The moment the first white feather drifted from the sky like snow from another world, the thunderous roar of the stadium was silenced, like someone had hit mute on the entire arena.
In less than a second, all sound vanished.
Faces filled with excitement, anger, or anticipation froze mid-expression.
And then,
One by one, they collapsed.
Puppets with their strings cut. Lifeless. Unconscious.
Crane followed suit.
He let his body crash against the cold stone stairs, cheek pressed against the gritty surface, even letting out a muffled groan as if lost in a dream.
His eyes were closed, but his mind had never been clearer.
His senses, polished like spotless mirrors, reflected everything around him with perfect clarity.
The scent of chakra mixed with scorched dust lingered in the air.
The thuds of bodies hitting the ground echoed in his ears.
Hunting hour… had begun.
Chaos exploded.
"Enemy attack!"
"It's the Sand and Sound shinobi!"
Disguises were discarded. Enemy ninjas leapt onto rooftops. Explosive tags tore through the silent genjutsu.
Civilians and Genin snapped out of it, only to be consumed by panic and fear.
Crane "woke up."
He stumbled upright, face painted in the perfect mask of terror and confusion, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"AAAAHH! What's happening?!"
Blending into the stampede, he was just another terrified background extra.
He tripped and stumbled, barely dodging each blast by what seemed like luck.
But with every step, he was moving, precisely, purposefully, toward one target:
The Four Purple Flame Formation.
Where the Sound Four stood.
"Earth Style: Earth Shore Return!"
Jirōbō slammed both palms into the ground.
BOOM!
A towering wall of earth erupted, crashing toward a group of Konoha medical-nin who couldn't dodge in time.
The shadow of death loomed overhead.
But in that exact moment, while Crane was "rolling away" from a nearby blast, his toe accidentally kicked a fist-sized rock.
Whizz!
The stone curved through the air, its arc impossibly sharp, and didn't hit the wall directly.
Instead, it struck a hidden structural flaw, a thin junction of chakra flows deep within the wall's foundation.
Crack.
A faint sound.
And then, the wall crumbled.
Like a tower of cards losing its final support beam.
Dust filled the air.
The Konoha medics stared up in disbelief, alive by pure miracle.
"Was the wall unstable?"
"Unbelievable luck!"
No one noticed the pebble.
No one saw the "useless" Genin still screaming as he ran away.
Crane's true target was the Sound Four.
He rapidly formed hand seals.
"Water Style: Water Clone Jutsu!"
A copy appeared, identical to him, then let out an even louder scream and charged off in the opposite direction like a headless chicken.
That single idiotic distraction was enough to draw Tayuya and Kidōmaru's eyes for a split-second.
And that was all Crane needed.
He vanished into the smoke and chaos, activating Silent Killing to its highest mastery.
A ghost.
He swept behind the four from their blind spot, a crack in their defense that no one else could see.
His fingers brushed against each of them in turn, light as dragonflies on water.
One touch per target.
And in his mind, the system roared to life:
[Contact Successful: 'Demonic Flute: Phantom Sound Chains' copied at 30% resolution.]
[Contact Successful: 'Spider Nest Opening' copied at 40% resolution.]
[Contact Successful: 'Twin Magic Attack' copied at 25% resolution.]
[Contact Successful: 'Earth Style: Earth Prison Dome of Magnificent Nothingness' copied at 35% resolution.]
Crane's pulse raced with joy.
But copying wasn't enough.
These four were key players in Sasuke's defection later down the timeline.
Crane decided,
He would cripple them now.
He fused the sound wave attack theory he had just stolen with the chakra shockwave technique he'd acquired from Neji's Gentle Fist.
Then he picked up a stray kunai from the battlefield.
Still wearing the face of a panicked fool, he hurled it randomly toward nowhere, like a last-ditch effort from a dying Genin.
But the moment that kunai left his hand,
Its tip became a beacon for invisible, high-frequency chakra vibrations.
Thud.
The kunai embedded in the ground at the exact center of the Sound Four's formation.
No flash. No bang.
Just a soft hum.
Then, a silent quake pulsed underground, radiating from the kunai.
It didn't explode outward.
It tunneled downward, slipping through the soil like a snake, striking each of the Sound Four's pressure points through the soles of their feet.
"Urgh!"
All four jolted, coughing blood, their faces pale as death.
The chakra maintaining the formation faltered.
BZZZZT, !
The Four Purple Flame Formation shrieked like a dying machine.
It flickered violently, light surging and vanishing, on the verge of collapse.
"What the hell?!"
Sakon spun in horror toward his teammates.
"My chakra, it's…!"
Jirōbō clutched his chest, gasping like his lungs had collapsed.
All four shared the same look:
Shock. Terror. Confusion.
No one had touched them.
Where had the attack come from?
High above, atop the barrier,
Orochimaru, locked in fierce battle with the Third Hokage, suddenly scowled.
His golden snake eyes flared with rage.
He could sense it clearly,
The chakra sustaining the Sound Four was unraveling like torn silk.
A flaw.
A breach in his perfect plan.
His gaze swept across the battlefield like a blizzard of knives, searching,
Who dared interfere?
But while all attention was fixed on the flickering barrier and Orochimaru's wrath,
In the shadows of the ruined stands,
Kabuto Yakushi pushed up his round glasses, slow and calm.
His eyes, razor-sharp, surgical, cut through the chaos and crowd.
And locked precisely on Crane, just as he vanished back into the masses, having "accidentally" thrown a kunai.
Kabuto's lips curled slightly.
Cold. Curious and Calculating.
He saw.
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200 P.S = 1 Extra Chapter