Facing Konan's trembling eyes, Shinra didn't rush to provoke her with cruelty. Instead, he focused on steadying his image.
Silently, he mouthed: "Don't be impulsive, Konan. Calm down. I'm here."
Turning Konan's ideals couldn't be achieved in one night. Patience was the key. For now, he quietly cultivated her trust, slowly building goodwill.
Besides, the current situation was far from safe. Pushing her too hard here would only place himself in danger.
After all, the squad beneath them weren't fabricated "Iwagakure spies" to shift the blame they were real shinobi from a Great Village.
And sometimes, bad luck always arrived faster than good fortune.
As Shinra weighed the threat, the Iwagakure captain suddenly glanced up.
"Who's there?!"
At the same instant, an older shinobi in the squad wove hand seals.
"Earth Release: Earth Pillar Spear!"
With a rumble, a stone spear shot upward, piercing toward the ceiling.
Shinra and Konan were forced to leap down, landing in the warehouse below.
But Konan was already in motion. White paper erupted around her, scattering like a storm of butterflies.
"Dance of the Shikigami!"
Her form dissolved into countless sheets, fluttering through the air like a cloud of butterflies. The paper swirled together, shaping into long spears that shot down at the Iwagakure captain.
Ando, the arrogant merchant, nearly collapsed in terror, his pipe clattering to the ground.
"W-what?! Intruders?! Protect me! Hurry, protect me! Kill them!"
The other Iwagakure shinobi immediately sprang into action.
Landing on the ground, Shinra felt grateful he hadn't wasted time trying to "talk no jutsu" Konan earlier.
Instead, thanks to his subtle influence over the past few days, she instinctively split off a cluster of butterflies to shield him as well.
Perhaps Konan herself didn't realize it, but Shinra's importance in her heart had grown. He was now someone she subconsciously protected someone second only to Yahiko and Nagato.
And Shinra had no intention of wasting that favoritism. Blending into the swirl of paper butterflies, he immediately took advantage of the confusion, flinging a volley of his specially prepared paper shuriken.
The warehouse was already filled with fluttering sheets. To the Iwagakure shinobi already reeling from Konan's paper spears the storm of projectiles blurred together.
They instinctively assumed Shinra's weapons were the same deadly ninjutsu.
"Careful! This one uses Paper Ninjutsu too!" one shinobi shouted.
Not one of them dared block. They dodged frantically, giving Shinra an opening.
In truth, all he had thrown was plain, ordinary paper.
Using the confusion, Shinra tore through the encirclement. He lunged at one target.
The shinobi he chose was likely only a Genin. When Shinra charged, panic flashed in his eyes. He stumbled backward, fingers forming seals not for an attack, but something else. His gaze flickered sideways and behind him toward a log or object that wasn't even there.
From that alone, Shinra read the situation instantly.
He's preparing a Substitution Jutsu.
So Shinra casually flicked a shuriken, his attack looking almost careless.
As soon as he confirmed the enemy was still mid-seal, he stopped abruptly, drew his blade, and dashed to the man's flank anticipating the follow-up.
Bang!
The shuriken struck its mark. But with a puff of white smoke, the "enemy" turned into nothing more than a log.
Exactly as Shinra had expected.
The log, with the shuriken embedded in it, bounced twice across the floor with a dull thunk-thunk.
At that very moment, Shinra was already on the move. He shifted instantly, closing in on the real shinobi who had reappeared from the Substitution Jutsu.
"Wh ?!"
The word barely left the Iwagakure shinobi's lips before Shinra's blade cut clean through him, ending his life in a single, efficient stroke.
The older shinobi the same one who had pierced the ceiling earlier with Earth Release: Earth Pillar Spear went pale with shock.
"Damn it! He's at least Chūnin-level! Don't fight him one-on-one!"
He barked the order, halting the two younger Genin beside him, signaling for them to regroup. Meanwhile, he crouched low and began forming seals at high speed.
This time, he didn't shout the jutsu name aloud. But that didn't matter Shinra had already seen enough.
He leapt into the air, flinging out another volley of paper shuriken.
Earth Release shinobi… crouching to set up underground movement. Of course it's Headhunter Jutsu. The safest move is to leave the ground.
The Genin were once again forced back, retreating from the storm of fluttering paper. Shinra landed atop the warehouse storage shelves, gaining the high ground.
"Earth Release: Headhunter Jutsu!"
The older shinobi's technique erupted yet Shinra was long gone from the target zone.
Instead of dragging an enemy underground, the veteran Iwa-nin used the jutsu as a displacement, surfacing at the spot Shinra had just vacated. Beyond that, the jutsu had achieved nothing.
A cold bead of sweat ran down his temple.
How? How is he anticipating every move? Yuuta's Substitution Jutsu, and now my Headhunter Jutsu too. Does he… possess some kind of special dōjutsu?
As paranoia crept in, one of the younger Genin suddenly shouted out, eyes wide.
"Wait! These are just scraps of paper! He's tricking us!"
After being used twice in succession, Shinra's "Paper Release" bluff had finally been exposed.
The boy who had spotted the ruse smirked with confidence.
"I see through it now!"
Ignoring his senior's warning, he lunged forward recklessly, leaping onto the same shelf as Shinra, kunai flashing.
Shinra responded with another paper kunai.
"Boring trick!" the Genin scoffed. He neither dodged nor hesitated, his expression hard with false courage.
But Shinra's lips curled into a grin.
Boom!!
The warehouse shook as a deafening explosion ripped through the air.
The older Iwagakure shinobi's eyes went bloodshot, his face contorted in horror.
Another comrade gone in an instant.
It hadn't been a bluff. Shinra had concealed explosive tags within his paper kunai.
Earlier, when Shinra had casually asked Konan about throwing paper shuriken, he'd picked up a very useful trick: concealing explosive tags inside paper weapons.
By drawing imitation seal lines and runes on each sheet of paper and then wrapping the real tag inside with its fuse hidden, it became nearly impossible to distinguish them from ordinary paper at a glance.
And since the paper shuriken he'd thrown in his first two volleys had contained nothing at all, the enemy's vigilance had dropped even further.
When the trick finally went off, the reaction was inevitable.
"Despicable Rain shinobi!" the Iwagakure veteran spat through clenched teeth.
Shinra didn't even bother to respond.
Despicable? Insidious? What did it matter? If it won battles and preserved his life, then it wasn't despicable it was efficient.
Efficiency was survival.
Two Genin down in quick succession.
The last remaining Iwagakure Genin had already lost the will to fight, scurrying backward until he was practically hiding behind the merchant Ando. He looked as if he were protecting his employer, but in truth, he was simply cowering out of the fight.
Which left only one real opponent worth his attention the older shinobi who had already unleashed two Earth Release techniques.
Shinra's eyes narrowed, his blade shifting lightly in his grip.
That one should be a Chūnin.
Perfect.
This was the opportunity to test his current strength head-on.