The night laid quietly over the village, but Hiten's clones moved through it like fractures—each one carrying the same intent, and the same urgency.
One clone crouched low on the tiled roof of a narrow house, watching through a half-open window. Inside, a man sat cross-legged, repairing a torn net. The rope lay coiled beside him.
The clone didn't wait.
It slipped through the window without a sound, landing behind the man. A hand covered his mouth, the other drove a kunai cleanly into his throat. The man struggled for a second before going limp.
The clone caught the body before it hit the floor, easing it down. His eyes flicked to the rope.
"…Got it." He grabbed it, wrapped it around his arm, and disappeared into the night.
Another moved through a darker part of the village, stepping over puddles and discarded crates. He stopped in front of a small house and knocked once.
No response.
He tried the handle only to find it unlocked.
Inside, the room was empty. No movement. No sound. The bed was untouched.
"…Not here." The clone clicked his tongue, scanning the room once more before stepping out.
A third clone dropped into an alley. Ahead, two figures walked side by side, talking quietly. One of them had the rope slung casually over his shoulder.
The clone moved fast.
He struck the wrong man first. The body fell instantly, blood spilling across the ground.
The second man froze for half a second—just enough to understand what had happened.
"…Wha—"
The clone corrected his mistake, driving his blade forward again, silencing him before the man use his any ninjutsu.
Both bodies hit the ground.
The clone stood still for a moment, staring at them.
"The target wasn't the one with the rope...Who would have thought?"
He picked up the rope, ignoring the first body entirely, and vanished before anyone could turn the corner.
Another clone reached a house just as a woman opened the door from inside. She blinked in confusion, barely registering the figure in front of her.
"You're—"
The clone pushed past her without a word, scanning the room.
No rope, and no sign of the target. He turned, eyes narrowing.
"Where is he?"
"I—what are you doing in my—" The clone didn't answer and left quickly.
The door swung open behind him as the woman's voice rose in confusion and fear.
Farther from the center, one clone watched from the shadows as a fisherman stumbled home, tired and unaware. The rope hung loosely from his hand, dragging slightly against the ground.
The clone waited until the man turned into a narrow path between houses.
Hiten threw one shuriken, cutting the man's neck, letting the man bleed to death within seconds.
The clone paused for just a second, listening to the distant ringing that still echoed faintly through the village.
"The Samurai are looking for us by now."
Across the village, the pattern repeated. Some targets fell without a sound while some were missing.
---
Hiten, tired and in pain, stumbling, made his way to the village outskirts, through the narrow alleys and over the rooftops which were encased in shadows.
The staff of Kaiyo Harvest had alerted the samurai and the police, who were slowly but surely getting closer and closer to Hiten.
A samurai, with his sword in hand ran through the streets. His eyes scanned the dark streets with with great skill, collecting any and all traces of his target.
A palm print.
The Samurai stopped and checked the clue. The print was slightly—warmer than the cold wall it was on.
"It's sweat...the criminal is tired and unable to run properly. The prints continue on through the alley. He must have been using walls to support himself..."
The samurai coated his sword in chakra causing it to light up, signalling the other samurai.
"What did you find? Any leads?" One asked, "The criminal might be in here, come with me."
The two samurai ran through the alley, chasing the small traces of moisture on the dusty walls.
"Wait. The prints are getting drier! We're going the wrong way."
"Okay." They both turned and immediately ran the other way.
The clones of Hiten clicked his tongue, before continuing the trail on the samurai.
A loud explosion sound rang out. Catching the duo's attention, who turned to face the source of the noise. "Sounded like a explosion tag..."
"Our target is a shinobi, the witness saw criminal use jutsu."
The two jumped over the building and landed nearby the place of explosion, finding a fellow shinobi—dazed and fallen on the floor.
They checked the man for injuries only to find none, then the area where it exploded, but no fire.
"It was a flashbang tag." The man said, holding his dizzy head in mild pain.
"So it was a decoy. The prints must have dried by now..."
The clone Hiten watched, every other clone made sure any samurai or officer was distracted.
The samurai had lost the trail, just like all others.
---
The clone made his through the alleys, finding another one of Hiten's clones. One clones gave the rope he had and all his remaining chakra to the other—except for a small amount.
The samurai will eventually figure out that the clones were distracting whenever they were going in the correct direction.
The clone made himself seen, making the samurai chase him—away from the original. Each clone performed this, pass on the baton and then distract the people.
Some even lead the samurai in the right direction to plant doubt.
Hiten slowly walked out of the village just barely, he fell to the ground from chakra exhaustion. He saw a clone approach him, making him smirk.
"So...how did it go? Have we eliminated the targets?" Hiten asked clone, who slowly refilled chakra into Hiten.
Adding or removing a lot of chakra in a small timespan causes chakra shocks—they aren't pleasant.
"Some of us succeeded, some failed and a few killed innocents mistaking them as targets. A shame really." The clone said, handing over a storage scroll with the rope.
"So you guys are just as strained. Damn...I really hate overusing my eyes." Hiten said, standing over upright, with only little signs of exhaustion.
He had at least half of his reserves.
"Where now? Konoha is in the west, Keiko is in the north of us."
"It's a straight path to konoha, while, we are on the southern outskirts of this village. We will have to go around this village." Hiten said, before running towards konoha.
The mission was complete on paper, he eliminated the chakra wielders and brought back evidence. The team were not the main priority here.
---
The huge leaves, stems and trunks of trees—Hiten had crashed into them several times in the span of just a few minutes. The fact that it was midnight now, did not help.
Hiten stopped for awhile and took out a ration bar, eating it in one gulp before resuming journey.
