Chapter 114: Eliminating Imiao Ichirō
"Who—who are you?! Why did you drag me out here? L-look, I'm just a regular person, okay? Don't do anything crazy! The shinobi—the shinobi won't let you get away with this!"
Imiao Ichirō was starting to think bad luck had literally fused with his soul. It followed him everywhere like a stray dog.
He'd been trying to sketch Konoha's terrain map, maybe plant some poison on the side. But every stranger who caught sight of his unfamiliar face latched onto him with an unbroken stare. He'd been completely stymied.
Then, mid-walk, while brainstorming alternatives—someone had knocked him out cold from behind. He'd had zero awareness of the attacker's presence. Not even a tremor of danger sense.
Which meant whoever had ambushed him was absurdly strong.
I can't take this person alone. Not a chance.
So when the "mysterious assailant" shook him awake, Imiao's first instinct was to talk. Stall for time.
And in the meantime, he'd quietly pressed the rally signal on his device to summon his two teammates.
On my own I'm done for. But with the other two? No problem.
* * *
Looking at the "innocent" expression on Imiao Ichirō's face, Ryū didn't waste time on small talk. He went straight to the point.
"Who I am doesn't concern you. The question is who you are. Because I'm fairly sure I just heard you muttering something about a 'Lord God.'"
Ryū's voice was quiet, but Imiao heard every syllable.
His pupils contracted. Disbelief flooded his eyes.
But he clamped it down almost immediately, plastering on a look of bewilderment: "Lord God? What's that? I… I don't understand what you're talking about. I'm just an ordinary person."
Of course he wasn't going to spill anything about the Lord God Space to some "native."
And how the hell did this Naruto-world native overhear my muttering? What kind of inhuman hearing is this? That's absurd!
All Imiao could do was pray his teammates would get here fast. Because the danger signal screaming inside him was unmistakable—like one wrong move would get him killed on the spot.
Imiao Ichirō chose to trust his instincts. He was a man who valued his own life enormously.
* * *
Then Ryū's voice came again.
"Kurama was released by you people, wasn't it? And that little device you were secretly pressing just now—that's to call your friends over, right?"
"Mind telling me how much your group actually knows about the Naruto world? And that Lord God Space—care to explain what that is? I'm curious which world you came from… Reincarnator."
Imiao's pupils shrank a second time. The disbelief on his face was no longer concealable.
His eyes were wide with shock. Genuine terror.
Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.
Lord God Space. Reincarnator. This… native of the Naruto world knows about the Lord God Space?!
Did another team of Reincarnators come through this world before us? Got captured, and someone beat the truth out of them?
That's the only explanation. Otherwise there's no way he could know.
Damn them… the bastards sold us out!
Imiao's expression turned ugly. Leaking the Lord God Space's existence wouldn't actually get him killed by the Lord God—there was no execution clause for that. Probably because the worlds the Lord God had been sending them to were all relatively low-powered; the Lord God wasn't worried about some local powerhouse smashing through the dimensional barrier to destroy it.
But that was just speculation. And besides, did it matter? Imiao Ichirō was a man of principle.
Before becoming a Reincarnator, he'd been one of the few Japanese men who still carried the spirit of bushidō.
* * *
A few minutes later.
Imiao Ichirō lay crumpled on the ground, barely clinging to consciousness. His body was covered in wounds. Blood ran from his mouth and nose, pooling on the dirt beneath him.
He was a wreck. Consciousness fading.
He'd been worked over. Thoroughly.
Ryū wiped his hands clean and murmured: "So the 'biggest behind-the-scenes boss' is Orochimaru? The strongest combatants are just Kage-level shinobi? He doesn't even know what Ōtsutsuki means, and has no idea who the Sage of Six Paths is."
Based on what he'd extracted from Imiao, Ryū could now confirm: the Lord God Space's intel on the Naruto world was complete garbage.
If the biggest final boss of the Naruto world is Orochimaru… then beating Orochimaru would make me Number One in this world? Please.
This guy didn't know about the Sage of Six Paths. Didn't know about Uchiha Obito. Didn't even know the Akatsuki existed. And this is supposed to be "intelligence"?
Ryū shook his head. With intel this bad, even without his intervention, these three Reincarnators would probably have been crushed eventually.
What really caught Ryū's attention was a different detail: Imiao had confirmed that the Lord God Space's total known roster of veteran Reincarnators was only fifteen to twenty people. Add in unaccounted ones and call it thirty, tops.
This Lord God Space is nothing like what I imagined. Could it be a rookie-stage Lord God orb? And these so-called "veteran Reincarnators" have about the same combat strength as Konoha's specialized jōnin. They couldn't even beat Kakashi.
Those were Ryū's working guesses—whether the Lord God was actually a newborn system would have to wait for future data.
For now, the priority was eliminating the remaining two Rogue Reincarnators.
And speaking of which—he probably owed Imiao a thank-you. Because the man had helpfully rallied his two teammates right to Ryū's location.
Is this what they call a team-sabotaging teammate?
* * *
Looking down at Imiao Ichirō—broken, immobile, a heap of wounds on the ground—Ryū raised one hand, aimed at the man's head, and flicked.
A single finger-snap.
A spiral of compressed air ripped forward—a Finger Pistol derived from Tempest Kick principles, projected at range. The destructive force was equivalent to an armor-piercing round from a heavy-caliber sniper rifle.
And the effective range of Ryū's ranged Finger Pistol was roughly seven to eight hundred meters. Beyond that, power dropped off sharply—though even at reduced output, it would still be instantly lethal to any normal person.
Imiao Ichirō was two meters away.
The spiral of air punched through.
What followed was not suitable for a younger audience. The result looked roughly like a watermelon hit with a sledgehammer—nothing that could be reassembled.
Ryū crouched down and unclasped the strange black watch from the dead man's wrist.
Recovering the Reincarnation Watch…
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