30 - Flash, Strike, Silence
As the vegetation thinned out and eventually disappeared, he found himself in a region of yellow loess hills.
He began to understand what the Root ninja meant by valley.
It was essentially a series of ravines typical of loess landscapes, each fold and crevice offering potential hiding spots or ambush points.
In such an environment, earth jutsu was the most convenient for stealth, but even without it, the fractured terrain and numerous ravines were enough to make do.
Moreover, the weather cooperated; rain began to pour again, providing him with significant cover. Using the terrain and the rain as concealment, he finally located the hideout of the Hannya Black Ops.
Just as the Root ninja described, the Hannya Black Ops' abilities were indeed mediocre.
It didn't take long for him to find their base. The layout was obvious to any trained eye, especially one with the Sharingan.
They had built a simple encampment alongside one of the hills. Although there was a lookout tower, in this weather, it was as good as useless.
Their attire matched the gang's name. Every member wore a demonic mask, which looked somewhat intimidating at first glance.
As Masashi infiltrated the camp, the lookout in the tower remained oblivious, huddled against the rain. The guard's chakra signature barely flickered—clearly untrained in maintaining awareness during adverse conditions.
The camp was truly crude. With the rain, puddles formed everywhere, and as the downpour intensified, streams began to flow.
He used a water jutsu to merge into the flowing water and slipped deeper inside, his chakra perfectly matching the natural flow.
After circling the area, he discovered why the camp was so basic.
The true headquarters of the Hannya Black Ops lay within the loess hills, hidden in a network of cave dwellings.
The camp was merely an outer defensive ring.
Unfortunately for them, their anti-intrusion mechanisms were laughably outdated by the standards of the Five Great Nations. There wasn't even a barrier in place.
They're either incredibly stupid or incredibly arrogant. Probably both.
With minimal effort, Masashi had scouted the entire area.
The Hannya Black Ops numbered about seventy to eighty members. Their ranks included roughly ten chunin, one jonin, and the rest were genin. Through his Sharingan, he could see the differences in their chakra networks.
However, these genin were veterans who had spent years at that level. While their skill might be limited, their movements were seasoned, marking them as hardened fighters.
The Hannya Black Ops wasn't a ninja organization native to the Land of Earth. Instead, they were a group Konoha had chased across borders, and these seventy to eighty individuals were likely the gang's last remnants.
If they perished here, the Hannya Black Ops would vanish as an organization.
Masashi remained hidden until late at night, observing the core members gathered in the largest cave. The cave was brightly lit, and heated arguments occasionally echoed from within.
His position in the rain allowed him to catch fragments of conversation carried by the wind.
Although he couldn't make out every word, he caught snippets.
It seemed they really had discovered some sort of secret realm.
However, he wasn't overly optimistic.
The world was vast, but places that taught Sage Arts were rare. The most renowned ones were the ones tied to the legendary Sannin. In all these years, no fourth secret realm of similar caliber had ever surfaced.
After confirming that the Hannya Black Ops consisted only of those present, he marked the area with a Flying Thunder God seal and retreated to the camp.
The client had explicitly demanded no survivors, so he couldn't let anyone escape. Total elimination.
Speaking of which, Danzō might put on the act of an old-fashioned leader, but his tea-drinking skills were surprisingly refined. His methods were thorough, likely honed during his younger years on the front lines as Konoha's intelligence expert.
Yet those techniques were outdated and paled compared to Yaku's. His scheming ability was on par with the younger generation's talents.
Using a water technique, Masashi submerged himself in the accumulated water near the patrol route of the Hannya Black Ops. The rain provided perfect cover for his chakra signature.
As three patrolling ninjas passed by, he struck.
The first noticed the water ripple. "Trap!"
He shoved his companions aside but water spikes had already pierced his ankles, anchoring him in place. As he tried to form hand signs, more spikes shot through his fingers, spreading them apart.
A water blade decapitated him from behind.
The second guard hurled explosive tags while backflipping.
Decent move. Masashi caught the severed head and threw it through the explosions. The wet impact knocked the guard off-balance.
Before he could recover, Masashi appeared behind him, gripping his wrist and redirecting his kunai slash into his own teammate's throat.
As his friend choked on blood, Masashi twisted the guard's arm backward, driving the same kunai up through his own jaw.
Before they could collapse, a chilling wave froze their bodies in place, making them appear as though they had simply stopped moving in the rain.
With this done, he moved deeper into the camp.
He emerged from the shadows, letting himself be seen by three more guards.
Two immediately rushed forward, hurling shuriken while the third hung back, hands moving to unspool steel wire.
The front guards pressed their attack, forcing him to dodge in a specific direction—right into their partner's wire trap. He let them think it worked.
As the wire-user pulled the strands tight, Masashi substituted with a fallen log near him.
The wires sliced through the wood with a sharp crack, sending splinters flying. Before the wire-user could react, Masashi's blade slashed up from behind him.
Within minutes, the camp's surface was devoid of life.
Except for the lookout tower.
That posed no challenge. He quickly launched a Great Fireball at the tower, reducing it to splinters.
But the guard showed unexpected insight, collapsing the tower to crush his attacker. As burning wood rained down, he formed hand signs.
"Earth Style: Stone Column Spears!" Stone spikes erupted upward.
Masashi weaved through the spikes, grabbing one as he moved. In one smooth motion, he ripped one spike free and threw it through the guard's chest.
The man coughed blood but managed to trigger explosive tags hidden in the tower ruins.
