Although Makoto was from Konohagakure, and he himself was not particularly compassionate, he still hoped that Takigakure's replacement of its Jinchūriki would proceed smoothly, without any mishap that might release that giant fluttering moth.
The Seven-Tails, Chōmei, might be the weakest among the nine Tailed Beasts. It was best at invisibility and fleeing, yet to ordinary people and average shinobi, it remained a calamity on the scale of a natural disaster.
With Takigakure's pitiful population and limited scale of buildings, a single Tailed Beast Bomb would be enough to blow the entire place sky-high on the spot.
From eight o'clock in the evening onward, the whole village was shrouded in the oppressive atmosphere formed by the leakage of Tailed Beast chakra.
Makoto and the other two waited quietly in their room, uncertain when the rogue ninjas' attack would arrive.
It was not until nearly nine that Suien led a squad of shinobi rushing over. Before he could knock, Makoto stepped out to meet him, bringing Hayate and Yūgao with him.
It seemed it was time for them to act.
At this moment, Suien no longer cared about the embarrassment from yesterday. Upon seeing the three from Konohagakure, he said anxiously, "Friends from Konoha, the enemy has already broken in. We need your help."
"No problem. Lead the way!"
"Follow me!" Suien turned and dashed toward the southwest of the village. Midway, he added, "By the way, among the enemies there's a bearded man, around thirty years old, with a scar on his left cheek. If you run into him, please give him a chance to escape."
"Understood!"
This was likely one of Takigakure's external informants. Without such arrangements, they would not have been able to obtain intelligence on the enemy's assault.
The fact that these rogue ninjas had chosen to strike precisely on the day the Jinchūriki was being replaced indicated that the village also had the enemy's informant within it, or that someone had sold the information to the black market for money. As for who it was, that was none of Makoto's concern.
The shinobi world was like this. Some rogue ninjas wandering outside were not necessarily true defectors; they might instead have been deliberately cast out by their village and planted in the underground world as spies.
All the major shinobi villages operated in much the same way. After all, infiltration, concealment, and espionage were the most fundamental professional skills of a shinobi.
While advancing, Makoto quietly signaled to the teammates behind him: stay close to me, do not split up.
Because while sorting through Takigakure's intelligence and personnel information last night, he had suddenly recalled that this Suien seemed to have later become a rogue ninja as well.
Perhaps he did not yet have such intentions, but the fact that he would become a rogue ninja suggested that he was not as loyal to Takigakure as he appeared.
It was better to be cautious in everything.
The mission failing was not important; what mattered was the safety of their own people. For that reason, he even formed a fixed impression of Suien based on something that had not yet happened.
...
Takigakure was situated within a ring of high mountains. It was nearly impossible for attackers to approach from above; Takigakure's shinobi had long since laid dense traps all around.
To enter, one had to use one of the few underground passage entrances.
And that was indeed the case. Suien's squad, together with Makoto and the other two, quickly descended underground through a building within the village.
The underground beneath Takigakure was filled with tunnels and caves of all sizes. The waterway network was dense, and there were even many enormous root systems—so large you couldn't even tell what kind of plant they belonged to.
These roots twisted and tangled around each other, like Cthulhu's tentacled beard.
If you didn't know the way, it was easy to get lost inside. This was a shinobi village; for routine patrols and hazard checks, Takigakure would set up light sources down there—but they would not be kind enough to put up road signs underground.
When Makoto and the others had run through the underground passage to roughly the edge of the village, they heard a noisy clash of battle coming from ahead.
In this kind of underground space, any sound would be amplified. The quality of rogue ninjas and wandering shinobi varied greatly, and they had little sense of secrecy.
Quite a few of them even kept complaining as they fought.
"Damn it—wasn't that replacement ceremony supposed to start at ten? Why is it so much earlier?"
"If I hadn't noticed something was off ahead of time, I would've missed this chance."
"Using false information to mislead people isn't that normal?"
"Shut up!"
"Stop yapping. Kill them fast and grab the Water of the Hero—that's what matters right now."
The five great shinobi villages looked down on the Water of the Hero, but for shinobi who lived in the underground world, it was still highly attractive. At critical moments, it could be used to force a burst of power, and it could also be sold for a huge price on the black market.
In the shinobi world, there was no shortage of rich people interested in this kind of mysterious thing.
As someone roughly forced everyone's thinking into line, the fighting grew even more intense. Scream after scream echoed through the cave tunnels.
When Makoto's group of seven arrived, they saw a mass of people from both sides gathered in a huge cavern, locked in a chaotic melee that was hard to break.
