The hunter behind the oriole

It was late summer in Konoha Year Seven, and the heat was unbearable.

Yuanguang Uchiha had been under house arrest deep inside his own residence for almost three months. Officially, he was "recuperating" and "reflecting in seclusion," but in reality, it was no different from prison. No fewer than ten people guarded the house, openly and in secret, all arranged by Uchiha En and Yinglang. Every meal and supply sent inside was inspected. Even a fly would have had to think twice before trying to get in.

The man inside was almost going mad from confinement.

Yuanguang sat in his dim study, its windows tightly covered by thick curtains, with only a small oil lamp burning. He had grown so thin he was almost unrecognizable, his eyes sunken and his face covered in stubble. Not a trace remained of his former dignity as a core elder. He clutched an empty teacup, his fingers gripping so hard that his knuckles turned white. His bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the flickering flame, filled with resentment and venom he could no longer suppress.

He refused to accept this! He would never accept it, even in death!

That old bastard Uchiha Gen had been too hard to kill. That little bastard Uchiha Yinglang had lucked into some evil technique from who knew where, then climbed over his head to throw his weight around! And those fence-sitters in the clan-every last one had fled from him faster than from a plague god once he lost power!

He could not let it end like this. He still had his son, Kagami. Kagami was a genius, had awakened two-tomoe eyes, and was valued by Lord Tobirama. As long as he could get out, as long as there was still a chance...

"Creak-"

It was an extremely faint sound: the side door connecting the study to the small rear courtyard had been pushed open. It should have been locked shut.

Yuanguang jolted and snapped his head up, his hand already reaching for the kunai hidden in his sleeve.

A figure slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He wore ordinary dark clothes and a mask that left only his eyes exposed. His movements were light, carrying the cold menace of someone accustomed to lurking in the shadows.

"Who are you?!" Yuanguang demanded in a low voice, pointing his kunai at the intruder.

The masked man said nothing. He merely took a small, deep-purple object resembling a mineral crystal from inside his clothes and set it gently on the desk. The crystal gleamed ominously beneath the dim lamplight.

Yuanguang's pupils contracted sharply. He recognized it: a special communication token made by the Tsuchigumo Clan, containing an extremely brief message sealed through a special method. Was this masked man a Tsuchigumo envoy? How had they gotten in? Those people outside...

"The people outside have been drawn away for a while. We don't have much time." The masked man's voice was hoarse, his words rapid. "My master asks whether you still want to turn things around, Elder Yuanguang."

Yuanguang's heart pounded, his throat dry. "Turn things around? How?"

"What happened last time was an accident. That old bastard was lucky, too." The masked man stared at him. "But there is one more opportunity. It depends on whether you dare-and whether you have enough value for my master to help you again."

"What do you want?" Yuanguang was no fool. The Tsuchigumo would not help him for nothing.

"Once it's done, the mining rights to the Uchiha's three small mineral deposits on the southeastern border." The masked man named his terms. "We also need Uchiha Gen's exact current location, his defenses, and... detailed intelligence on that 'Dragon-Slaying Breathing Technique' used by the boy Yinglang at his side. At least the part you've managed to observe."

Yuanguang calculated rapidly. The deposits were valuable, but they were nothing compared with reclaiming power. He could roughly deduce Gen's location and defenses. As for information on Yinglang's evil technique... he mentally reviewed his own observations and the scraps he had gathered through private inquiries.

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "But how can I trust you? You failed last time!"

"That old bastard was lucky last time. He had a skilled fighter with him," the masked man said coldly. "This time, my master will act personally and use the true 'Raging Hair Heaven.' Provided the intelligence is accurate and the timing right, that old bastard will certainly die. Once he dies, they'll be leaderless. Join forces with the other elders who resent that little bastard and seize the opportunity to strike. Taking back authority will be easy. When you're back in power, simply honor your promise."

