Ryusei sat exactly where Okabe had stationed him, legs crossed, eyes narrowed as if lost in a meditative trance.

In truth, he was pushing his sensory perception to its limit, weaving it together with concentration so deep it almost hurt.

He understood the setup by now.

The only way to live was to sense the enemy early enough to slip back into the others’ orbit, barrier or not.

Sensing was not like vision; it was more like radar, picking up faint chakra signals across distance and mapping them into the brain’s chakra field.

And right now, that radar was jammed, static crashing all over his perception.

He could still feel faint distortions, like shadows moving behind frosted glass, but it was clear the barrier had been built for him specifically.

For a moment, he considered trying to completely mask his presence, vanishing so cleanly that when the enemy came, they might pass him by without ever noticing.

But he immediately discarded the thought.

He wasn’t a monster like Mū, the “Non-Person,” and this wasn’t a game of hide-and-seek with clueless bandits.

There would be jōnin among the attackers, maybe sensory specialists, and total suppression was bound to fail.

He would be found and cut down the moment they searched carefully.

So, he adjusted. Instead of erasing his chakra signature, he began to spoof it, reshaping his aura into something smaller, weaker, like he was just a mid-level chūnin, instead of a jonin.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. If they underestimated him, even for an instant, that single moment could be his foothold to survive.

And just as he vanished into the water, the enemy came.

From the treeline beyond the palace’s weakest point, shadows emerged in silent formation.

At their center, one man, the Elite Jōnin leading the mission.

His presence was heavy, sharp, a commander in full control.

Around him moved six Jōnin, veterans by their posture, spreading in practiced arcs to prepare the breach.

Behind them came the bulk: twenty Chūnin, quick and organized, splitting into smaller units to strike the Daimyō’s guard lines and disrupt any coordinated defense and destroy logistics.

And then the flood. Dozens of Genin-level fighters poured out like a wave, not stealthy, but fast and loud.

Their job was obvious: to crash into the Daimyō’s hundreds of palace guards, separate them, force chaos, destroy escape routes, soak up blades and arrows, buy the higher ranks the space they needed, and eliminate the secondary targets within the palace one by one.

The palace’s weak point, the exact spot Ryusei had been assigned, was filled with movement and killing intent.

An army disguised as an infiltration.

Ryusei’s intuition had been right.

If he had stayed even seconds longer, he would have been buried alive under it.

The leader of the Yugakure force was no ordinary shinobi.

He was one of the strongest in the village, close to their own leader, trusted enough to carry out missions that could change their village’s entire fate.

The plan was simple. Yugakure had already stepped under Kumogakure’s umbrella for the upcoming war.

Among the higher ranks of the village, there wasn’t much opposition left; most believed they had chosen the winning side.

Betting on Kumo seemed way more favorable than siding with Konoha or clinging to neutrality.

Kirigakure, across the sea, was barely even in the conversation.

It couldn’t project power this far in the North of the Land of Hot Water, and even if it could, it had always been tied with Sunagakure as one of the two weakest of the great villages.

Kumo and Iwa stood in another tier entirely, always the main challengers to Konoha.

And in recent years, many judged that Kumogakure had even surpassed Iwa in certain respects, and came tick below Konoha.

They had tighter control over their two Jinchūriki, giving them more reliable top-end power.

Their Lightning Release specialization fed into technological advancement as well, creating weapons and tools better suited for modern war.

Some even started calling them the “second great shinobi village,” right behind Konoha itself.

So Yugakure had made its choice. They would ally with Kumo, and to prove their worth as a junior partner, they would quietly remove their own Daimyo and replace him with a double.

The Daimyo had always leaned toward neutrality, but neutrality was worthless now.

If they moved first and presented Kumo with a fait accompli, then Hot Water would become another fortress state in Kumo’s sphere.

Shimogakure was the model they had studied.

After pledging itself to Kumo during the Second Shinobi World War, that small hidden village had been rewarded with specialized shinobi technology tailored to its harsh northern environment. It got way more powerful.

With Kumo’s support and resources, it grew into a fortified outpost, a true bulwark in the Land of Frost. Yugakure wanted that same future for itself.

And with the trend of the last months being “everyone against Konoha,” they judged that this was the moment to jump ship.

The Elite Jōnin leader carried that logic in his mind as he advanced swiftly with his force.

But his concentration broke for a moment, and he sensed something.

A faint chakra presence tumbling into the river below the palace cliff. A boy.

He frowned, raising one hand. “It seems Konoha knew more than expected. They sent shinobi here. That could complicate things. But we move forward. The mission doesn’t change. Be ready to pull out if the resistance is stronger than expected.”

He flicked two fingers, and a few Chūnin immediately peeled off, racing back toward Yugakure.

Messengers, insurance, in case this mission failed and Konoha’s strength proved overwhelming.

Then he turned to one of the Jōnin at his side. “You. Go after that boy. He’s seen us. He cannot be allowed to warn the others. Kill him quickly if you must. But if possible…” his eyes narrowed, “…bring him alive. We may rip some information from his mind before we retreat.”

He signaled further. “Two Chūnin with you. Support him and drag the brat back fast. He’s the best source to extract information if we get overwhelmed fast. Then come rejoin our rear.”

He judged the boy to be an ordinary chūnin, with his sensing, but the order was to capture him alive, and that made things more difficult.

That was why he had assigned two capable chūnin to support the experienced jōnin.

They couldn’t afford to waste time or overcommit; the bulk of their strength had to remain focused on the palace breach and the fight against Konoha’s forces.

The orders carried weight, and the shinobi obeyed without hesitation. One Jōnin and two masked Chūnin broke formation, darting after Ryusei’s trail toward the river.

The rest pressed on toward the palace, their formation shifting as the wave of Genin-level fighters prepared to crash into the Daimyo’s guards. The coup had begun.

“One mid-tier jōnin like me, at least, and two high-tier chūnin… that’s already stacked against me if we fought fair and square,” Ryusei thought, his eyes narrowing as the current dragged him farther downstream.

“And it’s not just about beating them, I need to do it fast, before they breach the palace and Konoha’s shinobi pull back with the envoy. Judging by the enemy’s heavy composition, there’s no chance of a frontal defense. Konoha will almost certainly retreat.”

His body sank lower, aura folding tighter into the water around him. Most sensors favored transmission through the wind, some through the earth.

But thanks to his nature immersion training, Ryusei had learned to spread himself across all elements, including water, which was also somewhat practical, unlike the wind or lightning.

Now, it was his cloak. His presence slipped beneath the surface, carried along by the current like another fragment of the river.

“I need to drag them farther from the main force before they catch me,” he decided coldly.

“If I let them fight me too close, I’ll be pinned between their blades and the rest of the invasion wave, which will reinforce them later. I have to create distance first, then strike.”

Although Ryusei had grown far sharper in taijutsu recently and could have tried to break away with pure speed, he knew doing so would force him to reveal his true level.

The moment the enemy sensed that, reinforcements would come, and his chance of survival would collapse.

Instead, he needed to keep up the act, play the weak link until the main force had already committed inside the palace.

Only then, once their attention was fixed elsewhere, could he reveal his real strength, and try to turn the tables in a sudden strike a bit, and eliminate his pursuers quickly enough, using other means, to escape into the forest and rejoin the Konoha shinobi.

It was a daunting task, to say the least. That was why he first muted his presence in the river, letting the current carry him like a shadow, difficult to pinpoint but not completely gone.

If he flared out with his maximum speed now, they would know he was more than a ‘chūnin’. 

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep