With one slash cutting the rope binding his fellow worker, the miner youth organized people to snatch the samurai's long and short swords together, cutting open the ropes on others.
The Kika Squad cleared out the Kumo-nin platoon, and the samurai had mostly run away.
The samurai were mercenaries, there to earn money, not to risk their lives. A samurai sword slashing at miners was noble Bushidō, but slashing at ninja... better not, the blade might chip.
The miners fled towards the coastline.
That youth, however, ran towards the hillside, heading for Yōkō.
"Thank you for saving me!" the miner youth said: "My name is Daikū!"
Daikū could tell the ninja wearing the fox mask had a favorable impression of him and mustered the courage to chat with the ninja.
Yōkō said: "You're not bad. Have you studied samurai sword techniques?"
"I secretly watched the samurai train when I worked as a servant in the noble's mansion."
Yōkō nodded. No wonder Daikū's movements weren't standard; he hadn't learned them completely. He asked: "Where are you planning to escape to?"
Daikū said: "We're escaping to the Land of Iron across the bay. The Land of Iron is a neutral country. Once we get there, even the great noble Chikayama Shin won't be able to pursue us."
The Land of Iron's neutral status was unexpectedly useful.
Among the small nations, the Land of Iron was the most special.
This country had many samurai who also used chakra, specializing in chakra-based sword techniques.
The country was located on a peninsula with complex terrain and wasn't wealthy.
After declaring neutrality, the Five Great Nations didn't refute it, recognizing the Land of Iron's strength and status.
The Land of Iron was like the neutral Switzerland from his previous life, always a place military strategists avoided contesting.
The Five Great Nations did not need to attack the Land of Iron; it was a neutral country. If necessary, its neutrality would be a joke.
Yōkō saw Daikū carrying a long sword, his coarse linen clothes torn, but his eyes were stubborn.
His ankles showed bruises and cuts from the ropes, and his hands had blisters from handling picks and tools.
Yōkō said: "You, kid, radiate a spirit of rebellion. It suits my taste."
"Keep this recklessness. Maybe you can change your own destiny."
Yōkō took out a scroll.
This scroll was the basic chakra scroll he had prepared for Kyōi's child, including chakra refinement, basic taijutsu, sword techniques, etc.
He didn't need to worry much about Yamanaka Ruri's child; the Yamanaka clan would teach them. But Kyōi's child would need more of Yōkō's attention.
He threw the scroll to Daikū, who caught it in a panic.
"My name is Copper Fox. If you don't die in the next few years, you'll hear my name again."
Yōkō and the others vanished using the Body Flicker Technique.
Daikū held the scroll with both hands, really wanting to thank him personally.
But!
But he was illiterate!
He wasn't a noble, nor a ninja; he never had the chance to learn to read.
Opening the scroll, Daikū saw it had pictures.
Forget it, no matter what, just follow the pictures. The drawings showed a human body and things resembling chakra pathways.
Who cares if it's right or wrong? Having something is better than having nothing.
Yōkō spent about ten days returning to Konoha.
Over twenty days round trip for a village mission was such a waste of time.
After returning to the base, Yōkō found Yellow Dog.
"Commander, the A-Rank target in the Assassination Manual, Kumo-nin Jōnin Takami, has been eliminated by me."
Yellow Dog took the mission report.
"Good, good. Advisor Danzo's Assassination Manual allows our Anbu's mission results to be quantified."
"At the end of the year, the Anbu can submit a clear report to the Hokage: how many enemies we assassinated for the village, how much we weakened the enemy villages." Yellow Dog said:
"I'll have Butterfly notify the Anbu and Root to quickly update the Assassination Manuals in the other Squad Leaders' hands, removing the name of Kumo-nin Jōnin Takami."
Yōkō thought, I'm just afraid Danzo will assign the Anbu a KPI later, requiring a certain number of assassinations per quarter, even rushing quotas at year-end.
Setting a mandatory growth target each quarter—5 this quarter, 7 next quarter—emphasizing steady growth.
By then, Yellow Dog, you won't have time to cry.
Yōkō took back the Assassination Manual handed over by Yellow Dog, flipped through it casually, and came across the photo of an Iwa-nin Jōnin, Yamashigeru.
Yamashigeru's signature technique was Earth Release: Flying Rubble, a medium-to-long-range impact-type Earth Release ninjutsu.
Yōkō had learned this technique from the Anbu ninjutsu scrolls. He could use this Iwa-nin Jōnin to raise this technique to Mastery level.
Once he collected all Mastery-level five-element ninjutsu, Yōkō planned to build his alt, White Ghost, into a Sarutobi clan rogue ninja.
Calm waters don't make skilled sailors. The conflicts within Konoha are still too few, stagnant.
