Staff officer Nara Shikaku's brows were so tightly furrowed they could have pinched a few coins in place. Orochimaru's question was also one that had him deeply puzzled. He had racked his brains over it and gotten absolutely nowhere.
In the end, he could only shake his head and answer, "Orochimaru-sama, there's nothing special on that uninhabited island. The only useful things there for the Kirigakure fleet would be fresh water and timber."
Orochimaru said, "That's not right. There haven't been any storms at sea recently. Even if the Kirigakure fleet suffered any losses, it would only be from things like individual ships catching fire or running aground. The amount of fresh water and timber they'd need wouldn't be much. They definitely wouldn't need to stop for two full days."
His golden snake-like eyes turned eastward, toward the Yushan Peninsula waters on the eastern side of the Land of Hot Water, his heart full of doubt.
Just what was there?
Of course, Orochimaru knew that area was Uchiha Yoru's patrol zone, and that it was also there that Yoru had first discovered the Kirigakure fleet. But he had absolutely no reason to connect the abnormal delay of the Kirigakure fleet with Yoru, who had already returned safely to Konoha camp.
Even Orochimaru himself had no way to force a Kirigakure fleet to halt for two days straight.
So an eighteen-year-old Uchiha Yoru certainly couldn't do it either.
That was common sense.
But facts had never cared much for common sense.
The fleet's delay really had been caused by Uchiha Yoru.
And Uchiha Yoru himself had no idea he had caused such a huge mess.
...
Kaguya Ren—one of the top shinobi of the Kaguya clan, and one of the strongest awakened users of the Shikotsumyaku bloodline.
Affected by his bloodline limit, his temper was extraordinarily violent.
But even he had not voiced the slightest objection to the fleet remaining in place for two days.
The sight on that island was simply too horrifying.
The once lush green mountain had turned pitch-black. The dense forest had been wiped away entirely. The rocks on the ground bore rippling patterns like flowing water, obviously the result of having melted, run, and then re-solidified.
At first, most of the Kirigakure shinobi assumed a volcanic eruption had happened there. Only a small number of shinobi familiar with the sea routes found the scene deeply suspicious.
Because that island was not a volcanic island.
Out of caution, commander Hozuki Sakuyuki decided to send people up the mountain to investigate.
At the time, Kaguya Ren had found that completely unnecessary, and had even mocked him a few times for being timid.
When the reconnaissance squad returned, looking utterly lost and shaken, everyone immediately grew tense.
The intelligence they brought back proved that the anomaly here really was not caused by a volcano, but by some kind of power those genin and chunin simply couldn't understand.
So more shinobi were dispatched, including some elite jonin.
Kaguya Ren, with seven parts dissatisfaction and eight parts scorn, personally led the team up. At the time, he had openly sneered,
"What power is there that can't be understood? Those civilian shinobi are just a bunch of cowardly bumpkins who haven't seen anything."
"From what I can tell, this is probably some trick by Konoha shinobi, meant to scare us—turn the cowards among us into soft-legged weaklings."
"Hah. Maybe that's exactly what it is. Maybe I'll even catch the Konoha shinobi responsible."
But when they came back, every single one of them looked dazed and absent-minded.
The stronger the shinobi, the broader their knowledge, the more badly the higher-ranked ones had been frightened.
As a Kage-level shinobi, Kaguya Ren had it the worst.
His face was pale, his spirit unsettled, his whole body trembling, and even his eyes couldn't focus. He looked almost like an idiot.
His mouth kept repeating the same words over and over:
"It's thunder. Not Lightning Release. It's thunder. Not Lightning Release…"
At that point, the situation had truly become serious.
As the highest commander of the shinobi army, Hozuki Sakuyuki absolutely could not allow such a massive hidden danger to remain behind his lines. No matter the cost, he had to understand exactly what had happened and remove any factor that might threaten the Kirigakure fleet.
Kirigakure mobilized a large number of shinobi and searched the uninhabited island from top to bottom.
Sure enough, they discovered a large amount of abnormal evidence, all of which was gathered and sent back to the flagship command center.
And the more intelligence they collected, the more alarmed the assembled commanders became.
The changes in the mountain's terrain had clearly been caused by some kind of attack.
It could be confirmed as human-made, because the melted-rock area was centered precisely on the mountain summit and formed a perfect circle.
