Hikaru's expression didn't change. He simply watched the only man left standing—the middle-aged shinobi who still had the ability to fight.
The man's anger had already hit its peak. His fists were clenched so hard the knuckles looked ready to split. The grief and fury rolling off him were so intense that Hikaru could practically taste them.
But Hikaru didn't care.
He'd never had the habit of going soft on enemies—especially enemies who'd clearly come here intending to kill him.
"Still… I have to give him some attention," Hikaru thought. "He's obviously got decent sensory ability."
He'd suspected it from the start. Now he was certain.
No wonder Hikaru had felt someone probing them before, yet so faintly. No wonder the moment he made a move, the man sensed something was wrong. No wonder he'd noticed the clone trap earlier.
It was all because this man was a sensor.
But being a sensor wasn't some unbeatable trump card.
Exceptional sensing could become a combat aid. But most sensory ability, in practice, was used for reconnaissance—tracking, detection, intelligence.
Kumogakure's C, for example. Or Karin Uzumaki, one of the Uzumaki clan's surviving descendants—both were classic intel-type sensors.
Combat-type sensors were different.
They pushed perception to the limit, then dragged it fully into close-quarters fighting—reading intent, predicting movement, controlling the flow of battle.
Honestly, people like that were rare.
The only one Hikaru could name offhand was his ancestor…
Senju Tobirama.
Tobirama's political methods were sharp, and his strength was no joke either. It could be said that Konoha's rise was built on the foundation he reshaped with his own hands—Hiruzen Sarutobi had merely inherited that legacy.
Tobirama wasn't like his brother Senju Hashirama, or Uchiha Madara—those monsters who could take on the shinobi world alone.
But Tobirama had killed Uchiha Izuna with his own hands.
Uchiha Izuna, Madara's younger brother, was a Mangekyō Sharingan user. That kind of eyesight—extreme perception, technique-copying, plus unpredictable dōjutsu—was practically tailor-made to counter fighters who relied on ninjutsu and taijutsu the way Tobirama did.
And yet Tobirama still won.
Part of it was fundamentals, part of it was endless methods—but another part was Tobirama's extreme sensory ability. He read Izuna's rhythm, caught the moment of action—
And in the end, Tobirama used the Flying Thunder God to land a decisive ambush.
Izuna died.
Hikaru's current development path in perception was, frankly, modeled after that "ancestor who screwed over the whole clan."
It wasn't perfect.
For long-range scouting, it couldn't compete with the Byakugan. For fine-grained battlefield reading, it couldn't match the Sharingan.
But "not the best" didn't mean "useless." Sensing had enormous room to grow.
"Die!"
While Hikaru was thinking—quietly letting his chakra settle after the earlier consumption—the middle-aged jōnin finally snapped.
Maybe it was the hoarse cries of comrades who were dying but not dead yet. Maybe it was the ones Hikaru had already killed. Maybe it was the white bones exposed by the blasts.
All of it hammered his nerves until restraint broke.
He lunged.
Kunai in hand, his speed surged as he stabbed straight at Hikaru.
Hikaru dipped his body and slipped the thrust.
Then he moved like water.
He twisted in, left hand producing a kunai and driving it toward the man's ribs, while his right leg pinned the man's left knee to disrupt his base—
And his right fist rose from below, snapping toward the throat.
A smooth, flowing chain of movements. In the blink of an eye, he'd read the man's intent and countered it cleanly.
The jōnin's eyes widened for a fraction of a second.
He hadn't expected this masked ANBU to react so fast.
But he was calm. Years of fighting had forged him into someone with sharp battle instincts.
Chakra flared.
The moment Hikaru's kunai struck—
White smoke exploded outward.
The jōnin's body turned into a log.
A substitution.
And in the next instant, like a shadow sliding across the dark, the man appeared behind Hikaru, kunai aimed without hesitation for the back of Hikaru's skull.
"Damn it—that trick again!"
The jōnin's face changed the second his kunai pierced "Hikaru."
Because what his sensing told him was terrifyingly clear—
The "body" he'd stabbed had already shifted into a clone.
Worse, that violent, unstable chakra inside it was swelling—
Just like before.
It was going to explode.
He forced his body into motion, throwing everything into a Body Flicker at the moment of detonation, barely escaping the heart of the blast radius.
But the instant he landed—
Hikaru was already on him.
Like a ghost.
A compressed surge of chakra—distinctly Water Release in nature, tinted with a cold blue—wrapped around Hikaru's kunai as he drove it in with ruthless precision.
The jōnin had just forced a Body Flicker. His muscles were still stiff, his rhythm broken. For a moment, he couldn't react properly at all.
But he was still a jōnin.
And in that split-second, he made the most correct choice available—
He stepped forward to meet it, and a kunai appeared in his hand as well.
"So you're going for a mutual kill?" Hikaru read the movement instantly.
He hated coin-flip gambles like this.
But he also wasn't afraid of them.
Not in Sage Mode.
Pshhk!
Hikaru's strike didn't slow for even a heartbeat. His kunai pierced straight through the man's chest—carefully controlled to avoid vital points.
He still needed answers. Killing him now would be pointless.
At the same time, as the enemy's kunai stabbed in, Hikaru lifted his left hand and caught it barehanded.
The blade punched through his palm.
Hikaru tilted his head just enough to keep the follow-through from driving into his skull.
"You don't have a chance anymore." Hikaru didn't even seem to care that his hand had been pierced. His gaze stayed flat, indifferent. "Looks like in this 'fight to the death'… I'm the one who won."
"Hmph…" The jōnin let out a shaky, pained breath. His voice trembled—speaking itself was difficult through the agony.
"Relax. You're not dead yet." Hikaru's tone was almost casual. "I avoided your vitals."
As he spoke, he pulled his left hand off the kunai.
Blood dripped onto the ground in quick, heavy drops—then, visibly, the dripping slowed.
Hikaru's recovery speed was fast. Not as absurd as his chakra recovery, but far better than normal.
That was why he'd dared to catch the kunai directly without fear of crippling himself.
"What do you want?" the jōnin gritted out, hatred thick in his voice. He could tell now—Hikaru had a purpose beyond slaughter.
"It's simple." Hikaru looked down at him. "I need to know where Shouqi Castle's grave is."
"Or…" his voice lowered slightly, turning sharp, "where the summoning scroll for his beast is."
…
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