Chapter 286: Rushing To Meet Quotas
One slash cut the rope binding his fellow workers, and the miner boy organized the manpower to snatch the samurai’s katanas and short swords together, cutting the ropes of the others.
Flower Deer Squad cleansed the Cloud Ninja squad, and the samurai had mostly fled too.
The samurai were mercenaries, here to make money, not to fight to the death. Chopping at miners with a katana was noble bushido, but chopping at ninja… better not, it could easily chip the blade.
The miners fled toward the coastline.
But that boy ran toward the hillside, toward Yoru.
“Thank you for saving me!” the miner boy said. “My name is Da Kong!”
Da Kong noticed that the ninja wearing the fox mask had a favorable impression of him, so he mustered up courage to chat with the ninja.
Yoru said, “You’re pretty good. Have you learned katana technique?”
“When I was a servant in the nobles’ mansion, I secretly watched the samurai training.”
Yoru nodded. No wonder Da Kong’s movements weren’t standard; he hadn’t learned it fully. He asked, “Where are you planning to escape to?”
Da Kong said, “We’re going to escape to the Land of Iron across the bay. The Land of Iron is a neutral country. Once we get there, even the great noble Kinayama Shin can’t pursue us.”
The Land of Iron’s neutral status turned out to be unexpectedly useful.
Among the small countries, the Land of Iron was the most special one.
This country had a large number of samurai, and the samurai also used chakra, researching chakra blade technique.
This country was located on a peninsula with complex terrain, and it wasn’t wealthy.
After declaring neutrality, the five great nations didn’t object and acknowledged the Land of Iron’s strength and status.
The Land of Iron was like Switzerland, a neutral country from his previous life, always a place not contested by soldiers.
The five great nations had no need to attack the Land of Iron. The Land of Iron was a neutral country, but if necessary, a neutral country was just a joke.
Yoru saw Da Kong carrying a long sword, his coarse hemp clothes torn, but his eyes very stubborn.
On his ankles were bruises and cuts from the rope, and on his hands were blood blisters from the hoe and pickaxe.
Yoru said, “You kid are full of rebellious spirit, right up my alley.
Keep that reckless energy, and maybe you’ll change your fate.”
Yoru took out a scroll.
This scroll was the chakra basics scroll he had prepared for Qiao Yi’s child, including chakra extraction, basic taijutsu, sword technique, and more.
Yamanaka Riko’s child didn’t need Yoru to worry much; the Yamanaka Clan would teach him themselves. Qiao Yi’s child needed more attention from Yoru.
He tossed the scroll to Da Kong, who caught it in panic.
“I am named Copper Fox. If you survive the next few years, you’ll hear my name again.”
Yoru and the others body flickered away.
Da Kong held the scroll in both hands, wanting to thank him in person.
But!
But he was illiterate!
He wasn’t a noble or a ninja; he had no chance to learn to read.
Opening the scroll, Da Kong saw there were diagrams on it.
Whatever, just follow the diagrams. The diagrams showed the human body and things like meridians.
Whether it was right or not, having something was better than nothing.
Yoru spent about ten days returning to Konoha Village.
The round trip took over twenty days; missions for the village really wasted time.
After returning to the base, Yoru found Kiiroinu.
“Minister, the A-rank target from the assassination manual, Cloud Ninja Jonin Takami, has been killed by me.”
Kiiroinu took the mission report.
“Not bad, not bad. Danzo Advisor’s assassination manual allows us Anbu’s mission results to be quantified.
At year’s end, Anbu can submit a clear report to the Hokage: for the village, how many enemies we assassinated, how much we weakened the enemy villages.” Kiiroinu said,
“I’ll have Butterfly notify Anbu and Root to quickly update the assassination manuals in the other squad leaders’ hands, removing Cloud Ninja Jonin Takami’s name.”
Yoru thought to himself, just afraid that later Danzo would assign Anbu a KPI, requiring a certain number of assassinations per quarter, and rushing performance at year-end.
Each quarter setting a must-complete growth target: 5 this quarter, 7 next quarter, emphasizing steady growth.
At that time, Kiiroinu, you won’t even have time to cry.
Yoru took back the assassination manual from Kiiroinu, flipped through it casually, and turned to a photo of a Stone Ninja Jonin, Shigeto.
Shigeto’s signature ninjutsu was Earth Release: Flying Gravel, a mid-to-long-range impact-type earth release ninjutsu.
Yoru had learned this technique from the Anbu ninjutsu scroll and could use this Stone Ninja Jonin to elevate it to mastery level.
Once he collected all mastery-level five release ninjutsu, Yoru would turn his sub-account White Zetsu into a Sarutobi Clan traitor ninja.
