Although Haruma had already decided that tonight would be a feast, he was in no hurry to make a move.
Instead, he strolled leisurely down the streets with Hinata, releasing his sensory perception in secret, quietly searching for the presence of nearby shinobi, and slowly guiding Hinata closer to them.
It did not take long before Haruma located the nearest ninja. This one turned out to be a guard stationed at the entrance of a gambling hall.
Behind his sunglasses, his eyes had at some point already turned into the three tomoe sharingan.
Haruma discreetly measured the guard's chakra reserves, larger than those of his civilian classmates at graduation. He should be at the level of a chunin. However, he wore no forehead protector, which meant he was not officially employed, but rather a wandering ninja.
Haruma felt a faint tinge of disappointment.
What a pity that he wasn't a shinobi from another great village, if he were, Haruma could have devoured him and gained techniques unique to that village. But then again, this was the Land of Fire's territory. It was hardly likely for other villages' shinobi to wander about here.
After observing the gambling hall's guard, Haruma took Hinata elsewhere, studying other shinobi scattered throughout the town.
What he found was that they were all the same: either guards at gambling halls, or hired muscle for local gangs, wandering ninja, some perhaps even missing-nin.
After a full circuit of the town, Haruma had identified six potential targets. Their chakra varied, the strongest only reached the level of a chunin, while the weakest did not even measure up to an academy sixth-year student.
Still, even a mosquito is meat.
Haruma resolved to find the right moment to devour them all.
And that right moment, he would soon create with his own hands.
Once he finished wandering the streets with Hinata, Haruma shared dinner with her at a stall, then escorted her back to the inn. From there, he followed his sensory link straight to Kurenai Yuhi's location.
What he discovered was that Kurenai was already drinking shochu, cheeks flushed red, drunk to the point that she didn't even notice Haruma arrive.
Reassured, Haruma left her be.
Slipping into a back alley, Haruma performed the Transformation Jutsu, disguising himself as an ordinary middle-aged man with toad-shaped sunglasses, before heading toward the gambling hall once more.
Gazing at the wandering ninja who stood guard, Haruma did not approach directly. Instead, his three tomoe sharingan spun into life, and he cast a genjutsu from afar, seizing the man's will.
What? Falling into a sharingan genjutsu without even meeting its gaze?
Yes. While not looking directly at a sharingan could sometimes lessen the Uchiha clan's control, that was only true against an ordinary sharingan, and ordinary Uchiha, not against Shisui or Itachi Uchiha, true masters of genjutsu.
For shinobi like Shisui and Itachi, forcing their opponent to meet their eyes was unnecessary. Merely seeing their target, or making a small gesture, was enough to ensnare them.
In Shisui's case, he did not even need to see the enemy at all. As long as he sensed them, he could cast illusions across the range that only the Byakugan could usually perceive.
That was why Shisui was hailed as the Uchiha clan's greatest master of genjutsu.
Having devoured Shisui's corpse and inherited his talent for genjutsu and the Body Flicker Technique, Haruma now stood at a similar height. He no longer needed to meet an enemy's gaze. Simply seeing them was enough to cast genjutsu.
Anyone unable to perceive Yin Release chakra invading their minds would inevitably fall under the control of Haruma's sharingan.
Under Haruma's hypnotic illusion, the wandering ninja first went slack-faced, then returned to normal. Without reporting to anyone inside the gambling hall, he abandoned his post entirely and walked out of town.
Haruma did not follow him. Instead, he moved on to the next target, controlling each in turn with the sharingan's illusions.
Before the three tomoe sharingan, even an ordinary jonin would struggle to resist, let alone these wandering shinobi and missing-nin.
No close contact, no eye-to-eye confrontation, and still none could endure Haruma's illusions.
When he entranced one ninja serving as a gang boss's bodyguard, Haruma went a step further, hypnotizing the boss himself and forcing him to hand over his entire fortune.
He couldn't help it. Haruma had been poor for too long, and so he robbed the rich—for himself.
