[EXP +50,000]
Seeing the massive chunk of experience pop up, Akira immediately knew—
Shōzō was truly dead.
But that number…
"Why is it this high?" Akira was completely stunned.
Shōzō's chakra level had clearly only been around standard jōnin-tier.
This amount of EXP was already beyond that—
this was elite jōnin–level experience.
So the old man had been an elite jōnin all along.
And this was the first time Akira had ever seen a perfectly rounded EXP reward.
Thinking about it, elite jōnin didn't necessarily have more chakra than regular jōnin—
their strength usually lay in certain techniques or specialized abilities.
But still—
With strength like that, why didn't you fight Hanzo?
Why just sit there and wait to die?
Akira genuinely couldn't understand it.
"Whoosh!"
A sharp tearing sound split the air.
Hanzo's sickle suddenly slashed toward Akira.
Akira vanished instantly, leaving only an afterimage as the blade cut through empty air. He reappeared behind Shōzō's corpse.
Five drops lay on the ground.
He didn't even look at them—
straight into the inventory.
This was absolutely not the time to check loot.
Akira stared at Hanzo warily.
"Lord Hanzo, attacking without warning like that is… honestly terrifying."
Hanzo tugged the chain, reeling his sickle back. His gaze fixed on Akira as he spoke calmly:
"You're a Konoha shinobi, aren't you? An Uchiha, perhaps. Your Transformation Technique is impressive."
Akira: "???"
What the hell?
How had he been exposed?
And why Uchiha of all things?!
He scratched his head, subtly confirming that the marker shuriken he'd thrown earlier was still in place. Only then did he relax slightly.
Curious now, he asked,
"How exactly did I give myself away?"
Before entering, he'd deliberately thrown out a shuriken—ready to use Substitution at any moment.
As far as disguise went, he was confident.
He couldn't see any obvious mistakes.
Hanzo didn't attack. Instead, he answered patiently.
"Because you were never particularly respectful toward me. You rarely used honorifics."
...
Akira fell silent.
Was it really that simple?
Rain shinobi addressed Hanzo with extreme reverence—
and he… honestly hadn't paid attention to that at all.
"That's it?" Akira muttered.
Then another thought hit him.
"But how are you so sure I'm from Konoha? I've killed Konoha ninja."
He'd personally participated in ambushing Leaf shinobi with Murakami Hana—and he hadn't held back.
EXP didn't lie.
Hanzo continued,
"At first, I wasn't suspicious. But your Great Fire Dragon Technique was… telling."
Akira froze slightly.
He immediately thought back to that ambush on the way back to the Rain Village—
when he'd used Great Fire Dragon to snipe a Rain ninja.
But how did that connect?
Hanzo went on,
"Great Fire Dragon is an Uchiha technique. In the entire shinobi world, only the Uchiha clan uses it. And as for killing Sarutobi ninja without hesitation—only Uchiha would do something like that."
Akira nearly choked.
Hey, the Hyūga can do that too, alright?!
He himself was living proof—though admittedly, probably the only example.
Technically speaking, Great Fire Dragon had already become a general Konoha technique…
…but outside the Uchiha, no one really used it.
Hanzo's intelligence wasn't wrong—just outdated.
"Also," Hanzo added coolly,
"you prefer acting alone, show no mercy to Rain shinobi, and constantly avoid surveillance. If not for your extremely powerful Transformation Technique, this would've been a very poorly executed infiltration."
That technique was the real problem.
It was too good.
Without the Fire Release incident, Hanzo might never have doubted "Muyu" at all.
Once the first suspicion formed, everything afterward only confirmed it—
especially with someone as cautious as Shōzō.
There was, of course, one more crucial reason…
But Hanzo didn't say it.
"So you had me kill Shōzō to shift the blame onto Konoha?" Akira finally understood everything.
"What a move, Leader of the Rain, Hanzo."
Akira himself couldn't bear Shōzō's death.
But Konoha?
Konoha absolutely could.
Hanzo sheathed his sickle.
"Your name. A Konoha shinobi with this level of Transformation—
you're worth remembering."
Akira straightened.
"Listen carefully. My name is Uchiha Akira. The next time we meet, it'll be you dying by my hand."
Hanzo shook his head.
"You're not leaving."
A black shadow shot in through the doorway.
Tera—his face covered in blood—appeared in the room.
"I'm waiting for others to come kill you," Hanzo said calmly.
"What are you waiting for, Uchiha Akira?"
Old bastard. I'll farm you sooner or later, Akira swore silently.
I'll make you meet your ending ahead of schedule.
A faint smile appeared in Hanzo's eyes.
This "Uchiha Akira" couldn't die so easily.
Otherwise, the blame might circle right back to him.
Uchiha Akira needed to die carrying Shōzō's罪名—
killed by Shōzō's remaining loyalists.
I'm waiting for my chakra to recover, Akira answered silently.
His body vanished.
"Flying Thunder God?" Hanzo frowned slightly.
Now that he knew Akira was from Konoha, his mind immediately went to the Second Hokage's legendary technique—
Hiraishin no Jutsu.
Hanzo turned to Tera.
"You know how Shōzō died now."
Tera looked at Hanzo deeply.
"I'll kill him. I'll avenge Lord Shōzō."
He knew the truth—
that Hanzo was responsible for everything.
But at this point, the process didn't matter anymore.
What mattered was the result:
Shōzō died by the hand of a Konoha ninja.
That was enough.
Tera turned into a blur and shot out of the building.
After he left, Kumyō finally stepped inside.
"Lord Hanzo… if that Konoha ninja spreads the truth—" Kumyō hesitated.
"It won't matter," Hanzo said calmly.
"Konoha is the enemy. How much weight do an enemy's words carry?"
"And besides—he won't survive Tera."
Akira burst into the forest at full speed.
With his Byakugan's 360-degree vision, he could clearly see Tera in pursuit.
A lone Rain jōnin… if I ambush him properly—
…Yeah. No. Still can't beat him.
Akira accelerated, ripping off his bandit greaves and swapping them for Nen Shoes, boosting his movement speed.
The gap instantly shrank.
From slower than Tera—
to barely keeping pace.
Still a hair slower.
"Damn it, he's glued to me," Akira muttered.
He slapped an explosive tag onto a tree mid-leap and kept moving.
Through the Byakugan, he saw Tera land squarely on that tree.
"BOOM!!"
The explosion erupted—
But Tera reacted instantly, using Water Body Flicker to evade and continuing the chase without missing a beat.
A jōnin's reaction speed was terrifying.
Delayed explosive tags were practically useless.
Akira could only grit his teeth and keep running, his mind racing for a way out.
At this rate, getting caught was only a matter of time.
A frontal fight was impossible.
Even if Tera were injured, it wouldn't change much.
"Hanzo—remember this!!" Akira roared internally.
"I'll blow you up sooner or later!!"
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