They'd already signed the death waivers. The moment you stepped into the Forest of Death, every breath became a gamble; a few corpses meant nothing.
Even if the Uchiha insisted on tracking wounds and naming a culprit, what would they find? Yō hadn't used any flashy signature jutsu—just plain Wind-style sword strikes. His deaths were dealt with Konoha-issue kunai, the kind any Leaf shinobi might carry. Even Konoha's finest investigators would struggle to pin anything on him. And as an ANBU, leaving no trace was second nature.
"So… unbelievable, is it?" Yō walked toward Uchiha Yūsuke, smiling as he watched the other boy's shock. He sounded almost amused.
"I don't believe it!" Yūsuke exploded, collapsing into a raw, animal roar. His hands flashed through seals; he drew in a lungful of breath until his belly bloated—then hurled out an enormous fireball roughly eight meters across. The world around them went crimson; the heat hit like a wall, oppressive and nearly suffocating.
Yō only said, cool as a breeze, "Wind Sword Style."
He drew the short blade from his back. A thin, razor wind shimmered along its edge—and he slashed straight into the oncoming inferno.
Boom.
The sight was impossible: the eight-meter fireball split cleanly in half by a single blade. Yūsuke's eyes bulged; terror replaced his former hatred. He could not imagine what level of strength let a boy counter ninjutsu with nothing but technique and physicality.
"Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu!" Yūsuke snarled, spitting another blaze with savage cutting force.
Yō met it the same way—blade to flame—and tore it apart. Each step he took felt like it landed on Yūsuke's chest; the pressure of his presence was crushing.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Blossom!" Yūsuke bellowed, whipping up five blazing orbs that shook the air with their roar.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Again: each fireball shattered against Yō's swordwork and dispersed into nothing.
"You're a demon—impossible. I must be under genjutsu—Sharingan, undo it!" Yūsuke backed away and collapsed, panting in panic.
But hallucination or not, the heat in the air didn't lie. If Yūsuke weren't suffering the residual effects of that control curse, he might have held on for minutes—maybe longer. The curse, however, had gnawed his confidence away; terrified from the inside out, he couldn't even use half his strength. Against Yō, that wasn't nearly enough.
"Uchiha Yūsuke," Yō said, voice cold as winter. "You won't learn if you keep acting like this. Since you insist on dragging me into trouble—let me teach you what eternal fear actually is."