Chương 160: The Devil Comes with the Winter Wind

Through the mountains and forests of the Land of Hot Water, Dongye zhen's squad raced onward, occasionally slowing to inspect the faintest traces left behind. The first objective of their mission—identifying and eliminating the backers behind Kakin's attempted coup—had already been completed. Though some of those people still breathed, they had become burdens rather than assets. Now they had moved on to the second objective: gathering intelligence on Kumogakure's operations.

Earlier, Dongye zhen had deliberately allowed the enemy to carry off their wounded. The plan had been to track them back to their nest. Unexpected complications had interrupted that pursuit, but it wasn't a major setback. The enemy was hauling crippled comrades. Their pace couldn't be fast. If they also spent time erasing tracks, they'd slow even further. Leave the traces, and pursuers would catch up easily. Try to hide them, and they'd cripple their own speed. A classic dilemma.

As it turned out, the Kumo shinobi had chosen speed over caution. They hadn't bothered covering their trail. Or perhaps they assumed the darkness would protect them. Following fragmentary signs, Dongye zhen's team pressed northward toward the Land of the Moon. Between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning lay two significant buffer nations. The Land of Hot Water leaned toward Konoha. The Land of the Moon favored Kumogakure. More than a year had passed since the Third Great Ninja War ended.

Though the major powers had withdrawn their armies, considerable border forces remained stationed along their frontiers. After the Nine-Tails Incident struck Konoha, Kumogakure had been the first to scent blood in the water, steadily reinforcing the border. The people of the Hidden Cloud had always excelled at kicking someone when they were down. The closer they came to the Land of the Moon, the more obvious the tracks became. Almost as if someone had intentionally stamped deeper into the earth, inviting pursuit.

Moonlight that had illuminated the night vanished behind a blanket of dark clouds. Snow began to fall. Within a desolate stone forest, Dongye zhen finally halted. Yamato crouched beside a set of fresh footprints.

"These are far more obvious than before. Deliberately obvious." Hayate gazed northward.

"Looks like there's an ambush waiting ahead."

"Exactly." Dongye zhen nodded.

"We'll rest here and recover. We move at dawn." Yugao caught a snowflake in her palm.

"If the snowfall intensifies, won't it erase all the tracks? What if we lose them?"

"We won't." Dongye zhen shook his head.

"At this point, we no longer need tracks. What we need is to stay ready. We could encounter enemies at any moment." They found a concealed location nearby. Yamato formed hand seals and created an underground shelter with Earth Release. At this stage of his life, he hadn't yet fallen into the bottomless pit known as real estate development. Even though he could build houses with Wood Release, doing so in the wilderness would have been far too conspicuous. At first light, the four emerged from underground.

The world had become a sea of white. Snow continued to drift from the sky, burying every trace beneath its frozen veil. Fortunately, shinobi feared heat far more than cold. After checking their gear, they resumed their journey. Their footprints stretched across the snow like brushstrokes on silk. Yet a faint wind seemed to follow behind them, sweeping loose snow into every depression and erasing their passage. Naturally, that was Dongye zhen's doing. A competent shinobi didn't leave such obvious clues behind.

Not long afterward, his sensory perception detected an ambush. The squad immediately altered course. Within a small forest, three Kumo shinobi were conducting a patrol. The shortest among them—a young teenager—grumbled as he trudged through the snow.

"With weather like this, who's going to be out here? Maybe the guys tracking Lord Bigui already stumbled into one of our traps and got killed." Their white-skinned team leader shot him a glare.

"Shut up and stay alert."

"Yeah, yeah." The boy rolled his eyes.

"I thought the war was over." In the shinobi world, carelessness killed. The instant those words left his mouth, he suddenly became shorter. Much shorter. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Before he could react, he had been dragged underground. Only his head remained above the snow. His eyes blinked blankly. Who am I? Where am I? Why does everyone look taller all of a sudden? Apparently, he hadn't seen much real combat.

