The very second the tracking seal stuck to the door panel, Yuya sensed it.
It wasn’t thanks to a system notification.
Instead, there was an inexplicably subtle, static-like itch on the inside of the door panel.
Stuck to the wood, the Chakra in this thing was so faint it was weaker than a mosquito flapping its wings.
Even if an ordinary person stared at it for half a day with an 8x scope, they wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it.
But his current mental perception had already sounded the alarm—something filthy had been stuck on.
At the edge of his retina, a blue system screen popped up.
[Detected foreign Chakra marker attached to the host’s residence.
Type: Tracking Jutsu.
Function: Locks onto the target’s Chakra fluctuations and provides real-time location feedback.] Yuya was wrapped in his quilt like a silkworm chrysalis.
Even though his breathing remained steady, his brain was racing.
Those crafty bastards in Root really had changed their tactics.
Since assassination didn’t work and erasing their tracks failed, they were now resorting to “honey traps” and fishing for evidence.
They wanted to use the tracking seal as a fishhook to figure out if he actually had some big shot backing him.
If he were to suddenly jump up like a zombie and tear the seal off now, it would be equivalent to exposing his sensory abilities on the spot, causing his carefully cultivated persona of a “pure-blooded weakling” to collapse instantly.
But if he just lay there playing dead with that seal on the door, he would be subjected to 24/7 surveillance with no blind spots.
How could he break this?
The key to breaking the situation was on the roof thirty meters away.
As long as the person secretly tailing him saw this seal clearly—he would be in the clear.
All Yuya had to do was move the tracking seal from the door panel to a place where it could be “seen from the outside,” logically and naturally.
For example, sticking it on himself.
Moreover, the entire process couldn’t have even a trace of active manipulation; it had to be a completely automated “staged accident.” Yuya counted to fifteen in his head.
He gave the caster enough time to confirm the marker.
Then, he moved.
“Don’t kill me…” A miserable, wretched dream-muttering came from inside the quilt.
Yuya gasped, wrapped in his tattered quilt, and tumbled headfirst off the tatami mat.
“Thump!” His body hit the floor with a solid thud.
He scrambled toward the doorway, and his back happened to slam right into the wooden door with the tracking seal.
The door panel shook violently.
This tracking seal wasn’t exactly superglue, and its adhesion was questionable.
With this impact, the edge of the paper curled up and happened to stick to the tattered quilt Yuya had wrapped around his outer layer.
He thrashed around blindly like a fish out of water, and the quilt slid down, covering his right arm.
The tracking seal followed with a smooth turn, sticking firmly to his cuff.
The entire staged accident took less than five seconds.
From an outsider’s perspective, this was just a terrified, unlucky guy who had rolled off his bed during a nightmare and hit the door.
It was reasonable and flawless.
His acting was so good that even the Oscars would have to bow down to him.
Thirty meters away, on the roof ridge, Uchiha Itachi’s Three-Tomoe Sharingan silently watched this farce.
The trajectory of the tracking seal was clear at a glance.
From it sliding into the door gap, to sticking to the door panel, and then being transferred to the cuff when Yuya hit the door.
The Sharingan could see through all Chakra flows.
At the very moment Yuya’s back hit the door, the Chakra circuit on the paper seal was forced from “Locking onto Building” to “Locking onto Human Body.” The caster’s original intention was to monitor the house.
Now, however, Root’s exclusive sticky nuisance had been personally slapped onto an Uchiha clansman.
Uchiha Itachi stood in the cold wind, expressionless.
He simply etched the Chakra structure, ink composition, and release frequency of that tracking seal deep into his mind.
He was all too familiar with this way of weaving a Jutsu.
It wasn’t part of the Uchiha heritage, nor was it the style of the regular Anbu forces.
It could only be that old dog from the gutter.
In the courtyard, Yuya finally struggled to poke his head out of the quilt roll.
He stumbled to open the paper door, stood barefoot on the veranda, and swung his head left and right like a radar.
