"Congratulations," Fujimoto Tōma said softly."You chose the worst possible route."
The moment the words left his mouth, his body vanished.
The special jōnin's pupils shrank. He didn't even have time to warn his subordinates. Instinct screamed danger, and he kicked backward at full speed.
Too late for the others.
By the time the remaining three reacted, Tōma was already among them.
One rogue watched the black-clad figure rush straight toward him. The speed crushed his will instantly. He tried to raise his weapon—
And realized the blade was already in front of his face.
That single moment of disbelief was all he got.
Tōma didn't even pause. He drew, cut, and flowed into the next strike as if the first man had never existed.
The second rogue, using the first as a buffer, finally reacted. His kunai snapped up, intercepting Tōma's sword at the perfect angle.
Tōma smiled faintly.
Yes. If you blocked at the right point, Lightning Release acceleration didn't matter. The blade only looked invisible. The path still existed.
Unfortunately for him—
Tōma wasn't limited to lightning.
The rogue's kunai was cheap. Poor steel. Tōma didn't bother adjusting his swing.
Sword and kunai collided.
The kunai split like wet clay.
The blade didn't slow. It passed through metal, bone, and flesh in a single line.
Blood sprayed.
Tōma's expression remained flat.
This was Wind Release chakra flow. Pure cutting power. Without chakra reinforcement, ordinary weapons didn't even qualify as obstacles.
Especially against this blade.
The sword in Tōma's hand wasn't a standard katana. The grip was plain, wrapped in black cloth. The guard was small, barely large enough to protect his fingers. The blade itself was straight, uncompromising, with a blood groove now stained dark red.
Forged by Takumi Tetsuya… or rather, mostly by his grandfather.
A weapon made to kill.
The third rogue froze.
Sweat poured down his face as his mind struggled to process reality. Two teammates. Dead. In seconds.
Fight?
That was suicide.
He turned and ran.
Hands shaking, he tried to form seals for the Body Flicker. A technique he'd practiced thousands of times now felt impossibly complex.
Tōma noticed.
With one hand, he caught a broken kunai shard still spinning in midair. Lightning flickered along his arm.
He threw.
The rogue's hands froze mid-seal.
The shard punched clean through his forehead and pinned him to a tree behind him.
His eyes dimmed. His body collapsed.
Silence.
The special jōnin stopped retreating, staring blankly.
That fast?
All three… gone?
He looked at Tōma as if staring at something inhuman. The boy's eyes were black, yet they burned red in his vision.
Tōma rested the blade on his shoulder and tapped his temple lightly.
…It was getting harder to hold back.
The killing intent pressing against his mind surged, demanding more. Faster. Bloodier. Crueler.
This was the problem.
The kill frequency was too high.
Once he started, it became harder to stop. Each battle pushed him further, his methods growing more ruthless.
Usually, his mental stillness kept it contained.
But not forever.
Tōma knew it. He needed to step away soon. To stop. To reset.
Still—
He looked at the special jōnin.
"Only one left," Tōma said quietly. "So could you please… die quickly?"
He lunged.
The special jōnin barely had time to think. That speed again—no, faster. This was jōnin-level movement, minimum.
Ninjutsu?
No time.
He slapped together the simplest seals he could.
"Clone Technique!"
Not shadow clones. Just illusions. Enough to buy time.
Tōma ignored them completely.
His blade went straight for the real body.
Why?!
The jōnin's mind screamed. Even if he could distinguish the real one, most people still split attention—
Tōma didn't.
The strike came with zero hesitation.
The jōnin raised his kunai, chakra flooding into it. He'd seen what happened otherwise.
Steel screamed.
The clash rang out.
Despite his age, Tōma's strength didn't falter. Years of training and growth had erased that weakness.
Lightning crawled along the blade.
The jōnin saw the notch forming in his kunai and felt his stomach drop. Even reinforced, it wouldn't last.
Electricity surged through the weapon, numbing his arm.
He held on—
Then his vision caught something else.
A kunai.
Flying straight at him.
Where did it come from? The boy was holding a sword with both hands—!
He twisted desperately, barely dodging.
Tōma smiled.
Impressive. Even half-paralyzed, he dodged.
But that was the end.
Tōma released one hand from the sword.
His body vanished.
"Flying Thunder God."
He reappeared beside the kunai.
A spinning sphere of blue chakra formed in his palm.
The special jōnin stared, eyes wide. His body was already off-balance. No guard. No defense.
So tell me, Tōma thought calmly.How do you dodge this?
"Rasengan."
The sphere slammed into the jōnin's face.
The impact drove him into the ground with a thunderous crash.
Dust exploded outward.
When it cleared, a crater remained. The man's head was buried deep in the earth.
Mercifully unseen.
Tōma stood at the edge, breathing slowly.
…He'd lost control.
At that moment, the man had no chance to escape. A clean sword strike would've ended it.
Instead, he'd chosen this.
The violence had leaked through.
This couldn't continue.
If he kept operating at this pace, even his mental discipline wouldn't hold.
He'd already decided before this mission to leave ANBU after it ended.
Now, that resolve hardened.
In the past year and a half, how many missions? How many rescues? How many deaths?
A conservative estimate put it at more than one body per day.
The accumulated killing intent had begun to erode him.
He'd underestimated it.
He was still someone shaped by a modern life. Twenty-plus years of values didn't disappear just because he'd lived a few years as a shinobi.
This path violated those foundations.
The damage was inevitable.
Tōma exhaled, steadying himself, then vanished again in a flash of space-time.
He reappeared beside the two Leaf shinobi.
"Black Shadow-sama!" they said instantly.
"It's done," Tōma replied. "Collect the bodies in those three directions. Reinforcements will arrive soon. Resume transport afterward. I'm leaving."
He was gone before they could respond.
The two shinobi stood there, stunned.
"That's… it?" one muttered.
The calmer one's face flushed with fervor. "As expected of Black Shadow-sama!"
"Yeah," the other said weakly. "But… why did he keep his eyes closed the whole time?"
The calm shinobi snorted. "Obviously because it looks cool."
"…Right."