After making their final preparations, Akira rested his hand on the short blade at his waist and smiled.
"Let's go, Kakashi-sensei. If this mission actually succeeds, I might just end up becoming a chūnin tonight."
"I don't really care about the chūnin vest, but I am pretty interested in the S-rank forbidden jutsu inside the Scroll of Seals."
Kakashi sighed.
"Those kinds of forbidden jutsu… learning them usually means gambling with your life. It's not worth it."
That single sentence made Might Guy, Yamato, and Yūgao fall silent.
If it were possible, they would rather steal a forbidden jutsu themselves and give it to Akira than watch him risk his life for one.
But Akira simply smiled and brushed the matter aside.
Truthfully, he felt confident about this mission.
With the cards he currently held, dying would actually be difficult.
Still, he solemnly picked up the short blade Kakashi had given him years ago.
This would be the toughest battle he had faced since entering the ninja world.
Five figures vanished instantly, leaving behind only a rush of wind.
---
Inside the Hokage's office, Hiruzen stood by the window with a pipe in his mouth, silently gazing toward the village gates.
Meanwhile, far away on the border of the Land of Grass.
A once prosperous town with thirty thousand residents had become a silent wasteland.
More precisely—
a massive graveyard.
A thin crimson mist hovered over the entire city, visible even to the naked eye. The air carried a nauseating metallic scent.
Dark, dried bloodstains covered the streets.
As for the corpses?
They were long gone.
Most had already been burned to ashes by the demons still wandering the city.
After all, even these monsters wouldn't make the amateur mistake of letting rotting bodies spread disease.
At the top of the tallest tower in the center of the city stood seven figures like specters.
Three emitted terrifying jōnin-level auras.
Four others, chūnin, watched the ruins with bloodthirsty eyes.
The three jōnin went only by code names—A, B, and C.
Like shadows, they had abandoned their real identities.
The remaining four chūnin were known simply as East, West, South, and North.
Among the seven fugitives, A was unquestionably the strongest.
Even before reaching jōnin rank, his ruthlessness had already reached Special Jōnin level.
He was a survivor who had crawled out of the corpse piles of the Third Great Ninja War.
Back then, he had personally witnessed—hidden at the edge of the battlefield—the legendary clash between the Legendary Sannin and Hanzō of the Salamander.
That battle had shattered his worldview.
It taught him what true top-tier power looked like.
Later, when Nagato seized control of Amegakure, A stole a scroll containing a forbidden jutsu during the chaos and fled to the Land of Grass.
Over more than a decade of hiding in darkness, he had painstakingly built this group.
Two jōnin and five chūnin.
Unfortunately, one chūnin had been lost in a recent clash.
Standing atop the tower, A scanned the distance coldly.
The stench of blood filled the air, but to him it smelled like flowers.
A cruel smile curled at his lips.
Although Konoha had lost only three ANBU members, their morale was probably shaken.
From his understanding of Konoha's style, retaliation was inevitable.
The next force sent would definitely be stronger.
Which meant their time to escape was running out.
In the dungeon beneath the tower, more than a thousand captives were still being held.
Once they collected the blood of another thousand people, East would break through his bottleneck and reach jōnin level.
Without turning around, A ordered that the remaining captives all be handed over to East.
They needed to increase their strength as quickly as possible—then leave.
This place had become too dangerous.
Next time they would simply move to another country and continue their slaughter.
Within the group, A's strength ruled absolutely.
No one dared challenge him.
Behind him, B and C exchanged glances before agreeing.
Konoha had just lost three ANBU elites. It would take them time to investigate before launching another operation.
They still had a brief window to breathe.
With his hands clasped behind his back, A spoke calmly.
"Delay invites trouble. We leave as soon as possible."
Although B and C thought Konoha's retaliation might not come so quickly, they still nodded under his pressure.
Behind them, East trembled with excitement.
The threshold of jōnin rank was only a single step away.
And he had just turned 25.
A brute who had spent his life training taijutsu, he had once been destined to remain a mere genin.
Without the secret technique their leader had obtained, that fate would never have changed.
But now the gears of destiny were turning.
Soon he would cross the divide and become a jōnin.
The exhilaration made his scalp tingle.
---
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
Akira's five-man team silently approached the dead city controlled by A's group.
They stopped on the branches of a towering tree outside the city, hiding themselves within the dense foliage.
Yūgao pointed toward a grim structure in the city center.
"That's their base. There's a massive dungeon under the tower. Almost all the survivors in the city have been imprisoned there."
Akira immediately activated his sensory perception.
His brows knitted tightly, and his expression turned strange.
He glanced toward Yūgao.
"When you came last time… did they detect you the moment you entered the city?"
She froze for a moment.
Thinking back, it was true.
They had infiltrated perfectly, yet their location had been exposed immediately.
To this day, she still didn't understand how.
Kakashi spoke up, his gaze sharp.
"Akira… are you saying this place is surrounded by a detection barrier?"
Akira nodded firmly.
"That's right. And it's ridiculously huge. It covers the entire city."
Kakashi's expression instantly hardened.
