Chapter 228: The World Isn't Chaotic Enough, I'm Not Bad Enough
"Then I will just have to mess with you, Yagura," Asun declared, her lips curling into a wicked grin. She pointed a lazy finger through the thick mist. "See that shark-faced kid over there? Excellent bone structure. Striking, highly marketable appearance. He is clearly prime ninja material. Why don't you go beat him up and extort his lunch money? Then, I swoop in, save him, and demand a hefty gratitude fee. Two streams of income from a single target. Brilliant, right?"
Yagura stared at her, feeling the color drain from his already bleak future. Not too long ago, he had been a boy full of bright dreams, wholly dedicated to his training, desperate to become a shining pillar for the Hidden Mist Village.
Now? He spent his days being dragged through the mud by this absolute lunatic. Before he could even begin to shine, Asun had somehow managed to offend every major political faction within a ten-mile radius. He always had the sinking suspicion that long before the civil unrest in the Land of Water came to an end, he was going to be implicated and executed just for standing next to Minazuki Sugi.
He rubbed his temples, a headache already forming. "Minazuki Sugi, do you physically break out in hives if you go a single day without causing a diplomatic incident?"
"How did you know?" Asun gasped, clutching her chest in mock offense, looking entirely too righteous for a scam artist.
As the old adage went: in a life of endless hardship, one either exploded or became utterly unhinged. Stelle had been suffering through this miserable world for far too long, and her personality had thoroughly warped to compensate., she was currently operating under a male alias. To sell the disguise, she naturally had to act even more deranged than usual. Honestly, if scientific research was not so obnoxiously expensive and time-consuming, she would not have minded rebranding herself as Orochimaru 2.0.
Yagura stared blankly into the fog. 'Maybe the Hidden Mist Village really should just be destroyed,' he thought numbly. There was hardly a single normal person left in this miserable place. As the sole remaining voice of reason, the young boy felt entirely out of place in his own home.
Later that night, the dense fog rolling off the lake provided the perfect cover for an ambush. Yagura had merely been practicing his Water Release forms by the water's edge when a dozen masked figures dropped from the treeline. He was only thirteen. Despite his prodigious talent, the sheer numbers quickly overwhelmed him. A swift kick to the back of his knees sent him crashing into the mud, his chakra exhausted, his fighting ability completely stripped away. Death loomed over him in the form of drawn steel.
Spitting out a mouthful of bloody water, Yagura glared up at his attackers. "If you want to capture Asun, go capture Asun! Why are you targeting me? I haven't done anything to you people!"
You cowards always pick on the weak, don't you?
The leader of the thugs sneered, pointing a dripping blade at the boy's throat. "Blame him for sticking so close to you in the Land of Water. We already know we cannot beat that monster in a straight fight, so we have to use you as use."
Yagura stared at the assassin, utterly speechless. "I am genuinely not close with Minazuki Sugi," he deadpanned, his voice dripping with exhaustion. "Why don't you just go to my house and ambush him in his sleep? He forcibly moved in, eats all my food, sleeps in my bed, and makes me sleep on the cold floor while eating his leftovers. I promise you, I hate him just as much as you do."
Right on cue, a familiar, highly punchable face poked out from the canopy above.
"Yagura, oh, my dear Yagura," Asun sighed dramatically, wiping a fake tear from her eye. "I rushed all the way out here to save you from certain doom, and this is the thanks I get? Such heartless, ungrateful slander. Should I just turn around and leave?"
"Go to hell!" Yagura roared, his usually calm and gentle demeanor shattering completely. He looked less like a stoic ninja and more like a soaking wet, bristling alley cat.
Despite her theatrical threats of abandonment, Asun dropped from the branches like a falling leaf, landing squarely in the center of the encirclement. The moment her boots touched the muddy shore, a terrifying surge of chakra erupted from her core. The ambient temperature plummeted in a fraction of a second. Frost crackled through the humid air, and jagged ice crystals violently bloomed across the ground, racing toward the assassins' feet.
"Kill him! Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!" one of the masked men screamed, rapidly weaving hand seals. A massive, roaring dragon of pressurized water tore out from the lake, jaws snapping toward Asun's head.
Asun did not even blink. She casually clapped her hands together. A massive, glittering wall of absolute zero ice erupted from the earth, effortlessly absorbing the crushing impact of the water dragon. Without missing a beat, her fingers blurred through a sequence of seals. The shattered remnants of the enemy's attack instantly froze, transmuting into a colossal, jagged ice dragon that roared and plunged directly into the crowd.
Ice Release was a legendary Kekkei Genkai. Against ordinary Water Release users, it was an absolute, one-sided slaughter. Within moments, the chaotic battlefield fell dead silent. Most of the would-be assassins had been perfectly preserved as horrifying, wide-eyed ice sculptures.
"Seriously," Asun mumbled, her expression twisting into a mask of deep disappointment. "If you are going to go out of your way to cause trouble for me, at least send some decent fodder. Throwing ordinary Water Release ninja at an Ice user is just delivering free takeout. This is not satisfying in the slightest."
She sighed, casually condensing a razor-sharp ice blade in her palm. She twirled the frozen dagger between her fingers a few times, a bored look in her eyes, before suddenly slicing the edge across her own palm. Crimson droplets welled up, dripping onto the pristine white snow. She held her hand up to the moonlight, her voice dropping into a chilling, theatrical whisper. "Blood... it truly is the most beautiful color in this world."
The few surviving thugs scrambled backward, their knees knocking together. The sheer, perverse insanity radiating from this beautiful, blood-letting monster made them instantly regret taking this assassination contract.
