As she kept reading, Tsunade's expression grew darker and darker until she finally slammed a hand down on the desk.
"These lunatics. What the hell are they trying to do? Have they completely lost their minds?"
Akira, standing nearby, looked puzzled. He had no idea what had happened.
Tsunade took a deep breath and handed him the report. "See for yourself. It's completely deranged."
Akira took the scroll and scanned through it quickly. His expression darkened at once. "Yeah. They've definitely gone off the deep end."
Shizune, standing beside them, spoke with obvious worry. "Tsunade-hime, the situation is critical. They've already wiped out several villages. Casualties are in the hundreds, and even the ninja teams stationed there were completely annihilated."
Tsunade turned to Akira, clearly wanting his read on it. "What do you think?"
Akira rubbed his chin, confusion flickering in his eyes. "I don't know much about this so-called Oni Clan. I don't remember seeing any detailed records about them in Konoha's archives."
A fringe clan like that was almost ghostlike in shinobi history. Very few people knew anything concrete about them.
Tsunade let out a quiet sigh, her gaze turning distant. "The Oni Clan really is mysterious, but I do know a little about them."
"They possess an extremely bizarre Ghost Transformation Jutsu. It lets the soul leave the body and kill from a great distance. It's nearly impossible to guard against."
"If mastered to its peak, they can even discard the flesh entirely and exist as pure spiritual entities. Supposedly their origins go all the way back to the era of the Sage of Six Paths."
"Back then they nearly took over the world with that twisted art. In the end, it was the Uchiha who brought them down."
"Because the Sharingan could see spiritual bodies, and genjutsu was the natural enemy of their jutsu."
"The Uchiha won that war, but it was brutal. To destroy the old monster who had already abandoned his body, they lost dozens of their best fighters."
Akira caught the key point immediately. "So the Sharingan is their natural counter?"
Tsunade nodded. That was exactly why she had shown him the report.
This mission had his name written all over it.
Across the current ninja world, the only active users of the Sharingan who could realistically be called on were Sasuke, who had defected, Itachi, Obito, Akira, and Kakashi.
And Kakashi had just returned from a long mission, then been worn out again yesterday by those two students of his. He was still laid up in the hospital.
Akira closed the scroll and looked Tsunade in the eye. "You want me to go."
Tsunade straightened. "Yes. You're the only one who can counter them. The situation is still getting worse. If we don't tear this rot out quickly, Konoha's authority in the Land of Fire is going to collapse."
The Land of Fire was vast. Beyond Konoha, its military center, there were plenty of smaller allied villages spread across the country.
Now the Oni Clan was butchering those allies without restraint. It was a direct slap across Konoha's face.
They had probably assumed that with the Uchiha massacred, no one in the world could stop them anymore.
Akira rose and adjusted his collar. "This is an S-rank mission, I assume?"
"Absolutely S-rank," Tsunade said without hesitation. "I'm assigning two elite jōnin to back you up. Their methods are too strange. A few extra hands will give us more flexibility."
In truth, Akira could have cleared it alone.
But he had never objected to working in a team.
The Legendary Sannin had been the same. Any one of them could stand on their own, but together they often became far more dangerous.
Akira nodded. "As long as you don't saddle me with dead weight. Though with the village stretched this thin, do we even have any idle jōnin left?"
Konoha was still desperate for manpower. That had become the norm.
Tsunade smiled mysteriously. "Relax. I've got the right people."
"Head to the village gate and wait. I'll send the signal."
Akira shook his head with a helpless laugh. "You're making it sound way more dramatic than it needs to be."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, his body dissolved into a flash of brilliant lightning and vanished from the office.
Shizune squinted from the glare and could not help sighing in admiration. "Akira's Lightning Flicker is getting more ridiculous by the day. At this point it's almost as fast as Flying Raijin."
Without even lifting her head from the paperwork, Tsunade answered with a trace of pride in her voice. "In a straight line, his Lightning Flicker is faster than the Raikage. That kind of technique can only be mastered by a monster with absolute chakra control."
This was no ordinary Body Flicker.
It was a high-level ninjutsu that effectively turned the body into pure elemental energy. At minimum, it was an A-rank jutsu.
Massive chakra reserves, microscopic control, and superhuman reflexes. Miss even one of those and it was impossible.
Tsunade searched through the duty roster for a while and finally managed to pull out two names.
More precisely, one tokubetsu jōnin and one veteran jōnin.
A mischievous smile tugged at her lips. "You'll do nicely."
At Konoha's main gate, Akira leaned against a pillar with his eyes closed, resting.
After a while, two familiar figures came into view.
He opened his eyes and laughed softly. "So it's you two. Makes sense. Against something this bizarre, there really isn't anyone more suited than her."
The two approaching were Kurenai Yūhi and Anko Mitarashi.
Kurenai was Konoha's foremost genjutsu specialist. She could not compare to someone like Itachi with a Sharingan, but in conventional genjutsu she was unquestionably top-tier.
As for Anko, Tsunade had most likely drafted her on the spot. Normally Anko handled village-side defense and rarely got sent far afield.
When the two reached him, Anko smacked him on the shoulder without ceremony. "Long time no see, brat. You've gotten tall as hell."
Even though they all lived in the same village, Akira had spent most of the past few years either buried in training or out on missions. They really had not crossed paths much.
Akira smiled wryly. "Anko-nee, we saw each other last month. You don't have to act like it's been ten years."
Anko rolled her eyes. "Oh, spare me. You spend every day holed up in the Hokage Tower. Seeing you is harder than seeing the Daimyō."
"I heard you're a jōnin now. Rank-wise, you're technically above me. Look at you, moving up in the world."
She was genuinely happy for him.
Beside her, Kurenai offered a gentle smile. As a jōnin, she had heard plenty more rumors about Akira than most, and there was open admiration in her eyes.
Once the brief greetings were over, Akira's expression sharpened. "This is an S-rank mission. The target is extremely dangerous. The reason Kurenai-sensei was called in is because the enemy specializes in spiritual and mental attacks. We need a true genjutsu expert to counter that."
Anko pointed at herself, baffled. "Then what am I here for? My genjutsu's barely passable."
Most shinobi knew enough to break ordinary illusions, but that was a long way from being an actual specialist.
Akira gave her a teasing look. "You? Obviously you're here to act as Kurenai-sensei's bodyguard."
Anko exploded instantly. "What? So I'm just the tank?"
***************************
Read advanced chapters ahead of everyone else on my P@treon.
P@treon/GodDragcell