Now that he truly possessed the sensory technique Mind Net, Renjiro no longer felt like a pretender. With this ability, he could finally say with confidence—he was a real sensory-nin.
"Mind Net!"
With a single thought, Renjiro surged his mental energy outward. It spread in a wide, expanding wave, forming a perfect circle with a radius of one kilometer and Renjiro at its center—then stopped.
At the same time, lightning-natured chakra flowed from his tenketsu and intertwined with his mental power, generating a charged field of perception. In an instant, Renjiro had become a human-shaped radar.
---
[A/N: Tenketsu (てんけつ) – Chakra points; literally meaning "pressure points" or "vital points."]
---
This wasn't normal vision, it was something else entirely.
After activating Mind Net, the world returned to him in distinct layers—motion, emotion, chakra flow. Every step, breath, twitch—it was like viewing the world through sonar, but sharper, deeper.
The infusion of lightning chakra amplified the feedback, making the images and sensations even crisper and clearer.
"This is... incredible!" For the first time in both of his lives, Renjiro had seen the world like this.
Although nothing around him had physically changed, from his perspective, everything was different.
"They're here!" As Renjiro and his two teammates advanced at a cautious pace, six figures suddenly appeared within his sensory field.
In his mental view, he clearly perceived six Mist-nin moving rapidly—running in panic—and heading directly toward their position. Behind them, nine additional figures were also closing in fast—likely the Konoha interception team.
Under Mind Net, Renjiro could predict every move with astonishing precision. He sensed the exact moment one Mist-nin would pivot, another's glance over the shoulder, their tension, their fear, their intent…
It was overwhelming—almost magical. but Renjiro knew this was not the time to marvel at his new ability. The enemy was already approaching.
Without hesitation, he turned to his teammates and said solemnly: "Our target has appeared. They're coming this way. Prepare to engage."
---
A few moments later, under Ibiki's carefully planned pursuit, the Mist unit had been successfully herded toward Renjiro's squad's position.
As the Mist shinobi entered the ambush zone—
"Attack!"
The trio sprang from their cover and hurled kunai laced with explosive tags toward the advancing Mist squad.
Caught completely off guard, the Mist shinobi were thrown into chaos. Clearly, they hadn't anticipated an ambush—and panic quickly followed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The explosions shattered the stillness of the forest. Their blast radius was wide enough to envelop those running in front, striking hard.
The sudden onslaught took the Mist shinobi by surprise. Renjiro, maintaining Mind Net, immediately identified a vulnerable gap and launched a follow-up assault—injuring one of them with another wave of explosive tag attacks.
Boom! Boom!
"Damn it!" Shouted the Mist squad's leader, an ANBU-class elite. His expression twisted in frustration.
Due to the mission's secrecy, they hadn't brought more than six people—including himself—to avoid drawing attention. Their team was already small, and now one member was seriously injured, which would undoubtedly affect their combat effectiveness.
"Help me!" Cried the injured Mist-nin, bloodied and trembling as he painfully crawled toward the squad leader.
The leader glanced at him coldly, then turned to the others: "You go ahead. I'll catch up after dealing with the situation here."
"Yes, Captain!" The four remaining Mist shinobi didn't hesitate. They followed his command immediately and disappeared into the forest, continuing their retreat.
The squad leader slowly drew his blade. His eyes were void of any emotion as he approached the injured comrade.
"You… what are you doing?!" The injured Mist-nin gasped in horror, staring at the expressionless face of his captain.
Whoosh!
Without a word, the leader slashed down, cutting through his subordinate's neck with cold precision—killing him like livestock—and then turned and walked away.
Renjiro and his teammates were stunned. For a long moment, they didn't move, frozen by the sheer ruthlessness they had just witnessed.
"To think… he would kill his own teammate instead of helping him..." Renjiro whispered, his voice filled with disbelief.
The three looked at each other, faces pale with shock.
"I think I'm lucky to be reincarnated as a civilian shinobi in Konoha." Renjiro thought to himself, for the first time truly grateful for where—and how—he'd been reborn.
Although Konoha's political and power structure was undeniably complex—and those without strong backgrounds struggled to rise through the shinobi ranks—at least the village didn't treat its people with outright cruelty.
Of course, there was Danzō and his secret organization, Root, but that was the one known exception.
However, what shocked Renjiro most wasn't the ruthless nature of the Mist shinobi—it was the appearance of the Mist squad leader.
In fact, the moment Renjiro saw his face, he almost couldn't believe his eyes.
Most shinobi in the Naruto world had human appearances, but there were anomalies—individuals who were human in essence but whose appearance suggested otherwise, people like Kabuto during the Fourth Shinobi War, Kakuzu, Zetsu... and others.
The Mist squad leader was clearly one of those anomalies. He was tall and powerfully built, with bluish-gray skin, round white eyes with tiny pupils, gill-like slits on his cheeks, and sharp, pointed teeth. He looked less like a man—and more like a walking shark.
In Renjiro's memory, there was only one person in the Shinobi world who matched that description.
