The three surrounded them before Yano's students had fully disappeared into the mist, forming a triangle around the group with no gap worth testing.
Yano's students pulled together at his side without a word, defensive instinct doing what training had built into them.
Looking up at the three figures on the branches above, Yano swallowed. "The war between Sunagakure and Konoha is over. Kumogakure has withdrawn. This conflict is finished, and given Sunagakure's current situation, you don't have the resources to restart it."
Yuji smiled. "He knows quite a bit about us. Konoha's been thorough."
Sasori didn't respond. A man with no options left reaching for the threat of war wasn't worth engaging with.
"He knows who we are," Arai said quietly. He had read Yano's face and found what he expected, fear sitting alongside something resolved, the look of a man who had already made his peace with the likely outcome.
Yuji's gaze moved across the three Genin. They were roughly his age, and one of them snagged his attention in a way he couldn't immediately place.
"I think I've seen you before," he said, pointing.
The boy tensed. "I don't know you."
"What's your name?"
A glance at Yano, then back. "Aoba Yamashiro."
That placed it. Future Special Jonin, Konoha Intelligence Division. Known for crows and sunglasses, usually operating alongside another minor figure, Raido Namiashi. Yuji looked at the boy standing next to Aoba, turning the name over. His memory of Raido Namiashi centered on scarring across his face. This boy's face was clean.
"My mistake," Yuji said easily.
"Stop wasting time," Sasori said. His finger moved.
Puppets dropped from the canopy above the Konoha squad.
"Run!"
Yano's hand came up and a smoke bomb left his gauntlet, detonating at his feet. Dense smoke swallowed the clearing, and under its cover his students broke in separate directions. The Hidden Mist technique still blanketing the forest outside was its own kind of cover, and there was another Jonin out there, better odds than standing here.
Arai went for Yano without discussion. Sasori and Yuji took the Genin. Witnesses were a liability they couldn't afford, especially ones who already knew their faces.
Aoba had covered several meters when Yuji was already in front of him.
He didn't freeze. Kunai in hand, he drove at Yuji's vitals in quick succession. When that found nothing he dropped his weight and shifted to Taijutsu, hands and feet working together, body spinning through a leg sweep,
Yuji raised his hands and redirected each strike without moving his feet much.
'Good instincts. Sound Taijutsu for his age, fluid and practiced. He had read the smoke bomb correctly the moment it went off, prioritizing escape over engagement and calculating his angles on the move.'
'Not bad.'
Aoba's physical strength and Taijutsu were decent enough.
Several kunai connected by steel wire shot toward Yuji. He tilted his head and let them pass, then they reversed direction, Aoba's hand pulling the wire to bring them back around.
Yuji was quietly amused.
The method was similar in principle to his own blade manipulation, just rougher and far less refined. Techniques like this existed throughout the ninja world, Sunagakure's own Puppet Corps used chakra threads to drive blades into precise points on a target.
But none of them matched the flexibility, stealth, or reach of what Yuji had built for himself, and the speed and power behind Aoba's wire kunai were poor by comparison.
That said, the strength of any technique came down to its user, what Yuji was measuring here was the technical foundation, not the person wielding it.
Taijutsu, shuriken work, ninja tool control, Aoba had a working foundation in all of them. Comprehensively developed for his age. He would never stand among Konoha's golden generation, but the potential for Special Jonin was there.
Aoba landed from his spin and immediately began forming seals.
He got halfway through.
His body arched sharply, pupils blowing wide, saliva spraying from his mouth as a brutal pain tore through his abdomen. Yuji had read his movements, closed the distance, and driven a knee into him, nearly enough to knock him out entirely.
Even as his balance left him, Aoba raised his arm to counterattack.
Yuji caught the wrist and shut it down with a grappling hold. A thread crossed between them.
Aoba's body hit the ground and stayed there. A thin red line split the skin of his neck and began to bleed slowly.
It had taken roughly a minute.
Yuji had handled it without strain, if he had wanted to, Aoba would have been dead the moment he landed. The threads had been around him from the beginning and he had never once detected them.
Ding. Host has killed a plot character. Negative experience points +200.
Yuji was mildly surprised. Aoba was a future Special Jonin of Konoha's Intelligence Division, minor, but not entirely a background figure.
He reasoned through it. At his current level, Aoba simply wasn't worth much. The system had reduced the yield accordingly.
Then a second notification came.
Host has killed a member associated with Konoha's special era. Konoha Hatred +8. Certain Konoha plot characters will now be predisposed toward hostility upon encounter.
Yuji's attention sharpened slightly. Konoha's golden generation, perhaps, or characters higher up than that. He turned it over for a moment, then set it aside.
It might cause some trouble down the line, but nothing that would change much. Every faction with a different allegiance was an opponent by nature, that was the underlying logic of the ninja world, and it had always been. Periods of peace were a surface condition. The structure beneath never changed.
He shot out, leaving a trail of white smoke behind him.
When he arrived, he found the second Konoha Genin already slumped at the base of a tree, barely holding onto consciousness.
Sasori had brought him down quickly and left him alive on purpose, whatever the boy knew about Konoha's current situation was worth hearing, even if it amounted to little. Any information was better than none.
"Why so slow?" Sasori said, looking at Yuji as he approached.
Yuji laughed awkwardly and offered nothing in response.
Even with the smoke bomb disrupting visibility, Sasori had taken down one Genin immediately and moved to this one without pause.
Yuji walked over and crouched in front of the boy. A small pool of blood had gathered on the ground beneath him, and his focus was already slipping. Yuji studied his face.
"You're Raido Namiashi."
The boy's unfocused pupils tightened slightly.
That confirmed it.
Yuji glanced back at Sasori, who said nothing. The silence was answer enough, even here, at the edge of it, Raido had not given anything up.
Yuji stood slowly.
"Rest in peace."
He said it quietly and ended it cleanly.
...
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