Sukuna sat on the rooftop of an empty building just outside Konoha, munching on a cold rice ball. His eyes scanned the horizon lazily, but his mind was elsewhere.
"I need real fights," he muttered. "Not schoolyard spars or pulling punches. Even bandit hunting isn't helping me anymore."
He'd been getting stronger, but he could go only so far by just fighting low-level shrubs—real battle experience, that was what he needed to push himself. Now that he thought about it, his condition wasn't that different from Sasuke's.
He half intended to go find Might Guy and spar with him day and night to improve. However, that would have little benefit for him. He could only use Taijutsu against Guy, and while his form and technique would drastically improve, his current age held him back.
He was already pushing himself enough with morning training under a restraining vow as it was.
It was a simple enough vow—as long as the training went on, his movements would be restricted, not with weights but rather like someone restraining his body itself, making it harder to move. He didn't ask anything in return for this restriction, as there wasn't much danger he was putting himself in in the first place.
He basically did it to keep up with Naruto and the others during training and not hold back. Otherwise, his progress would have surpassed them by a long shot.
That's when an idea popped into his head.
So, Guy was out for the time being. He couldn't train in curse techniques with him anyway.
"What if I hunt bounties?" he pondered.
It sounded perfect. He could find dangerous criminals, fight strong enemies, and earn money while doing it. Plus, he could move through his Kamui dimension, travel fast, and hide his identity. No one would know it was him.
At first, he just dismissed the idea—it sounded way too troublesome. However, as desperation started to settle in with time and he found himself stuck without improvement,
He had no other option but to give this idea a serious overlook.
There was only one problem—he had no idea where the bounty market was.
"I do remember Shikamaru's team found one between Konoha and the Fire Temple border while they were searching for Kakuzu and Hidan, so that sounds like a good place to look. However, that's not enough. I could end up searching for months and not find anything if I just went by that much intel.
Who knows if that bounty post even exists right now..." he sighed.
He knew about the official mission board in Konoha, but they'd never let an academy student take on bounty missions. Especially not someone like him. He needed the underground market—the black market where missing-nin and rogue bounty hunters operated.
'Tch... I wouldn't know unless I try.' He quickly gulped down the rice cake and got up, ready to depart—and thus began his little investigation.
Every time school ended, he slipped out through Kamui, appearing in random towns, villages, and shady-looking taverns. Dressed in plain dark clothes and a hood, he listened, observed, and occasionally asked the right questions with a forced adult voice.
Though that last one didn't help much since anyone could pick him out as a kid from miles away—mainly because of his height.
'If only I knew Transformation Jutsu...' The irritation was real.
He avoided asking directly, of course. That would be stupid.
Instead, he'd ask things like:
"Heard anyone talkin' about missing-nin lately?"
"Know where a guy could earn some coin off dangerous targets?"
"Any mercenaries hiring muscle nearby?"
Most people ignored him. Some gave him weird looks. A few drunk ones mentioned rumors, like a place in Tanzaku Town, or whispers about a broker near the River Country border.
Sukuna followed the trail. He didn't have much time to allocate to this task since there was only so much time he could be outside of the village before others started to get suspicious.
He watched quiet alleyways, noticed who came and went from suspicious-looking shops, and tracked odd conversations in ramen stalls. Slowly, he began to piece together a path.
He even tailed a few bounty hunters in and out of small towns, using Kamui to remain invisible.
After several days of sneaking and spying, he finally overheard something useful in a dark bar:
"Client meeting's in the west warehouse. Password's 'Crows don't sing.' You forget that, you don't come back."
Sukuna blinked.
This certainly didn't look like the address to the nearby bounty post, but they had him hooked now. He had no idea what this was about, but boredom has its way of making people do stupid shit.
So he followed them...
Hidden in the shadow of a tall tree, Sukuna crouched low, his CE suppressed. To gain Kamui, he had extensively trained in stealth back then, and now that was coming in handy.
His eyes focused on the small clearing ahead. There were six men in the center, cloaked figures with scratched headbands—missing-nin, no doubt.
Sukuna never understood the logic of keeping that headband after defecting from a ninja village. That was pretty counterproductive. Not to mention—even if they were going to keep the headband, why even bother scratching it in the middle, saying everything loud and clear that they were indeed missing-nin.
Sometimes Sukuna didn't understand the logic of this world.
Strangely enough, most of the said bounty hunters were actually missing-nin. Shinobi associated with a village didn't usually go out of their way to hunt for bounties. Maybe some did if they were running out of money, but missions from the village mostly gave them a steady income.
But Sukuna also knew that missions were pretty abundant in Konoha. Other Shinobi villages didn't have this luxury, let alone a small village like the one these missing-nin were from.
