Chapter 99
"Yes, all of the Rain Swallows contracted by Inoue Rei were collectively summoned at the same time," the ninja outside reported respectfully.
The Rain Swallows, which were ninja beasts, were usually kept at the hidden base of the Rain Ninja's Anbu. The ninja delivering this report was an Anbu member himself, making it easy for him to verify how many swallows had suddenly disappeared.
Hanzo narrowed his eyes. He immediately realized that something had happened at Shirakawa Mine—something big!
It was Hanzo himself who had ordered Inoue Rei to go to Shirakawa Mine to protect Tanabe Teiji. He had received intelligence that a young rogue ninja from the village, a traitor, was planning an assassination attempt alongside members of the Uchiha clan. While the boy himself was of little concern, the Uchiha involvement made things more complicated, prompting Hanzo to send a high-level ninja like Inoue Rei to handle the situation.
However, even if the Uchiha clan had indeed appeared at Shirakawa Mine and launched an attack, Inoue Rei should not have needed to summon all of his Rain Swallows.
Rain Swallows were not particularly rare, but they were incredibly valuable. They were fragile, had virtually no combat power, and couldn't sustain long flights. Their only real use was for large-scale, short-range reconnaissance, and they were extremely easy to eliminate.
Because of this, they were not used lightly. Every time they were deployed, most of them would end up dead. A single large-scale Wind Release jutsu would be enough to wipe out every Rain Swallow in its effective range.
The entirety of the Rain Ninja Village had less than a thousand of these ninja beasts, divided among more than twenty different sensory ninjas. Inoue Rei had the highest number of Rain Swallows under contract—over one hundred and thirty.
Yet, despite having this many, he had never once summoned them all at once. The most he had ever used at one time was around twenty.
For him to summon every single one now meant that he was tracking someone of extreme importance!
And considering that Inoue Rei himself was an elite jōnin and a sensory ninja, the fact that he was now unable to locate his target through his own abilities meant that whoever he was pursuing was on an entirely different level of power.