At the edge of the melted zone, only a single step separated utter opposites—on one side was blackened, re-solidified rock, and on the other, flourishing green forest.
As the center of the attack, the mountain peak had been shaved down by at least the height of two men.
That kind of destructive force was simply unimaginable.
"There's another especially strange set of traces," Hozuki Sakuyuki said, pointing to the temporary map of the island.
Two red circles—one large, one small—marked the two areas being emphasized.
"It's near the beach by this bay."
"Although that trace doesn't cover a large area, the intensity of the attack wasn't low at all. The rock there had clearly been fully liquefied, and they even found a large number of droplet-shaped rock fragments."
He could hardly believe it himself.
"I simply can't understand how rock could melt, then re-solidify so quickly that it preserved the shape it had while splashing through the air."
Hozuki Sakuyuki looked toward Rei.
As an Ice Release user of the Yuki clan, Rei should have been the strongest among them when it came to lowering temperature.
Rei had smooth, silky black hair, a delicate and graceful face, and a cool, distant calmness that pushed people away.
He was, in every sense, a cold and stunning beauty.
The only pity was that he was male.
Of course, for certain old degenerates, that might only make him more appealing.
Noticing Sakuyuki's gaze, Rei shook his head expressionlessly and answered in a clear, icy voice,
"This isn't something that can be done simply by cooling fast enough. Rock conducts heat slowly. If you cool it too fast, it would only shatter. It couldn't possibly preserve the shape it had while melted."
"Unless…"
He lifted one of the water-drop stones delicately between his white fingers.
"Unless the cooling happened simultaneously from the inside and outside, all at once."
"In midair, it would have had to drop from being fully liquid at over 1,700 degrees to around 800 degrees, low enough to solidify."
A trace of unconcealed astonishment appeared even on Rei's usually cold face as he continued,
"Judging by this shape, it must have been moving very quickly in the air—probably falling from around one hundred fifty meters. That means the full rise-and-fall process took nine to ten seconds."
"Far too fast. In ten seconds, I could only lower the temperature by four to six hundred degrees, and that's not even considering simultaneous cooling inside and out. This is a method I've never even imagined before. The difficulty is unbelievable."
Hozuki Sakuyuki pressed, "How difficult, exactly?"
Rei shook his head.
"I don't know."
Then he turned his clear, watery eyes toward Hozuki Sakuyuki and said,
"But I can infer what kind of result such a thing would create. With a single strike, you would freeze instantly from the inside out."
As an heir to the Hozuki clan's Hydrification Technique, Hozuki Sakuyuki feared freezing more than anything. Hearing that description, he blurted out, "That fast?"
Rei raised the droplet-stone and said,
"This object cooled by nine hundred degrees from the inside and outside simultaneously in ten seconds. That means forty-five degrees every half second."
"And your body temperature is only thirty-seven."
"The terrifying thing about simultaneous inside-out cooling is that it no longer needs time for temperature to conduct."
"So long as it reaches zero, your body freezes."
"There is no process."
If Uchiha Yoru could have heard this analysis from Rei, an Ice Release user, he would have been so stunned he wouldn't even know how to refute it. He would probably only have been able to clap in admiration.
The logic really was too smooth.
There was no room to argue.
But the truth was nothing like that.
According to his new naming system, this was simply the ground-liquefaction effect attached to Earth Spirit: Earth Release Technique. Once the technique had been interrupted by lightning, the liquefied rock naturally lost the support of natural energy and instantly returned to its original properties.
It had absolutely nothing to do with temperature.
A group of Kirigakure elite jonin and Kage-level shinobi had been thoroughly frightened into silence by their own analysis.
But Kaguya Ren suddenly growled out,
"What does temperature matter? The real issue is power!"
"The traces all over that mountain were made by lightning! Even my bones couldn't block that kind of attack!"
"And yet it was unleashed across an entire mountain in such a short time. That's an attack capable of wiping out every single one of us in one strike!"
Kaguya Ren swung his fist and slammed it against the thick table, roaring,
"How can the shinobi world possibly contain an attack this strong!?"
After calming his own racing heart, Hozuki Sakuyuki felt no irritation at Ren's violent agitation.
His Hydrification Technique didn't just fear freezing—it was also vulnerable to Lightning Release.
Naturally, lightning attacks like those found here were his direct bane as well.
Because the scene was simply too shocking, it was inevitable that someone would raise a doubt.
