Hakuji sensed the contract chakra, formed hand seals with his short, thick paws, and used the Reverse Summoning Technique.
"Thanks for the trouble, Hakuji. You can go back now."
Yōkō quickly returned to the vicinity of his squad.
He gathered the four squad leaders and told them the intelligence he had obtained.
"The layout of Iwagakure's stronghold fortresses is roughly similar.
About 200 meters from the fortress, an Earth Vibration Barrier is set up. Any vibrations, whether on the surface or underground, will be transmitted to the barrier squad inside the fortress.
The fortresses are mostly four stories. The top floor houses the battalion commander's office and meeting room. The third floor is the most important, containing the barrier squad and the observation room.
The first and second floors are the living quarters for the stationed battalion.
I will now teach you a sealing cursed seal I developed: the Earth Vibration Damping Cursed Seal.
All Earth Release users, come and learn it. You can use this seal to quickly approach the stronghold fortress.
All assaults are feints. Do not prolong the engagement. Cause sufficient damage and withdraw as soon as possible."
White Sheep and the others were inwardly astonished. They hadn't expected the division captain to actually develop a sealing technique specifically targeting Iwagakure's barrier.
With this sealing technique, they could pass through the barrier smoothly, place explosive tags under the fortress, and blast openings in it.
When ordinary ANBU members first joined, they didn't know the mission details, only followed orders, so they couldn't leak ANBU intelligence.
After staying in the ANBU for a long time and gradually forming bonds with the ANBU captains and teammates, they generally wouldn't leak ANBU intelligence either.
Yōkō and his team members had experienced several wars together.
They learned ninjutsu from Yōkō, had a taijutsu and ninjutsu sparring partner like him, and were becoming increasingly loyal to the ANBU and to their captain.
After over a year of continuous observation, Yōkō found the White Sheep and Flower Deer squads to be the most loyal to him.
Field Duck, Antelope, and Brown Bear from the White Sheep squad, and Leaf Monkey, Black Gorilla, and Horned Ox from the Flower Deer squad, all shared deep comradely feelings with Yōkō.
In such a dangerous mission, for the division captain to preemptively teach them a targeted sealing technique, these team members understood Yōkō's thoughtful intentions.
As for the Hippo and Yak squads, as long as Yōkō remained under Yellow Dog's command, there were temporarily no major issues.
After teaching the Earth Vibration Damping Cursed Seal to the Earth Release users in the division, Yōkō took Purple Cat and left the division, heading towards his target, Stronghold Fortress B.
At the agreed-upon time, Yōkō spotted the Iwa-nin messenger sparrows.
The feint attacks by the four squads had taken effect.
Two Iwa-nin companies had left the fortress to support the neighboring fortress under attack.
"Purple Cat, wait here for me to bring out a sufficiently important corpse. You will extract intelligence from the corpse."
An Iwa-nin Jōnin was very strong and hard to capture alive. Having Purple Cat's Yamanaka clan secret technique was convenient; they could just bring out the corpse.
Yōkō moved forward quickly, approaching the fortress.
When he reached about 200 meters from the fortress, Yōkō formed hand seals, and the Earth Vibration Damping Cursed Seal appeared all over his body.
With the seal's enhancement, he slowly sank into the ground, using the Earth Release: Fish in Earth Reflection Technique.
Uzumaki Yuka was a genius girl; the Earth Vibration Damping Cursed Seal she developed was extremely effective.
He quickly infiltrated the base of the fortress wall, then moved through the wall to the inside.
Having seen the fortress's defense layout map in his previous life, he was perfectly clear about the internal layout.
With two companies gone now, the internal defense was even sparser.
Walking up the stairs to the second floor, Yōkō waited at the stairwell door for five seconds.
Five seconds later, the two Iwa-nin on the second floor happened to leave the observation window at the end of the corridor, heading to the next observation point.
Yōkō waited for the two to turn around, perfectly missing them, and continued up to the third floor.
At the third-floor stairwell entrance, Yōkō used the Self-Cursing Body Binding Seal to immobilize two Iwa-nin, then crushed their throats from behind.
Pacing in the empty corridor, Yōkō stopped outside the barrier room door.
Three barrier ninjas were intently watching the barrier halo.
"Who do you think attacked the neighboring fortress?"