Masashi used the impaled body as a springboard, launching himself clear as the explosion transformed the remaining wood into deadly shrapnel.
Shadow Clone Jutsu and other similar techniques might look flashy, but without mastery, they were futile in combat.
The orange glow of the flames illuminated the rain, drawing attention from the caves. Masashi marked a kunai, weighing it in his hand.
Silhouettes darted out into the open.
Exactly what Masashi had hoped for.
"Back line, suppression! Front, engage!" A chunin shouted as masked figures poured out. They spread into groups, weapons ready.
Their movements showed years of working together.
He threw the marked kunai. A guard knocked it aside with his sword. As the kunai spun away, Masashi flashed to its location, his blade already completing its arc. The guard's head left his shoulders before he could realize his mistake.
"Earth Style: Mud Wave Jutsu!" Two shinobi slammed their hands down.
The ground rippled, threatening to swallow him. He marked one of the corpses as he leapt clear, then threw another kunai high.
A wind-user tracked the kunai. "Above!"
His wind blade split the weapon in two. But Masashi had already flashed back to the marked corpse, appearing behind the earth-users.
Two quick strikes, two more bodies.
"It's the Body Flicker! Watch the movements!" The chunin's warning came as Masashi caught a wire-trapped kunai aimed at him.
He spun, marking the weapon before sending it through another ninja's throat.
"Retreat! Back to the—" The order cut short.
He had appeared at the marked kunai, then instantly flashed to his previous victim's corpse which lay behind the speaker. The chunin's head rolled past his still-standing body.
Two guards who had fought side by side watched their leader fall. The younger one's hands trembled on his kunai. His companion noticed, reaching for his shoulder. "Stay focused—"
"No... no way." The younger guard stumbled backward, shaking his head. "We can't beat this monster!"
He turned to run.
His companion's face hardened behind his mask. "Coward!" His hands slammed into the ground. The earth spear took the deserter in the back, pinning him mid-stride. "Die with honor!"
Wow... honor among thieves. Masashi marked a corpse as he passed it."
"Box him in!"
Three ninja slammed their hands into the ground. Earth walls shot up around him while others darted between them, laying wire traps.
A grizzled genin began wrapping explosive tags around himself.
"Die with us!" The tagged genin charged through the opening as his companions' hands flew through signs.
Fire roared from multiple directions, turning the rain to steam. Masashi flashed to the corpse, using it as a shield. The explosion scattered burning chunks across the battlefield, igniting more tags hidden in the mud.
Through the smoke, a swordsman burst forward. His blade work forcing Masashi to actually time his dodges. "Face me properly!"
Masashi caught the blade in a deliberate parry, marking it. "Skilled." He vanished, appearing behind the swordsman mid-swing. "But not skilled enough."
The body fell in three clean pieces.
A pained groan cut through the sound of falling rain. A young genin dragged himself through the mud, trailing his severed leg behind him. Blood mixed with rainwater as he clawed desperately forward.
Masashi appeared before him. "You know what to do." His voice was calm, almost gentle. "Or would you like help?"
The genin's cracked mask revealed a young face. His eyes darted around—at the quartered swordsman, at the scattered pieces of the suicide bomber, at his companions' mangled corpses being washed clean by the rain.
Without a word, he drew a kunai with trembling hands. His last act showed more courage than his entire career as a bandit.
"Kill him!" A voice cut through the rain as more shadows emerged from the caves.
These moved differently—no wasted motion, no hesitation. Earth walls erupted in complex patterns while others took precise positions for crossfire.
Masashi marked the walls as they rose. Three quick flashes, three dead bodies.
A fourth managed to launch a fire jutsu before his head left his shoulders. The fifth died trying to complete a hand sign.
In the blink of an eye, only the jonin remained alive. The rest had been slaughtered effortlessly. Bodies littered the muddy ground, some still twitching.
He didn't fare well either. His arm was slashed deeply, the bone visible through the gash. He had narrowly avoided losing the entire limb, thanks only to Masashi not aiming for his vital points.
"Who... who are you?" the jonin asked weakly, knowing his fate was sealed but wanting to understand. His uninjured hand clutched his wounded arm, trying to stem the bleeding.
"Give up the secret realm's information," Masashi demanded, his Sharingan glowing in the rainy darkness.
"Uchiha!" The jonin gritted his teeth. "I'll give you the information, but you must let our remaining members go."
"There are no remaining members. Just you," Masashi said, shaking his head. "You're doomed. As for the secret realm, we don't really care. It's just a bonus."
"You will care. I'm not referring to something ordinary here. You'll see," the jonin said, resigned to his fate. "Ryūchi Cave. We've discovered its location and how to enter it."
"Ryūchi Cave?" Masashi paused.
"It's true. The Ryūchi Cave is right here, and we've already deciphered the method to enter it."
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[A/N]
I believe that my strengths are writing fighting scenes and sometimes dialogues. It's just my personal biased opinion.
But not all of you will like the fights. Why was the MC being 'unnecessarily' brutal?
He was paid for it. His mission isn't to just kill but to execute them, so he won't use heavy jutsu which can cause great destruction - I mean, when all that's left is ash, the visual impact isn't as strong a message as a mountain of scattered corpses and scattered limbs for potential groups that want to take the same route.
I hope you enjoyed the execution scene. If many dislike it, I can trim the violence down.
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76/100: reached for bonus chapter.
If we somehow reached the top 10, which is so unlikely: 3 chapters/day for 1 week.
p@treon.com/Malphegor
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