"Yo yo, you think I'm some idiot fool? Who the hell are you really!?"
Killer B froze for a second, then his expression darkened with irritation.
Yeah, he loved rap.
Yeah, he could drop bars anytime, anywhere.
But that didn't mean rap was his whole life.
He still had priorities:
the Land of Lightning, the Hidden Cloud, and his big brother, the Raikage.
And with Kumogakure currently at war with Konoha, there was no way he'd believe two suspicious weirdos just happened to be his "fans."
Kenichi Amemiya's mouth twitched.
Weren't you supposed to be a lovable idiot? How come that line didn't fool you at all?
Fortunately, he'd prepared backup plans.
While he'd been talking, Kenichi had already thought through a few routes:
If lie A fails, use lie B.
If lie B fails, use lie C.
If all the lies fail…
Then they fight.
"Fine, we'll be honest," Kenichi said cheerfully. "We're members of the Akatsuki. We came to check if your village intends to hire outside help for the war. You know—mercenary contracts, war commissions, that kind of thing."
Sasori glanced sidelong at his friend, expression faintly odd.
He couldn't say Kenichi was lying, exactly.
It was true they'd accept war jobs.
It was just that… somehow it still sounded shady.
"Akatsuki?" B frowned. "War commissions?"
He clearly hadn't heard of the organization before.
Not surprising. Wandering-nin and missing-nin forming small groups for contract work was hardly rare. Most of them were bottom-feeding mercenary cells just trying to survive.
Ninja burned money fast.
They earned piles of cash and spent it even faster—medicine, weapons, bribes, intel. And with death constantly shadowing them, few felt like saving long-term unless they had families or clans to support.
"I definitely can't be a Leaf spy," Kenichi added helpfully. "Because look—Konoha's put out an A-rank bounty on me. I'm one of their wanted men."
He reached up, pulled off his mask, and revealed his face.
"I've never seen you before," B said flatly, waving his hand dismissively.
Kenichi silently rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Right. Of course. In the grand scheme of the shinobi world he was still a small fry. Not everyone read the wanted lists like bedtime stories.
Sasori, though, had already eased into battle-ready mode.
If even this didn't convince the guy, a fight was inevitable.
But then he noticed Kenichi take two unhurried steps forward, hands casually clasped behind his back, and make a quick, subtle gesture—index and middle fingers switching up and down.
Sasori blinked.
Then it clicked.
Got it. You're about to pull something.
"Killer B-sama," Kenichi said, keeping a friendly distance, "what do you think about rhyme schemes? I've always wanted to get better at rap, but my rhymes are terrible…"
It was such a normal, harmless question that B's brain reflexively shifted gears.
He thought, just for a moment, about rhyme, rhythm, internal structure—
and in that tiny opening, he saw them.
A pair of eyes, black and crimson, with three tomoe slowly spinning in the darkness.
Sharingan.
"Move," Kenichi hissed.
Five seconds later, he and Sasori were already gone, bodies flickering through the trees at full speed.
There was no time to waste. Even with the element of surprise, even with three-tomoe Sharingan and a targeted mental attack, controlling an Eight-Tails jinchūriki for long was impossible.
But five seconds?
Five seconds was enough to vanish.
Not long after they fled—
a roar like thunder ripped through the forest behind them, shaking the leaves and sending birds screaming into the sky.
Kenichi wiped a hand over his nose.
"So that was the limit, huh. Only about five seconds…"
Still, five seconds was enough time to bolt.
As soon as they got away, he'd entered Sage Mode, letting the natural energy flood his body. With his physique boosted, his speed shot up, and they finally shook off B's pursuit.
"That guy is seriously annoying," Kenichi muttered.
Now he and Sasori were sitting among a group of people—
a caravan of merchants from the Land of Lightning.
The two of them had darted past the group while fleeing, grabbed two of the merchants, taken their faces with Face Erasing Technique, and then…
made the original owners permanently disappear.
Now they were just two ordinary Lightning Country traders, heading toward Kumogakure to pick up supply-transport contracts.
"We're really just going to stroll in like this?" Sasori asked, glancing at the other merchants around them.
"These people will trickle into the village," Kenichi said. "They'll take jobs hauling food, weapons, all that. We'll just ride the wave."
He spoke with relaxed confidence.
"Yeah. It's still the easiest way in. The village is on a war footing right now—patrols and security are going to be tight."
Could they infiltrate through other means? Sure.
They could:
Carve a path through with raw force.
Kill every gate guard.
Kill every patrol.
Kill every witness.
If no one survived to report them, that was also a form of "perfect stealth."
But that approach was time-consuming and risked drawing the attention of the wrong people—
like the AB combo.
Or the other jinchūriki in Kumogakure, the Two-Tails' host.
Drawing that kind of heat was the opposite of subtle.
"So we blend in with regular folks instead," Kenichi said. "With this many bodies packed together, even a Byakugan user would have trouble flagging us as abnormal. And my transformation is better than most villages' intel officers, anyway."
Even Konoha's Hyūga clan hadn't caught his teacher sneaking in and out with this trick. Compared to that, infiltrating the Cloud through standard checkpoints was child's play.
Just as he'd expected, the closer they got to Kumogakure, the more patrol teams and inspection squads they encountered. Uniforms everywhere, forehead protectors glinting under the sun.
Almost every few kilometers, they were stopped and questioned.
"Cloud's shinobi really are mostly walking muscle mountains, huh," Kenichi murmured, watching another patrol move past.
He couldn't help the grin that tugged at his lips.
These people were perfect experimental material.
Strong bodies, powerful chakra—ideal for tests that would kill normal humans too quickly to be useful.
Once this war gets into full swing, he thought, eyes narrowing faintly, I'll have to find a way to quietly grab a few of them.
With a steady supply of Cloud shinobi, his lab would never run short on test subjects again.
Note: If you're interested, you can read up to Chapter 105+ at patreon.com/nakai01.