Hearing the boast from Jinpachi Munashi, wielder of the Explosive Blade Shibuki, the others let out low chuckles.
The Fourth Hokage?
If he met them, he'd only become another corpse.
"You won't get away with this—!"
A Konoha jōnin lay face-down in the dirt, his entire body soaked in blood, staring up at them with fury and shock.
"The Hokage will make sure none of you escape! You'll die with no grave to your name!"
"Ha—then we'll be waiting."
Kushimaru Kuriarare, wielder of the Longsword Nuibari, grinned viciously. With one cruel motion, he drove the blade through the jōnin's body and used the attached wire to hoist him up into the trees—watching with pleasure as the man writhed and groaned.
Between the surrounding trunks, faint silhouettes could be seen—several corpses hanging from nearly invisible threads.
They had clearly been tortured to death by Kushimaru.
"Alright. Had enough fun?" Jūzō Biwa leaned against a tree and spoke coolly. "Don't forget our mission."
"Mission? Just cause chaos and take pressure off the front lines, right?" Jinpachi snorted. "Iwa and Kumo are a bunch of trash. They actually pulled their armies back, leaving only border forces to 'pressure' Konoha—have they not considered what happens when they lose?"
"I don't believe this so-called Fourth Hokage will waive war reparations."
Kirigakure had already suffered massive losses. If they couldn't extract enough benefit from Konoha, the hardliners—people like them—would pay the price.
"It's because we don't want to lose that we're here," Jūzō said flatly.
"If we can kill the Fourth Hokage at the right moment, Konoha will fall into chaos. The other three villages—even Suna, Konoha's ally—won't miss the chance to take a bite. And Kirigakure can seize the most profit."
"Tch. You didn't have to spell it out like that."
Kushimaru raised his longsword, annoyed, about to finish off the hanging jōnin—
A bolt of lightning struck first, killing the man instantly.
"Raiga—what's that supposed to mean?" Kushimaru frowned.
Raiga Kurosuki, green-haired with sharp teeth, replied coldly: "An enemy's here."
The other six instantly snapped into full alert.
They talked big, but this was still Konoha—the village that could hold back three great nations at once.
Infiltrating this close required caution.
Kushimaru flicked his gaze toward the bundle on Raiga's back while keeping his blade raised.
"That kid you're carrying is pretty useful. After this, how about lending him to me?"
"Ranmaru is my tool." Raiga's eyes flashed with killing intent. "Don't even think about it."
"A dōjutsu bloodline is rare—"
Several kunai with explosive tags suddenly flew in from the distance, cutting off Kushimaru's amused voice.
But it was nothing.
"What is this—some Hyuuuuga brat?"
Samehada's owner, Kisame?—no, here it's Samehada's wielder: Fuguki Suikazan—looked toward the distant flicker of movement and bared his teeth in a savage grin.
"So, who wants to go?"
"Deal with him—fast." Jūzō's expression tightened as Hyuga Yuu's shadow clone hovered at roughly a hundred meters, then gradually retreated even farther.
"If we let him keep watching with Byakugan, we'll be surrounded by Konoha shinobi."
Fuguki raised an eyebrow.
"He's obviously trying to lure us away. There should be other Konoha shinobi ahead."
"We're already this deep. Being spotted isn't a big deal." Raiga's voice was indifferent. "As long as we don't get boxed in, what do we have to fear?"
With that, Raiga turned into a streak of white lightning and rocketed toward Yuu's shadow clone.
Yuu's clone didn't change expression—only stared deeply at the bundle on Raiga's back—then kept widening the distance, buying time.
So that's why they slipped in this far without drawing attention.
There was an eighth.
The wielder of the Red Eyes bloodline—Ranmaru.
No wonder.
A dōjutsu that countered the Byakugan… Yuu had actually failed to notice him at first.
The Red Eyes could see through objects, sense power and danger—similar to the Byakugan—but superior in certain aspects. It could even create chakra images that the Byakugan couldn't easily distinguish as fake.
The fact that three of the Seven Swordsmen escaped even after Dai opened the Eight Gates likely had something to do with him.
But if you could escape Dai's explosion of power… can you escape Flying Thunder God?
As Raiga closed in to destroy the shadow clone—
A mark was placed, silently, on Raiga's lightning blade.
While Yuu's clone faced the Seven Swordsmen, Ebisu and Guy, who had moved slightly away from the battlefield, fired emergency signal flares.
They detonated over Konoha's edge with a sharp, unnatural blast.
In the Hokage Tower, Minato Namikaze—in the middle of a meeting with the advisors—froze.
At the same moment, Hyuga Yuu, just stepping out of an underground facility, also paused—then both disappeared in an instant.
"Mist?" Homura Mitokado frowned.
"Most likely," Koharu Utatane replied. "But didn't Minato set up barrier measures along the village perimeter? And he stationed Hyuga sentries. How did the Seven Swordsmen get past without being detected?"
Homura answered, "The Mist attack plan isn't exactly a secret. Even without the spy's confession, we could predict their intent. Konoha is Kirigakure's only true enemy right now—and the Seven Swordsmen leaving the battlefield was already suspicious."
They continued thinking—
And then Danzō rose without a word and walked toward the door.
"Danzō, what are you doing?" Koharu snapped. "It's only the Seven Swordsmen. Minato won't need long to deal with them."
"You two keep talking with the Fourth." Danzō's smile was strange—half mocking, half complicated. "Tsunade reopening a medical class has nothing to do with the affairs I'm responsible for."
Homura frowned and sighed. "Hiruzen told us to keep an eye on you. Don't make this difficult."
"Heh. He's not the Hokage anymore."
Danzō opened the door and left.
Hiruzen was no longer Hokage—
and Minato didn't yet hold enough power.
Right now, there was no one in Konoha who could truly restrain him.
Koharu and Homura exchanged uneasy looks.
"Does the Red Eyes' 'X-ray range' exceed the Byakugan's?"
Yuu sprinted through Konoha's alleys, sorting the memories his shadow clone had returned to him as it dispersed.
He knew Minato had stationed Hyuga sentries around the village. If the Seven Swordsmen had slipped through unseen, the Red Eyes had to be the reason.
"More than one kilometer… but less than five?"
Yuu's eyes flickered.
After the Byakugan's evolution, his range had surpassed two kilometers—more than doubling his previous effective field.
Meaning: back then, Guy's team had still been some distance from where the Seven Swordsmen appeared.
"Any dōjutsu bloodline outside the 'Three Great Dōjutsu' has enormous research value."
"I need to seize Ranmaru before the Fourth kills him as collateral."
With that decision made, Yuu sensed the Flying Thunder God mark his clone had planted—
His body blurred.
And vanished.
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