One of the shinobi finally asked, "Could this island really have been damaged by a person? Couldn't it have been some kind of natural thunderstorm catastrophe?"
(Uchiha Yoru, somewhere far away, nodded furiously: A catastrophe. Absolutely a catastrophe!)
That remark echoed the doubts of quite a few others.
Soft murmurs of agreement and hesitation spread through the room.
Kaguya Ren exploded.
He swung a hand and slapped the jonin who had questioned it across the face with such force that the man's face split apart.
Bone spikes nearly a hand long had extended from Ren's fingers.
That slap didn't just injure the man's face—it truly carved it into several pieces. Blood, flesh, and broken teeth flew everywhere.
The jonin didn't even manage a sound before dropping unconscious.
Kaguya Ren spat a wad of phlegm at him and snarled,
"You think you're clever?"
"Do you think I'm some kind of joke? I was scared into this state, and you think you can question it?"
"You call this doubting the analysis? You're slapping me in the face, damn it!"
"And if you dare slap me in the face, what is that if not asking to die!?"
Hozuki Sakuyuki waved a hand, signaling for the badly injured jonin to be dragged away for treatment.
Then he sighed and said to the others,
"It wasn't a natural disaster. It was man-made."
"Near that smaller area of damage, we found a stone house."
He paused.
"And… a vegetable garden."
"?"
The expression on Hozuki Sakuyuki's face was the same as everyone else's—stunned confusion.
Remembering what he had felt when he saw the house and the garden, he said blankly,
"That house had traces of having been repaired after damage. The vegetables in that garden were planted about a month ago. The timing lines up exactly with these two abnormalities."
"It's obvious. Someone remained on this island after the disaster happened, repaired the house, and replanted the vegetables. We even found signs that part of the greens had been harvested very recently—just two days ago."
He lifted his eyes, and every word came out filled with caution.
"Someone stayed on this island after experiencing this terrifying event."
"And only left the day before we arrived."
"He left because we came."
Rei was the youngest among the three main commanders. He spoke up and asked, "Commander Hozuki, you're an older shinobi. Do you know of anyone in the shinobi world capable of causing this kind of disaster?"
Kaguya Ren took a deep breath and asked carefully, "The pretty boy's right. Commander, do you know anything?"
Hozuki Sakuyuki stroked his beard and sighed.
"There really was someone in the shinobi world this strong."
"I even saw him with my own eyes."
"At the time I was only six years old, not yet a formal shinobi. He single-handedly blocked the gate of our newly founded Kirigakure. Back then, several thousand shinobi wearing Kirigakure forehead protectors had confronted him, yet none of them dared start a fight."
"First-sama Byakuren tried to negotiate with him, but that man arrogantly rejected every condition the First offered."
"To frighten us, he transformed into a gigantic chakra giant and, with one swing of the great sword in its hand, split open the mountain in front of the village gate."
Kaguya Ren, Rei, and everyone present opened their mouths in shock.
Were they talking about that road outside Kirigakure?
Everyone had known since childhood that the road was called Shura's Cut, but who could have imagined it had really been carved open by a single human strike?
How was that even possible?
As soon as the name Shura's Cut connected in their minds, someone blurted out,
"Ninja Asura?!"
"Yes," Hozuki Sakuyuki said. "The Ninja Asura, Uchiha Madara. And the God of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama."
"If they were still alive, I would directly conclude that this had been done by Uchiha Madara. He specialized in Fire Release. Perhaps our judgment about lightning is wrong."
"But they're both dead."
"And now I genuinely don't know who else could possess such terrifying power."
"Could there really be someone like that still alive in the world?"
While the high-ranking Kirigakure shinobi sat full of fear and unease, another jonin stood up and spoke.
"Everyone, even if this mysterious figure is truly that powerful, we can't keep staying here any longer. We've already delayed too long."
Kaguya Ren looked up at him, but said nothing.
At least this time, he didn't leap up to beat someone.
Rei, on the other hand, nodded to the man rather amicably and said, "Jonin Terumi is right. If we continue to remain here, both Kumogakure and Konoha will get a clearer and clearer grasp of our position. The space available for our eventual landing battle will quickly shrink, which doesn't favor Kirigakure shinobi at all."
Hozuki Sakuyuki asked, "Jonin Terumi, do you have a suggestion?"
The broad-shouldered, handsome jonin answered calmly,
"I propose we remain here one more day and carry out an even more thorough search. We need to confirm whether that mysterious person is still here, or at least confirm whether he poses any direct threat to us."