But when Haruma obtained the gang boss's wealth, he realized he had underestimated how warped this world truly was. Despite possessing overwhelming power, shinobi lived like tools, jacks-of-all-trades, among the poorest professions in existence.
Zabuza Momochi, still had to work under Gato.
Sakura Haruno, successor to Tsunade the medical saint, would later still be repaying house loans in Boruto's era.
If even elite jonin and Kage-level shinobi lived in poverty, what hope was there for those beneath them?
Meanwhile, ordinary civilians, without strength, without jutsu, were obscenely wealthy.
Even missing-nin, killers of countless people, never plundered tycoons like Gato.How deeply brainwashed must they be, to become rogues yet still abide by the shinobi "principle" of earning money only through missions?
Even the Kazekage of Sunagakure, when his entire village was starving, when the feudal lord endlessly cut military funding, never resorted to assassinating the lord and replacing him with someone more pliant.
Suddenly, Haruma found himself with a shred of admiration for this world's shinobi.
But he could never be like them.
As long as he had no principles, he would never feel guilt.
So, Haruma unhesitatingly took all of the gang boss's possessions, cash, land deeds, everything.
Even without counting the deeds, the money alone could have bought several Sarutobi Asumas.
Now flush with wealth, Haruma felt a deep surge of satisfaction and even spared the gang boss's life. Still, to avoid unforeseen trouble, he hypnotized the boss to leave town at once. Whether the man lived or died once the Yin Release chakra dispersed would be fate's decision.
After sending away the hypnotized bodyguard as well, Haruma still did not rush to devour them. Instead, he deposited all of the gang boss's fortune at the town's bank and liquidated the land deeds for cash.
Disguised by the Transformation Jutsu, he left no trace of himself behind. Keeping only a small sum on hand and saving the rest, Haruma finally departed the town to enjoy a meal beyond its walls.
"This will be the first time I've devoured the living. I wonder how it differs from consuming the dead?"
Standing before a dazed ninja awaiting his command, Haruma muttered to himself.
With that thought, he reached out and clutched the man's throat. Black and red mist seeped from his hand, staining his palm pure black, engulfing the shinobi's entire body in a shroud of darkness.
From Haruma's palm, at the point where it touched the man's neck, a black hole seemed to open, exuding a gravitational pull that dragged the unresisting ninja inward.
It was a strange, wondrous sight. The man's body warped, twisting into unnatural shapes, collapsing like an abstraction, before vanishing into Haruma's hand.
Through the black hole into an alternate dimension, the shinobi's body was sucked into the mysterious bead. There, an irresistible force broke him apart, refining both body and chakra into pure energy to strengthen Haruma's physical and spiritual power.
Even his memories were sliced apart, transformed into a film awaiting Haruma's perusal.
Unlike with Shisui's corpse, this time Haruma had devoured a living, complete individual. Thus, the bead emitted not only black light of energy, but also a blue glow from time to time.
The black aura enhanced Haruma's body and mind, but the blue glow had only one purpose.
To strengthen the soul.
Yes, by devouring a living, whole individual, the mysterious bead had refined not only body and chakra, but the soul itself.
Realizing this, Haruma drew in a sharp breath.
No wonder devouring the living granted a full one hundred percent of their power.Body, chakra, and soul alike, all refined into pure energy to raise the host's strength without a single drawback.
What a truly cannibalistic technique… and Haruma liked it immensely.
So, one by one, he devoured the rest of the ninja as well.
Once the mysterious bead had refined them all, the chakra he would extract in the coming days would once again flow like water from an open tap. Alas, the faucet would not remain open for long, for the power gained from these few ninjas was nothing compared to Shisui's corpse.
And of course, it made sense. Several chunin, even genin, could never compare to the freshly dead body of a Kage-level ninja.
Still, the harvest was great.
From this point forward, Haruma resolved, if his prey could be kept alive, then alive they would remain.
The difference between devouring the living and the dead was simply far too great.