They ran non-stop for a full day and night.
Halfway through the sprint, the boy being carried woke up.
Before he could even utter a single word, Ayane stuffed a soldier pill into his mouth and promptly knocked him out again…
After fleeing for hundreds of miles like this…
The two of them arrived at the edge of a dense forest before Woodpecker finally deigned to slow his pace.
“Alright, we should be safe now.” He let out a long breath, a hint of survivor’s relief in his tone.
“That guy Mashu shouldn’t be chasing us anymore.” For the sake of fleeing for their lives, Woodpecker had only applied crude emergency first aid to his gruesome wounds.
By now, the blood had long since hardened, cementing his tattered clothing to his torn flesh and forming patches of dark purple scabs.
Ayane thought to herself: Honestly, that Puppet Master named Mashu probably never even entertained the thought of hunting us down.
After all, this escape…
had been a bit too smooth sailing.
Yet Woodpecker was jumping at shadows.
If he saw a stray dog by the side of the road, he looked ready to throw a shuriken just to check if it was a ninja using the Transformation Jutsu.
The extreme paranoia of the older generation of Anbu…
You’d better take notes!
But this was only her speculation without a shred of proof, so she kept her mouth shut and swallowed her thoughts.
‘I really need to get my hands on a sensory jutsu.
Being completely blind to my surroundings makes me way too passive.’ In her past life, she couldn’t even play a video game without a mini-map and a glowing quest marker.
When had she ever suffered this kind of grievance?
Woodpecker seemed extremely familiar with this forest.
After taking several twisting turns, he found a hollowed-out tree trunk and exhaled deeply.
“This is one of the Anbu safe houses in this area.
It contains stockpiled supplies that are regularly restocked.” Glancing at the boy Ayane had been lugging around the entire way, Woodpecker asked, “Why didn’t you just leave him behind?
Don’t tell me you plan to drag him all the way to the frontlines.” Ayane gently laid the unconscious child flat on the ground.
“If I left this child behind too, then there truly wouldn’t be a single survivor left from Maba Village.” She answered softly, “Someone has to…
remember them, right?” Deep down, the girl was reminded of Principal Ichii’s nagging earlier.
Woodpecker snorted.
He looked up at the demon mask on the girl’s face and didn’t press the issue, merely muttering, “Heh…
the naive and foolish compassion of a woman.” Ayane puffed out her chest, completely unoffended, and declared proudly, “Damn right, I am a woman!” Although they had only been traveling together for two days…
After surviving a life-and-death battle together, she found that Woodpecker didn’t seem to be a terrible person.
He might constantly preach that ‘Anbu don’t need emotions,’ but if he were truly as cold-blooded as he claimed, he wouldn’t have waited until now to bring up dropping the kid!
“Swan, I need to apply my medicine.
Keep watch for me.” Woodpecker sat down cross-legged and ordered, “Stay sharp.
We’re getting very close to the frontlines.
It’s entirely possible a Konoha patrol could slip through here.” Could you not raise a death flag right now?
If you love playing on hard mode so much, why are you code-named Woodpecker?
You should just change it to Crow!
While inwardly roasting him, Ayane leaped up onto a tree branch, letting her actions serve as her response.
She was currently exhausted as well.
Her arms and legs felt like jelly.
Every single muscle in her body was screaming for rest.
Back-to-back battles followed by a day and a night of non-stop sprinting—even for a chakra-fueled superhuman ninja, it was hard to endure.
But she had no choice.
Who else was going to carry the team right now?
She briefly surveyed their surroundings and found no signs of abnormal activity.
Finding a concealed spot to sit down, she summoned her holographic panel.
[You have completed a grueling physical training session!] [Achievement Points +16!] The first two prompts that popped up nearly made the girl lose her composure.
So the system registered my desperate, twenty-four-hour flight for my life as just…
going for a jog?
That’s completely un-intelligent!
Skipping past that, she scrolled down.
