"Continue?"
Yubi's tone made it sound as though this deep-penetration raid were some kind of game.
But this wasn't a game at all.
Arai glanced at Sasori, and then his thoughts drifted back to the boy's performance in the Land of Rain. The image of blood, broken bodies, and Sasori's chilling calm surfaced again in his mind. These were children who were not even ten years old, yet one of them wore indifference like armor, while the other could walk out of danger grinning as if he had tasted something exhilarating.
Even Arai, who had seen more battlefields than he cared to count, felt shaken.
Was this too part of what made a genius? That tempering by death and danger did not crush them, but instead sharpened them into something entirely different from ordinary people?
Originally, Arai had no intention of agreeing.
This sort of mission was too dangerous. In his plan, he would only take the two of them in once. If they repeated it too many times, Amegakure would inevitably raise its guard. It would not matter if they changed routes or attacked different outposts. Word would spread in the end.
And once Amegakure truly prepared a countermeasure, even an elite jonin like him would not be able to guarantee the lives of Yubi and Sasori.
Yet, at that moment, Arai suddenly understood something.
The very reason he hesitated, calculated, and worried was because he himself was ordinary.
He had become an elite jonin. That was already a height countless shinobi would never reach in their lives. But in front of the futures waiting for Yubi and Sasori, his own ceiling felt suddenly clear and limited.
After a brief pause, Arai nodded.
"Alright."
The nearby Sand shinobi all felt their hearts jolt.
Again?
Yubi was one thing. The boy was obviously reckless in a way that normal people could barely understand. But even Lord Arai was going along with him now?
As one of the village's core combatants, Arai could not possibly be ignorant of the danger.
"That one doesn't count," Sasori said, staring at Yubi. "I'll beat you properly next time."
His words came out one by one, flat and cold, but they carried an unmistakable stubbornness.
Yubi was momentarily speechless.
Arai raised one finger. "You can compete again, but neither of you is allowed to cross the line. Especially you, Sasori. You will do exactly as I say."
Sasori said nothing.
But his silence was as good as agreement.
"Move out," Arai ordered.
After exchanging a few quick words with the Sand shinobi who had come to receive them, he immediately set off again with the two boys, heading toward another stretch of the border.
Their previous clash with Amegakure would most likely be treated as nothing more than another flare-up between the two villages. Friction like that was common. Neither side would be shocked by it.
But the Rain outposts along that route would definitely tighten their guard, strengthen their deployment, and make another infiltration impossible.
So they had to change location.
Fortunately, the border was vast enough. As long as word of the previous raid had not yet spread too far, Arai still believed he could protect the two children through one more operation.
The Sand shinobi left behind exchanged bewildered looks as they watched the trio depart.
Though they did not know Yubi well, they knew exactly what Sasori represented to the village. And now, from Arai's attitude, they understood that the other child was no ordinary kid either.
A genius's brilliance could not be hidden.
At eight years old, ordinary children were only beginning to step into simple village missions, still wrapped in the shell of their youth. Yubi and Sasori, meanwhile, were already plunging into live warfare during one of the bloodiest periods of the Shinobi World War.
It was impossible not to feel a little dazed.
Perhaps a brutal era like this really was the richest soil for producing monsters.
***
As they traveled, Yubi opened the system interface in his mind.
After the days of battle in the rear lines against Amegakure, the wounded he had saved and the enemies he had killed had pushed his totals to a new height.
Positive experience points: 521.Negative experience points: 203.
Of those, two hundred positive points had come from saving Sasori, a story character.
At the start, the experience he had painstakingly accumulated had been almost drained by exchanging for the Palm Healing Technique and the Chakra Scalpel. The fact that he had recovered this much so quickly spoke volumes about how much the war between Sunagakure and Amegakure had fed his growth.
By comparison, the following two months of training under Arai and routine missions had brought only meager gains.
That was why Yubi saw war as an opportunity.
A dangerous one, certainly. But also a precious one.
From the rate of accumulation alone, it was obvious that saving lives brought positive points faster than killing brought negative ones. Even on a battlefield, where murder came easily, the system still leaned toward the path of a doctor.
Which made sense.
This system was centered on the identity of a medical ninja. Saving people was its primary direction. Killing was only a secondary branch.
Still, both types of experience had their uses.
Positive experience points could be exchanged for techniques and items related to healing, rescue, and restoration. Negative experience points, however, opened a much darker path.
Poisons. Disease-inducing methods. Hallucination-based techniques tied to mental distortion. Organ removal. Disabling methods. Procedures that belonged not to a healer in the sunlight, but to a black-market doctor who had cut away all moral restraints.
In a sense, negative experience points could turn him into a butcher wearing a physician's face.
Yubi considered this calmly.
He had no particular desire to become that kind of monster. But on a battlefield, refusing useful methods just because they were ugly was a luxury reserved for the strong.
If he wanted to survive, and if he wanted to reshape Sunagakure one day, then he needed more tools.
So he began searching.
His mental gaze swept through the system's exchange list, page after page of abilities sliding past. The stronger the technique or item, the more experience it demanded. Judging by the earlier prices, an A-rank medical ninjutsu usually cost somewhere around one hundred and fifty points.