"Kumogakure signed a ceasefire with us; could it be a delaying tactic?"
"Possibly. The Kumo-nin are all warmongering muscle-heads."
While the three were talking, they found themselves unable to move.
The Self-Cursing Body Binding Seal immobilized the three. After three muffled sounds of shattering windpipes, the barrier squad was killed by Yōkō.
One of the three barrier ninjas wore a mask. Yōkō changed into his clothes, disguising himself as an Iwa-nin.
He looked up at the ceiling, standing directly below the Iwa-nin battalion commander's desk.
The Iwa-nin battalion commander must be dealing with the aftermath of the attack on the neighboring fortress right now.
Inside the office, the Iwa-nin battalion commander was bowing his head, writing on a scroll.
An anomaly appeared beneath his feet!
A black shadow emerged from under the desk, swiftly grabbing for his throat.
The Iwa-nin battalion commander took the opportunity to press his thumb against the end of his pen, using it as a weapon to stab under the desk.
The pen stopped abruptly a few centimeters away from that arm!
Sealing patterns appeared on his own arm.
Someone used a powerful sealing technique to lock my body?
Yōkō frowned slightly.
This Iwa-nin Jōnin was very strong. Under intense resistance, the Self-Cursing Body Binding Seal was becoming unstable.
The weakness of the Self-Cursing Body Binding Seal was its inability to last long in battles against opponents of the same level.
However, Yōkō's hand was already clamped around the Iwa-nin battalion commander's throat.
Crack!
Yōkō twisted the Iwa-nin battalion commander's neck, killing him.
Up to this point, everything had proceeded in silence. The fortress was still unaware of Yōkō's infiltration.
Yōkō crawled out from under the desk and stood behind the Iwa-nin battalion commander.
He wrapped bandages around the battalion commander's neck to cover the wound and put sunglasses on him.
After completing the disguise, he stood behind the Iwa-nin battalion commander.
Secret Technique: Shadow Imitation!
This was his first time using this secret technique.
He had drawn this technique from Nara Umeka back in the Land of Wind but hadn't used it yet.
Yōkō's shadow connected with the shadow of the battalion commander's corpse.
The corpse moved, mirroring Yōkō's movements exactly.
With the battalion commander's corpse in front and Yōkō disguised as an Iwa-nin behind, they walked towards the door.
Opening the door, the two entered the corridor one after the other.
An assistant happened to be walking down the corridor.
The assistant said: "Captain! The messenger sparrows brought a new scroll!"
The Iwa-nin battalion commander waved his hand, signaling the assistant to place the scroll in the office.
The assistant walked towards the office, somewhat puzzled. Why was the barrier squad leader following the battalion commander? Could there be an anomaly with the barrier?
The battalion commander walked all the way down the stairs. When encountering Iwa-nin who greeted him, he merely nodded without replying.
Until they reached the first-floor entrance.
The captain waved his hand, signaling the guard ninjas to open the main gate.
The guard ninjas hurriedly opened the main gate.
The guard ninjas thought, The battalion commander and the barrier captain are going out together; there must be some problem with the barrier.
After exiting the gate, the two first walked slowly, then quickly, then broke into a jog, their speed increasing.
One guard ninja watched their retreating figures and said, "The barrier must have a major problem. Look how anxious the battalion commander is."
"Yeah, but that barrier captain is such a bootlicker, copying the battalion commander's movements exactly. Even at a time like this, he has to imitate him?"
"That's how he got promoted to squad leader. It's a skill. Learn from it."
A few minutes later, the two guards looked at each other, seeing confusion in each other's eyes.
Why did the battalion commander and the barrier captain directly leave the barrier's range and run towards the distant ravine?
"What should we do?"
"Does something seem off?"
"It probably is off, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Where is the battalion commander going? Is he coming back?"
"Is he... not coming back?"
Five minutes later, the battalion commander's assistant rushed down and saw the wide-open gate.
"You two idiots! Where is the battalion commander!"
The two said: "The battalion commander left with the barrier captain. Maybe there's some urgent mission."
"The battalion commander and the barrier squad leader are missing! Four people were killed inside the fortress!
You two idiots! Two idiots who could be displayed in the Iwagakure museum!"
***
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(End of Chapter)