In the dead of the night, four ninjas rose up from their beds.

Their mission? The elimination of the target before the sun rose up.

Quickly getting geared and secretly heading out of their tents, the four ninjas met up.

Each was wearing gray shinobi gear and had a blank white mask on their faces.

They were the root shinobi, directly under the command of leaf advisor Danzo Shimura, an S-ranked ninja.

"Has the target been confirmed to be asleep?" One of them asked, his voice wasnt heard as the question had been asked using hand signs.

One of the three other root ninjas quickly signed a few hand seals, confirming that he had indeed checked up on the target and found that he was asleep deeply.

"All right commence the operation." These were the words one of the root men said using hand seals.

The other three quickly nodded and immediately after the four of them disappeared at the same time.

Appearing around a hundred meters north in front of a small green tent.

The Target is inside, one of the ninjas said using hand seals.

The other three nodded their heads, confirming that they had seen what the man had tried to convey.

They didn't waste any more time before they stealthily headed into the tent.

Inside, was a kid, his eyes open as he laid down on the ground, he didn't look to be older than twelve.

'This kid really killed more than two hundred cloud ninjas?' One of the root shinobi wondered as he looked at Kazuo who was laid onto the ground.

What are you doing? Do it already! Another Shinobi said with hand seals as he looked at his companion.

The man who had thought Kazuo looked like a kid quickly focused his gaze and took out a kunai which was dripping with some unknown substance though considering the act he was about to do, it was most likely poison.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

*Swoosh*

With the sound of the air being sliced apart, the ninja swung the kunai toward Kazuo's neck.

*Thunk*

The kunai however seemed to hit something hard causing it to stop.

This immediately alerted the shinobi.

It wasnt just the hard stop to the swing that had alerted them, the kunai had sliced through Kazuo too easily, as if he wasnt even there.

And as if the world wanted to prove their guesses, merely a moment later the Kazuo on the ground vanished as if he was merely an illusion.

Five meters underground, Kazuo was looking up.

'Seems like they destroyed my clone as my chakra connection with it was just lost, sadly I don't get the information feedback otherwise I would have learned more about the enemy. If only they attacked slightly later into the night.' Kazuo thought as he continued placing explosion tags on top of his head.

Right, he had been planting them since he had first found that someone was going to kill him.

How had he found out?

'Those bastards already killed me six times, and each time I only have around a minute before dying and they are so fucking fast that I can't even do anything before i find myself dead.' Kazuo thought as a bloodthirsty smile appeared on his face.

The attack had happened right after midnight, causing him to only be able to return around one and a half minutes back in time after each death.

The first time he had woken up with a sword impaled in his throat, the second time he had died after two minutes of fighting before one of the anbu had sliced his head off.

The third to sixth times he had died by one of them using an earth release jutsu and closing the earth around him once he was underground.

Before he had come up with a strategy, by leaving a illusionary clone up there and ordering it too keep its eyes open, causing a slight delay in the enemy attack which gave him the time needed to head underground and place the explosion tags.

'I couldn't fuck up the Raikage but I most certainly can fuck you up.' Kazuo thought as he once more used the hiding-like-a-mole technique and headed deeper under the ground, finding the direction to be easier to move in than the others which would lower the time he needed to get to a safe location and launch the explosive tags.

After repeated use, Kazuo had learned that as long as he stood less than around twenty-five meters away or so, Kazuo could launch the explosion tags, if the distance was wider then the chances of success would start lowering dramatically with each meter added.

Finally, at a safe enough distance from the explosives, Kazuo made a tiger hand seal.

'Kai'

*Booom*

With a large booming sound the whole clearing that the leaf ninjas had chosen to camp in shook, quickly waking up any of the sleeping shinobi whilst alarming the ones that were awake to quickly start heading to the explosion site.

Above Kazuo, his entire tent had vanished from the face of the earth with only a large fire remaining, two of the root ninjas had died from the explosion, one was severely wounded whilst the last one which had given the most orders appeared to be fine.

At the last second when he felt the explosion heading toward him, he made a split-second decision and grabbed the other root ninja and used him as a meatshield, causing the other man to die and for him to survive without any wounds besides some minor burns next to his elbows.

Kazuo who was underground quickly used his earth-release jutsu once more and headed above ground.

Looking at the two dead corpses and the two alive shinobi, a thought flashed in Kazuo's mind quickly.

'The root has started targeting me fully? Does that mean that Shikaru no longer considers me valuable but rather like an obstacle to him and the root? It could also be because I refused to join them.' Kazuo thought quickly as he placed two fingers on his wrist guard and summoned a kunai.

His ninja bag had been left in the tent as he hadn't had the time to grab it with him the first time the incident had happened however this turn he had left it there himself.

Inside the bag had been a couple of explosion tags which had helped further enhance the explosion's power once it reached above ground.

The root shinobi looked at him for a moment before the still-healthy one turned to the severely injured ninja and made two hand seals and used a lightning jutsu.

A moment later, the man wasn't severely injured anymore.

He was dead.

The lightning had passed throught the Anbu's body and headed straight toward Kazuo, however a quick use of bodyflicker and Kazuo managed to avoid the jutsu.

This didnt give any shock to Kazuo who looked at the scene, infact he felt like it was the right decison on the side of the root ninja.

A severly wounded ally wasnt an ally any longer, at that point they had become an enemy trap, a burden which could hold you back at a crucial point and cause your death.