I, Uchiha, will not be whitewashed!

More than a month has passed since the battle in the canyon.

Shuoge's injuries have healed.

His chakra was fully restored, even more abundant than before. He practiced his swordplay every day in the open space, practicing the invisible wind. The marks on the tree trunks became more numerous and deeper each day.

The transfer order was delivered one early morning.

"Uchiha Sakugo, transferred to the western front of the Sunagakure battlefield, depart immediately."

After reading it, he rolled up the scroll and stuffed it into his ninja tool pouch. There weren't many things, so packing was quick—a sword, a ninja tool pouch, a few letters, and a shuriken. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and stepped out of the tent.

Xia Zi stood outside.

She also had a transfer order in her hand, which she had already opened.

Her injuries hadn't fully healed; her left arm was in a sling, and her right leg drooped slightly as she walked. The medical team's diagnosis was—nerve damage, unstable chakra circuits, making her unsuitable for continued combat missions.

"Back to the village." Xia Zi handed him the transfer order, her tone flat. "Logistics Department, clerical work."

Shuoge glanced at it and handed the transfer order back to her. He didn't say anything.

Xia Zi didn't say anything either. The two of them stood in front of the tent, and the wind blew, swirling the fallen leaves around their feet.

"It's fine," Shuo Ge finally spoke. His voice was very soft.

Xia Zi looked at him and suddenly smiled. Not the kind of smile that says "I'm fine," but the kind that says "I know what you're thinking." "Are you trying to comfort me?"

"No," Shuoge said. "The captain and Tiema didn't come back. You came back. You lived in their place."

Xia Zi's smile faltered for a moment. She lowered her head, staring at the transfer order in her hand for a long time. Then she looked up, her eyes a little red, but she didn't cry.

"You're right." She folded the transfer order and stuffed it into her pocket. "Live for them."

She reached out and patted Shuoge on the head, exactly like Jing had done. "Don't die."

Shuoge instinctively wanted to dodge, but he suppressed that instinct.

He didn't flinch, he just nodded slightly.

"I will not die."

Xia Zi turned and left.

He took a few steps, then stopped without looking back.

"Blade, I've seen your sword before. Something I've never seen on the battlefield. When I get back, I'll tell the villagers that Konoha has an invisible sword. It's very powerful."

she left.

Shuoge stood there, watching her figure disappear at the camp gate. A breeze blew, blowing his hair back. He touched his head; the spot where Xiazi had patted him was still warm.

He turned and walked in another direction. The western front, Sunagakure. There were new enemies, new battlefields, new—he touched the shuriken at his waist.

The one engraved with the character "镜" (mirror).

"It's time to go."

……

……

……

On the afternoon of the day the transfer order was issued, Shuoge set off with the main force.

The western front needs troops; he can't go alone.

A hundred-man squad was drawn from the Iwagakure front and, after reorganization, headed southwest. Sakugo was assigned to it, walking in the middle of the column, surrounded by men on all sides.

A minor child, carrying a sword, blends into a group of adult ninjas, like a drop of water falling into a river, silently disappearing.

Blade's name had already spread throughout the battlefield of Iwagakure, and no one treated him like a child anymore.

After traveling for two days, the group entered the southwestern border region of the Land of Fire.

The road grew narrower and narrower, and the trees grew denser and denser.

The Jonin leading the team frequently dispatched scouts, changing them every half hour. This was a high-risk area for Sunagakure infiltration; small groups of puppeteers loved to ambush in this kind of terrain.

Shuoge walked in the middle of the group, his knife behind his back and his hands at his sides.

He remained vigilant, but he was not tense either.

He had met a puppeteer—

Deep in my memory: Sasori, Granny Chiyo, Sasori of the Red Sand, Hyakki Yagyō, Chikamatsu Ten.

He knew the puppeteer's fighting style.

The person hides in the shadows and uses chakra threads to control the wooden puppet.

The puppet is impervious to pain and breakage; it can still move even after being shattered.

You cut down a hundred, and he still has a hundred left.

You can never kill your enemy until you find the true form.

But puppeteers also have a weakness—chakra threads. As long as the threads remain unbroken, the puppet will not perish. If the threads break, the puppet is nothing but a pile of useless wood.

The most basic use of the Sharingan is its ability to perceive information!

As the group entered a grove of low bushes, Shuoge slowed his pace.

It's too quiet.

It wasn't just any quiet; it was a quiet that had been deliberately created—the birds were startled away, the insects were poisoned, and even the wind was blocked by the tree canopy.

His hand rested on the hilt of the sword, and his three-tomoe Sharingan began to spin silently.