Then, he grabbed his own arm, his voice trembling as if he were having a seizure.
“There…
there’s another ghost!” His volume control was nothing short of artistic.
It was just loud enough to drift into the ears of the patrol at the end of the alley, without disturbing the neighbors.
The footsteps in the distance paused.
Someone shouted impatiently, “Uchiha Yuya?
What are you going crazy about again?” “I’m sorry!
I…
I had a nightmare!” Yuya shrank back, half his body hidden, his voice filled with a fear that sounded like he was about to cry.
“Sorry for the disturbance, I’m going back in right now!” As soon as he finished speaking, he scurried back into the room like a rat afraid of the light and slammed the door shut with a “bang.” There was silence at the end of the alley for two seconds.
“It’s that lunatic again.” “Hasn’t he been having breakdowns for three days straight?
What a loser.” “Forget about him, the Konoha Military Police Force can’t even be bothered to file a report.
Let’s go.” The footsteps resumed and gradually faded away.
Inside the room.
Yuya leaned against the cold door panel.
His heavy breathing gradually calmed down, and he almost couldn’t hold back a laugh.
A perfect closed loop.
He hadn’t complained, he hadn’t asked for help, and he hadn’t mentioned a single word about Root.
He hadn’t even crossed the three red lines drawn by Uchiha Itachi.
He was just a coward who had been scared crazy by a nightmare in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, sixty meters outside the wall.
A Root Ninja crouched in the shadows of an old pine tree, his hands tightly locked in a sensory seal.
The signal was very stable.
The target’s Chakra was locked, and he was currently stationary inside the house.
Mission accomplished, time to pack up.
Just as he was about to cut the sensory link, a trace of extremely slight interference suddenly swept through the wave feedback from the tracking seal.
It was like a pair of invisible eyes, coldly watching him from high above.
It absolutely wasn’t Uchiha Yuya!
That weakling’s Chakra couldn’t possibly pierce through his Sensory Network.
There was another expert present!
The Root Ninja was greatly alarmed.
Without hesitation, he severed the Chakra link, lowered his center of gravity, and scurried out of the shadows like a gray mouse.
To prevent being tracked, he deliberately bypassed the blind spots of Anbu Observation Point 3 and dove into a drainage ditch.
Thirty meters away, Uchiha Itachi watched coldly as the black shadow escaped underground.
Retreating to the north.
And the movement was extremely tricky, perfectly avoiding the monitoring blind spots of the Hokage’s direct Anbu.
This level of movement proficiency could only be achieved by one of their own.
Uchiha Itachi paused on the roof for three seconds.
Then, like a weightless crow feather, he silently slid onto the edge of the eaves of Yuya’s small courtyard.
He had left something there just moments ago.
When the tracking seal slid into the door gap, its corner had lightly brushed against a roof tile.
The ink trace was extremely faint.
But in the Sharingan’s piercing field of vision, the residual Chakra fluorescence was like a searchlight in the dark night.
Uchiha Itachi extended two slender fingers and gently pinched the tiny bit of thin dust on the edge of the tile.
The material of the paper seal, the tonality of the Chakra, and the unique characteristics of the Jutsu’s hand signs.
With these three things collected, this pot of blame would be firmly smashed onto Danzo’s face.
His figure, like a melting drop of ink, instantly dispersed into the boundless night.
Inside the dilapidated courtyard room.
Yuya still maintained his cowardly posture, huddled in the corner wrapped in his quilt, looking just like an abandoned punching bag.
But in his blind spot, the system screen was flashing wildly.
[Ding!
Task progress has soared to: 94%!] [Key figure has extracted direct evidence, subjective judgment is underway!] Yuya buried his face deep into the quilt, his mouth grinning so wide it almost reached his ears.
94% progress.
This round was an absolute landslide victory.
Throughout the whole thing, he hadn’t said a single word of nonsense, nor had he lifted a finger.
The highest-end hunter is one who lies flat and lets the opponent work for them!
This epic-level pot of blame for Danzo was now completely welded onto his back!