After getting the latest battlefield intel, Uchiha Feiyu soon received a new mission:
track down Iwagakure's current movements and, if possible, pinpoint the location of the Iwa main camp.
Konoha and Suna had been trading blows for quite a while; they basically already knew each other inside out.
But Iwa had just joined the war. Where their main camp was, what their supply routes looked like—Konoha didn't know a thing.
Iwa, on the other hand, had already sniffed out Konoha's forward base and even launched a surprise raid. In terms of information, Konoha was now on the back foot.
This kind of mission was neither too hard nor too easy.
No matter how tightly Iwa guarded its camp, with that many people and supplies going in and out, a hiding place of that scale was bound to be exposed sooner or later.
But at the same time, the closer you got to the enemy's main base, the heavier the defenses would be. A normal shinobi might be able to find the camp—then die there.
So to minimize casualties, what you needed was someone with high power and ridiculous speed to do reconnaissance.
Obviously, Uchiha Feiyu was exactly that kind of shinobi.
Leaving the Konoha camp, Feiyu followed the retreat route Orochimaru had marked, tracking in the direction Iwa's raiding force had fled.
This time, he did not bring Yamanaka Seiichi along.
Seiichi's sensory support was excellent, but his combat power was… not. If Iwa decided to sortie in force, Feiyu might be safe, but there'd be no way to protect that extra "carry-on luggage."
Besides, Feiyu's own sensory abilities had grown significantly. Two hundred meters of perception radius was still a bit tight, but if he kept moving and swept frequently, it was good enough.
"White Fang-senpai, you're sure it's this way?"
"Relax… I've dealt with Iwa's clay pots more times than I can count.
If I say it's this way, it's this way."
Moving swiftly through dense forest under Hatake Sakumo's guidance, Feiyu followed faint, almost invisible traces, relentlessly chasing after the Iwa squad that had escaped that day.
Anyone bold enough to raid Konoha's main camp would naturally be at least tokubetsu jōnin-class. Even after being exposed, the result was only two casualties. The rest had all managed to flee.
Of the two who stayed behind, one had died under Feiyu's blade. The other died covering their retreat.
Those high-ranking shinobi all had seals in their minds. Konoha's interrogators just didn't have the skill to crack them and extract any useful intel.
So the only option left was to let Uchiha Feiyu hunt them down the old-fashioned way.
If it were just Feiyu alone, there was no way he could've kept a lock on their trail for this long. Luckily, he had the help of a very experienced Konoha White Fang.
Back when he was alive, Sakumo's primary enemies had been Iwa and Suna. They were old familiar faces. He knew all their habits.
The living and the dead sprinted together at frightening speed—and Feiyu even had energy to spare in transit.
As he ran, he kept controlling the Iwa jōnin's soul he'd captured, digging into the man's memories to extract his jutsu.
Soon, Feiyu's body would suddenly disappear mid-stride, then reappear far away, flickering in and out of sight.
That was the Camouflage Hiding Technique he'd learned from Iwa.
Iwa's camouflage jutsu was powerful, but typically only good for hiding and ambushing. The moment you moved too fast or too wildly, the distortion would break, and the "invisibility cloak" would collapse.
But after Sakumo helped integrate it, Feiyu merged White Fang's wind-style movement techniques with the Camouflage Concealment. The result was this eerily flickering style—he was there one instant, gone the next.
"If I'd had this technique while I was alive,"
Sakumo said wistfully, watching Feiyu,
"I could've fully integrated it into my White Fang sword style.
Every strike would've come out of nowhere."
The Karmic Soul Binder was basically a bug when it came to learning.
Anyone who died in Feiyu's hands became raw material for his future strength.
"No worries," Feiyu replied casually.
"Once you've fully refined this technique, White Fang-senpai, I'll pass it on to Kakashi too.
Think of it as… continuing the legacy."
Sakumo could only give a bitter little smile at that.
Kakashi, as he was now, could barely digest the current White Fang style. Just that alone would take him two or three years of work. High-end hybrids like this? Way too early.
"I'm sensing unfamiliar souls.
Looks like we've found something."
Their idle talk had just ended when Feiyu's perception suddenly picked up a cluster of unfamiliar soul signatures.
He immediately slowed his pace, then used the Karmic Soul Binder to manipulate the Iwa soul. His body gradually faded from sight, merging into the surroundings.
Compared to Feiyu's own rough usage, this Iwa shinobi had been a true expert with the Camouflage Hiding Technique—he'd even been able to mask his chakra signature to some extent.
With that soul guiding him, Feiyu now moved like an invisible ghost, silently drifting toward the cluster of foreign souls.
It was a barren-looking hillside, several large boulders jutting out at odd angles.
The soul signatures he sensed were right inside one of the boulders at the top.
"Those should be Iwa's hidden sentries," Sakumo said immediately.
"Those clay pots love this kind of trick—
hollowing out big rocks and hiding inside to watch the surroundings."
Even if Sakumo hadn't said anything, Feiyu—who could sense the souls directly—had already pinned down their location.
"Hiding inside a rock, huh?" Feiyu murmured.
"Then you can just stay in that rock… forever."
"Earth Release – Heavenly Stone Drop!（土遁·天降盖）"
A massive stone lid descended from the sky and slammed down on the boulder like the hand of a god.
With a deafening boom, the boulder shattered into rubble.
The screams cut off halfway, and thin streams of blood began to seep between the cracks of shattered stone.
"One got away, huh?
These Iwa guys really are a bunch of moles. Their earth-style escape is too slick.
That should be Earth Flow: Hiding Like a Fish in the Earth, right?"
There had originally been four soul signatures inside the rock.
Now three had vanished outright. The last one had slipped under the ground, racing away at high speed.
Any technique that let you dive into the earth and travel underground was generally called an earth-walking jutsu.
But the very best ones were almost all in Iwa's hands.
No village loved tunnel warfare as much as they did.
Still, as good as earth-walking was for hiding, once you'd been spotted…
"Earth Release – Erupting Earth Palm!（土遁·裂土转掌）"
Feiyu slammed his palm into the ground.
The earth roared and shook, the sound of shifting stone mixed with a muffled, dying scream.
A moment later, thin traces of blood seeped up through the cracked soil.
Feiyu casually waved a hand, and a glowing soul orb drifted out from beneath the ground and fell into his grasp.
Back where the boulder had been, three more light spheres rose from the rubble and flew straight into Feiyu's hand as well.
Four hidden sentries erased in seconds.
And one step closer to Iwa's main camp.
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