His survival instincts were practically nonexistent. By the time he realized what had happened and tried to break free, Yamato's fist had already slammed into the back of his head. He dropped unconscious. Hayate and Yugao simultaneously engaged the second Kumo shinobi, a young man around seventeen or eighteen. He didn't last much longer. As for their captain, he fared no better. His opponent was Dongye zhen. He never even saw the attacker. One moment he was standing.

The next, sharp pain exploded in the back of his neck. Then everything below it vanished. His body collapsed into the snow. Watching the approaching enemy, despair flooded his heart. How? How had Konoha shinobi just happened to appear on his patrol route? He was finished. What would happen to his beautiful wife back home? Then his gaze met a pair of eyes behind a mask. The world twisted. Genjutsu swallowed him whole.

After extracting the information they needed, Dongye zhen casually fired a Wind Finger Gun into each of the unconscious Kumo shinobi. Then the squad departed, continuing their hunt through the storm. Behind them, the adult Kumo ninja eventually regained consciousness. His scream tore through the snowy wilderness. Part terror. Part agony. Part desperate attempt to summon help. He believed he had merely suffered temporary paralysis.

He had no idea there was a very real chance he would spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair. As they traveled, Yugao finally voiced her confusion.

"Captain, why didn't you kill them?" Hayate and Yamato shared the same question. They knew exactly what a Wind Finger Gun to the spine meant. For a shinobi, such a fate was arguably worse than death. Had they not known Dongye zhen personally, they might have suspected their captain possessed some deeply disturbing hobby. Dongye zhen explained calmly.

"Death lasts an instant. Most shinobi aren't afraid of dying."

"If we kill them, the survivors will only unite in hatred and push harder for another war against Konoha."

"But cripple them..." His voice remained utterly flat.

"Kumogakure must dedicate manpower to care for them. Their combat strength diminishes. Fear spreads. Despair spreads. Eventually, they begin questioning whether war is worth it."

"Understand?" The three nodded. They understood immediately. Death wasn't terrifying. A fate worse than death was. It was much like certain weapons from Dongye zhen's previous world—designed not to kill outright, but to create lifelong casualties. Drain enemy logistics. Spread fear. Erode morale. Utterly inhumane. Unfortunately, the shinobi world had no international conventions. And shinobi rarely discussed human rights with their enemies. Before long, several more Kumo patrols suffered the same fate.

Following the information they gathered, the four eventually arrived outside Kumogakure's forward base. While Hayate, Yugao, and Yamato maintained watch, Dongye zhen closed his eyes and extended his senses. With perception abilities this absurd, infiltrating personally would have been unnecessary risk. The force stationed here wasn't particularly large. Roughly three hundred personnel. Including operatives outside the camp, the total likely remained below five hundred.

Clearly, Kumogakure wasn't preparing for all-out war. This was pressure. Testing. Probing Konoha's response. Neither the Fourth Raikage nor the Eight-Tails Jinchūriki was present. The number of jōnin wasn't especially high either. However... One chakra signature stood out. Massive. The Two-Tails Jinchūriki. Yugito Nii. The beautiful kunoichi should currently be around Kakashi's age. How much of Matatabi's power she could wield remained uncertain.

Aside from the One-Tail and Nine-Tails, the other seven tailed beasts tended to be considerably more cooperative. Not to mention Kumogakure had practically cheated by developing an exceptionally effective Jinchūriki training system. Fortunately, while Konoha lacked perfect Jinchūriki, it compensated by routinely producing outright monsters. A few moments later, Dongye zhen opened his eyes.

"Let's go."

"We're leaving already?" Hayate asked.

"Mm." Dongye zhen nodded.