There's something in the woods.

It's not the fluctuation of chakra, it's the "threads" of chakra.

Thin and dense, like a spider web, it hangs between the tree canopies. Extending from all directions in the same direction—southeast, fifty meters away, in the canopy of a large tree.

"Stop." Shuoge's voice wasn't loud, but it was clear.

The people in front of him didn't hear, and neither did the people behind him. A Chunin next to him glanced down at him, about to say something—

"There's an ambush."

Shuoge drew his sword.

It's not towards the enemy, it's towards upwards.

An invisible blade flew from the tip of the knife, and an unseen wind sliced ​​through the tree canopy overhead, as well as the dense chakra threads.

The sound of the thread breaking was very faint, like a snapping string. Only those with Sharingan could see the light flash for a moment as the thread broke.

The first puppet fell from the tree canopy.

It's made of wood, human-shaped, and painted dark red.

Before it even hit the ground, Shuoge's knife had already arrived.

It's not cutting, it's picking.

The knife tip pierced the puppet's joint, pinning it to a nearby tree trunk.

The second one pounced from the left, with four arms, each holding a poisoned sage stick.

Shuoge did not dodge; he held the knife horizontally in front of him, the wind flowing over the blade.

He swung his sword—not at the puppet, but at the strings.

The puppet froze for a moment, the senbon slipped from its hand and fell to the ground. Then, as if struck by lightning, the puppet fell from mid-air, crashing to the ground and shattering into pieces.

The third, the fourth, the fifth.

Shuoge didn't move, he just swung his knife.

Each strike precisely cut along the chakra lines, avoiding the puppets and wasting energy. The puppets fell from the trees like ripe fruit, crashing to the ground and shattering into pieces.

The rest of the team finally realized what was happening.

The Jonin leading the team shouted "Enemy attack!" and everyone scattered, sought cover, and formed a battle formation.

But the attack was over.

Less than ten seconds passed from the first puppet falling to the last puppet shattering.

The woods fell silent again, save for the sound of wood cracking and the occasional groan—someone had been scratched by a senbon needle and was having poison removed.

"Over there." Shuoge pointed his knife southeast, fifty meters away, to that big tree.

Three Chunin rushed over.

A person was hidden in the tree canopy, his body wrapped in bandages, with only his eyes showing.

He saw the person rushing towards him and tried to run, but the backlash from the severed chakra threads made him stiff and unable to move.

He was pulled down from the tree, pinned to the ground, and tied up.

The Jonin leading the group walked up to Sakugo and looked down at the kid who barely reached his waist.

The knife was still in my hand, its blade clean and spotless, without any blood or marks.

The Jonin opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but didn't know what to say.

He had fought for over a decade, seen puppeteers, and also seen puppeteers being killed.

But he had never seen anyone fight like that—not cutting the puppet, but cutting the strings.

It's not about brute force, it's about "intelligence." Knowing the puppeteer's weaknesses, knowing where the chakra threads are, knowing how to completely incapacitate the enemy with minimal effort.

"Blade? You're quite good," the Konoha Jonin leading the team praised.

"..." Shuoge sheathed his sword, nodded, and said nothing.

"Have you met a puppeteer? Do you know a lot about puppeteers?" the Jonin asked.

Shuoge was silent for a moment.

"The Uchiha clan's library contains relevant information."

The Jonin didn't ask any more questions. He turned to deal with the prisoners and the wounded.

Shuoge stood there, looking at the fragments of the puppets on the ground.

He squatted down, picked up a piece of wood, and turned it over to examine it.

The workmanship is rough, incomparable to Chiyo's Chikamatsu Ten Ninja. But the principle is the same: chakra threads, puppets, and a puppeteer hiding in the shadows.

Once you understand the principle, you'll know how to play.

He threw away the wooden block and stood up. The ranks were reorganized, the wounded were carried onto stretchers, and the prisoners were led away.

The Jonin walked over and glanced at him. "You follow behind me."

Shuoge nodded. He walked behind the Jonin, sword at his back, hands at his sides. Just like before, as if nothing had happened. But the way the people around him looked at him had changed.

It's not about looking at a child, it's about looking at a knife. A knife that knows where to cut.

The procession continued forward.

Shuoge walked in the middle of the group, surrounded by people on all sides.

But this time, those around him automatically stepped aside. Not out of fear, but out of respect. The simplest, most direct respect one can show to a strong person on the battlefield.

In the ninja world, the strong are respected, regardless of gender or age.

……

……

……

The western camp is located on a high ground on the southwestern border of the Land of Fire.

Unlike the Hidden Stone Front, the wind here is dry, carrying the smell of sand, and feels like sandpaper rubbing against your face.

