Seeing the waiter walking toward him, Takeshi's lips curled slightly behind the flower basket that partially obscured his face.
Hmph, took the bait.
As expected, the waiter who stopped in front of Takeshi coldly relayed Yamashita Yūji's original words.
To make everything appear more natural, Takeshi put on an act of reluctant acceptance. Finally, under the waiter's impatient gaze, he timidly nodded and followed him into the grand, opulently decorated ballroom.
At the door of a private room on the second floor, a ronin holding a katana blocked the waiter and gave Takeshi a thorough look. Seeing that he was wearing wooden clogs, and his arms and calves were exposed—clearly not hiding any weapons—the ronin nodded slightly, signaling that Takeshi could enter.
As for the waiter, the ronin tossed him the tip Yamashita Yūji had prepared.
"Gu-guest?"
Under the ronin's gaze, Takeshi gently pushed open the door to the private room, perfectly portraying the image of a weak, pitiful, and helpless girl.
"Hm."
After glancing over Takeshi again and confirming he hadn't used any Transformation Jutsu, Yamashita Yūji exchanged a look with the ronin at the door and saw confirmation in his eyes.
No weapons. No Transformation Jutsu. Just an ordinary girl one might see anywhere in the Land of Fire.
Wait, that's not right—girls with looks this exquisite weren't so common.
"Little girl, what are you doing selling flowers this late at night?"
Yamashita Yūji stepped forward, shut the door, locked it, then grabbed Takeshi by the shoulder and forced him over to a sofa. As he walked, he used his free hand to toy with the strands of hair hanging by Takeshi's temple.
"Obviously, I'm here to kill you, idiot."
Feeling his greasy hand sliding over his shoulder, Takeshi suppressed the urge to vomit. While v was still unsuspecting, he ruthlessly drove an ice senbon into the man's crotch.
Before he could even scream from the pain, another ice senbon pierced Yamashita Yūji's throat. He could only clutch his neck, wheezing as he gasped for air.
"W-Where... where did... where did you hide it..."
Lying on his side, Yūji couldn't figure out how the weapon had been smuggled in. Both he and the ronin had searched with care.
"So disgusting. I'm never cross-dressing again in this lifetime."
Flicking the hair back from his temple, Takeshi had no intention of enlightening his target. He quickly stabbed a few more senbon into Yūji's palms, preventing any last-minute jutsu attempts.
Once everything was done, Takeshi crouched down and stared coldly at him.
"Use your damn eyes. I'm a guy."
At those words, Yamashita Yūji's eyes bulged wide. His whole body trembled violently like he was having a seizure. For a moment, Takeshi thought he was about to self-destruct and quickly dodged to the side.
"Hhh... hhh..."
After a few more spasms, Yūji didn't explode. Instead, with a final breath and a face full of regret, he exited the shinobi world for good.
"Dead... he's really dead?"
Swallowing nervously, Takeshi fired two more ice senbon over the couch at Yūji. Confirming there was no reaction, he cautiously stepped out from behind the sofa.
"This guy... such a weak psyche? Got pissed to death?"
Staring at the corpse for a while and confirming it wasn't a clone, Takeshi wiped the sweat that wasn't actually on his forehead and created an ice blade with Ice Release.
As everyone knew, after an assassination, a shinobi would usually take part of the target's body as proof of the mission's success...
"It's time to take my first real step into the shinobi world."
Psyching himself up, Takeshi crouched beside the body and began working with great effort.
...
After placing Yamashita Yūji's severed head into the flower basket, Takeshi stood up. He was just about to signal the two waiting outside when—
Click.
Hearing the sound, Takeshi turned toward the window. It had been tightly shut, but now it had been opened—somehow, by someone.
"Who's there?!"
No time to retrieve the flower basket. Realizing someone had broken in, Takeshi immediately dove to the ground, rolled behind the sofa, and raised his arm. A layer of ice crystals formed on it to bolster his defense.
"Utilizes personal strengths well, strikes fast and hard, and even remembered to take the head for proof..."
A swarm of insects—enough to overwhelm anyone with trypophobia—poured in through the window. In an instant, they assembled into the shape of a human. As the outermost bugs dispersed, Aburame Tatsuma appeared before Takeshi.
"And your caution has improved a lot since we first met."
"Good work, Takeshi-sama."
Another familiar voice spoke up. The moment he heard it, Takeshi's hair practically stood on end. In his mind, he could already hear the sound of a whip cracking—snap, snap—and his skin tone instantly darkened.
Yamanaka Akira stepped out from behind Aburame Tatsuma, smiling as he approached the flower basket and praised Takeshi. He placed a hand on Yamashita Yūji's severed head.
"Alright. I know where the rest of the treasure is hidden."
Using a secret technique passed down through the Yamanaka Clan, Akira extracted the needed intel from Yamashita Yūji's solitary head.
Takeshi was utterly stunned.
Even death couldn't stop your secrets from being exposed? That's terrifying. If this existed in his past life, it would've been banned by every student who ever tried to cheat on an exam.
"So that means Orochimaru won't be able to..."
Akira muttered softly, then used Body Flicker to vanish from the room.
Orochimaru?
He's involved in this?
Climbing out from behind the sofa, Takeshi awkwardly patted off nonexistent dust.
Was there anything in this world more embarrassing than getting caught cross-dressing?
And by two people, no less.
"Let's go."
Noting the blood still on Takeshi's face from the earlier decapitation, Aburame Tatsuma gestured for him to take the head along and walked out of the room first.
Outside the room, the ronin still stood in the same position he'd taken when closing the door. As Tatsuma exited, the kikaichū insect clinging to the man's neck finally left his now lifeless body and slipped through the crack in the door.
...
Meanwhile, at the southern entrance of the town—
Orochimaru, having traveled nonstop through the night, arrived and stared intently at the buildings ahead.
"This is where Yamashita Yūji was found...?"
His signature raspy voice was laced with greed.
The treasure was worth tens of millions. Even with some extravagant spending, it would be more than enough to rebuild a basic lab.
What Orochimaru didn't know was that his plan had already been seen through by Danzō. The only reason Hiruzen had assigned him a different mission before he could act was because of Danzō's manipulations behind the scenes.
Want to get rich and resume your experiments?
If I can't have it, neither can you!
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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