"He's still a student. Is it really necessary to assign him a mission like this?"
In the Execution Department office, Schneider stared at the monitor showing Cheng Sui talking with an Executive Department specialist and said expressionlessly.
Angers also watched the feed, smiling. "I never thought our cold-blooded, iron-fisted minister would say such a thing. I saw the mission list you prepared for Chu Zihang—far more intense than mine."
"You know I'm not talking about difficulty." Schneider's iron-gray pupils were devoid of emotion, cutting Angers off bluntly.
Angers slowly wiped away his smile, watching Cheng Sui warm up on the monitor before heading into the factory. After a moment of silence he said, "I admire this student, but some things matter more than my personal fondness—like slaying dragons."
Angers pulled a cigar from his suit pocket, lit it, took a deep draw, his eyes complicated. "I have to make him hate the dragon race. Only hatred can keep pushing a man forward. Isn't your student the same?"
Schneider said nothing; the office fell silent except for his thick, hoarse breathing.
After a while Schneider finally spoke: "No smoking in the office."
"Junior Cheng, are you sure you're going into the factory without bringing anything?" Ye Sheng asked for the third time.
"At least wear this." Sakatoku Aki stood beside him, holding a gas mask, looking worriedly at Cheng Sui.
Cheng Sui reluctantly took the mask from Aki and put it on, his voice muffled. "Good enough. I'm heading in."
Ye Sheng and Sakatoku Aki stood side by side. Aki bowed slightly to Cheng Sui: "May fortune favor you in battle."
Cheng Sui waved without looking back and strode into the abandoned factory.
Under the moonlight the factory's silhouette loomed like the rotting skeleton of a colossal beast, rusted steel frames twisting toward the night sky.
Wind swept through the plant, letting out an eerie whoosh.
Cheng Sui's nose twitched and he frowned.
The air was thick with a mix of iron rust, machine oil, damp soil—and... Cheng Sui turned toward a corner where an abandoned warehouse lay, almost swallowed by dark-green vines; the faint smell of blood had drifted from there.
As he reached the door the stench of blood grew stronger. Cheng Sui placed a hand on the iron door and pushed hard.
The door didn't budge; it had been barred from the inside.
In that case... Cheng Sui stepped back a few paces, pulled off the gas mask and tossed it aside, then rapidly formed hand seals.
Snake-Rat-Ox-Monkey-Rooster-Yang-Rat-Boar-Rooster
Cheng Sui inhaled deeply, chest ballooning, then spat out a huge sphere of pressurized wind.
The wind sphere slammed into the iron door, denting it like an invisible giant's punch until the metal tore apart.
The blast kept going, exploding inside the warehouse; violent gusts scattered everywhere before surging out through the torn doorway.
The gale whipped Cheng Sui's bangs upright. He instinctively held his breath, fearing toxins the target might carry.
"The fight's begun." Ye Sheng murmured upon hearing the distant boom.
"I thought Junior Cheng's Kotodama wasn't combat-oriented. How did he make such a racket?"
"Just like no one expected a C-rank to beat Caesar, he always pulls off the unimaginable." Ye Sheng looked worriedly at Aki. "I'm not afraid he'll lose to that Dangerous Hybrid; I'm afraid of the psychological scar the scene inside might leave on him."
Aki gently held Ye Sheng's hand and soothed him: "It's okay. We'll wait for him together."
When the wind subsided, Cheng Sui stepped through the doorway. Beneath black contact lenses his Sharingan had quietly awakened.
Moonlight filtered through the broken roof, giving the dark warehouse some light and letting Cheng Sui see what lay within.
A hill of corpses piled together, dark-red blood seeping beneath them; Cheng Sui could even see the despair frozen on the victims' faces.
Fury, nausea, shock—all erupted in his mind at once. His pupils contracted; he had never witnessed such horror.
He had expected gore, but not this hellish tableau.
It felt as if some shackle in his brain shattered under the surge of emotion, and the Uchiha's sinister ocular power rushed from his brain straight to his eyes!
Beneath the black lens his single-tomoe Sharingan whirled, and a second dark, bewitching tomoe slowly emerged.
Under that emotional torrent Cheng Sui's eyes unexpectedly awakened the Two-Tomoe Sharingan!
"Roar!"
A hoarse roar came from a steel beam overhead. Cheng Sui looked up and saw the perpetrator.
A hunched man clung to the beam, sharp claws stabbed into the steel to anchor him. His left side was covered in bluish-black reverse scales, legs bent unnaturally backward—like some lizard-man.
He still wore a doctor's white coat, now dyed red; protruding bone spikes had shredded it into tatters.
Cheng Sui stared at him expressionlessly, already pronouncing a death sentence in his heart.
Without hesitation he mobilized a vast surge of Chakra to smash his body's acupoints.
Eight Gates: Gate One—Open!
Enormous power welled up inside him, but Cheng Sui didn't stop there.
Gate of Healing, Gate of Life, Gate of Pain—Open!
Invisible currents rippled outward; his black bangs lifted as green energy erupted from his body.
The Dangerous Hybrid on the beam sensed something wrong, roared, and launched itself at him.
But Cheng Sui vanished before its eyes. The hybrid froze, then felt a crushing grip on its neck as it was hurled toward the ground.
Its dragonified claws flailed, trying to slash Cheng Sui, but he had already slipped behind it.
In an instant Cheng Sui stood on the floor, looking up at the airborne target, legs coiled like springs.
"Boom!"
The warehouse floor shattered under his explosive leap. In the hybrid's terrified eyes Cheng Sui reappeared at its side.
Seeing fear in the man's vertical pupils, Cheng Sui grinned savagely.
"So you can feel fear too?"