Even beneath his mask, the muscles in his face tightened.
Yūgao and Yamato stared in disbelief.
"How is that possible? Maintaining a barrier that large would consume an enormous amount of chakra."
"At most they have a few jōnin. Where would they get that kind of energy?"
Even Konoha itself struggled to maintain barrier systems of that scale.
There was no way those three enemies could manage it alone.
Akira glanced toward the eight watchtowers around the city's edge.
The puzzle pieces finally clicked together.
Lowering his voice, he explained:
"They actually can pull it off."
"Don't forget what they're best at collecting."
"Ordinary people have only tiny traces of chakra in their blood—but that energy is stored within their cells."
"In other words…"
"This barrier was built using corpses."
"They must have created some kind of device that continuously extracts the remaining chakra from those bodies."
The moment those words left his mouth, the area fell into terrifying silence.
Even breathing seemed to stop.
The word "corpses" alone sent chills through everyone.
How many lives would it take to sustain such a barrier?
A cold shiver ran down their spines.
Akira took a slow breath.
Even with mental preparation, the sheer cruelty disgusted him.
He pointed toward the distant towers.
"Look closely at those structures. Don't they feel… wrong?"
"They were created using Earth Style."
"They're positioned exactly at the eight chakra support points of the barrier."
"If I'm right, those towers—or their foundations—are packed with corpses."
The conclusion struck like a hammer.
Even Kakashi, who had fought through countless battlefields, had never seen tens of thousands of bodies used as fuel like this.
Yūgao's eyes turned red.
Her voice trembled.
"Then… Satsuki and the others… were they turned into…"
Rage burned inside her chest.
Akira nodded slowly.
"Most likely."
"Ninja bodies contain far more chakra than ordinary people."
"They'd be considered premium fuel."
Guy's teeth ground together audibly as he clenched his fists.
His boiling anger was barely contained.
But Kakashi, the most experienced among them, forced himself to remain calm.
In a low voice he said,
"If we want to infiltrate the city and rescue survivors—or eliminate the enemy—we must find a way around that barrier first."
It was the standard ninja approach:
avoid direct confrontation through tactics first.
Akira hadn't even finished speaking before he poured cold water over the idea.
"Won't work. This barrier is just as ridiculous as the one in Konoha. It covers everything—sky, ground, every angle. There's no way around it."
"Since we can't avoid it, there's only one option left—"
"We charge straight in and fight our way through."
Kakashi felt the tactic was far too reckless and didn't quite fit the usual ANBU style, but under the circumstances, there really was no better plan.
In the end, everyone agreed to the simple and brutally direct approach.
With the strategy set, Kakashi took the lead. The five-man squad shot forward like arrows released from a bow, racing straight toward the central tower.
The instant Akira and the others stepped across the edge of the barrier—
B, inside the tower, suddenly snapped his eyes open.
He hurried to A's side and reported urgently.
"Boss. We've got intruders."
A froze for a moment, his brow furrowing deeply.
"They're here already?"
According to his calculations, Konoha should have taken at least a week before making a move. Didn't they conduct reconnaissance beforehand?
To a ninja, intelligence was life itself.
With proper information and the right methods, even jōnin had been known to assassinate kage-level opponents.
What A could never have imagined was that Akira had uncovered nearly everything about him from just a few sentences spoken by Yugao.
To a true expert in medical ninjutsu, the principles behind that so-called secret technique weren't particularly complicated.
After a moment of thought, A gave a decisive order.
"Call everyone together. Let's see exactly what kind of trash has come knocking."
The warning barrier could detect intruders, but it wasn't sophisticated enough to identify who they were.
B immediately left to carry out the order.
Down in the underground dungeon, East was in the middle of frantically draining blood from a captive when he heard the signal to assemble.
His face darkened like the bottom of a pot.
He had been just about to break through to jōnin level, and now he was being interrupted at the most critical moment.
Anyone would be furious.
Not long after, A stood atop the tower's platform with two jōnin and four chūnin, glaring in the direction Akira's team was approaching.
---
The moment Akira and the others truly stepped into the city, their anger exploded.
Everywhere they looked, the entire city seemed coated in black paint—the stains left behind by dried blood.
Might Guy roared in fury.
"How many people did these animals slaughter?!"
Even someone who had lived through the Great Ninja Wars felt his nerves rattled by the hellish scene.
The stench in the air was so thick it was suffocating, as if countless vengeful spirits were crying out around them.
Kakashi's gaze turned icy.
But reason told him their priority was simple—wipe these scum out completely.
They absolutely could not allow them to escape.
If they did, tragedies like this would happen again and again.
And if they slipped into the interior of the Land of Fire, the consequences would be unimaginable.
"Guy. We have to eliminate them all. No one gets away."
Guy nodded heavily, rage burning in his eyes, though he maintained his combat focus.
The five continued advancing.
Soon, beside an artificial lake, they finally came face to face with their enemies.
---
A was over fifty years old, yet thanks to the nourishment of the forbidden jutsu, he looked like a man barely in his thirties.
When he saw them, he didn't panic at all. Instead, he smiled with amusement.
