Puchi!!!
As Hui plunged his sword into the enemy's heart, he withdrew the blade without a flicker of emotion on his face. After months of constant bloodshed, he had grown even more accustomed to it.
"Captain, all targets have been neutralized," Hatake Sakumo reported as he leapt to Hui's side.
His voice had changed—it was now flat and cold. It wasn't that his relationship with Hui had soured, but rather that months of operating in the shadows, surrounded by death, had darkened his heart.
It wasn't just Hatake Sakumo. All the members of Hui's First Anbu Unit had grown similarly somber, their spirits eroded by the relentless missions in the dark.
Even Hui had become less talkative, fully immersed in the darkness he had once only glimpsed. This gradual descent into darkness was dangerous.
"Rest and wait for the next mission," Hui ordered. After every mission, the First Unit would take a day or two to recover before diving back into the next task.
Several months had passed, and Hui had turned twelve. His power hadn't increased much during this time—he had hit a bottleneck, and it would take time for the natural energy within him to fully assimilate with his yuan qi.
But that didn't mean there were no gains. His combat experience and knowledge had grown significantly, especially from clashing with the Anbu of various villages.
It wasn't just the Anbu either. Many smaller ninja villages, each with unique abilities, had crossed his path.
These ninja, while not more powerful than elite jōnin, often possessed kekkei genkai abilities, offering strange and challenging encounters.
On multiple occasions, Hui had almost been caught off guard. But thanks to his cautious nature and deep reserve of tricks, he always managed to survive.
Now, Hui had become one of the most feared figures in the hidden world of the Anbu. In just a few months, hundreds of ninja had fallen at his hands, many from the Anbu units of rival villages. Whenever Hui encountered them, death was almost always the outcome.
This notoriety gave even more rise to the name "Konoha's Ghost," a title that sent chills through the Anbu of every major village. His reputation had grown so fearsome that Iwagakure's leadership had issued an order: any Anbu member who encountered Hui was allowed to abandon their mission without punishment.
This was the highest form of acknowledgement, as missions in the ninja world were of the utmost priority.
It wasn't just Iwagakure. The Anbu from the other three great villages also wished for a similar order. They dreaded the idea of encountering Hui, the Konoha's Ghost—a grim reaper of the night.
After months of observation and battles, the other villages had learned much about Hui's abilities. They knew that he was a versatile ninja, excelling in every field. His accomplishments since entering the Anbu battlefield were staggering.
Statistics showed that no one who had faced the Konoha's Ghost during a mission had ever completed their objective. Less than ten percent of those who crossed his path managed to escape with their lives. The remaining ninety percent met their end.
Hui's list of slain enemies was extensive and illustrious.
Starting with the former Iwagakure Anbu commander, Ishigawa, he went on to kill numerous deputy commanders and team leaders from other villages.
By rough estimates, Hui had at least killed two Kage-level opponents, seven or eight elite jōnin, and over fifty jōnin in just a few months. The number of elite and regular chūnin he had slain was even higher.
If these fallen ninja had survived and banded together, they would have formed a powerful army. Yet, they had all been killed by one person—Hui—within a few short months.
These terrifying achievements solidified Hui's reputation as Konoha's Ghost.
"Captain, how much longer will we have to live like this?" Hatake Sakumo asked one night, as the moon hung high and the cool breeze whispered through the trees.
The two sat on the branches of a large tree overlooking a cliff. Hui stared up at the moon, lost in thought. Below, Lightning leaned against the trunk, resting with his eyes closed.
"It'll end soon," Hui replied. "The small nations capable of posing a threat to the great villages have almost all been wiped out. The ones left are buffer zones for the larger nations, so there's no need to deal with them."
Hui's words provided some relief, not just to himself but to his entire unit. The dark wars waged by the Anbu were finally nearing their end.
Truth be told, Hui would rather have participated in the Great Ninja Wars than endure this ongoing Cold War. In the Great Ninja Wars, the targets were enemy ninjas with justifiable skills—justifiable kills.
But in this conflict, Hui had been forced to kill not only Anbu from rival villages but also ninjas from small hidden villages, and sometimes even civilians.
His hands had become stained with the blood of countless innocents during these missions. Often, when he slept, his dreams were haunted by the faces of those innocent people, their eyes filled with pleading and despair.
At times, this torment nearly drove Hui to the brink of collapse.
Whenever he woke in a cold sweat from these nightmares, Hui found himself questioning the meaning of his existence. What was the point of him being in this world?
In the beginning, his goal was simply to become strong, to fear nothing. Then, it evolved into protecting the few people he cared about.
Eventually, he dedicated himself to protecting Konoha. This evolution marked a kind of growth in his spirit.
But if protecting what he loved required the sacrifice of countless innocent lives, wasn't that too brutal, too cold?
Life is meant to be equal for everyone, and no one should have the right to take it away so easily. Thus, Hui was left to wonder about the meaning behind his actions, as his heart became mired in doubt.
"Finally, it's coming to an end," Hatake Sakumo said with a sigh, his whole body seeming to relax.
"Yes," Hui muttered, gazing at the distant moon, his thoughts drifting back to Konoha. Was Tsunade looking at the moon, too?
"Hey, Hui, when did you start stargazing so much? And I've noticed you've been staying up late a lot lately. Don't you get tired?" Lightning suddenly appeared beside Hui, crouching on the branch and peering down at him.
"Staying up late... maybe because I'm afraid of falling asleep at night," Hui answered with a wry smile.
He truly had become the Konoha's Ghost.
"I guess I'm scared that when I wake up the next day, it won't be the sun greeting me, but a disaster."
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