"Found them."
"These are all of Uchiyama's house guards."
"They're carrying someone, so they can't be moving at full speed. Keep chasing."
The following day, several Takigakure ninja had been dispatched after receiving news that a noble had been taken.
Moving through the night, they came across the bodies left behind along the pursuit route, some on the ground, some hanging from branches, each killed differently but all bearing the same characteristic wounds, cuts from a sharp weapon, consistent with some kind of ninja tool.
The intelligence was clear enough. The intruder had entered the mansion silently, killed one guard ninja, and was nearly clear of the compound when they were spotted by the remaining guards.
That level of infiltration suggested real ability. As for motive, a force genuinely hostile to Takigakure wouldn't typically target a noble, it wouldn't shake the village's foundations.
Which pointed to two possibilities: an outside party hired by someone with a grudge against the Land of Waterfalls, or a local organization with its own grievance against Uchiyama specifically. As a regional lord, he would have accumulated enemies.
The Takigakure team completed their inspection of the bodies and moved on quickly.
Half a day later, Yuji was cutting through mountainous forest with the wrapped corpse over his shoulder. He had treated the body against decay and bound it securely, but carrying a corpse through unfamiliar terrain on someone else's territory had slowed him more than he had accounted for.
He dropped to the ground and set the bundle aside.
He looked back.
They had caught up faster than he had expected.
A minute later, four Takigakure ninja landed around him in a loose perimeter. One of them noticed the wrapped shape lying in the grass and understood immediately what it was. Uchiyama. Already dead.
"Underground bounty killer."
The ninja said it flatly, reading Yuji's attire and the situation. A noble's corpse carried no value on its own. Taking it meant only one thing, proof of completion for whoever had commissioned the job. The identity of the person in front of them was effectively established.
"I'm not far from the Land of Grass border," Yuji said, with a sigh that carried genuine mild irritation. "Couldn't you have just let me go?"
He was doing this for income and had no desire to spend time on complications. The corpse's preservation treatment had a limit, and delay meant reduced payment.
"Secret Technique: Mountain Sparrow."
From behind him, one of the Takigakure ninja completed hand seals. A dense flock of birds plummeted from above, flooding the space around him, interfering with vision and limiting movement options.
As Yuji turned his head, a figure materialized through the scattered birds on his left, long blade aimed at his neck.
He didn't move his body. His eyes shifted and his finger flicked.
The attacker exploded into white smoke. A clone, testing his response.
The original body dropped from above through the dispersing flock, real blade descending.
"Takigakure has a fine collection of techniques."
Yuji said it with a slight smile.
A screeching sound ran through the air. The falling blade stopped mid-descent, caught by a wire so thin it was nearly invisible.
Yuji pulled his arm and the wire yanked the blade, taking the Takigakure ninja with it and driving him into the ground. As the ninja fought to recover his balance in the air, a throwing knife crossed the remaining distance and entered his temple.
He was dead before he landed.
Several kunai hit the ground at Yuji's feet. Exploding tags were burning on each of them.
The blast pushed outward with smoke and flame, the birds scattering in all directions through the disruption.
The remaining three gathered.
"Is he finished?"
"This one feels dangerous. Capturing him for interrogation isn't realistic. Lethal force."
"Rogue ninja from one of the Great Villages, probably."
From inside the thick smoke, a volley of throwing knives came out in all directions simultaneously.
The three scattered to dodge and block, their formation breaking apart instinctively.
In the moment their figures separated, two blades moving through the air under invisible control used the curtain of thrown knives as cover.
From angles neither of them had tracked, the blades curved behind two of the Takigakure ninja simultaneously. One pierced the back of a skull. The other found the heart from behind.
The flexibility and speed of it, the specific angles of approach, neither of them had been able to anticipate any part of it.
The last remaining Takigakure ninja felt the cold move through him as his two companions dropped. Then a Mountain Sparrow circling overhead cried out and the sound pulled his attention back in time. He raised a kunai and deflected a throwing knife that had already been in motion.
He survived the strike.
"That secret technique of yours is quite something."
Yuji stepped out from behind a tree trunk, unhurried, looking at the Takigakure ninja who was now visibly soaked in sweat.
Secret techniques in this world followed a different development path from conventional ninjutsu. They required cultivation from early life, often involved an external medium, and depended on specific talent.
The Aburame insects, the Inuzuka hounds, the Fuma clan's spider methods. The Mountain Sparrow technique before him fit the same pattern. And that last cry had saved its user from a strike that his own ability level should not have been sufficient to avoid.
Yuji looked up at the small bird perched in the branches above.
"Who are you?"
The Takigakure ninja asked it with the particular quality of someone who had just recalibrated their understanding of a situation significantly downward.
The opponent had killed three people without appearing to extend himself, had walked out of the exploding tag blast without injury, and had done all of it without using many techniques at all. What kind of speed and reaction time explained that?
Yuji smiled and said nothing.
He was avoiding Blood Release specifically to prevent identification. During this period of outside work, he intended to rely on conventional methods wherever possible.
The Takigakure ninja held the silence for a moment, then reached into his inner lining and pulled out a small bottle containing some kind of liquid. He drank it in one motion.
Yuji's eyes narrowed.
The ninja's chakra began to change. The fluctuations climbed in a way that didn't follow any normal pattern, the volume expanding to dozens of times what it had been within seconds.
"Takigakure's hero water."
Yuji said it quietly, recognizing it.
In later generations the substance was rare and tightly controlled, reserved for situations involving the village's survival.
At this point in time the restrictions were clearly looser, and a secret technique specialist of the village's standing might reasonably be issued a small supply for emergency use.
His eyes moved with interest.
A village that possessed a Tailed Beast, hero water, and the Earth Grudge Fear technique had the foundation to produce shinobi at Kakuzu's level. Takigakure was genuinely capable.
The side effects of the water were severe, but the immediate boost was real.
"Secret Technique: Sparrow Cry Tide."
The remaining Mountain Sparrows in the surrounding forest responded in unison. The sound that followed was not the support and interference function of the earlier technique.
It was something fundamentally different in power and intent, a piercing field of concentrated sound waves that rushed toward Yuji in a single surge, invisible and immediate.
...
Where r the Stones??