He didn't recognize the sign on their headbands, and he made sure to remember all five major Shinobi village symbols.
They were tense, waiting. One of them even dragged out a bag. The movement from inside it told Sukuna everything he wanted to know.
'Human trafficking, or a capture-alive request from their so-called client.'
From a distance, Sukuna couldn't tell who it was, but it looked like they were about to sell this person like an object.
"So it's not a bounty post?" Sukuna muttered, disappointment flickering in his voice. "Tch. What a bunch of trash."
It still could be a bounty post, but hardly any bounty needed the target alive. So this was mostly human trafficking. Not something Sukuna liked.
He wasn't a sage to go out of his way to stop these kinds of acts from happening—this world was filled with degenerates like these people. However, since this was happening in front of him...
'Whoever is inside that bag, has good luck.' He smirked.
They waited for a few more minutes until Sukuna sensed something, negative emotion. Not directed at him but toward these missing-nin.
'Whoever these people are, they seem to have angered the wrong sort of person.' Sukuna sighed. He sensed multiple signatures around him—all targeting these missing-nin.
And then it began. Dozens of ninja dropped from the trees, surrounding the clearing in seconds. They all wore the same headbands as the missing-nin, only without the scratches. They weren't clients. They were hunters. An ambush.
'So, it's their home village, huh... makes sense.' Sukuna nodded. Now he thought he might not have to act.
"Shit... Kusa Hunter-nin..." one of the rogue-nin shouted.
The clearing exploded into chaos.
Sukuna tilted his head, hand twitching to take some action.
"I guess as long as they capture those missing-nin and none of them dies, I should be fine, right..." Giving himself a half-hearted excuse, he made a decision.
Grinning, he stepped out from the shadows and phased into the center of the battle using Kamui. One second he was watching, and the next, he was right there—between blades, kunai, and startled faces.
"What the hell—who's that kid?!" one Kusa shinobi yelled, not seeing Sukuna's face. However, the height gave it away.
"Which side is he on!?"
The answer was neither.
Sukuna laughed as a missing-nin lunged at him with a wind-enhanced slash. Just as the blade should've sliced him in half, his body flickered and passed through it. Kamui.
"Let me show you the power of youth..!" Sukuna taunted before throwing a hard punch into the man's gut, sending him flying into a tree.
A little shameless, butting in where he had no business—but this was an excellent chance to get some real fighting experience with his Kamui. Almost perfect since he wasn't trying to kill any of them either way, so he wasn't going to use his curse technique either.
Just Kamui and hand-to-hand.
Another shinobi tried binding him with a paralysis seal. Sukuna ran toward him, and at the last second, phased through the paper tag like it wasn't even there, appearing on the other side with a spinning kick that knocked the man unconscious.
Both sides were confused.
"This brat knows space-time jutsu," one missing-nin growled.
"He's not on our list either," said a Kusagakure tracker. "Who is he?!"
Meanwhile, Sukuna was dancing through the battlefield like a ghost. Blades passed through him. Explosions missed him by inches. Not because they were weak, but because he was training—activating and deactivating Kamui in perfect rhythm, phasing in and out of reality at just the right moments.
A shinobi tried to grab him from behind—Sukuna vanished mid-step and reappeared behind the man, whispering, "Stay there."
He saw another coming at him and flicked his hand. Suddenly the man's leg stuck to the ground like someone had used glue...
'Hehehe... Curse Technique Reversed: Attach...'
The man was baffled at the sudden loss of mobility.
Sukuna delivered a brutal elbow to the man's neck, knocking him out cold.
Another moment, he let three ninja surround him. They attacked at once, hoping to land a hit from three angles. Just before the weapons touched him, he phased—they all stumbled through empty air and hit each other instead.
"Man, you guys are perfect training dummies," Sukuna said, stretching his neck. "I should find more ninja meetings to crash from now on."
Some of the stronger Kusa ninja tried to stop him seriously now. They did notice that he wasn't going for the kill—even when he had a chance—the kid was mostly playing around with them.
This, in fact, was more annoying. This bastard was just causing trouble for them.
They coordinated, using smoke bombs, sealing tags, and clones. One even managed to grab Sukuna's arm for a split second before Sukuna used Kamui again and slipped out of reality.
"Ah, I was a little late there," Sukuna admitted. "This is the exact reason I need training."
He hit the man in the stomach and sent him flying through a bush.
By now, both sides were panicking.
"Retreat! That kid's not normal!"
"He's not even part of this mission—what kind of lunatic jumps into a battle for fun?!"
However, just then one of the missing-nin ran and grabbed the bag from earlier.
Opening it, he put his kunai at the person's neck.
"This..." Sukuna was taken aback after seeing who was inside...
xxx
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