At this very mont, at the edge of the Takigakure barrier.
The spies who had fought tooth and nail to escape this place stepped out of the barrier, only to fall instantly into a trap—a pit teeming with a dense, writhing mass of insects.
Gray-black bugs sward from the pit, instantly covering their bodies and devouring flesh and bone. Their agonized wails were cut short, leaving behind nothing but empty clothes scattered on the ground.
Every single person attempting to flee froze in their tracks.
The Takigakure leader and the elders, who had been in hot pursuit, also wore expressions of sheer terror. Though they knew a mastermind was pulling the strings, they had never imagined soone with such horrifying power.
It wasn't just the Genjutsu; it was this nightmarish mastery over insects.
"This is..." One elder trembled as the realization hit him. He stuttered out a na that carried a heavy weight.
"The insect techniques of the Abura clan... So the rogue ninja who vanished from the Leaf, Shisui Abura, has been hiding in our village all along."
A rogue ninja from the Hidden Leaf!
A man's reputation precedes him like a shadow. Since the founding of the Leaf, only two had openly defected with such notoriety: one was Madara Uchiha, and the other was this "Traceless Swarm Master."
He earned that title because every enemy he encountered was picked clean by his insects, leaving not a single trace behind.
"Congratulations, you guessed right!"
A calm voice drifted from behind them.
The group spun around as if facing a mortal enemy. Shisui was already standing there, a light smile on his face as he waved. "Hi."
"But now isn't really the ti for pleasantries. To prevent any leaks, these few individuals are still useful to . I'll be taking them away—you don't have any objections, do you?"
At this point, the Takigakure leader, Shibuki, was at his breaking point. The side effects of the Hero's Water had kicked in; blood leaked from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, leaving him virtually powerless.
The two remaining elders clutched their own vials of Hero's Water, their knuckles white. They didn't respond to Shisui's words, nor did they dare move to stop him.
The four surviving spies, seeing the tension, imdiately shouted, "Elders! Now that you've seen his true identity, do you think he'll let you live? This Leaf rogue is notoriously ruthless—no ninja who has seen his true thods has ever survived.
Our only hope for a slim chance of survival is to fight him together!"
The elders wavered for a split second.
However, Shisui rely spared them a glance, and their resolve vanished instantly.
"Heh, look at you, talking nonsense." He turned back, pointing to the headband on his forehead. "Look at my protector—I am a ninja of the Hidden Waterfall now. Why would one of our own attack his fellow villagers?"
The spies realized their agitation had failed and chose to stake everything on a final struggle.
The two strongest among them exchanged a look and lunged at Shisui with their best techniques. The other two attempted to break through the insect swarm to find a way out.
Yet, the mont one leaped into the trees, the trunk itself seed to dissolve into a cloud of insects that eclipsed the moon, consuming him before he could scream.
The other fled into the distance, only to find that in the endless night, every direction was blocked by a wall of writhing bugs—this place had long since been turned into a cage.
By the ti the two runners were dead, the two attackers had frozen mid-motion, having fallen into an illusion without even realizing it.
Shisui walked up to them and created two insect clones to hoist them onto their shoulders. He began walking back toward the village.
As he did, he glanced back at the tense elders out of the corner of his eye and gave a sincere smile. "Don't be nervous. Like I said, I'm a Takigakure ninja now. I didn't co here to tear this place apart; I ca here to join it."
"Besides, even if you use the Hero's Water, you're no match for . You'd just be wasting a perfectly good material for nothing."
The elders weren't fools. No one believed his "sincerity," but everyone heard the threat. He was right; the Shisui standing before them was rely a remote-controlled insect clone.
Even if they managed to destroy it, they would eventually die from the backlash of the Hero's Water while the real Shisui remained untouched.
Shibuki, nearing death, propped himself up with the last of his strength. "What... is your goal?"
"Refuge," Shisui replied shortly.
Shibuki was skeptical but had no choice but to accept it. He took a staggering step forward, blood dripping from his chin. He asked again, "Why... why did you attack the village tonight?"
"I didn't attack the village." Shisui shook his head. "I simply wanted the spies to disappear quietly. When I first arrived at Takigakure, I felt it was peaceful and serene—a true paradise.
But so people, so things, always want to shatter my illusions. Those things were just pests living near my ho, so I decided to clean them up. I just want the village to return to the way it was."
The elders and the leader looked at him as if he were insane. Slaughter and deception were the true nature of a hidden village; the "peace and serenity" he spoke of was the real illusion.
What truly terrified them was his expression—he was eerily calm, even smiling. It reinforced the idea that those who reach the pinnacle of power are either geniuses or madn.
Convinced he was ntally unstable, the elders abandoned any thought of resistance. They figured that if they humored him, they might not only survive but also gain a powerful asset for the village.
As that thought took hold, their bodies relaxed slightly.
Just then, Shibuki spat out a massive amount of black blood and collapsed. The side effects had reached their limit. He was beyond saving.
Shisui appeared in front of him, squatting down to examine him closely. He sighed. "What a precious corpse."
He then looked up at the other elders. "Do you still want it? If not, I'll take him back as a research subject."
"You're desecrating the dead!" Of the four elders, the only woman stood up, her face etched with revulsion.
In the shinobi world, the dead should be buried for peace or, at the very least, cremated. To use a leader's body for experints was an unthinkable insult.
Fortunately, the other three elders were faster. They knew their limits and imdiately pulled her back.
"The body is yours. We will find another way to handle the burial rites."
"Then I am very grateful for your generosity," Shisui said, giving a slight, polite bow.
The simple gesture made the elders' hearts skip a beat. Their skin crawled as they watched the millions of insects that had surrounded the village begin to fly back, disappearing into Shisui's sleeves.
"Oh, one more thing," Shisui said, turning back with a smile.
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