On a small town near the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Frost, Uchiha Feiyu strolled in casually.
"So this is the place… That so-called Konoha traitor, Hattori Ichirō."
According to the intel, Hattori Ichirō was a civilian jōnin who'd stolen plenty of Konoha's secrets. He specialized in Lightning Release and kenjutsu, and his combat style was said to be very similar to the White Fang of the Leaf.
Of course, in Feiyu's eyes, that style looked less like Konoha's and more like it came straight out of the Hidden Cloud. He even suspected this guy was never truly Konoha at all—just a Kumo plant embedded there from the start.
He spread out his soul-sense. Even though he'd never sensed Hattori's soul before, a jōnin's spiritual presence was far stronger than that of ordinary people. In a town full of civilians, it stood out like a crane in a flock of chickens.
"Got you. Over there."
Feiyu turned his head toward a shabby little church on the edge of town.
The shinobi world was a mishmash of East and West; churches weren't common, but they existed. Monks still had the better market share, though. This particular church looked abandoned.
He walked up to the warped wooden doors and slapped them twice, shouting:
"Hey, anybody home? Routine inspection!"
There was a burst of frantic scrambling from behind the door, a couple of heavy clanks—and then silence. When he got no response after knocking again, Feiyu simply lifted his leg and kicked both doors clean off their hinges.
With a thunderous crash, the doors slammed into the main statue inside, snapping the half-broken icon in two with a sharp crack.
A shrill scream echoed in the old chapel. Feiyu winced and covered one ear, letting his gaze sweep the interior. Five or six kids, all seven or eight years old at most, were huddled under a table, trembling.
In front of the table stood a tall man with a hard, cold expression on his face.
That was Hattori Ichirō.
While in town, Feiyu had asked around; he'd heard that several orphans lived in this old church. Those little kids were obviously the ones. As for why Ichirō was holed up here, Feiyu didn't particularly care.
He spread his spiritual perception again and gave a faint, mirthless laugh. Lightning chakra flickered over his body with a sharp bzzt, and he shot straight toward Hattori Ichirō.
Ichirō didn't say a word. He simply grabbed two of the children from under the table and hurled them straight at Feiyu.
Feiyu snorted and shifted his body slightly. He didn't even think about catching them—he just slipped past the flying kids.
A thunderous explosion shook the chapel, underscored by a pair of faint, short screams. The two unfortunate children, talisman tags stuck to their bodies, were blown to pieces on the spot. Blood and shattered bone sprayed through the air, and the old church instantly turned into an Asura hellscape.
"Konoha brat… you've got quite the cold heart."
Hattori Ichirō's voice was low and icy. Feiyu raised a brow.
"Going by your tone… you're not a Konoha traitor?"
"Hmph. At this point, there's nothing left to hide. I am a shinobi of the Hidden Cloud, Land of Lightning."
"So not a defector—just a spy from the start. Figures. Still amazed Lightning Country managed to find someone with a face like yours."
People from the Land of Lightning tended to be either very dark or very pale—like a mix of real-world Westerners and Africans. A guy with the typical "Kumo" face walking into Konoha was just serving himself up on a plate; ANBU would bag him at the gate.
Kumo must've worked hard to find someone who both looked like he belonged in Konoha and had the strength for deep cover. A jōnin wasn't cabbage; in any village, they were low-tier leadership at worst.
After a few pointless jabs, Feiyu's body blurred into motion. He became a streak of light, rushing straight at Ichirō.
The spy from Kumo flared with lightning as well, electricity crackling over his body. A long blade appeared in his hand, and he swung; steel clashed against steel again and again, clang clang clang, as two trails of gleaming arcs carved through the chapel's interior.
Tables, benches, windows, statues—everything in the church was sliced apart and reduced to splinters in an instant. After barely ten seconds, Feiyu's figure flickered back and he retreated to the doorway.
Hattori Ichirō, on the other hand, stood frozen in place, eyes wide with shock and pain. He clutched at his throat. A thin line of blood seeped out, then thickened into a solid red stream.
"S-so fast… that swordsmanship… To think, even with the White Fang dead… Konoha still has… such a… swordsman…"
With that, Hattori Ichirō collapsed, dead.
Feiyu flicked his hand, and a glimmering soul was pulled cleanly from the corpse and drawn into his grasp.
"This guy definitely held back a lot while in Konoha. A typical jōnin doesn't have sword skills like that… And that thing he just used…"
Feiyu's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Could that have been Cloud's Lightning Release Chakra Mode?"
The Hidden Cloud's Lightning Release Chakra Mode was famous throughout the shinobi world. By comparison, the Lightning Release body-stimulation method pioneered by the White Fang was basically a knock-off, a discount version of the real thing.
Normally, you'd never give something that precious to a deep-cover spy. If they were captured and interrogated, the village's signature techniques could leak.
But Kumo was… special.
They were ravenous and ruthless externally, but their internal bonds were strong. Their Raikage was less a "village head" and more a gang boss who genuinely looked after his own. It wouldn't be shocking if he rewarded a trusted undercover agent with advanced techniques.
And a spy like Hattori would've had his brain loaded up with seals and curses; under normal circumstances, trying to extract those secrets from him wouldn't be easy.
Unfortunately for him, no matter how sophisticated the mental seals, none of them meant anything in front of Calling Souls to Guide the Dead—a power that skipped the "brain" entirely and plucked the soul right out.
Feiyu dove straight into the man's memories through the captured spirit.
"So that's it. He only learned the most basic half of Lightning Release Chakra Mode? A partial reward for his talent and dedication…"
After combing through, Feiyu found only an unfinished Lightning Release Chakra Mode—a half-completed version whose speed and defense were both heavily nerfed. In Hatake Sakumo's judgment, this was clearly only the first half of the complete technique.
Even so, that incomplete Lightning Mode already far outclassed ordinary Lightning-style body-enhancement ninjutsu.
Even within the Hidden Cloud itself, the number of shinobi allowed to learn this much probably didn't exceed twenty.
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