Uchiha Shigure had no idea what was happening elsewhere, but his instincts told him something was wrong. With a ripple of chakra, he flashed from seal to seal, the Flying Thunder God carrying him instantly back to the Tower of Lin.
And just as he feared—his teammates were already under attack.
Kusuo Hatake, Hyūga Akane, and Obito were all engaged in a desperate fight. All of them had taken injuries. But the worst off was Obito—his body was trembling from exhaustion, his reserves of chakra nearly burned out.
"You attacked them the moment I left!?" Shigure's expression hardened with anger. The enemies weren't from the Uchiha clan, but their timing was hateful all the same.
With a single bang, Shigure's form struck the battlefield like a thunderclap.
"Flying Thunder God — Second Stage!"
The words left his lips as a warning only he could hear. In a blur of afterimages, three marked kunai spun through the air directly toward the opposing shinobi.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!"
Shigure's body flickered with impossible speed, vanishing and reappearing three times in succession. Each time he materialized, his hands shot forward, fingertips shining faintly with chakra. Gentle Fist strikes landed cleanly at the pressure points that guided the flow of energy within his enemies' bodies.
Three seconds later, all three attackers were sent sprawling through the dirt. None of them quite understood what had happened until they felt it—their chakra extinguished as though every vein had turned to stone. Agonizing weakness flooded their bodies, and one by one they collapsed, kneeling before finally toppling face-first into the ground.
"So strong…" Akane gasped, staring wide-eyed.
"Is the gap between us really this massive?" Kusuo muttered.
Obito's jaw nearly hit the dirt. His mind compared what he had just seen to Shigure's earlier spar with Kakashi. If Shigure had unleashed something like that back then, Kakashi wouldn't just have been embarrassed—he might not have survived.
"Huh? That technique…" Obito frowned, scratching his head. "Why does it feel so familiar?"
"The Flying Thunder God…!" Rin's voice trembled with disbelief. "That was the Fourth Hokage's ultimate technique! Minato-sensei's technique! How could there be someone else in the world who knows it?"
Shigure steadied his breathing, gaze sweeping over his teammates. "Are you all all right? Akane, how's your condition?"
Akane shook her head. "Forget me—how about Katsuhira? What happened with him?"
Shigure's brow furrowed. "Strange, right? He wouldn't come with me. Said we'll see each other in the preliminaries. I think he meant at the last tower."
To prove his point, Shigure pulled a stack of report cards from his pocket. There were so many they slipped from his hand in uneven piles.
Kusuo's jaw dropped. "That many? Just how many teams did you wipe out while you were gone?!"
"Not a huge number." Shigure waved it off as though it were nothing. "Before we head to the next tower, we'll divide them. No one else is taking these from us." He glanced toward Kakashi and Violet, who both remained unconscious nearby. His expression darkened. "But we've got a problem. If we leave them here, it feels wrong… but carrying two unconscious teammates will slow us down."
His eyes flickered between Akane and Rin.
Obito straightened abruptly. "I'll take Kakashi! My chakra's nearly gone anyway. Carrying him on my back won't cost much."
Rin tilted her head suspiciously. "Why are you suddenly so eager to help?"
Obito's face reddened furiously. "No reason! Just—it's fine, okay? I'll handle it." The thought of Rin having to tend to Kakashi made his stomach turn in ways he couldn't explain.
"I'll carry Violet then," Akane said simply. Recon was her specialty, not full combat—so between her and Kusuo, it made sense for her to take the burden.
"Good." Shigure nodded. "And Obito—keep those performance cards. They might come in handy later."
Obito blinked, clutching the cards close to his chest as though they were treasure. "Thanks, Shigure! Really."
But the ground beneath them rumbled before anyone could take another step. The Tower of Lin itself trembled, and a distant thrum of power flared, then faltered. Everyone looked up just in time to see the protective barrier stone at the tower's peak dim almost to black.
"No way…" Akane's voice cracked with dread.
"The Lin Tower's barrier is failing," Shigure muttered. "When it collapses completely, this entire sector will be abandoned. If we don't evacuate, we'll be eliminated without a fight."
"This is the third time already!" Kusuo cursed. "We're halfway through the exam, and in the last three rounds five more towers will disappear. Eventually we'll be forced into a clash with the strongest teams."
"That means no time to waste." Shigure shot to his feet, his expression ice-cold. "We can't head south anymore—our route has to be east. The Tower of Bing is our next destination."
They adjusted quickly. With Obito carrying Kakashi and Akane carrying Violet, the group pressed forward through the thickening woodland.
But things had changed.
At the start of the competition, most genin teams avoided heading directly north. They had chosen instead to swing wide through the column and row towers on the flanks, hoping to avoid pressure. That strategy had funneled dozens of survivors toward the Tower of Soldiers. And by now, it had become a killing field. More than ten teams had already clashed and fallen there. The strongest five or six squads—comprised of veterans beyond the level of fresh genin—now lurked like predators in its shadow.
When Shigure activated his Byakugan and scouted ahead, he sucked in a sharp breath.
"Too many," he muttered aloud.
Akane bit her lip. "I see it too… Shigure, most of those chakra signatures aren't genin at all. They're at the level of chunin… and even beyond. Tell me this—are we really still in the Chunin Exams?"
Obito nearly choked. "Wait—what?! There are jōnin here!? Chunin is insane enough—who let a jōnin into this competition!?"
"Quiet." Shigure pressed a hand over Obito's mouth and forced him down flat against the dirt. He narrowed his eyes at the dark horizon. "Move softer. Speak less. There's a high chance there's a sensor-type ninja among them. That flare earlier nearly exposed us."
Calming himself, Shigure turned to Akane. "Check for me. How many shinobi? How many teams? And… are there bodies?"
Akane closed her eyes and extended her chakra sense farther. The moment she caught the details, the blood drained from her face. "Six teams. Eighteen shinobi." Her voice dropped, quivering. "And Shigure… the ground is covered with corpses. All of them are Leaf shinobi. They've been cut apart—shredded. Some into multiple pieces."
Rin's face went pale. "They're upperclassmen? Veterans? How could this happen…?"
"There are only three freshman squads left," Shigure confirmed grimly. "Ours. Team Ino-Shika-Chō. And Gai, Genma, and Ebisu. The rest are all seniors."
Kusuo shook his head. "This shouldn't be possible… Who would butcher their own classmates in the middle of the exams? Sure, injuries are normal, but even Shigure didn't go that far with Kakashi."
Obito swallowed hard. "Could it have been a ninjutsu accident? Manslaughter, from a clash gone wrong?"
"No," Shigure said flatly. "A stray fireball won't slice your body clean in half."
He crouched low, staring at tracks left in the moist soil. "The cuts are too clean. Sharp edge work. Add to that—the water pooled all around, the humidity in the air. These people weren't just cut down with blades. They were struck with powerful Water Release techniques. The pressure sheared through their bodies like a blade."
His eyes glinted darkly. "Whoever did this isn't just skilled with ninjutsu. They're a master with weapons—and with Water Release. Tell me, Akane… is there anyone in Konoha who fits that profile?"
Everyone went silent. The corpses lying in pieces near the Tower of Soldiers seemed to answer with their silence alone.
Because this, Shigure realized, wasn't the work of an exam candidate at all.
This was the work of a killer.
And they were walking straight toward him.
--
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