Calm waters can’t cultivate outstanding sailors; there were too few conflicts inside Konoha, it was dead stagnant.
Konoha’s windmill rotated too slowly; it needed someone to bring a big wind to drive Konoha spinning.
He didn’t know when Root would send intel on the Stone Ninja Jonin.
Kiiroinu said, “Right, Fox, go check Orochimaru’s laboratory in Root today first, see the experiment progress.”
Entering the Root Base, Yoru first passed by the training hall.
The training hall’s rooftop had been repaired because Tsunade had come, and there was now a row of pillars in the hall.
On the training ground, new recruits and children were still training.
Five Root Ninja including Ki had died in the Land of Rain, and Danzo finally behaved.
He didn’t immediately supplement Root’s formal members but had the new recruits continue training to strengthen themselves.
Granting new recruits formal Root codenames at this time would harm them without issue, but crucially, Root’s missions would fail.
Yoru saw Danzo’s figure and tensed up inwardly.
Wait, none of his bad deeds had been exposed; why fear Danzo?
Danzo was actually personally instructing new recruits in ninjutsu.
After successive blows, Danzo had become much more rational overall, much kinder, and even patient in teaching ninjutsu.
Root’s new recruits, Danzo would consider your life and death, teach you ninjutsu, not because Danzo turned good, but because… I came.
On the other side of the training ground, 20 children were doing taijutsu spars.
They held sharpened kunai in their hands; in the few seconds Yoru watched, one child’s arm was slashed open, blood flowing profusely.
These children were the same age as Kakashi. Under Sakumo Hatake’s guidance, Kakashi was solidifying ninja foundations, but they were already fighting for life and death, forcing growth.
Among the 20 children, 7 came from Yakushi Nonou’s orphanage.
Yoru continued deeper into the Root Base.
Entering Orochimaru’s laboratory, Yoru puzzledly looked around.
The entire laboratory was empty; nutrient tanks gone, corpses gone, specimens gone.
Last time, there were over a dozen wood style transformed hand specimens alone; now none.
There were originally 6 experiment personnel; today only
Those 2 were huddled in a corner, clearly pretending to be busy.
Too fake, faker than Yoru slacking off at work in his previous life.
One person held a scalpel, not sure what he was cutting.
Keep cutting, and he’d turn the test subject into minced meat.
The other was hunched over writing records; as Yoru’s gaze swept over, the writing speed increased.
Orochimaru had his back to Yoru, calmly dissecting the left foot of a White Zetsu corpse, studying something.
Orochimaru didn’t turn, saying, “Fox, is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“Luckily you provided the wood style creation corpse; otherwise, I wonder what need there’d be for this laboratory to exist.” Orochimaru murmured,
“Maggots are too weak; how can they bear the Sage of the Six Paths’ genes?
Your White Zetsu corpse is very useful; it completely changed my research direction.
The previous direction was wrong; can’t modify step by step gradually.
Hashirama Cells emphasize life force; must transform every cell in the body.”
Orochimaru lost interest in these ordinary test subjects and cleared out the useless materials.
The experiment assistant with the pen, seeing Orochimaru finish talking with Fox Squad Leader, quickly grabbed a scroll from the scroll rack and hurried to Yoru.
“Fox Captain, this is the recent experiment record.”
Yoru was very curious what happened in the laboratory and opened the scroll.
Two weeks ago, on the way to the Land of Moon, Orochimaru performed a 50-person transplant.
However, the transplant effect was extremely poor; all 50 test subjects died within two days.
Orochimaru angrily increased the dosage and intensity of all experiments.
Numerous specimens in the laboratory were destroyed in the high-intensity experiments.
Orochimaru believed that although the test subjects all had earth-water dual attribute chakra, they fundamentally couldn’t accommodate wood style tissue.
The experiments needed test subjects with stronger talent, more suitable ones, for wood style modification at the life essence level.
Orochimaru didn’t say what more suitable test subjects were, but Yoru guessed Orochimaru wanted test subjects carrying Senju of the Forest bloodline limit.
No wonder Kiiroinu had Yoru come get the experiment progress scroll; if someone else came, furious Orochimaru might do who knows what.
Fox was different; even if Orochimaru struck in anger, he could withstand it.
Yoru took the scroll and left.
He had key intel on the Scroll of Seals; he’d only bring it out to trade with Orochimaru when he was close to completing the Hashirama Cell transplantation technique.
Wood style research difficulty was extremely high; Hashirama Senju was Asura reincarnated, Sage of the Six Paths; Orochimaru was using mortal means to research a god.
