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"Twenty-four people… six fully-formed squads."
Hikaru silently counted the Suna ANBU in front of him, and his mind settled.
He'd already made up his mind.
There was an idea—an "art"—he'd been turning over for a long time, but never dared to use.
To be honest, he wasn't skilled at it at all.
You could barely even call it a technique yet.
It was still closer to a concept.
But this was the perfect place to test it.
The enemies in front of him weren't weak. If anything, they were strong—true ANBU elites.
Still…
a shinobi's strength had nothing to do with "defense," unless you had something absurd like Gaara's absolute guard or the Uchiha's Susanoo.
Otherwise, no matter how elite you were, you could only rely on reaction speed—
to resist someone who stepped through space.
"Impressive," the leader of the Suna ANBU said as he walked forward one pace. His voice was flat, emotionless. "To make it here."
He paused, then continued coldly, "Allow me to introduce myself. Sunagakure ANBU—Viper."
"Oh?" Hikaru laughed. "A captain. That really is an honor."
He inclined his head slightly, polite and almost relaxed.
"Konoha ANBU, Nightingale. By rank, you and I are the same."
"I know." Viper nodded once. "Your name has spread through the Land of Wind—especially within ANBU. How could we not know you exist?"
"What a glory." Hikaru's chuckle was soft.
"To be remembered by your department—there's nothing that could make me happier."
His tone brightened, almost teasing.
"Maybe you should follow Iwagakure's example with our Fourth Hokage and start a little booklet—something like 'If You Meet Him, You May Abandon the Mission.' You can put my name inside."
The words were gentle.
The meaning was a slap.
Several Suna ANBU bristled instantly—anger rising behind their masks.
A name in a "retreat-on-sight" booklet was the highest form of honor for the one listed…
and a burning humiliation for the village forced to write it.
And Nightingale was Konoha ANBU.
If Sunagakure did that, it would be admitting they couldn't measure up to Konoha's ANBU—even against a single man.
"Stop joking." Viper's voice turned colder. "Your strength is… troublesome. I'll admit that. If we faced you alone, none of us would enjoy it."
He let the words sink in.
"But do you truly believe you're leaving here?"
"Is that so?"
The chakra around Hikaru—already stirring—seemed to quiet a fraction. His voice softened instead, almost warmly.
"You've been talking this long… so you're stalling. Buying time for the main force."
He didn't sound bothered.
"Fine."
Then he asked calmly, like he was only curious:
"Two questions. First—why do you believe I can't leave?"
"And second—why do you believe that just because I'm alone, I can't handle all of you?"
As his words fell, his left hand lifted.
In the same instant, chakra surged through his body again—
and a constellation of tiny "points" flashed across his awareness.
"Enough," Viper snapped, sensing movement. "Move!"
The Suna ANBU reacted like a machine.
Six squads advanced in formation, each unit covering the others, tightening toward Hikaru in a clean, practiced approach.
Every one of them feared Flying Thunder God.
But not one of them had ever truly faced it.
They only knew the theory—
that the technique needed a "carrier," like the Fourth Hokage's marked kunai.
And Nightingale, at a glance, didn't seem to have prepared anything.
So they intended to leave him no time to prepare.
Then—
Hikaru vanished.
The forward-most Suna ANBU felt a sudden chill brush his throat.
He tried to speak.
Instead, warm liquid flooded his mouth.
He couldn't make a sound.
And more terrifying—
his strength began to drain away, like someone had pulled the plug.
One ANBU died instantly… and no one saw how.
But the next moment, they understood.
Hikaru's hands moved in a steady rhythm—seals flowing—
and his body began to flicker.
He appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
A ghost in the gaps between heartbeats.
No pattern.
No trace.
No warning.
Every time he existed in their vision, someone collapsed.
Every time his blade moved, a life was harvested.
The scene was impossible—contradictory—nightmarish.
Fear crept through even elite ANBU like poison.
Even Viper's back went slick with sweat.
Too strange.
Too fast.
Too wrong.
And when Hikaru's blade suddenly rested against the side of his neck from behind—
Viper finally realized what had happened.
Every Suna ANBU who'd come to intercept him…
was down.
All of them.
Still in formation.
Still "perfect."
And yet their formation had done nothing—no cross-cover, no support, no counter—because they couldn't even catch him.
Only Viper remained standing.
"Looks like I wasn't bragging," Hikaru said mildly, as if the last ten seconds had been an inconvenience, not a massacre.
"If anything… you were the one being arrogant."
"…Who are you?" Viper asked. He sounded resigned.
But his chakra suddenly tried to surge.
A last gamble.
A last breath of hope.
Hikaru didn't allow it.
His blade flashed across Viper's throat.
Clean.
Cold.
Final.
Viper's chakra halted like a severed thread.
His hands lifted instinctively to his neck, trying to hold the blood in—
but the artery was already opened.
Nothing would save him.
"I'm sorry, Captain Viper." Hikaru's voice stayed soft. "I have sensory perception."
