Konoha: The thirty-year-old Uchiha lacks motivation.

Chapter 988 Enjoying the Bliss of Queuing Up

"Bang!"

After smashing the skull of a grass ninja with an unstoppable punch, the red-haired girl, bathed in a rain of brain matter, swayed slightly. There was one minute left.

Feeling her chakra rapidly draining from her body, she turned to look at the two remaining grass ninja, her eyes flashing with a dangerous light.

We must act swiftly and decisively.

Clang!

"Monster... monster!"

Seeing the freshly made parts of his comrades at his feet, one of the terrified grass ninjas dropped his weapon and fled towards the town without looking back. A mission only costs 300,000 yen, why risk his life?!

"Damn it, deserting in the face of battle, the captain won't let you get away with this."

Another surviving ninja, equally terrified, saw him run faster than a rabbit and angrily cursed, "Survival is the only right thing to do!"

The fleeing Grass Ninja wasn't sure if the captain would kill him, but if he stayed, he would definitely die.

"Damn it, wait for me!"

As the saying goes, the slowest runners are in the front row; the rest of the grass ninjas only wish they had eight legs. "Don't even think about leaving!"

The red-haired girl wasn't about to let them leave so easily. With a slight bend in her knees and a powerful push, she transformed into a red meteor, crashing straight into the fleeing grass ninja. "Don't come any closer!"

Catching sight of the berserk, bull-like red-haired girl behind him, the lone Grass Ninja let out a piercing scream, "Pfft!"

However, as the fist pierced through his chest and blood splattered, the high-pitched voice abruptly stopped.

"There's only one left."

With a blank expression, the red-haired girl pulled out her blood-stained fist, shook her hand, and shifted her gaze to the retreating figure in the distance. Even though he heard his teammate's dying screams, the grass ninja, who was dragging his weak legs to escape, didn't dare to turn his head back. He could only place his hopes for survival on his captain, who had not yet arrived.

Unlike these lowly Chunin, the Grass Ninja Captain was a genuine elite Jonin, someone they looked up to.

"Captain...Captain can definitely handle this crazy woman!"

"Have you thought about your last words?"

"ah!?"

Hearing the ghostly voice beside him, the Grass Ninja, who was still fantasizing about his captain raising his hand to suppress the red-haired girl, turned pale and trembling as he turned his face away. He saw that the red-haired girl who had just been executing her teammates in the back had somehow appeared beside him, revealing a row of white teeth that shone through her dirty face.

"Forget it, you're too ugly to leave any last words."

Who would have thought that the red-haired girl was actually a sucker for good looks?

"No...no!"

Watching the red-haired girl with disdain raise her fist, which was wreathed in flickering blue light, the grass ninja, who had been belittled as an ugly man, could only hope that he could be reborn as a handsome man in his next life. "Thud~"

As the fist swept past, the grass ninja's fine head shattered like a watermelon falling to the ground. His body twitched a few times before collapsing to the ground.

"call..."

After dealing with the last grass ninja, the red-haired girl let out a long sigh of relief. Her emergency chakra was about to run out, and she had to leave this dangerous place as soon as possible.

Before leaving, however, she needed to collect some loot so that she wouldn't have to rummage through the trash for her next meal.

"Tsk! I should have known better than torn it into such small pieces."

The girl, who was squatting on the ground and turning over the parts with a twig, pouted, seemingly reflecting on her reckless behavior just now.

Tap!

"Um?"

Meanwhile, the Grass Ninja Captain, who was strolling leisurely towards the arrest scene, suddenly stopped. Sniffing the fresh scent of blood in the air, his brows furrowed deeply. "Could those guys be telling the truth?"

Besides the pursuit team he led, many other teams also set out to search for the orphans of the vortex, several of which had already...

They encountered their targets, but none of them succeeded. Moreover, they lost many team members, resulting in an extremely high casualty rate.

Moreover, when the surviving captains reported back to the village, they all mentioned the terrifying fighting power of the Uzumaki orphans. However, the other captains who had not yet met the target ridiculed them for their lack of ability, saying that how could two wandering orphans, both of whom were women, possibly escape the heavy encirclement of the Grass Ninja?

"I'm probably overthinking it."

Recalling the disheveled figure he had just seen in the alley, the Grass Ninja Captain shook his head slightly. His perception was still decent, and he could sense that the fleeing Uzumaki orphan did not have much chakra fluctuation. If his elite troops had fallen into the hands of this kind of woman, it could only mean that those useless people were not skilled enough.

With that thought in mind, the Grass Ninja Captain subconsciously quickened his pace, heading towards the source of the bloody smell. "Smack~"

"Um?"

Suddenly realizing he had stepped on something sticky, the Grass Ninja captain instinctively stopped, "Ugh!"

