Chapter 96: The Konoha White Fang Who Got Screwed Over
"What kind of accident could possibly happen if I go?"
Stelle felt Danzo was being needlessly anxious. She, the esteemed Stelle, had a verifiable track record of success.
Danzo, however, rose to his feet, his fighting spirit blazing as if he had finally found a worthy adversary after a lifetime of searching. "Kagami must remain here to stand guard against the Nine-Tails. Hiruzen has only just married. That makes me the most suitable candidate to provide support."
His voice grew taut with competitive fire. "Besides, I am eager to meet this so-called master of Wind Release. I want to see for myself who truly is the greatest Wind Release user of this generation."
Having already adopted a mindset as rigid and pragmatic as Kakuzu's, Danzo was now spouting lines straight from a hot-blooded shonen manga, looking for all the world like he was ready to challenge Kazushi to a duel on the spot.
Stelle remained silent for a beat, a flicker of amusement in her eyes, before she gave a solemn nod. 'Perfect.'
Once Danzo threw down with Kazushi, his emotional value would surely skyrocket. After all, he was about to be on the receiving end of her Wind Release. It had to be said, the world of Naruto was one defined by bloodlines and innate talent. With her own optimally superior physique, she was like the top student in a class of geniuses—others could pull all-nighters until their eyes bled and still never match the casual brilliance of her insights.
She would simply tag along, watch the show, and step in to "save the day" when the moment was right.
"Alright, then," Stelle said, her tone serious. "You'll go, Danzo. But be exceptionally careful."
"Don't worry," he declared, his expression grimly determined. "I will ensure Sakumo's safe withdrawal."
As for that Hyuga... just the thought of the liability who had delayed Sakumo's retreat made Danzo's jaw clench. Once he returned to Konoha, he would make the Hyuga Clan pay a steep price. Always so obsessed with their Main and Branch Family system, and this was the result—a monumental blunder on a critical mission.
In the dense, twisting forests of the Land of Wind, Hyuga Gen was running for his life. The moment his forehead protector had been knocked askew during the earlier battle, revealing his unmarked brow to the Hidden Sand shinobi, he knew things had gone terribly, irrevocably wrong.
And sure enough, it wasn't long before the sky above was painted with the fiery trails of Sunagakure signal flares. The force pursuing him was no longer a mere squad. Judging by the cacophony of triggered traps he'd left in his wake, their numbers were substantial.
They were dead set on claiming his eyes.
A wave of regret washed over him. He had been far too reckless this time.
The sky bled from orange to purple, and after a few more brief, desperate skirmishes, the world was plunged into darkness. The pitch-black night should have been an advantage for him, for his Byakugan.
The instant the first figures flickered into the edge of his 360-degree vision, he snapped his hands into a seal.
"Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!"
With a gentle-looking push, the very air before his palm compressed into a visible, shimmering ripple. The shockwave tore through the night, and in the distance, a sandstone outcropping shattered with a sharp crack. The approaching figure, having not even located its enemy, was struck squarely by the invisible force. There was no scream, only the twitch of several chakra threads before the figure unnaturally righted itself and stood back up.
'Damn it, it's a puppet,' Gen thought, his heart sinking.
Without a second's hesitation, he turned and fled. But that fractional delay was all his enemies needed. Several more shadows descended from the trees, their movements jerky and unnatural as they surrounded him. The faint, glowing chakra threads connecting them to an unseen master confirmed his fears. These were all puppets. Even if he could disable them, the situation was dire—the Sand puppeteer controlling them hadn't even bothered to show their face.
A dense barrage of poisoned senbon and kunai hissed through the air, converging on him from all sides.
"Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven!"
Gen spun, becoming the eye of a hurricane as a massive sphere of pure chakra erupted around him, deflecting the storm of steel. The moment his rotation ceased, another volley was already airborne, launched by the patient puppeteer. It was clear they intended to exhaust his chakra reserves before moving in to capture him alive.
Just as desperation began to set in, a silvery-white light tore through the night sky, cleaving a path straight into the battlefield.
The light flashed, a streak of purest silver drawn against the black canvas of the heavens, and vanished in an instant. It was followed by the sickeningly wet sound of blades piercing flesh and the hot spray of blood from severed arteries. Several figures tumbled lifelessly from the treetops.
