Naruto: Starting as the Third Hokage with Tears in His Eyes

Chapter 541 Unsheathed

Sakumo Hatake's tone was very calm, as if he were asking about a trivial matter.

He paused, his dark eyes finally landing on Scorpion Sand, who was at the head of the group. The silence around him made the latter feel as if he were being stared at by a hibernating giant python, his soul trembling.

"So..."

"It's my turn."

The last two words, devoid of any murderous intent, were more potent than the most vicious curse, capable of draining the warmth from a person's very bones.

Sasori's heart pounded wildly, crashing against his ribs, emitting a desperate, almost unbearable wail that only he could hear.

Get moving! Get moving now!

His heart was screaming, howling, and roaring wildly.

His instincts as a Jonin of Sunagakure, and the intuition of a ninja who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, were both sending him warnings in the most intense way.

However, his body felt as if it had been filled with molten iron, so stiff that he couldn't move an inch.

He could only watch helplessly.

Watching the white-haired man slowly, with a gesture as if he were polishing a precious work of art, he reached for the seemingly ordinary short knife behind his back.

Everything was eerily quiet.

"Buzz—"

A faint whistling sound, almost drowned out by the wind, suddenly rang out in the dim desert.

It wasn't the sound of metal rubbing together; it was more like the first tremolo of a plucked string—clear, sharp, and deadly.

Immediately afterwards, an intense white light shone forth.

The light wasn't dazzling; it was pure white, yet it instantly stole all the colors from this desert.

The moonlight dimmed, the sandstorm subsided, and even the world distorted by fear in Scorpion Sand's eyes seemed to be purified and smoothed out by this white light, leaving only pure, eternal silence.

Time seemed to stretch out infinitely at this moment.

Shuo Mao moved.

His first move was not to rush forward, but to turn slightly to the side.

This simple movement allowed him to narrowly avoid a poisoned kunai shot by a puppet Sand Ninja.

The kunai flew past him almost grazing the tip of his nose, the gust of wind it created ruffling a strand of white hair on his forehead.

Then, he disappeared.

It's not a spatial displacement technique like Body Flicker Technique that involves chakra fluctuations, but a kind of irrational disappearance that relies purely on physical explosive power and exceeds the limits of dynamic visual capture.

"puff."

Out of the corner of his eye, Scorpion Sand noticed that a thin line of blood had appeared on the neck of one of his companions standing on the far left of the group without warning.

The expression on his companion's face was still frozen on the prelude to the ferocious attack. He seemed completely unaware of what was happening, and just reached out in confusion to touch his neck, which suddenly felt a little cold.

But his hand was only halfway raised when his head separated from his body, and scalding blood shot into the sky, turning into a blood mist in mid-air when blown by the wind.

One.

Sakumo Hatake's figure weaved through the crowd, his footsteps making no sound on the soft sand, like a ghost gliding on water.

The white dagger in his hand was not imbued with any fancy lightning or wind chakra; it was simply the purest, extremely fast edge.

Cut left.

A Sand Ninja who was about to form hand seals suddenly froze. His upper and lower body were neatly separated at the waist, and his internal organs mixed with blood were spilled all over the ground.

Right slash.

Just as another puppeteer summoned his scorpion spirit beast from the scroll, and its ferocious venomous tail was raised, a white line flashed between them.

The next second, the puppeteer and his summoned beast were cut in two.

Upward thrust, downward slash.

Every strike of Shuo Mao's sword was extremely concise, without any unnecessary movements.

It wasn't a battle; it was more like a highly skilled craftsman using the most precise tools to remove excess material.

He could always find a fleeting gap in the densest web of enemy ninjutsu and tools from the most unbelievable angles, and then precisely send the blade across the enemy's most vulnerable throat.

The entire process was eerily quiet.

There were no screams, no wails, and not even the loud clashing of weapons.

Those Sand Ninja were like harvested wheat, falling one by one, silently.

They may die without ever knowing how they were killed.

On a distant sand dune, Shimura Danzo and Uchiha Kagami stood side by side, coldly observing the one-sided massacre.

Danzo's usually taut face showed no surprise at this moment.

He wasn't watching the deaths of the Sand Ninja, but rather Sakumo's every move. As a top-tier Wind Release ninja, he understood the meaning of efficiency and precision best.

Sakumo's sword embodies these two words to the fullest.

"His knife is faster than it was a few years ago."

Danzo's voice was deep and devoid of emotion. "Every strike was delivered at the most effortless angle; any more would be a waste, any less would be insufficient to kill. This level of control... transcends the realm of technique."

This swordsmanship has reached its pinnacle.

Uchiha Kagami remained silent, his Sharingan with its three tomoe rotating at an extremely high frequency, capturing every detail of the battlefield.

In his vision, Sakumo's figure was no longer a blurry ghost, but a series of clear, textbook-perfect frame-by-frame animations.

He could see how Sakumo controlled his muscle contractions by adjusting his breathing, how he changed direction by lightly tapping his toes on the sand, and how he completed a series of fluid movements—dodge, advance, draw his sword, and sheathe his sword—in those fractions of a second.

So beautiful.

This was Uchiha Kagami's only feeling.

It wasn't the bloody beauty of killing, but a pure beauty of skill that pushed human physical abilities and weaponry to their limits.

Even the taijutsu that the Uchiha clan is so proud of seems a bit flashy in the face of such extreme simplicity and efficiency.

On the battlefield.

ten seconds.

It might not even be ten seconds.

When Sakumo returned to the original spot and stood in front of Sasori, the dozen or so Sand Ninja around him had already silently fallen to the ground.

On each of their faces, the terror, bewilderment, and disbelief of the moment before their deaths were still frozen.

The desert wind blew, stirring up a cloud of sand mixed with the smell of blood, but it could not dispel the chill that clung to Scorpion Sand's heart, chilling him to the bone.

"Whoosh—"

Sakumo flicked the blade lightly.

A drop of crimson blood slid off the white blade, dripped onto the sand, and was instantly swallowed by the dry yellow sand.

The blade once again became as white as snow, spotless.

He looked at the only one still standing, Scorpion Sand, and frowned slightly, seemingly somewhat dissatisfied.

Then, in a voice only he could hear, he muttered to himself:

"Is it opened incorrectly?"

"I thought it was some formidable opponent, so I took it seriously. Sigh, what a waste of my passion."

There was a barely perceptible hint of disappointment in the voice, like someone who had painstakingly grown a melon for a season, expecting it to be a rare variety, only to find upon cutting it open that it was just an ordinary, crooked melon.

This soft self-talk became the final straw that broke Sasori's spirit.

"Did you...take it seriously?"

Scorpion Sand's lips trembled incessantly, and his teeth chattered, making a clattering sound.

What did he see?

A one-sided, artistic massacre.

And the murderer, that white-haired demon, actually thought... he was just being serious for a moment?

That face, slightly aged by the passage of time, yet still with distinct features.

That head of white hair, reflecting a deathly luster in the moonlight.

That weapon called White Fang.

A title that had resonated with him since childhood, representing fear and nightmares, suddenly emerged from the deepest part of his memory, from that deliberately forgotten corner.

His lips trembled, and with the last of his strength, he let out a desperate roar like a broken bellows.

"It's...it's...Konoha's White Fang!"

"Quickly... retreat..."

His roar echoed weakly in the empty desert, but no one could answer him anymore.

Only the wind carried his despair away into the distance.