Night had fallen.
Yakumo dried himself off, opened the bathroom door, and walked into the living room.
Looking outside through the window, he discovered that a light rain had begun to fall.
Dark clouds swallowed the moonlight.
It must be rather cold outside now.
Suddenly, Yakumo threw open the window.
A chilly wind carried raindrops onto his bare upper body.
Watching the rain grow heavier, he smiled silently.
The timing couldn’t have been better.
The rain would wash away the traces left by him and Yasuko.
It would also interfere with anyone trying to track them, delaying the discovery of the battlefield in the alley.
By the time anyone found the scene, nature itself would have helped conceal the truth.
Yakumo carefully cleaned his ninja blade, making sure no traces of blood remained.
He then set fire to the cloth he had used to wipe it clean.
Afterward, he stood before the mirror and began circulating chakra to activate the Concealment Technique.
Half an hour later, he had returned to his usual appearance: the timid, cowardly boy who avoided trouble and dared not provoke anyone.
Sometimes, weakness really was an excellent disguise.
After giving it some thought, Yakumo spent all his remaining gold coins improving his Water Bullet Technique.
Skill Upgrade
Skill
Water Bullet
Proficiency
330 / 600
Current Rank
Perfected
System Effect
Acceleration
Now that he had obtained the Mastery Breakthrough Scroll, Yakumo was confident he could max out Water Bullet’s proficiency within ten days and then advance it to the Master level!
Next, he took out the two scrolls he’d recovered from the corpse, along with a thick stack of banknotes issued by the Land of Fire.
His heart raced, and his hands trembled with excitement.
One note.
Two notes.
Three…
Total: 1.3 million ryō.
It wasn’t enough to make him fabulously wealthy, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about his living expenses for the next several years.
Yakumo tucked the banknotes into a hidden compartment beneath his bed.
He had already come up with an explanation for where the money had come from: it was part of the savings his parents had left him before going to war.
With the money safely hidden, he opened the scrolls.
“Water Release: Hidden Mist Technique.”
“Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet.”
Yakumo immediately put away the Fire Dragon Flame Bullet scroll.
He coveted the technique, of course, but even the cleverest cook couldn’t prepare a meal without ingredients.
He simply didn’t possess Fire Release chakra.
This was a powerful B-rank ninjutsu.
In Konoha, A-rank techniques were generally treated as forbidden or secret techniques.
Unless a shinobi made a major contribution, obtaining one was almost impossible.
That meant B-rank ninjutsu represented the upper limit of what an ordinary shinobi without a prestigious background could reasonably hope to acquire.
Even Minato Namikaze was no exception.
He had obtained the Flying Thunder God Technique through his military achievements, while most of his other techniques were either self-developed, derived from the Uzumaki clan’s sealing arts, or lower-ranked ninjutsu.
Of course, his situation after becoming Hokage was another matter entirely.
As for the Hidden Mist Technique, it was practically an essential technique for shinobi from Kirigakure.
It was extremely useful.
Unfortunately, the density of the mist depended on the amount of chakra used.
With his current reserves, Yakumo could probably produce only a thin layer of fog.
There was little point in learning it just yet.
After finishing his inventory, Yakumo took out his notebook and resumed grinding his missions.
When writing his diary entry, he skillfully omitted the incident involving the Hidden Mist spy.
After all, although the system forced him to write in his diary every day, what kind of sensible person would put his innermost thoughts in a diary?
Near midnight, Yakumo lay in bed and replayed the battle in his mind.
He had made plenty of mistakes.
For example, he shouldn’t have lowered his guard simply because Hiratsu was someone he recognized.
If the kunai had been aimed at his eye socket instead, Iori Yakumo might have been the one lying dead in that alley.
He should also have mixed the chakra-disrupting poison needles into his Water Bullet attack.
Even if the enemy had survived the initial impact and retained enough strength to fight, having his chakra disrupted would have made him much easier to deal with.
Fortunately, Yakumo had prepared body-dissolving fluid in advance.
