A Life-or-Death Crisis for Rin Nohara

"One thousand taels is no small sum. And judging from the description, this Tao Gui doesn't seem like much of a threat. So why has no one turned in the mission yet?"

Long Ye felt that something was increasingly amiss.

"Cough, cough, cough... I advise you not to set your sights on this mission."

After a bout of light coughing, a pale, sickly-looking youth beside Long Ye seemed to notice his gaze and spoke up in warning.

"Gekko Hayate!"

When Long Ye saw the person beside him, he instinctively called out his name.

"You know about this mission?" Long Ye asked.

"I tried it once, but later discovered it was very dangerous. The information in the description was inaccurate."

Gekko Hayate did not answer directly, only offering a few ambiguous remarks.

Long Ye knew that he possessed a Kekkei Genkai called Transparent Release, an ability similar to invisibility. It gave him a natural advantage when it came to tracking and gathering intelligence.

Those words made Long Ye vaguely guess that Hayate might have used Transparent Release to track Tao Gui and learn about the rogue ninja's strength. In the end, he had admitted that he was no match and withdrawn.

Gekko Hayate was not weak. His swordsmanship in particular was exceptionally refined, and his strength was outstanding even among his peers. If even he had fled without fighting, it showed just how formidable Tao Gui was.

"Thanks for the warning!"

In response to Hayate's good intentions, Long Ye gave him a smile.

"You don't need to thank me. But just because you're lucky doesn't mean others will be. Rin Nohara, who's usually with you, may be in serious danger this time."

After saying that, Gekko Hayate coughed lightly again.

"What? What happened to Rin?"

Long Ye's expression changed drastically as he grabbed Hayate by the shoulder.

Gekko Hayate said calmly, "When I came here, I ran into Uzuki Yugao. Yugao told me that Rin had asked her to complete this mission together today, but Yugao had something come up and politely declined. In the end, Rin said she would take a chance and try to earn the one-thousand-tael reward by herself."

Before he could finish, Long Ye rushed out of the guard station.

Gekko Hayate watched him leave. "I hope I can still see the two of you at the competition six days from now."

With lightning flashing beneath his feet, Long Ye shot out of the village at tremendous speed.

"Rin, you're a medical ninja. Why would you take on such a dangerous mission? Please don't let anything happen to you."

Long Ye wished he had eight legs. Fixing his eyes on the direction of the Demon Forest, he sprinted there in a frantic rush.

"She should be fine! As far as I know from the history of the Shinobi World, even if Rin were to face a life-or-death crisis, it should happen during the Third Shinobi World War, not now."

Long Ye tried to reassure himself.

Though he said that, he still didn't dare to be certain.

After all, history had already deviated from the moment he arrived in this world. The history he knew might not necessarily still apply to the present.

Of course, he had no idea that, in the original history, Rin had never accepted this mission.

Because of his arrival, he had frequently asked Rin to eat with him, leaving her somewhat unable to cope with the expense. She had been forced to earn some extra money through this method.

Thus, history had already changed quietly, without Long Ye noticing.

After racing frantically for nearly half an hour, Long Ye finally saw a vast forest.

By then, his stamina was almost completely depleted from repeatedly using his Devil Fruit ability at full force.

But he couldn't stop. He couldn't even slow down. He was relying entirely on his willpower to keep moving.

"Rin, where are you?"

Long Ye was frantic with worry.

The Demon Forest was far too vast. Finding one person inside it was not quite like searching for a needle in a haystack, but it wasn't far off.

Long Ye charged into the forest, found the tallest tree nearby, and leaped to the top. From that vantage point, he looked down over the lush forest in every direction.

He pinned his hopes on finding a place where a fight was taking place.

"Hm?"

Long Ye swept his gaze across one direction and suddenly stiffened.

Far in the distance, he clearly saw a tree shake violently, as though it had been struck by some heavy object.

Long Ye fixed on that direction and bounded rapidly between the trees with lightning beneath his feet.

Just as he was about to reach the location—

Suddenly!

Long Ye came to a halt on a tree trunk, his figure concealed by the dense leaves.

At that moment, two figures—one fleeing and one pursuing—were speeding straight toward him from ahead.

(Not Rin!)

Long Ye's heart sank.

The one fleeing was a man. Judging from his clothing and appearance, he was clearly from the Hidden Leaf Ninja Village.

At that moment, the pursuer also entered Long Ye's field of vision.

The man had green paint smeared across his face and held a Kunai in his hand. Leaning forward until he was almost skimming the ground, he pursued his target at full speed.

Although he wore no forehead protector identifying him as a ninja, his distinctive style of clothing made it obvious that he was a ninja from the Land of Earth.

"A ninja from the Land of Earth. Could he be that Tao Gui?"

Long Ye remained hidden, waiting for the right moment to strike.

"A Hidden Leaf Genin thinks he can escape me? Die!"

The ninja from the Land of Earth leaped into the air and rapidly formed hand seals. But before he could finish, his expression suddenly changed, and he jerked his head upward.

A flash of blue light streaked by.

A deep-blue fist crackling with electricity was already inches from his face.

"Bang!"

The punch itself was not especially powerful. It struck the man on the side of the face, but the truly terrifying part was the high-voltage current surging across the fist.

With a sizzling sound!

The powerful current instantly coursed through the man from head to toe. Even the ends of his hair crackled with electricity.

With a bang!

The ninja from the Land of Earth turned into white smoke, and his figure vanished.

"That was... the Shadow Clone Technique!"

Long Ye's expression changed.

"Leave quickly! This Tao Gui is as strong as a Jonin. We need to return and report this immediately!"

Having narrowly escaped death, the Hidden Leaf ninja was overjoyed and hurriedly called out to Long Ye.

"So he really is that Tao Gui. How did you end up being pursued by him? Have you seen Rin Nohara?" Long Ye asked impatiently.

Hearing that Tao Gui possessed Jonin-level strength made Long Ye even more uneasy about Rin's safety.

"Rin Nohara... I'm afraid she may already be in serious danger. I stumbled upon the two of them fighting, and Tao Gui's clone pursued me afterward. Don't go throwing your life away."

"Tell me! Where is Rin now?"

Long Ye shouted anxiously.

"Going there will only get you killed against a Jonin from the Land of Earth. Return to Konoha now and bring back the information. That's—"

"Shut up! Tell me, which direction is Rin in?"

Killing intent surged from Long Ye as electricity crackled all over his body.

Terrified by his murderous aura, the ninja swallowed and pointed in one direction.

Long Ye transformed into lightning and shot away.

"Too reckless. That clone doesn't even possess one percent of Tao Gui's strength. Going there is just throwing his life away. Bringing back the information is the most important thing right now. Otherwise, more people who don't know the situation will come here and die."

After muttering to himself, the ninja left in the opposite direction from Long Ye.