Naruto : Blazing Legend

Chapter 43: Discovery

The Mist ninja hadn't even begun their systematic search of the ruins when they'd stumbled upon the Konoha team. Pure bad luck on their part—ambushing what they thought were easy targets, only to discover they'd picked a fight with elite ANBU operatives. Their ninjutsu and taijutsu were leagues beyond what ordinary shinobi could handle.

"Spread out and search. Stay alert." Minato's voice carried the weight of command. "If you encounter anything—anything at all—hold your position and call for backup immediately."

The team dispersed like ghosts, each claiming a section of the abandoned settlement. The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken dread.

Rei pushed into a dilapidated house, his footsteps muffled by decades of accumulated decay. The wooden furniture had rotted beyond recognition, floors sagging under the weight of neglect. Moss crept across every surface like a green plague, claiming what humanity had left behind.

His Sharingan caught something the naked eye might have missed—where a bed had once stood, the rotted floorboards revealed a rust-stained iron cover. The geometric shape of its edges spoke of human design, not natural formation.

"A basement. Let's see what secrets they tried to hide."

Wind-natured chakra screamed from his hands as he blew away the debris and rust, revealing a tunnel entrance. The darkness below seemed to swallow his light.

Twenty meters down, the tunnel split into two chambers. His enhanced vision pierced the gloom easily, but something about the oppressive silence made his skin crawl.

He sent a shadow clone toward the first door—no traps, thankfully. A small fire technique illuminated the chamber, revealing a scene that made his stomach turn. A desiccated corpse knelt in the center of the room, a knife buried to the hilt in its abdomen. The blade's angle suggested self-infliction—a final, desperate act.

"Hey, original!" his clone called out, voice echoing strangely in the confined space. "I can't get through this door. There's some kind of sealing technique blocking it."

"Stop shouting, you idiot," Rei snapped back, then caught himself. Arguing with his own clone—he was losing it. "I don't know anything about seals."

The clone's frustrated grumbling filled the tunnel as it ran off to fetch the others, leaving Rei alone with the corpse and the mysterious barrier. He stared at the intricate sealing formula, trying to make sense of the symbols that seemed to writhe in the flickering light.

I need to learn this. The Yin Seal, like Tsunade's... if war's coming, I can't afford to be weak. The thought gnawed at him. Power was the only currency that mattered in this world, and he was still counting coppers while others dealt in gold.

Every ninja coveted sealing techniques—the power to bind, to store, to unleash destruction with a touch. Rei was no different. He'd learn them all, except those that demanded his life as payment. He wasn't that desperate. Yet.

Minato arrived with the others, taking one look at the sealed door before waving Rei away. "I'll handle this. Keep watch outside."

The waiting stretched into hours. Rei practiced hand seals until his fingers cramped, ran through genjutsu scenarios until his head throbbed. Perfect technique conserved chakra, amplified power. In a world where the difference between life and death could come down to a single jutsu, efficiency meant survival.

Two days. Two full days of Minato working on that seal while they took turns standing guard, jumping at every shadow, every whisper of wind through the ruins. The island felt cursed, heavy with the weight of old violence.

"Finally!" Minato's voice echoed up from the depths, bright with triumph. "I did it!"

Rei practically flew down the stairs, curiosity overriding caution. If Minato had found a powerful sealing technique, he'd beg, borrow, or steal to learn it.

"Brother Minato, what did you find?"

"Rei! Look at this—it's a forbidden technique called Shiki Fujin."

The world tilted. Rei's mouth fell open as recognition hit him like a physical blow. "Shiki Fujin... Shiki..."

The Dead Demon Consuming Seal. The technique that would one day kill the Fourth Hokage—kill Minato himself. The irony was so bitter he could taste it.

"What's wrong? You seem to recognize this technique." Minato's curiosity was tinged with concern.

Rei's mind raced. How could he explain knowledge he shouldn't possess? "I... I've heard of techniques like this. Forbidden jutsu that demand the user's life as payment. This has to be one of them."

The others had gathered now, drawn by the excitement. Rei forced himself to continue, weaving truth and speculation together. "After the First Great War, the Whirlpool Country was destroyed by multiple nations—Kirigakure led the charge, but they weren't alone. The Uzumaki clan's sealing techniques were too powerful, too dangerous. They made enemies of everyone."

His voice grew quieter, more serious. "I heard from our clan's records that the Uzumaki had many forbidden techniques like this one. Techniques that could turn the tide of any battle, at the cost of the user's soul."

It wasn't entirely a lie. The original series had shown Orochimaru discovering a temple full of masks, each one representing a different death-sealed spirit. If one mask meant one Shiki Fujin, what did the others represent? How many people had paid the ultimate price for power?

"The introduction confirms it," Minato said, his excitement dimming as he read further. "The price of casting this jutsu is offering your soul to the Death God himself."

"That's right," Senzo added, his voice heavy with old pain. "Just after the First War, when the village was still weak from our losses... we couldn't save them. The Whirlpool Country fell while we were still licking our wounds."

"Enough." Minato's interruption was sharp, final. "The past is past. We can't change what happened to the Uzumaki clan."

But Rei caught the look in Minato's eyes—guilt, regret, the weight of choices that had seemed necessary at the time. How many villages had Konoha failed to save in the name of pragmatism? How many allies had they abandoned when the cost of loyalty grew too high?

Four more locations over the next two days. No enemies, but plenty of evidence that others were hunting in these waters. Battle scars on the landscape, the corpses of missing-nin rotting in the sun. Someone else was after the bounty on Rei's head, and they weren't being subtle about it.

The final destination loomed ahead: the ruins of Uzushiogakure itself. Even in its death, the village sprawled across the landscape, a testament to what the Uzumaki clan had once been. Red-haired refugees might be scattered across the world now, but their home had been magnificent.

"Something's wrong," Minato muttered as they approached through the forest. The air tasted of recent violence, of blood and burnt chakra.

They found the bodies scattered like broken toys—over a dozen Mist ninja, all dead. The killing had been efficient, brutal, and recent enough that the blood hadn't fully dried.

But who had done this? And why target the Mist ninja specifically?

The answer lay in the forest's depths, where the legendary Kakuzu had made his entrance. The immortal bounty hunter had crossed an ocean for one target: the Uchiha boy with the astronomical price on his head. But even legends could fall into traps.

The Mist ninja's explosive ambush had cost him limbs, but Kakuzu had played dead, waiting to see who dared to maim him. When his attackers revealed themselves, relaxing in their supposed victory, he'd shown them why he'd survived nearly a century in the killing business.

His severed hand had reformed into a writhing mass of masked tentacles, climbing silently into the canopy above. When seven Mist ninja clustered together, congratulating themselves on their trap, Kakuzu had reminded them that some monsters were better left alone.

Wind Release: Pressure Damage had turned the forest clearing into a slaughterhouse. Now their corpses fertilized the earth while somewhere in the shadows, an ancient killer continued his hunt.

The scent of death hung heavy in the air, and Rei's Sharingan caught movement in the treeline—something that didn't belong to any natural predator. They weren't alone on this island, and whatever had killed these Mist ninja was still out there, still hunting.

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