"Tomorrow we leave, head farther out to sea, and make a detour. Once we shake ourselves loose from the sight of Kumogakure and Konoha, they'll grow nervous and be forced to spread out their forces and their reconnaissance."
"Then we head straight for our true target."
He rubbed the back of his head and laughed.
"Haha. I still don't know where our final target is myself, but I think a plan like that should still be effective."
Hozuki Sakuyuki was quite satisfied with the suggestion.
He nodded and said, "Jonin Terumi's proposal is excellent. As expected of the subordinate most valued by Genji-sama. In that case, we'll proceed with this plan."
He looked around the room and asked, "Does anyone else have anything to suggest, or add?"
Rei said, "I think it's fine too. After we leave, we can leave behind one squad here. It can serve as an early warning signal."
Kaguya Ren nodded as well.
"Good. Leaving a squad is even better. As long as someone's here watching this place, I'll feel a lot more at ease."
Even more Kirigakure shinobi disembarked from the ships and entered the island to search.
But under strict orders, no one dared damage that simple stone house or the vegetable garden.
And at about that same time, Uchiha Yoru was cooking for the Tiger Unit.
With an actual shovel in hand, he stir-fried vegetables in a giant pot while complaining to Miwa Masayo, "These vegetables are way too expensive. There are too many Konoha shinobi gathered here, and it's driven up prices in the Land of Hot Water like crazy."
Miwa Masayo replied, "Wasn't this your own idea, nya? If it was your own decision, then don't complain, nya."
Uchiha Shigenobu clicked his tongue at the account sheet in his hands and couldn't help saying, "Actually, as long as we have enough grain and salted fish, we can still fill our stomachs. There's no need to get this many vegetables."
"It's too expensive. We really can't afford to eat like this."
But Uchiha Yoru immediately snapped back, "No matter how expensive it is, it's my money being spent. Me complaining is perfectly justified. What exactly are you complaining about?"
Shigenobu grinned awkwardly.
"I'm just feeling sorry for your money, brother. I haven't seen any other shinobi eating this extravagantly. We're being a little too high-profile."
"That's nonsense. Since when does eating something decent count as high-profile? What's truly high-profile is making a name for yourself on the battlefield. We're Uchiha shinobi. What's wrong with eating a little better?"
Then Uchiha Yoru sighed and muttered, "Sigh. If I'd known earlier, I would've taken a detour on the way back and harvested all my vegetables. Now they've all gone to waste."
"Huh?"
Miwa Masayo laughed so hard she rolled over and nearly fell off Uchiha Yoru's shoulder.
Then she turned to Uchiha Shigenobu and said, "Your Yoru-brother really is a complete weirdo. Back when we were carrying out missions and cultivating on that uninhabited island, he somehow just… built a house there."
Even now, when she thought about it, the tabby still found it unbelievable.
"Building a house was one thing. After all, it was a long-term mission. Having somewhere to block the wind and rain made sense enough."
"But I don't even know when he did it, yet somehow he also opened up a patch of land in front of the house, planted a whole bunch of vegetables, and made a proper little vegetable garden…"
Uchiha Yoru said, "Sigh. That was just my racial talent kicking in. The moment I saw grassland by a little stream, my hands just started moving on their own."
"That's so weird, nya."
"Hmph. Three Wheels Masayo, you're still short one natural talent if you want to count as a true Yanhuang cat."
"Meow! There you go babbling nonsense again. What even is Yanhuang, nya? And what kind of racial talent are you talking about, nya?"
"Haha. You've already awakened the talent of 'everything can be eaten.' As for the second talent, that remains a secret for now."
"Everything can be eaten… damn it, nya. That habit only came from following you around."
The daily bickering between Uchiha Yoru and Miwa Masayo left Uchiha Shigenobu feeling rather awkward. He did his best to shrink himself into the smallest possible shape, desperately hoping not to attract the attention of big brother Yoru or the cat sage.
If those two accidentally started exposing embarrassing things, would they really let him off?
In truth, he was worrying too much.
After eighteen years of living in the shinobi world, caution was already carved into Uchiha Yoru's bones. Even in front of others, he would never casually let a single "Rika-chan" slip out—let alone reveal any other secrets.
Read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon -> [email protected]/SorenSwiftTL (replace @ with a)