but her brain was not broken.

What former subordinates of White Fang?

That airtight encirclement tactic, along with their willingness to kill captives at any cost, clearly belonged to Hidden Leaf's internal assassins who specialized in dirty work.

Qian Ye walked over and nudged Pakura's calf with the tip of his foot.

"Shut up, big sister."

"Knowing too much makes it easy to die suddenly on the road."

Pakura glared at Qian Ye.

She realized that this twelve-year-old civilian Genin was unnaturally calm.

He had not been frightened by the enemy's self-destruction.

Nor had he cursed Sakumo Hatake like those young masters from the great clans.

"You understood, didn't you?"

Pakura lowered her voice.

Qian Ye ignored her. Instead, he crouched down and picked up the revolver that had fallen into the grass.

He wiped the mud from the barrel and tucked it back into his waist.

So what if he understood?

Was a civilian Genin with no backing supposed to run to the Hokage Building and tell the Third Hokage that Danzo had done all this?

He would probably enter through the front gate only to have Root agents throw a sack over his head and sink him in the river through the back door.

When immortals fought, mortals should stay out of the way.

His top priority now was to deliver Pakura and obtain the scroll of the Yin Seal.

He needed to make up for his greatest weakness: his chakra reserves.

Only with strength would he have the right to reason in the muddy waters of Hidden Leaf.

"Captain Tianfeng."

Qian Ye walked up to Hyuga Tianfeng.

"Can you still walk?"

Hyuga Tianfeng tore off a strip of his clothing and tightly bound the wound on his thigh.

"I won't die."

He looked up at Qian Ye, and the disdain from before was gone from his tone.

"Earlier... thank you."

If Qian Ye had not faced down that short-blade-wielding leader head-on, the escort squad would definitely have been wiped out today.

"No need to thank me."

Qian Ye waved a hand.

"Just make sure you write my merits down clearly when you file the mission report after we get back."

"Also, the prison cart is completely wrecked."

Qian Ye pointed at the carriage in the distance, now reduced to shattered planks.

"For the rest of the way, she'll have to walk herself."

The Nara boy's voice came from behind them.

"If they dared to organize the first ambush, they may very well have more tricks waiting."

"We shouldn't stay here."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

After a life-and-death battle, the so-called gilded tour group could no longer put on any young-master airs.

Several less severely injured ninjas hurried forward to check whether any Explosive Tag traps remained nearby.

Qian Ye grabbed the iron chain on Pakura's arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Move faster."

"Don't expect anyone to carry you."

Pakura staggered along beside Qian Ye, dragging her heavy sealing handcuffs.

The group regrouped, changed its planned route, and made its way through the deep mountains where the brush grew denser.

Everyone gripped their weapons tightly, and the atmosphere was heavy to the extreme.

Qian Ye walked in the middle of the group, dividing his attention in two.

He once again mobilized the last wisp of chakra within his body and slowly injected it into the acupoints in his right arm.

That Tempest Kick had consumed too much chakra.

His muscle fibers still ached faintly.

Fortunately, the Sea King flesh he had eaten last night was taking effect. His vitality and blood continuously nourished the tiny tears in his muscles.

The interface of the Cross-Border Mutual Aid Group flickered in his mind.

[Zhao Hai]: "Old Qian, are you all right over there? Why haven't you said anything for so long?"

Qian Ye split off a strand of consciousness to reply.

[Qian Ye]: "I just finished watching a fireworks show."

[Qian Ye]: "Someone performed a disappearing act right in front of me and blew himself into ashes."

[Zhao Hai]: "Holy shit, are the terrorists in the Naruto World really this intense?"

[Qian Ye]: "It's much more complicated than you think. Cut the nonsense. When we make camp tonight, get me another ten jin of Sea King meat."

[Zhao Hai]: "Ten jin? Can you even eat that much?"

[Qian Ye]: "I used up a lot today and urgently need to replenish myself. Can't you just help yourself to whatever you want aboard that old man Garp's warship?"

[Zhao Hai]: "No problem. Leave it to me."

Seeing that message, the corners of Qian Ye's mouth lifted.

A top-tier old man from the Pirate World was personally training him.

Old Zhao really had it easy.

Qian Ye, meanwhile, still had to calculate every step carefully beneath the watchful eyes of Hidden Leaf's old foxes.

But it would not be long now.

As long as he reached the village and properly handed over Pakura,

Orochimaru's reward should be ready to claim.

The group continued forward amid dull footsteps.

The sky gradually darkened.

The mountain range where the outline of Konohagakure lay in the distance looked especially sinister in the twilight.