After searching for a while, Akira stopped moving. He had blasted apart several massive charred logs, each nearly ten meters tall, but he hadn't found any sign of the Statue's body. Everything had been shattered into blackened wood by his Lightning Release.
"How many lightning strikes would it take to create this?" Akira mused, looking at the scattered, burned wood around him.
Then, his expression shifted subtly as he glanced in a certain direction, his face quickly paling, as if he had taken a serious hit.
Soon enough, hurried footsteps approached, and two figures quickly came into view—it was Hyūga Kaori and Shiga Aburame.
As she arrived, Kaori immediately looked toward Akira.
"Are you alright?"
Akira's Lightning Release technique had a range beyond even the Byakugan's perception, so she hadn't been able to see how things were unfolding on the battlefield.
"I'm fine, just a bit injured," Akira replied, shaking his head as he glanced at them. "Where's Juro?"
Kaoru lowered her head slightly, her voice tinged with sadness. "Juro… he didn't make it."
Akira nodded, a trace of regret flashing across his face.
"Has the enemy been dealt with?" Shiga asked, scanning their surroundings cautiously.
"Only temporarily repelled. Don't let your guard down yet," Akira warned, shaking his head.
"The Lightning Release technique just now was massive… it still didn't kill them?" Shiga's eyes narrowed behind his dark glasses, astonished.
Kaori's usually gentle face was filled with shock as well. She could hardly imagine a jutsu powerful enough to withstand Akira's Lightning Release. Even the Third Hokage, known as the strongest Hokage, would have been reduced to ashes, she thought.
"What kind of opponent are we dealing with…?" Kaori muttered, glancing at Akira.
"Is the person with the Rinnegan really that powerful?"
Hearing her question, Shiga turned his gaze toward Akira as well.
"Yes," Akira nodded, his tone serious. "From what I could tell, he's not fully accustomed to the Rinnegan's powers yet. He's still rough around the edges. But I can say for certain—this person will only grow stronger."
"Even more powerful?" Shiga's usually impassive face twitched slightly.
Akira shot him a glance and nodded. "Indeed. He looked to be about fifteen or sixteen—clearly, he still has significant room to grow."
"But don't worry too much," Akira said with a calm tone. "My Lightning Release injured him quite severely. He won't be recovering anytime soon, not in the next week or two."
Then he added, "You two, clean up the battlefield."
"Yes." Shiga and Kaori replied in unison.
As they began to clear the area, Akira moved over to some broken rocks. A faint green glow appeared in his hand as he pretended to heal himself.
In his mind, he suspected that one of his teammates might be a spy working for Danzo. It had to be either Shiga or Juro. He had no intention of letting this spy return alive.
His feigned injury was part of his plan—to lure the spy into making the first move so he could neutralize them without suspicion. If no one attacked, he would eventually use genjutsu to probe their thoughts.
Meanwhile, Shiga seemed focused on cleaning the battlefield but was actually observing Akira intently.
"He doesn't look like he's only lightly injured…" Shiga's eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses, flashed coldly.
As a member of Danzo's Root, Shiga had received secret orders before this mission: if the opportunity arose, he was to kill Uchiha Akira. This was his real mission.
"Seriously wounded… my chance should be coming soon," Shiga thought, his peripheral vision catching Akira discreetly coughing up a bit of blood. "The Rinnegan's power is terrifying. I must warn Lord Danzo when I return to Konoha!"
Shiga's insects continued to chew through the charred remnants of the Statue's body, their movements filling the air with a faint buzzing sound. Suddenly, his gaze froze on a piece of half-meter-tall charred wood. His insects were sending back strange sensations—fear and submission.
"What did that Lightning Release strike hit…? Why would my insects feel such fear?"
Shiga peeled back a layer of charred wood, revealing a branch about a foot long.
"A branch?" Shiga was taken aback, completely unprepared to find something like that.
"Perhaps… this is my chance."
His eyes flickered over to Akira, who was still intently "healing" himself. Shiga raised a hand, signaling to Akira.
"Akira, I found something over here!"
Akira's eyes opened as he looked in Shiga's direction, his voice echoing back.
"What did you find?"
"There's a branch buried in this charred wood, come take a look," Shiga called out.
"I'm on my way," Akira responded.
Hearing the exchange, Kaori, who was keeping watch, glanced over toward Shiga's location. She'd noticed that her Byakugan couldn't fully penetrate a few of the larger pieces of charred wood. This bothered her, but she chose to stay silent, it was a limitation of the Byakugan, after all. As a member of the branch family, she didn't want to give anyone ammunition to use against her or her clan.
As Akira drew closer, Shiga maintained a neutral expression, showing no sign of his true intentions.
"This is what I found," Shiga said, pointing to the branch wrapped in charred wood, now glistening under the rain.
Akira observed it closely and then asked,
"What do you think it is? Could it be a Wood Release jutsu?"
"It's not Wood Release, it's something the enemy summoned. I'm not sure what it is myself." Akira stepped closer, bending down to examine the branch more carefully.
Shiga, watching Akira closely, allowed his eyes to flash with a chilling glint beneath his sunglasses. He subtly stepped closer, putting on an act of scrutinizing the branch as he spoke,
"Could it be a unique summoning creature?"
"I'm not sure," Akira replied, studying the branch intently.
"Akira, just now I…" In mid-sentence, Shiga's hand flashed as he drew a kunai, driving it straight into Akira's abdomen.
"Got him!" The feel of the kunai hitting flesh brought a smile to Shiga's face.
But in the next instant, his smile froze.
With a crackling sound, the figure of Akira transformed into a burst of lightning that enveloped Shiga in a blinding flash.
----------------
Pls drop some Power Stones
+70 chapters on patreon.com/Jixo