A young man wrapped in a tattered blue and black oilcloth raincoat walked slowly through the jungle of pouring rain and steel pipes.
He tightly grasped the outer edge of the hood of the raincoat and lowered his head, as if staring at the toes of his shoes to determine the next step, not looking at the road at all.
While breathing heavily, a piece of white mist would spray out from under the hood, mixing with the cold and dim surrounding environment, just like most people in this land under the lead-black sky all year round.
They didn't dare to look up because just one look up could be the difference between life and death.
As for the reason, we have to talk about those guys standing on high places.
Those people wore ninja forehead protectors with four vertical lines on their heads and white tight-fitting diving suits. They were caught in the heavy rain and stood motionless on top of a huge drainage pipe like a factory chimney, like pewter statues.
Each of these people has gloomy and sharp eyes, like a hungry osprey, staring at every figure on the road. The lower half of their face is covered by a huge and heavy breathing mask, making them appear mysterious and indifferent.
This is the most mysterious Amegakure ninja in the ninja world.
They are known for their cruelty, regardless of the cost, and their narrow tolerance for repaying every flaw.
Unlike other ninja villages, which are designed to defend the country, serve the daimyo, and accept employment to make a living, the rain ninja has only one master, and that is the demigod of the ninja world, Sansho Hanzo, who once defeated the three ninjas of Konoha with one enemy.
But rather than saying that these men in white are ninjas, it is more appropriate to say that they are Sansho Hanzo's personal bodyguards. And ordinary people below will be arrested as long as they dare to show the slightest interest in Sansho Hanzo's hiding place.
These rain ninjas were killed with thunder on the spot.
The boy had just walked around a corner and was startled by the pink water flowing to his feet. His legs became weak and he fell to the ground.
Then, he saw a few meters away, a rain ninja in white clothes was pulling out the ninja flying sickle from a pedestrian's throat, washing it in the rain to clean the blood.
The latter was looking at the person with a pair of extremely alert eyes, not letting down his guard because the person was a child. Among the assassins who had assassinated Sansho Hanzo, there were also unarmed children.
Under that fierce gaze, even though it was such a humid weather, the young man let out a dry groan from his throat that was more common in the desert. He landed on his butt and moved his limbs side by side, retreating quickly like a short-legged spider.
"...as timid as a water flea."
When Yu Ren saw his performance, the vigilance in his eyes gradually dissipated. He kicked the body into the ditch on the roadside with disdain, and a gloomy voice came from under the mask.
"Don't look up at the sky, kid, or you'll end up like him."
After saying the cruel words, the rain ninja ignored the young man and quickly jumped onto the nearest building. He and another man in white disappeared into the hazy rain scene, leaving only the young man clutching his chest as if he had survived the disaster.
.
However, if you observe carefully, there is an undetectable red light in the eyes of the cowardly young man. He keeps scanning the surroundings until he is sure that no one is looking at him anymore, and then his feet accelerate suddenly, like a speeding black panther.
The rare prey suddenly jumped into a deep and dilapidated narrow alley nearby and rushed directly to the end of this one-way street.
There was a small gray door, with some dirty words insulting the Amegakure ninjas painted on it with various colors of paint, but it was also covered with a bright red dye that exuded a unique smell.
The young man walked to the small door, knocked twice on the upper left corner and the lower left corner of the door, and then knocked on the movable handle five times.
After a while, a pleasant clicking sound came from the door, and it automatically opened back, revealing the dark and gloomy space inside.
The young man stayed at the door for a few seconds. He didn't see anyone appear or hear any movement, so he had no choice but to step inside.
The door suddenly closed, and at the same time there were hundreds of sharp and sharp air-splitting sounds tearing through the darkness, followed by the sound of flesh penetration and the screams that stopped abruptly.
"Turn on the lights!"
A gruff voice sounded, and then the pale yellow light was turned on. The young man who had just entered the door was already pricked into a porcupine by hundreds of toothpick-thick Senbon, and there was no sound at all.
The eyes of the tall young man who had just spoken widened, and he immediately walked over to check the specific situation. But as soon as he reached the young man's side, the other man's body began to melt and deform, gradually turning into a pool of transparent water, and hundreds of thousands of them were also
Scattered all over the ground and rolled around.
"Water body?!"
He reacted immediately and turned around to see his female companion hiding in the corner of the room. Her arms had been twisted and she was standing upright in pain.
The young man in the raincoat was pressing a sharp kunai against her vest, and his dark eyes revealed cold vigilance, which was frightening.
