Clearing them out one by one was too slow.
Since Ronin was already keeping his Sharingan active as a baseline state, unleashing ninjutsu became second nature.
Specifically, when he suppressed his aura and converted it entirely into chakra, strands of chakra transformed into puppet threads, shooting toward the private soldiers ahead.
Puppet Technique: Human Body Manipulation!
This ability, which Ronin utilized through manipulating Owl, demonstrated its terrifying potential.
Gunshots rang out across the manor grounds, but they weren't all aimed at Ronin. Instead, private soldiers, now snared by chakra threads, turned their weapons on their comrades and opened fire.
It was chaos.
Ronin's fingers danced. Even after his living puppets were killed, they continued to fire their weapons as corpses.
The battle shifted dramatically. The soldiers had started with supreme confidence against just two intruders. But seeing their dead friends continue to shoot at them, while the duo walked toward the manor as if strolling through an empty park, broke them completely.
Yet, no one fled. Some, driven to madness, ignored the firing corpses and charged screaming at Ronin and Shizuku.
Others gave up entirely, dropping their weapons and kneeling on the ground, awaiting death.
The former were instantly converted into new puppets to slaughter their kin, rapidly transitioning from living puppets to dead ones.
The latter, surprisingly, Ronin spared.
He had little interest in killing those who had lost the will to fight. However, unlike him, Shizuku chose to act.
So, after Ronin and Shizuku passed, not a single soul remained alive in the front courtyard of nearly a hundred people.
But there were no corpses left behind either. No bloodstains, no discarded guns. Everything had been sucked into Shizuku's Blinky.
It was as if Blinky contained an infinitely vast space capable of storing anything.
Without pausing, Ronin pushed open the main doors of the villa.
The interior was deserted. It was unclear if the staff had hidden in fear of the commotion outside or if they had been evacuated beforehand.
Ronin hadn't invested much in developing his En, so his detection radius was only about twenty meters.
This range wasn't enough to cover the entire villa, but as they walked deeper inside, most of the structure fell within his En.
Two signatures emitting stronger aura than ordinary people stood out as the most unique existences within his range, located in a nearby room.
Additionally, Ronin sensed a faint presence in the basement—someone on the verge of death.
Ronin stopped. "Is your dad dead?"
"I don't know." Shizuku remained expressionless, even in the face of such a blunt question.
"Do you want to check downstairs? It might be him." Ronin considered the possibility; it was a gut feeling that arose after sensing the person in the basement.
And sometimes, an Enhancer's intuition was frighteningly accurate.
Shizuku hesitated. "Okay."
As Shizuku turned toward the stairs leading down, Ronin called out to her back, "Be careful."
Just as he spoke, a hole blasted through the door ahead.
A tennis ball shot out from the opening, rocketing straight for the back of Shizuku's head.
Shizuku spun around instantly, Blinky materializing in her hands. No suction appeared; instead, she swung the vacuum cleaner's nozzle like a tennis racket.
Bang!
Blinky swatted the ball away. In that split second, Ronin saw a number appear above Shizuku's head: 0.
It was a number formed entirely of Nen.
Ronin looked down. There were white lines on the floor he had noticed earlier but ignored. Now, connecting them to the broken door and looking into the room, he realized the lines formed a complete tennis court.
At the same time, a high chair and a long net materialized at the broken doorway.
Inside the room stood a man, nearly two meters tall, muscular, holding a tennis racket. He wore a tennis cap, shorts, and a polo shirt.
His features were deep-set, his eyes locked onto Shizuku like a hawk.
It was Spence, who had come up from the basement.
Beside Spence stood another man, dressed as a butler. His hair was meticulously groomed, and he wore pristine white gloves.
This man's gaze was fixed entirely on Ronin.
Ronin's warning hadn't been about the two in the room, but rather about potential traps on the stairs.
He hadn't expected the two in the room to strike first.
Upon seeing the man in the room, Shizuku instantly called out his name: "Spence!"
Ronin had guessed as much the moment he sensed their presence.
"Your opponent is me." The butler-like figure stepped in to block Ronin's line of sight.
Simultaneously, Ronin noticed the butler positioning himself closer to the only conjured chair on the court.
A court, a score...
Ronin quickly pieced together the intel. He instantly understood what the chair represented.
The Umpire!
In a tennis match, that was where the umpire sat. By that logic, since neither he nor the butler were sitting there yet, did that make them ball boys?
But ball boys just fetched balls, mopped the floor, and handed out towels.
The umpire, however, had authority.
But was Ronin obligated to play by their rules?
Thinking this, coins appeared in Ronin's hands. With one hand, he flicked coins at Spence on the court; with the other, he fired at the butler.
As the coins entered the court, Spence swung his racket violently. In that instant, Ronin saw the coins transform into tennis balls in mid-air. The racket connected, sending them rocketing back toward Shizuku at even greater speeds.
Meanwhile, the butler sidestepped, dodging the coin attack, and raised his arms in a fighting stance.
Shizuku's focus was absolute, so she tracked everything happening on the court.
The coins turning into tennis balls was abrupt, but within her ability to process. She swung Blinky like a racket again, aiming to smash the incoming ball.
But mid-flight, the tennis ball reverted back into a coin.
Sensing the powerful Nen infused in the coin, Shizuku felt a flash of danger. She sharply angled Blinky, intentionally missing the coin.
The coin flew out of bounds. The score above Shizuku's head changed instantly, jumping from 0 to 15.
But Spence had already tossed a grenade into the air. Without hesitation, he swung his racket. The grenade transformed into a tennis ball upon impact, rocketing toward Shizuku, only to revert back into a grenade as it closed in.
Shizuku's lips moved slightly. "Suck up the grenade and spit it out."
As she spoke, her hand pressed Blinky's switch. Powerful suction erupted, inhaling the grenade instantly.
A split second later, the suction reversed. The grenade shot out of Blinky's mouth like a cannonball, blasting straight back at Spence!