On Takigakure's side, only a little over twenty were still alive. The rest were lying on the ground, their life or death unknown. With a single glance, there were more than ten corpses; the other bodies belonged to the enemy.
This was probably all the strength Takigakure could gather in this direction. The rest were either holding defenses elsewhere, or all concentrated in the hidden area to protect the Jinchūriki transfer ceremony.
There were far more enemies than the leader, Hisen, had estimated. Roughly speaking, there were still fifty or sixty alive.
The shinobi on both sides were about the same in overall quality, but the enemy was more ruthless, and Takigakure's people were being driven back step by step.
As soon as Suien arrived with reinforcements, he immediately joined the fight.
Just like before, neither side had time to use any ninjutsu. They fought with weapons only, in a bloody close-quarters slaughter.
First, most people didn't know many jutsu, and jutsu consumed chakra. Second, in a space like this underground, if someone failed to control a jutsu properly, they could collapse the cavern—risking being buried alive.
Makoto and the other two were like the tip of a blade, quickly stabbing into the battlefield.
He opened with several strokes of "Shadowless Sword." Invisible, razor-sharp wind blades sank into the enemies' bodies—ending their lives while also saving several Takigakure shinobi.
Next, his hands became like pistols, continuously firing several "Wind Finger Guns" from his index fingers, pinning little red flowers onto the best-performing enemies to commend their heroic performance in this battle.
Finally, in order to seal the Seven-Tails in case it went out of control, Makoto stopped wasting chakra. Together with Hayate and Yūgao, he formed a common triangular assault formation, weaving through the enemy ranks and cutting them down.
In truth, he actually preferred this kind of face-to-face combat—it made him more excited.
Compared to rogue ninjas whose strength was at most around Konoha's Special Jōnin level, Makoto's strength was almost a complete crush. A max-level account beating up a beginner village—pure bullying.
He was almost cutting down one enemy with each strike. The short blade wrapped in high-density Wind-attribute chakra severed both weapon and body together. As he cut his way forward, he did not even blink.
Hayate and Yūgao guarded his left and right, just as they had done before on the battlefield, blocking and killing enemies who attacked from the sides.
The three of them coordinated smoothly, with astonishing efficiency.
Rogue ninjas and wandering shinobi might not have much strength, but their instinct for survival was extremely sharp. Some quick-witted ones realized the three were too ruthless—cutting through their teammates in an instant, clearly different from the fighting style of Takigakure's shinobi—and immediately began avoiding them.
As a result, a bearded middle-aged ninja suddenly appeared in front of Makoto for no apparent reason. He wore a Takigakure forehead protector, with a horizontal slash across the symbol.
The man looked completely baffled. Wait, where did you come from? Since when did Takigakure have someone this strong? A glance at the forehead protector—oh, a Konoha ninja. Never mind then.
He did not know whether the village had explained the situation to this person. If not, he was definitely dead.
Facing Makoto's extremely fast downward strike, he instinctively drew his blade to block—but the death he expected did not arrive.
Huh? I actually blocked it. Could it be that I'm a master?
Makoto had no time to care about this overly active inner monologue. He recognized that this was the person Suien had mentioned, so the short blade was not wrapped in chakra.
After the other man blocked the attack, Makoto raised a leg and kicked him flying toward the back ranks of the enemy.
Hurry up and get lost. Your acting is terrible—getting scared stupid so easily, not professional at all.
At this moment, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, "Bastards! They're Konoha ANBU!"
Makoto and the other two glanced over. Good—so it's you.
Originally, the one who shouted had been hiding well within the chaotic crowd and had not yet been discovered. But with that shout, he had cleanly exposed himself.
Thank you, former brother-in-arms.
He was a ninja around forty years old, wearing the same Konoha forehead protector as them—though it too had a slash carved across it.
Honestly, do you rogue ninjas all have some kind of problem? Do you think wearing your former village's forehead protector raises your value out there?
In any case, he was also one of the important targets of this mission.
Even without the mission, if ANBU encountered a rogue ninja from their own village outside, they were obligated to capture him.
The squad immediately changed direction and charged toward him.
The Konoha rogue ninja knew very well how formidable his village's ANBU were. It had nothing to do with height or age—anyone who could enter ANBU was not someone a mere civilian Chūnin like him could provoke.
In panic, he fled back along the route he had come.
But Makoto's squad killed too quickly. In the blink of an eye, they had already rushed in front of him.
After cutting his weapon in two with a single strike, Makoto did not kill him. Instead, he struck with his palm, snapping the bones in the arm that held the blade. While planting a mark on him in passing, he used the same kick as before to send him flying even farther away.
If you can escape my sensing range within the limited time, then consider yourself lucky.
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