[You have acquired a new Trait!] [New Trait: Killing Intent Overflow (White)] [Description: To kill one man is a crime; to slaughter ten thousand makes you a hero!] [Effect: You can materialize your formless killing intent and project it outward to oppress and intimidate your enemies!
Please note: the intimidation effect is directly proportional to the amount of Killing Intent you have accumulated!] [Next Upgrade Tier: 1,000 Achievement Points + 1,000 Killing Intent Points!] What is this?
The shinobi world’s version of Conqueror’s Haki?
Ayane muttered in her mind: This effect seems awfully familiar.
Other protagonists get the potential to become a king.
But for me, I get the potential to become a mass murderer, is that it?
But she quickly recalled that “Killing Intent” was a very real, tangible phenomenon in the Naruto universe.
In the original anime…
When Team 7 participated in the Chunin Exams, Sasuke encountered Orochimaru—who was thirsting for his body—in the Forest of Death, and the arrogant Uchiha was instantly paralyzed by the Snake Sannin’s sheer killing intent…
Keep in mind, Sasuke was from the Uchiha clan, renowned for their mastery over Yin Release and spiritual energy!
Logically speaking, he should have had an innate resistance to mental interference abilities…
Which just goes to show how incredibly satisfying this ability was for bullying noobs!
Looking at the explanation for “Killing Intent Points” at the bottom of the Trait, Ayane suddenly felt a headache coming on.
That rogue Chunin she had just killed only gave her 24 Killing Intent Points.
Doing the math, if she wanted to upgrade the [Killing Intent Overflow] Trait, she would have to kill at least 40 more guys exactly like him…
Isn’t this just forcing me onto the battlefield?
Killing is a terrible habit, and it seems I won’t be able to quit anytime soon…
Closing the panel, she fished out a soldier pill, popped it into her mouth, and couldn’t help but recall the previous battle.
She wasn’t savoring the joy of her victory; instead, the gruesome image of corpses littering the village flashed repeatedly in her mind.
And this was only the Second Great Ninja War.
This was during the era when Amegakure hadn’t had its military strength halved, and when Hanzo of the Salamander was still brimming with ambition!
If it was already this miserable now…
By the time the Third Great Ninja War broke out in a few years, what kind of living hell would the Land of Rain become?
‘No wonder the Akatsuki expanded so rapidly in the future.’ ‘The civilians of the Land of Rain are far too desperate for a sliver of hope, even if grasping that hope is like a moth flying into a flame, destined to burn itself to ash…’ ‘But then again, the Land of Rain was the one that instigated this war in the first place.
Amegakure’s hands aren’t clean either.’ Hugging Arashikiri to her chest as she sat on the branch, her thoughts wandered further, inevitably questioning the righteousness of this war.
It rained all year round in the Land of Rain.
Let alone fostering commercial development, even simple farming was extremely difficult.
Ayane remembered when she was very little, her mother would hold her and recall with deep nostalgia how rice in the Land of Whirlpools was over ten times cheaper than in the Land of Rain.
Thinking about it now, a nation that completely relied on importing its staple food—how could they not think of invasion?
During seasons with poor harvests, a single bowl of steaming hot rice could cost up to five thousand ryo!
Five thousand ryo!
If converted entirely into coins, you couldn’t even hold it all in one hand!
Rumble!
The low, muffled boom of thunder broke her train of thought.
Ayane sighed, tossing aside her grand, patriotic worries for the nation and its people.
She was just a shinobi about to step onto the battlefield.
Whether she would even survive to see the future was up in the air; what was the point of thinking so much?
She lifted her head and gazed at the sky.
The pitch-black, leaden clouds pressed down heavily overhead, like a suffocating net capturing the people of this land, making it hard to breathe, trapping them in an endless struggle.
Suddenly.
A single thought flashed silently across her mind, striking at the exact same moment a bolt of lightning split the sky.
‘If one day…’ ‘I actually manage to become a God of the Shinobi World…’ ‘The very first thing I’ll do…’ ‘…is physically tear open this ugly, oppressive sky, so that it can never obscure my sight again!’