"So any unusual movement… makes me nervous."
He flicked the blood from his blade.
"And my time is short. Your reinforcements are coming."
He glanced toward the town.
"And I still have the sealing team to deal with."
At the word sealing team, Viper twitched weakly—some last spark of reaction—
and then his strength dissolved completely.
Hikaru crouched and searched Viper's body with practiced hands.
A squad captain might carry something useful.
He found it: a sealed, unopened letter, tucked away carefully.
Only then did he stand.
"As for your last question," Hikaru said, almost politely, "I believe I've said it before."
"But since you wanted to hear it again…"
He looked down at the corpse, then spoke with calm certainty:
"I am Konoha ANBU—one of the three major squad captains."
"Codename—Nightingale."
...
Hikaru stepped out of an unremarkable room deeper in the town and closed the door behind him.
For a moment, the blood stench was muffled by the wood.
That room had been the last hideout—
the remaining ANBU escorts, and the sealing team.
While Hikaru dealt with Viper outside, his small lizards had tracked chakra residue and scent trails, leading him straight here.
So he arrived cleanly—
and sent the entire sealing team to the Pure Land.
He walked toward the Land of Rivers border.
This town straddled the line: one end in Wind, the other in Rivers.
Cross that line, and he'd be out of the Land of Wind.
Leaving didn't mean complete safety, but the Land of Rivers was a buffer between Wind and Fire—and Konoha had forces here.
Unless he was unlucky enough to repeat Namuki's fate—
being hunted by a monster like Sasori from Wind into Rivers, and then chased into Fire—
he was largely out of danger.
He stepped through.
Wind was behind him now.
Hikaru breathed out and laughed quietly.
"Looks like my new 'art' is even more useful than I thought."
The last fight—the one where he seemed to "have no marks" yet used Flying Thunder God repeatedly—
had a simple core:
Wood Release.
He didn't have proper Wood Release manuals or lineage knowledge, so he couldn't throw around flashy techniques.
All he could do was condense chakra into Wood Release seeds.
But those seeds—
let him seize something critical.
He could scatter them in a circle around himself, over thirty meters wide.
In that radius, the number of seeds was terrifying.
If paired with a proper technique, the result would be disastrous for anyone inside.
And it wasn't limited to Wood Release techniques, either.
If he knew Fire Release, he could force the seeds to sprout—
then ignite the entire field at once.
A death zone.
More importantly—
if he embedded Flying Thunder God marks into the seeds…
then that whole area would become his domain.
A Flying Thunder God field.
As long as chakra held out, he could appear anywhere inside it—
and strike from any angle, at any moment, against any target.
He'd tested the idea back in Lōran.
It worked.
The only drawback was setup time—he needed a moment to spread the field.
Which was exactly why he'd exchanged words with Viper for so long:
He wasn't stalling for reinforcements.
He was buying time to finish planting his own battlefield.
"…Still, using it for long periods is a burden."
Hikaru exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck as he walked.
"I'm still not fully used to Flying Thunder God. Fast, high-frequency jumps…"
He made a wry sound.
"…they make me 'carsick.'"
It was ridiculous, but it was real.
Still, after his body improvement, the "dizziness" had become far rarer.
Against Viper's squads, he'd used Flying Thunder God at least thirty times—
and remained steady.
His current limit was roughly fifty to sixty jumps before it became dangerous.
He'd improve.
He always did.
Hikaru reached into his cloak and pulled out the unopened letter he'd taken from Viper.
He was curious what a captain guarded so carefully.
But before he could open it—
his brows drew together.
Someone was coming.
...
Back in the town, Chiyo stood over the collapsed Suna ANBU.
Even with a lifetime of war behind her, her eyes were bloodshot with rage.
She'd noticed something earlier—when Hikaru summoned Lizardmaru and Suna reinforcements clashed—
the boy didn't seem to be running.
So she'd sprinted to the town.
Then the flare rose in the sky.
It confirmed her instincts.
But even at her speed, she was too late.
When she arrived, the fighting was already over.
The ANBU lay in formation.
Almost no struggle.
Almost no mess.
Just a single wound on each body—
precise enough to kill instantly.
Including Viper.
What kind of speed was this?
What kind of power?
"—No…"
Chiyo suddenly remembered something.
She bolted toward a small wooden house.
And before she even touched the door—
the thin, heavy stink of blood seeped into her nostrils.
For the first time in a long time, her hand hesitated.
Because she already knew what waited behind it.
Sunagakure's sealing team…
had been buried here.
Chiyo drew a shaking breath and forced herself to turn away.
Her heart was burning.
Two captains. Nearly two full ANBU teams.
Over a hundred garrison shinobi.
An entire sealing unit.
All erased by one man.
This wasn't a grudge anymore.
This was blood-debt.
A hatred that demanded an ending.
Chiyo spun and launched herself into the distance.
She had to catch him.
She had to do something—
anything—
before that "ghost" vanished beyond Sunagakure's reach.
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