Hoshigaki Kisame—the future wielder of the legendary sword Samehada.
One of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
A future S-rank missing-nin… and a member of the Akatsuki organization.
"…Man, do I have a thing with the Seven Swordsmen, or what?" Renjiro whispered to himself with a bitter smile.
He couldn't help but sigh. First it was Zabuza. Now, Kisame. He had no idea which member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen he'd bump into next.
"Why does this scene feel so… familiar?" Renjiro muttered internally.
"Arkain, filter my memory logs. Cross-reference any missions involving Hoshigaki Kisame. I need a match—ASAP." Renjiro gave the mental command with urgency.
[Beep! Mission Established! Information Collected… Database Connected! Simulation Started… Simulation Ended!]
"Download memory stream—now." Renjiro ordered without delay.
[Beep! Transmission begins—]
In an instant, the memory about Kisame's mission surged into Renjiro's mind—and with it, he finally understood why the scene before him felt so familiar.
This was that scene—the one Kisame saw flash before his death in the original story, when Konoha operatives tried to extract intel from him. It had been a mission gone terribly wrong.
Kisame had been escorting codebearers, but the team was small and not particularly strong. When surrounded by Konoha forces, and faced with the risk of the information falling into enemy hands, he didn't hesitate—he slaughtered his own teammates and escaped alone by jumping off a cliff.
"…I can't believe I've become part of this event." Renjiro stood in solemn awe.
Whatever one thought of Kisame's ideology or loyalty, as a shinobi of the Hidden Mist, he was flawless.
He embodied the ideal tool of the Mist, protect the mission, guard the secrets, and complete the objective—no matter the cost.
It was a level of commitment that few shinobi could truly maintain. Even Sakumo Hatake, the White Fang of Konoha, had chosen to abandon a mission to save his comrades—a decision that ultimately led to disgrace and his suicide.
Shinobi like Kisame—who placed the mission above everything else, even friendship or morality—were exceedingly rare.
They were exactly what village leaders desired, including those in Konoha. But humans were not tools. They had emotions—love, trust, attachment, and so, shinobi like Kisame could only emerge under extreme conditions.
That was the life Kisame had accepted—and perfected.
---
Due to the tight suppression and flawless coordination of the Konoha squad, the Mist shinobi were soon herded to the edge of a cliff.
There was nowhere left to run, only now did Renjiro fully understand why Ibiki had chosen him for this operation.
As a sensory-type shinobi, he had helped build the invisible wall of pressure alongside the rest of the team—cutting off every escape path before the enemy could even attempt to flee.
It was meticulous, precise, and terrifying in its efficiency. They weren't fighting the Mist, they were hunting them, and now the trap had closed.
"Captain… what do we do now?" One of the Mist shinobi asked. She had long dark hair and tried to maintain a calm expression, but her voice betrayed her anxiety.
Kisame scanned the area silently: "There were no exits left..."
Then—wordlessly—he slowly unsheathed his sword.
"Captain?" The Mist-nin blinked, confused by his actions.
But Kisame didn't answer. His eyes were filled with unwavering resolve—no rage, no hesitation.
"You—what are you—" Another Mist-nin began to shout, but Kisame silenced him with a glance.
In his mind, the voice of his commander, Fuguki, echoed from the day they left the camp: "Never let the codebearers fall into enemy hands. Kill them if you must."
That order had never changed.
"All for the mission..." Kisame muttered, as if trying to convince himself.
Whoosh!
Pufff!
Kisame moved like lightning. With a single slash, blood sprayed across the ground.
"…Why…?" the Mist-nin collapsed to her knees, her voice was trembling in confusion.
"It's all for the village." Kisame said quietly.
Her gaze met his one final time: "Your life… must be so hard…" She smiled gently—and then fell still, her breathing stopped.
Whoosh!
Without pausing, Kisame turned and cut down another before he could react or flee.
By the time the Konoha forces reached the cliff's edge, Kisame had already completed his mission.
The sight that greeted them was chilling—even for someone like Ibiki, who was no stranger to the brutal realities of war.
"To think you'd kill your own companions… I suppose I should've expected this from a Mist-nin." Ibiki said in a cold, low voice.
"Companions?" Kisame repeated softly. Then he looked up and met Ibiki's gaze: "They knew the fate that awaited them if they were captured. Codebearers are liabilities. They talk… and they break easily under torture. We don't let them fall into enemy hands. It's as simple as that."
Even the hardened Konoha shinobi felt a chill at his words. To kill one's comrades so efficiently—not out of hatred, not driven by grief or fury, but purely out of protocol—was something utterly terrifying.
"If I survive… I look forward to meeting you again." And before anyone could move, Kisame leapt off the cliff.
Renjiro had known this was how it would end. He had seen the memory, had braced himself to witness this brutal reality—
But even with that knowledge, the sheer cold decisiveness of Kisame's actions left him shaken.
"So this… is what it means to be a true shinobi." Renjiro thought to himself in silence.
---
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