Looking over the sole of the shoe, he almost vomited up everything he had just eaten. It was an eyeball that he had stepped on and ruptured, with the cloudy vitreous fluid splattering far away.

Following the trajectory of the splash, what came into the eyes of the Grass Ninja Captain was a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood that would be impossible to show even if it were pixelated. His capable subordinates were scattered everywhere, some hanging themselves from trees, and others cosplaying as the Headless Horseman.

"This is... damn it, my men!"

Confirming that what he was seeing was not an illusion, the Grass Ninja Captain, now reduced to a lone commander, cursed angrily and chased after a row of messy footprints not far away.

"What a bunch of penniless bastards."

After rummaging through the meat for a long time, the red-haired girl, who had only found a few tens of thousands of taels, curled her lip in disdain. However, this was enough for her to have a hearty meal and have the strength to continue searching for the princess.

"not good!"

Just as she was clutching the blood-stained banknotes, preparing to flee, a figure hurtling towards her from afar made her heart clench. "You actually killed all my most beloved subordinates..."

As soon as the Grass Ninja Captain landed, he drew his companion weapon, a curved sword that was longer and thinner than a regular katana, and stared intently at the unfathomable red-haired girl in front of him. "Those who kill must be prepared to be killed."

The red-haired girl haphazardly stuffed the banknotes into her waist pouch, touched the black bloodstains on her face, and assumed a starting stance for a Uzumaki clan taijutsu. Her eyes were filled with determination. This grass ninja captain was different from the group of small fry from before. Her remaining chakra only allowed her to unleash one last attack. If she couldn't kill them with a single punch, she would have to follow the path of the cream puff.

"I'm going to enjoy your blessings to the fullest!"

With a swift turn of his slender, curved blade, the Grass Ninja Captain transformed into a streak of light, almost invisible to the naked eye, and hurtled towards the red-haired girl. He was a rare swordsmanship-type ninja in the village, his deadly curved blade leaving no trace. "Whoosh!"

The girl, holding her breath, knew she only had one chance to strike. Facing the Grass Ninja Captain's tricky attack, she deliberately created an opening, feigning fear as she took a half-step back, intentionally exposing her vital area. "Shinai!"

As expected, the Grass Ninja Captain fell for the trap. Countless blooming sword flowers gathered in the air and stabbed straight at the red-haired girl's wide-open ribs. However, he was not blinded by anger. He held back when he slashed, indicating that he only intended to seriously injure his target and had no intention of hurting her.

"Sizzle!"

Just as the Grass Ninja Captain had expected, the curved blade precisely sliced ​​through the girl's ribs, tearing up large chunks of flesh and blood, the splattering blood flowers quite alluring.

"hehe."

Seeing this, a smug smile appeared on his lips. With this amount of health, this vortex orphan was bound to lose. "Got you."

"Um?"

Suddenly, the Grass Ninja Captain, who was about to draw his scimitar back, heard the red-haired girl's powerful voice and realized that his scimitar was welded to the girl's ribs and he couldn't pull it out.

"you!?"

The Grass Ninja Captain, regaining his senses, realized that the girl had clamped the blade of her curved sword tightly under his bleeding armpit. He immediately showed a look of utter astonishment. The red-haired girl had been waiting for this fleeting opportunity; her fist, already poised to strike, held its last ounce of power.

Chakra, the eerie blue light swirling around it, surprisingly contained a hint of blazing golden light. "Charging Punch!"

"No!!!"

By the time the Grass Ninja Captain realized the terrifying destructive power contained in the girl's small fist, it was too late. The visible force of the punch enveloped him, and the aura of death was inescapable.

"boom!"

A massive explosion erupted from the ground, and amidst the dust and smoke kicked up by the aftershocks of the punch, the girl swayed and collapsed to the ground, "Huff... huff..."

Looking at her fist, ravaged by chakra and reduced to a bloody mess, she gasped for breath, her eyes filled with relief. If this grass ninja hadn't underestimated her, she, on the verge of burning out, would never have been a match for him.

"Now I can finally go find Gong with peace of mind..."

With her legs taut and her face deathly pale, she prepared to continue her journey to find her master.

But the next second, something unexpected happened.

"Swish!"

A large, gaping hand suddenly emerged from the lingering dust and accurately gripped the girl's throat. "Ugh!"

"Cough cough cough..."

"How...how is this possible..."

The girl, who had been unable to breathe, turned red in the face and stared in disbelief at the Grass Ninja Captain in front of her, who looked like a blood gourd. He had actually withstood her charged attack. This charged punch was a clan secret technique that the clan leader had personally taught her!

