"What!? Over two thousand ninja corpses?"
Danzō's brows furrowed tightly as he looked up at Orochimaru.
"What do you think Root is, exactly? Konoha's crematorium? That many ninja bodies is practically the entire combat force of a small Hidden Village!"
"But Elder Danzō, you can get them together, can't you? That selection bout we just watched has already given us sixty or seventy corpses, hasn't it?"
"As long as we hold twenty or thirty more selections, two thousand bodies will be easy."
Hearing this, Danzō nearly choked to death on his own anger.
Root might be brutal, but they obviously couldn't run this kind of battle royale-style "selection" regularly. There wouldn't be enough orphans in the whole Fire Country to feed the grinder.
A massacre of this scale—like the one they just held—only happened at most once a year. If he hadn't wanted to give Uchiha Feiyu a psychological shock, he never would've agreed to host one so casually.
"Enough nonsense. If you want that many corpses, a single solution to your rejection-response problem isn't enough payment."
Danzō glared, his tone pure "time to raise the price." Orochimaru, face serious, began haggling with him in earnest.
They didn't bother hiding their little negotiation from Feiyu. Orochimaru knew Feiyu was no innocent, and Danzō, having watched Feiyu calmly observe a field full of dead child soldiers without a flicker of emotion, had also realized this kid was utterly heartless.
After a ten-minute back-and-forth, the two finally came to terms: Orochimaru would hand over several research results, and Danzō would gather the requested corpses and deliver them within a month.
Being able to gather two thousand ninja bodies in just one month—even if they were all low-grade genin, and even in wartime with corpses everywhere—said a lot about Root's capacity.
After Feiyu formally joined Root alongside Orochimaru, the latter was busy with experiments for the first few days, so Feiyu simply stayed in Root's training grounds and focused on his own cultivation.
A few days later, Danzō came looking for him.
"Elder Danzō, what can I do for you?"
Having just finished his routine training, Feiyu looked at the Root commander with mild curiosity.
"Root has a mission for you. The danger's low, but the merit reward is quite high. Well? Interested?"
"With a deal like that, of course I'm interested. Just say it—what kind of mission?"
"Pursuit and elimination of a Konoha traitor. A jonin who defected to the Hidden Cloud. He's carrying a large amount of Konoha's classified information. If he succeeds in joining Kumo, it could cause severe damage to the village…"
"Alright, I don't care about the reasons. Where is he now? Don't tell me he's already inside the Hidden Cloud. I don't have the guts to run into Kumogakure and kill someone."
"Of course not… I already said: this mission isn't especially dangerous for you. Right now, the traitor is contained by our operatives within the border zone between the Land of Frost and the Land of Fire. He hasn't yet crossed out of Fire Country."
"But once he does slip into the Land of Frost, things get ugly. Kumo and Konoha both have troops massed on Frost's borders. If Konoha's ninja cross in force, it could easily trigger a war."
Danzō might be a hardcore hawk who never feared war, but he had no intention of starting one with Kumo before they were ready.
Konoha was still bogged down against the Hidden Stone. In his eyes, they could crush Iwagakure first and then go deal with Kumogakure.
"I see. Give me his photo and last known location. I'll head out right away."
"Wait. I'll assign a few men to accompany you."
"No need. As long as your intel's accurate, I don't need any help. I'll bring you his head myself."
Feiyu directly turned down the Root escort. He honestly didn't think he needed anyone else at this point.
With so many souls at his disposal, Feiyu had become close to a true all-rounder: ninjutsu, genjutsu, sensory techniques, medical ninjutsu—none of them were weak. Alone, he was equivalent to a jonin-level strike squad, and had little use for ordinary ninja support.
Danzō didn't push the matter. The strong always got their privileges. He handed over the dossier and sent Feiyu off to complete the mission.
…
Leaving Konoha's gates, Feiyu casually stuffed the standard-issue Root mask into his pocket.
At his level, with his distinctive fighting style, that mask wouldn't fool any other village's elites—it might only trick a random genin or two.
"Finally out of the village…"
"Let's see… the mission's deadline is twenty days at the latest? Perfect. I'll slice this guy first, and use the remaining time to practice Magnet Release."
Magnet Release came from the ill-fated Fourth Kazekage, Rasa—whose soul was still in Feiyu's possession.
The problem was, Magnet Release training was extremely flashy. Sand Gold techniques, in particular, were visually overwhelming. If Feiyu didn't want anyone in Konoha to know he'd learned Magnet Release, he definitely couldn't practice it inside the village.
As for Sand Gold ninjutsu itself, Feiyu didn't care much about the technique as a primary fighting style.
Sure, it was a fairly direct path to "Shadow-level," but Shadow-levels who only leaned on Magnet Release tended to feel a bit "hollow."
Magnet Release was overwhelming and versatile when it came to mowing down small fry, but when facing opponents of the same tier, neither the Third Kazekage nor Rasa himself had much in the way of impressive wins.
Magnet Release also didn't mesh well with Feiyu's White Fang sword style. Historically, every Kazekage who used it was practically crippled in close combat—that's part of why they were always getting assassinated.
The main reason Feiyu wanted Magnet Release was to use its bloodline power to refine his own body: upgrade his physique, spiritual strength, and chakra quality. The Magnet Release itself would be more of a supplement than a mainstay.
And if he ever ran out of money, he could always copy a certain Fourth Kazekage's side hustle and just go mining for gold dust.
Rasa had funded the entire Hidden Sand Village's economy off that trick; used privately, it could easily make one man obscenely rich.
With those techniques, Feiyu's "financial freedom" was basically guaranteed—and forming a few private factions with money alone would be child's play.
Thinking about that bright, comfortably corrupt future, Uchiha Feiyu picked up speed and shot off toward the location listed in the intel.
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