"We've seen enough." Inside Kumogakure's camp, despair hung over the temporary medical ward like a funeral shroud. Including the jōnin Bigui whom Dongye zhen had crippled earlier, nearly twenty shinobi lay neatly arranged across several rooms. Most had assumed they were merely injured. Then the medical-nin delivered the verdict. Their shinobi careers were over. For the rest of their lives, they would eat, sleep, and relieve themselves in bed. To a shinobi, that sentence carried a depth of despair few could endure.

Even the most optimistic soul would break beneath it. Fear began spreading through the camp. Beside Bigui's bed stood Dodai.

"What happened?" the commander asked.

"Who attacked you?" Bigui stared blankly at the ceiling. His voice sounded hollow.

"I don't know. They were Konoha ANBU."

"Short. Young."

"But incredibly strong."

"There were over a dozen of us."

"We were practically defeated by a single person." Dodai fell silent. Then he sighed.

"A terrifying talent."

"I can only think of one person."

"The Shield of Konoha. The one who fought Lord Raikage."

"Maybe." Bigui's eyes remained lifeless.

"I don't care who he was."

"I only know he was a devil." Dodai nodded slowly.

"Crippling instead of killing. Spreading fear and despair."

"Yes."

"That does sound like the work of a devil." He rubbed his temples.

"This is going to be troublesome."

"Lord Dodai..." Bigui's voice trembled.

"Kill me."

"I don't want to live like this."

"Bigui, what nonsense are you talking about?" Dodai barked.

"Don't give up. The village will find a cure." Bigui laughed bitterly.

"Will it?"

"Of course it will." Dodai forced confidence into his voice.

"Rest for now." After leaving the ward, his deputy approached.

"What should we do, Lord Dodai? The atmosphere in camp is deteriorating. Should we suppress the information?"

"No point." Dodai shook his head.

"We missed that opportunity. It's already spread." Then he turned toward the medical chief.

"Is there truly no solution?" The medic's expression darkened.

"None."

"Their central nervous systems were completely destroyed by extremely concentrated Wind chakra."

"Perhaps..." He hesitated.

"Only Tsunade could heal injuries like these." Dodai nearly choked. Wonderful. The only possible cure belonged to another Konoha ninja. And not just any Konoha ninja. One of the legendary Sannin. As if she would agree to help. He might as well wish for the moon. In the end, Dodai decided the matter would have to wait for the Raikage's judgment. Back at Konoha's camp in the Land of Hot Water, Nara Suzaku listened to Dongye zhen's report and immediately developed a headache.

"A Jinchūriki..." He rubbed his forehead.

"That's troublesome. We don't exactly have anyone capable of matching one." The Nara clan excelled at strategy. What they hated most were unreasonable monsters. No matter how brilliant your plan, could it stop a Tailed Beast Bomb? Konoha's current situation wasn't ideal. The Fourth Hokage remained sidelined while recovering from his injuries. Two of the Sannin had vanished. As for Orochimaru... Given the Hokage succession issue, he probably wouldn't exert himself even if he came.

At best, he'd show up and phone it in. Would they have to ask the Third Hokage to take the field personally? At his age, could he still handle it? Dongye zhen shrugged.

"It's not that bad."

"The Two-Tails Jinchūriki is still young. Her own abilities limit how much power she can draw from the beast."

"Dealing with her won't be difficult." Suzaku's eyes lit up. He knew exactly who stood beneath that ANBU mask. I am an idiot. A complete idiot. Why search far and wide when the answer was standing right in front of him? This was the man who had captured the Four-Tails and soloed the Nine-Tails. The Two-Tails barely qualified as an appetizer.

"Zhen, we've worked together long enough." Suzaku smiled.

"It seems we'll need your help again."

"Jōnin Suzaku." Dongye zhen's expression remained perfectly serious.

"You've mistaken me for someone else."

"I am Lin Xiao, captain of ANBU Team Owl."

"Oh, right. Of course." Suzaku nodded immediately.

"So... Captain Lin Xiao."

"Will you be staying?"

"That's not a question for me." Dongye zhen spread his hands.

"You'll have to ask the Hokage."