Deep underground beneath Konoha.
No sunlight reached this place, only dim, yellow light casting flickering, ghostly shadows against the stone walls.
The air was damp and cold, carrying a foul, stagnant stench.
Danzo Shimura sat alone in the stone chamber, his sole exposed eye fixed on the scroll in his hand.
The ink on the scroll was still fresh, detailing everything that had occurred yesterday at the Ninja Academy and the Uchiha clan compound.
*Ryuha Uchiha, unknown Kekkei Genkai, Complete Hypnosis, audience with Fugaku…*
“Uchiha…” Danzo spat the word from his withered lips as if chewing on something revolting.
“A truly lingering curse of a clan.”
He set the scroll down, his gaunt fingers trailing over the armrest of his seat, his eye filled with deep aversion.
“Does Fugaku Uchiha think he can use this branch family kid as a pawn?
Hmph, naive,” Danzo sneered.
“The Sharingan is troubling enough, and now a bloodline capable of controlling all five senses emerges…
The Uchiha bloodline truly shouldn’t exist in Konoha.”
He raised his head, looking toward the two silhouetted figures standing at attention like statues in the shadows.
“Torune, Fu,” Danzo’s voice echoed through the stone chamber.
“Go ‘contact’ this new toy of the Uchiha.
I want to know to what extent his Kekkei Genkai functions and how to crack it.”
“Remember, show no mercy.
If necessary, bring back his corpse—if those eyes still hold research value, that is.”
In the shadows, the two figures silently bowed their heads.
“Understood, Danzo-sama.”
***
Early the next morning.
Ryuha Uchiha stepped out of his newly renovated house, holding a voucher signed by Fugaku as he prepared to head to the clan’s supply depot to collect his training resources for the month.
Morning mist enveloped Konoha, and villagers were already busying themselves in the streets.
The auntie selling breakfast lifted the lid off her steamer, releasing clouds of hot vapor.
Patrolling shinobi leaped silently across rooftops.
A few children chased each other around a street corner, their laughter ringing clear.
It was a peaceful scene.
Yet Ryuha’s nerves tightened slightly.
Not because of the curious and scrutinizing glances thrown his way from time to time, but because—
[Warning: Detected two highly concealed malicious Chakra signatures locking onto you.
Strength assessment: Special Jonin.]
The system’s prompt echoed in his mind, icy and precise.
Ryuha pushed up his glasses, his eyes behind the lenses calmly surveying his surroundings without drawing attention.
In the shadows of the roof overhang to his left, there was an outline almost completely merged with the environment.
Behind a trash bin in an alley to his right, a breath was suppressed to an imperceptible whisper.
Anbu?
Or…
Ryuha recalled the organization hidden in Konoha’s shadows from the original story—”Root.”
Right.
Yesterday, he had exposed his “Mind’s Eye” in front of a crowd.
Given Danzo’s paranoia regarding the Uchiha and his greed for unique Kekkei Genkai, it would be stranger if he didn’t send someone to test him.
Ryuha didn’t pause his step, nor did he accelerate.
He continued walking toward the edge of the clan compound at an unhurried pace.
The supply depot and the private training grounds were both in that direction, making the route entirely reasonable.
However, Ryuha deliberately took a small detour, turning into a quiet grove of trees.
This was an abandoned training ground on the outskirts of the Uchiha compound.
People rarely frequented it, making it an ideal spot for a “contact.”
The moment he stepped into the woods, two gusts of sharp wind burst forth from behind him!
No warning, no probing—an absolute kill shot right from the start.
Two poisoned kunai shot toward Ryuha’s spine and neck from treacherous angles, sealing off every avenue of evasion.
At the same time, two figures materialized like ghosts in the air to his left and right.
One formed hand seals, spitting several wind blades that tore through the air with screeching whistles.
The other hurled three senbon attached to Explosive Tags straight at Ryuha’s legs.
A flawless execution, dripping with lethal intent.
A cold glint flashed in Ryuha’s eyes.
*Shunpo.*
*Whoosh.*
His body vanished from the spot.
It was not a high-speed motion leaving behind afterimages like the Body Flicker Jutsu, but a true instantaneous teleportation.
The poison kunai, wind blades, and senbon all struck empty air.
They collided and exploded right where Ryuha had been standing a split second ago, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The two Root ninjas’ pupils shrank in shock.
“He vanished?!”
“Where is he?!”
Their eyes scanned frantically, opening their sensory perceptions to the maximum, yet they couldn’t capture a single trace of Chakra fluctuation.
No, that wasn’t right.
It wasn’t that there was no fluctuation, but that the fluctuation was far too faint, far too concealed.
It was as though…
as though the person himself simply didn’t exist.
“On the left!” the Root ninja codenamed Torune barked suddenly, throwing three shuriken with a flick of his wrist.
*Clang, clang, clang!*
The shuriken were knocked down with pinpoint precision by a single kunai.
Ryuha’s figure had appeared at an unknown moment on a branch of a large tree to the left.
With one foot resting on a slender twig, his body swayed gently with the breeze, appearing weightless.
“Decent reaction,” Ryuha remarked casually, as though he hadn’t just been ambushed.
“Fu, restrict his movements!” Torune barked.
The Root ninja codenamed Fu rapidly completed hand seals—Snake-Dragon-Hare-Tiger.
“Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!”
A violent gale erupted from his mouth, not aimed directly at Ryuha, but sweeping across the entire area.
The fierce wind kicked up fallen leaves and dust to obstruct vision, while using the turbulent air currents to track the enemy’s movement trajectory.
A clever tactical choice.
Unfortunately, they were facing Shunpo.
Ryuha tapped his toe lightly against the branch.
His figure vanished once more.
Rather than saying he vanished, it was more accurate to say he moved so fast that even visual lingering images couldn’t form.
“Behind you!” Fu’s sensory abilities finally caught a faint trace, but it was too late.
Ryuha’s figure materialized like a phantom behind him, delivering a precise knife-hand strike to the back of his neck.
“Ugh!” Fu let out a muffled grunt as his body went limp.
Yet before losing consciousness, he marshaled every ounce of strength to hurl a cluster of poison smoke bombs.
A cloud of purple toxic mist expanded instantly.
“Got him!” A surge of delight flashed through Torune’s eyes.
As long as a single breath of this toxic mist was inhaled, it would paralyze the nerves within three seconds and neutralize combat capability within five.
However, in the very next second, his delight froze on his face.
Ryuha was already standing far outside the radius of the toxic mist, his clothes entirely untouched by the vapor.
He looked down at the collapsed Fu and shook his head lightly:
“Poison is useless against me.”
The instant the poison bombs detonated, Ryuha had used Shunpo to widen the distance.
The entire movement was smooth as flowing water, as if rehearsed a thousand times over.
“How is this possible…” Cold sweat dripped from Torune’s forehead.
What kind of speed was this?
No hand seals, no signs of a Chakra surge, and even his movement trajectory was so unnatural that it defied prediction.
One moment he was in place, and the next he was ten meters away, with absolutely no process of “movement” in between.
It was almost…
almost like a Space-Time Ninjutsu!
But wasn’t that a technique developed by the Second Hokage?
Where could he have learned it?
How could he possibly master it!
Besides, Space-Time Ninjutsu generated distinct spatial fluctuations.
The technique this kid was using wasn’t Ninjutsu at all!
Was it Taijutsu?
What kind of Taijutsu could achieve such an effect?
“What on earth are you?!” Torune gritted his teeth, weaving hand seals once more—this time a far more complex sequence.
Yet before his seals were even half-finished, a figure closed in right before his face.
So fast!
Torune couldn’t even see how Ryuha moved.
All he saw was a fair-skinned palm expanding rapidly before his eyes.
*Bang!*
A clean, decisive straight punch smashed squarely into his abdomen.
“Gah!” Torune’s eyes bulged, a mixture of gastric fluid and blood spurting from his mouth as his body bent like a shrimp.
Yet his Root training granted him willpower far beyond that of ordinary men.
Enduring the excruciating pain, he slid a poisoned short blade from his sleeve and slashed back toward Ryuha’s ribs.
A mutual destruction tactic.