That meant his current two hundred and three negative points could only afford something a little above that threshold.
He needed assassination skills.
That was the conclusion Yubi came to after quickly reviewing the recent mission and the one about to begin.
This was not a frontal battlefield. It was an infiltration.
What suited him best was not overwhelming destructive force, but methods that fit his combat template: precise, hidden, efficient, and adaptable to a medical ninja's close-combat style.
A technique that worked with scalpels would be ideal.
After a long search, Yubi's gaze finally stopped.
Possession Thread: Threads can be attached to a fixed target, allowing the user to guide and manipulate thrown blades with great precision.
Death Waltz: The user manipulates threads through the fingers to carry out nearly undetectable assassinations. The threads can also be bound to throwing knives and remotely controlled.
This ability originated from Belphegor in Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Yubi's eyes brightened slightly.
At a glance, he could tell the system was right.
This combination was perfect for him.
The essence of it was actually very simple. It was similar to chakra threads used by puppet masters, except instead of controlling puppets, it controlled blades. More importantly, it would let him guide scalpels in midair, turning them into silent killing instruments.
To an enemy, it would look as though death had arrived from nowhere.
In practice, it was almost like a stripped-down sword-control technique from fantasy novels, except adapted into a shinobi framework.
Perfect for scheming.
Perfect for assassination.
Perfect for someone who fought with a scalpel instead of a kunai.
Still, Yubi noticed something else.
For a medical ninja, negative experience points accumulated relatively slowly. And this ability was more expensive than either the Palm Healing Technique or the Chakra Scalpel.
Two hundred points.
A heavy price.
But after a brief moment of thought, he made his decision.
He cared less about its origin and more about its function. The system clearly indicated that this ability required very little energy to drive. Once assimilated into ninjutsu, it should consume far less chakra than a conventional high-rank technique.
That alone made it worth the cost.
He exchanged for it.
The system's voice rang in his mind.
Congratulations, host. You have acquired the combined techniques Possession Thread and Death Waltz. This ability has been assimilated into ninjutsu.
A flood of understanding instantly poured into him.
It was not like learning from scratch. It was more like a new limb had been grafted onto his body and his mind had already accepted it as natural. The feel of the line on the fingertips, the tension of a blade shifting in air, the angle of a hidden cut, the rhythm of controlling multiple scalpels at once—everything settled into place with eerie smoothness.
Yubi flexed his fingers once.
His right hand slipped into his pouch and drew out a thin bundle of piano wire.
He glanced sideways at Sasori.
The red-haired boy's fingers were also moving faintly, controlling invisible chakra threads as naturally as breathing. One manipulated puppets. The other would manipulate blades.
Yubi's lips curved.
He had no intention of becoming a puppet master. But he was from Sunagakure. If he displayed something similar in principle, it would not be difficult to explain.
At worst, he could simply call it a self-created ninjutsu inspired by observing puppet techniques.
That excuse was almost too convenient.
And Sasori was the perfect cover.
"I'll just borrow your name for this one," Yubi thought with a smile.
Sasori seemed to notice the look on his face and turned his head coldly.
There was not the slightest warmth in his gaze.
Clearly, he had not forgotten their rivalry.
Yubi didn't mind.
If anything, that suited him just fine.
His attention returned inward as he adjusted to the newly acquired technique. Compared to his previous fighting style, which relied on close-quarters movement, physical skill, and a surgeon's precision, this new ninjutsu expanded his reach dramatically.
He no longer needed to commit fully to every exchange.
A scalpel in his hand was dangerous. A scalpel he could guide without warning through the shadows was something else entirely.
It also covered one of his previous weaknesses.
At the Ninja Academy, his performance with thrown weapons and standard ninja tools had only been average. He had passed, nothing more. Even though he had trained hard from childhood, his time and energy had been focused on medicine, physical conditioning, and building chakra reserves.
No one could excel at everything.
And Yubi had understood that early.
With limited time, he had chosen the foundation most important to becoming a medical ninja.
Now, thanks to the system, he was finally filling the gaps in a way that suited him.
Not as a frontal combat specialist.
Not as a flashy prodigy who crushed enemies with overwhelming force.
But as a hidden scalpel in the dark.
He liked that.
Very much.
Because that was what a medical ninja truly was at heart.
Someone who understood exactly where to cut.
***
The three of them continued deeper along the border.
Arai moved in front, silent and vigilant, his senses stretched taut. Sasori traveled with the cool stillness of someone who seemed more puppet than child, every now and then brushing his fingers over a scroll or twitching them slightly as if testing invisible strings.
Yubi walked behind, his expression calm, but his thoughts were already racing ahead.
The new technique had to be tested.
Not recklessly. Not wastefully.
But soon.
Very soon.
This next mission was not only another chance to accumulate negative experience points. It was also the perfect battlefield to shape his new technique into something truly his own.
After all, a power granted by the system was one thing.
A power refined in actual combat was another.
By the time they crossed into the Land of Rain again, Yubi's smile had long faded. In its place was a quiet, razor-thin focus.
The hunt had not ended.
It was only beginning again.