Yuanguang's breathing grew heavy. He seemed to see Elder Xuan dying suddenly, the little bastard Yinglang panicking, and himself standing in the Meeting Hall once more, commanding all before him. Kagami would be able to hold his head high, too, and perhaps... go even further with Lord Tobirama's support.

Greed and hatred burned away his last shred of reason.

"Fine! I'm in!" From inside his clothes, he pulled out a sketch he had prepared long ago, briefly marking several secret chambers where Elder Xuan might be recovering and the patrol patterns. He also quickly recounted his scattered observations of Yinglang: "His aura surges when he unleashes his power, but his face instantly goes pale, suggesting overexertion," and "His attacks are fierce and violent, but he seems unsuited to prolonged combat," passing everything to the masked man.

The masked man listened carefully and committed it all to memory, then put away the token and sketch and nodded. "Wait for word from me. When the time comes, we'll contact you the same way. Remember, keep your mouth shut."

With that, his figure flickered, and he vanished through the side door like a ghost.

Yuanguang slumped into his chair, his back drenched in cold sweat, his heart still hammering. Yet an almost crazed light burned in his eyes.

His chance to turn things around... was right before him!

Of course, he would never know that after the "Tsuchigumo envoy" left his home, his figure blurred in a secluded alley a few streets away, reverting to Yutian's appearance. Expressionless, Yutian carefully put away the token and sketch, then swiftly departed.

Nor would he know that, almost simultaneously, a vague intelligence report about "a secret Tsuchigumo envoy infiltrating the clan compound, possibly making contact with Yuanguang" was "leaked" onto the desk in the Hokage Office through a method that would not directly implicate Yinglang.

Still less would he know that during the three days he spent anxiously awaiting "word," several crucial details on his sketch of Elder Xuan's location were cleverly altered; his descriptions of Yinglang's "weaknesses" were embellished, making them more enticing and more specifically exploitable; and all of this slowly converged in another man's hands through separate, difficult-to-trace channels.

The mantis stalked the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it. And behind the oriole stood a hunter holding a slingshot.

Late at night four days later, the moon was dim and the stars sparse.

In the northeastern corner of the Uchiha Clan Compound lay a secluded old training ground. Clan members had once practiced Fire Release here, but it had since been abandoned, and few people normally visited. Several dilapidated storage sheds stood along its edge.

According to the "revised" intelligence, Elder Xuan would be "secretly relocated" through this place tonight with only a few guards, making it the "perfect opportunity" to strike.

Just past midnight, the training ground lay deathly silent, with only the wind moaning past the battered wooden posts.

Several dark figures appeared soundlessly in the woods at the edge of the training ground. Their leader was tall and thin, wearing a dark cloak, his presence cold and obscure. He was the Tsuchigumo Clan's chief and the wielder of "Raging Hair Heaven." Four elite fighters followed him.

"The intelligence says the old bastard will come out of the low building in the southeast corner, cross the training ground, and head for the secret passage to the west. He'll have no more than five guards," the Tsuchigumo chief said quietly, his voice raspy. "We'll ambush them from behind the middle row of posts. Once they reach the center, I'll blanket the area with 'Raging Hair Heaven.' You finish them off. Leave no survivors."

"Yes!"

Like bats in the night, they glided into the training ground and concealed themselves in the shadows behind the abandoned posts, holding their breath and focusing.

Time ticked by. The training ground remained deathly still, with only the chirping of insects.

After another quarter of an hour or so, the Tsuchigumo chief frowned slightly, a trace of unease rising within him. Too quiet. And the appointed time seemed to have passed.

Just then-

Boom!!!

Without warning, a blinding sphere of incandescent white light erupted beneath the posts where they were hiding! The instant it appeared, terrifying chakra fluctuations tore everything around it apart! These were no ordinary explosive tags. The chakra within was violent, chaotic, and filled with a destructive aura. It was unmistakably... an improved, enhanced version of "Raging Hair Heaven"!