With Orochimaru’s experiment progress so poor, now wasn’t the time to seize the Hashirama Cells.
After giving the scroll to Kiiroinu, Yoru left Anbu and returned to the izakaya.
Everything in the izakaya was as usual; clerk Yuka helped, Qiao Yi rested her body peacefully.
—
The full moon was like a silver plate.
Another full moon night arrived.
Yoru got lucky, encountering an unexpected boon.
Didn’t wait for Earth Release: Flying Gravel intel, but got Water Release intel.
A Mist Ninja Jonin infiltrated the Land of Whirlpools for a mission; he specialized in Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet, with special understanding of it.
Yoru followed Root’s intel to ambush that Mist Ninja Jonin in the Land of Whirlpools, using the system to gain mastery-level Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet.
—
Soon, the third full moon night of Konoha 41 arrived.
Yoru checked Root’s latest intel from Butterfly every day but didn’t get news on Stone Ninja Jonin Shigeto.
Instead, another piece of news caught Yoru’s attention.
Inside Konoha Village, two children went missing.
After Konoha Military Police Force investigation, they said no clues found; the two children might have been abducted by spies.
Cloud Village was notorious in this regard.
They abducted Hidden Sand Village children who awakened Magnet Release bloodline limit, reverse-engineered Magnet Release, producing Cloud Village’s Magnet Release ninja Troy.
They abducted Hidden Stone Village Lava Release bloodline children, reverse-engineered the Lava Release that Tsuchi mastered.
For Konoha’s bloodline limits, Cloud Village had coveted them for a long time.
Either conspiring to abduct Kushina or conspiring to abduct Hinata Hyuga.
Whether Cloud Village did it or not, with Konoha children missing, Cloud Village took the blame.
Yoru noticed the anomaly because one of the children had the surname Kazematsuri.
Kazematsuri Moenou, Konohamaru’s teammate, who also mastered Wood Style.
The surname Kazematsuri might be from some Senju Clan woman marrying in.
Yoru put on his mask, left the Anbu Base, and began secretly investigating the matter.
Soon, his investigation yielded results.
Kazematsuri Yuzu, originally named Senju Yuzu, changed her surname to Kazematsuri after marrying a ninja surnamed Kazematsuri.
In ninja world customs, women change surnames upon marriage.
Kazematsuri Yuzu’s husband sacrificed in the Land of Whirlpools; she had a son, just over one year old this year.
Yoru sat on the veranda of Kazematsuri Yuzu’s house, listening to the crying inside.
A Uchiha Ninja from the Military Police Force was explaining to Kazematsuri Yuzu that they investigated fully but really found no clues.
After ruling out all possibilities, it could only be Cloud Village spies.
Previously, the Military Police Force had discovered cases of spies abducting Konoha children; some caught the culprits, some vanished without trace.
Kazematsuri Yuzu said she was pushing the stroller to buy vegetables; in the market, someone quarreled with a stall boss, just a small chaos, and then her son was gone.
The Uchiha Clan now had good relations with Tsunade; they investigated wholeheartedly but were truly powerless.
After the Military Police Force Uchiha Ninja explained and left, Kazematsuri Yuzu cried alone for a long time.
She tidied up, red-eyed, and headed to the Senju Compound.
At this point, her only reliance was her former clan, the Senju Clan; hoping to try her luck there.
Konoha Military Police Force handled village internal affairs; involving Cloud Village, they had no jurisdiction, could only hope the clan would step in to help investigate Cloud Village.
Even news that one son was still alive would be some comfort.
Arriving outside the Senju Compound, Yoru didn’t rashly enter.
From afar, he saw Jiraiya get punched flying by Tsunade again, and Kazematsuri Yuzu caught by Tsunade and taken deep into the compound.
Jiraiya ate a loss at Tsunade’s but wasn’t annoyed; wiped his nosebleed, waited for dizziness to end, oriented himself, then leisurely headed to the Konoha bathhouse.
After bidding farewell to Tsunade, unburdened, he could leave the village.
Before leaving the village, last stop to collect some material at the women’s bathhouse.
Tsunade won’t let me collect material; does that mean the beauties in the women’s bathhouse won’t either?
Jiraiya’s gaze swept to a big tree; on that big tree hid an Anbu.
That was Anbu monitoring the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki; Jiraiya said nothing and continued walking.
Yoru used Mayfly Technique to hide in the tree crown above Jiraiya’s head; Jiraiya noticed nothing.
Yoru looked toward the Senju Compound. Was Orochimaru about to start? Didn’t know which child was Yamato.
Yamato appeared; would mature Hashirama Cell transplantation technique be far?
If monthly votes reach 5000, two more chapters tonight.