The windmill of Konoha spins too slowly; it needs someone to bring a strong wind to drive its rotation.
He wondered when Root would send intelligence on the Iwa-nin Jōnin.
Yellow Dog said, "By the way, Fox, go check on Orochimaru's laboratory in Root today, check the lab's progress."
Entering the Root base, Yōkō first passed the training hall.
The training hall's roof had been repaired. Because Tsunade had visited, there was an extra row of pillars in the hall.
On the training ground, newcomers and children were still training.
After losing five Root members, including Ki, in the Land of Rain, Danzo had finally become more cautious.
He didn't immediately replenish the formal Root members but let the newcomers continue training to enhance their strength.
Granting formal Root codenames to newcomers now would not only harm them (which was unimportant) but, crucially, cause Root missions to fail.
Yōkō saw Danzo's figure and felt a pang of tension.
Wait, the bad things he did hadn't been exposed, so why fear Danzo?
Danzo was personally instructing newcomers in ninjutsu.
After successive setbacks, Danzo had become much more rational and kinder, showing some patience while teaching ninjutsu.
Root newcomers, Danzo considers your life and death, teaches you ninjutsu, not because Danzo has become a good person, but because... I came.
On the other side of the training ground, 20 children were engaged in taijutsu sparring.
They held sharpened kunai. In the few seconds Yōkō watched, one child's arm was slashed open, bleeding profusely.
These children were the same age as Kakashi. While Kakashi was solidifying his ninja foundations under Hatake Sakumo's guidance, they already had to fight life-and-death battles, a case of forced growth.
Among the 20 children, seven were from Yakushi Nonō's orphanage.
Yōkō continued deeper into the Root base.
Entering Orochimaru's laboratory, Yōkō looked around in confusion.
The entire laboratory was empty. The nutrient tanks were gone, the corpses were gone, the specimens were gone.
Last time he was here, there were over a dozen specimens of wood-transformed hands alone; now there were none.
There used to be six lab personnel; today, there are only two.
Those two were huddled in a corner, clearly pretending to be busy.
So fake, even more fake than when Yōkō slacked off at work in his previous life.
One person held a scalpel, seemingly cutting something.
Keep cutting, and you'll mince the test subject into ground meat.
The other was bent over, recording with a pen. When Yōkō's gaze swept over them, their writing speed increased.
Orochimaru, with his back to Yōkō, calmly dissected the left foot of a White Zetsu corpse, researching who knows what.
Without turning around, Orochimaru said, "Fox, is that you?"
"It's me."
"Fortunately, I have your Wood Release creature corpses. Otherwise, I don't know what purpose this laboratory would even serve." Orochimaru murmured:
"Maggots are too weak; how can they bear the genes of the God of Shinobi?"
"Your White Zetsu corpses are very useful; they completely changed my research direction."
"The previous direction was wrong; we cannot proceed step by step with gradual modifications."
"Hashirama Cells emphasize vitality; every single cell in the body must be transformed."
Orochimaru had lost interest in these ordinary test subjects and cleared out all the useless materials.
The assistant with the pen, seeing Orochimaru finish talking with Squad Leader Fox, quickly picked up a scroll from the scroll rack and hurried over to Yōkō.
"Squad Leader Fox, this is the recent experiment log."
Yōkō was curious about what had happened in the lab and opened the scroll.
Two weeks ago, while Yōkō was on his way to the Land of the Moon, Orochimaru performed a transplant on 50 subjects.
However, the results were extremely poor; all 50 test subjects died within two days.
An enraged Orochimaru increased the dosage and intensity of all experiments.
Many specimens in the laboratory were destroyed during the high-intensity experiments.
Orochimaru believed that although the test subjects all had Earth and Water dual chakra natures, they simply couldn't accommodate the Wood Release tissue.
The experiments required test subjects with stronger aptitude, more suitable for Wood Release transformation at the fundamental level of life essence.
Orochimaru didn't specify what constituted a more suitable test subject, but Yōkō guessed Orochimaru wanted test subjects with the Forest Senju bloodline.
No wonder Yellow Dog had Yōkō come to get the experiment progress scroll. If someone else came, who knows what the furious Orochimaru might do.
Fox was different; even if Orochimaru struck out in anger, he could withstand it.
Yōkō took the scroll and left.
He held key intelligence about the Scroll of Seals. He would only use this information to trade with Orochimaru when he was close to completing the Hashirama Cell transplantation.
Researching Wood Release was extremely difficult. Senju Hashirama was the reincarnation of Asura, the God of Shinobi. Orochimaru was using mortal means to study a deity.
With Orochimaru's experimental progress so poor, now wasn't the time to seek Hashirama Cells.