Only this "Raging Hair Heaven" did not come from the sky. It erupted from beneath their feet! Moreover, its power seemed deliberately constrained, compressed into an extremely small area in pursuit of the greatest possible instantaneous killing power!

"A trap!!!" Terrified out of his wits, the Tsuchigumo chief only had time to roar and frantically pour out all his chakra, forming a thick layer of viscous defensive ninjutsu over his body as he desperately hurled himself backward and to the side.

The four subordinates behind him were not so fortunate. Too close to the center of the explosion, they were caught in the instantaneous release of destruction compressed to its limit. Before they could even scream, they were vaporized into four indistinct clouds of bloody mist, then shredded by the shock wave that followed!

Although the Tsuchigumo chief had reacted quickly and possessed formidable strength, the edge of the explosion still caught his left leg, instantly mangling its flesh and shattering the bone into countless pieces. Screaming, he was blasted away like a rag sack and slammed into the dirt dozens of paces away, blood spraying from his mouth.

Yet the attack was not over.

At the very instant he was blasted away, shaken, gravely wounded and vomiting blood, leaving a gap in his defenses-

A figure burst from a patch of shadow at the edge of the training ground, moving too fast for the naked eye to follow! The speed was absurd, as though he had crossed space in an instant. One moment he was far away; the next, he appeared like a ghost beside the Tsuchigumo chief!

He was covered from head to toe in inconspicuous dark-gray nightwear, with a black hood exposing only his eyes. A hazy layer of chakra light seemed to cover his face as well, constantly shifting and rippling slightly-the effect of the Transformation Technique. His exact features were impossible to discern, though the contours seemed faintly delicate and handsome, bearing a coldness from some distant era.

He held no ninja tools. He merely pressed his fingers together like a blade, their tips wreathed in a strange, murky gray-white energy containing black-and-red electrical flashes, and casually swept them across the neck of the gravely wounded Tsuchigumo chief lying on the ground.

"Shhk."

There was a faint sound of a sharp blade cutting flesh and bone. The Tsuchigumo chief's eyes widened, still filled with boundless terror, rage, and disbelief, but his head had already separated from his body and rolled aside. Blood gushed from his severed neck like a fountain.

An instant kill!

From the trap's detonation to the chief's death, no more than three breaths had passed. The training ground fell deathly silent again, with only the thick stench of blood and scorching drifting through the night wind.

The black-clad man-Yinglang-did not even glance at the Tsuchigumo chief's corpse. He moved again, like a weightless ghost, and in a few bounds reached the other side of the training ground, behind an ordinary-looking thicket.

Someone was hiding there.

Yuanguang Uchiha.

He had secretly hidden here in accordance with the final message from the "Tsuchigumo chief," telling him to "personally confirm Gen's death and prepare to take over." Now he was utterly stupefied, collapsed behind the bushes with his crotch soaked, trembling like a fallen leaf in the autumn wind. He had watched the Tsuchigumo chief and his men being blasted apart by the "trap" he himself had provided, and watched that terrifying black-clad man cut off the chief's head as easily as slaughtering a chicken.

This was not the reversal he had imagined! It was a massacre! A trap within a trap!

When those cold eyes, seemingly devoid of all human feeling, fell on him through the blurred Transformation Technique, Yuanguang's last scrap of courage shattered. He scrambled to escape, but his legs were too weak even to stand.

Yinglang walked unhurriedly up to him and looked down at this elder who had once commanded such power, now as wretched as a stray dog. Beneath the Transformation Technique, his lips curved into an utterly icy smile.

He spoke, his voice also altered by chakra into something hoarse and strange, carrying a casual yet viciously cutting mockery:

"Well, if it isn't our wise and mighty Elder Yuanguang. Out playing hide-and-seek in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

Yuanguang stared at him in terror, his teeth chattering. "You... you're Uchiha Izuna? Aren't you dead?! What do you want?!"

