Swift and Clean Execution

"The feel is pretty good."

"Although the favorability bar has appeared, I'll wait to increase it later," Furen thought to himself as he glanced at the favorability panel in his mind. He was a bit curious—he hadn't expected that even with the Key Country headband on, he could still gain favorability.

Now wasn't the best time to raise Uzuki Yugao's favorability. The ideal time would be shortly after the death of Moonlight Hayate.

Furen snapped back to reality and pulled out a map of the area surrounding Konoha from his space scroll.

While the map detailed the hidden locations of various Sound and Sand ninjas involved in the Konoha Destruction Plan, it was not precise, only giving rough locations.

It was clear that although the Sound and Sand ninjas were working together, they still maintained a degree of wariness and didn't fully trust each other.

"Pfft, even so, the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, still got killed by Orochimaru," Furen chuckled, finding Gaara's father rather amusing.

His gaze shifted back to the map.

The scattered strongholds around Konoha—some of them were key locations for when the Konoha Destruction Plan unfolded, while others served as backup strongholds.

To maximize the use of this intelligence, Furen needed to prepare carefully before handing over the Konoha Destruction scroll to the Third Hokage.

His current mission was to locate Tayuya, one of Orochimaru's subordinates, and win her favor, so he could plant a spy within the Sound Village to further his plans.

"Hmm, this is a bit troublesome," Furen muttered as he looked at the seven or eight hidden Sound strongholds on the map.

"Well, whatever, I'll just leave it to luck." Knowing there was no better way, Furen picked the closest backup Sound ninja stronghold and set off.

At the Sound ninja backup stronghold.

Like most of Orochimaru's bases, this one was hidden underground. Above ground, three Sound ninja with musical note headbands cautiously monitored the surroundings for any signs of disturbance.

All of them were the Sound Village's top sensory ninjas. The moment anything went wrong, they would escape immediately to prevent compromising their plans.

"Do you feel like the air has gotten colder?" a tall sensory ninja quietly asked his teammate.

The other ninja rubbed his exposed arms and replied, "Now that you mention it, yeah, it does feel a bit chilly."

"How much longer until the mission is complete?" the tall sensory ninja asked, glancing down at the spot beneath a tree, which was the focus of their mission today.

"The explosive tags and kunai were already taken inside, so it should be soon," the other ninja responded, still rubbing his arms.

"By the way, where's Jinyou? Where did he go?" The two ninjas suddenly realized that one member of their three-man sensory team was missing.

"He... went to the bathroom?" the tall ninja guessed as he looked around.

The other ninja nodded. "That's probab—"

"Probab-what?" A strange voice suddenly cut into their conversation.

The two sensory ninjas instantly felt the hairs on their bodies stand on end! They didn't even have time to turn their heads before they felt a cold sensation on their necks.

Behind them stood Furen, who had silently approached and subdued them!

Despite being elite sensory ninjas from the Sound Village, the three-man team hadn't sensed Furen's arrival at all!

As for the third sensory ninja, there was no need to elaborate—he had already been dealt with by Furen in some hidden corner.

For a brief moment, the two remaining Sound ninjas exchanged shocked glances, and then their eyes turned vicious. From their sleeves, two small brown snakes slipped out.

But the snakes' targets weren't Furen, who had them under control; they were aiming at the ninjas themselves!

Having realized they'd been compromised, the Sound ninjas decided to kill themselves without hesitation, denying their enemy any chance to interrogate them.

"Suicide? How naive," Furen sneered.

The two Sound ninjas, who had steeled themselves for death, suddenly felt their bodies turn cold. Looking down, they saw that they had been encased in ice, their snakes frozen mid-strike, with their fangs bared in what would be their final pose.

Pop. Pop.

Two light sounds were heard, and the Furen controlling them vanished in a puff of smoke—it had been his shadow clones!

Furen's real body leisurely stepped out from behind a tree, glancing at the hidden stronghold beneath the tree's roots.

The two sensory ninjas' eyes filled with despair. If someone could defeat them with just shadow clones, they had no chance of resisting.

Furen took one last look at the Sound ninja stronghold but didn't enter. Instead, with a few quick leaps, he appeared before the two captured ninjas.

"I'll ask you something. Answer, and you won't die..." Furen began, but just as he was about to continue, a faint sound of a flute reached his ears.

Furen smiled and, in an instant, ice surged up from the ground, encasing the two Sound ninjas and freezing them to death.

"Tayuya?"

Without turning around, Furen calmly spoke as the flute's sound echoed in the air.

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A/N:

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