Chapter 86: The Ruins of Roran

Chapter 86: Chapter 86: The Ruins of Roran

After a few quick leaps, Dingyou fled back to the campfire.

He glanced at Hyuga Kagami, who was still sitting on the ground leisurely gnawing on a rabbit leg. The corner of his mouth curled upward into an inscrutable smile.

"Go die, you idiot!"

Just then, the mysterious ninja wielding Magnet Release arrived at the campfire as well.

The iron sand filling the air instantly transformed into countless senbon, raining down toward Dingyou like a torrential downpour.

"This...!"

Dingyou’s expression changed drastically. A moment later, realization struck him.

"His target isn’t Hyuga Kagami—it’s me!?"

With Dingyou’s strength, there was simply no way he could evade such a dense barrage of senbon.

Despite desperately twisting and dodging, dozens of senbon pierced his body in the blink of an eye.

Compared to shuriken and kunai, senbon were undoubtedly far less lethal. So although Dingyou looked horrifying with dozens of needles sticking out of his body, the injuries weren’t enough to kill him immediately.

After staggering a few steps, Ding You collapsed beside a large tree.

His trembling hand slowly rose, pointing toward Hyuga Kagami, who was still silently gnawing on his rabbit leg as though none of this had anything to do with him.

"You... you two are working together!"

At this point, Dingyou naturally realized that the mysterious ninja was most likely Hyuga Kagami’s accomplice.

What he couldn’t understand, no matter how hard he thought about it, was—

How could an elite Sand ninja who possessed Magnet Release possibly have gotten mixed up with Hyuga Kagami?

Hyuga Kagami finally stood up and slowly walked over to Dingyou. With a calm expression, he asked,

"What orders did Danzo give you?"

"Cough, cough..."

After a bout of violent coughing, Dingyou snorted coldly.

"You actually dared to collude with the Sand. Lord Danzo will never let you off!"

As though suddenly remembering something, Hyuga Kagami muttered to himself,

"Root ninja should all have curse marks placed on them. Looks like I won’t be getting any useful information out of you."

Every Root ninja had been branded by Danzo with a special curse mark known as the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal.

This curse mark, engraved onto the tongue, prevented members of Root from revealing any information concerning Danzo to outsiders.

Returning to the campfire, Hyuga Kagami continued eating his rabbit meat as though everything happening around him had absolutely nothing to do with him.

Dingyou looked at Hyuga Kagami in confusion, then turned toward the mysterious Magnet Style ninja who had remained completely silent.

For a moment, he genuinely couldn’t figure out what kind of relationship existed between the two.

From his perspective, Hyuga Kagami seemed to have absolutely no regard for this mysterious Magnet Style ninja.

And strangely enough, the mysterious Magnet Style ninja didn’t seem to care about Hyuga Kagami’s dismissive attitude either.

Regardless, Dingyou felt that he had to send out the intelligence that Hyuga Kagami was colluding with the Sand.

Mustering the last of his strength, he pulled out a scroll and spread it open.

"Ninja Art: Super Beast Imitating Drawing!"

Poof! Poof! Poof!

With a rapid series of muffled pops, one small and agile ink bird after another flew out from the scroll Ding You had spread open.

There were dozens of them in total. In the blink of an eye, they scattered in every direction and disappeared into the quiet darkness of the night.

Watching the ink birds fly off into the distance, Dingyou, whose vision was gradually beginning to blur, revealed a relieved smile.

But suddenly, that smile turned into sheer horror.

He discovered that every single one of the ink birds had been caught by some invisible force. One after another, they were pulled into Hyuga Kagami’s hand, where they ultimately dissolved into blobs of ink.

Amid his terror—

An iron spear mercilessly pierced straight through his head!

After finishing his food and wiping the ink from his hands, Hyuga Kagami put away the Third Kazekage Human Puppet. He then picked up Dingyou’s corpse and headed toward the nearest Konoha outpost.

Upon arriving, Hyuga Kagami said to the chunin in charge,

"I was attacked by a bounty ninja. Unfortunately, during the battle, this Root colleague of ours was caught in the crossfire. Send his body back to the village and report the situation to Lord Hokage."

Looking at Dingyou, who was already thoroughly dead, the chunin wore a troubled expression.

In Konoha, even people from prestigious clans like Shisui and Hyuga Kagami were unwilling to have anything to do with Root.

It wasn’t hard to imagine, then, just how much ordinary civilian ninja preferred to keep their distance from Danzo’s organization.

Seeing the chunin’s hesitation, Hyuga Kagami patted him on the shoulder and smiled.

"Don’t worry. Just do as I said. If any Root ninja come asking questions, you can tell them everything you know."

Hyuga Kagami’s current status wasn’t merely that of a Special Jonin—he was also a member of the ANBU directly under the Hokage.

As such, he possessed the authority to temporarily assign missions to ordinary chunin within the village.

So although the chunin was extremely reluctant, he gritted his teeth and agreed.

After giving him a few more brief instructions, Hyuga Kagami left the outpost.

As far as Kagami was concerned, openly sending Dingyou’s corpse back to the village was far better than quietly disposing of it without a trace.

For one thing, Konoha’s higher-ups were already aware of the enormous bounty on his head. He had even been attacked by bounty ninja earlier that very day.

So blaming Dingyou’s death on bounty ninja was an entirely plausible explanation.

Secondly, this was also Kagami’s way of sending Danzo a message.

As for how Danzo would react?

Hyuga Kagami didn’t care.

Danzo simply wasn’t the kind of person who would leave you alone just because you submitted to him.

In the original timeline, Shisui had been incredibly compliant with Danzo, yet what had he gotten in return?

One of his Mangekyo Sharingan was stolen, and he was ultimately driven to a miserable suicide.

So even if Hyuga Kagami backed down now, Danzo still wouldn’t let him go.

In fact, even if Kagami had accepted Danzo’s invitation from the very beginning and joined Root, with Danzo’s personality, he still would’ve branded Kagami with the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal.

Because Danzo trusted absolutely no one.

Not even his own trusted subordinates within Root.

Two months of leave wasn’t exactly short, but it wasn’t particularly long either.

Hyuga Kagami couldn’t afford to waste a huge portion of that time simply traveling.

So after checking his map, he selected a remote and rugged route. Then, using the Third Kazekage Human Puppet’s Magnet Release to fly through the air, he sped toward the Land of Wind.

Hyuga Kagami’s journey was largely uneventful, and two days later, he finally crossed the Land of Rivers and entered the Land of Wind.

The ruins of the ancient city of Roran were located deep within the vast desert of the Land of Wind. Even with a map, anyone unfamiliar with the local terrain would have an extremely difficult time finding them.

Fortunately, Hyuga Kagami could use Magnet Release to fly, making his search far faster than that of an ordinary ninja.

Even so, it still took him nearly ten days before he finally located the dilapidated ruins of ancient Roran amid the endless sea of sand.

Gazing at the towering structures before him, many of them leaning precariously to one side, Hyuga Kagami sighed inwardly.

"If it weren’t for these tilted towers, I really wouldn’t have guessed that the Dragon Vein was hidden beneath this place!"

Even at such close range, Hyuga Kagami couldn’t sense so much as the slightest trace of chakra leaking from the Dragon Vein.

From this alone, it was obvious just how powerful the Fourth Hokage’s seal on the Dragon Vein was.

However, Kagami had already expected as much.

If the Fourth Hokage’s seal on the Dragon Vein were that easy to break, Sunagakure would never have simply left such an enormous treasure trove sitting here untouched.

Putting aside the complicated thoughts running through his mind, Hyuga Kagami strode into the ruins of ancient Roran...