In a desperate, final gambit, one of the assassins circled around the frozen carnage and lunged at the helpless Yagura. A poisoned short sword thrust straight toward the young boy's heart. Exhausted and pinned to the ground, poor Yagura had absolutely no time to react.
A blur of motion intercepted the strike. Asun sprinted across the ice, throwing her own body squarely in the path of the blade. The sickening sound of tearing flesh echoed across the lake as the sword buried itself deep into Asun's chest. At the exact same moment, Asun reached out, grabbed the attacker's head, and violently twisted. A sharp crack rang out, and the assassin dropped dead.
A second later, Asun collapsed to the blood-soaked mud.
Yagura's eyes widened to the size of saucers. He watched the tyrant fall, completely unable to process what had just happened. How could someone so overwhelmingly powerful die just to save him? They had not even known each other for that long. The village elders had assigned Yagura an unreasonable, suicidal mission, and Asun had saved his life back then. Afterward, the penniless rogue had simply invited herself into his home, stealing his meals and claiming his bed.
Yet now, this absolute lunatic had actually thrown her life away to protect him.
"Hey! Asun! Wake up!" Yagura scrambled forward, his hands shaking as he tried to lift the older ninja's shoulders. "Hold on, I will get you to a Medical Ninja!"
But the moment he shifted her weight, a fresh torrent of crimson spilled over his hands.
"It is... too late... Yagura..." Asun coughed, her voice a weak, rattling wheeze. Her hand weakly gripped the boy's collar. "Before I die... will you promise to grant my final requests?"
"Okay! I promise you, anything you want!" Hot tears spilled down young Yagura's cheeks, mixing with the dirt on his face. The crushing weight of grief slammed into his chest, violently dragging up the traumatic memories of his former teammates dying in his arms.
"Then... I want to move into Mei Terumi's house..."
"Okay," Yagura sobbed, nodding frantically. "I will take you there."
"And... I also want to rob that shark-faced kid blind..."
"Okay! I will go rob him for you!"
"I also want... to eat a massive seafood feast tomorrow... and you have to cook it..."
"Okay..."
"And... I want to punch Mangetsu Hozuki right in his stupid face... and you are not allowed to stop me..."
Yagura sniffled, about to agree to the assault, when his brain finally caught up to the sheer absurdity of the demands. He paused, blinking through his tears. He looked down at Asun's fatal chest wound. The blood was gone. In fact, there was no wound at all. Her chest was completely clean, her clothes were perfectly intact, and the metallic scent of blood had vanished into thin air.
"You... you..." Yagura stammered, his brain short-circuiting.
"Pfft... Hahahaha!" Asun suddenly burst into a fit of wicked, hysterical laughter. She slapped the ground, literally rolling in the mud as she howled. "I tricked you! It was a Genjutsu! Did you seriously think I could be killed by mere small fry? Hahaha! Look at your face!"
Yagura sat there, utterly petrified by betrayal.
"Oh, Yagura, how can you be so incredibly gullible? Hahaha!"
'Why?'Yagura thought, his soul leaving his body.'Why do I know someone with such a fundamentally rotten personality?'
Slowly, the young boy wiped the drying tears from his face. He stood up, his eyes dead and devoid of light. He reached down and picked up a discarded kunai. "Minazuki Sugi," he whispered, his voice trembling with pure, unadulterated murderous intent. "If I do not kill you today, I am not a man! Only one of us is walking away from this lake!"
Asun sprang up from the dirt with a flawless carp kick. Still cackling like a maniac, she casually activated the Body Flicker Technique, blurring into the treeline to escape the wrath of the humiliated teenager. As she zipped through the dark forest, she deliberately passed right by a very specific tree trunk—one where a dark, viscous entity was currently clinging to the bark.
Black Zetsu melted into the shadows, listening intently as the rogue ninja's frantic, unhinged voice echoed through the woods.
"The world simply isn't chaotic enough, and I am clearly not evil enough!" Asun complained to the empty air, her tone dripping with theatrical boredom. "Ah, life at the top is truly lonely. Where can a genius find some actual fun around here? Assassinating the Mizukage sounds tedious... Maybe I should go murder the Raikage instead? Ugh, it is such a pity I was not born in Madara Uchiha's era. Challenging the absolute strongest shinobi in history... now that would have been genuinely entertaining."
The moment the arrogant monologue ended, Asun's boot slammed directly onto the patch of black liquid clinging to the bark. Using the hidden spy as a literal springboard, she forcefully kicked off, changing direction mid-air and speeding away into the night.
Black Zetsu peeled himself off the wood, wiping away the footprint stamped directly into his face. He truly had not expected Minazuki Sugi to be this deeply insane. Compared to this chaotic lunatic, the world-destroying maniac known as Mieshi actually seemed somewhat reasonable.
'Very good,'Black Zetsu mused silently in the dark.'Minazuki Sugi is even more unhinged than Mieshi. Completely uninhibited, entirely reckless. A wild card like this is highly suitable as a pawn for the Eye of the Moon Plan.'This was a person who clearly cared nothing for political outcomes or moral consequences, driven solely by a desperate need for entertainment. Black Zetsu decided he would have White Zetsu continue monitoring this fascinating specimen. A thrill-seeker like this could easily be manipulated into doing the Akatsuki's dirty, exhausting labor without ever realizing they were being used. He would keep this pawn in reserve for now.'And if she doesn't end up being useful...'Black Zetsu's yellow eyes narrowed in the gloom.'I will definitely not forget the humiliation of being used as a footstool.'
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