"..." The strong man and the woman wearing rain ninja forehead protectors looked at each other.
After an awkward silence, the young man first asked: "Are you two seniors Shen and Chou?"
His voice was relatively calm, but he showed no intention of relaxing under his hands. Once he didn't get the answer he wanted, both of them would die by his hands within a few seconds.
This was a small enclosed space that was convenient for shurikens and kunai to be ejected. He had more than a dozen ways to get rid of the two of them without attracting the rain ninja's attention.
"I'm Shen."
The strong man faced the young man and stuck out his tongue, revealing the "seal of tongue-eradicating evil" on it.
This is a unique curse seal that only members of the Konoha Anbu Team Gen have. As long as they say something related to a certain person, they will immediately be paralyzed and unable to move. Unless they are proficient in sealing techniques, they cannot be forged or lifted.
When the young man saw the curse seal, he let go of his hand.
Unexpectedly, the woman just gained freedom and immediately kicked her back. The young man crossed his arms to block it. Halfway back, the six-shot shuriken had already slipped out of his fingers.
"Wait a minute, I'm just testing your quality!"
Seeing that the boy was about to fight back, the woman immediately stood up and stuck out her tongue to confirm her identity.
"I didn't expect that the village would send such a young kid here. We are very uneasy."
"You almost killed me just now."
The boy slowly took off the hood of his raincoat, revealing his medium-long hair that was tangled in locks due to moisture, and a slightly mature face with tear troughs. It was the Uchiha who was here for the last mission before joining ANBU.
Weasel.
"The most common technique used by rain ninjas is the Senbon Strike, which covers all directions like a strong rain shower. If you can't even deal with the simple trap just now, you won't be able to complete any tasks here, and there is no point in living.
.”
There was no apology on the woman's face, and she spread her hands carelessly.
Itachi was speechless. Before he came, he knew that he would cooperate with the real root ninja this time. He had already guessed what he might encounter, but he did not expect to face such a dangerous test without even meeting him.
At the same time, he also had a new estimate of the difficulty of this mission.
"Please forgive me. Yu Nin has been very strict in checking recently. Sometimes he will break in and kill someone without even asking. This trap was not originally prepared for you."
The burly Shen passed over the female ninja and faced Itachi and asked: "I would like to ask, how many days did you spend in Amegakure Village from Konoha this time?"
"It only took a day and a half to get from Konoha to the border of Rain Country."
Itachi paused, "But it took four days to get from the border of the Land of Rain to the Hidden Rain Village."
The journey from Itachi to the Rain Hidden Village was full of obstacles and wars. Everywhere was the Rain ninja suppressing the rebellion, as well as the rebel organizations that sprung up everywhere.
If he hadn't memorized the map with the shortcuts before leaving Konoha, it might have taken him longer to enter the Amegakure Village.
"The map the village gave me shows that many of the secret roads have been occupied by rebel organizations from the Country of Rain. I am not allowed to reopen the second half of the route."
"Thank you for your hard work... you took two more days than when we came here two years ago."
The man codenamed Shen thought for a while and came to a conclusion, "It seems that the rebellion situation within the Kingdom of Rain is about to completely escape the control of Sanshouyu Hanzo."
"As the leader of a country's ninjas, with the title of demigod, he only dares to hide in a high tower and live in seclusion. He keeps all the most elite forces by his side as bodyguards and loses control of the country. Is it so strange?
of."
Chou said bad things about the demigods of the ninja world in an annoyed tone, then walked up to Itachi and stretched out a hand: "Raincoat."
"Thanks……"
Itachi took off his raincoat and handed it to her. Inside, he wore ordinary civilian clothes from the Land of Rain.
"Hmph, you are not tall and you look quite mature, but...have we met somewhere?"
The female ninja pinched her chin and rolled her eyes, "You are not an ANBU, right? Don't you have your own name? Or maybe you have received an order and cannot say it out."
"Sorry, I forgot."
Uchiha Itachi rarely touched the back of his head.
"I am Uchiha Itachi. I came to the Land of Rain this time to cooperate with the two seniors and bring back confidential information related to Sansho Hanzo."
"Aha, I just said that I always feel like I have seen you somewhere."
Chou suddenly clapped his hands and said loudly: "Uchiha, Sharingan, you are the kid who ruined our mission with that... Shunshen Shisui last time! I still remember what the short-haired guy said.