The puppets surrounding Hyuga Gen, their masters now dead, collapsed to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut.
The white light faded, revealing a tall, silver-haired man holding a short sword that still hummed with chakra—Hatake Sakumo.
"Lord Sakumo!" Hyuga Gen cried out, a wave of deep relief washing over him.
"Go!"
There was no time for pleasantries. The two figures melted back into the darkness.
But the pursuers just kept coming. Chakra fluctuations flared up from every direction, a closing net of hunters. They broke through the encirclement time and again, yet the Sand shinobi clung to them like leeches, refusing to back down.
To carve a path through the sheer number of enemies, Sakumo was forced to continuously unleash the techniques of his White Fang style. The blade in his hand became an extension of his will, its light a harbinger of death. Each time the silver glow bloomed in the darkness, it claimed another wave of pursuers.
But the constant fighting was taking a heavy toll on his chakra.
At this point in time, before the outbreak of the Second Great Ninja War, Sakumo had not yet earned the fearsome moniker "Konoha's White Fang," nor had the village been rocked by the infamous rumors of him abandoning a mission. Though terrified by his masterful swordsmanship, the Sand-nin, thinking of their objective, gritted their teeth and pressed the chase.
Sakumo was baffled. He had simply been withdrawing from his own mission when he spotted a fellow Konoha shinobi in distress and rescued him on a whim. Why did it feel like he had just kicked a hornet's nest? Sand-nin were pouring in from all sides.
Weren't the missions issued by Sunagakure's leadership about purging spies? Weren't spies from other nations still spies? Why were they focusing solely on them, on Konoha?
"Are they... chasing you?" Sakumo suddenly realized, his head snapping around to look at Hyuga Gen. A thought struck him, and his eyes widened with shock and dawning suspicion.
Panting heavily, Gen leaned against a high rock to catch his breath. He reached up and removed his forehead protector, revealing a smooth, unblemished brow.
"Lord Sakumo... the truth is, I am from the Hyuga Main Family. The reason they are chasing me so relentlessly is because they discovered this."
Even though he had already guessed the answer, Sakumo still found it hard to believe.
'You're from the Main Family? Then why in the world aren't you safe and sound within the Hyuga compound? What are you doing running a mission in the Hidden Sand Village?'No wonder they were all acting like they were on stimulants. For a Sand-nin, the chance of encountering a member of the Hyuga Main Family was even lower than running into Uchiha Kagami and his Mangekyo Sharingan. This was free loot delivered right to their doorstep—of course these shinobi from the backwater desert would be ecstatic.'You've really screwed me over!' Sakumo thought, a vein pulsing at his temple.
"Why would a member of the Main Family be sent on a mission to the Hidden Sand?" he demanded.
"Actually... I requested this myself."
Although one of Konoha's two great dōjutsu clans, the Hyuga's position in the village was incredibly awkward. The rigid system of the Main and Branch Families meant that no matter how capable a Branch member was, they could never enter Konoha's core leadership, as their every action was controlled by the Main Family. Even someone like Stelle had no desire for important matters discussed in one moment to be known by the Hyuga Main Family the next—the potential for intrusion was disgusting.
, with the Hyuga Clan currently lacking any truly notable figures, Stelle hadn't even considered involving them in her plans.
To break into Konoha's circle of power, the Main Family had pushed him forward. They hoped he could gain enough merit by investigating the Hidden Sand Village to successfully infiltrate the Anbu. To earn that merit, he had brought two Branch Family shinobi with him to Sunagakure on a mission to steal their poison formulas.
Who could have known that the Sand's mysterious "Kazushi" would suddenly initiate a massive, village-wide spy purge with brutally thorough inspections? One misstep, and their identities were exposed.
Once again, the terrain of the Land of Wind favored the Sand shinobi. With nowhere to hide, they were like live targets on an open plain, making it nearly impossible to shake their pursuers.
Seeing new figures flicker into view at the edge of his Byakugan's range, Gen knew their brief respite was over. The two could only push their exhausted bodies forward, running deeper into the unforgiving night.
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