"Luckily, my main attribute is earth, and I usually have a good habit of maintaining hardening techniques, otherwise I would have really fallen for your tricks, you bastard."

The Grass Ninja Captain, his entire body devoid of normal skin, grinned with a bloody grin at the girl. He would never reveal that the hardening technique he had just used was actually for the sake of enjoying himself.

"hateful..."

Upon hearing this, the girl painfully closed her eyes. Earth Release: Hardening Technique could reduce a large amount of physical damage, and the damage from her deliberate punch to the Grass Ninja Captain was probably less than half. Feeling the undisguised lewdness in the Grass Ninja Captain's eyes, the red-haired girl smiled miserably. She had been careless. Even a Jonin from Grass Ninja Village was still a Jonin. She was afraid she was going to become a miserable Puff.

Her last emergency energy reserves have been exhausted, leaving her with no means of countermeasures. What awaits her is the fate that the people will gladly accept.

"Don't worry, I'll treat you well."

The Grass Ninja Captain licked his bloodied and mangled lips; his favorite pastime was simply enjoying himself.

"Goodbye, Princess..."

As the large hand drew ever closer to her body, the red-haired girl, her throat gripped, steeled her resolve: rather than suffer humiliation, she would rather end it all.

"Hehehe...Want to die? Don't even dream about it! I'm waiting to use you to reward my troops!"

Upon discovering the red-haired girl's attempts to commit suicide, the Grass Ninja Captain grinned and pinched her cheek, preventing her from ending her life by biting her tongue.

"I've heard that your Uzumaki clan has a very strong regenerative ability. I wonder if it will recover after I stab Fuku in the back..."

"I really don't know how to do that."

Suddenly, a lazy, unfamiliar male voice rang out from the side, giving the Grass Ninja captain an absolutely certain answer: "No way? That's really... um?"

The lewd-smiling captain of the Grass Ninja subconsciously replied, but a second later, his expression suddenly froze. Where did that voice come from?

To confirm whether he was hallucinating from the shattered eardrums caused by the punch, he turned to look at the source of the sound, only to find a smiling, curly-haired stranger standing beside him. "Who are you?"

The Grass Ninja Captain's mind went on alert. He was indeed injured, but not to the point where he wouldn't notice a stranger approaching. This man in front of him was definitely suspicious. "I'm here to wait in line."

The curly-haired man wasn't intimidated by the Grass Ninja captain's rude attitude; instead, his smile widened even more. "Queue up? You think you're Grass Ninja and you can just stand in line like that?"

"I could be the one."

As he spoke, the curly-haired man pulled out a headband from a large bunch of different-patterned ones behind him, and in front of the Grass Ninja Captain, picked out a grass-patterned one.

She reluctantly hung the garland around her neck, thinking, "Is this okay now?"

"You dare to play me?!"

Compared to the Grass Ninja Captain who glared at the curly-haired man with a murderous look, the red-haired girl he was holding looked at the suddenly appearing stranger as if he were some kind of monster.

What kind of chakra is this? Is he even human?

In Kagura's mind, the curly-haired man's chakra aura was like an incredibly deep black hole; just one glance from him almost sucked her consciousness in and devoured it completely.

"Have you been found out? You Grass Ninja are still as petty as ever, even though you love making fakes."

Uchiha Gin, who had been reprimanded by the Grass Ninja captain, pouted and casually ripped off the knock-off Grass Ninja headband hanging around his neck. "We call that a boundary marker!"

"Fine, fine... You Kusagakure are going ahead, aren't you? Since you won't let me line up, then nobody else should."

"Um?"

Upon hearing Uchiha Gin's seemingly casual yet deadly words, the Grass Ninja Captain suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. His sixth sense, honed by years of walking the line between life and death, told him to run!

Without the slightest hesitation, the Grass Ninja Captain bent his knees slightly, his exposed bright red muscle fibers tensed abruptly, and he moved like a spring that had been pumped up, preparing to create distance between himself and Uchiha Gin. "Whoosh!"

Ok?

I clearly backed away, so why is my body still...?

The retreating Grass Ninja captain looked at the familiar body that had stopped in place with a puzzled expression. The head of the body, which was flying in mid-air with a pillar of blood trailing behind it, was full of question marks. "Thud~"

"Thump!"

As the head, which had been blown off earlier, landed, the Grass Ninja Captain's burly headless body crashed to the ground. The smooth, mirror-like surface of his neck even showed pulsating nerves. "Cough cough cough...you...you..."

Having finally regained control of her breathing, the red-haired girl plopped down on the ground, coughing violently as she looked in terror at the strange, curly-haired stranger squatting in front of her with a bizarre grin. "Don't be afraid, I just..."

"Please don't eat me! You can cut in line and enjoy yourself!"

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