"You'd better not go moving the battlefield around."
Haruma offered his sincere advice. "Spar with me in Taijutsu, and you might still have a chance to live. Insist on heading that way, and you'll lose your lives."
The captain frowned. He neither answered nor stopped.
A direct assault wouldn't work. This man's speed and Taijutsu were formidable!
But if they only defended and stalled until Lord Hokage arrived to support them... they should, perhaps, be able to manage...
"Ah."
Haruma sighed softly. "Good advice can't save those bent on dying."
"It wouldn't do if you went over there and disturbed the traces those two left behind."
Haruma closed his eyes and sensed his surroundings. "I've stalled long enough. They should have succeeded by now."
Hearing this, the captain immediately realized this man had accomplices.
One man dealt with them while his accomplices broke someone out of prison.
They only needed to hold him off for one more minute!
In one minute, Lord Hokage should be able to arrive!
The thought had barely crossed the captain's mind when blinding lightning and a sudden gale made his heart stop for an instant.
He could still faintly hear the mysterious man's icy words.
"Lightning Release: Thousand-Instant Heavy Current."
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Blue-green light illuminated the night sky, and the earth split apart, sending clouds of dust billowing upward!
When the dust cleared,
The gravely wounded captain, barely clinging to life, spewed mouthfuls of clotted blood mixed with bits of his internal organs.
Rumbling still echoed in his ears. He could no longer even feel his limbs.
Let alone the teammates who had clustered together earlier...
Staring at the scorched brown trench nearly a hundred meters long, the captain's blood-red face could not hide the utter horror in his eyes.
Tap, tap, tap...
Haruma approached slowly with leisurely steps and looked down at the blood-soaked man sprawled on the ground. "See? You really should listen to advice."
"Cough, cough."
Already on the brink of death, the captain tilted his head up, trembling slightly, and forced out a question. "You... who... are you...?"
Haruma stared at him, briefly taken aback, then shook his head with a chuckle. "Danzo's good brother. You can also call me Dafuweng."
His mouth full of blood, the captain heard this, let his head fall to one side, and stopped breathing.
"Now that's loyalty!"
Haruma gazed at the corpse and murmured.
More cautious than before, Haruma had fought casually, but had never relaxed his sensory vigilance.
While the captain asked that question, whether trembling from his severe injuries or turning his head before death,
He had been using the blood at the corner of his mouth to mark the ground with coded signs Haruma couldn't understand.
That final head tilt had even blocked Seiten's downward line of sight perfectly.
Details an ordinary person would overlook seemed far more deliberate to Haruma, who had suffered for such things before.
Haruma murmured, "Konoha's Will of Fire really ought to be the strongest Genjutsu in the Shinobi World~"
Sensing Sarutobi's imminent arrival, Haruma left the coded signs intact and vanished with a single step.
Having rushed over at top speed, Sarutobi stared grimly at the wreckage of the drastically altered landscape.
Seconds later, a large number of Anbu followed.
"Gather our comrades' remains and investigate every piece of intelligence you can find here."
Danzo had already escaped from prison, and he was equally familiar with the village's barrier.
It was already too late to pursue him.
The Anbu nodded and immediately scattered to carry out their tasks.
Uncertain how to handle and announce this matter, Sarutobi stood silently where he was.
Half an hour later,
After lengthy consideration of the village's recent unrest and the various clans' suspicions, Sarutobi finally made up his mind.
"Lord Hokage."
"Speak."
An Anbu stepped forward to report. "The jailers guarding the prison and Squad A, led by Lord Mokushin, were all wiped out."
"The prison interior was undamaged. Most wounds on the jailers' bodies were caused by insect venom, as well as Wind Release."
"Our preliminary assessment is that three people carried out the prison break, operating in two groups."
"Yamanaka Fū, who previously fled Root, and Aburame Torune of the Aburame Clan formed one group. They ambushed and killed the jailers and rescued Danzo."
"The other person acted alone and killed every member of Squad A."
"This individual possesses at least three chakra natures: water, lightning, and earth. He is also proficient in close combat and the use of concealed weapons."
Sarutobi nodded. In his mind, he had already reconstructed the scene: Haruma single-handedly drew the attention of an entire Anbu squad, while the two Root members seized the opportunity to ambush and kill the jailers and rescue Danzo.
As soon as he arrived, Sarutobi had noticed the silver needles and kunai embedded all over the area nearby.
Clearly, within an extremely short period, this man had also engaged the Anbu squad in close combat.
Even surrounded, he had not been at a disadvantage.
Instead, the Anbu squad had been forced to retreat toward the prison.
This could be deduced from the locations of the Anbu corpses, the power of the Ninjutsu, and the traces of destruction at the scene.
"Lord Mokushin also left several important clues before his death. According to the information decoded using the Anbu's twenty-seventh cipher system:"
"Kage, Danzo, friend, Fugo."
Sarutobi frowned. "Only individual words?"
The Anbu nodded. "This was secret intelligence Lord Mokushin marked in blood with the last of his strength before he died."
"After comparing and decoding the symbols against every cipher, these were the only words we obtained."
Sarutobi said heavily, "Piece together every member's body in full. They were all heroes who sacrificed themselves for the village's peace!"
Sarutobi looked up at the faintly brightening sky, pondering the meaning of those four words.
The mysterious Kage Level individual should be the same person who had stolen the village's scrolls.
Though there were no traces of Wood Release here, Sarutobi had an inexplicable intuition.
After all, Kage weren't cabbages growing everywhere. Even one helping Danzo was enough to shock Sarutobi.
If there were another, Danzo would long since have lost control of his ambitions.
Besides, this man's relationship with Danzo was not as friendly as it appeared.
Analyzing the timeline, if the two Kage Level individuals really were the same person...
This man had contributed considerably to Danzo's imprisonment.
The next day,
Every resident of Konoha was once again shocked to the point of their scalps tingling by the Hokage's sudden announcement.
Not long after the defection of Orochimaru, one of the Sannin,
A member of Konoha High Command serving as the Hokage's aide, and a genius ninja of the Uchiha Clan.
These two famous figures of Konoha were officially declared missing-nin by the village today!
"Hey! Is this some kind of mistake?!"
"Danzo was a genuine member of Konoha High Command! It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call him second only to the Hokage. Even someone that important defected?"
"And Itachi of the Uchiha Clan-he's an incredible genius! I heard he was even a captain in the Anbu!"
In the daytime shopping district, taverns were filled with drunken patrons' discussions.
"Go look at the notice below the Hokage Building yourself!"
"Those two vicious bastards-one tried to assassinate Lord Hokage and coveted the scrolls of Ninjutsu passed down through the village's major clans!"
"The other was a truly filial son who slaughtered nearly half his own clan!"
"What good is a high position?! With monstrous crimes like those, never mind calling them Konoha missing-nin-it wouldn't be going too far to call them the scum of the Shinobi World!"
The fat, big-eared drunk swirled the wine cup in his hand, freely discussing important figures he normally wouldn't even dare mention.
His face beamed with satisfaction~