“You’re Yagami Yue?
You’re actually even younger than me!”
“I heard you have a technique called the Shooting Star that seriously injured the Fourth Kazekage.
Is that true?
Can you teach me?”
“By the way, could you stop looking so serious all the time?
You look much better when you smile.”
“I’m telling you, my dream is to become Hokage!”
“Obito, you need to show some respect to your senior.
He’s a jōnin.”
“Rin…”
Beside the campfire, Yagami Yue and Kakashi sat there with completely indifferent expressions.
They roasted meat while showing no reaction whatsoever, treating everything Obito said as though it were nothing more than background noise.
Meanwhile, Obito kept chattering excitedly beside them, talking to himself without pause.
Rin stood nearby, looking both gentle and helpless.
Listening to Obito’s energetic voice, Yagami Yue couldn’t help sighing inwardly.
Life really is unpredictable.
Who would have thought that someone as innocent and straightforward as Obito could become so utterly inhuman after falling into darkness?
As for Kakashi…
Yue glanced at him.
He and Kakashi actually had a certain connection.
Kakashi’s father, the Konoha White Fang, had been his father Yoru Ichirō’s direct superior.
According to the memories Yue had inherited, the two seemed to have had a fairly good relationship.
It was likely that Yue and Kakashi had met several times when they were children.
Unfortunately, after the death of the Konoha White Fang, Kakashi’s life had begun to descend into darkness.
And after Obito’s death…
Kakashi would no longer be the same person he had once been.
A tragic character.
But what does that have to do with me?
Yagami Yue gave a faint, mocking smile.
He already had his own plans for his life.
Konoha would eventually become his enemy.
…
The preparations for the war did not take long.
One week later—
The attack began.
Target: Kikyo City.
Method: Night assault.
The attack came suddenly.
Overnight, a large number of Konoha shinobi appeared inside Kikyo City in the Land of Wind.
“Enemy attack!!!”
The Sand shinobi and samurai stationed in Kikyo City screamed in alarm, their voices tearing through the night.
The entire city immediately descended into chaos.
Ordinary civilians hurriedly slammed their doors shut and hid inside their homes, not daring to show themselves.
Before long, fighting had broken out throughout the city.
The fiercest fighting was concentrated around the lord’s residence, where the majority of Konoha’s shinobi had launched a concentrated assault.
Battle cries.
Screams.
The night sky was anything but peaceful.
Atop the highest structure in Kikyo City—the clock tower—a handsome and cold-faced young man stood tall.
Three swords hung at his waist.
His clothes and hair fluttered in the night wind.
Yagami Yue.
He was the commander responsible for tonight’s assault on Kikyo City.
He did not need to fight personally.
His job was simply to take action whenever a powerful enemy appeared.
And a powerful enemy soon appeared.
From inside the lord’s residence came the furious roar of a female shinobi.
“Konoha can die!”
“Scorch Release: Steam Blast!”
At that instant, Yagami Yue’s Observation Haki detected an enormous chakra fluctuation erupting from the lord’s residence.
BOOM!
Part of the main hall exploded.
Then a ten-meter-tall tree withered almost instantly, turning yellow and dry as though every drop of water inside it had been evaporated.
Three Konoha chūnin were struck head-on.
They died instantly.
Their faces looked as though they had been melted by extreme heat.
“Scorch Release?”
Yagami Yue’s eyes lit up.
Scorch Release was a rare Kekkei Genkai created by combining Wind Release and Fire Release.
As far as Yue knew, there was only one shinobi in the entire world who possessed it.
A Sand jōnin.
A woman.
Pakura.
So it really is her.
The thought flashed through Yue’s mind.
But his body was already moving.
He leapt from the clock tower.
After several quick movements, he arrived at the lord’s residence.
There, he saw Pakura slaughtering Konoha shinobi.
Relying on several Scorch Release techniques, she had already killed seven or eight Konoha shinobi.
Suddenly—
Shing!
Pakura sensed a terrifying threat approaching from behind.
The hairs on her body stood on end.
A streak of sword energy tore through the air.
It sliced through a sturdy wooden pillar nearly one meter in diameter behind her, cutting it cleanly in half.
The sword energy continued forward and tore deep into the room.
Ten meters away stood a young man.
He held a sword in his hand.
There was a faint, almost mocking smile on his face.
Yet his eyes remained cold as he stared at her.
“It’s you!”
Pakura’s expression immediately turned cold.
She recognized Yagami Yue at once.
Her entire body tensed as she entered a state of extreme vigilance.
Yagami Yue’s portrait had long since spread throughout Sunagakure.
Almost every Sand shinobi who had fought on the battlefield knew what he looked like.
And there was another obvious feature.
Three swords hanging from his waist.
In an era when shinobi primarily fought using ninjutsu, carrying three swords was far too distinctive.
There was no mistaking him.
Pakura became even more cautious.
This was the very same person who had seriously injured Rasa.
Many Sand jōnin had also died at his hands.
But Pakura was confident in her own strength.
Her abilities were far beyond those of an ordinary jōnin.
She considered herself not much weaker than Rasa.
She had even once competed with Rasa for the position of Kazekage.
Although she had ultimately lost.
More importantly, she possessed the unique Kekkei Genkai known as Scorch Release.
Its destructive power was far beyond that of ordinary ninjutsu.
“I was just looking forward to fighting you.”
Pakura smiled coldly.
“I didn’t expect you to come looking for me yourself!”
She formed a series of hand seals.
“Scorch Release: Extremely Steaming Murder!”
A massive wave of scorching air surged toward Yagami Yue.
The temperature instantly rose several times over.
Yagami Yue moved at the same moment.
“Dragon!
Twister!”
All three swords were drawn.
Cold flashes of steel erupted into the night.
He swung them simultaneously.
A powerful burst of sword pressure instantly formed a violent tornado.
It collided head-on with Pakura’s Scorch Release.