"Me?" Yinglang tilted his head, seemingly giving it serious thought. "For the sake of the Uchiha, I'm taking out some trash."

He crouched, murky gray-white qi pulsing at his fingertips. Under Yuanguang's terrified gaze, he slowly gestured toward his neck, heart, lower abdomen, and other vital points, as though considering where it would be easiest to cut.

"Speaking of which," Yinglang said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "how did you become an elder? By selling your wife to warm the former clan chief Madara Uchiha's bed? Tsk, tsk. Could Kagami Uchiha... actually be my nephew? No wonder his talent is 'decent.'"

"Bullshit!!!" Those utterly vicious words, directly insulting him and his dead wife and even casting doubt on his son's parentage, pierced Yuanguang's remaining dignity like a final knife. His eyes nearly split with fury, and for a moment he forgot his fear, roaring hoarsely, "How dare you insult my wife! Insult Kagami! I'll kill you!!!"

He did not know where the strength came from-perhaps it was madness born of extreme humiliation-but he suddenly lunged up, stabbing wildly at Yinglang with his kunai, his chakra surging without any control.

Yet to Yinglang, this dying struggle was laughably slow and riddled with openings.

Yinglang did not even bother standing. He merely raised his hand casually and flicked his index finger.

Bang!

A blast of intensely condensed qi struck Yuanguang's wrist with perfect accuracy. With a sharp crack, the wrist bones shattered and the kunai flew from his hand. Yuanguang screamed and fell to the ground again.

"So weak?" Yinglang stood and brushed nonexistent dust from his hands, making no effort to hide his disgust. "With that little ability, you thought you deserved to be an elder? You dared dream of taking the Uchiha to the Senju to become their dogs? No wonder someone used you as a pawn, and you still don't understand what happened even with death staring you in the face."

He wasted no more words. The qi at his fingertips extended into a gray-white blade as thin as a cicada's wing, then slid gently across Yuanguang's throat beneath a gaze filled with despair, terror, and venom.

Blood flashed.

Yuanguang Uchiha, the former core elder, breathed his last in a trap of his own devising, amid utter humiliation and despair. His eyes remained wide open in death.

Yinglang glanced coldly at the two corpses, making certain they were dead. Then he quickly set to work.

He stored the Tsuchigumo chief's head in a specially made sealing scroll-"evidence" to provide the Tsuchigumo Clan with an "explanation," and part of his plan to divert the trouble elsewhere. Beside Yuanguang's corpse, he used chakra to imitate the Tsuchigumo Clan's distinctive cold, corrosive chakra, leaving several faint, ambiguous traces. Then he carefully concealed a fragment of the deep-purple communication token in Yuanguang's tightly clenched, uninjured hand, creating the impression that he had seized it during his dying struggle.

Finally, he carefully inspected the surroundings, making certain he had left none of his own chakra presence or traces behind. The Transformation Technique was also beginning to destabilize; he had maintained it for quite some time.

Before completely releasing the Transformation Technique, returning to the appearance of a masked man in black, and preparing to leave, he gave Yuanguang's corpse one final, cold look.

Then his figure flickered and vanished into the boundless night.

The next day, the Uchiha Clan Compound was shaken.

News swept through every corner of the compound like a gale: Elder Yuanguang had held a late-night "secret meeting" with Tsuchigumo remnants, intending to collude with outsiders once again, only for the criminals to turn on one another and perish together in the abandoned training ground.

Uchiha En's patrol had discovered the scene. The horrific traces of battle, the Tsuchigumo chief's headless corpse, the token fragment beside Yuanguang's body, and the lingering traces of that distinctive cold chakra... all the evidence "clearly" indicated that "Yuanguang had remained unrepentant and made another deal with the Tsuchigumo. Due to an uneven division of spoils, an attempt to silence him, or some similar reason, the Tsuchigumo chief had turned on him and killed him with a forbidden technique, only to be killed himself by Yuanguang's dying counterattack."