At the very end, she stopped pretending altogether. She admitted it outright. She was sent by Danzo.
Not that it mattered. Just like she never planned to leave survivors, Kaede Kitahara wasn't about to let any of them escape either.
He rushed in. The fox mask met his eyes for only a split second before her vision warped. Kaede's genjutsu disrupted her mind, and his kunai slashed across her throat.
His genjutsu wasn't exceptional. Its strength came from the two-tomoe Sharingan. It still wasn't enough to kill with illusions alone. The kunai had to finish the job.
Hyuga Keiko noticed the moment of stiffness in the fox mask's movements. It was unmistakably genjutsu.
But since when could Kaede use genjutsu this strong?
In Kaede's own mind, he barely knew any real genjutsu. Everything he used came from the instinctive hypnotic ability of the two-tomoe Sharingan. Nothing refined. Nothing a true Uchiha would brag about.
But that was based on his knowledge of future, inhuman monsters. By elite Jonin standards, his techniques were crude.
To someone like Keiko, who struggled just to reach the threshold of Chunin, being able to cast combat-effective genjutsu freely in the middle of a fight was already terrifying.
Kaede had changed too much in just one month.
There was no doubt he held a mountain of secrets. Enough that even Shimura Danzo, one of Konoha's highest authorities, moved personally to kill him.
Keiko didn't want to know those secrets. The more you knew, the faster you died. And at this point, they were tied to Kaede's fate whether they wanted to be or not.
Root always worked this way. If there was danger, even if it was only a possibility, they erased everything connected to it.
"What do we do now?" Amakusa Ryuji asked. He looked lost, sitting while Keiko patched up his wounds. Luckily Kaede had arrived quickly. Otherwise he'd be far worse than lightly injured.
"Finish the job. Kill Suzuki Ryuto, then head back," Kaede said.
As he spoke, he casually drove his kunai through the skull of the last monkey-mask corpse. He destroyed the brain completely, making sure even a Yamanaka Clan ninja couldn't read any lingering memories.
None of the three had Fire Release. Ryuji's chakra leaned to water, and the Hyuga Clan never used elemental ninjutsu at all.
So they had to bury the Root operatives in a hurry.
Kaede didn't want to expose himself yet. And Danzo's order wasn't even remotely official. This assassination strike was done behind the Third Hokage's back. If Kaede pretended he knew nothing, Danzo had no way to openly accuse him. Danzo would definitely try something else later, but as long as Kaede didn't have to confront the entire village, he wasn't scared.
Once he completed the mission to hunt Suzuki Ryuto, he would get another chance at the system lottery. Hopefully he'd pull something good this time.
Right now, his jutsu list was embarrassingly short. Besides the academy basics, he only had three C-rank Wind Release techniques inherited from his late father. The kind of simple, Chunin-level ninjutsu anyone could learn.
Wind Release: Gale Palm.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.
Wind Release: Air Bullet.
All wind-style. That matched his original chakra nature, which was the same as that golden child Uzumaki Naruto.
But after fusing with Uchiha blood, Kaede had tested himself with Chakra Induction Paper. He now had Wind, Lightning, and Fire.
More than most Jonin.
Reaching Jonin level usually meant unlocking a second chakra nature to cover your weaknesses. A third nature was impressive even among elite ranks.
"Right. Rasengan."
Thinking of Naruto instantly brought up the iconic jutsu. Rasengan. The technique carried through Shippuden and even into Boruto's era, evolving into versions that could blow away Otsutsuki-level monsters.
And Kaede knew how the Rasengan was trained. His chakra control was way better than Naruto's at this stage. Plus he already had Wind Release. In theory, he should learn it more easily.
He desperately needed a decisive finishing technique.
But then again… Flying Thunder God plus Rasengan. Wouldn't he basically become a knockoff Namikaze Minato?
A weaker version, sure. But Minato's setup was strong enough to handle Kage Level enemies. Minato once fought the Cloud's AB Combo alone and forced them back.
Meanwhile, Sunny Sasuke struggled with just Killer B, nearly got beat into the dirt, and then B played him like a fiddle before running off to sightsee. Another legendary battlefield humiliation for the boy.
"Let's get out of here and find somewhere to rest," Kaede said.
The other two nodded and followed.
They finally stopped at a cave several miles away. Kaede had Keiko activate her Byakugan and scan them. As expected, a tiny Shokaichu was hiding in Ryuji's backpack. The Root Aburame operative had been tracking them this way.
"I'll take first watch. Keiko takes the middle. Ryuji takes the last shift," Kaede said.
He set several simple trigger traps around the cave to avoid being ambushed.
Neither teammate complained. They lay down immediately. They had plenty of questions but this wasn't the time for them.
Kaede pulled out his diary and began writing. Even after a bloodbath, the diary had to be updated. This determined when he'd get his next lottery pull.
[Got careless. Didn't expect that simply interacting with Naruto would draw Danzo's attention. No wonder he's called Konoha's Pot Shadow. That bastard doesn't do a single decent thing. I'm a perfectly law-abiding Konoha citizen with a clean family history, and just touching Naruto for one day gets me marked for execution. If that old snake ever really became Hokage, the whole village would live in terror. Good thing he only got to be the 5.5th Hokage. He talks about doing things for Konoha, but which of his actions could ever see the light of day? If he didn't exist, half of the ninja world's conflicts would disappear.]