After delivering the scroll to Yellow Dog, he left the Anbu and returned to the izakaya.
Everything in the izakaya was normal. The employee Yuka helped, and Kyōi rested peacefully.
The full moon hung like a silver plate.
Another full moon night arrived.
Yōkō had good luck, encountering a pleasant surprise.
Before getting intelligence on Earth Release: Flying Rubble, he received intelligence on a Water Release user.
A Kiri-nin Jōnin had infiltrated the Land of Whirlpools on a mission. He was proficient in Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique and had a special understanding of it.
Following Root's intelligence, Yōkō ambushed that Kiri-nin Jōnin in the Land of Whirlpools and used the system to obtain the Mastery-level Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique.
Soon, the third full moon night of Konoha Year 41 arrived.
Yōkō went to Butterfly every day to check the latest intelligence from Root, but never received news about the Iwa-nin Jōnin Yamashigeru.
However, another piece of news caught Yōkō's attention.
Within Konoha, two children had gone missing.
After the investigation, the Konoha Military Police Force said they found no clues; the children might have been kidnapped by spies.
Kumogakure was notorious in this regard.
They kidnapped a child from Sunagakure who had awakened the Magnet Release Kekkei Genkai, reverse-engineered it, and produced the Kumo-nin Magnet Release user, Toroi.
They kidnapped a child from Iwagakure with the Lava Release Kekkei Genkai, reverse-engineered it, resulting in the Lava Release mastered by Dodai.
They had also coveted Konoha's Kekkei Genkai for a long time.
They either conspired to kidnap Kushina or conspired to kidnap Hyūga Hinata.
Whether it was Kumogakure's doing or not, with Konoha children missing, the black mark fell on Kumogakure.
The reason Yōkō noticed the anomaly was that one of the children had the surname Fūmatsuri.
Fūmatsuri Moegi, Konohamaru's teammate, also mastered Wood Release.
The surname Fūmatsuri might be from a family a Senju clan woman married into.
Yōkō put on his mask, left the Anbu base, and began investigating this matter secretly.
Soon, his investigation yielded results.
Fūmatsuri Yuzu, originally named Senju Yuzu, changed her surname to Fūmatsuri after marrying a ninja with that surname.
In the customs of the shinobi world, women change their surnames upon marriage.
Fūmatsuri Yuzu's husband died in the Land of Whirlpools. She had a son, just over a year old.
Yōkō sat on the balcony of Fūmatsuri Yuzu's house, listening to the crying inside.
The Uchiha ninja from the Military Police Force was explaining to Fūmatsuri Yuzu that they had investigated with all their effort, but truly found no clues.
After eliminating all other possibilities, it could only be the work of Kumo spies.
The Military Police Force had discovered incidents of spies kidnapping Konoha children before; sometimes the perpetrators were caught, other times they vanished without a trace.
Fūmatsuri Yuzu said she was pushing the stroller to buy groceries. There was a commotion between someone and a vendor in the market, and after just a small disturbance, her son was gone.
The Uchiha clan currently had a good relationship with Tsunade. They had investigated diligently but were truly powerless.
After the Military Police Force Uchiha ninja finished explaining and left, Fūmatsuri Yuzu cried alone for a long time.
She composed herself and, with red eyes, went to the Senju clan compound.
Now, the only support she could rely on was her former clan, the Senju, hoping to try her luck there.
The Konoha Military Police Force handled village internal affairs. Matters involving Kumogakure were outside their jurisdiction. She could only hope her family would intervene to help investigate Kumogakure.
Even just learning that her son was still alive would be some comfort.
Arriving outside the Senju compound, Yōkō didn't enter rashly.
From a distance, he saw Jiraiya being thrown out by Tsunade with one punch, and then Fūmatsuri Yuzu was taken deep into the compound by Tsunade.
Jiraiya, having been rejected by Tsunade, wasn't angry. He wiped the blood from his nose, waited for the dizziness to pass, identified the direction, and leisurely headed towards the Konoha bathhouse.
Having bid farewell to Tsunade, free of attachments, he can leave the village.
Before leaving, one last trip to the women's bathhouse to gather some 'material'.
Tsunade won't let me gather material, but surely the beauties in the women's bathhouse won't mind?
Jiraiya's gaze swept over a large tree where an Anbu was hiding.
It was the Anbu monitoring the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki. Jiraiya didn't say anything and continued walking.
Yōkō hid in the canopy of the tree above Jiraiya using the Ephemeral Technique; Jiraiya remained completely unaware.
Yōkō looked towards the Senju compound. Is Orochimaru starting? I wonder which child is Yamato.
If Yamato has appeared, can mature Hashirama Cell transplantation technology be far behind?
***
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(Chapter End)