Ever since arriving on the island at noon, Zabuza Momochi had been wandering around, carefully observing the terrain.
Although it was only a tiny island, for it to serve as the examination site for more than a hundred Ninja Academy students, it naturally had to cover a considerable area—more than two million square meters.
It also had no shortage of forests, mountains, and rocky terrain.
Even with Zabuza’s strength, wiping out so many students scattered across the island would be somewhat difficult.
That was why, despite Yagura Karatachi having already given him a map of the island beforehand, Zabuza had immediately gone to personally verify several locations whose markings were unclear.
To prevent all the students from ganging up on him, Zabuza had also refrained from making his move during the day.
He merely dealt with two unlucky students he happened to encounter along the way.
Given Zabuza’s strength and reputation within the Ninja Academy, the two ordinary students had immediately prepared to surrender their tokens in exchange for their lives.
Such behavior was permitted by the Ninja Academy.
After all, the purpose of the examination was to eliminate the weak.
Encountering an opponent you couldn’t defeat, surrendering your token, and then eliminating two people weaker than yourself—that was what a normal examination was supposed to look like.
For Zabuza Momochi, however, everyone taking this examination was his prey.
Now that he had begun his hunt, there was only one thing in Zabuza’s eyes.
Enemies.
“Thud!” “Number eleven!” A soft sound accompanied a spray of blood as Zabuza slowly pulled the kunai from the back of a girl’s neck.
“Num…ber twenty-three.” Zabuza’s gaze swept over the two corpses at his feet without stopping for even an instant.
He silently walked over to the girl’s shinobi pouch, quickly replenished his supplies, then turned and continued his hunt.
“Whoosh!
Whoosh!” Two shuriken suddenly shot out from the dense forest.
Zabuza cautiously leaned sideways and dodged them.
At the same time, he extended two fingers and precisely caught the shuriken by the holes in their centers.
With a fierce swing of his arm, he hurled the shuriken back at an even greater speed.
They struck their target hidden within the forest.
“Thir…ty.” After completing the sequence of movements, Zabuza subconsciously continued counting.
“Fifty-six.” “Fifty-seven.” “Fifty-eight…” As the sky gradually brightened, Zabuza’s expression went through a transformation.
At first, there had been bloodlust.
Then came calmness.
Then confusion.
And finally, his eyes gradually became utterly lifeless.
Although his expression had once again returned to tranquility, the killing intent radiating from his body had only grown more intense.
Speckled bloodstains stretched from his collar all the way down to his trouser legs.
Before he even realized it, Zabuza had somehow arrived at the gathering point near the island’s harbor.
The sun had already risen completely, yet the mist covering the island was growing increasingly dense.
A dozen or so students had gathered here in small groups.
Clearly, these were the students who had already obtained two tokens and were waiting for the boat to arrive and take them away.
Several corpses still lay scattered carelessly across the ground, blood continuing to seep from their wounds.
It was impossible to tell whether they had been killed here after having their tokens stolen, or whether they had been fools who, confident in their own strength, had tried to seize tokens from others at the finish line and ended up being killed instead.
When one of Zabuza’s classmates saw him slowly emerge from the thick mist, the student approached him with an almost gleeful expression.
“Hey, Zabuza Momochi.
With your strength, how come you’re only getting here now?” “Don’t go over there!” One of his companions seemed to have noticed that something was wrong with Zabuza’s condition.
But before the warning could even finish— Thud!
Hot blood sprayed from the boy’s neck.
His eyes widened in shock and unwillingness.
He had clearly already passed the examination.
His hands futilely reached for the kunai embedded in his throat before his body slowly collapsed to the ground.
“Zabuza!
You—” The dead student’s companion was about to angrily rebuke Zabuza.
The others simply watched coldly from the sidelines.
They all assumed that Zabuza had somehow failed to obtain enough tokens and had come to the finish line to seize them from those who had already passed.
Yet Zabuza didn’t even acknowledge the accusation.
He simply stood where he was and began rapidly forming hand seals.
“What is he doing?” “Hey!
That guy who died had two tokens on him!” “No!
Something’s wrong!
Stop him!” Everyone who had managed to reach this place at this time was among the stronger students of their class.
Some of the quicker ones had already realized that something was seriously wrong and rushed toward Zabuza.
“Tch!” Seeing senbon, kunai, shuriken, and all sorts of other attacks coming straight at him, Zabuza had no choice but to interrupt the hand seals for the Water Dragon Jutsu.
He immediately drew two more kunai, one in each hand, and charged straight into the crowd, slaughtering everyone in his path.
“Are you insane?!” “Stop talking and kill him!” Yet no matter how furiously they cursed him, one by one they were mercilessly cut down as time passed.
By now, the killing intent surrounding Zabuza had become so intense that it seemed almost tangible.
When the last surviving student looked at the boy, who was actually several inches shorter than himself, fear seemed to distort his vision.
He could almost see the killing intent behind Zabuza condensing into the enormous head of a several-meter-tall demon.
It was hideous.
Terrifying.
At that moment, a dense aura of bloodlust permeated the air around Zabuza.
The grotesque, purplish-red head of a demon twisted and coiled behind him, gradually enveloping his entire body.
The apparition resembled a starving beast, radiating an overwhelming aura of terror that made breathing difficult.
The final student was left with an empty gaze.
The short blade slipped from his hand.
He collapsed helplessly to the ground, waiting for death— and for the birth of the Demon of the Hidden Mist.
…
At noon, the scorching sunlight finally dispersed the thick mist covering the island.
A large ship arrived at the island precisely on schedule.
However, as the vessel slowly approached the shore, everyone aboard witnessed a scene completely different from previous years.
A boy covered from head to toe in blood, his eyebrows completely absent, sat alone at the harbor with his arms tightly wrapped around his knees.
More than twenty corpses lay scattered haphazardly around him.
Male and female alike, every one of them was a student of the Ninja Academy.
Blood, kunai, and shuriken were scattered across the ground.
Even the seawater near the harbor had been dyed a shocking crimson.
The boy sat amid this chaos and death, his eyes vacant, as though he had completely isolated himself from the world.
He stared blankly at the approaching ship.
Not a trace of emotion appeared on his face, as if he had become completely unresponsive to everything around him.
“Quickly!
Get down there and find out what happened!” A man dressed as a chūnin urgently prepared to rush ashore.
However, a green-haired figure stepped forward first and blocked his path.
Yagura Karatachi.
The man who should have remained behind the scenes had appeared aboard the ship.
Whether he had come to ensure that the plan proceeded smoothly, to protect Zabuza after the completion of his mission, or perhaps for both reasons, was unknown.
“Everyone!
Stay on the ship!” As Yagura’s voice rang out, several figures immediately Body Flickered out of the cabin and took up positions at the bow.
At the same time, four chūnin emerged from the island.
They were the very proctors who had seemed to completely disappear throughout the entire day.
They now joined the group blocking the others.
Yagura then leapt ashore alone.
With a complicated expression, he slowly approached Zabuza, who remained curled up on the ground.
“Kid, you were merely carrying out orders as a weapon and a tool.
All the killing and sin committed here will be borne by me, the one who gave the order.” Yagura crouched down and gently rubbed Zabuza’s hair.
Then he continued.
“So now, your mission is complete.” “Congratulations on graduating, kid!” “A weapon…
and a tool…?” For the first time since the beginning, a faint glimmer of light appeared in the vacant eyes of the boy.