The tent wasn't green; it was a yellowish-brown, blending in with the surrounding wasteland.

From a distance, it's impossible to tell where the campsite ends and the desert begins.

When Shuoge arrived with the hundred-man team, it was noon on the third day.

The sun hung overhead, turning the ground white.

His lips were chapped, his clothes were filled with sand, and his scabbard was covered with a fine layer of dust.

Someone was waiting at the camp gate, calling out names from the roster and assigning garrisons. Names were read aloud one by one, and people were led away one by one. Shuoge stood at the end of the line, waiting.

"Uchiha Sakugo".

He walked over.

The Chunin in charge of the assignments glanced at him, made a mark on the roster, then looked up at him with a strange look—not the look of someone looking at a child, nor the look of someone looking at a genius, but something more complex that he couldn't quite understand.

"Third squad," the Chunin said. "Captain, Hatake Sakumo."

Shuoge's pupils contracted slightly.

Hatake Sakumo.

Leaf White Fang

A legendary man who commanded respect even from the Three Sannin.

His sword is white, his speed is white, and his legend is white—he has killed countless enemies, achieved numerous military exploits, and is one of Konoha's banners.

But Shuoge knew more than that.

He also knew how this person ended up.

Faced with the choice between saving his companions or completing the mission, he chose to save his companions.

The village wouldn't forgive him; rumors killed him.

He died in his own home, by his own hand, on a moonless night.

His son, Kakashi Hatake, has since ingrained the principle of "mission first" into his very bones.

That's a matter for the future. The current Hatake Sakumo is still alive, still killing, still Konoha's sharpest blade. And Sakugo has been assigned to that blade.

"Is there a problem?" the Chunin asked.

Shuoge shook his head. He took the station number, turned around, and left.

The third squad's base was located at the easternmost edge of the camp, near the perimeter.

The most dangerous direction is given to the strongest squad.

The tent was larger than the others, but older, with several patches on the canvas, worn white by the wind and sand. When Shuoge lifted the curtain and went inside, there was only one person inside.

The man sat behind a folding table with a map spread out in front of him and a pen in his hand, drawing something on the map.

He didn't look up, didn't speak, and didn't move.

He just kept drawing, the tip of his pen scratching across the paper.

Hatake Sakumo.

Around the age of thirty or forty, the angularity of their face is like it was carved with a knife, their eye sockets are deep-set, and their cheekbones are prominent.

His hair was silver-white, just like Kakashi's, but he lacked Kakashi's youthful sharpness.

His eyes were filled with weariness, the kind of weariness that comes from fighting for decades, killing hundreds of people, and watching countless comrades die before his eyes.

His knife rested against the table, its white scabbard and hilt spotless, without a single scratch.

Unlike Shuoge's knife, whose scabbard was covered in dents and whose hilt had been replaced repeatedly, that knife was so clean, it looked as if it had never been used.

"Sit." Sakumo's voice was flat, and he didn't look up.

Shuoge sat down opposite him.

Shuo Mao continued drawing, and after finishing the last line, he put down his pen and looked up.

He looked at Shuoge for a while. Not scrutinizing, but observing. Like examining a knife—was it fast enough? Was it steady enough? Would it break at a crucial moment?

"Blade," he said. "A name from Iwagakure. He killed over a dozen Jonin, activated the Three Tomoe technique, and knows an invisible Wind Release."

Shuoge remained silent. Shuomao knew his background and didn't need him to repeat himself.

"I won't teach you how to kill."

Shuo Mao pushed the map aside and leaned back in his chair.

"You've killed enough people, more than I did when I was your age. But you're good at killing, not fighting. Killing is one-on-one, fighting is one-on-one with a hundred. You can kill one Jonin, you can kill ten Jonin. But what about a hundred? A thousand?"

He paused. "The Third Raikage fought against ten thousand men, his feet piled high with corpses, but he still died."

Sakugo's fingers tightened slightly. He remembered the death of the Third Raikage. Surrounded by ten thousand men, for three days and three nights, he died from exhaustion.

"Our squad's mission is not to defend the position, nor to deliver supplies."

Shuo Mao's voice was very flat.

"It's a decapitation. The enemy commander, the captain of the elite troops, the leader of the puppeteers. Killing one of them is more useful than killing a hundred on the front lines."

He stood up, walked to the tent entrance, and lifted the curtain. Outside was the desert, yellow and boundless, colliding with the blue of the sky like two knives pressed together.

"The Sand Village's command post is over there. Seventy li." He turned to look at Sakugo. "Are you afraid to die?"