Chapter 49: The Sound of Everything
"What's wrong? You've surrounded me—aren't you going to attack?"
Ryuzen stood atop a pile of rubble, all that remained of a house that had collapsed during the invasion. In his right hand, he held his darkened blade. His left hand combed through his silver hair, fingers coming away stained red. Beneath his feet, broken tiles and shattered concrete were painted in bright crimson, dust clinging to scattered viscera and less identifiable remains.
Around him, dozens of corpses lay piled in grotesque heaps. Each body told the same story—a single cut, perfectly placed, instantly fatal. Some had been bisected at the waist. Others had lost heads or limbs. All had died without ever landing a blow on their killer.
Despite the carnage surrounding him, Ryuzen himself remained almost absurdly pristine. A few flecks of blood marked his face and hair, but his clothing showed no damage, no stains, no evidence of the brutal work he had just performed. His ruby-red eyes gleamed with undisguised disdain as he surveyed the twenty-some enemy ninja who had surrounded him.
"Come on!" His smile held pure contempt. "It doesn't matter if it's one, three, five, or all of you. Just come at me with the intention to kill!"
"Monster... he's a monster!"
Ryuzen's provocation had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of rousing the encircling ninja to attack, one of them actually took two steps backward. The hand holding his kunai trembled visibly, and his eyes held nothing but fear when they met Ryuzen's gaze.
"He's not wearing a flak jacket—he's not even a jōnin!" a Sand ninja muttered under his breath, his voice cracking. "This isn't just genius-level. Where the hell did Konoha find this monster?!"
Only the comfort of numbers kept any of them from simply running. The enemy before them was a mass murderer in human form. His sword techniques defied explanation. His thin build suggested no physical strength, yet one casual swing of that black blade cut human bodies in half like soft tofu. Combined with his impossible speed and the Body Flicker Technique, he was simply undefendable.
Ryuzen watched their hesitation with amusement. "What's wrong? Are you scared?" His smile widened. "In that case, how about I give you a pair of eyes?"
He sheathed his sword—an act of apparent surrender that somehow made the encircling ninja more nervous, not less. From his robes, he produced a strip of black cloth and carefully tied it over his eyes.
Now! Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!
A Sand ninja's eyes lit up at the opportunity. While Ryuzen was blindfolded, he rapidly formed hand signs and unleashed a massive gust of wind—an air cannon designed to tear through flesh and scatter enemies.
The gale-force wind blasted toward Ryuzen, making his silver hair stream behind him. Through the blindfold, he smiled.
"The noisy wind is actually quite refreshing."
Shing—BOOM!
A silver sword light exploded outward.
The roaring air cannon met something far stronger. A dark red sword energy seven or eight meters high tore through the wind technique like it was nothing, ripped through the ground, and drowned the Sand ninja who had attacked. It continued for another ten meters, demolishing two more houses before finally dissipating.
When the dust cleared, a ravine two to three meters wide, three meters deep, and over ten meters long scarred the earth where the Sand ninja had stood.
Among the twenty-some encircling ninja, four had simply ceased to exist.
The survivors stared at the impossible destruction, their minds refusing to process what their eyes were showing them. They stood frozen, paralyzed by a fear so complete it stole their ability to move.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
"I can hear your hearts beating." The voice came like a gentle breeze from behind one of the Sound ninja. The man's eyes trembled as he dragged his gaze from the ravine back to the rubble where Ryuzen had stood—
Empty.
"Relax. The pain will only last a moment."
The words were soft, almost comforting. They sounded like the reassurance of a caring friend. They felt like the whisper of a demon come to collect.
Shing—
A dazzling silver light passed through several ninja standing in a row, swift as a shooting star.
Ryuzen's feet gathered chakra, and he launched forward like a gale wind. His blade swung continuously, each arc bringing with it severed limbs and spraying blood. Silver mixed with black sword light painted the air in deadly patterns.
"Scream. Scream louder."
Screams filled the air.
His silver hair and face were now thoroughly painted red. He had removed the blindfold at some point, and his crimson eyes gleamed like those of a vengeful spirit. Those eyes promised death, and death followed wherever they looked.
In the distance, Konoha ninja watched the slaughter with expressions of horror.
"So... so terrifying. That kid—no, that person—who is he?"
Morino Ibiki, the scarred proctor from the first exam who now commanded the central reinforcement effort, stood among them. Even his hardened face showed profound shock.
"A genin," he said quietly. "A very, very terrifying genin."
From a high vantage point overlooking the center of Konoha, Jiraiya watched the entire display unfold.
He had followed Ryuzen's path of destruction from the moment the boy had left the Hyūga compound. He had witnessed the slaughter of the three-headed serpent. He had tracked his rampage through the invasion force.
And now he watched as the boy—the genin—single-handedly erased entire squads of enemy ninja.
A monster like this, born in this era...
He sighed slightly, a complex expression crossing his features.
What a pity.
It was a pity because Ryuzen had been born in peacetime. If such a monster had emerged during the Second or Third Great Ninja Wars, his name would have echoed across the entire shinobi world by now. Legends would have been built around him.
But another thought troubled Jiraiya more immediately.
How is this possible?
He studied Ryuzen's movements with the analytical eye of a legendary Sannin. The slashes carried no chakra fluctuation. None. Zero. Yet they possessed power equal to—no, exceeding—S-rank ninjutsu.
Bloodline limit? No, the reports said civilian-born. Some kind of secret technique? But there's no chakra consumption to speak of. Look at him—after swinging that massive attack, he shows absolutely no sign of fatigue.
Jiraiya pinched his chin, thinking hard.
A secret technique that doesn't consume chakra? Impossible. Then what...
His eyes widened slightly.
Could it be that he's mastered some form of swordsmanship completely unknown to the ninja world? Something that exists outside our framework of chakra and techniques entirely?
His expression grew serious. He watched Ryuzen cut through another cluster of enemies with contemptuous ease.
A monster more terrifying than the White Fang of Konoha. If someone like that ever turned to darkness...
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.
I need to keep watching this one.
Ryuzen, unaware of Jiraiya's observation, had entered a state unlike anything he had experienced before.
The Breath of All Things had never been so clear.
Every object, every person, every particle of dust in the air—he could perceive its essence, its flow, its point of weakness. When he cut, the targets simply... separated. There was no resistance. No sense of effort. The blade passed through flesh and bone like light through air.
The feeling was intoxicating.
Blood splashed his face, and he could feel its warmth with perfect clarity. The screams of dying enemies reached his ears, and he could hear in them the exact moment when breath stopped, when life fled, when a human being became simply meat.
The savagery he had suppressed his entire previous life—shackled by laws and morality and the expectations of civilized society—had finally broken free.
For the first time, Ryuzen truly understood.
Life was fragile. So terribly, beautifully fragile.
Killing was simple. As simple as cutting vegetables.
And he could feel it expanding—the range of his perception, the clarity of the Breath, the boundaries of his understanding pushing outward.
So this is it. This is my swordsmanship.
He looked at the bodies around him. At the blood on his hands. At the fear in the eyes of the few remaining enemies who had yet to flee.
Murder.
This is what I was meant for.
Shing—
He vanished. Reappeared behind the last cluster of enemy ninja.
His expression had returned to calm. Serene, even. He sheathed his sword with quiet finality and walked forward without looking back.
Behind him, a dozen bodies tore apart like tissue paper, unable to resist the cuts that had already passed through them.
Ryuzen walked through the ruined streets of Konoha, his footsteps steady, his breathing even.
The invasion continued around him. But in this sector, at least, there was no one left to fight.
He was just getting started.
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