Bang!
"Ugh..."
A bloody hole tore through Torune's shoulder. He grunted in pain as the impact force hurled his entire body backward.
"Torune!"
Fu's hands remained locked in a hand seal. With Torune's abilities alone, dodging a sniper shot was virtually impossible, managing to avoid a fatal hit was only possible thanks to Fu's telepathic sensory transmissions from the side.
Even though the shot didn't strike a vital organ, a sniper round capable of unleashing several thousand joules of destructive force inflicted severe internal damage, even to a shoulder.
"Damn it..."
The shared information in his mind raced as Fu immediately deployed tracking bugs based on his sensory input. Yet the enemy, Kirito, was far too cautious.
After every shot, he instantly relocated, leaving no trace. The trajectory of the bullet was all Torune had to go on, and now, his entire left arm had gone numb and limp from the injury.
Hidden in the distance, Kirito frowned. He hadn't expected these two to be such a headache. He had already fired twice, and yet neither shot had landed a kill. Of course, part of that was due to the limits of range.
Within a hundred meters, the probability of a kill would rise significantly, but so would the risk of being discovered. If he took a shot at close range and failed to finish the target, he would be in grave danger.
Their combat strength was clearly at jōnin level, no, beyond average jōnin. They were not only defending against his Phantom Mirage clones but also evading deadly sniper fire. With his current capabilities, Kirito couldn't afford a direct confrontation.
As he weighed whether to move closer, the purple-haired woman, one of his illusions with powerful tracking ability, spoke through the link.
"Target locked. Also, Konoha shinobi closing in, three o'clock, fast approach."
"So, the commotion didn't go unnoticed after all..."
Peering through his scope, Kirito could see Torune and Fu already showing signs of collapse. If he had five more minutes, he was confident he could finish them both. But time was no longer on his side.
More importantly, his system task progress had ticked from 10% to 20%. That meant that severely wounding both operatives counted, these two would no longer be capable of stopping him from rescuing Asuna.
With Asuna's precise location now confirmed, continuing the battle held no value.
"...?"
The mysterious group of phantom assassins dissolved into shadows, vanishing without a trace. Torune and Fu looked at each other in bewilderment. They'd been cornered, so why hadn't the enemy gone for the kill?
"The enemy... retreated?" Torune said uncertainly.
"I don't sense their presence anymore..." Fu murmured. But then a realization struck him.
His sensory techniques had no effect on the attacker to begin with, what if they weren't gone at all? And now... Konoha's own shinobi were approaching.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
A masked unit appeared, unlike them, these were ANBU directly under the Hokage's command.
"Torune of Root. Fu of the Yamanaka clan. You are to report to Lord Hokage immediately," the leader said coldly.
On the other side, Kirito had been sprinting through the forest based on the tracking data, and soon found himself halted by a barbed-wire perimeter.
Raising his gaze with faint surprise, he read the words stenciled across the fence: "Forest of Death."
This was Konoha's military training zone, typically reserved for high-level ninjutsu drills. But for now, it had been temporarily repurposed as the testing ground for the Chūnin Exams.
Kirito narrowed his eyes and flexed his fingers.
"I see... so the plan is to make it look like the princess wandered into a danger zone and met a tragic end. That way, the whole thing can be written off as an accident."
He quickly deduced what had happened. Asuna had likely been placed under a genjutsu and unknowingly led herself into the Forest of Death.
Now, Kirito found he could touch the barbed wire without any resistance. Under normal circumstances, a place like this, designated for military use and currently hosting a major exam, would've been fortified with a powerful barrier. But now... there was a gap, clearly tampered with from within.
"So this really is Danzo's doing..."
Kirito had no interest in Konoha's internal power struggles, nor any desire to interfere in its politics. That had nothing to do with him. All he was doing, was what he needed to do.
As for whether he'd end up being seen as a threat by someone afterward? He couldn't care less.
Shing!
With a clean stroke, he sliced open the wire fence and walked right into the Forest of Death without hesitation.
Kirito had always been this way. He didn't care how people he had no regard for viewed him. Just like when he was in the Hyūga household, he had ignored every insult and slight thrown his way. Danzo was no different.
He knew full well that opposing someone like that would bring trouble, yet he wouldn't change course.
Put simply: Kirito disliked trouble, but he didn't fear it.
If trouble knocked on his door, he'd try to avoid it.
But if he couldn't? Then he'd erase the source of it, permanently.
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