'Did the Psychokinesis sneak attack fail?'
Motomu looked away from Pakura, who had easily evaded the attack.
He formed hand signs completely different from those used for the Great Fireball.
"Earth Style: Mud Wall!"
With a roar, a wall of earth—a story high and half a person wide—erupted from the ground, blocking the incoming Scorch Style fireballs and shuriken.
*Clang, clang, thud!*
Shuriken embedded themselves into the mud wall.
Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram.
He bit his finger.
Complex black markings spread from Motomu's palm as he pressed it into the ground.
*Poof!*
White smoke billowed out.
A massive screen of smoke formed behind the mud wall that the fireballs had shattered.
Pakura's eyes, bloodshot from the death of her teammate, stared intently through the smoke.
A sudden rustling sound intensified.
Countless snakes, each as thick as a bowl, darted out from behind the smoke in all directions.
From above, it looked like a green chrysanthemum blooming across the yellow desert.
'Summoning Jutsu and Transformation Jutsu?'
Pakura instantly realized the trick.
"You think you can escape? I won't allow it!"
The five original fireballs rose around her once more.
They lunged toward the scattering snakes.
Wherever the orange fireballs passed, the snakes were instantly reduced to withered, dry jerky.
Motomu didn't stop for a second, retreating toward his teammates under the cover of the snake swarm.
By the time the snakes were nearly wiped out...
Motomu had just reached his teammates' hiding spot.
A man with pale yellow hair stood there with a cold expression.
The one causing trouble in the shadows was his teammate, Yamanaka Nai.
Motomu released the Transformation Jutsu he had maintained until now.
With a flick of his wrist, he produced the genuine mission scroll.
Just as he was about to throw the scroll to his 'good' teammate Yamanaka Nai right in front of Pakura to draw some of the heat...
"Lord Sand Ninja, I am a rogue ninja from the Land of Wind."
"I'm here to help you."
Confusion flashed across Motomu's face for a split second.
Then, a swirling, transparent vacuum blade shot silently from Yamanaka Nai's mouth, aimed straight for Motomu's head.
Caught off guard and with his chakra nearly depleted, the attack was sudden.
In his desperation, Motomu could only use every ounce of strength to tilt his head as far as possible.
*Squelch!*
The sound of tearing flesh erupted from his right eye.
His hair was sliced cleanly, and the eyeball from his right socket fell straight to the ground.
Yamanaka Nai's expression remained blank as cold words trickled from his lips.
"The opponent is Pakura, a famous ninja of the Hidden Sand."
"We won't be able to escape."
"The Sharingan cannot fall into the hands of another nation."
"For the sake of Lord Danzo, Uchiha Motomu, you need to make a sacrifice."
Clutching the bleeding wound...
Motomu formed the Substitution seal without hesitation.
With a *poof*...
His injured figure swapped places with a snake nearby.
Not far away, Pakura shifted her focus, swirling over a dozen scorching fireballs and launching them directly at him.
Yamanaka Nai.
No.
The entire Root.
These people were nothing more than a bunch of lunatics who had left their brains with Danzo.
In their eyes, the deaths of teammates—or even their own—were acceptable costs as long as Danzo's mission was completed.
'In that case, I'll just have to devour them all first.'
In his heart, Motomu quietly stripped Root and Danzo of their humanity.
In a flash of thought...
Pakura and her two remaining teammates firmly blocked Motomu's path.
*Cough, cough!*
Exhausted from the massive chakra consumption, Motomu gasped for air.
He lowered the hand pressing against his right eye.
Blood dripped down his cheek.
Yet despite the gruesome injury, Motomu's face remained disturbingly calm, a sight that made Pakura extremely uncomfortable.
Stopping her bloodshot-eyed student from rushing forward with a kunai to engage in melee combat, Pakura looked at Motomu in silence.
"Pakura, do you see this?"
"That man claiming to be a rogue ninja is my teammate. A teammate from the Hidden Leaf."
"His jutsu just now was meant to destroy my Sharingan and kill me."
"Because my mission failed, and because the Sharingan cannot fall into the hands of you Sand ninja."
"Look at how cleanly and efficiently we Leaf ninja kill our own."
"And what about you Sand ninja? One Genin dies, and you're all bloodshot and screaming for revenge."
"I could have taken the scroll and left this godsforsaken place in silence. We could have minded our own business."
"But you're the ones who pushed me to this point, step by step."
Pakura's brows furrowed as she listened to Motomu.
Was the Hidden Leaf, the strongest of the Five Great Nations, really this dark?
To go to such lengths just to prevent a Bloodline Limit from leaking...
Would the Hidden Sand do the same?
Her thoughts were in disarray, but her grief over her student's recent death pushed those doubts to the back of her mind.
"For the sake of my village, I must eliminate you."
Motomu's eyes grew cold as he discarded his blood-stained kunai.
"Then I'll just have to kill every last one of you."
As soon as he finished speaking!
A scream filled with excruciating pain!
It echoed from Yamanaka Nai's direction.
Pakura's team looked up in unison.
In the pitch-black night sky, a crimson eyeball as large as a millstone slowly ascended.
Within the gaping maw split open in the center of the eye, the man who had just claimed to be a rogue ninja was being bitten down upon.
The ninja's eyes bulged, and the veins at his neck and temples throbbed hideously.
Looking closely, deep bruises were being crushed into his neck as if by an invisible force.
Blood flow to the carotid artery stopped, and his brain was deprived of oxygen.
Under the sneak attack of the Big Eyeball, Yamanaka Nai, a Root Chunin, lost consciousness in less than four seconds, completely losing all ability to resist.
Hypnosis and Dream Eater activated simultaneously!
A massive amount of life force flowed from the Big Eyeball into Motomu's body.
As the eyeball, which seemed to grow slightly larger, bit down, the ninja quickly turned into a mummified corpse.
At the same time, wisps of white steam rose from the wound on Motomu's cheek.
Under the warmth of the ninety percent of the life force shared by the Big Eyeball, Motomu felt his chakra replenish almost instantly.
The remaining life force even merged automatically with the spiritual energy gained from awakening the Two-Tomoe Sharingan.
Motomu felt that the chakra which had been nearly bottomed out just seconds ago...
After almost entirely absorbing a person's life force...
Was now overflowing!
It even gave Motomu the sensation that if he continued, he would explode like a firework.
"Pakura, you really like playing with fire?"
"Then today, I'll play with you until the very end!"
He cracked his neck, which had felt slightly strained earlier.
With a cold expression, Motomu slowly raised his hands.
Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Under Motomu's unrestrained infusion of chakra...
The three-meter-high Great Fireball he exhaled gradually expanded, burned, and surged upward!
It crushed the shifting sands below and pushed back layers of airwaves.
Finally, it transformed into a wheel of flame over ten meters in diameter, illuminating half the sky like a miniature sun as it bore down upon the sea of sand.
The searing heat wave blew back Pakura's birch-colored bangs and evaporated the sweat forming on her forehead.
Beside her, the two young Genin who had been ready to deliver the finishing blow to Motomu with bloodshot eyes let their kunai slip weakly from their hands.
"Y-You've got to be kidding me!"
"This power..."
"How is this possible?!"