——”
Chou pinched his face, squeezed out two lines that looked like tear troughs on both sides of his nose, and then imitated Uchiha Shisui's expression and voice three years ago, and said in a loud voice: "Ninjas maintain peace in the dark.
The nameless people, but the order maintained by the coercion of violence and weapons cannot be regarded as true peace at all, and I will never recognize this kind of peace!"
Then she looked at the embarrassed Itachi, then at Shen who was holding back a smile with his lips pursed, and asked in a cheerful voice, "That's what he said at that time, right?"
Itachi nodded awkwardly.
He didn't expect that there was such a living treasure among the root ninjas.
In fact, Itachi had already guessed their identities when he heard their voices.
After he had just opened the Sharingan when he was eight years old, Shisui took him to participate in a jounin exercise, but unexpectedly encountered a scene where the root ninjas were chasing the ANBU ninjas and asked for the list of suspected traitors.
At that time, in order to protect the ANBU, Shisui fought alongside him and fought against the root ninja. This female ninja, codenamed Shou, was Itachi's opponent at the time. She was proficient in the use of ninja tools and was better than many Uchihas.
Although he was very skilled in swordsmanship, he was still defeated by his two Magatama Sharingan.
And this Shen was a ninja who fought with Shisui and carried a big sword, but he was quickly defeated by Shisui.
Generally speaking, these two people have limited frontal combat capabilities, so it is not surprising that they were sent to the isolated Yuyin Village to serve as spies. After all, their fighting style mainly relies on weapons, which is very similar to the rain ninja, and they rarely use escape.
Techniques and stuff like that.
"That's enough, Chou. Now that Itachi is here, he will be our teammate for the next mission together. Don't embarrass him with the past. After all, everyone has their youthful and naive days, cough cough cough cough..."
Shen frowned and coughed for a while, interrupting Chou's teasing at Itachi.
"But this is okay. He has fought with us before and is familiar with our fighting methods. If there is a conflict with Yu Ren in the future, it will be much easier to look after each other and cooperate."
Then he stretched out his hand to Itachi, "Before you set off, someone at the root should have handed you a scroll with specific tasks written on it."
"Well, it says that it requires three people to seal it at the same time to open it."
Itachi took out a palm-width scroll from behind his waist and placed it on the table in the room.
The three of them looked solemn, and formed different hand seals at the same time. The black seal on the scroll disappeared on its own, and then slowly unfolded, revealing the code-like handwriting inside.
"Oh, investigate the specific location where Yu Yin conducted the black pepper fish venom sac transplantation experiment, and then steal all the experimental data?"
Chou raised his head, looked at Itachi's face carefully, and raised a slight smile, "Does the person who gave you this mission really want you to go back alive?"
"Don't talk nonsense."
Shen's heavy hand pressed heavily on Chou's shoulder, and then pointed to the room inside Itachi, "There is a bathroom in that direction. You go and wash yourself first, and then dry yourself. I'll find a suitcase of suitable size.
Ame Gakure's uniform. Without further ado, we will start taking action immediately when we change shifts with Ame Gakure in the evening."
"Yes. Sorry to bother you two."
Itachi nodded and turned around to enter the room. It wasn't until the sound of the bathroom door being pulled shut and the sound of water dripping on the floor heard that the two people outside the room exchanged glances.
"The real mission shouldn't be for us to kill him, right?" Chou curled up his hair with a thousand sticks, with a cold light in his eyes and a low voice.
"No need to guess, just take a look and you'll know. It shouldn't be that simple, ahem..."
Shen bit his finger, stained the edge of the scroll with blood, and then printed it again. The writing on the scroll crawled like earthworms, and the ink eventually merged into another message.
After watching it, the two fell into silence at the same time.
After a few seconds, Shen covered his mouth and said, "It seems that the other side already knows about my physical condition. This is my last mission."
"'No matter whether the mission is successful or not, Shen must sacrifice himself in front of Uchiha Itachi. If the situation permits, let Uchiha Itachi kill Shen with his own hands.'"
Chou read out the words above, his face couldn't be said to be ugly, he just sighed with some dissatisfaction: "It seems that in his eyes, this kid will be a much more important chess piece than us in the future. He even has to use this method.
, deepening his sense of identification with his roots...
"You don't have to worry," Chou and Shen's eyes gradually overlapped, "I should be accompanying you soon. We have to finish the last play."
"Everything is for Konoha."
Shen nodded gratefully and did not refuse the other party's kindness.
Chou smiled and repeated: "Everything is for Konoha and the roots of Konoha."
