Chapter 251: Encounter

A figure slipped into Konoha's residential district and entered a house without a sound. The struggle inside ended quickly. Kaede Nakamura fell in a pool of blood, her forehead protector and flak jacket marking her as a Konoha shinobi even after death.

Gensai Kuroda sealed the room, set it ablaze, and vanished beneath a concealment technique.

The neighbors noticed the fire before it could spread to the next house. They formed a line with buckets and shouted for someone to alert the Military Police. By the time they extinguished the flames, little remained but charred beams and Kaede's body.

An ANBU operative in a cat mask landed among the wreckage. Seiji Nakamura recognized his wife at once.

"Kaede... I was too late."

Rain began to fall as if answering him. Seiji searched the house and nearby roofs, following the few traces the killer had failed to burn. Then he turned toward the river and accelerated. He already suspected one man. Now he intended to learn whether the suspicion was true.

"Gensai, was it you?"

Outside the village, Tonbo watched the drizzle strike the river. The rain thickened until the surface trembled beneath countless drops. He had come to the secluded bank to think through his latest ninjutsu research, but two chakra signatures approaching at high speed drew his attention.

He formed a seal and extended his perception. Both signatures belonged to Konoha shinobi. One fled while the other pursued.

"What is going on?"

Tonbo leaned against a large tree and hid himself with genjutsu. The canopy kept most of the rain from reaching him, though he knew an experienced shinobi might still notice the unnatural gap in the falling water. He suppressed his presence and waited.

Rain complicated concealment. A dry silhouette beneath an exposed branch, a broken stream of droplets, or water running around an invisible foot could betray even a perfectly muted chakra signature. Tonbo chose the deepest shadow beneath the trunk and adjusted the illusion to imitate the rain behind him rather than simply erasing his body.

Gensai reached the river first. Seiji followed close behind and hurled a spread of shuriken. Gensai dodged some and knocked aside the rest with a kunai.

"Stop!" Seiji shouted. "Your identity has been exposed."

Iron wires snapped from his tool pouch and wound through the weapons scattered across the path. With a sharp pull, Seiji turned them into a net that sealed Gensai's routes of retreat.

Gensai smirked. The instant the wires closed, his body became a log.

"Substitution."

He appeared behind Seiji and drove a kunai into his back.

"You think you discovered me? I noticed your investigation first, ANBU elite."

The body around the blade softened like slime. Gensai's expression changed. A prepared shell collapsed around his weapon while explosive tags hissed beneath his feet.

The blast lit the rainy bank.

Gensai escaped with a scorched sleeve, and Seiji attacked again. Kunai met kunai in a burst of sparks. Shuriken crossed between them so quickly that their outlines seemed to flicker through the darkness.

Seiji forced water from the river and used it to narrow the slope, while Gensai answered with substitutions and traps prepared during his retreat. Neither fought like an ordinary patrol shinobi. One specialized in pursuit and capture; the other had spent years learning how Konoha's own defenders reacted. Their opposing skills explained why the chase had already traveled so far without ending.

Tonbo recognized both men. Seiji was an experienced ANBU operative. Gensai served in Konoha's Security Defense Department and had submitted a proposal for a new defense network while Tonbo was Acting Hokage.

The proposal had been good enough that even Shikaku praised it. If Tsunade had returned a little later, Konoha might already have adopted it.

"If he is a spy, every weakness in that network would have gone straight to the enemy," Tonbo thought.

No village could eliminate infiltration completely. Tonbo could read minds, but Konoha contained too many shinobi to search one by one, and a forced reading could damage the target's brain. A capable spy who behaved properly could remain hidden for years.

The danger was greater when the infiltrator produced genuinely useful work. A foolish proposal would have drawn suspicion and disappeared into an archive. Gensai had offered a system Konoha wanted, ensuring that senior officers would argue for its adoption on his behalf. The best hidden weakness was one surrounded by visible improvements.

Since Tonbo had encountered this one himself, however, Gensai's luck had run out.

He did not intervene at once. A fight between two jōnin offered useful information, and Seiji still held his own. Water surged from the river in the shape of a dragon and crashed toward Gensai. The fugitive retreated up the slope, avoiding the technique by a narrow margin.

"As expected of an ANBU elite," Gensai said. "But your life ends here."

He produced a talisman bearing a strand of hair.

"Soul-Body Separation Technique."

A vast formula spilled across the wet ground. Lines spread like grasping limbs and sank into the space around Seiji. He tried to advance, but his body froze. An illusory outline slowly tore away from him, emerging through his skull and shoulders.

Seiji saw his own body below. The technique was pulling out his soul.

"How is this possible?"

He had never faced a sealing technique like it. He could neither move nor interrupt the caster.

"Wondering why it worked?" Gensai asked. "I knew you suspected me. I took the necessary medium from your house long ago. Do not worry. Your wife is already waiting for you in the Pure Land."

Seiji's horror hardened into fury, but the last of his strength could not return his soul to his body.

Tonbo appeared beside Gensai.

"So you really are a spy. I nearly approved your defense plan."

His palm struck Gensai's head.

The runic formula stopped. Seiji's soul snapped back into his body, and he collapsed to one knee, dragging in air.

Gensai could move only his eyes. The moment he saw Tonbo, his pupils contracted. He had already fallen into a genjutsu; his senses and muscles no longer obeyed him.

"Captain Tonbo..."

When had he been discovered? Had his defense proposal betrayed him? Gensai searched desperately through his own recent actions, but the answer no longer mattered. He had never expected to defeat the former Acting Hokage, and now Tonbo had taken control before he could even resist.

"Lord Tonbo," Seiji said.

Relief crossed his face as full control returned to his body. Then he looked at Gensai, and the grief in his red eyes became something much colder.