*Shhhhhh*
A shuriken whizzed throught the air and hit Hiten on his back, making him turn to face where it came from.
A male, probably a teen, sat on tree branch, his legs swinging with no care in the world. His face was covered by the another tree branch's shadow, and his clothes looked like—shinobi armor?
The took out a mask and wore it, before jumping down to the ground with a silent landing. The man's fingers stretched and and folded, as if itching for combat.
"Uchiha Hiten, right? That shuriken on your back...I didn't really expect it to really hit. You are either not in any condition to fight—or incompetent." He placed his hand in his pocket, "My guess is on the latter!"
Hiten keenly observed the man, only to find nothing. "Who are you? You don't look like one of us." Hiten asked, taking out a kunai for what's to come.
"You're right. I'm not of the Land of Fire. Did my accent give it away? Anyways, I'm Ko." Ko replied.
Ko lunged forward, landing a powerful kick into Hiten's side, not giving time to think of what Ko said, let alone dodged the attack.
"You might be wondering, 'He isn't samurai not is he leaf shinobi. How did someone else find me?" Ko said, watching Hiten stand up using the help of a tree.
"The thought did cross my mind. Will you tell me or keep your secrets?" Hiten said, flowing chakra through his body.
"You didn't notice the several trackers in the ropes you are carrying? I'm sure that snitch told you." Ko casually spoke, Hiten Hiten grit his teeth.
'Did he lie to me? Weren't the trackers only mentioned to work when activated?' Hiten internally cursed Rinko and everyone in that village.
"Oh! So you didn't know? A shame, really!" Hiten could feel the mocking grin despite the mask blocking Ko's face.
'Those fishermen themselves didn't know it either. But, it's still fun to mock this poor fellow.' Ko thought, as Hiten launched a few shuriken.
Ko weaved past them and closed the distance, taking out two black batons, aiming to swing at Hiten's head.
Hiten blocked with his kunai, and used his other hand to land a punch. Ko moved his head just a little for the punch to pass by, using his baton to bend Hiten's elbow, before driving it into his stomach.
Hiten took the blow and jumped back, wiping the blood of his lips. "The scent of your blood...it's amazing!" Ko said with a smile.
Hiten launched a volley of shuriken, cutting through the air, some clashed with each other and surrounded Ko from all sides.
Ko dodged the screeching shuriken coming from behind as if he had eyes behind his head—with great ease. He used his baton to accurately hit shuriken, reflecting them back to Hiten without even looking at them.
Hiten sidestepped the incoming shuriken, parried the thrown baton, just to get kneed in the face. The adrenaline from the pain cleared his mind and sharpened his senses.
He threw a kunai just as Ko began to wail on Hiten with barrages. The kunai missed but bounced on a tree, bounced again on a wall, before coming back to Hiten—or Ko, who on top of him.
The kunai hit Ko straight in his face, breaking his mask and spilling blood on Hiten. Ko fell off from Hiten, allowing him to escape.
Ko stood up slowly, revealing what the kunai did to him. A deep cut from one side his cheek to the other, causing the grin on Ko's to like like that of a maniac.
But that wasn't what Hiten looked at—it was the eyes. They were slashed out in a cross cross manner.
"Didn't expect this, did you?" Ko said with a smirk, looking at Hiten.
'Enhanced senses. Nothing I cannot deal with.' Hiten thought, weaving handseals.
Ko attracted his batons back to him, before throwing at Hiten, who completed his final seal. Wind style: silent breakthrough.
An almost completely silent wind current began surrounding both Ko and Hiten, muffling every sound to the point even Ko struggled to hear things. Hiten threw another batch of shuriken, but this time, covered in wind chakra.
Ko barely dodged one, grazed by another, only to be hit by one straight in the abdomen. Ko reached to take it out, but couldn't. There was an electrical current running through his muscles.
Hiten was already a meter away, an augmented punch ready to dish out. Ko couldn't even clench his muscles to bear it, enduring the full force of the attacks that followed.
Hiten kept punching Ko repeatedly like a piston machine, the sound of flesh hitting machine spread like a monotonous thud.
'I'll finish him off!' Hiten pulled his fist back, opening it to straighten his fingers, for a stabbing attack.
Ko caught it.
Hiten's eyes widened. Ko broke through the paralysis, squeezing Hiten's fingers with a crunch.
"Adding dirt to your body so I couldn't smell, adding that wind current so I couldn't hear or feel you...What about your body temperature, the clicking of your joints, the vibrations in the ground?"
Hiten grunted in pain from his fingers being broken, tried to headbutt Ko. It failed miserably as Ko lifted Hiten in the air, smashing his back down on his knee, making him scream.
Hiten fell to the floor, watching the batons fly towards Konoha, who twirled and rubbed them together after holding them—as if it was some sort of ritual.
Ko raised his baton to end Hiten, bringing it down with a loud sound. Ko frowned as it wasn't the sound bones breaking, nor was the sound of metal hitting muscles—it was the sound of a tree bark.
A Genjutsu.
Ko turned around in a flash, but not fast enough. Hiten trapped him in ninja steel wire, enhancing it with chakra.
"Auditory genjutsu... successful." Hiten said, stumbling towards Ko. His eyes blurred as he fell to the floor and stood up again, picking up a kunai, driving it into Ko chest—straight into the heart.
Both Ko and Hiten fell to the floor, Hiten watched blood fall out of Ko's chest in pulses.
He sighed before passing out.
---
Hiten woke up slowly after a while—maybe minutes, maybe hours. He saw the big dried puddle of blood.
There was no one laying in the puddle. Ko was gone, nowhere to be seen.
Hiten stood up and saw a note "See you later, Uchiha."
The ropes were also gone.
Hiten had failed.