96. The Prison Break Plan

“Lord Demon Shark, my name is—”

“I’m not interested in your name. Scarface will do.”

With that, Demon Shark accepted his loyalty.

Yet a faint note of caution had already taken root in his heart; the man seemed far too eager.

Two days passed like this.

Then, on the third night, just before the cellblock lights were extinguished, Scarface could no longer contain himself and finally revealed the true purpose of his approach.

“A jailbreak, you say?”

Demon Shark narrowed his eyes.

“Lord Demon Shark, please keep your voice down...”

Scarface hastily raised a finger to his lips, then cast a nervous glance outside the cell. Only after making sure no one had heard did he let out a breath.

He drew Demon Shark into a corner and whispered conspiratorially:

“I know you came to Ghost Lantern Castle to repent your crimes in earnest. You never intended to escape. But unfortunately, this prison is not the place of atonement you imagined. It is a terrible place where inmates are used for human experiments. Worse still, the warden, Lord Inaction, has most likely already taken an interest in you.”

As he spoke, Scarface produced several pieces of evidence, all of them gathered over the past few days since his own imprisonment.

This one was no simple fool.

Looking at the evidence, Demon Shark grew even more guarded.

But outwardly, he kept up the act, moving from suspicion to shock; by the time he had examined everything, his face had changed dramatically, and he believed Scarface’s words at least in part.

Of course, in truth, Demon Shark already knew Ghost Lantern Castle inside and out.

After a brief silence, he asked, “What is your plan?”

He put on a grave expression and lowered his voice as he questioned Scarface.

“Lord Demon Shark, I’ve already studied the prison layout these past few days and found two viable escape routes. When the guards change shifts, we each take one route and split up. That will greatly increase our odds of success, and at the very least ensure that one of us gets out of this damned place.”

From the sole of his shoe, Scarface took out a hand-drawn map and showed Demon Shark the escape plan he had carefully prepared.

According to him, if even one of them escaped and spread word throughout the ninja world of the darkness hidden within Ghost Lantern Castle, then the Grass Village’s upper ranks, led by Lord Inaction, would be finished.

When that happened, once the prison collapsed, both of them could be saved.

And with the merit of exposing Ghost Lantern Castle’s dark truth, perhaps even their prison sentences might be forgiven.

“When do you intend to act?” Demon Shark looked tempted.

“Tonight is the best chance. The longer we wait, the greater the risk of exposure.”

Scarface’s tone was resolute.

“All right!”

Demon Shark’s eyes flashed. He bumped fists with Scarface and decisively settled on the jailbreak plan.

Deep in the night, the cellblock lay in silence, broken only now and then by the sound of an inmate snoring.

Scarface and Demon Shark had not slept. They waited until the guards changed shifts, and at last it was time to move.

Scarface crept up to the cell door, spat out a length of wire hidden in his mouth, slipped it into the lock, and worked at it for a few moments.

Click.

In less than ten seconds, the door swung open.

“Go.”

Demon Shark gave a low command, and together with Scarface he slipped out, moving swiftly past one cell after another until they reached the end of the corridor.

As planned beforehand, the two split up, one heading left and the other right.

But after running a short distance, Scarface stopped and waited patiently.

Before long, from another part of the prison, the sharp bark of a guard’s shout rang out. Lights flared to life, and a piercing alarm began to shriek.

In a flash, Scarface formed hand seals and sprang onto the corridor ceiling. His body became swiftly transparent until he was no more than an invisible shadow.

The Rain Village was famed for pushing every ninja’s abilities to the limit and developing many unusual techniques, especially in the art of assassination.

As one of Hanzo the Salamander’s right hands, Scarface was among the best of them.

Reconnaissance, infiltration, assassination—he excelled at all of it.

“Quick, someone’s escaped!”

A squad of guards, armed with batons and matchlock guns, thundered past the corridor in a panic, never once noticing the figure above them.

Scarface landed soundlessly.

The sealing technique that should have been on his body had, at some point, been quietly removed.

He had prepared for this undercover mission for a very long time, studying the Grass Village’s confinement seals again and again in meticulous detail, until he finally devised a way to deceive Lord Inaction.

“Let’s hope that idiot keeps them busy for a while.”

With a cold smile, and while Demon Shark drew most of the guards’ attention, Scarface climbed the outer wall like a gecko and moved without a sound toward the tallest building in Ghost Lantern Castle.

That was Lord Inaction’s office.

In truth, all of this had been Scarface’s plan from the very beginning.

The reason he had chosen Demon Shark as the sacrifice was twofold.

First, because of Demon Shark’s unruly temperament and formidable strength.

Only an escape by someone like that could create enough chaos to let Scarface slip deep into Ghost Lantern Castle and search for the Box of Bliss.

The second reason was purely personal.

On the road to Ghost Lantern Castle, that freeloading bastard who had ridden the prisoner cart had bullied him mercilessly the entire way. Because he was on an undercover assignment, Scarface had no choice but to swallow the humiliation.

At last, he had his revenge.

Or so he thought.

The answer was no.

Because the instant Scarface left, Demon Shark turned right back around and returned.

After parting ways, he had briefly suppressed the prison seal within his body and used chakra to create two shadow clones.

One clone transformed into Scarface’s likeness and brazenly staged a jailbreak, only to be discovered. The other returned to the cell and obediently went to sleep.

As for Demon Shark’s true body, he activated the transformation mark on his right shoulder once more and took on an unfamiliar appearance.

Then, using the explosive chakra he had secretly left in the sole of Scarface’s shoe over the previous two days, he sensed the man’s movements and quietly followed after him.

Ten minutes later, in a spacious meeting room in the main building of Ghost Lantern Castle, the castle lord, Lord Inaction, sat across a large round table from a group of people wearing red-and-black cloaks and bull-and-horse masks.

They were all high-ranking members of the Grass Village, gathered for a secret meeting.

“Situated between the great nations of Fire, Wind, and Earth, the Land of Grass has always become the board on which the great powers wage their wars. Each time a shinobi war breaks out, our country turns into a battlefield, and the ninjas and commoners of Grass Village suffer countless dead and wounded. Such tragedy must be stopped!”

“The Rain Village is much the same, but that village has one shinobi half-god—Hanzo the Salamander—and that is why the other great villages dare not invade. Lord Inaction, your mission is to open the Box of Bliss, obtain the power within, and become the Hanzo of our Grass Village, or even surpass him!”

“These Grass Village elders spoke one after another, passionately addressing Lord Inaction.

Within the Grass Village, two factions had long been at odds.

One was the war faction, known as the Grass Seed, which sought to use the power of the Box of Bliss to revitalize the village. The other was the Grass Flower, which opposed war and wanted the box sealed forever.

Over the years, the Grass Seed had gradually gained the upper hand. Lord Inaction and the people in the meeting room were all members of the Grass Seed.

“I have here a list of carefully selected prisoners. Their chakra may help us open the Box of Bliss.”

Saying this, Lord Inaction produced a list and showed it to the Grass Seed members present.

The name Demon Shark was plainly written among them.

And besides Demon Shark, another prisoner was also on the list: Scorch Release, Ember, from the Hidden Sand Village.