Chương 146

I stood there, horrified, staring at Sena. The way she had set the traps was devious, cruel even. No one else could have done it. The amount of money it must have taken to get all these supplies, the precision with which they were placed, the planning involved. It had to be her. She must be getting them at cost through her clan, maybe even using a backchannel supply route. I made a mental note to ask her later if she could get me the same deal.

I shook my head and looked around as the sun set, the sky bleeding into deep red before fading to dark blue.

"Well, nothing happened yesterday, so that was both disappointing and comforting," I said aloud. Sena glanced at Kaen, who was glaring at the road like the quiet itself offended him. He hated nights like this. She shook her head faintly, and I sighed. Getting under Kaen's skin wasn't hard, but lately I had noticed he was making a real effort not to lose his temper. That must have been Shisui's doing. Seeing that, I decided to do the same and hold back, at least for tonight. Then a feeling crept over me.

It was vague but cold, like a warning crawling up my spine. My hands clenched and opened again before I realized it.

"I feel like tonight will be the night," I muttered. Sena's eyes turned serious, her grin vanishing in an instant. Kaen scoffed, his voice mocking.

"You and your intuitions." I ignored him. Sena straightened.

"Let's move to position." We jumped, scaling the warehouse wall with chakra until we reached the top. I sat cross-legged in the center of the sealing formation I had prepared earlier. With a single hand seal, I pushed chakra into it. The array lit up with a soft blue glow before the light sank into the rooftop wood. A faint hum filled the air, and I felt the outside world cut off from us like a door slamming shut.

"It's active," I said quietly. Kaen's Sharingan spun to life, scanning the area with sharp intensity. Sena crouched low, her focus narrowing on the shadows below. The warehouse guards tonight were different. They were twitchy, unsteady, nothing like the calm and disciplined ones we had seen yesterday. Their grips were too tight on their weapons, their movements jerky. They looked new, inexperienced, and that immediately made me suspicious. Sena noticed too, but she didn't look worried.

Instead, a slow grin spread across her face, one I had never seen before. It wasn't polite or composed. It was sharp and almost gleeful. I had always thought I was the normal one on this team. Tonight proved it. Hours passed as we waited, the guards below growing more and more uneasy. Finally, when the night was at its darkest, Kaen spoke.

"They're here," he said, his voice low. He turned to me, surprised.

"How did you know?" I shrugged.

"Just a hunch. I'm not a fortune teller. I still try to predict food discount offers and fail miserably every single time." Kaen stared at me like I was the strange one. I chuckled and turned back toward the darkness, both of us focusing on the stretch beyond the warehouse. At first, there was nothing but the stillness of night. The faint whistle of the wind slipped through the abandoned buildings, carrying a chill with it. Then, slowly, a shadow began to move at the edge of the moonlight.

The figure came closer step by step, unhurried and confident, as if nothing in the world could threaten her. Even from this distance I could tell she was tall, broad-shouldered, and solidly built. No one could mistake her for a civilian. Her steps were heavy and deliberate, each one landing like a challenge. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"She's built like a wall," I muttered under my breath. The closer she came, the more the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Her face stayed hidden in the dark, but everything about her movements screamed danger. She stopped in front of the guards, staring them down like they were insects. When she spoke, her voice was cold, rough, and laced with cruel amusement.

"You weaklings can run away as long as you drop your weapons first." The guards froze. Their hands shook, barely able to hold their weapons. Then her chakra flared, pressing down on everyone in range like a physical weight.

"I said drop your weapons and run!" This time the guards obeyed instantly. Weapons clattered to the ground and they bolted toward the settlement, running like death itself was chasing them.

"Good," the woman muttered, just loud enough for us to hear.

"No need to lose one of my people to a lucky swing from one of you cowards." She looked around, and when she spoke again, her voice boomed unnaturally far, carried by wind chakra until it echoed through the entire area and beyond.

"Cute little genin. Come out, come out, wherever you are." We stayed silent. Minutes passed. Her eyes narrowed, suspicion sharp, then she gestured for one of her men to move forward. Sena looked at me.

"Noa, do you think she's a sensor?" I shook my head.

"No. The way she looked around and moved tells me she isn't. She's probably just trying to bait us." Sena stepped forward and extended her hand beyond the edge of the sealing array. A thin pulse of chakra rippled out, but nothing happened. Her grin widened into something vicious. She stayed at the front of the formation while keeping her hand out of it.

"Kaen, take the signal flare and fire it at the back of the warehouse once you land. Stay clear of the sides, keep your chakra low, and preserve it in case we face a second wave." Kaen took the flare, nodded once, his face lit with excitement for the coming confrontation, and leapt away. He landed softly, keeping his chakra as low as possible. I stayed behind Sena, watching her focus intently, her hand steady as she kept the chakra flow controlled and quiet. That was when the nightmare began.

Aoya's men crept forward, their boots crunching softly against the dirt, every step measured as they closed in on the unguarded warehouse. Aoya stood perfectly still, watching them with the cold patience of a predator. One of the men stepped down and froze when a faint sizzling sound rose from beneath his foot. He looked down, eyes widening just in time to see the explosive tag glowing under the dirt. The blast tore through him before he could scream.

His leg vanished in a spray of blood and fire, and he collapsed on the ground, dead before he hit it. His empty eyes stared at nothing as blood rained down across the dirt. The rest of the men froze where they stood. Aoya turned her head slowly, scanning the area, then sniffed the air like a wolf catching a scent. She found nothing. Sena chuckled under her breath.

"Like I'd be stupid enough to wear perfume on a mission." Then it clicked. She wasn't just letting the tags work on their own. She was timing them, controlling them. I felt a flicker of impressed respect despite the situation. If I had the money, I might have tried something dramatic, but this was far more effective. Another man panicked and stepped back. He didn't make it far. The ground lit up under him and the tag exploded.

His lower body was obliterated in a burst of shrapnel, the spray of bone shards cutting into the dirt. His upper body flew several meters before landing on another tag. The second blast turned him into a red mist, scattering what was left across the ground. Sena stood with her hand extended, chakra steady and precise. She had done it deliberately, letting them come just far enough to feel safe before striking, then catching the one who tried to retreat.

It was a calculated plan, designed to break their nerves before the real fight even began. I stared at her, a cold weight settling in my chest as the reality sank in. She had just killed two men, and her expression had not changed. Her smile was sharper now, more vicious, the kind of smile a predator wears when it hunts not for food but for the pleasure of the chase and the game that comes before the kill. She wasn't shaken. She wasn't hesitating. Was this really what the Yamanaka clan taught their children?

I had always assumed the big clans trained their kids so they would not hesitate when a mission required them to kill. But this went beyond training. This was colder, sharper, something far darker, closer to enjoyment than duty. In that moment, Sena reminded me far more of her mother, with her strict, almost cruel composure, than of her father, whose cheerfulness always hid a cunning mind. The thought made the chill crawling down my spine feel even worse.

For the first time, I wasn't sure I really knew who Sena Yamanaka was. Aoya's face twisted with fury.

"Fine," she said, her voice cold and sharp.

"Let's play rough, little shits." Her hands blurred through a string of seals. I didn't wait. Lightning crackled at my feet, scorching lines into the rooftop as I exploded forward. The moment Aoya caught sight of me closing in, she halted her seals, her lips curling into a slow, predatory grin that seemed to thicken the air between us.

"Let me teach you kid how unfair the world really is."