The Ruins of Roran

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After a few leaps, Dingyou fled to the campfire.

He glanced at Naoki, who was sitting on the ground and chewing on a rabbit leg. Dingyou gave an unreadable smile as he thought, 'Go die, idiot.'

At that moment, the mysterious shinobi using Magnet Release also arrived beside the campfire. Iron Sand filled the air and turned into countless senbon, shooting toward Dingyou like rain.

'What...?' Dingyou was shocked, then realized, 'His target is not Naoki. It is me?'

With Dingyou's strength, there was no way he could dodge such a dense rain of senbon. Although he twisted and shifted as best he could, dozens of senbon pierced him in the blink of an eye.

Compared with shuriken and kunai, senbon were undoubtedly much less destructive. So although Dingyou looked terrifying with senbon stuck all over his body, he would not die immediately.

After staggering a few steps, Dingyou collapsed beside a large tree. His trembling hand pointed toward Naoki, who was still silently eating his rabbit leg. "You... you are working with him!"

By then, he understood that the other side was most likely in league with Naoki. He simply could not understand how an elite Sunagakure shinobi who had mastered Magnet Release had become mixed up with Naoki Hyuga.

Naoki stood and slowly walked up to Dingyou. In a calm voice, he asked, "What orders did Danzo give you?"

"Cough, cough..."

After a burst of violent coughing, Dingyou snorted. "You dare collude with Sunagakure. Lord Danzo will never let you go."

As if remembering something, Naoki said to himself, "Root shinobi should all have curse marks placed on them. I suppose I will not get any useful information out of you."

All Root shinobi were marked by Danzo with a special curse mark called the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal. The mark, carved onto the tongue, prevented Root shinobi from revealing any information about Danzo to outsiders.

Naoki returned to the campfire and continued eating rabbit meat, as if nothing around him concerned him.

Dingyou looked at Naoki in confusion, then at the mysterious Magnet Release shinobi who had not spoken once. For a moment, he could not figure out what kind of relationship existed between them.

In his eyes, Naoki seemed completely unconcerned with the mysterious Magnet Release shinobi, while the mysterious Magnet Release shinobi also seemed unconcerned by Naoki's dismissive attitude.

No matter what, Dingyou felt he had to send out the intelligence that Naoki was colluding with Sunagakure. Gathering the last of his strength, he spread out a scroll he carried with him.

"Ninja Art: Super Beast Imitating Drawing!"

Pop, pop, pop.

With a series of muffled sounds, small, agile ink birds flew out from the scroll Dingyou had opened.

There were several dozen of them. In the blink of an eye, they scattered and vanished into the quiet night.

Watching the ink birds fly away one by one, Dingyou's fading vision showed a relieved smile. Then the smile on his face turned to terror. He discovered that all the ink birds had been drawn in by an invisible force and had landed in Naoki's hand, where they dissolved into blobs of ink.

Amid that terror, an iron spear pierced his head without mercy.

After finishing his food and wiping the ink from his hands, Naoki put away the Third Kazekage Human Puppet. Then he picked up Dingyou's corpse and headed toward the nearest Konoha outpost.

When he arrived at the outpost, Naoki said to the chunin in charge, "I was attacked by bounty hunters. During the battle, this Root colleague was unfortunately caught in the fighting. Send the body back to the village and report the situation to Lord Hokage."

Looking at Dingyou, who was dead beyond doubt, the chunin looked troubled.

In Konoha, even Shisui and Naoki, who came from prominent clans, were unwilling to deal with Root. It was easy to imagine how much ordinary civilian shinobi avoided Danzo's Root.

Seeing the other man's hesitation, Naoki patted his shoulder and smiled. "Do not worry. Just do as I said. If Root shinobi question you, you may tell them everything you know."

Naoki's current status was not only special jonin. He was also ANBU under the Hokage's direct command. When dealing with ordinary chunin in the village, he had the authority to assign temporary tasks.

So even though the chunin was deeply reluctant, he still gritted his teeth and agreed.

After giving a few simple instructions, Naoki left the outpost.

As far as Naoki was concerned, sending Dingyou's body back to the village openly was far better than disposing of it quietly.

First, the village leadership knew about the huge bounty on him. And on this very day, he had indeed been attacked by bounty hunters. Blaming Dingyou's death on bounty hunters was a perfectly plausible explanation.

Second, it also sent Danzo a message.

As for how Danzo would react, Naoki did not care.

Danzo was not the kind of person who would let someone go just because they yielded. In the original timeline, Shisui had been so obedient to him, and the result was still that Danzo stole one of his Mangekyo Sharingan and forced him into a miserable suicide.

So even if Naoki submitted now, Danzo would not let him go. In fact, even if Naoki had accepted Danzo's invitation from the beginning and joined Root, Danzo's personality meant he would still carve the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal onto Naoki. Danzo trusted no one, not even the confidants in his own Root.

Two months of leave was neither too short nor too long.

Naoki could not spend too much time traveling. He checked his map, chose a remote and difficult route, then used the Third Kazekage Human Puppet's Magnet Release to fly through the air and rush toward the Land of Wind.

His journey was mostly uneventful. Two days later, he finally crossed the Land of Rivers and entered the Land of Wind.

The ruins of ancient Roran stood in the endless desert of the Land of Wind. Even with a map, finding them was difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the local terrain.

Fortunately, Naoki could fly with Magnet Release, making the search much faster than it would have been for an ordinary shinobi.

Even so, he still spent nearly ten days in the vast desert before he finally found the ruined ancient city of Roran.

Looking at the leaning towers before him, Naoki quietly sighed. 'If not for these tilted towers, I really would not have discovered that the Dragon Vein was beneath this place.'

Even at this close distance, Naoki could not sense the slightest trace of chakra leaking from the Dragon Vein. That alone showed how firm the Fourth Hokage's seal was.

He had expected that result. If the Fourth's seal on the Dragon Vein were easy to break, Sunagakure would not have ignored such a treasure trove.

Putting aside his scattered thoughts, Naoki strode into the ruins of ancient Roran.

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