When Masashi drew his short sword, the Kumo ninja couldn't hold bay longer. His grip tightened slightly on the bde, ready for the iable rush.

  They werely the type for calm discussions, anyway. This strike team, made up of three jonin and five special jonin, was fully fident in their ability to plete the mission. The special jonin role was something all five vilges now had. It designated a ninja who excelled in one area to a jonin level but still had the general ability of a in.

  "Yoing tret that assessment," one of the special jonin growled.

  "Oh? Did I hurt your feelings?" Masashi's tone was light, almost pyful.

  So, the five special jonin from Kumo were quite irritated because Masashi had called them in. This group was sensitive about the fact that they held the title of jonin but still received in pay. They thought, after all, an Uchiha really was as annoying as the rumors said.

  The Kumo ninja team spread out. The three jonin held back, while three of the special jonin closed in on Masashi. The other two moved toward the camp.

  Cssicer movement. Too bad they didn't check the ground more carefully.

  In the moment, a crimson 'curtain' rose up from the dire of the camp, f a four-sided barrier that surrou tightly.

  "There's someone else?" a jonin in the rear asked, puzzled. He was a sensor ninja, but he hadn't detected any other ninja here.

  He had sensed some chakra from the camp, but it was just a few guards. After for days, he was sure they were just some taijutsu users with pitifully low chakra levels, making a barrier like this impossible.

  "He's toying with us!" one special jonin shouted.

  "No, he's setting something up," another warned, eyes narrowing.

  No one answered his question, and the three special jonin could no longer hold back. With fshes of lightning, they unleashed the Lightning Release taijutsu of the Kumo vilge and lu Masashi. The Kumo ninja who had initially targeted the camp also turned back to join the fray.

  Faced with Masashi's three-tomoe Sharingan, the Kumo ninja khat substitution or e jutsu would be useless, and illusions would only backfire. So, they chose to rely on their all-purpose Lightning Release taijutsu.

  But what met them head-on was a tearing gust, nearly scattering their thin lightning armor. Masashi leaped lightly, nding mid-air while the Kumo ninja watched in fusion. Under cover of the night, the Kumo ninja couldn't quite make out the hand seals Masashi was f.

  Until the scorg fmes erupted overhead.

  "Fire Style: Bzing Wind Dance!"

  Fueled by a whirlwind, the fmes rapidly expanded into a massive fiery vortex that swirled toward the Kumo ninjas.

  This jutsu, developed by Masashi and modeled after a future teique by Obito, had its own advantages pared to the inal.

  Fag this high-speed, rapidly expanding vortex of fmes, the Kumo ninjas hurriedly retreated. But it was too close. The vortex pulled in the surrounding air, creating a vacuum.

  "Pull back! Maintain distahe female jonin shouted, but her warning came too te.

  One special jonin couldn't escape and was swept inside. His skills were useless in the sea of fmes. His rades could see him struggling frantically, but he eventually went still, ed by the fire. Blood sprayed in an arc, beautiful against the night sky. The Uchiha in me appreciates such aesthetics.

  The fmes tinued expanding, f the Kumo ninjas to retreat further. Water Release was rare in Kumo, even rarer than Storm Release.

  Unfortunately, none of them had it in their arsenal.

  When the vortex finally dissipated, nothing was left but the intense heat in the air. And a glint of a bde in the dark.

  In one swift stroke, a Kumo ninja was sliced in half. The bde, stained with his blood, pluhrough the back of another, emerging from his mouth. Only then did the other Kumo ninja, including the three jonin, realize what had happened.

  Their renowned speed was worthless before Masashi. In all of Konoha, only two others could match him in Body Flicker teique proficy.

  In his past life, his mastery of Body Flicker had earned him the niame the Phantom.

  Nobody was eager to charge in for close bat anymore. Evehree jonin abaheir passive stand regrouped, visibly unnerved.

  "Shisui the Teleporter?" the blonde woman asked, thinking the mission was about to go south.

