Half an hour...
Half an hour remained.
Sitting down with the others, Kitsuchi ate his rations while looking at the men resting before him. A tangled mass of emotions churned within him, a suffocating mix of excitement, resentment, and wild joy.
That Little Monster!
Then, as he suppressed those emotions, bloody scenes flashed through his mind one after another. The terrified cries of encirclement, the screams of fear, seemed to still echo in his ears.
Damn it! Damn it! His teeth gradually clenched, and strands of killing intent slowly seeped from the corners of Kitsuchi's eyes and brows.
As the son of the Third Tsuchikage, Kitsuchi's temperament differed greatly from his father's in his youth. He was rather mild-tempered, always giving people the impression of being solid and steady, his expression gentle with a trace of sternness—even when he stood as a commander directing battles of utmost importance.
This was perhaps the first time he had revealed such an overflowing killing intent.
One could only imagine how brutal the scenes in his mind—the previous battle to encircle Chiba—had been.
Brutal for Iwa!
Damn it!
Damn it!
Damn it! His teeth ground audibly as those scenes replayed in his mind, leaving nothing but repeated curses in Kitsuchi's heart.
One man against five thousand, yet they had suffered such devastating losses! And Taki Chiba had actually survived and escaped, forcing them to abandon their pursuit in the end! That indignant fury, that crushing sense of defeat that he could not afford to suffer again, lingered in Kitsuchi's heart, impossible to dispel. All he could do was suppress it.
He was about to carry out a do-or-die mission, yet he did not even dare count their remaining numbers.
Yes.
He did not dare!
He did not dare count them. He feared it would