Kaito Kan considered himself a competent, yet ordinary ninja in the service of Kumogakure. He was a chunin, an elite one. He served his village for over a decade and was immensely proud of it.

And when he finally hit twenty-five, his chance at promotion to Jonin had finally arrived. He could have refused, of course. He was given that option. But why would he do that?

He was full of joy! After all, he spent the last five years trying to accumulate enough accomplishments and a good mission record while learning everything needed to be even considered for the rank of Jonin. He put in an immense amount of effort.

But he also knew he was average at best. Unlike the famed Jonin from his or the other villages, he did not possess a skill that would separate him from the masses. He was good. He could fight at the level of a Jonin. Barely, but it counted. But if somebody asked him what he excelled at? He wouldn’t be able to answer. He was just… average.

He tried to get better. He really did. He had spent months of time between his missions training in lightning release. But his chakra nature was wind, and that elevated the difficulty of his training. It didn’t help that his village didn’t have much information about wind release. At least, not much was publicly available. Any intel his village had, he didn’t have access to it.

Improvement came slowly and hard. Sometimes, Kaito felt as if his efforts were setting him back, rather than helping him improve.

So, when he was called by a senior officer from his village and had been granted a promotion, he felt as if luck was smiling at him. His effort was finally recognized!

Little did he know that his promotion had a condition. He had to go on a mission to earn it. But they didn’t tell him that back then. Oh, no. This was supposed to be a simple observation mission. Just watching the young talents in the Konoha’s Chunin Exams and making a report about their strong and weak spots for the future.

Alas, it all came crashing down when, once they checked into their hotel room and gathered for a debriefing, Nezuro Mikan, their squad commander for the mission, revealed that their true mission was to catch an unsealed Hyuga.

Apparently, Orochimaru had approached the Raikage with an offer a few months back. Naturally, the offer was refused. Only a fool would believe Orochimaru’s temptation.

Nevertheless, the knowledge that Orochimaru wanted to stir trouble during the Konoha’s Chunin Exams was valuable. If nothing had happened? Kaito’s team of five would have just been there to observe the Exams and come back to Kumo, their promotions secured.

But if something did happen? If they had gotten a good opportunity? Well, their true mission was a go. And Kaito had no illusions. For this was nothing short of a suicide mission.

Kumo had tried to kidnap or get their hands on an unsealed Hyuga for decades now. And their attempts had never succeeded. The poor sods getting these missions almost always ended up dead. Or worse.

It was too late to regret it now, though.

Kaito’s shoulders slumped as he felt numb. The joy of his promotion turned into bitterness, for it was nothing but a poisoned apple. As he secretly watched the clash between the Kazekage and the two Konoha Jonin down in the arena, he wondered if he was going to survive this day.

‘Heh. Not bloody likely.’ A sardonic smile appeared on his lips.

“Are you done yet?” He whispered, worry seeping into his tone as he held the genjutsu that covered them from the perception of nearby ninjas.

It wasn’t anything grand. If somebody paid attention to the spot they were at, the genjutsu would easily break. But that was the beauty of an oncoming invasion. Everybody was too busy to do so.

“Tsk. A few more seconds.” Nezuro irritably replied as he, alongside the other three ninja, tried to break the chakra barrier covering their target.

It was a persistent thing. Not impenetrable. But then again, the user did cover the civilians in the entire arena with it. Its strength was already quite exasperating for the Kumo team, considering they spent the last few minutes trying to get through it.

“You may want to hurry up, then.” Kaito said, just as a wave of air hit him and forced him to brace himself while his hair flew wildly in the air.

The green Konoha freak somehow powered up and started delivering kicks that would send an unprepared ninja tumbling to the ground with the air waves they generated alone.

Witnessing such madness was almost unbelievable for Kaito. That was not a ninja anymore. It was a bona fide monster.

‘And to think the Kazekage is still unharmed.’ Kaito gulped as he saw the green freak kick Kazekage’s head, only for it to burst into sand before wrapping around the freak’s leg.

Not that it lasted. The hardened sand burst the second the green freak moved again. It looked almost effortless for him.

Even the other Jonin, Kakashi, as Kaito remembered him from the bingo book, was trying to hit the openings in the Kazekage’s guard, but the Kazekage kept up with them despite not having much of his golden dust remaining.

Thinking about that, Kaito glanced at their target. A young unsealed Hyuga girl. Just like the Hyuga monster, who fought against the Yamanaka in the last round before the invasion started. Kaito even noticed some similarities between the girls.

Fortunately, they started their mission only after these two new monsters from Konoha left the arena. He only hoped they could get away before their kidnapping attempt was noticed.

“Fucking finally, goddamit!” The squad commander quietly exclaimed with a small cheer as the chakra barrier around the girl finally broke, and he pulled her out before it could reform.

Maybe if they had used destructive jutsu, they could have breached it faster, but it would have also increased the odds of them being noticed.

The five of them exchanged celebratory glances before nodding at each other. Nezuro promptly fed the girl a sleeping pill. Just in case.

With the girl secured, two other squad members, also fellow previous elite chunin who were on the verge of Jonin capability and had gotten promoted for this mission, started to weave more genjutsu around the team as they made their way out of the arena, and eventually through Konoha’s streets that were quickly becoming a battlefield.

Oto ninja clashed with Konoha ninja. Suna ninja clashed with Konoha ninja. Oto ninja clashed with Suna ninja. And seemingly, Konoha ninja clashed with Konoha ninja, too.