Even if someone eventually discovered the location of the battle, recovering clues from the corpse would be nearly impossible.
There were still many shortcomings in his performance.
At best, he could give himself…
Eighty points.
The following morning, Yakumo opened his front door and breathed in the fresh air after the rain.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
Standing outside was Mori Yasuko.
Her expression was extremely serious, and the dark circles beneath her eyes were so pronounced that it was obvious she hadn’t slept much the previous night.
“First, the body-dissolving fluid and trace-erasing powder were supplied by Kakashi.
I wanted them for self-defense because I was worried someone might try to harm me.”
Yakumo stepped forward and continued explaining before she could ask anything.
“As for my strength, ever since my parents died, I’ve sworn to myself that I would keep getting stronger.
I’ve been training for the past month, and I’ve made some progress.
That’s how I ended up like this.”
“Oh…”
Some of Yasuko’s questions had indeed been answered, but even more had begun to form in her mind.
Yakumo seemed to have explained everything, yet somehow he hadn’t explained anything at all.
She continued questioning him.
“Where did you get that ninjutsu that caved in the enemy’s back?”
“Water Bullet.
I’ve told you about it before…” Yakumo replied matter-of-factly.
“Water Bullet is a very powerful technique.”
“That’s nonsense!
You mean that technique Uncle Iori uses to water flowers?”
Yasuko’s voice rose several notches.
“Exactly.”
Yakumo answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, giving her a look that seemed to say, Believe me if you want.
If you don’t, suit yourself.
“Could it really be…?”
Yasuko suddenly remembered the giant bear in the forest.
When Yakumo’s Water Bullet struck it, the beast had been forced backward again and again.
At the time, she had assumed the effect was caused by the heat generated during the encounter.
Now that she thought about it, the technique’s powerful impact might have been responsible.
“Come to my house after school today.
I’ll give you one of the spoils from last night’s battle—the Fire Dragon Flame Bullet training scroll.”
Yakumo stepped closer and whispered into her ear.
“All right…” Yasuko replied.
Her cheeks flushed, and she instinctively took two steps backward.
“Your full name should be Mori Yasuko of the Uchiha clan, right?”
“Not exactly…
My full name should be Senju Yasuko.”
“What…?”
At that moment, Yakumo thought he understood something.
Before Yasuko could say anything else, he continued.
“Your father is a Senju, and your mother is an Uchiha?”
“Yes…
My grandparents…
Anyway, it’s a complicated story.”
Yasuko herself knew very little about the events involving the older generation.
“It’s probably nothing more than a story about two people from rival clans who happened to fall in love.
They faked their deaths and escaped together, allowing the lovers to finally live happily ever after.”
Yakumo quickly offered the explanation with a smile.
“How did you know…?”
Yasuko looked genuinely astonished.
“I’ve read plenty of romance novels in the library.
There are lots of stories like that.”
“Really?
Maybe I’ll borrow one sometime.”
At the very least, Yakumo’s explanation eased Yasuko’s lingering fear and uncertainty.
She smiled happily again.
“I’m actually quite jealous of people like you who have such interesting stories.
As for me, I’ll have nothing but my handsomeness accompanying me throughout my life.”
“You’re really shameless now.”
“Haha!”
The conversation moved on to other topics, but Yakumo’s thoughts grew more complicated.
Something about this didn’t add up.
Given how highly the Uchiha clan valued the Sharingan, would they really have allowed someone possessing their bloodline to fake their death and disappear?
For such a deception to succeed, they would need a corpse with an identical appearance and build—or some extraordinary circumstance that made the disappearance possible.
Otherwise, the odds of getting away with it would be practically zero.
There was no doubt that Yasuko possessed Uchiha blood.
However, Yakumo had serious doubts about her story of a faked death and a romantic escape.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t question her any further.
If he did, he might reveal just how much he knew about the Uchiha clan—a level of knowledge he had no way of explaining.
Just as Yakumo stepped into the classroom, ANBU members discovered the site of the battle in the alley.
It wasn’t long before the head of ANBU arrived at the scene.