  "Shisui is thirteen. I'm seventeen."

  "You're strohan him?"

  "Did your IQ get stuewhere? I'm sayihirteen; I'm seventeen."

  "No, you're just an ass."

  The woman was a bit annoyed. She was actually pretty fed up with her teammates, feeling they weighed her down and slowed her in battle. But her dying mother's st wish had been for her to work in a team, saying it had been her own unfulfilled dream as a young kunoichi.

  "So, Kumo ninjas talk smack too?" Masashi looked at her, surprised. "Thought you were the silent, deadly types."

  But the blonde woman was doh talking. "Retreat!" She waved, deg to abandon the missioask was to hunt a lone Konoha ninja in the area, not to dig in against a lone Uchiha.

  The three-tomoe Sharingan was as formidable as expected. Two special jonin had already bee sunk costs; there was o suffer further losses. But Masashi had no iion of letting them go.

  Kumo ninjas.

  Eight of them.

  Three jonin.

  This would be a huge win. The jonin rank is the bae of eainja vilge. They arely rare, but they're far from on. Across the five great vilges, both active and inactive, their total numbers barely reach a few hundred.

  But the strength gap between jonin be enormous. Teically, even legends like Hashirama and Madara were sidered jonin.

  The chakra color of these three Kumo jonin wasn't very deep.

  While chakra quantity isn't a direct measure of a ninja's strength, Masashi was fident, from his earlier exges, that these were merely 'gatekeepers'. Jonin like these didn't deserve the title; they were weak and expensive.

  During the Third Shinobi War, he'd cut dowy of simir ones from Kiri, and they'd felt just like cutting down in.

  The Kumo ninjas were effit, not even gng at the bodies of their fallen rades. To speed up their retreat, they used Lightning Release to stimute their muscles.

  That's a true ninja.

  But Masashi wasly the ninja type. He hadn't lied to the blonde girl—he really was super strong.

  One of the Kumo ninjas charged toward the bridge, thinking it would be faster to escape that way.

  The moment his foot touched the bridge, both he and the bridge shot into the air. An ice moued from the ground, followed by more, rising from the riverbed, one yer over another, f a t ice cliff, sealing off the Kumo ninja's escape route.

  Seeing their rade frozen in the ice, the others looked grim.

  What kind of chakra level was this!?

  They'd really hit a steel wall.

  Masashi observed as his jutsu reshaped the battlefield. One moment, it was a river; the , it turned into a sheer ravine.

  The Kumo ninjas were swearing internally. They were losing their nerve. Masashi's Sharingan picked up their subtle shifts in stance.

  The Kumo ninjas hated this type of ninja the most. A ninja with little chakra wasn't necessarily weak, but a ninja with a lot of chakra was rarely anything but strong. If someone was extraordinarily powerful, they must have had extraordinary chakra.

  Apart from dojutsu like the Byakugan and Sharingan, or an exceptional chakra-sensing talent, the only way to gauge an oppo's chakra strength was by the power of their jutsu.

  The rank of jutsu was based purely on difficulty, measuring a ninja's ability to trol chakra. For instahe Uchiha 's Great Fire Annihition was ranked B, while Kakashi's Lightning e was ranked A, and was on par with Guy's Eight Inner Gates Formation, which could knock out oppos for quite some time.

  The destructive power of a jutsu rgely depended on chakra reserves, a principle especially applicable to the five elemental jutsu. The same Giant Vortex Jutsu cast by Tobirama had turned into a tsunami. With enough chakra, oruly had freedom.

  Masashi, wielding the power of the Ice Release, directly altered the terrain with a sisu. If the Yuki member he had previously defeated had this level of chakra, he would have never gotten the best of them.

  Yet the Kumo ninjas refused to give up. One of the three jonin charged, aiming at the ice wall. "Lightning Style: Thunder Fist!" he roared.

  "Is that all Kumo has to offer?" Masashi replied calmly as the attaly mao chip off a few fragments.

  Another Kumo ninja tried using the Great Fireball jutsu. The effect was even worse—not even a fragment came off. The differen scale was te; the ice melted more slowly than it could reform.

  The blonde woman watched Masashi approach. "You're no ordinary Uchiha," she said, signaling her rades to spread out. "Did you copy the Yuki ? I suppose their supposed bloodline limit was just a myth. I didn't expe Uchiha to possess such talent."

  "How many Uchiha have you actually entered?" Masashi asked, gripping his short sword. Fresh blood still g to its tip. "If you've met the Yuki , you should know they do possess a bloodline limit."

  "Ynorance is showing. Even the Sharingan 't copy bloodline limit abilities."

  "Curiosity has its limits. Surrender now, and I let you live," Masashi said calmly.

  "My name is Kumika. Remember it!" she shouted, drawing a short bde. "The oute is still undecided."

  Her words rekindled her rades' fighting spirit, their morale visibly restored. The Kumo style's essence is to attack relentlessly, pressing forward with an indomitable spirit. The squad's young captain had just said exactly what they o hear.

  "Apologies, but you're too weak to remember," Masashi said, flig the blood off his sword before sheathing it. "But since you're serious about fighting, I'll use my favorite and stroeique to deal with you."

  "Die peacefully."

  With that, he csped his hands together.

  Moisture from the air was drawn in, as of water erupted from the ground. In an instant, a massive whirlpool, like a water dragon, formed around Masashi as its ter.

  Throughout his past lifetime as a ninja, his most powerful elemental release had always been Water Release. He had cshed with the immensely powerful Tobirama and fought tless Kiri ninjas, copying their jutsu along the way.

  While others might match his Body Flicker, none in Konoha's current geion could equal his mastery of Water Release.

  "Water Release?"

  "Watch out for the impact!"

  "He's uimating us!"

  The Kumo ninjas felt insulted—here they were, wielding lightning, and their oppo chose water? They would make him regret uimating them.

  In the moment, the waterspout surged to its peak, and the weight of its mass could no longer hold. It burst mid-air, crashing down upon them like a waterfall.

  The pressure hit them before the water did, engulfing them in thick vapor.

  To give credit, Masashi's Water Release was impressive. If it weren't for the Sharingan fag them, they might have thought they'd entered a Water Release expert from Kiri.

  As this thought crossed their minds, the first wave of water struck the ground, surging forward with tsunami-like force. Their ears filled with the roar of waves, as though the whole world was drowning. At that sound, Kumika khe remaining special jonin were finished.

  Only a jonin could withstand the impact of Water Release at this level. The Kumo ninjas, in particur, weren't known for defense, and those special jonin had defense capacities parable tur in in Kumo.

  Despite this, when the impact reached her, Kumika was instantly overwhelmed. The wave knocked her off her feet, and before she could recover, the rebounding force from the ice wall struck her again.

  The attack maintais full power, as Masashi trolled every aspect of this teique—the volume, duration, and dire of the water. The only cost was some extra chakra.

  After being pummeled several times, Kumika finally found an opening and burst to the surface.

  Ign her pain, she looked around. The water hadn't dispersed but instead was held back by newly raised ice walls, whiow enclosed a perfect square, trapping all the water within and f an artificial ke.

  Standing oer's surface, she looked past the ke's edge at the distant mountains. How could she have run into such a monster?

  She turned abruptly, spotting a teammate breaking the surface—the other jonin.

  "Rai, are you okay?" she asked, though it was clear he wasn't. If he'd been fine, she would have suspected he was a fake.

  "Nothing serious," he replied, though he was visibly shaken. "Where's Ken? He hasn't surfaced?"

  The silehat followed Ken's name said enough.

  "And the Uchiha?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Maybe he left," Rai muttered. "Even as strong as he is, he would o retreat after using such a rge teique..."

  He stopped. A hand had reached out from the water, gripping his leg. He vanished beh the surface before he could even shout for help, leaving only ripples behind.