"Well, well… Konoha actually sent you, Kakashi Hatake."
"And that woman who ran away before actually came back to die. Quite brave."
As for the rest—
A glanced at them briefly and dismissed them as insignificant.
Among Konoha's current generation, Kakashi's reputation was enormous.
"The Copy Ninja."
"Konoha's First Technician."
His titles were famous across the ninja world.
Compared to him, Guy and Yamato were still relatively unknown.
Yamato spent most of his time working masked operations in the ANBU.
And Guy, in outsiders' eyes, was just an odd taijutsu fanatic with a mediocre record in his youth.
As for Yūgao and Akira—
they were nobodies.
After mocking Kakashi, A's gaze landed on Akira.
He paused in surprise—then burst into harsh laughter.
"A genin? Have the leaders of Konoha lost their minds?"
"They actually sent a genin to a mission like this?"
To A, it was ridiculous.
If they had sent a chūnin, he might have understood.
But a genin?
Who exactly were they insulting?
Faced with the ridicule, Akira didn't even twitch an eyebrow. His harmless smile remained unchanged.
Kakashi stared coldly at the seven enemies, already gripping a kunai.
"We're here under orders to eliminate you."
"Of course… surrender is still an option."
A laughed even harder, nearly to the point of tears.
"Kakashi, did you just wake up?"
"Surrender? To you?"
"If I were afraid of Konoha, do you think I would have slaughtered every living person in this city?"
"You've been to war. Can't handle a little bloodshed now?"
"Don't pretend to be a saint."
Then his gaze turned greedy.
"But your blood… that's good stuff."
"The blood of a jōnin is powerful nourishment. One of you is worth a thousand useless civilians."
He looked at Kakashi's group like a feast laid out before him.
Aside from the annoying genin Akira, the other four were all excellent prey.
If he drained the blood of four jōnin, he might not reach kage level, but his strength would increase dramatically.
"Konoha didn't send a suppression force."
"They sent delivery."
Behind him, B and C stared with glowing eyes, eager to rush forward and feast.
But when they glanced at A standing before them, they quickly restrained themselves.
Anyone who tried to compete with A for prey was as good as dead.
Even in his normal state, A possessed elite jōnin strength. When he unleashed his full power, the two of them together wouldn't be able to defeat him.
---
Kakashi quietly issued orders.
"These people feel… wrong. Stay sharp."
"I'll take the three jōnin with Guy and Yamato."
"Akira, Yūgao—you handle the four chūnin."
"Be careful."
"Akira, keep an eye on Yūgao."
Akira nodded lightly.
"Don't worry, Kakashi-sensei. I'll keep things under control."
For some reason, his blood was beginning to boil.
A faint excitement stirred within him.
Let's hope they can push me to my limits…
Otherwise this would be boring.
Yūgao wanted to insist she could handle things herself, but the memory of being overwhelmed before still lingered.
Those chūnin possessed terrifying taijutsu.
One mistake and it would mean instant death.
Standing beside her, Akira slowly drew the short blade at his waist. The edge gleamed coldly.
Looking at the four hostile chūnin across from them, he spoke calmly.
"Yūgao-san, just focus on killing."
"I'll watch your back."
"No one's going to hurt you."
His words were meant to break the psychological pressure weighing on her.
Yūgao felt warmth in her chest and nodded firmly.
"Those monsters… none of them are leaving alive."
As the battle hung on the verge of erupting, Akira gave one last reminder.
"Kakashi-sensei—don't underestimate them."
"Focus the same way you do when Guy-sensei opens the Eight Gates."
Kakashi nodded seriously.
Inside his mind, every alarm was already ringing.
Just as Akira prepared to move, he suddenly turned back and asked:
"Sensei… if I use a special bloodline ability, will you keep it secret?"
Kakashi, Guy, and Yamato all froze mid-motion.
Seeing the confident smile on Akira's face, they immediately understood.
"So you actually succeeded?"
Kakashi had once given him the method for combining chakra natures, so success itself wasn't shocking.
What shocked him was that Akira had done it on the first attempt.
Akira's lips curled upward.
"Then watch closely."
"Let's see how good this new ability really is."
"Assuming these guys can push me far enough to use it."
Yūgao immediately promised in a serious tone.
"Whatever monstrous ability you show… I'll take the secret to my grave."
Kakashi and Guy also spoke up instantly.
"Our mouths are sealed."
Yamato hesitated for a brief second—as an ANBU captain, secrecy rules were important.
But when he looked at Akira's upright figure, he threw those rules aside.
"Don't worry."
"As far as I'm concerned, I didn't see anything today."
Akira chuckled softly.
"Then their fate is sealed."
Honestly, even if it were exposed, it wouldn't matter too much.
He simply didn't want the hassle of being treated like a lab specimen—or pushed into becoming a rogue ninja by the village leadership.
At that moment, Kakashi charged forward with Guy and Yamato like three raging tigers, rushing toward A, B, and C.
Normally, battles between jōnin began with careful probing.
But this time—
both sides opened with killing intent from the very first move.