It was a mayhem of blood and chaos as corpses littered the streets while the living fought, not even getting the courtesy of being sure if the guy next to them was an ally or an enemy.

But that didn’t matter to Kaito or his team. Avoiding all the fighting and ignoring the few civilians still on the streets, they ran through the village until they arrived near the gate.

Jumping down in a nearby alley, Kaito frowned as his eyes met with an Oto ninja who was ploughing an already unresponsive civilian woman.

There was a bag of spilled groceries thrown near the wall of the alley, and two corpses of boys with slit throats, both definitely younger than ten years old.

It didn’t take a second for Kaito to put together the situation.

Feelings of disgust filled him, but he just snorted in disdain before turning on his heel, following his squad commander toward the gate. Whatever was happening in the alley, it was not his business. Kumo and his mission came first.

Even if he hated himself just a little bit more for it.

It was hypocrisy, and he knew it. The girl they captured was going to live her entire life with the only purpose of birthing Hyuga children for the village. Whether she liked it or not.

He once wanted to be a hero. But now he could only console himself with the fact that his actions were for the greater good of his village.

The gate was long ago breached by the invading forces. As one of the stronger members of the team, Nezuro passed the girl to Kaito, who slung her across his shoulder. They rammed straight through the Oto squad guarding the gate, making short work of the inexperienced lot.

Calling them chunin would be pretty generous.

And the Kumo team did not stop as they ran out of Konoha and leaped into the treetops along the road, running further into the forest.

Kaito let out a small sigh of relief as the tension finally left his shoulders. A small smile appeared on his lips.

They did it. Now they only needed to get to the borde-.

A massive, deafening explosion disrupted the relieved atmosphere among the Kumo team, and Kaito instantly felt himself uncontrollably thrown off his feet. Tumbling through the air, didn’t even know when the kidnapped girl slipped from his shoulder. But he had more pressing problems as his body hit the ground with a rapid momentum, and he felt several of his bones break. Pain flooded his mind as he rolled until his back hit a tree, stopping him with a loud smash that broke the bark.

Kaito let out a groan. He could feel the wet and warm blood flowing down his forehead. Feeling confusedly disoriented, he opened his eyes, wrangling with the dizziness for a moment before he saw the horrifying situation in front of him.

His teammates, or at least, the torn, bloody pieces of their bodies, were strewn all across the forest floor in front of him. And straight in the position where their squad was just a moment ago, the Hyuga monster clad in Lightning Armor stood in a small crater.

Seeing it drove Kaito into further despair as his stomach sank.

Even if blood oozed from the broken skin all across the visible parts of the girl’s body, mixing with the nearly uncontrolled wild lightning chakra that was damaging its user.

Even if the girl was in visible pain and her flesh was being cooked in real time right in front of his eyes.

The absolutely furious glare of the Hyuga wearing technique that only the Raikage should know made Kaito’s bowels loosen. There was no running away. His legs were broken. His team was dead. And he-

‘Eh?’

He only noticed that the Hyuga girl was now pointing her finger at him as the world spun in front of his eyes until he felt his head impact the ground.

In front of his eyes was…

‘Is that my body?’

A stray thought entered his mind as he saw his headless body with a cauterized neck, while the tree trunk behind him was cleanly severed, and the tree started falling to the ground while loudly creaking.

‘I… died?’

Kaito confusedly realized, and before the horror and regret could seep in, everything went dark for him for the last time.

…

As the Kumo ninja’s head rolled to the ground, Hinata huffed and put down her hand before glancing at the rest of the Kumo squad, confirming they were properly dead.

To reach them, Hinata had clad herself in the Lightning Armor and made her body into a Railgun projectile. It was foolish. It was untested. It harmed her body. It could have killed her. But she freaked out and was quite desperate to save her sister.

Fortunately, she had calculated her trajectory just right, as from the torn pieces of her kidnappers, the velocity of a human-sized Railgun projectile smashing into the ground near a fleshly human target was very, very lethal.

Only Hanabi and the man who carried her survived the crash.

Hinata mentally noted to explore the possibilities of this at a later time before she turned toward her sister, who was suspended with chakra strings next to her. The lightning chakra armor around her body dissipated, and Hinata staggered in her place while gritting her teeth as all the damage done to her body by the technique became apparent.

Pain flooded her mind while blood oozed out of her wounds all across her body, but her willpower was stronger, and she started instantly feeding medical chakra throughout her flesh, healing herself while also putting her hand on Hanabi.

Realizing that her sister was just unconscious and there was no dangerous drug in her system made Hinata slump in relief. Exhaustion washed over her, and she lowered herself to the ground until she ended up lying in the crater she had made, cradling her sleeping sister in her arms.

For one day, Hinata had just about enough adrenaline. Yet, she knew the day was not over for her.

With a wry smile, Hinata closed her eyes and let out a sigh. ‘Sage, I hate Lightning Chakra Armor.’ She groaned as she felt with a painful clarity how her nearly cooked flesh mended together and both the visible and invisible wounds littering her body slowly started vanishing, leaving only an unblemished skin.

Feeling sluggish, Hinata took a deep breath and tried to muster the will to get up, only for her still-healing body to protest. Helplessly relaxing, Hinata checked the surroundings with her Byakugan and wryly smiled in her mind.

‘I guess I earned at least ten minutes of rest.’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep