Chapter 16: All Used On Myself
Two Konoha Anbu squads entered the Land of Waves, and after two months, their supplies were completely consumed.
Without ration pills, obtaining food became difficult and also easily exposed them.
Without ninja tools, many Anbu Members had to carefully clean the battlefield, making them prone to enemies’ traps set on ninja tool bags.
Whirlpool Ninjas had no such worries; Hidden Whirlpool Village had always protected the nobles of the Land of Whirlpools and could obtain resupplies from the nobles.
To better oppress the Whirlpool Ninjas, it was necessary to cut off the Whirlpool Ninjas’ supplies, making the nobles realize that helping Whirlpool Ninjas at this time was dangerous and fatal.
The noble town chief that Yoru’s mission required him to kill was the most steadfast supporter of Hidden Whirlpool Village’s rule in the area.
Yoru didn’t tell Matsu Tori where they were going or what they were going to do.
Anbu Members only needed to execute orders, without needing to think.
Once identities switched, Yoru also became an exploiter who disregarded the lives of his subordinates.
The two advanced toward the target town. They didn’t seek to complete the mission quickly, only to avoid rashness and miserable death.
“Matsu Tori, how old are you?”
“Fox Captain, I am 12 years old this year.”
He had just graduated and, after the village lowered the chunin requirements, luckily became a chunin.
Not knowing what to say to his team member, Yoru asked, “What is your dream?”
“My dream?” Matsu Tori said:
“My dream is to be like White Fang Lord, accumulate mission records in Anbu, and become the strongest ninja!”
Konoha’s White Fang was Anbu’s legend, constantly growing stronger in Anbu battles, continuously honing his sword technique, and becoming a Kage Level Ninja.
Leaf Ninjas had three paths to learn ninjutsu.
The first path was family inheritance.
Top-tier ninjutsu and secret jutsu spread only through mother-infant, blood, and bodily fluids, like infectious diseases.
What White Fang used was family-inherited sword technique.
The second path was to gain the trust of a leading teacher or captain and be taught ninjutsu.
Encountering a teacher or captain with a compatible temperament was very difficult and rare.
The third path was to join Anbu and establish merits for the village.
This required luck, the luck of staying alive continuously.
This path was also the fairest, one of the underlying logics of Anbu Ninjas’ loyalty.
“Good luck, Matsu Tori, you will sooner or later become a ninja like White Fang Lord.”
Arriving outside the town, Yoru carefully observed the town from afar with a telescope.
The town had about 1000 households, surrounded by wooden walls, with arrow towers every few dozen meters on the wooden walls, and samurai trained by the town chief on the arrow towers.
Ordinary samurai exercised their physique daily, wielding a long sword; even a genin would need several moves to take down a samurai.
More advanced samurai could refine chakra and enhance taijutsu with chakra, equivalent to genin in a ninja village.
Even more advanced samurai could only be trained by the Land of Iron.
These samurai had meager remuneration and were very cheap.
Yoru and Matsu Tori found a blind spot in the samurai’s vision, avoided patrolling samurai, and flipped into the town.
The town was divided into inner city and outer city.
The inner city was where the noble town chief lived and worked.
A lively night was a luxury only fitting for big cities like Kyoto; small towns enforced strict curfews for defense.
The streets of the small town were empty, with everyone hiding at home.
Ordinary people might die to ninja village ninjas or to rogue ninjas.
All civilians gathered around the nobles, expecting the nobles and their hired ninjas to bring them peace.
Yoru and Matsu Tori successfully infiltrated near the inner city.
“Be careful!”
A squad of samurai appeared from the side, and Yoru first dodged into an alley.
Matsu Tori hurriedly followed.
There were several trash cans in the alley, and Yoru and Matsu Tori hid behind two different trash cans respectively.
After the samurai squad left, Yoru said, “Matsu Tori, be extremely careful next; find weak defense points and flip over the inner city walls.”
The inner city, like the outer city, also had arrow towers and samurai.
After flipping into the inner city, the two crawled on the ground, quickly hugging the base of a building, and slowly moved around the base.
Ten-plus minutes later, they finally arrived at the brightest lit place.
In the distance was the town chief’s study.
There were two silhouettes on the study’s window; from the silhouettes, it was impossible to tell which was the town chief.
The window suddenly opened, and someone rushed out from inside.
It was a Whirlpool Ninja!
The town chief stood by the window, and upon discovering the Whirlpool Ninja suddenly stopped speaking, then broke through the window and charged toward the corner of a certain building.
Two more Whirlpool Ninjas appeared from other places, along with samurai quickly running here after receiving news.
The whooshing sound of kunai cutting through the air and the samurai’s armor clanking made Matsu Tori extremely nervous.
Seeing the captain’s retreat gesture, he hurriedly ran outward.
Unexpectedly, there was actually a Whirlpool Ninja Squad here.
Kunai thudded into the surrounding wooden walls.
One kunai he failed to dodge pierced Matsu Tori’s shoulder.
Another kunai hit his foot.
Just as he wanted to call for help from the captain, he saw that Fox Captain had been hit by a kunai and turned into white smoke.
What?
Shadow Clone?
When?
Matsu Tori suddenly remembered that when infiltrating the inner city, the captain had disappeared for an instant, and later hid behind a different trash can.
He let out a miserable laugh, recalling the key points the teacher had said when teaching substitution jutsu at the ninja academy.
Substitution jutsu turns a wooden stake into one’s own appearance, hiding in the shadows, and launching a sneak attack when the enemy attacks the wooden stake.
The key to substitution jutsu was finding or creating a moment when the enemy lost vision.
Shadow Clone could be considered an advanced substitution jutsu.
All those dirty tricks Fox Captain used against enemies were now used on himself.
His own life was just like the shadow clone, both used to deceive the enemy.
Matsu Tori looked toward the noble.
He had long guessed that the mission might be to kill the noble in this town.
Sure enough, behind the window, Fox Captain had somehow infiltrated behind the noble and raised a kunai.
Fox Captain actually mastered such exquisite infiltration techniques.
With the Whirlpool Ninjas and samurai all focused on him, the captain’s timing for striking was perfect.
He and the noble town chief would die in the same second.
When he was recruited into Anbu back then, Matsu Tori had thought he had some special talents noticed by the high-ranking officials and was about to rise rapidly.
After a few months in Anbu, he realized he was just a tool.
That morning, the captain had still been blessing him, hoping he would realize his dream and become a ninja like White Fang.
Now, to complete the mission, he miserably died in the captain’s scheme.
Was this Anbu?
The Whirlpool Ninja came to Matsu Tori’s corpse, crouched down, and used a kunai to cut open Matsu Tori’s mask.
Under the mask was a young face.
The face carried resentment, unknown what he was resenting.
The order Yoru gave Matsu Tori was to infiltrate the inner city; he hadn’t said what to do, and no secrets were known.
Even if they took the corpse away, Hidden Whirlpool Village wouldn’t get any evidence.
“Oh no! The town chief is dead!”
Hearing the samurai’s shout, the Whirlpool Ninja turned his head in terror and saw that the town chief had died in front of the window, slumped on the windowsill, with a kunai in the back of his neck.
“Damn it!”
The Whirlpool Ninja cursed, as the support they had just negotiated now came to nothing.
